“I’ll see you later,” he says abruptly, and strides away before I can reply. I have no idea if he’ll ever talk to me again. Still, I’m glad I said what I said.
I look affectionately down at Noah, who has been waiting patiently for us to finish talking.
“Now can I go swimming?” he says. “Now can I?”
I think of his swimming trunks, all the way back in his case in the lobby. I think of what a hassle it will be to go and get them. I think of how there’s only a few hours left of sunshine.
“Swimming in your underpants?” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Again?”
“Underpants!” he cries joyously. “Underpants! Yay!”
“Fliss!” I look up to see Nico making his way across the beach, his white shirt as starched as ever and his shoes shiny against the sand. “Where is your sister? I need to talk through the arrangements for the gala ceremony. She and her husband are our Happy Couple of the Week.”
“Well, good luck with that. She’s there.” I gesture at the yacht.
“Can you contact her?” Nico looks harassed. “Can you phone her? We should have had a rehearsal for the ceremony; everything has been thrown off course—”
“Swimming?” begs Noah, who has already ripped all his clothes off and thrown them on the sand. “Swimming, Mummy?”
As I stare down at his eager little face, something seems to pierce my heart. And suddenly I know what’s important in life. It’s not gala ceremonies. It’s not wedding nights. It’s not saving my sister. And it’s certainly not Daniel. It’s right here in front of me.
My underwear is plain and black. It would just about pass as a bikini.
“Excuse me,” I say cheerfully to Nico, and start stripping down to my bra and knickers. “I can’t stop. I’m going swimming with my son.”
After half an hour of splashing with Noah in the turquoise Aegean waves, all’s right with the world. The late-afternoon sun is baking my shoulders, my mouth is salty from the surf, and my ribs hurt from laughing.
“I’m a shark!” Noah is advancing on me through the shallows. “Mummy, I’m a splashing shark!” He splashes me furiously and I give as good back, and then we both tumble down onto the soft sandy floor of the sea.
He’ll be OK, I find myself thinking, cradling his lithe little body. We’ll both be OK. Daniel can go and live in Los Angeles if he likes. Good place for him, in fact. They like plastic people out there.
I beam at Noah bobbing alongside me.
“Isn’t this fun?”
“Where’s Aunt Lottie?” he demands in return. “You said we’d see Aunt Lottie.”
“She’s busy,” I say soothingly. “But I’m sure we’ll see her.”
Every time I glance up at the yacht looming huge in the bay, I vaguely wonder what’s happening on board. The bizarre thing is that, when I was still in England, Lottie’s affairs all felt so close and important and immediate. But now that I’m here, they feel distant.
Not my life. Not my life.
Suddenly I hear something that sounds like my name. I turn instinctively and see Lorcan standing at the water’s edge, incongruous in his business suit.
“I have something to say to you!” he shouts indistinctly.
“Can’t hear!” I yell back without moving.
I’m not rushing around anymore. Even if he wants to tell me that Lottie has had twins by Ben, who has turned out to be a Nazi warlord, I can hear it later.
“Fliss!” he calls again.
I make a hand gesture which is supposed to mean, I’m busy with Noah; let’s catch up later, but I’m not sure he gets it.
“Fliss!”
“I’m swimming!”
Some emotion seems to be gathering in Lorcan’s face. With an abrupt movement, he dumps his briefcase on the sand and marches into the shallows, still in his shoes and suit. He strides briskly through the waves until he reaches Noah and me, then stops. He’s up to his thighs in water. I’m so gobsmacked I don’t know what to say. Noah, who started gasping as Lorcan approached, now collapses in paroxysms of laughter.
“You really haven’t heard of swimming trunks, have you?” I say, trying to stay deadpan.
“I have something to say to you.” He glowers at me as though this is all my fault.
“Go on, then.”
There’s a long, long silence, apart from the noise of waves and beach chatter and the cry of a gull. Lorcan’s eyes have an extra charge of intensity, and his hand is constantly raking through his hair as though trying to order his thoughts. He takes a deep breath, and then another, but doesn’t speak.
