Perfectly Ordinary People(29)

In the end, I thought what the hell and, barefoot, took my breakfast to the other side of the sandy street, where I sat on top of a dune. From there I could survey both our open front door and enjoy the wonderful blue seascape. And that view, that sea breeze, well, it made that first morning’s breakfast quite magical. In fact, to this day, I think it’s one of the most memorable breakfasts I’ve had.

After about ten minutes, Dan drove up in his father’s Renault. He paused beside me and, leaning on the open window, grinned up at me. ‘Nice breakfast spot?’ he asked.

‘Perfect,’ I called back. ‘Amazing!’

A woman walking her child passed between us at that moment and she too smiled up at me and said something that I presumed was ‘Good morning’ in Portuguese.

Dan parked the car and opened the boot, revealing bags of shopping, so I scooted down the dune to the roadside to help him.

‘The dining room’s rubbish, isn’t it?’ Dan said, and I was surprised that he’d worked out why I’d ended up on top of the dune. ‘Who wants to sit and eat looking at a dead bush?’

‘That’s kind of why I crossed the road,’ I admitted as he handed me a carrier bag.

‘The balcony’s the place,’ he said, nodding in the direction of his parents’ upstairs bedroom. ‘That’s why we’re going to steal the room.’

‘They won’t mind?’

‘They won’t know,’ Dan said.

‘But they would mind?’

‘They won’t know,’ he said again, more decisively.

Once we’d put the food away and changed his parents’ sheets, we poured fresh cups of coffee and went to sit on the balcony. It was small, just wide enough for the tiny table and two chairs, but the view from up there was exquisite. A hundred and eighty degrees of beach and sea and horizon.

While watching some kite-surfers shooting past, we chatted about Dan’s parents visiting Paris, and our plan for the day, which was basically to eat and sleep and make love.

‘And swim,’ I added. ‘I presume it gets warmer later on.’

‘Sure,’ Dan said, with a wry smile. ‘About two is probably the warmest.’

‘Why are you grinning?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you believe I’ll swim? Or are there sharks or something?’

Dan shook his head innocently. ‘No, I’m just looking forward to swimming with you,’ he said, and I didn’t quite believe him.

On the way back downstairs, I paused to look at some framed photos hanging in the stairwell. ‘She was pretty,’ I said, pointing to a photo of his mother striking a ballet pose. ‘She danced?’

‘A bit,’ Dan said. ‘Only amateur.’

‘It still shows in her poise, though.’

We continued down a few steps and then Dan pointed to an older photo of another couple in tatty formal clothes. ‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘That’s my grandmother, the one they came back here to look after.’

‘Did you know her?’ I asked, prompting Dan to laugh.

‘Of course I knew her,’ he said. ‘She’s . . . she was . . . my grandmother.’

‘And you were close?’

‘Well, yeah,’ he said, pulling a face to indicate that my question struck him as absurd.

‘Don’t be like that,’ I said. ‘Not everyone is close to their grandparents. I hardly even knew . . . know . . . my father’s side of the family.’

‘Really?’ Dan said. ‘How come?’

I shrugged and continued downstairs. ‘I have no idea really. I didn’t even notice until my grandmother died last year. Which is weird.’

‘Yeah, that is weird,’ Dan said, moving into the lounge.

I crossed to the sideboard, where even more photos were amassed, and picked up one of Dan’s mother with his frail-looking grandmother.

‘One of the last ones,’ Dan commented, moving to stand beside me and slipping one arm around my shoulder as if it was me that needed comforting.

‘It’s lovely that they came back to look after her,’ I commented.

‘Well, someone had to,’ Dan said. ‘And they were retired, so . . .’

‘Sure,’ I said, almost adding that I hadn’t even known my grandmother had been ill. But because I felt ashamed of the fact, a fact that Dan would almost certainly consider even weirder, I said nothing. Instead, I put the photo back down and pushed from my mind another challenging fact that had popped up: my parents had no photos of Dad’s childhood that I knew of. There were photos of me and Jake, and lots of photos of Mum’s side of the family. But none of Dad’s childhood or his parents. Another thing I’d never noticed before.

‘So what now?’ Dan asked.

‘Walk?’ I suggested. ‘Beach?’

‘Sex?’ Dan offered.

I wrinkled my nose.

‘Oh, wow!’ Dan said, feigning offence. ‘We’ve already reached the scrunchy-nose stage, have we? Full-on hatred can’t be far behind.’

I gave him a playful push. ‘You!’ I said. ‘No, I just fancy a walk, that’s all.’

‘Max does need walking,’ Dan admitted. ‘But I’m not picking up his poo.’