But public recognition remained a new experience. He was self-aware enough to know that he possessed a certain facility for what Emma would call ‘prattishness’ and with this in mind he had been investing some private effort into working out what to do with his face. Anxious not to appear affected or cocky or a fake, he had been devising an expression that said hey, it’s no big deal, it’s only TVand he assumed this expression now, replacing his sunglasses and returning to his book.
Emma watched this performance, amused; the straining for nonchalance, the slight flare of the nostrils, the smile that flickered at the corners of his mouth. She pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead.
‘It’s not going to change you, is it?’
‘What?’
‘Being very, very, very, very slightly famous.’
‘I hate that word. “Famous”.’
‘Oh and what would you prefer? “Well known”.’
‘How about “notorious”?’ he grinned.
‘Or “annoying”? How about “annoying”?’
‘Leave it out, will ya?’
‘And you can drop that now, please?’
‘What?’
‘The cockney accent. You went to Winchester College for Christ’s sake.’
‘I don’t do a cockney accent.’
‘When you’re being Mr TV you do. You sound like you’ve left your whelk stall to go and do this ’ere fancy telly programme.’
‘You’ve got a Yorkshire accent!’
‘Because I’m fromYorkshire!
Dexter shrugged. ‘I’ve got to talk like that, otherwise it alienates the audience.’
‘And what if it alienates me?’
‘I’m sure it does, but you’re not one of the two million people who watch my show.’
‘Oh, yourshow is it now?’
‘The TV show on which I feature.’
She laughed and went back to her book. After a while Dexter spoke again.
‘Well, do you?’
‘What?’
‘Watch me? On largin’ it?’
‘I might have had it on. In the background once or twice, while I’m balancing my cheque-book.’
‘And what do you think?’
She sighed and fixed her eyes on the book. ‘It’s not my thing, Dex.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘I don’t know about TV. .’
‘Just say what you think.’
‘Okay, well I think the programme is like being screamed at for an hour by a drunk with a strobe-light, but like I said—’
‘Alright, point taken.’ He glanced at his book, then back at Emma. ‘And what about me?’
‘What about you?’
‘Well — am I any good? As a presenter?’
She removed her sunglasses. ‘Dexter, you are possibly the greatest presenter of Youth TV that this country has ever known, and I don’t say that kind of thing lightly.’
Proudly, he raised himself onto one elbow. ‘Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a journalist.’
Emma smiled and turned a page. ‘I’m sure you do.’
‘Because that’s what it is, journalism. I have to research, shape the interview, ask the right questions—’
She held her chin between finger and thumb. ‘Yes, yes, I believe I saw your in-depth piece on MC Hammer. Very sharp, very provoking—’
‘Shut up, Em—’
‘No, seriously, the way you got under MC’s skin, his musical inspirations, the trousers. It was, well — untouchable.’
He swatted at her with his book. ‘Shut up and read, will you?’ He lay back down and closed his eyes. Emma glanced over to check that he was smiling, and smiled too.
Mid-morning approached and while Dexter slept, Emma caught her first sight of their destination: a blue-grey granite mass rising from the clearest sea that she had ever seen. She had always assumed that water like this was a lie told by brochures, a trick with lenses and filters, but there it was, sparkling and emerald green. At first glance the island seemed unpopulated except for the huddle of houses spreading up from the harbour, buildings the colour of coconut ice. She found herself laughing quietly at the sight of it. Until now travel had always been a fraught affair. Each year until she was sixteen, it had been two weeks fighting with her sister in a caravan in Filey while her parents drank steadily and looked out at the rain, a sort of harsh experiment in the limits of human proximity. At University she had gone camping in the Cairngorms with Tilly Killick, six days in a tent that smelt of cup-a-soup; a larky, so-awful-it’s-funny holiday that had ended up just awful.
Now, standing at the railing as the town came into clearer view, she began to understand the point of travel; she had never felt so far away from the launderette, the top deck of the night bus home, Tilly’s box room. It was as if the air was somehow different here; not just how it tasted and smelt, but the element itself. In London the air was something you peered through, like a neglected fish tank. Here everything was bright and sharp, clean and clear.
She heard the snap of a camera shutter and turned in time to see Dexter take her photo again. ‘I look terrible,’ she said as a reflex, though perhaps she didn’t. He joined her, his arms holding the rail on either side of her waist.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’
‘S’alright,’ she said, unable to recall a time when she had felt happier.
They disembarked — the first time she felt that she had ever disembarked— and immediately found a flurry of activity on the quayside as the casual travellers and backpackers began the scramble for the best accommodation.
‘So what happens now?’
‘I’ll find us somewhere. You wait in that café, I’ll come and get you.’
‘Somewhere with a balcony—’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And a sea view please. And a desk.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ and, sandals slapping, he strolled towards the crowd on the quay.
She shouted after him: ‘And don’t forget!’
He turned and looked at her, standing on the harbour wall, holding her wide-brimmed hat to her head in the warm breeze that pressed her light blue dress against her body. She no longer wore spectacles, and there was a scattering of freckles across her chest that he had never seen before, the bare skin turning from pink to brown as it disappeared below the neckline.
‘The Rules,’ she said.
‘What about them?’
‘We need tworooms. Yes?’
‘Absolutely. Two rooms.’
He smiled and headed off into the crowd. Emma watched him go, then dragged the two backpacks along the quay to a small, wind-blown café. There she reached into her bag and pulled out a pen and notebook, an expensive, cloth-bound affair, her journal for the trip.
She opened it on the first blank page and tried to think of something she could write, some insight or observation other than that everything was fine. Everything was fine, and she had the rare, new sensation of being exactly where she wanted to be.
Dexter and the landlady stood in the middle of the bare room: whitewashed walls and cool stone floor, bare save for an immense iron-framed double bed, a small writing desk and chair and some dried flowers in a jar. He walked through louvred double-doors onto a large balcony painted to match the colour of the sky, overlooking the bay below. It was like walking out onto some fantastic stage.
‘You are how many?’ asked the landlady, mid-thirties, quite attractive.
‘Two of us.’
‘And for how long?’
‘Not sure, five nights, maybe more?’
‘Well here is perfect I think?’
Dexter sat on the double bed, bouncing on it speculatively. ‘But my friend and I we are just, well, just good friends. We need two rooms?’
‘Oh. Okay. I have second room.’
Emma has these freckles that I’ve never seen before scattered across her chest just above the neckline.
‘So you do have two rooms?’
‘Yes, of course, I have two rooms.’
‘There’s good news and there’s bad news.’
‘Go on,’ said Emma, closing her notebook.
‘Well I’ve found this fantastic place, sea view, balcony, a bit higher up in the village, quiet if you want to write, there’s even a little desk, and it’s free for the next five days, longer if we want it.’
