Page 29 of One Summer

The road across the island has been surfaced but not well, and with all the juddering, my bladder becomes unbearable. I also wish I’d thought to bring ear defenders.

The driver doesn’t even try to talk to me over the noise. Instead, he looks out at the view and murmurs encouraging things to the horse, whose name he tells me is Percival.

When the cart slows to a halt, I can’t see any house. There’s nothing here at all.

‘Uh, is it a long walk to my place?’

‘About fifty feet,’ he says, grinning.

What does he mean? How can it be so close when I can’t see any buildings?

‘Jump down and try opening your eyes,’ he says, cheerfully.

Rude, I think, but I do what he says and see what he’s getting at. There are narrow steps leading down towards what appears to be a steep drop – a cliff-edge, no less – and at the end of those steps, I can see the thin, grey line of a roof.

‘I told you it’s not really a cottage,’ the man says. ‘Like I said, it’s more of a beach house. Well, I suppose “cliff house” would be more accurate.’

I feel my eyes widen. ‘That is a lot closer to the sea than I imagined.’

It looks like it could quite feasibly be condemned by the Loor council at any moment.

‘Helluva view you’ve got. Just be careful that none of the animals manage to escape, because they’ll be right over that cliff, and you’ll never get them back. I don’t suppose Frank and Steve will be too happy. They’ve sunk a lot of their savings into this.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ I say.

‘It’s just that there’s so many animals,’ he says, making a tsk-tsk noise.

‘Three is not that many.’

‘Three?’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Three hundred maybe.’

Is this a joke? What is he talking about? Are there three hundred bedbugs in the house? Three hundred spiders?

He leads me down to the large building perched precariously on the edge of the cliff.

‘Is it safe?’ I ask, having visions of the house tumbling off the cliff-edge while I sleep and me waking up in pounding surf with a bathtub floating past.

‘It’s been there seventy years, so I reckon it’s got a few more weeks left in it,’ he says.

I go to pay him for the cart ride, but he refuses to take any money.

‘I’m a regular down at the pub,’ he says. ‘Not The Lonely Lad. That place is terrible. You want to come to the Merry Maid. I’m there most nights. Just put a fiver behind the bar and we’re all square.’

I flash him a tight smile, because my bladder is protesting afresh, and say, ‘Thanks, buddy.’

Buddy? I called him buddy. He is definitely not my buddy. But he hasn’t told me his name and it feels wrong to ask now after not asking for sixty excruciating minutes.

‘So will you be coming to our Tuesday pub quiz?’

I hate pub quizzes, mostly because my dad used to run one at the local club and I had to help him come up with subjects, read out the questions, collect the papers and help with the marking. All of which meant a lot of heckling from the locals.

‘I might pop in one week.’

‘And Thursday night we have spoken word poetry – would you be interested in that? Everyone takes a turn.’

Absolutely not. Just the thought of speaking in front of an audience fills me with horror; speaking aloud while reading poetry I’ve written makes me want to throw up.

‘I’m not keen on poetry.’

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