Page 30 of The Good Boy

How is it that my nan is always finding new ways to embarrass me, even when she’s not trying? Shouldn’t she be at the knitting-and-handing-out-toffees stage of life by now? Not the sexual-adventuring stage. I positively long for the day when people don’t ask me if I’m married or a mother or how my career is going. I’m counting down the days until people don’t judge me for staying in all the time. But, oh no, not my nanna Maria. Her milkshake, as she would proudly say without a hint of irony, is still bringing all the boys to the yard. Oh well, there’s no way out of this. I’m just going to have to go there. I look at Kelly, who nods in encouragement.

“A Miss B. Bardot?” I ask, nonchalantly scratching the back of my neck and lowering my voice a notch.

“Nope,” the receptionist says.

“Marilyn,” Kelly whispers.

“Miss M. Monroe?” I ask quietly, leaning in over the desk.

“’Fraid not,” he says primly, ushering me back from the desk with a wave of the hand.

“I’ve run out of bombshells,” I tell Kelly.

“What’s going on?” Miles asks.

“Nanna Maria likes to go undercover,” Kelly tells him. “She has a list of iconic sex symbols that she rotates regularly. The other day she booked in to get her roots done at my aunt’s salon as Gigi Hadid.”

“There’s loads yet.” Kelly turns to me, ticking names off on her fingers. “Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Jayne Mansfield, Jane Russell—”

“That’s it, Jane Russell, ballsy, brunette, bosomy. It has to be...” I mutter to myself.

“Miss J. Russell?” I say.

“Ah yes, we have a Miss J. Russell and a Mr. B. Lancaster in room twelve, the honeymoon suite,” the receptionist tells me. “Lovely to see a couple so in love at their time of life. It was a pleasure to upgrade them.”

“The honeymoon suite?” I say, rolling my eyes. “She’s only just met him!”

We begin to head up the stairs but the receptionist calls us back.

“I’m sorry,” he says with far too much pleasure. “Those stairs are only for guests. Can I relay a message?”

“Yes,” I say with a careful smile. “Please make sure you take it down very carefully.” I wait until the receptionist has got a piece of paper and his pen is poised over the pad.

“‘Oi, Nan, I thought you were supposed to be psychic, question mark, how come you don’t know that I am in reception in yourhotel right now having a total mare, question mark. Lots of love, Genie. Kiss kiss.’”

“Darlings!” I swear, five seconds later Nanna Maria arrives on the landing wearing a long scarlet silk dressing gown, her perpetually dark hair tumbling over one shoulder and, yes, in red lipstick. “Come up, come up at once, my love! Bring your entourage and tell me what has been happening in the five minutes since I left you to your own devices.”

I take a certain amount of pleasure in the slack-jawed look of amazement on the receptionist’s face as I swan up the stairs with the team in tow. A couple of days ago I would have put this down to coincidence and Nanna Maria’s uncanny ability to always pick exactly the right moment to make the most impactful entrance. Today, though, I am not so sure.

“Oh dear,” Nanna Maria says, once she has shut her bedroom door behind her and got a good look at Rory. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What were you thinking, Eugenie?”

“That the wish thing was a pretend, made-up thing.” I shrug, sitting down on her messed-up four-poster bed for precisely one nanosecond before realizing I don’t want to think about that either, so I go and look out the window instead. The street below is packed full of Goths. You have never seen so much black and purple velour in your life. There must be some kind of Dracula festival going on. Just in case you didn’t know, parts ofDraculaare set in Whitby so there is always some kind of Dracula festival going on, or just rando vampire wannabes trailing around under black umbrellas.

“It’s rubbish, Nanna,” Rory says, sitting at the table where there are the remains of two full English breakfasts. “Can I eat this?”

“Of course you can, darling,” Nanna Maria says, ruffling Rory’s blond shaggy hair. “Hello, Miles, how nice to see you. Kelly, my love. Still worrying about Dave?”

“Nice to see you too, Genie’s nan,” Miles says, which is what he has always called her because he never could quite bring himself to call her Maria.

“I am worrying about him,” Kelly says. “I keep thinking about coming to you for a reading, and then I think, I don’t want to know. I want to know, but I don’t want to know, you know?”

“I know, dear,” Nanna Maria tells her. “I can’t see anything clear, I’m afraid, around Dave. But for what it’s worth it doesn’t feel like an affair.”

“Really?” Kelly half sobs. “And to think Genie never believed you were magic, Nanna Maria.”

“To think,” Nanna says, narrowing her eyes at me. “How’s work at the museum?”

“It’s great,” Miles says. “But I do think we all need to focus on Genie and Rory right now.”

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