‘Am I in trouble?’ Cillian asked, his lower lip wobbling. ‘I don’t want to get my mum in trouble. She’s working here. I was just pretending this was buried treasure. It was just a game. This feels like a pirate’s beach, with the cliffs and the rocks.’
‘Itisburied treasure,’ Gabri blurted out in reply, startling them both. ‘And thisisa pirate’s beach, but not in the way you think.’
Cillian’s expression scrunched up in confusion.
‘There’s a turtle’s nest under there. Maybe a hundred eggs.’
His green eyes widened comically. ‘Really?’
‘That’s why it’s protected with this tape,’ Gabri explained gravely. ‘The mamma turtle came to the beach late one night and dug a big hole. Usually, she wanders around a bit beforehand, looking for the best spot and sometimes, she gives up and returns to the sea. But one mamma turtle found this exact place and moved around until she dug a hole with her?—’
He cut himself off when he realised he didn’t know the most appropriate word in English to talk about a turtle’s backside with a child.
‘She dug a hole and laid the eggs there, then she covered it up and went back out to sea. Turtles return to the same beach where they were born to lay their eggs. Now, we’re waiting to see if they will successfully hatch. When they hatch, the tiny baby turtles have to make their way safely to the sea. It’s a… delicate process and people have to keep well away so we don’t interfere.’
The alarm was back. ‘Do you think I hurt them? Will they die?’
Gabri was probably reading too much into a simple interaction – he definitely was, given his own foolishly profound emotions – but he imagined that word was more familiar on this child’s lips than it should have been.
‘I don’t think so. You didn’t dig very deep and they’re not hatching yet. Nature sometimes has a way of surprising us and allowing the weak to survive.’
The look in Cillian’s eyes was doubtful and Gabri didn’t think he was imagining that. He certainly wasn’t imagining the squeeze in his own chest.
‘Why did you say this is a pirate beach?’
‘Ah, that’s because of the local legend behind the name. It’s called the spiaggia dell’Innamorata, it means “the lovers’ beach”, or “the beach of the woman in love”. The story is from the Middle Ages and it’s about Maria, who witnesses her boyfriend, Lorenzo, being captured and killed by pirates, so she throws herself into the sea after him.’
The further he went into the story, the slower he spoke, belatedly realising that it was highly inappropriate for the boy on a number of levels.
‘I don’t think it really happened,’ Gabri added, too little, too late.
‘Why did she do that if Lorenzo was gone anyway?’
‘You know what? I have no idea.’
‘Did she become a mermaid or something? Like a scary one? I heard mermaids used to be scary.’
‘There are no ghosts in this story – or mermaids. Or treasure, I’m afraid.’ That was it – the end of the conversation. Time to say goodbye. Instead, what came out when he opened his mouth was, ‘Have you been to the next beach, around the headland? It’sa bit of a secret and you can see lots of little creatures in the rock pools.’
The boy’s face lit up in a stunning likeness of Toni when she smiled. Gabri found himself grinning back rather helplessly.
‘Cillian!’ An older woman hurried in their direction, the wind picking up her straw hat and billowing in her beach wrap. Grasping the boy’s arms, she tugged him to his feet. ‘Are you all right? I thought you were waiting for me outside the toilets! Haven’t you learned that you don’t talk to strangers?’
Cillian gave an uncomfortable shrug as Gabri hauled himself to his feet, slowly and unthreateningly.
‘I was still on the beach. I knew you’d see me when you came out,’ Cillian defended himself.
‘But anyone could—’ Her continual, uneasy glances stuck in Gabri’s throat. He’d promised Toni he’d stay away from her son, but instead, he’d stared at him in a mixture of wonder and horror and told him wild stories.
‘He was just telling me about the turtles,’ Cillian said brightly. ‘Granny, there are turtle eggs under there. One day, they’ll hatch and a hundred little turtles will go into the sea!’
‘Oh, is that… right?’ Another critical look.
‘And there were pirates here in the Middle Ages and they killed people, so their lovers threw themselves into the sea!’
Gabri struggled against a grimace, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as colour rose in his cheeks.
‘I was just letting him know that it’s not allowed to dig there – because of the turtles,’ he said as evenly as he could.
