Page 26 of One Summer

‘Yes, actually.’

‘That’s just Maurice. No need to worry about him – he’s had all his vaccinations.’

‘Is he your… pet?’

‘No, he just likes to come and visit the pub sometimes. He’s very sociable.’

‘Should he be roaming around the island alone?’ I ask. It seems like a hostile environment for rats. There are birds of prey here. Big ones. Cats. Humans wielding frying pans.

Nemo already has his nose up to the basket door, fixated by the sight of something so eminently killable.

‘It’s not ideal but he gives his owner the slip sometimes,’ she says, and adds, knowingly, ‘Rats will be rats.’

‘Who is his owner?’ I ask, watching Maurice as he takes a slow walk around Nemo’s basket, sniffing it at opportune intervals.

‘That would be our island’s one celebrity. He spoils that rat something terrible – can’t bear to see him confined, which is probably why Maurice is always giving him the slip.’

‘Celebrity?’

‘Whoops, me and my big mouth. Anyway, it’s in his nature to explore, not just be stuck inside a house all the time.’

‘Who are we talking about,’ I ask. ‘The celebrity or the rat?’

She thinks about this for a moment. ‘Both, if I’m honest. God, he must have seen every country in the world, in his day. He’s something of a legend round here.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Can’t say. We’re all sworn to secrecy. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon enough and he can tell you himself. If he likes you.’

I imagine a gnarled old pirate with a peg-leg and a rat peeking out from beneath his tricorn hat.

‘What shall we do with Maurice in the meantime? Do we need to catch him and take him home?’

‘Oh no, he’ll spend a while here eating up the crumbs and then he’ll find his own way home. We don’t helicopter parent our kids or our pets on Loor.’

I eye Maurice sceptically. He’s climbed up to the windowsill and is washing his face. He’s facing the pane and I have the distinct suspicion that he’s using the old glass as a mirror.

‘While you’re here,’ the barmaid says. ‘How would you feel about folding some napkins?’

‘I’d be delighted,’ I say, turning my back on Maurice. ‘Pass them over.’

Hours drag by, in which I refill the salt cellars, shine the dimpled pint tankards, sweep the floor and a host of other tasks for Cassandra, who turns out to be not a barmaid, but the landlady of the pub. She pays me in cheese sandwiches and ready-salted crisps.

Eventually, after games of chess, Ludo and Triominos with Cassandra, who still won’t reveal anything about the island’s one celebrity, my ride arrives, wearing a double desert camouflage combo: T-shirt and three-quarter-length trousers, which I’ve never seen in a desert print before and can now see why. Billy seems to know this man quite well. They bump fists and laugh riotously about something – probably me, judging by their amused glances in my direction.

As I approach them, I see the man has the striking dark eyes and intense stare of a leading man from a retro Hollywood movie, with that slightly sinister Don Draper vibe. He is what my mum would call, in her classic mum-ish way, ‘distinctly sexy, but too brooding for breeding’.

Cassandra says an abrupt farewell, collects my dirty glass and plate, and disappears into a side room.

I put out my hand in greeting to the new man, and he shakes it.

‘Lindy,’ I say.

‘Lundy? Good island name you have there. Very nice.’

He’s thinking of Lundy Island, ten miles off the coast of Devon.

‘Oh, sorry, it’s actually Lindy.’

---