Disclaimer

29

… It was the sort of day where, if you weren’t careful, you could get very badly burnt. The sun was strong, but a thin layer of cloud masked its ferocity, and the cooling wind lulled the ignorant into exposing their skin without protection. Charlotte was not ignorant. She had covered her own body in protective oil and was now rubbing cream into her little boy. He made quite a song and dance of it, they both did: Charlotte demonstrating what a conscientious mother she was, and her son, Noah, resisting his mother’s hands and complaining that the cream was stinging his eyes.

His shrieks were particularly grating that day, because Charlotte had a hangover. She knew she was rubbing harder than she needed to, irritated by her son’s willfulness and wanting to force him to her own. He had sand on his body, so it was as if she was stripping him down with sandpaper, and she was careless too with his face, cream catching on the eyelashes of one eye. She dabbed at it with a towel, but he was crying now and she felt like crying too. She just wanted him to go away. She wished she could enjoy just one day, this last day, in the sunlight, with her lover.

John was still asleep in his hotel room, his cheap hotel. It had been five in the morning when he’d returned there after being with Charlotte in her five-star luxury. They had made love all night, her son asleep in the next-door room. The little boy hadn’t heard his mother’s sighs as her young lover pleasured her; he hadn’t heard the clink of their glasses as they drank together, and then made love over and over.

So while Charlotte wrestled with sun cream on the beach, John slept in. He slept well, like an adolescent. At nineteen, he hadn’t quite stopped growing, still exhausted by the demands of his own body, and by those that had been made on it the night before. Charlotte couldn’t get enough of him, she’d worked him hard. She knew her time was running out and though she had persuaded him not to go to Tangiers, she would soon be flying home to her husband. She made the most of him that night, and she anticipated more the following, their last together.

She tried to play her part of mother, but her performance that morning was lacklustre. She lay on her stomach trying to sleep while Noah dug with his spade. He chiselled away at the beach, but the wind, along with his excavations, sent gritty sand into Charlotte’s face. Enough, she thought, and finally said:

“Ice cream?”

Noah stopped digging. “Yep, yep,” he yapped, and Charlotte slipped her cotton dress over her bikini, put a T-shirt on Noah, and, hand in hand, they left the beach.

As they climbed the steps towards the shops, John walked towards them. They passed each other, these lovers, and no one would have known they had ever met. His stomach slid with excitement, and hers with desire at the sight of his sleepy eyes and bedded hair. They almost touched they were so close, they could smell each other and she breathed him in and then smiled, but not at John. She was cleverer than that. She directed the smile meant for John at Noah. But John knew it was for him and Noah was taken in, pleased to see that Mummy was happy, and he smiled back, the little innocent. He was so grateful for that gift which wasn’t even intended for him.

John recognised Charlotte’s towel and placed his a few feet away, as usual, making sure there were other bodies between him and them. Far enough away so Noah wouldn’t register him, but close enough so he and Charlotte could look at each other. Since that first day in the café, they had been careful about Noah. She didn’t want him to recognise John, she didn’t want Noah to get friendly with him, “in case he takes to you,” she’d said, and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have Noah mentioning anything to his father about the nice man they met on holiday, Mummy’s new friend.

John, eyes closed, head down, heard them arriving back on the beach before he saw them. Noah was chatting away at the top of his voice, thrilled about something, so John sneaked a look, intrigued. Noah was pulling an inflatable dinghy behind him, bouncing it along the sand by a rope. He’d been asking his mother for days for a blow-up toy, nagging, and this their last day on the beach was the day she chose to indulge him. Any inflatable toy would have done, but she chose the yellow and red dinghy, using her charm to persuade the man in the shop to empty his lungs and blow it up. She didn’t have the puff, she’d said and smiled. She’d used up so much of her “puff” the night before.

The dinghy was a gift for Charlotte as much as Noah. It would distract her son, she hoped, keep him entertained so she could relax with her book, with her thoughts. Noah wasn’t very good at amusing himself, but this red and yellow plastic boat seemed to do the trick. For the first time in the holiday, he seemed happy in his own company, lost in his own little world. He sat in it on the sand, chatting to himself, and his mother stretched out on her front and turned her head to face her lover. John mirrored her, turning his head to her, their eyes locking. There were people between them, but they didn’t notice them, so absorbed were they in studying each other. She devoured him and he her. Her red bikini, only just covering the parts of her body he had come to know so well. He could visualise every part without even trying. It was as if she lay there naked. Her breasts, her buttocks, her pubic bone. He imagined her smell too, from where he lay, and his erection pressed into the sand.

He was desperate to touch her, desperate to slide under her and into her. And she knew that, she could see it on his face, in his eyes, and she turned on her side, her breasts moving inside her bikini, pushing against her arm as she leant on it, and she parted her lips and smiled. Then she reached for her book and pretended to read, but really she was posing for him, her lover. Teasing him.

Her arm must have ached after a while, and she sat up. She was restless, bored. She looked at her son, but he was happy, he didn’t need her to entertain him now he was captain of his own ship. She looked up and caught the eye of the mother of the family next to her. Her children were older, adolescents. Charlotte had noticed her smiling at Noah and now Charlotte smiled at her.

“Do you speak English?” she asked.

The woman shrugged and said, “A little.” Then Charlotte mimed a charade of the woman watching Noah while she went to the loo. The mother of the two adolescents was all too pleased to keep an eye on the sweet little English boy. Charlotte was so grateful, she gave the woman her best smile and leaned over to Noah and told him she would be gone for only a moment. She needed the loo. She worried he might need it too, or make a fuss about her going, but he didn’t. He was as good as gold. He didn’t even watch as she slipped on her sandals, thin-strapped silver, flat, a thong between her elegant toes, and walked to the toilets. John was watching though. He watched her as she walked towards the toilets at the back of the beach, her hips swaying. He wanted to follow, but he had to wait, make himself decent, so he focused on a leathery-skinned woman, topless, buttocks withering from her thong, until his erection subsided.

Charlotte had stopped off at the showers, raising her face into the water and slicking back her hair as if she was entirely alone, and not on a public beach. She was well aware of John watching her. She turned off the shower, and walked into the toilets. John followed. No one else was there and he knew where to find Charlotte: in the changing cubicle at the end of the line of toilets. He tapped on the door and she opened up. Straightaway he slipped his hand into her bikini bottoms. He knew that she preferred to keep them on, she’d told him she liked to feel their tautness around her. His fingers searched and found the soft, wet smoothness she had shown him. He lifted her onto the slatted wooden bench and pushed her bottoms to one side, opening her up gently with his fingers, then pushing his tongue up and down her, around her, just where she had shown him, just the way he knew she liked it. She had taught him so much. She pushed her arms against the sides of the cubicle, stopping herself from falling and she was so wet that he couldn’t tell what was her and what was his own saliva. The poor boy was drunk with love. Out of his mind with it. Even when they heard someone come in, he couldn’t stop, and she wouldn’t have stopped him anyway. They heard a bolt slam, they heard a gush of someone else’s pee, and she pulled down his trunks and pushed herself onto him, wrapping her legs around him and kissing his mouth, and taking what had been hers, from his mouth into her own and swallowing it back into herself. And he clung to her, and held her, stronger than her and yet not. And then it was over, and she smiled and took his face in her hands as if he were a little boy. She kissed him on his lips, on his neck, and then finally on his forehead. A punctuation mark so that he would know that was all for now.

They waited for the intruder to leave and then Charlotte opened the door and looked out. She went first, he followed a few moments later. She showered again but John kept walking, passing his towel and running straight into the sea, plunging down into a wave.

Little Noah was still in his boat, chatting away to himself. Charlotte had been longer than she thought. The mother had packed up their things; she and her family needed to go. She waved good-bye to Noah and Charlotte thanked her, stroking her son’s head as she did so. Then she watched, on guard again, as he pulled his dinghy closer to the sea. He wasn’t in the water, he was on the sand. He was happy. She hugged her knees and looked at him, smiling at his contentment. She was exhausted and lay down. If she turned her head just a little, she could still see Noah. John returned to his towel, rubbing himself down, looking at Charlotte, but her head was turned away, so he lay on his back and closed his eyes too. He dozed, thinking about the night ahead, a smile on his face as he imagined what they would do to each other.

When he woke the wind had got up and he put on his T-shirt. Charlotte was asleep. It was then that John noticed Noah. He was still in the boat, but floating now in the shallows, happy being bounced around by the sea. In, out, in, out. Charlotte woke and turned to see what John was looking at. Perhaps she was surprised that something, other than her, had caught his attention. In, out, in, out went the dinghy, but each time the out was a little farther and the in a little less. The sea had become rough and there was a strong undercurrent dragging on the dinghy, pulling it out, a space of choppy water growing between Noah and the shore, where other people swam and played, but none of them noticed the little English boy drifting out to sea.

John stood up and looked over to Charlotte. She was on her feet, but they didn’t move. They stayed planted on her towel. She looked at John, fear on her face, then back at Noah, but still she didn’t move. She called out to Noah, and then she called out to John. “Help,” she said. “Help me.” And John would do anything for her. He ran immediately to the water’s edge, and only then did she move. John led the way and she followed. She called to Noah again and he looked up and waved back at her, not a bit frightened. And still no one did anything and there were no lifeguards on the beach, but John could see that Noah’s boat was heading out in the wrong direction. Heading out to sea. Soon he would be a speck in the distance….

John ran, kicking sand into sunbathers, and dived into the sea. He swam out towards Noah. Strong, a strong young man, a strong swimmer. The current pulled at him, but he went with it, letting the sea use its energy to pull him towards the little boy, so he could conserve his for the swim back. It was a strategy. He knew what he was doing, and he focused on his strokes, clean, powerful. And he reached Noah and then he saw how frightened he was, calling out to his mother, but she wouldn’t have been able to hear him. He must have wondered why she didn’t come and get him. Why hadn’t she swum out for him? He was trying to stand but he kept falling — the waves licking the sides of the dinghy and spitting into it. The plastic was too slippery and the boat rocked too much. He was in a panic, a blind panic. John tried to calm him down. He told him to sit still and hold on tight to the handles on the boat. But the little boy was frozen, staring towards the beach, hoping that his mother would come and get him. John grabbed the rope and made a fist around it then began the swim back to shore.

He could see a line of people watching, and at the heart of them, Charlotte in her red bikini. He used every muscle in his body, pushed them harder than he ever had before. Red, glossy sinews pulling, stretching, blood pumping. The sea had become his enemy, no longer carrying him, but pushing him back instead. And the wind had joined forces with it, whipping the waves, bouncing the boat as if trying to tip Noah out and John had called to him to hold tight. When he looked back Noah was still rigid, gripping the handles but still staring beyond John, searching for his mother. Perhaps he thought the boat was making its own way back to shore.

John’s eyes stung from the salt and his body had gone numb. He had become an automaton, arms and legs propelling him forward. There was no strategy now. He swam to the rhythm of the blood thumping in his ears. And then two men, two other brave men, broke away from the group and ran, then swam into the sea towards the young man and boy. One was ahead of the other, a stronger swimmer. He was fast, the sea helping him, sending him towards John and Noah, and he reached them and took the rope from John, pulling the precious cargo back towards the beach. No time for niceties, the man turned straight round and swam back. John reached out to hold on to the back of the dinghy.

As the man approached the shore others rushed in to help him, grabbing the boat, taking care of the child. John saw them and he saw that Noah was safe. He saw them on the shore. He was still in the sea — a long way out. He’d lost his grip, but no one had noticed him: he watched as the second rescuer turned back, joining the throng and pulling the little boy to safety. John’s hands were white with cold and streaked with red where he had clung on to the rope. He couldn’t feel his hand. All he could feel were his lungs. They had grown, become outsize, no longer room for them in his rib cage. He gasped for breath, but instead he took in a mouthful of water. He had wasted precious time not swimming. Looking at his hand, thinking about his lungs, and the sea had pushed him back and he would have to swim every stroke again just to get back to the point where he had released Noah.

He tried, he really tried. Then he began to hope that perhaps someone would come for him. That someone would remember he was out there. And he wanted his mother. He wanted his mother to come and carry him out of the water. Like Noah, he yearned for the safety of his mother’s arms. He tried to wave to them on the shore but his arms had lost their power. He couldn’t wave. He couldn’t swim anymore. He pushed down at the sea with his arms, as if he could make it sink and become shallower. He was frightened. They say drowning is one of the better ways to die, but John was scared because he knew no one would come for him now. He had spent the last of his strength on her child.

And then he saw a boat. And he thought for a moment that it would be fine. But when they reached him he had already gone under two or three times. They threw a rope for him but he couldn’t grab it because he was dead. He was already dead when they reached him. They pulled him in and laid him out in the boat. Someone tried the kiss of life, put their mouth over his. Someone pumped his chest. They drove the boat back to the beach and carried the young man’s body, three of them, onto the beach and they kissed him again. Again they tried to revive him. They pumped at his chest but he had gone.

And at the other end of the beach a small crowd gathered around the little boy and his mother. They were protecting him from seeing that the man who had saved him was lying dead, further down the beach. And Charlotte was on her knees, wrapping a towel around Noah, shielding him from the sight of her dead lover.