‘Well. May he prove to be a man who deserves you,’ she says, handing me another plate with a flourish.
They break stuff: a lamp in the ballroom, a door on the second floor. Connie’s finger, which means she spends a night in a French emergency room with Uncle Terry, who was the only person sober enough to drive her, since his hangovers are worse than everyone else’s and he can’t keep up.
They drink and laugh and get high and the days turn blurry under the sun.
Meanwhile I fix everything. Except the finger – that’s outside my expertise.
In fairness to them all, they do treat me and Deb like part of the gang. Not like the caretakers. It’s just when something goes wrong and they yell for me or my sister that I’m reminded we’re not quite on a level here. I’m not really one of them.
‘They’re like overgrown children,’ Deb observes one day, looking down at them all on the lawn. Connie has her head on Marta’s stomach, Grace is sitting up against Marcus’s legs, Luke and Javier are intertwined. Dylan’s off with Uncle Terry somewhere, I think, trying to keep him amused. Deb and I have been clearing insects out of the pool – Marta swam right into a giant hornet earlier and nobody’s heard the end of it.
‘Do you like them?’ I ask Deb.
‘Oh, how can you not?’ she says, leaning on the terrace balustrade. ‘But I’d keep them at a bit of a distance, personally. I don’t see how you can get in the middle of that’ – she points to the tangle of limbs below – ‘and not end up in a mess.’
I tilt my head to her shoulder, not quite letting it touch. I’m so grateful she’s here, my sister. Sometimes this week I’ve felt like I’m getting kind of lost. Or maybe losing the confidence to be Summer Addie. But with Deb, I’m always myself. The proper Addie, the real one.
‘I love you,’ I tell her. ‘Thanks for coming back when they arrived.’
‘Of course,’ she says, surprised. ‘You only ever have to ask, and I’m here. Always. Isn’t that how this sister thing works?’
Dylan’s a bit different with his friends. He laughs more and says less. His poetry isn’t something he gushes about, it’s the punchline to someone else’s joke. He’s still charming and lost-boyish. But he’s . . . quieter. Sometimes even I lose track of where he is in the crowd.
At night, though, he’s mine. We’ve given Deb the bed in the flat and once the partying is over for the evening, I collapse beside him in that enormous four-poster. We have sex a lot, but we talk a lot too. All night, on our last night. Nose to nose, hands linked.
‘The sound of teeth against a spoon when someone’s eating soup, insects that scuttle, people who don’t listen,’ he whispers. It’s five in the morning, and his voice is hoarse. We’re talking about pet peeves – I’ve no idea how we got here. ‘And yours?’
‘Yes to people who don’t listen,’ I say, and press a light kiss to his lips. ‘That’s a good one. And rats. I hate those too. And it drives me nuts when your uncle Terry says women! Like he can instantly win a debate with that. You know, when one of us has said something he doesn’t agree with?’
‘Oh, Uncle Terry is a pet peeve all on his own,’ Dylan says, grimacing, and I laugh. ‘I’m sorry. He’s awful.’
‘He’s . . .’ Hmm, what am I allowed to say here? He is Dylan’s uncle, after all. I change tack. ‘Is your dad like him? Terry’s his brother, right?’
There’s a long, still silence.
‘No, Dad’s different,’ Dylan says eventually, and his tone has changed. ‘He’s . . . tougher than Terry.’
I frown. ‘What does tougher mean?’
‘He’s just not much fun,’ Dylan says. ‘What’s your dad like?’
That was quick. Given that we just spent forty-five minutes talking about Pokémon and Ninja Turtles, I really thought Dylan’s dad would take more than ten seconds to discuss. I try to make out Dylan’s expression in the darkness.
‘You guys don’t get along?’ I ask quietly.
‘Let’s just say he’s one of those people who doesn’t listen,’ Dylan says.
He leans in and kisses me then, slowly. I feel the kiss moving through me like I’ve swallowed something hot. He’s trying to distract me. It works.
‘So? What about you, what’s your dad like?’ Dylan asks again, resettling his head against the pillow.