“I’m not sure.” Because I wasn’t. The man who donated his sperm had suggested all summer, but London didn’t have the ocean or the surf, or Ellie Makin.
“Maybe I’ll see you around.” He starts to walk away.
“Maybe.”
“William you need to show Isaac around the house. Let him choose a room for himself.”
William doesn’t glare at his father and he doesn’t glare at me. He looks at his feet and then out of the window.
“Did you hear me, William?”
“Yes, sir.”
I look away, feeling embarrassed.
I don’t disrespect my mother. She works in a café all the hours she can get and then cleans houses and holiday rentals just to make ends meet. She’d rather me and Ivy have new trainers and I have a surf board when I need one than she has a new pair of shoes or a winter coat. So I don’t give her any grief.
“It’s good. I can find my way around.”
“There are twelve bedrooms. Have you ever found your way around a house as big as this?” William’s tone is pissed off.
“No, but I surf.”
He laughs. “What do you mean by that?”
“When a wave tosses me off my board, I still know which way’s up and how to get back to the beach.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Have you ever surfed?” I’m pretty sure the answer is a straight forward hell no.
“Why would I surf? We have a boat.”
I laugh. “I’ve got a boat too. It isn’t the same thing.”
He looks at me like I’ve just spoken Cantonese.
“I’m certain that the boat you’re referring to is nothing like the one we have, is it, father?” He now looks to the Prime Minister.
William Goldsmith Senior doesn’t answer, not directly. “Stop being a fucking retard and go and show your brother around the house.”
The word seems to shoot William. He sets off and I follow, not quite keeping up as I don’t want to look like his lap dog following him around, but I do want to see where I’ll be staying for the next couple of nights.
And that will be it. I don’t intend staying any longer than that, not if it means being cooped up with some pompous twat of a kid a bit older than me.
William stops at the end of a corridor. “Choose a room. They’re all free.”
I don’t move.
“Go on. I haven’t got all day to watch you pansy arse.”
Two strides and I’m there in front of him. I lift my fist and my knuckles connect with his jaw. My hand throbs, because jaw bones tend to be effing hard but William’s on the floor, clutching his face and crying.
He’s actually crying.
I resist the urge to kick him, but he’s already down on the ground so it wouldn’t be fair.
“You hit me.” His words are stuttered.
