“So.” Caius looked regretful. “Okay, you have to know, first of all, this isn’t me, okay? I’ve spoken to all of my therapists about it and they all agree with me.”
Marisa blinked at him. It was four p.m. on a Tuesday, and she was still in her dressing gown. She’d been clicking through a huge pile of pics on Instagram: her friends had gone to a party on a boat last night. The boat hadn’t gone anywhere but they’d obviously had an absolute blast, drinking bright cocktails, and for some reason everyone was wearing a ridiculous hat. Or perhaps it was the same hat, passed around. Anyway. They all looked like they were having a ball. They hadn’t even invited her. There was a limit to how many times she could say no to everything. They had been concerned and sympathetic to begin with but when nothing changed, and she was doing nothing and had nothing to say and frantically insisted all the time that she was all right . . . well. There wasn’t much they could do, even though they loved her, which they did. The wall she had built around herself was as sturdy as that of the flat and nobody had the power tools to knock it through.
Although Caius was giving it a very good try.
“The thing is. You’re giving out what is mostly a Very Bad Vibe?”
Marisa noticed she had some tinned spaghetti sauce on her dressing gown and frowned.
“It’s quite hard to live with you?”
This was from Caius who had parties every five minutes, left empty bottles everywhere, and had random people showing up all the time of whom Marisa was mostly terrified and hid in the bathroom.
She frowned at him.
“Really? I’m quiet and tidy and pay the rent on time.”
Caius took a deep breath.
“Actually, you’re spooky and sad and weird? It’s a bit like sharing a flat with that toilet ghost in Harry Potter?” He nodded. “You know I’m only being honest like this for your own good?”
Marisa felt herself go numb.
She couldn’t get kicked out. She couldn’t. She’d have to leave . . . to go where? The idea of finding somewhere new was . . . it was too frightening. Too scary.
Her mum would be happy to have her home, but they still weren’t really talking, not after Christmas. She just didn’t understand, and she asked Marisa to explain it to her and Marisa didn’t understand either.
Plus her mum ran an open house anyway, she had thousands of friends popping in all hours of the day and night, as well as people from the charities she worked for, her choir, her church group . . . it was endless. She didn’t really need Marisa.
Marisa and her grandfather, both more reserved, had been peas in a pod, her mother had always said. It always made Marisa happy to hear that.
“I’m not a toilet ghost,” she said quietly.
“I know,” said Caius, in a reasonable tone. “But say you were a toilet ghost, yeah, how different would your behavior be?”
Marisa caught sight of herself in the mirror across the room. Her face was incredibly pale; normally her olive skin lit up at the slightest hint of sun, but she’d spent the entire year indoors so far. Her black hair looked faded and dull; her eyebrows straggly. Her mum would have a fit. She looked much older than she was.
“You’re kicking me out?” she said, confused and frightened.
Caius sighed. “I’m not evil,” he said. “Do I seem evil to you? Is evil what I’m putting out there? It’s not really the look I’m going for. I have something for you I think you’ll like?”
“Sure,” said Marisa, feeling her breath harder to come by; she was suddenly aware of her own body; her heart racing, her chest getting tighter.
“Anyway. It’s not like I’m kicking you out . . . I’m just moving in Binky and Phillip.”
“Both of them?”
Caius had been carrying on an affair with each of the members of a couple.
“Sure,” he said. “Worth a shot.”
“I didn’t know they knew about each other.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t originally plan it like that but . . .”
If the situation hadn’t been so awful, Marisa might have appreciated it: typical Caius to be cheating on two people and for them to immediately forgive him and want to move in with him.
He lifted his hand in a “what can you do when you’re so attractive?” gesture.
“So,” he said, pulling round his laptop and showing her something, “come look at this.”
She flinched. Even with Caius, she didn’t like getting too close to other people. He rolled his eyes.
“Look! Look at the picture.”
She squinted down to see what he was showing her. It was a little chalet perched on top of what looked like a hill, surrounded by water.
“What is that?”
He shrugged. “My uncle Reuben. Lives down in Cornwall?”
Marisa had heard of this legendary uncle, who owned a huge estate, had his own beach, his own tech company, was rich even compared to Caius’ incredibly rich family and was also apparently the biggest dickhead anyone had ever met.
“Well, he built these chalets for tourists staycationing this year and then everyone looked at the tearing rain and went to Spain instead so they’re just sitting there. And I figured, seeing as you’re not really going to work these days it doesn’t matter where you are . . . and you want peace and quiet and I . . . don’t want that . . .”
It was true. Armed with a letter from her GP, Marisa had finally made an official request to work from home for the foreseeable future. It was a headache for Nazreen and made Marisa miserable and guilty, but it had just got too difficult for her.
“Where is it?” said Marisa suspiciously.
“I mean, it’s very picturesque . . .”
“Where?”
“I can’t . . . one of those limey words. I want to say Potbeans?”
She looked at him.
“Mount Polbearne?”
Everyone knew Mount Polbearne. It was a remote tidal island off the southern coast of Cornwall; a tourist attraction, but a tiny place.
“You know it?”
“Of course I know it—it gets completely cut off for half of every day and you can’t own a car there and in the winters it gets cut off for months and you’re miles from anywhere.”
“I thought,” said Caius, “that would be perfect for you.”
The bell rang. Marisa looked up, worriedly.
“Uh, yeah, the guys are just coming over to . . . hang?” said Caius hopefully, as Marisa dived back into her room.