The sign approached rapidly, blue in spite of the dark tint lent to the world by the windows. The symbols of service stations and the number 3 stood out. Then the sign was gone, disappearing into the world behind him.

John leaned across the foot well and opened the small fridge. Everything an important man might desire was inside: bottled water, foie gras, caviar, oysters. But the stomach could be as fickle as the needs of the nation.

He closed the fridge. For a moment he noted how everything sounded muffled: the distant engine, the humming motor inside the fridge, the voices that Aidan was listening to on lunchtime radio. 

John sighed and sat back in his seat. “Aidan?”

Aidan looked across the car at him, removing headphone buds from his ears. The voices grew clearer for a moment, though not such that John could hear what they were saying. But he was sure he heard his own name regardless.

“I’m quite hungry,” John said. “Could we stop for something to eat?”

Aidan glanced at the closed fridge, and his eyebrows climbed his forehead by a fraction of an inch. Didn’t they?

Aidan looked down at his tablet. The buzz of haptic feedback keys pervaded the atmosphere for a few moments.

“There isn’t anywhere suitable on the way, sir.”

John felt himself frown, so he schooled his expression. “Is that so? Won’t there be a service station on the way?”

Aidan never frowned, but it seemed his eyebrows crawled back down his forehead, just a fraction. “What would you like, sir?” he asked.

John sighed again. “I don’t know.” He thought about the food in the fridge. Still, none of it suited. “A sandwich,” he said.

Aidan looked at his tablet again, his fingers flying across its gleaming surface. “What kind of sandwich?”

Beyond the partition window, a faint voice murmured. The car didn’t slow, but John felt them change lanes, momentum pushing his body to the right, pressing against his seatbelt.

He hummed to himself until the pressure on his right shoulder decreased. “I’ll decide when we arrive.” A thin, delicate slice of pink salmon came to mind.

“Sir,” Aidan said. He sounded reproving, although he continued typing frantically.

The salmon was sounding more and more appealing, but Aidan’s tone frustrated John. “I haven’t decided yet, Aidan,” he said levelly.

“I suggest a BLT.”

John didn’t bother to conceal his frown. “Might I ask why?”

“The BLT would be an appropriate choice, sir. It appeals to all classes.”

“I would prefer something with salmon.”

The corners of Aidan’s mouth dropped, opening his mouth slightly, and John thought about fish, their mouths opening and closing as they breathed.

“It’s just a sandwich, Aidan.”

The car began to slow. Aidan put his tablet on his lap and knocked on the partition window. “One BLT sandwich for the Prime Minister,” he said.

“Aidan,” John said. “I can buy my own sandwich.”

“That wouldn’t be wise, sir.”

John put his hand on the car door.

“Sir, you cannot be seen to be a hypocrite, favouring one type of food that gives off a certain impression over another. You want to be seen as a man of the people.”

John looked out of the window at the cars they began to pass in the parking spaces. Ordinary. Normal. Of the people.

He took his hand off the door handle.