Perfectly Ordinary People(27)

‘Pretty much everyone in London,’ Dan said.

‘Except my mum,’ I said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes, she hates him. She says he’s slimy. Actually, smarmy was the word she used.’

‘Smarmy?’ Dan said. ‘In that case I guess he’s done for.’

The flight went without a hitch and three hours later Dan’s father had picked us up from the tiny airport. He was older than I’d imagined – late seventies, at a guess – with a full head of grey hair and skin that was wrinkled like a sun-dried tomato. But he was in shape, I’ll give him that. He was tall and thin and sporty-looking with an upright, almost military gait.

He shook my hand vigorously and then shook Dan’s too. Being from a family of huggers, that surprised me, but Dan had warned me they were ‘control freaks’ so I supposed this was just another aspect of that.

The drive to Praia de Faro in Henry’s immaculate old Renault took less than ten minutes and as we approached our destination I could hardly believe my luck. When Dan had said that his parents’ place was a ‘stone’s throw’ from the beach, I’d imagined the sort of distance estate agents try to minimise by using that phrase, whereas in fact the beach was literally a stone’s throw away – a toddler’s stone throw even, and from any window you chose.

Praia de Faro is a long, thin strip of land which is essentially an island linked to the mainland by a raised roadway or a long, low bridge, depending on how you look at it. The island is comprised of one single, sandy road with beaches either side. That’s three miles of back-to-back beach, dotted with houses, restaurants and small, local-looking beach bars.

Their unassuming villa faced the street that ran the length of the island. On the far side was a peeling white wall which was attempting, but failing, to hold back the dunes, and beyond the dunes, the Atlantic, the horizon, the universe. At the rear of the house their garden merged seamlessly with another grassy beach bordering the thin strip of sea that separated the island from the mainland.

‘What an amazing place!’ I commented as Dan lifted our cases from the hatchback.

‘The sand gets in everything . . .’

‘Everything,’ his father repeated.

‘But other than that it’s pretty much perfection.’

‘It is,’ I said, spinning on one heel to take it all in. ‘Panoramic perfection!’

Dan’s mother greeted us at the front door and Maximiano loped out beside her to say hello as well.

Like her husband, Carolina was tall and grey-haired, and she had similar poise. She too shook my hand rigidly, though she deigned to peck her son on the cheek.

If the parents were keeping their emotions in check, the dog most certainly wasn’t. He jumped up and licked Dan’s face, and then rolled at his feet before licking my toes where they peeped through my sandals and barging me so hard that I fell over.

Once I’d scrambled back to my feet, Carolina showed us to a small, plain boxroom overlooking the rear beach and therefore the mainland.

We dumped our cases on the bed and then Dan kicked the door closed. ‘We’ll steal their room tomorrow once they’ve gone,’ he said, looking out of the window with me while nudging my hip with his. ‘At the front they’ve got a sea view, balcony, the works.’

‘Oh, this is fine, Dan,’ I said. ‘And that is the sea. Well, a bit of it.’

‘Yeah, but the front bedroom’s even better,’ he said. ‘Plus they have . . . a . . .’ He wiggled both eyebrows suggestively.

I frowned at him. ‘They have a what?’

‘A waterbed!’ Dan said with a wink. ‘It’s even got a wave-maker thingy that bounces you up and down, so you don’t even need to do any work. Just switch it on and wait to see who comes first.’

I stared at him wide-eyed. I couldn’t imagine his parents having a waterbed at all.

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Nah,’ Dan laughed, turning to the door again, where Maximiano was nosing his way in. ‘T’would be fun though. Come in, Max!’

Max pushed into the room and started snuffling at my crotch. ‘The dog’s friendly!’ I commented, almost instantly regretting the fact that it had the potential to sound like a non-comment on his parents, as in friendly dog (shame about the parents).

‘Your folks seem lovely, too,’ I added quickly, but it was too late. Dan had spotted the gap.

‘They’re all right really,’ he said. ‘They’re kind, that’s the main thing. They’re just not very effusive.’

‘I didn’t for a minute think anything else,’ I told him.

‘I think they got Maximiano so that he could express everything they can’t,’ Dan said, as Maximiano put his front paws up on the bed and started licking the side of my neck.

‘Well, some forms of expression are more acceptable from a dog, after all,’ I said.

Dan frowned at me, so I expounded: ‘I’m just not sure how I would have reacted if your mother had started licking my neck, that’s all.’

That evening we went three doors down to a little local restaurant. It was their ‘canteen’, Henry explained, and once I saw the price list I understood why. Because with filleted snapper and fried potatoes at the equivalent of ￡1.10, with a carafe of wine at 20p, why would you ever eat at home?