I tried to ignore it, but the idea was like a worm in my brain, wriggling, wriggling, burrowing away.
On the upper floor, we passed several empty rooms that looked like guest suites before Sebastian opened a door at the end of the corridor. From the layout of the house, I guessed that this room, his room, must overlook the back yard. The fact that his parents had put their son as far away from their own room as possible had worked out well for Sebastian – in the end.
He’d turned on his bedside light and drawn the curtains; I could feel the suppressed excitement coursing through him.
His bedroom was small, barely bigger than a box room, with a narrow, single bed pressed against one wall. Several old surfing posters were tacked to the only free wall space; the rest were covered by unmatched bookshelves, crammed with a mixture of CDs, paperbacks, a few hardcover books, with what looked like surfing trophies jammed in amongst them.
There was a large chest with one of the drawers partially open, and a couple of T-shirts hanging out.
My eyes were drawn back to the bed, currently strewn with a pair of jeans, shirts and the boardshorts he’d worn to the beach yesterday. The sheets and cover, however, were neatly folded, almost with military precision. I shivered as I imagined Donald ‘teaching’ his son how to do that.
Sebastian cleared away the clothes hurriedly, tossing them onto a small, wooden chair that was festooned with clothes already.
“It’s pretty small,” he said, sounding embarrassed.
“It’s very you,” I said, watching him throw his clothes on the chair. I turned to examine some of his books. I always thought you could learn a lot about a person by the kind of books they had on their shelves. David didn’t have any books; he only read the newspaper and occasionally medical journals.
Sebastian had a whole shelf of Conrad, several Alain Quatermain paperbacks, Jack London’s The Road, countless travel books and The Red Horse by Corti in translation caught my eye.
“Wait, what’s this?” I pulled out a heavy book, bound in cloth, and ran my fingers over the cover. I stared at him in disbelief. “You still have this?”
He nodded, his face serious.
I flicked through the pages depicting Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel... all the gruesome stories from the Brothers Grimm.
I turned to the frontispiece, knowing what I’d see,
To Sebastian, from Caroline
And a date, nine years in the past.
“You kept it.”
“Of course,” he said simply. “You gave it to me.”
I didn’t know what to feel, standing there with the evidence of his childhood in my hands, the grown man in front of me.
“It’s always been you, Caro.”
I continued to stare at the book, at my handwriting, evidence in black and white, of our innocent and childish friendship.
His voice became anxious.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Caro, not like that.”
But it did, to me at least. It had been a horrible mistake coming here.
“I think I’d better go now,” I said quietly.
“It’s just a book, Caro, just a damn book. Please don’t go!”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to look at him.
“Caro! Stop it!” he said, almost roughly. “I was a kid: we were friends. That’s all. You haven’t done anything wrong.” He shook me, making me grab onto his arms. “I’m younger than you: so what?! It doesn’t mean anything.”
Suddenly my knees gave way and I sat down on the bed hard. I felt sick. I hadn’t eaten anything since the omelet I’d made earlier, and that had ended up on the gravel of the country club’s parking lot.
“Caro?”
“Could I have a glass of water, please?” My voice was shaky.
“Sure! Sure!”
I heard him running down the stairs. I put my head down and tried to breathe deeply.
He was back a moment later with a large tumbler of cold water. I took the glass from him and drank a few sips gratefully.
“Are you okay?” he said anxiously.