Delta squeezes along the bench seat to make space for Cleo beside her, and Raff magics a chair out of nowhere for me next to him. My legs jostle for space with Cleo’s beneath the small table, and she laughs and puts her knee between mine. It’s purely practical, but it isn’t something you’d do with someone you weren’t close to. I don’t move away, but all the same, I almost feel I should. As if I’m doing something wrong. It’s not that I’m ashamed; certainly not of Cleo, in any case. Of myself, maybe a little. I imagine what my mother would say if she looked through the steamed-up windows right now. She’s no prude, but she has a strong sense of right and wrong – where I get it from, I guess. I certainly didn’t get my moral compass from my father.
‘Hey, Mack,’ Delta says. ‘What’s your go-to karaoke choice?’
I meet Cleo’s eye quickly across the table. ‘You’re not expecting me to sing, are you?’
Delta couldn’t look more up-to-no-good if she tried. ‘The night’s young, that’s all I’m saying, right?’
‘I don’t sing, I’m afraid.’ I laugh to change the subject. I sing all the time at home but mostly because I consider it my fatherly duty to embarrass the boys.
‘Er, hello, Elvis,’ Cleo grins. ‘I beg to differ.’
‘What’s this?’ Delta leans in, glancing keenly between us. ‘Have you been serenading Cleo, Mack?’
‘I do a rousing version of “All Shook Up”，’ Raff says. ‘Got me out of more than one sticky situation, so it has.’
‘And into a fair few too,’ Delta says, more like his aunt than his niece.
The conversation moves on from singing, and I scratch my head and look down to avoid Cleo’s eye. I’m starting to feel as if coming here together was a mistake.
‘I hope there aren’t too many sports questions,’ Cleo says. ‘Swimming is the only sport I’m any good at.’
‘Have you been to the grotto?’ Raff says. ‘I’ve not been down there for a good many years.’
Cleo and I turn to look at him. ‘The grotto?’
Delta sighs. ‘I used to love it down there when I was a kid.’
‘There’s a cave at the far end of the beach around the headland from Otter Lodge,’ Raff says. ‘You can walk inside at low tide, there’s a pool in there that never empties. You’ll not find purer water anywhere in the world.’
‘Nor colder,’ Delta says. ‘I’d come and show you but, you know, the baby.’ She waves in the direction of her bump. ‘It doesn’t like the hill any more. Or freezing cold water.’
Raff shivers despite the fire in the hearth. ‘Follow the rocks round at low tide, you’ll come to it.’
I nod, my interest piqued at the idea of a new, secret place to photograph. ‘I’ll do that, man, thanks.’
‘How about it yourself, Cleo?’ Delta says. ‘Bit of skinny-dipping is roaring good for your health. No one here ever goes down there unless it’s the height of summer, you’ll be safe from prying eyes.’ She glances at me, laughing. ‘Irish ones, in any case.’
It happens again – the discomfort at any suggestion that people know there’s something happening between me and Cleo. I swallow it down but can’t help running a hand round the back of my neck and rolling my shoulders awkwardly. Cleo smiles when I glance her way and I turn quickly to Raff in the hope of rescue.
‘“Heartbreak Hotel”，’ he says. ‘And “Wooden Heart”。 That man sure knew how to woo the girls, I’ll give him that.’
And we’re back to Elvis.
‘Nothing like a man in uniform,’ Delta says.
‘How’s your mom?’ I ask. I’m clutching at straws; I don’t expect Delta to have startling news to impart about Dolores. ‘I took some great photographs of her working in the library a couple of weeks ago, I hope she’ll approve.’ Of all the residents on the island, Dolores was one of the most reluctant to be caught on camera.
‘She’s grand,’ Delta says. ‘Although you wouldn’t know it from the way she gives out about her legs.’
‘Leave her be, she’s always liked a grumble, it’s just her way,’ Raff says. ‘My sister’s a fine woman.’
‘You don’t live with her,’ Delta says.
‘And you’re lucky to.’ Raff peers at her over his glasses, flipping the relationship back to uncle and niece. I like these two: they clearly love each other and aren’t afraid to say what they think.