Page 23 of The Good Boy

“Come on, stay and watch me open my gift and eat toast with me?” I entreat.

“Matilda will be worrying about me,” Miles says.

“Only that you might have dropped dead outside the home and she won’t be able to eat your corpse,” I reply.

His mouth twitches in a smile.

“Go on, then.”

We leave Rory falling asleep on the sofa and, fetching the small gift, we go out into my little garden, lit only by the slice of light that comes through the curtain and the glow of Scarborough. I put the toast down on my outside table and sit on one of my two chairs.

“I keep meaning to get some pretty outside lights,” I say. “For all the imaginary garden parties that I will never have. But it is nice to sit out here, and look up at where the stars should be if it wasn’t for light pollution.”

“You can still see the North Star.” Miles points. “And that—that’s Mars.”

“Shut up, no, it is not!” I squint at the distant light.

“It is too!” Miles laughs. “See how it’s kind of orange? Mars.”

“That’s crazy,” I say, and we fall into several moments of silence as Miles contemplates the vastness of the universe and I wonder how to eat toast without crunching too loudly. This is why I prefer to eat alone.

“Right, let’s get this open.” Pushing the plate away I pick up the gift. Miles squirms. He’s wrapped it with so much tape thatit takes me several minutes, some swearing, and finally a trip to fetch a pair of nail scissors to get into it.

“Have you never heard of a gift bag?” I ask him with a smile.

“My mum used to say that a badly wrapped gift is a badly wrapped thought. And I thought about what to get you a lot. So, I wrapped it... a lot.”

“You sure did,” I say. Finally, I slide out what is a small rectangular brass box, about the size of the flat of my hand.

“If you press down on the lid, the sides slide out,” Miles says, watching me turn it over as I examine it. Glancing up at him, I slide the sides out until I hear them click. And then what I see pleases me enormously.

The two little sliding doors reveal on one side a set of six watercolor paint tablets, and on the other a ceramic palette. In a groove that runs the length of the box are a pencil and paintbrush. And in the middle a small pad of watercolor paper, no more than five-by-five inches square. And last but not least, a very small glass bottle with a cork stopper, just the right size to add water to. It’s a tiny, portable painting set, and I love it.

“Oh. Miles.” For reasons I don’t really understand, but it’s probably got to do with the hour, the alcohol, and the magic dog thing, my eyes fill up with tears. “It’s so perfect.”

“Really?” Miles asks softly. “It’s just, I would really like to see you painting and designing again, Genie. You were always so—”

“Oh god, I can never use it!” I say, looking up at him wide-eyed.

“What? Why on earth not?” Miles is confused. “If it’s because you don’t think you’re talented enough...”

“No, I mean,yes. I never really had what it takes, but that’s not what I mean,” I say, close it, and then open it again, just to relive the thrill of delight. “Look at it, Miles. It’s perfect. It’s absolutelyperfect. I don’t want to ruin something so beautiful with my nonsense.”

“Back in the day, when you were at fashion school, and painting everything, all you ever did was make the world more beautiful,” Miles tells me. “You could never ruin anything, Genie.”

“Oh, really?” I put the box down on the tabletop. “Have you met Rory?”

“Rory isn’t ruined,” Miles says. “He’s just a little bit different. And it’s temporary.”

“I hope it’s temporary,” I confess. “I just have the horrible feeling that Eugenie Wilson’s unerring ability to make the wrong choices at exactly the wrong moment has struck again.”

Miles falls quiet. Have I hurt his feelings? His gift is perfect, and I do love it very much. But it’s a gift for the girl I used to be. Not the woman I am now.

That girl believed herself to be extraordinary. This woman knows she only just about meets the criteria for average.

“So, what’s next in your quest to fix Rory?” Miles asks, eventually.

“Don’t call it a quest. I am not a quest sort of person,” I tell him. “What’s next is that I need to find Nanna Maria. So, I’m going to go to Whitby first thing. I can’t wait for her to be in a sex lull. I don’t have that kind of time. Kelly said she’d come, but she’d have to bring the kids and there’s no way you are getting those two through Whitby without spending a week’s wages on ice cream and fudge.”

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