‘Emma works for Amnesty International,’ said Dexter proudly, one hand on her shoulder.
‘Part-time. Mainly I work in a restaurant.’
‘As a manager. But she’s just about to pack it in. She’s trainin’ to be a teacher in September, aren’t you, Em?’
Emma looked at him levelly. ‘Why are you talking like that?’
‘Like wha’?’ Dexter laughed defiantly, but the young couple were shifting uneasily, the man looking over the ship’s side as if contemplating the jump. Dexter decided to round up the interview. ‘So we’ll see you on the beach, yeah? Maybe get a beer or summink?’ and the couple smiled and headed back to their bench.
Dexter had never consciously set out to be famous, though he had always wanted to be successful, and what was the point of being successful in private? People should know. Now that fame had happened to him it did make a certain sense, as if fame were a natural extension of being popular at school. He hadn’t set out to be a TV presenter either – did anyone? – but was delighted to be told that he was a natural. Appearing on camera had been like sitting at a piano for the first time and discovering he was a virtuoso. The show itself was less issue-based than other shows he had worked on, really just a series of live bands, video exclusives, celebrity interviews, and yes, okay, it wasn’t exactly demanding, all he really did was look at the camera and shout ‘make some noise!’ But he did it so well, so attractively, with such swagger and charm.
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 TV and 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 from Yorkshire!
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, your show 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.