Page 18 of The Good Boy

“No, you don’t,” Miles says. “You’ll just have one extra friend at the party. Now I’ll give you and Kelly some space, and Iwillsee you later.”

“Why can’t you let me have a breakdown, like a good friend would?” I call after him as he closes his front door in my face.

“Is someone coming to visit?” Rory asks sleepily when I open the car door. “Is it the Sainsbury’s man? I’m starving.”

“No, it’s Auntie Kelly,” I say.

“Oh, I like her—she always smells of cheese,” Rory says.

“Do not tell her that,” I say. “And also... do you think you can do an Australian accent?”

“So, Rory?” I hear Kelly talking to my “cousin from Australia” as I boil the kettle. As I wait, I go over and over ways to explain the truth to her, each one sounding more ridiculous than the last. In the meantime, Kelly is falling deeper and deeper into my stupid lie.

“G’day,” Rory says with more gravitas than Sir Ian McKellen performingKing Learin front of the king.

Kelly wants to crack open the bottle of Prosecco she’s brought, and—I’ll be honest—so do I, but it seems important to keep my wits about me just at the moment. Some people might say it’s a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but those same people can sod off. “Australia, huh? I bet you surf, don’t you? You look like you surf. Very powerful physique.”

Kelly had looked Rory up and down the moment she set eyes on him, and it had been like pound signs pinging up in her eyes, but not pound signs—the signs you get for naked lust instead.(Whatever they are—frankly, I don’t want to know.) Either way it had been very disturbing.

“I swim a bit,” Rory says. “I’m pretty good at it actually. Are you going to finish that sandwich?”

“So, do you live on the coast?” Kelly asks him, as he reaches over, takes the crust of the sandwich she has brought with her as a replacement birthday lunch, and shoves it all in his mouth at once. Kelly laughs in delight.

“I live by the seaside,” Rory says, like it’s obvious. I ditch the tea and open two cans of premixed G&Ts, tipping them into tumblers. Tea is not strong enough for this nightmare.

“Which part of the coast do you live on?” Kelly asks.

“The sort of roundy, pointy, yellowy bit,” Rory says, nodding at two cream cakes she has put on the table. “Are you going to eat those? Because I’m allowed chocolate now I’m a man.”

“Birthday gins! Yay!” I say, hoping to distract him as I hand Kelly a glass. “Quick gin, quick cake, and then, you know, I was thinking... now that Rory has turned up out of the blue I probably shouldn’t go out tonight...”

“What?” Kelly snaps, narrowing her eyes. “What did you say?”

“I said that I’ll probably give tonight a miss. You guys can go ahead, though...”

“Eugenie, do not dare to try and get out of our birthday night out,” Kelly says, her eyes flashing. “We have been to that nightclub on our birthdays every year since we were sixteen years old and we are going to be there tonight. It’s tradition! And what happens when you let traditions go?”

“Personal and social growth?” I answer weakly.

“Chaos,” Kelly tells me. “Anarchy. Me having another night in with the kids while Dave shuts himself in the bedroom with hisXbox. We are going out, and that’s the end of it. You need a laugh more than most people I know. And you will bloody have one, whether you like it or not.”

“Right,” I say, knowing better than to try and argue with Kelly. “Well, I do need a drink, I suppose... Kelly, the thing is, you know how my nanna is always saying she is magic?”

“Genie, your nannaismagic,” Kelly says. “Don’t you remember when I was thirteen and flat as a pancake and I asked her to grant me bigger boobs?” She nods down at her ample cleavage. “My wish came true!”

“Are you sure that wasn’t... puberty?”

“Yes.” Kelly crosses her arm under her bosom as if to emphasize the point. Okay, well, fine.

“So last night Nanna granted me a birthday wish and I accidentally turned Rory my dog into Rory this man.”

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Kelly stands up abruptly.

“Is that a yes or a no, re: the cream cakes?” Rory asks.

“You let me flirt with your dog?” Kelly glares at me. And this is why I love her. It’s not that Rory is a human now. It’s that she has been flirting with him. “Oh, I’ve got the ick. I’m going to throw up, Genie. I’m going to throw up!”

“I’m going to take that as yes.” Rory helps himself to the cake.

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