Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach (21 page)

"You'd need to take that up with our company when you're home. 
Now I have to let my other clients know about the cancellation if you'll excuse me, Mr Thornton."

"One moment," Julian said not far below a shout, then stared at Doug. "Have you let her go?"

"She went of her own accord, Jules. We'd better give Nat the sorry news."

Ray thought Sandra and the cousins might stay seated on the wall, but they stumbled in unison after him as if they hadn't quite woken up. He would have taken Sandra's arm if the teenagers hadn't been on either side of her. As everybody passed the office, Evadne called "Do you not go out today?"

"We've been let down," Julian informed her. "Kept in the dark as well."

Her gaze dodged from side to side as if nervous of settling. "Who it in the dark?"

"Jules is saying they didn't let us know."

"I don't need a translator, thank you, Douglas." In much the same tone Julian told Evadne "Our day off the island has been cancelled."

"They do that often. That is their way."

"Well, it emphatically isn't ours," Julian said like a warning, "and it isn't what Samantha wanted us to think. She blamed the state of the sea."

"Maybe sea, maybe other troubles." Evadne seemed to make an effort to marshal her thoughts before saying "I expect the sea."

She'd left it too late to persuade Julian, and Ray felt oddly unconvinced as well. As everyone trooped past the pool Jonquil said "Maybe they don't want people getting off their island."

"That's a ridiculous idea, and I'll thank you not to tell William."

"I expect she means they want to keep us for themselves, don't you, Jonquil?" Ray said, only to find this less reassuring than he'd intended it to be.

In the play area William greeted everyone by flying into the air, while beside him the other three swings looked eager for occupants, which they might have been grinning wide-eyed to entice. "Natalie," Sandra said. "Don't be sad, but they've called off the trip."

"Oh, well." Ray glimpsed a hint of the wince that used to pinch their daughter's face whenever she was disappointed, and then he saw her recollect that they all had reason to be considerably sadder. "Never mind," she said.

"I'm sure you do, and you have every right to." As she gave him a reproachful look Julian said 'Today is still your choice."

Natalie was letting William's swing subside to help her ponder when she said "Why don't we have your day today, William, since we're here in any case."

"Can we go to the beach with the big umbrellas instead?"

"As your mother said, you chose a day at, for the sake of peace let's call it a hotel."

Sandra and the teenagers had sat on the empty swings, and Ray thought she looked as if she was trying to recapture her youth while she could. As he turned away to dab at his blurred vision William said "I don't want the lady to have to play with me all by herself. It isn't fair."

"The other children went home yesterday, Julian," Natalie said. "I can't see any harm in Sunset Beach while it's so quiet."

"I'd like to," Sandra said enthusiastically enough to sway her perch.

"Then I suppose it's decided." As everyone headed for their apartments Julian detained Ray with a beckoning finger and then the same gesture of his hand. "If you see the fellow who stole your book, point him out," he murmured. "We should have a few words with him."

Ray increasingly suspected that the thief had been deranged, quite possibly by drugs. He wasn't eager to meet him again, and was glad to be able to say "I didn't really see what he was like. I doubt I'd recognise him."

Sandra was waiting by the steps to their apartment, and he was dismayed to think she needed help until she climbed them faster than he could. In the room she grabbed towels and swimming gear and sun cream. "I wouldn't mind a higher factor if we see any," she said.

"The forecast says another cloudy day."

"Then let's buy what we need before we need it," Sandra said so forcefully it disconcerted him.

He'd never known her to use a stronger sun cream as a holiday progressed than she'd begun by using. He shouldn't argue about it or over anything else, even if avoiding disagreements felt like invoking the unspoken. He had to devote himself to ensuring that all the time she had left was as untroubled as it could be. Years ago they'd decided that they didn't want to bequeath Natalie and Doug the burden of caring for them, even less the debt of doing so. If Ray weren't going to be left alone then Sandra would have been, and when he thought about that prospect he managed to feel it was even worse. "We're still a team," he said and saw his shadow fall across her face as he kissed her lined forehead.

Tim and Jonquil were on the swings, on another of which William was twisting back and forth. He jumped off when he saw his grandparents, and the teenagers followed at their own sleepy speed, increasing it somewhat when Julian urged them. Sandra felt lighter and swifter than Ray expected, so that he had to suppress the idea of holding a memory by the hand. On the bus the cousins found seats out of reach of the sun, though it was hidden by the clouds above the mountains. At least Julian didn't make an issue of it, which meant Ray didn't need to point out how Sandra had sought the unnecessary shade as well.

The neon signs of Sunset Beach were storing up the overcast. In some of the bars and tavernas staff were sweeping up litter, broken glass glinting amid dead leaves and crumpled plastic cups. The bus halted outside a taverna called Yummy's, which earned a giggle from William. "Excuse me," Julian said as he came abreast of the driver. "Where is the stop back?"

Presumably he meant to simplify his language, but the driver's eyebrows drew together to pinch a furrow above his porous swarthy nose. "Stop back."

"Yes, the stop back." When repetition didn't work Julian indicated the opposite side of the road and swept his hand leftwards. "The stop back," he said at half his previous speed.

"That's to say," Pris intervened, "where do we catch the bus back to Teleftaiafos?"

The driver's face cleared as if the hidden sun had found it. "Wait there," he said and pointed down the road to Sinatra's British Bar.

Pris was stepping off the bus when he resumed his frown. "No bus stop after eight."

"Where is it after that?" Julian said, displaying patience.

"No," the driver said and stared hard at him. "Bus don't stop."

"Where doesn't?"

"Here," the driver said, throwing his arms wide to signify the whole length of the road. "Anywhere long here. Sunset Beach."

"That's not the case," Julian informed him. "We've seen the bus passing through our resort later than that."

The driver might have been staring at a backward pupil. "Bus comes, right. Won't stop."

"Are you telling us the people here get out of hand so early in the evening?"

"I say nothing about people." The driver looked as though he was trying to retreat behind his frown. "It is policy," he said. "And soon no stop after seven."

"Does it matter, Julian?" Natalie protested from the pavement. "We'll have gone back by then."

Julian descended the steps with a series of clanks like comments, eloquent though wordless, and seemed to feel he was regaining authority by finding a sign for the beach. It pointed down a concrete lane beside a supermarket called the Friendly Price. "Everyone go and get beds on the beach," Sandra said. "I won't be long."

Ray wasn't about to leave her. He watched her hurry to the racks of sunblock, where she found the largest plastic jar of the strongest preparation and hesitated over taking just one to the till. The large slow woman behind the desk gave the item an indifferent blink, and then her gaze strayed to the jar protruding from Sandra's bag. "You want more," she said.

"We're staying for a few days yet. I'll have run out by then."

"No, more." The woman jabbed a stubby finger at the jar in the bag and then jerked her curved fingertips upwards. "More better," she said.

"Stronger, yes, that's right. I expect I'm getting more sensitive to the sun in my old age."

The woman's eyelids drooped so nearly shut that Ray could have imagined she was dreaming or about to dream. "How you feel?"

"Oh, nothing much. Certainly nothing worth worrying about."

This was addressed mostly to Ray, who would have responded if the woman at the desk hadn't spoken. "Say how."

"Just a bit of a headache if I look at the sun too much." Since the woman seemed as dissatisfied with this as Ray was afraid he should feel, Sandra said "And I have to drink a lot of water. Don't fret, Ray, it isn't sunstroke. Remember it's given me back my appetite as well."

Ray had the odd impression that the woman found this less positive than he did. "You not stay here," she said.

Ray couldn't help reacting as Julian would have. "We aren't, but why shouldn't we?"

"I say you stay somewhere else. Sunny—"

Of course she hadn't cut herself off; the last word was the end of the sentence. "Somewhere sunny all right when it is," Ray said. "The Sunny View."

"Sunset Beach not for you. Not you or little boy." She must have seen the family outside, but Ray found her alertness disconcerting. "Not wanted," she said as if she was anxious to make her point clearer. "Too small."

Sandra might have been defending William by saying "He's growing every moment."

"Maybe he comes back."

"Not if his parents have anything to do with it." When the woman seemed uncertain how to take this Ray added "Aren't we wanted round here either? If he's too young we're too old."

"You must ask."

Ray might have retorted that he just had, but he was growing tired of the clumsy conversation; in fact, he'd begun to feel too much like Julian. "Shall we head for the beach, then?" he said to Sandra. "We don't want them worrying what's happened to us."

He ought to have stopped at the question. Once she'd paid he followed her out of the supermarket, which faced a shop called Happy Snappy across the lane. As well as cameras and every other photographic need he could have thought of, the shop displayed prints of holiday photographs. No doubt the shot of a young woman in a minimal bikini had caught a few eyes besides Ray's, but he'd begun to feel a little disloyal to Sandra until the photograph made him falter. It showed the girl standing beside the bearded shaggy-haired proprietor outside the shop, and so did the photograph next to it on the wall. The trouble was that although the proprietor had aged quite a few years in the second photograph, acquiring wrinkles and a profusion of grey hairs, the girl didn't look a day older.

Of course that was easily faked. The shots of her had been taken at the same time, and one had been patched into a more recent image of the proprietor. No doubt the pair of photographs was designed to sell Sunset Beach, though Ray thought it odd that whoever had assembled the second one hadn't touched up an imperfection: wasn't that a bite on the girl's left forearm? The proprietor was behind the counter, and watching Ray as though he found his interest questionable. If Sandra had been close enough Ray would have pointed out the photographs, but she was well on her way to the beach, and he felt worse than unfaithful for lingering over his thoughts. He was wasting time that they ought to be spending together.

He caught up with her between two blocks of holiday apartments.

Perhaps the clatter of his sandals in the alley disturbed a late sleeper, because a slatted blind shifted at a window to let a face peer out—a young man who looked uncommonly pale for Greece, even given the overcast day. He blinked at the clouds without bothering to don an expression, and then he sank back out of sight, no doubt slumping on a bed. Presumably Ray was put in mind of a prisoner because the slats of the blind bore some resemblance to the bars of a cell.

Following Sandra out of the alley felt oddly unlike emerging into the open—more like entering an artificial forest than stepping onto a seashore. The outsize umbrellas were so close together that for large stretches of the beach the shade was virtually complete. The beach was busier than Ray had expected, and the most adventurous folk had lowered their umbrellas to woo the sun or at any rate the clouds. When William's frantic waving let Ray locate the family—Sandra seemed hampered by her glasses—he saw that they'd settled on sunbeds under a cluster of open umbrellas. "Here we are," the boy called as if his grandparents might need extra help.

Julian was lowering an umbrella, a process that brought him to all fours while he clicked the lock on the shaft into place, and Ray couldn't help recalling someone else who had crouched on the beach. He glanced around, not entirely without nervousness, but none of the supine figures in the unnecessary shade seemed familiar or about to leap up. As Julian scrambled to his feet, dusting his knees like a servant impatient with a task, he said "You two will want yours down, will you?"

"I wouldn't mind some shade," Sandra said;

As if she'd awaited the cue Jonquil said "I wouldn't either."

Julian looked defeated even before Tim said "There's three of us."

"Don't worry, Jules," Doug said. "You aren't the only sunny person here."

"We'll have some sun if we can find it," Pris agreed. "And the shady trinity can share an umbrella, can't you? They're big enough."

When Jonquil dragged her sunbed under the umbrella her grandparents had selected Ray felt bound to vacate his lounger, even though this separated him from Sandra. "You have this one, Tim."

As Pris stood up from lowering her family's umbrella Jonquil said "What were you buying, gran?"

"It's perfectly all right, Julian," Sandra said. "Just some stronger sun cream for my poor old skin."

"I wish I had some," Jonquil said.

Ray didn't know why he held his breath until Tim spoke. "And me."

"Well then, you both shall. Just let me get protected and then you can. Could someone do my back for me?"

Ray always had. He found it a chore—both putting cream on Sandra and the dull process of smearing it on himself—but now he felt guilty for begrudging any help he could give her, and he was about to undertake it when Jonquil did. Her method differed from his, though he couldn't make out how. While she didn't take long over her grandmother's back, she used as much cream as he would have, and yet it seemed to be more readily absorbed, as if Sandra's skin was greedy for moisture. She dealt with the rest of herself and then with Jonquil's back as the girl did with her cousin's, and Ray had an odd sense of watching a ritual. He was distracted by Pris, who said "Shall I get your back, Ray?"