Ah yes, my informants tell me everything. One mo, just let me unpin this absurd name badge…I’m a man, me, not a self-adhesive strip of letters embossed on a Dymo label printer…’
‘Don’t lean too far out!’ Danny and I watched the jellyfish below our feet dangling off the end of the sea wall. ‘If Michael Taylor’s sole male heir winds up in the drink, my career prospects will most surely join him.’
Sunlight on waves is drowsy tinsel.
‘You’d be okay if you fell in on the harbour side.’ I sculpted my Mr Whippy with my tongue. ‘You could scramble on to one of the fishing boats. But if you fell on the sea side, you might get sucked under.’
‘Let’s not,’ Danny rolled up his shirtsleeves, ‘put your theory to the test.’
‘The ice cream’s great, thanks. I’ve never had one with two Flakes in it. Did you pay extra?’
‘No. Your man on the stall’s a fellow Corkonian. We look after our own. Ah, but isn’t this the life, now, eh? Downright sadistic of Greenland to be holding their training conferences in a spot like this.’
‘What does “sadistic” mean?’
‘Unnecessarily cruel.’
‘Why’ (I’d noticed Danny likes questions) ‘is this sea wall called the “Cobb”? Is it just in Lyme Regis?’
‘Even my omniscience has its blind spots, young Jason.’
(If Dad doesn’t know the answer to a question, he spends ten sentences persuading himself that he does know.)
On the beach, well-behaved waves zipped and unzipped themselves. Mums rinsed off kids’ feet with buckets. Dads folded deckchairs and issued instructions.
‘Danny, do you know anyone in the IRA?’
‘You ask that just because I’m Irish?’
I nodded.
‘Well, Jason, no. Sorry to disappoint you. The Provos are busier up in Northern Ireland, the top bit. But back in Cork I do live in a turf hut with a leprechaun called Mick in my potato plot.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’
Danny held up a peaceful palm. ‘Accuracy on matters Irish is not the forte of the English. Truth is, we’re the friendliest people you’d wish to meet. Even north of the border. We just gun each other down occasionally, that’s all.’
Ice-cream drips snailed down the cone.
I don’t even know what I don’t know.
‘Will you look at those kites now! We didn’t have them when I was a kid!’ Danny was gazing at a couple of stunt kites with snaky ribbony tails. ‘Aren’t they something?’
We had to squint ’cause of the sun.
The tails doodlelooped red on blue, erasing themselves as they flew.
‘They,’ I agreed, ‘are epic.’
‘What’s Dad like to work for?’
The waitress at Cap’n Scallywag’s Fish’n’Chip Emporium arrived with our food. Danny leant back to let the tray land. ‘Michael Taylor, let me see. Well regarded…fair, thorough…doesn’t suffer fools gladly…he’s put in a good word or two for me at timely moments, for which I’m eternally grateful…that do you?’
‘Sure.’ I doused my fish with ketchup from a tomato-shaped squirter. Funny to hear Dad discussed as Michael Taylor. Along the promenade, strings of boiled-fruit lights lit up.
‘Looks like you’re enjoying that.’
‘I love fish and chips. Thanks.’
‘Your da’s paying.’ Danny’d ordered scampi, bread and a side salad to build a sandwich. ‘Remember to thank him.’ He turned to the first waitress and asked for a can of 7-Up. A second waitress hurried over with it and asked if the food was okay.
‘Oh,’ said Danny, ‘glorious.’
She sort of leaned at Danny, like he was a log fire. ‘Would your brother like anything to drink too?’
Danny winked at me.
‘Tango’ (pleasure from being mistaken for Danny’s brother wasn’t quite wrecked by Hangman not letting me say the ‘seven’ in 7-Up). ‘Please.’
The first waitress fetched me one. ‘Here on holiday?’
‘Business.’ Danny breathed mystery into this dull word. ‘Business.’
More customers came in and the waitresses went.
Danny did this funny look. ‘We should make a double act.’
Happy frying noises spat in Cap’n Scallywag’s kitchen.
‘One Step Beyond’ by Madness came on.
‘Have you got’ (I chickened out of saying ‘a girlfriend’) ‘any brothers and sisters?’
‘That depends,’ Danny never hurries his mouthfuls, ‘on your mode of accountancy. I grew up in an orphanage.’
God. ‘Like Dr Barnardo’s?’
‘A Catholic equivalent, with more Jesus in the diet. Not enough to cause any lasting damage.’
I chewed. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Danny’d handled this a billion times. ‘I’m not embarrassed about it. Why should you be?’
‘So’ – Julia or Mum’d’ve politely changed the subject – ‘did something bad happen to your mum and dad?’
‘Only each other. Pass us the ketchup. They’re still alive and rocking – not together – as far as I know, but, well, hey. A few experiments with foster parents