‘It’s the nice man!’ The boy was pointing at him. ‘The magic welly man!’
Rosie turned, again shading her eyes. Hers found his, and for a moment the world was still. It was the two of them, no one else, no other sound, nothing. Just them.
And then the moment passed and there was nothing else he could do, except let go of the buoy and wave.
The little girl was waving back. ‘Show us your swimming,’ she called.
He didn’t know what she meant exactly, but he managed to perform a few tricks, the kind that easily impressed children would enjoy. He pretended to be a shark by swimming on his side, with a poked-out elbow fin. He then disappeared under the sea, his feet reappearing first. He even managed to perform what he thought could be a kind of porpoise where he shimmied along the surface. The children clapped and cheered at this one-man synchronised-swimming routine.
Patrick glanced at Rosie and she too was laughing, which was all he cared about, if he was honest. He might never see her again after these two more days and he was struck suddenly by how tragic it was that the one person he wanted to talk to was the person it was hardest to talk to and he was about to leave her all over again, for the second time in his life.
Eventually, he ran out of aquatic tricks and made his way to the steps, where the twins were now getting in the water and dragging him back in. He floated around in the shallows with the children, chasing them in the water, rising out of the sea like a giant sea creature, the two of them shrieking and hanging off him. He floated on his back and they held on as though he was a life raft. Rosie sat on the lower steps, half-submerged by the sea, shielding her eyes from the sun so he couldn’t see her expression.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ she said. ‘You can play by yourselves, can’t you?’
The twins nodded but he didn’t mind because he was enjoying himself. He hadn’t had such carefree messing around for years. The twins were charming and polite and it was lovely to be around them, living in the moment, with nothing to gain from life except to squeeze as much joy as possible out of it.
Eventually, Rosie stood up. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘If you both get dressed really quickly, we might have time for an ice cream.’ She reached out to pull the twins up and they grasped her hands, wet and splashy, laughing, the sun in their eyes, hanging off her, as though their legs had stopped working. ‘Isabelle, Killian, come on! There’s an ice cream at stake!’ she said.
‘Ice cream and steak?’ said Killian, still twisting around, on the second step, his feet in the clear water.
‘Killian, seriously. We’re not going to have time,’ warned Rosie, and Killian, realising how much danger he was in, quickly stopped and dashed to his clothes, where Isabelle was already wriggling out of her suit and back into her shorts and T-shirt. Patrick was also getting out and, for a moment, as he ducked behind Rosie, he was acutely aware that under no circumstances should their bodies touch, even the lightest brush, the slightest whisper.
Rosie turned to face Patrick as he pulled himself up using the railings, and standing to his full height, her eyes for a moment flickered over him and then she looked away.
He focused on getting changed back into his shorts and shirt.
When they were all changed, they reconvened beside the bench. ‘Time for a quick ice cream?’ Rosie said, smiling at him.
He found himself nodding, not able to think of anything to say. So far from the smooth-talking Patrick Power of Boston. But, actually, it wasn’t because he had so little to say, he actually had so much he wanted to say, he just wasn’t sure he could keep it all in. Luckily, the twins filled the silence.
‘What’s your favourite ice cream?’ Isabelle asked him.
‘Mine’s raspberry riddle,’ said Killian.
‘Mine’s a 99,’ said Isabelle.
‘Ah, old-school,’ approved Patrick, finally able to find his voice.
Was this happening? Was he really about to go for an ice cream with Rosie O’Malley, who he thought he had lost completely, a remnant from another age, someone he had lost so many nights thinking about? It wasn’t quite real, somehow, but he found himself walking with Rosie and her niece and nephew towards the ice cream van and he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt quite so happy.
31
ROSIE
The sun was reaching its zenith, the heat rising as they licked their ice creams. The children were telling them about their teacher Mrs Juniper and how they were trying to make a car from an old bicycle. She and Patrick barely talked to each other, the two falling into something akin to an old friendship, as though they didn’t need words, or perhaps words would make everything complicated, and that this delicate ecosystem needed gentle handling.
‘Shall we head back?’ she said, standing up and brushing crumbs from Killian’s shorts and handing a corner of her beach towel so Isabelle could wipe her mouth. ‘We’ve got the garden picnic next.’ She turned to Patrick. ‘Would you like a lift?’
He nodded, looking at her. ‘If you have room?’
‘Of course we have room!’ said Killian. ‘It’s gigantic. And me and Isabelle are small and we can go in the back and you can go in the front and we’ll all fit.’
‘Well, if you’re sure?’ Patrick smiled at him. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t rain again.’ He turned to Rosie, giving her a look.
She laughed. ‘Putting up gazebos is not a talent of mine…’ She paused. ‘Or lighting barbecues.’
He laughed. ‘I thought we’d arrived at the filming of some disaster film.Towering Inferno.’
