‘Anyway,’ I said, changing the subject before we all turned into the Waltons or something. ‘I haven’t told you about my day yet. I’m an extra on that film they’re shooting at Penstowan Cross,’ I explained to Nathan. I turned to Daisy. ‘I only met Zack Smith.’
‘No!’ She looked at me with wide eyes. ‘What happened?’
‘I nearly ran over his dog. Well, she’s not actually his dog; he was walking her for a friend. Long story.’
Nathan laughed. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’ He looked at me with a smile on his face that was warm and genuine enough to make the memory of Tony’s snug breeches fade away to nothing.
‘Ooh and Mum, I spoke to Faith Mackenzie. She got locked in her caravan and Tony had to climb in through a window and break the door down.’
‘Oh, Tony’s in it as well, is he?’ Nathan’s smile faltered for a moment, or did I imagine it?
I nodded. ‘Yeah. Faith seems to have taken a fancy to him. She’ll probably lock him in with her next time.’ I laughed, but I suddenly wasn’t sure I found it that funny.
‘How do you lock yourself in a caravan?’ asked Nathan, amused. ‘Locked out, yeah, but in? These celebrities aren’t the brightest, are they?’
‘That’s exactly what I thought!’ I said. ‘Not the bit about her not being very bright – I had quite a long conversation with her and that woman knows exactly what she’s doing—’ Ooh, that sounded catty. What was the matter with me? ‘They had a locksmith and everything, but he couldn’t pick the lock. He couldn’t even get his tools inside the mechanism.’
‘Superglue,’ said Mum. We all looked at her; that was random, even for her.
‘What about it?’
‘In the lock. You probably won’t remember. One of your dad’s friends, Vinnie Butler—’
‘He sounds like a right hardcase,’ Nathan muttered to me, and I smothered a giggle.
‘Vinnie had these caravans on his farm, over near Crackington Haven. The year we had the solar eclipse down here.’
‘I think they had that everywhere, Nana,’ said Daisy.
‘Yes, I know they did, cheeky madam!’ said Mum, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. ‘We had a lot of tourists come down for it, because we got a better view of it than the rest of the country. It was 1998, or maybe 1999 – a couple of years before you went off to London. So Vinnie decided to set these caravans up and rent them out for the week to tourists, only, the week before, someone went round and sabotaged all of them so he couldn’t.’
‘By squirting superglue in the locks…’ I looked at Nathan meaningfully.
‘Do you think someone screwed with the lock on purpose, then? Why would they want to do that?’ he asked.
‘Eddie reckoned Vinnie must’ve upset someone. There were a lot of campsites nearby; I suppose they thought he was taking trade off them,’ said Mum.
‘No, I mean the caravan today. To scare Faith, maybe?’
‘If that was the intention it didn’t work,’ I said, remembering the predatory gleam in her eye when she saw Tony. ‘I think it would take a lot more than that.’
‘So what did it achieve?’
‘Other than wasting a morning’s filming and irritating a lot of people? Nothing.’ I stood up. ‘Pudding?’
Chapter Five
Nathan stayed for most of the evening. He helped me wash up the dinner things – my slave, Daisy, was taking advantage of a (not particularly) rare night off and hiding away upstairs – and Mum asked him about his parents, how old they were, what his mother was like… It was a pretty thorough grilling, but to be fair, it didn’t feel awkward or as if Mum was pumping him for information, and Nathan seemed quite happy to talk.
At 9 p.m. he got his coat on. I picked up the lead and whistled for Germaine, who had seemingly been fast asleep in her bed. She was at my feet in seconds, making me suspect she had been awake all along, just waiting for me to get my behind in gear and take her out.
‘I’ll walk you to your car,’ I said, and he laughed.
‘It’s literally outside your door, but okay.’
He said goodnight to Mum, called up the stairs to Daisy, and then we left the house.
It was chilly. The day had been bright and sunny, and not too cold – a perfect autumn day, in fact – but now there was a distinct nip in the air, a reminder that winter would be with us before we knew it.
‘This is me,’ said Nathan as we drew level with his car approximately thirty seconds after leaving the warmth of my house, and we both laughed. He shook his head. ‘Nah, come on, I’ll walk the dog with you.’
‘Are you sure? I’m just taking her down the road so she can have a pee.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve spent the last week either driving for hours at a time up and down the motorway or sitting by a hospital bed. It’ll be nice to stretch my legs properly.’
Germaine scampered on ahead, sniffing at lamp posts and the patches of weeds that had sprung up along the grass verge. She had a specific routine that never ever varied. She had certain places that she had to investigate thoroughly, just in case tonight was the night she would grace them with her pee; but she invariably ended up doing her business in the same spot, right at the end of the street. Sometimes she would even go so far as to cock her leg experimentally, as if calculating the angle of urination, but she would always find it wanting and move on to the next area. Strictly speaking, as a
