I’m marching away from him now, aware of the fierce Corsican sun beating down on my head. Meanwhile my son’s tender skin is slowly frying because of his stubbornness. I can’t bear it. I can’t let him do this to himself. So I swing round and, once again, I hurry back to him, simultaneously squirting a dollop of sunscreen onto my hand.
‘What are you doing?’ he exclaims.
‘Let me put some on you.’
‘No.’
‘Just a little bit, please—’
‘You’ve gone mad!’
‘This is ridiculous,’ I protest. ‘It’s like you want to burn to make some kind of point—’
‘You’re not putting it on me—’
‘I am!’ I lurch at him, and as I splat the lotion onto his upper arm he flies back, his shoulder slamming into the bin – ‘Agggh! Fucking hell, Mum!’ – sending the wasps spinning into a frenzy.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ I start. But Charlie’s focus is on his upper arm, which he is now clutching and staring at in alarm.
‘See, youareburnt,’ I start.
‘No, Mum. I’ve been stung.’
‘Have you? Let me see …’
‘Get away from me!’ he shouts.
‘What’s that lady doing to that boy?’ a child’s voice rings out. I look round to see the shell-collecting family all staring, horrified,at the lady attacking the boy.
‘Come on, darling,’ the woman says primly. ‘It’s nothing to do with us.’ Off they all march, with the mum occasionally glancing back, looking concerned, as if she might be considering calling the police.
Above us an aeroplane trail cuts across the cloudless sky. The turquoise sea sparkles and the teenagers jump up from their towels and run, all laughing, into it. My son has been stung, and he’s barking at me tojust get awayand there’s nothing I can do to make it better. So I turn away, my heart slowly cracking as I remember all the times Charlie would charge joyfully into the sea, just like those beautiful kids have now.
Years ago, when he was still a little boy, the two of us loved to swim together. I’d swum competitively as a child and Charlie had taken to it easily too. Until that terrible day, the final straw with his father and me – after which he’d refused to ever go into the sea again.
At least he still enjoyed the beach. I was relieved about that. He’d poke about, collecting things, running over to me with an unusual shell or a piece of amber glass. ‘A sea present for you,’ he’d say, all pleased with himself.
Of course, he doesn’t bring me sea presents now or even want to hang out with me. I’m fine with that. I’d be fine with anything if only Charlie wasn’t making it soobvious that he wishes he hadn’t come. And now, as a tear rolls down my cheek and I ram my tube of Factor 30 back into my bag, I think, at least I was right aboutonething.
We might as well be in Luton.
CHAPTER TWO
JAMES
My daughter has ‘packed’ for our trip. By this, I mean she’s dumped three enormous open suitcases in the hallway with mounds of stuff spewing out. They look as if they’ve been searched in haste by border force officials.
Bottles and tubs of mysterious stuff (one with its lid off, leaking some kind of goo) are scattered all over the wooden floor, along with various electrical appliances, presumably for styling hair but possibly for soldering or waffle making – who knows? Not to mention handbags, hats, jewellery strewn about like tinsel and tiny lacy scraps of things, plus clothes –somany clothes, scattered in multicoloured drifts. She must be planning several outfit changes per day. Was it really such a good idea for us to go away together?
Of course it is, I tell myself. Since her mother and I split up I’ve taken Esther on holiday plenty of times. Okay, so the last time – when she was seventeen – she lay by the pool, sunglasses clamped on, barely uttering a word all week apart from asking what the Wi-Fi password was. And the next year she made it clear that she wouldn’t berepeating the experience. However, she’s twenty now, and I came up with the idea as a way of helping to ‘clear her head’.
I hadn’t really expected her to say yes. ‘A whole fortnight?’ she’d exclaimed. ‘Withyou?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘But what’ll we do?’
‘You can just relax and do whatever you like. I promise I won’t drag you around museums or anything like that.’
