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.
It’s possible I’ve drunk a little too much. I hope she can’t tell. I’m trying to do the good kind of staring, not the leering kind, but I’ve had three quarters of a bottle of wine while reading Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella in the hills above the villa with lunch, and I have to confess I don’t entirely trust my judgement.
As I climb into the passenger seat of the blue-eyed caretaker’s rental car, I try to sober up and listen to what she’s saying – something about the shutters – but my mind is busy stuttering over a new idea, something about quick little hands with bitten-down nails.
As we pull out of the villa’s gates, I cast another look at her profile: a delicate, turned-up nose, a hint of freckles on her cheekbones like fine droplets of water on sand. There’s a quickening in my stomach, half fear, half excitement, or maybe just desire. I knew this summer was going to be magnificent, and here, now, with the wind tearing in my ears and the sun’s heat pressed to my cheek, with a dark-haired beauty beside me, her pale thighs bare against the leather seat, her—