Chapter Sixty-Nine
Sixty-Nine
Monks
I have Cedric on a blanket in the evening sunshine, when Caleb strolls over from his garden, hopping over the part of my garden that boasts a neatly trimmed privet hedge.
He nods a hello and picks up a paperback that I’ve been reading called Seven Enemies, and wrinkles his nose.
‘Why are you making that face?’ I enquire.
He reads the blurb. ‘It’s just sounds silly. The whole concept.’
‘It’s brilliant,’ I say. ‘Genre fiction keeps the lights on in publishing houses. Without it, there’d be no profit margin at all. It paid my rent for three years. Well, just about.’
‘You worked in publishing?’
I nod.
‘But now you’re a professional reptile-sitter.’
‘Don’t take that tone. Both careers have their challenges. Each has its fair share of snakes.’
‘I bet.’
‘Can I have my book back now, please?’
‘You’re really going to read that?’
‘If you ever pass it back,’ I say. ‘The theme speaks to me because, personally, I always have seven enemies.’
He raises a sceptical eyebrow.
‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘I have a mental list that I check in on regularly, to see if the order needs to be changed. In London, I can’t go to a new place without having a quick glance around to see if any of the seven are present. The first time in my life that I haven’t felt that way is on Loor.’
‘Hang on, I can hear my oven timer beeping,’ he says.
He’s wearing a stupid, unfathomable T-shirt today that says BUCKLAND MONACHORUM, and I know he wants me to ask him about it. As soon as he goes inside, I cave in and secretly google it, and find it’s a minuscule place in Devon and that monachorum means ‘of the monks’. As soon as I hear his door open again, I shut down the page and slide my phone in my pocket, so that he won’t have the satisfaction of knowing he’s raised my curiosity.
He comes back out holding a fork and a pasta bowl of something that smells completely delicious.
My stomach grumbles so loudly that he notices.
‘Haven’t eaten yet?’
‘I need to go shopping. All I’ve got left is a Pot Noodle and I can’t stand Pot Noodle. I’d rather eat Ted’s Pedigree Chum.’
‘I have food,’ he says. ‘If you’re hungry.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘It’s not as if you can order in a Domino’s pizza. And Edie’s shop will be shut by now.’
‘Maybe I’ll go to the Merry Maid,’ I say.
‘They stop serving food in ten minutes. You won’t be able to get there in time.’
‘What is that you’re eating?’ I ask, almost salivating, because it smells so good.
‘Hungarian barbecue.’
‘Mongolian barbecue, do you mean?’
‘No, Hungarian.’
‘I’ve never heard of that,’ I say.
‘Well,’ he answers. ‘It’s barbecued food made from recipes that are popular in Hungary.’
‘Nobody likes a know-it-all,’ I say, as he goes back inside to get me my own bowl of delicious food. He also brings out a cool box of beers.
‘How is it that you’re so good at cooking?’ I say, diving straight into the barbecue, and washing it down with a deep swig of Budweiser.
‘I wanted to eat good food, so I taught myself to cook. No big mystery. What else do you want to know? My favourite colour? It’s green.’
‘Like your hat,’ I say, remembering how his beanie had seemed a permanent feature of his head when I’d first arrived, and the fleas were biting.
‘You know, the thing that unnerves me most about the island is the lack of green,’ Caleb says, ‘I really feel the absence of trees.’
As somebody who grew up in a beach town, I’d hardly even noticed.
‘There are trees here,’ I say, motioning to our little Torbay palm, and the few stunted, windblown apple trees in the gardens of the big houses on the cliffs.
‘Hardly,’ he says. ‘Nothing worth looking at for more than a minute.’
This statement seems so odd that I’m lost for words. Does he often look at trees for more than a minute? Is that really something he does?
‘What’s your story, Caleb?’ I ask. ‘I don’t really know anything about you.’
‘Nothing to tell. Just normal. What about you?’
He really doesn’t want to talk about himself. Why is that? Men love talking about themselves. At least, Max certainly did. Apart from the magical anaerobic properties of Thames mud, himself was his favourite subject.
‘You worked in publishing,’ he goes on. ‘What made you want to get into books?’
‘I love them.’
Used to, I think, draining the last of my beer.
‘What’s your favourite childhood book?’
He opens a bottle of beer for himself, hands a second to me and waits for my answer.
‘I think I would have to go for Anne of Green Gables,’ I say.
‘Huh, me too,’ he says.
‘Shut up,’ I say, assuming he’s taking the mick.
‘I’m serious,’ he assures me. ‘Why the surprise?’
‘I’d have thought it’s quite rare for boys to love Anne, especially given you’re clearly a Gilbert Blythe type.’
‘I’m an Anne,’ he says, with absolute certainty.
‘No, you’re not,’ I scoff. ‘You’re good-looking, rich and not the least bit ginger. You’re Gilbert.’
‘Hello?’ he says, pointing to his hair. ‘Not ginger, no, but definitely an outsider because of my hair colour. What teenage boy wants silver highlights?’
‘Fair point,’ I say, thinking of all the teasing he’d have experienced at my rough school. ‘Well, I won’t hold up one of your braids and whisper “mackerel” in your ear.’
‘Mackerel?’ he asks, frowning.
‘It was the only food I could think of that was grey.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Because Gilbert held Anne’s plait and whispered “carrots”?’
‘Exactly. But I don’t think there are any grey vegetables.’
A quick Google search reveals that there is just one grey vegetable in the world. The Hubbard squash, which looks like a brain crossed with a deer tick.
‘I think if anyone had whispered mackerel in my ear, I’d have thought I had an entirely different problem…’ he says.
‘Yeah, you’d probably have wanted to up your personal hygiene.’
I think this may be the first time I’ve seen him genuinely laugh, which gives me a small prickle of pleasure, or maybe it’s just the beer kicking in.