“Shrimp,” was his generous comment.
I tried to swat his backside, but he dodged out of the way.
“You’re feisty this morning: I think I like it.”
He pulled an old-fashioned key out of his pants’ pocket and grabbed my case with the other.
The door creaked open and I peered into a gloomy passageway.
“Sorry,” said Sebastian, “no lights.”
He led the way up three flights of dark, narrow staircase, and slid the key into another lock when we reached the top.
“This is it,” he said, shortly.
As I stepped inside, a feeling of sadness welled up through me. The room was small and white, with a narrow single bed pushed against one wall. An ugly military-style blanket was neatly folded over the top, as if ready for inspection. A dozen, well-thumbed paperbacks lay on a plain, wooden bookshelf. The only color in the room was provided by his dress uniform, which had been arranged on a hanger inside a polythene drycleaner’s bag, and hung from a hook on the wall.
A wooden chair sat silently underneath the window, and a small chest of drawers stood sentry next to the door.
There was no carpet and no rugs, just bare, wooden boards; there were no pictures, nor photographs, just his iPod and laptop, which looked lost and oddly out of place in the Spartan room.
Sensing my shock, Sebastian pointed towards the window.
“It’s got a great view,” he said, defensively.
“Yes,” I agreed, looking out over the tiled rooftops towards the lake, “very pretty.”
He shrugged. “It’s all I need.”
I turned to flick through his books, needing a moment to blink back the tears that threatened; he wouldn’t want my pity.
“Still the Conrad fan,” I said, trying to control my voice, although my throat was tight with unshed tears.
“Sure,” he said.
“You should get yourself an e-reader,” I said, trying to find a normal tone of voice. “The whole of Conrad’s oeuvre for two bucks.”
“Yeah, I guess I should,” he replied, his voice muffled as he reached under the bed for a small overnight bag, “if I knew there’d always be somewhere to charge it up when I’m in some shithole, stone age village.”
He stood up and tossed his bag on the bed, then rifled through the chest of drawers, pulling out half-a-dozen white T-shirts, and some of his gray briefs and black socks.
“What happened to all the colors?” I blurted out.
He threw me a puzzled look.
“Sebastian, the most colorful thing in this room are your Dress Blues,” I pointed out helplessly. “The first time I met you, you were wearing those ridiculously bright red board shorts.”
He laughed lightly. “Oh yeah. I’ve still got those somewhere. In a box in Ches’s garage, I think.”
“It sounds like Ches has all your worldly possessions.”
“Pretty much,” he said, shrugging. “I didn’t take a lot when I left my parents’ place. But what the hell: it’s easy to pack up and move on when you’re not laden down.”
My heart swelled with emotion. My poor, beautiful boy: his entire family was Ches’s. He owned nothing, lived nowhere, and had no one.
Except, perhaps, me: if I let him. If he wanted me.
“Caro, how much of this stuff in your case do you need?” he said, pulling me away from my forlorn thoughts.
“I definitely need my laptop and notebooks…”
“I mean clothes, Caro. I wouldn’t dare suggest to a reporter that she goes anywhere without the tools of her trade.”
“That’s right, Chief: you’d just stop her going where she needed to go in the first place.”
He pouted and I couldn’t help smiling: he was so cute when he did that. I wondered how many other Marines used pouting as their primary weapon.
I picked out some T-shirts.
“See,” I said, arranging a palette of pink, green, blue, yellow and orange T-shirts. These are called ‘colors’. They’re what you get when you’re not wearing black, white or gray.”
“My jeans are blue.”