Page 12 of Gideon
We’re standing in an open-plan lounge and dining room. I have this same arrangement in my flat but it’s very different, mainly because in my place you could stand in the middle of the room and touch the walls on either side. You definitely couldn’t do that here unless you had arms like Stretch Armstrong.
The room is huge and full of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows which offer a stunning view of the ocean. On one side is a table big enough to seat ten people and on the other is a massive sectional sofa and some comfy-looking armchairs grouped around a flat-screen TV. It’s decorated in white and silver, and expensive-looking pale rugs are dotted about on the light oak floorboards. I tap my foot on the floor. Definitely not laminate.
The butler who apparently comes with the suite hovers next to us. “Can I get you anything?” he says pleasantly. “Anything to eat and drink?”
“I’ll have a large gin and tonic,” Gideon says, but I shake my head.
“He’ll have a peppermint tea.” Gideon looks at me disbelievingly and I wink at him. “Good for your chest.”
He shakes his head at his brother who has come to see him off. “Well, Milo, please make a note. By the end of this trip my chest will be fine but my head will have exploded in boredom.”
The butler hesitates and Milo shakes his head at him. “He’s anactor,” he says sotto voice, pointing at Gideon who blinks.
“An actor with perfectly workable eardrums. Why are you talking about me as if I’ve got to be handled?”
“Because you do,” Niall says cheerfully. “You need more careful handling than a box of crockery.”
The butler smiles and moves out of the room, hopefully to obey my instructions and not my patient’s. At the thought of him I look over and suppress a smile. He has moroseness down to an art, sitting slumped in the wheelchair with his arms folded.
It’s been a week since I first met him, but, as if he was establishing who was boss, he let me know with barked commands and acerbity left, right, and centre. I’ve therefore spent the days shopping for stuff for him and coordinating with the hospital staff and the ship crew so we have a plan of action for everything.
“Well, here we are,” I say cheerfully and, I admit, loudly. A tiny part of me is enjoying actually winding him up simply because it feels like the right thing to do, and I love the slight twist of humour on his impatient face that shows he actually enjoys a bit of backchatting.
“Oh, joy,” he says sulkily. “Am I allowed out of this chair or will I have to stay in it for the duration of the voyage?”
“No, out you get,” I say heartily, winking at Niall who has a half smile on his face. It appears he’s Gideon’s best friend and the boyfriend of Milo.
Gideon sneers at me and gets out of the wheelchair gingerly. He’s wearing jeans, a navy short-sleeved t-shirt, and camel-coloured suede Vans. The clothes suit him but they’re hanging on him and highlighting how thin he is. I watch him intently under the guise of taking his navy woollen hoody off him and hanging it in the coat cupboard by the door. He’s pale and looks exhausted. His legs have a faint tremor and I shoot Milo a look of warning which he immediately understands.
“Gid, sit down,” he says impatiently. “I hate it when you tower over me.”
“I don’t want to sit down,” he says peevishly, while slumping onto the sofa with a thankful sigh that we all tactfully pretend not to hear. “Because then I’ll go to sleep and I really don’t want to leave such a precious day as this has been. One that will stay evergreen in my memory. The day when I was wheeled onto a ship like I was in a bath chair while people fifty years older than me sprang up the gangplank like fucking toddlers.” He shoots Milo a glance. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that every single person embarking today appeared to be seventy. What’s going on?”
Milo fidgets. “Ooh,” he says happily. “What a lovely view you have.”
“Milo?”
He subsides onto the sofa. “It’s a golden oldies cruise.”
Gideon starts to laugh. “I could have sworn you just said that you’d booked me on an old aged pensioner’s cruise.”
“I did say that.”
The laughter stops. “What the fuck?”
Milo holds up one hand rather imperiously. “No, I’m not listening to any more whinging. This was the only cruise ship docking that was going back to England. If we’d waited for the next one you’d have had to stay with Frankie.” He looks around as if the man is going to appear in a puff of smoke. He needn’t worry. The fat controller was talking to the captain last time I saw him. Milo continues talking. “I had to do some really fast talking to get you on this because there’s an age limit to take the cruise.” He pauses and laughs. “Well, fast talking for me anyway.”
“Well, can I just say how glad I am that you worked so hard. What did you say to perform this magic trick?”
“Hmm.” Milo mumbles something and Gideon’s gaze sharpens.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“I said you were forty-five,” he says in a rush.
“You saidwhat?”
I can’t help my grin of enjoyment, but luckily no one is watching me.
