The Road Trip(10)

The noise is driving him mad, is it? I roll my eyes and screw up the note, shoving it in my back pocket. There’s no trick to the bloody shutters. If he looked at them for ten seconds he’d figure out where they latch to the wall to stay open. All the same, I head up to his bedroom to check. I know which one he’s in. I’m pretty good at telling which doors are opening and closing, now. Bathrooms three and four are tricky, and I sometimes get the eighth and sixth bedrooms muddled up, but the rest I’ve nailed.

He’s chosen the best room in the house, the suite where Deb and I stargazed on the balcony the day before yesterday. It has a four-poster bed lined with heavy blue damask and enormous windows that look out over the vines. The bed’s unmade and his clothes are tangled at the door to the bathroom, as if he stepped out of them before heading for the shower. The room smells the same as the jacket did: orangey, musky, male.

I open a window. The shutters are fine, obviously, no surprise there. I pin them back for him and consider writing a reply to his note, but what am I meant to say? Look at the shutters, and do that, next time? I imagine myself doing it, signing it off the phantom caretaker, but no. Summer Addie isn’t phantom anything. Instead, on a whim, I breathe a cloud on the window and sign my name there in the fog. Adeline. No kiss.



He doesn’t come back for so long I risk a swim in the meantime – Cherry’s mum says we can if the guests aren’t around. I’m back in the flat and wringing out my hair in the sink when there’s a knock on the door.

I look down at myself. Eep. Wet bikini, that’s it. I rush through to the bedroom and scrabble around in the wardrobe, which is pointless, because all the good clothes are on the floor or in the wash. Another knock. Shit. I grab a crumpled ball of orange fabric – a swing dress, no obvious stains, it’ll do – and pull it on as I dash back to the door.

I open it, and there he is. The man upstairs. I’d imagined him all wrong. His eyes are the first thing I notice: they’re pale green, almost yellow, kind of sleepy-looking. His lashes are way longer than you’d usually see on a guy, and his hair is floppy and sun-kissed brown. The only thing I got right was the shirt: it’s pale cheesecloth, crumpled and unbuttoned way too far down.

No heirloom around the neck, but a gold signet ring on his little finger. Behind him I can see the trail of my wet footprints, leading from the pool to the front door of the flat.

‘Oh,’ he says, double taking with a flick of his hair. ‘Hullo.’

‘Hi.’ I swallow the Mr Abbott at the end of the sentence. It feels weird to call a guy my own age mister. My wet hair drips down my back, and I’m grateful for it cooling me down – I’m flustered. All that dashing around.

He gives a slow, small smile. ‘I had you down as a wrinkled old man, phantom caretaker.’

I laugh. ‘Why?’

He shrugs. The flustered feeling isn’t easing – I think it’s him, maybe, the green eyes, the unbuttoned shirt.

‘Caretaker. It just sounds . . . wrinkly.’

‘Well, you’re not what I expected either.’ I stand a little straighter. ‘“The Abbott family”. It just sounds . . . oh, I don’t know . . . like more than one person?’

He pulls a face. ‘Yes. That. The rest of them bailed, I’m afraid, so you’ve just got me. Thank you for fixing my shutters, by the way. You’re a miracle worker.’

‘They just . . .’ I trail off. ‘You’re welcome.’

We look at one another. I’m very aware of myself: how I’m holding my shoulders, the wet bikini soaking through my dress. He’s watching me steadily. A slow, confident stare, the sort that snares you across a bar as you wait for a drink. It’s a little bit too practised, a little too deliberate. Like he’s seen someone else do it but never actually given it a go himself.

‘What can I help you with?’

I adjust my dress. It clings to my bikini.

‘Well. For starters, I lost my key.’

That slow stare shifts for a moment, turning boyish. Much better. He’s cute, in a scruffy, hapless kind of way. Like a Yorkshire Terrier puppy. Or a member of an X Factor boy band before they’ve made it big.

‘I can’t be trusted with keys,’ he says.

‘I can sort that, sure.’

‘Thank you. You’re very kind. And . . .’ He pauses, looking at me, as if making his mind up. ‘I’m looking for someone,’ he says.

‘You’re . . . what do you mean?’

‘I’m trying to find somebody, and I think you might be able to help?’

I tilt my head, curious. My pulse flutters a bit faster. Maybe he’s very cute, actually. His eyes flicker to the wet patches on my dress, and then up to my face again. All very quick, like he didn’t mean to look and he’s worried I’ve noticed. I press my lips together to hide a smile. I wonder if he’s smoother when he’s sober or if he’s always like this.

‘Do you have a car?’ he says.

I nod.

‘Do you think you could drive me somewhere?’





Dylan

She’s like a water sprite, with her dark, wet hair and her river-blue eyes. Finding her here in this little flat, buried underneath the house . . . It’s as if I’ve unearthed her, as if she’s been waiting for me and at last I’ve come to free her from her windowless existence.