Eighteen-year-old Londoner Josh feels all at sea, holidaying with his family on the Isle of Wight. He’d rather be living it up in Ibiza, dancing until all hours, and maybe finding out what it’s like to be with another man. What chance does he have of getting lucky with his newly-single mum and little sisters in tow?<br><br>Cambridge student Rupe is making the most of his summer job at the boating lake, charming customers with his good looks and theatrical manner. Life looks even sunnier when he meets the cute, inexperienced Josh and asks him out for a date on a boat. But there are dark clouds in Rupe’s life, and even love on an island isn’t always plain sailing.

All at Sea

“Father can be, well…” Rupe stared off into the clouds that were billowing around the sky. “You mustn’t mind anything he says. Best to just play along, really. He has senile dementia, you see.”


“Started around ten years ago, although we didn’t know at the time, of course. He started to forget things. People.” Rupe took a deep breath and flashed me the worst acted smile I’d ever seen. “So you mustn’t mind anything he says. Or does. He can’t help it, the poor old dear. But he was having one of his better days when I came out this morning, so he may be quite all right.”


He led me around the house to a side door that opened without a key. We walked through the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen—the table in the middle was bigger than our whole kitchen back home, I reckoned—and into a black-and-white tiled hallway with a wide staircase leading up off it.


Chapter 6