Page 67 of The Good Boy

We all look at the angry pink streaks down her leg, at least one of which is beaded with blood. Remind me to never get on the wrong end of that cat.

“It does sting a bit,” Claudia says brightly through gritted teeth.

“Hopefully you won’t get rabies,” Rory says. “Or septicemia.”

“I think a spot of Savlon and you’ll be good,” I say to counteract my dog’s catastrophizing. “I have some inside if you want?”

Claudia looks at Miles with big baby blues.

“Miles, you’re the first aid officer at work,” she says. “Can you patch me up?”

“Oh yes, definitely,” Miles says. “Come in, I’ll make you a cup of tea for the shock. I’ll pop Matilda in the bedroom where she can’t kill anything apart from my pillows.”

“Claudia likes jasmine tea,” I tell Miles before I know what I’m saying.

“Er, okay?” he says.

“I do, that would be perfect. And I think I’ll still be okay, for a picnic, I mean...” Claudia says as Miles opens his front door. As she steps inside, he turns around.

“Genie...” he begins.

“Miles, the cat’s giving me evils,” Claudia calls from inside.

“We had a fun morning. Let’s catch up tomorrow,” I tell him.He nods and the door shuts on Claudia’s giggles and the protesting yowls of a very annoyed cat.

Claudia clearly isn’t a cat person. I take some small comfort in the fact that Matilda is not a Claudia cat. That, and both of us wishing we could keep Miles to ourselves, while simultaneously not having to admit that we love him, is something we have in common.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Youshouldstart painting and designing again,” Nanna Maria suggests as she watches me re-chalk the board that hangs outside the parlor. I’ll admit, it is probably my favorite part of the job. A nice ten or twenty minutes to be creative and think up as many psychic puns as you can before your boss notices and makes you start again.

“You’re an artist, Genie. You can’t hide from a talent like yours. When you were a little girl you always had a box of crayons on the go. Felt tips when you were a bit older, though your dad regretted that after you felt-tipped the cream leather seats in his Mondeo...” She smiles fondly at the memory. “And then when you were a bit older you’d take your box of watercolors out, sit on the beach and paint. And when you came back after, you’d have this dreamy look in your eyes, like you’d been up among the clouds, flying with the gulls.”

“Dive-bombing toddlers for chips and ice cream,” I add, as I finish with a flourish my drawing of a luminescent crystal ball. “Anyway, your psychic powers have let you down this time, Nan. I got my sketchbook out last night and started drawing.” I nod. “It felt good.”

“Genie, I’m so—”

“No, don’t make a big deal out of it,” I say. “I prefer to think of it as a casual-no-big-deal-type thing.”

“Understood,” Nanna says. “And you always dressed in bright colors back then too,” she adds, looking at my standard ensemble of black T-shirt and jeans. “Making yourself all sorts of clothes, and coloring your hair to match...”

“Well, I was a teenager,” I say. “That shit’s standard-issue.”

“I thought it was teenagers who were supposed to always wear black and be surly,” Nanna Maria says. “You got it the wrong way round.”

“I did sort of stop thinking about clothes altogether,” I admit. “Which was weird considering it was all I thought about for most of my life. But not everyone can rock the hot-mafia-matriarch boss-lady vibe like you, Nanna. I can’t pull those looks off.”

“Well, anyway, I don’t agree with you.”

“On anything specific or just in general?” I ask, looking at the door a little anxiously. We sent Rory out with Nanna’s debit card to pick up some supplies twenty minutes ago, and for the last eighteen of them I’ve been expecting it to all go horribly wrong. Like that time I went for a haircut, and the stylist asked me if I wanted a French fringe, and I said yes, but I didn’t know what a French fringe was, and I ended up looking like I’d hacked at my hair with a pair of nail scissors. Still tipped him a fiver and told him I loved it, mind you.

“You can wear as many colors as you want, and you’d look amazing, because you always knew how to put an outfit together out of any old trash.”

“Trash?”

“This isn’t about how old you are, it’s about getting back your confidence.”

Nanna takes a hot-pink scarf from around her neck, and drapes it around mine.

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