Page 43 of One Summer

‘Why, did he lose his pet passport?’ I enquire.

He gives me a sharp look, but I ignore it. Who would abandon an Ewok prince like Ted, just to go on a European tour? But then who would have thought Max would ever abandon Nemo? He said he loved him, and he kicked him to the Battersea kerb so that he could go panning for gold with a button-collecting supermodel.

‘No, Ted did not lose his pet passport. His owners found out, just before they were due to leave, that Ted has developed quite a significant heart murmur.’

‘Oh.’

‘The vet didn’t think a lot of road travel and stressful new environments would be good for him. I think Frank and Steve were hoping that since you’re going to be here anyway, looking after their other animals, you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on Ted, too.’

Because they didn’t know I was bringing a cat…

I should’ve told them about Nemo, but I didn’t want to risk them pulling the job offer. I assumed that if I presented Nemo as a fait accompli, it would all just somehow work out in the end.

I look down at Ted and feel a pang. Poor little thing.

‘How bad is the heart murmur?’

‘Significant. He needs to be kept as calm as possible. No strenuous exercise, no unnecessary excitement and ideally no barking.’

He mops sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

‘You’re sweating.’

‘Fever,’ he says.

‘Perhaps you should take off your hat, then.’

He stares at me. He’s forgotten he’s wearing one.

‘It’s on your head,’ I say, helpfully pointing to his head.

He pulls off the green beanie and I see a shock of hair. It’s slate grey at the crown and completely white at the temples, like some sort of weird ombre. And yet his face is young. He may even be a couple of years younger than me. He has high cheekbones, light eyes and no fine lines to speak of.

He’s actually quite beautiful, just in a very unusual way. Has he maybe dyed his hair that colour? Some sort of statement on society’s preoccupation with youth? Perhaps he bleaches out the natural pigment and goes in with a heavy-duty toner. Something to make him stand out from other guys his age. If so, it’s working.

He appears to read my mind because he clears his throat and says, ‘It’s natural. I started going grey at eleven.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yep,’ he says, sighing. ‘Just what every kid wants in their first year of high school.’

‘That’s… unfortunate. Were the other kids awful about it?’

‘There was a lot of teasing and I had to lean into a nickname I hated.’

I raise my eyebrows, waiting for him to spill it.

‘Cally Grey Pubes. I don’t think I even had any then, ironically. Pubes, I mean.’

‘That’s rough,’ I say. ‘Your name is… Cally?’

‘No, but Cally stuck.’

I wait for him to tell me his actual name. He doesn’t.

‘Did you ever think of dyeing it?’

‘Constantly, but I didn’t trust myself not to mess it up. My dad tried on his once and it went jet black. Forever after, even when the dye had grown out, his colleagues called him Wiggy.’

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