Page 57 of One Summer

‘I think I’m over the worst of it, yeah.’

‘Oh, you’ve already met!’ Betty says, happily, and once again I get the distinct feeling that she already knows this but is for some reason pretending she doesn’t. ‘It’ll be good for him to have a nice friend next door.’

‘Nan, please,’ he says, blushing.

‘You’re Betty’s grandson?’ I say, feeling myself pale. But she’s so friendly – weird, but friendly – and you’re the complete opposite.

‘Yes. We like to have brunch together when he’s back on the island, but he hasn’t let me come near lately, on account of his cold. I’m just here to drop off some nice breakfast soup,’ she says, rooting about in her enormous handbag.

‘Breakfast soup?’ he enquires, making a face.

‘It’s very hearty. It’ll set you up for the day, boy.’

She takes a pink Thermos out of her bag and passes it to him.

‘What’s in it?’ he asks.

‘Mushrooms mostly. Oh, this is superb. I won’t stay because you might still be contagious and yours could be “the cough that finishes me off”, but Lindy can come in and share it.’

‘I’m not actually dressed,’ I say, again.

‘Neither is he,’ Betty says, smiling at her half-naked grandson, whose real name I still don’t know.

She places her hand on my back and gives me a little push across the threshold.

‘You don’t need to worry about him being an axe murderer. He’s very tame, I assure you.’

‘Nan, seriously. Who has guests over at 8.15 a.m.?’ he says, exasperated.

‘You do,’ she says, taking a step forwards, grabbing the door handle and beginning to shut us in the hall. ‘Make friends like good neighbours.’

The door closes and we stand in the dim light of the hallway, me in my sweaty pyjamas and him in his tiny towel.

‘Excuse me,’ he says.

But for some reason that evades me, he doesn’t turn. He walks backwards, so that he’s not turning his back on me and then ducks into a side room. Is his towel really so tiny that it doesn’t cover his bottom?

Fifty-One

Sensitive

I’m not sure what to do. Am I being dismissed or is he coming back?

He appears in the hallway, standing awkwardly and looking a little flushed. He’s wearing a cream sweatshirt with the word YALE emblazoned on the front in green embroidery.

‘You went to Yale?’ I say, impressed and wishing I wasn’t.

‘No.’

‘Then why are you wearing a Yale fleecy jumper?’ I ask.

He looks down at his chest.

‘Oh. Someone got it for me from a charity shop – apparently, they didn’t have one that said “Portsmouth”.’

‘And you’re wearing it anyway?’ I say, wrinkling my nose.

‘What’s wrong with that?’

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