Page 25 of One Last Thing
I snort, mumbling, ‘Isn’t there?’
‘Please, think about it,’ he says in that silky gentle voice of his that belongs over a nature documentary. ‘Will you?’
I sigh heavily. ‘If it means you’ll stop hounding me, then yes, I will think about it.’
‘Good,’ he says, satisfied. ‘The first bit is always the hardest bit.’
‘First bit of what?’ I say, a bit short and impatient with him now.
‘Change. But we adapt. We start to see things differently. It makes us better.’ He peers at the screen. ‘I speak from experience, you know.’
‘Oh god, if you’re going to start rambling on again about how you’re a dying man, I’m going to hang up,’ I declare dramatically making him sit back and laugh.
‘One must make the most of these things.’
I roll my eyes. ‘I’d better get back to work.’
‘Yes, the research around Catherine Howard is particularly pressing I imagine.’
‘Goodbye Henry.’
‘Bye Dawny.’
We hang up before I can tell him off for calling me that. I never liked it and he knows that all too well, but it must have slipped out by accident. Occasionally he’ll use it to tease me, but not in that instance. There, it came out in comfort or tiredness or probably both.
9
MEGAN
Nico tells me that she’s done it.
‘She’s coming out of the water over there,’ he says, pointing to the beach as we walk around the harbour in the direction of the restaurant, which is all the way on the other side.
I spot her wobbling over the pebbles, laughing maniacally to herself.
‘Your mum is funny,’ Nico observes, chuckling.
‘Yeah, she’s a hoot,’ I mutter, frowning as I wonder what the hell she’s doing.
Shaking my head, I walk on with Nico in comfortable silence, taking in the mixture of tourists and locals bustling around the town, trying to work out what’s changed and what hasn’t. It certainly feels the same, maybe a bit busier. I don’t remember so many artists set up along the pathway around beach and up to the fort, sketching and painting the view. There are a lot more people with prams here than I recall. Maybe it’s become more of a family-friendly spot. Or maybe I notice prams more now that I’m in my thirties and don’t have one.
‘How does it feel to be back? Is it strange?’ Nico asks, breaking my train of thought.
‘Yeah, it is a bit. It’s nice, though. I mean—’ I do a flimsy gesture at our surroundings‘—it’s hard not to appreciate being here.’
He nods. ‘I should appreciate it more.’
‘You spend a lot of your time in the chateau?’
‘Almost all of it.’
‘I think it’s really cool that you run the hotel now,’ I say, wishing I’d have thought of a better word than ‘cool’ to use. ‘Did you always know that was what you were going to do?’
He turns to shoot me a secretive smile, which has a devastating effect when working in tandem with his sunglasses and the pale blue linen shirt he’s working with the arm sleeves rolled up. Something flutters in my stomach and I’m suddenly really aware of what I’m doing with my hands, which is a weird sensation.
Like, where do I normally put my hands when I walk?
‘You don’t remember me telling you I was going to be a chef,’ he says, while my arms grow stiff with awkwardness, something he’s hopefully oblivious to. ‘I’m disappointed.’
