‘Dinner! Do you do dinner?’ Terry asks.
I cringe. ‘Addie isn’t . . .’
‘Absolutely,’ Addie says smoothly. She adjusts her dress a little higher at the neck. ‘I can request a chef for you – there are some fantastic local ones, I’ll fetch you the list.’
I watch her go. Her hips aren’t swaying now. I am desperate with longing.
‘Pretty, that one,’ Terry calls down to me. ‘But I expect you’re still smitten with the blonde from Atlanta?’
I cringe again as Addie pauses in the doorway to the kitchen for a moment, one hand on the stone wall. Terry is out of date in all senses – that jacket of his hasn’t looked good since the nineties, and Michele from Atlanta hasn’t been on the scene since Michaelmas term of third year, for Christ’s sake.
‘What are you doing here, Uncle Terry?’
‘I heard on the grapevine that you’d decided to go ahead with the family holiday!’ He grins down at me. ‘Three weeks of sun and wine with my favourite nephew? And none of the rest of the rabble? How could I pass that up? Come on up here, boy, let’s open a bottle to celebrate.’
I drag my feet up the steps and across to the terrace. The pool lies at one edge, glinting pale blue; beyond the water, the vineyards look hyper-real under the sun’s glare.
Terry slaps me on the back. His receding hairline has retreated so far now that he just sports a small patch above the forehead and one of those around-the-ears styles that monks used to favour in medieval times.
‘Good to see you, Dylan.’
I grit my teeth. ‘You too, Terry.’
My family. They’re like a bad cold I can’t shake, a dreadful pop song I can’t stop singing. How do I get rid of them?
And, more immediately: how do I get rid of Uncle Terry?
NOW
Addie
The sun’s properly up now, starbursting on the windscreen, making me squint even with my sunglasses on. The road ahead looks kind of dusty through it, like everything needs a wipe.
Dylan hasn’t said a word for over half an hour. We are three hundred miles away from Ettrick and having him in this car is making it hard to breathe. He still wears the same aftershave. Light and woody, a hint of orange.
‘I’m actually a very modern man, thank you very much,’ Marcus is telling Deb. She just called him a caveman. He said something sexist that I didn’t catch, which is probably for the best.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘You know what I did the other day?’
‘What?’
‘I moisturised.’
I have to bite back a smile. I forgot this about Marcus. How charming he is, when he wants to be.
‘And do you know what Dylan’s talked me into?’
‘What has Dylan talked you into?’ Rodney says, when Deb doesn’t answer. She’s on her phone – that’ll be annoying Marcus. He likes undivided attention.
‘He’s got me going to his therapist,’ Marcus says, in a scandalised whisper.
I blink, processing. Marcus is in therapy? Dylan’s in therapy? That’s so weird. Like one of them taking up knitting or something. I bet their therapist is having a field day with these boys, though. Years of material.
‘How have you found therapy?’ I ask Dylan, trying to keep my voice light.
I look at him for just long enough to catch the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. ‘Good, thanks,’ he says.
Right. Well then. We drive on in silence for a while. I’m dying to ask why he went. When did he start? Was it because of me? But that’s so self-absorbed.
‘I realised I was a little, uh . . . That some of the relationships in my life weren’t entirely healthy.’ He swallows again.
Everyone in the back of the car is very, very quiet.
‘I thought I could do with some help sorting that. You know. From a professional.’
My cheeks are hot again. That’ll teach me for being self-absorbed.
‘Let’s play a game,’ says Marcus. ‘I’m bored.’
‘Only boring people get bored,’ Deb says.
‘Only boring people say that,’ Marcus corrects her. ‘Five questions. I’ll go first. Ask me anything. Go on.’
‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ Deb asks promptly.
Marcus snorts. ‘Which particular social construct would you like me to measure “worst” by? I don’t really subscribe to a standard system of morality.’
‘How very exciting of you,’ Deb says flatly.