Page 13 of Be More Capybara

She started vigorously cutting up a piece of beef on her plate. A sore point, then. Nigel changed the subject. ‘Whereabouts are you going today?’ he asked Tamsin.

‘Back home. It’s a little village called Larkthwaite. Classic Yorkshire Dales country: limestone pavements, rolling hills.’

‘And sheep!’ piped up Tamsin’s daughter. He was going to have to learn their names.

‘Yes, Mabel. Lots of sheep, too. Mum’s set up her ceramics studio in one of our old sheds. You’ll have to come and visit.’

‘That would be lovely.’

‘And bring your family, of course.’

The odds of getting Madison to visit a remote village in Yorkshire had been low before their bust-up. They were non-existent now. Nigel smiled. ‘That’s very kind.’

‘What do I call you?’ Mabel asked. Nigel guessed she was about six years old, seven tops.

‘Most people call me Nigel.’

‘I thought you were called Grumpy?’ her little brother chipped in.

‘Wilf!’ Julia looked horrified.

‘But that’s what you said, Nanny.’

‘I think you probably misheard Great Uncle Nigel.’

There was no way Great Uncle Nigel sounded anything like Grumpy unless his new great-nephew was partially deaf. And there wasn’t any evidence of that. That’s what you get for being suspicious of your new relatives. Of course they’re going to label you a grumpy bastard.

‘More parsnips, Nigel?’ His mother was understandably trying to diffuse the situation.

‘No, I’m fine, thanks. More gravy would be good, though.’

‘What’s it like in New York?’ Mabel asked.

‘Nothing like here. Busy, noisy, lots of tall buildings, no sheep. Well, there might be some in Central Park Zoo, but it’s been a long time since I’ve visited. My daughters are too old to appreciate zoos now.’

‘We’re going to New York,’ Wilf said.

‘Oh really? When are you going?’

‘When are we going, Granny?’ Wilf asked Nancy.

Nancy looked uncomfortable. ‘In the spring.’

Was his mother going too? And why hadn’t she mentioned it to him if she was? He’d take that up with her later.

That’s a great time to visit.’

‘We’re going to see the sun turn off,’ Wilf said.

‘He means the total eclipse,’ Tamsin said.

‘I’d forgotten that was coming up. I saw an eclipse once. Well, it was cloudy in the end, but the sky went dark. It was very …’ Nigel was about to say atmospheric, but that might be too long a word for a four-year-old. ‘Spooky, in a good way.’

Wilf wasn’t convinced. ‘It might be boring.’

‘You won’t be bored.’ Though all the waiting around beforehand had been dull, but he wasn’t going to say that. If they were stopping somewhere in the path of totality, they might not have to wait around. Not like when he took Helen to Slapton Sands to see the 1999 eclipse, which had involved getting to the beach six hours before the main event to make sure they got a parking space.

The aftermath had definitely not been dull. He so wished he hadn’t kissed her during totality. The atmosphere had turned extremely awkward. If he hadn’t been so stupid, he might have turned down the New York job offer, and his life would’ve been very different.