Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach (22 page)

"I was going to," Natalie said.

"You haven't lost it, Ray," Sandra declared. "You've still got women fighting over you."

He tried not to hear a prediction—a wish for his lonely future. After an awkward silence Pris said "You keep it in the family then, Nat."

Ray managed not to flinch as Natalie's hand chill with cream found the back of his neck. Once she returned the jar to him he set about coating his torso and limbs, a lengthier task than Sandra had needed. He was silently cursing the grains of sand that somehow always managed to invade the ointment when Natalie said "Who's for a swim?"

"Grandad isn't."

"Never mind, William." Since it was plain the boy still did, Ray said "Someone has to watch out for the things and take the photographs."

"What things?"

Ray was beginning to wonder how few words were safe to utter around William, especially when Julian frowned. "All the belongings everyone's leaving here," Ray said and felt as if he'd needed a translator.

William seized his parents' hands to speed up the treat. "Isn't Jonquil coming in?"

As though she was somehow responding Sandra said "I'll have a swim while I can."

Presumably she meant while the sky was overcast, but Ray doubted he was alone in taking her remark another way, though that couldn't have been why Jonquil said "We'll come with you, gran."

As they followed the others into the sea, not quite holding hands, Ray was disconcerted to notice what the trio had in common: now Sandra had a bite on her arm. He remembered seeing that arm on the quilt last night, and wished he'd known there was an insect in the room. Why hadn't it bitten him as well, or preferably instead? He watched her wade into the shallows and eventually reach enough depth for a swim, and managed to relax to some extent when she didn't wince as the salt water found her arm. Now he was supposed to be playing the photographer.

The camera was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. For years he'd found it entirely convenient, but now he wondered if the screen that was its only viewfinder was too small for his ageing vision. Even when he shaded his eyes he had to strain to focus on Sandra, and defining Tim and Jonquil on the screen was just as hard. Perhaps the ripples that surrounded all of them made their outlines difficult to capture, especially at the limit of the zoom. He was zooming out as gradually as his infirm fingers could manage when he saw a woman with a swollen midriff approaching him along the beach.

She was pregnant just with cash. The bulge was a bag that matched her black dress. As Ray dug money out of the tangled mesh that was the pocket of his trunks she said "How many?"

"Just the three, thanks."

Her long face grew thinner still as she sucked her cheeks in. "How many are you?"

"Nine," Ray said, which he thought should be evident from the items on the sunbeds. "Everybody else is in the drink."

She seemed not to like this answer much. "Maybe you need more."

"I shouldn't think so, not with your jumbo umbrellas. Is there a reason they're so big?"

"Some people want."

"I can imagine why when there's so much drinking."

"Drinking," she said like an undefined question.

"That's what people come here for, isn't it?" The money he was holding out had begun to feel absurdly like a bid to close the subject. "I don't mean we did," he said. "We're away from all this."

"You come for peace." Before he could determine whether she was saying he would have it she said "Nine beds, twenty euros."

"And we're here for the sun as well."

"Wanting will not bring." As Ray wondered if she meant some other wish was more likely to come true she took the cash and pointed at the nearest taverna. "Show your ticket at Aegean Taste," she said, "and you don't pay that much."

Ray had a sense of returning to the everyday from somewhere he was altogether less sure of. He stuffed the receipt into his pocket and peered at the sea to locate Sandra and the rest of them among the swimmers. He was about to switch on the camera when the pallid red-haired chubby man on the next occupied sunbed rolled onto his stomach to squint sideways at him. "Isn't what you're looking for, eh?"

"Sorry." While he wasn't, Ray felt obliged to add "What is?"

"You said you were after the sun. So you never saw what it's like here online."

"My wife and I had a look, yes. I believe most of the family did."

"That's what I'm saying. What it's really like, that's not there." With a grin Ray found less than appropriate the man added "You'd wonder why nobody's said."

"Perhaps they're too happy with the rest of it. Anyway, I think my son did find some reference eventually."

"Good for him." The grin rendered this equivocal. "We're not complaining, us," the man said. "We won't burn for one."

Ray saw he was including his wife and teenage son, both of whom were as red-haired and pale. "How long have you been here?"

"Got in yesterday like the rest of them."

"I think you may find the sun builds up despite the clouds. Some of my family have." Ray didn't know why he was anxious to learn "The rest of whom?"

"All this lot except for yours," the man said, encompassing the shore with a loose gesture. "If they weren't on our plane they were on the ferry."

Ray met the grin, though his own felt uncertain. "You don't mean everybody on the beach."

"I reckon, don't you, Madge? Shall we give them a yell?"

"I'll do it." His wife took a breath that stretched her capacious swim-suit top to shout "Who's here that just got in?"

Ray saw hands and in some cases entire bodies raised on both sides of him—dozens of them. The response spread as people further off asked what the question was and then joined in, until he could have thought the entire beach was being roused from slumber. "What's the survey for?" someone called.

"Just seeing we were right," Madge told her. "Everyone's new here."

"The day shift," her husband said.

Ray glanced out to sea—he'd begun to find the beach unsettling—and saw Sandra and the teenagers heading inshore. "Excuse me," he said and fumbled with the camera. "I'm meant to be the official photographer."

As Sandra and the cousins rose from the sleepy waves he tried to capture all three of them, but it didn't work. Perhaps they were too widely spaced for him to focus on, or just at different distances from the lens, but concentrating on Sandra didn't solve the problem. Whenever her image came close to growing sharp the manual focus shifted to another subject—one or more of the family, or someone unrelated, or even just the waves. Ray switched to automatic focus, but this failed to do the job, catching hold of any item in the frame except her. Perhaps his eyes rather than the camera were at fault, and he was so desperate for it to display more competence than him that he raised a hand in the impolite Greek gesture to detain Sandra and her companions. He took shots of them separately and together and with the rest of their party in the background as well, trusting the camera to do its automatic best even if he couldn't judge how efficiently it was performing. When the three began to look uncomfortable he beckoned them onto the beach. "Did you take some good ones?" Sandra said, grabbing her hat before she sank onto the bed beneath the umbrella.

"I hope so. Maybe it's the light, but I've been having trouble focusing." Ray thought of stopping there but said "You weren't in as long as usual."

"I started feeling a bit odd." As Ray wondered how much he could ask her while Tim and Jonquil would hear, she said "Nothing to worry about. I felt a bit watery again, that was all."

"How do you mean?"

"Like William's word." Disconcertingly, this didn't come from Sandra. "Like you're made of water," Jonquil said.

"We mostly are, aren't we? Everybody is." This was Tim, who threw Ray even more by saying "I felt like that as well."

Sandra uncapped a litre of water and took quite a swig before offering Ray the bottle, by which time the teenagers were drinking from their own. What was wrong with that? You were advised to avoid dehydration when you were anywhere like Greece. Ray was swallowing a mouthful cold enough to make him shiver—surely this was all that did—when his red-headed neighbour said "You've never gone and got yourself a lovebite, son."

"How can he have?" Madge protested. "He's been with us."

The teenager's pale face turned variously red. "An insect got me while I was asleep," he muttered.

"Was that what all the moaning was about?" his father said. "Sounded like you were having one hell of a dream."

"About that girl who looked at me when we was having dinner," the boy said lower and more red-faced still.

"Just you keep her in your dreams and nowhere else," his mother said. "You don't know what you could catch round here."

"Mam," the boy complained, fingering his neck, and Ray could have thought the reference to infection had darkened the overcast day as if the shade in which Sandra and the teenagers were lying had reached for him. The woman's remark had brought the state of the corpse in the cave to mind, but at least he was glad that Julian and Natalie appeared to have abandoned looking for signs of an epidemic. As for himself, he'd never even begun. With every day that passed he seemed to have less room in his mind to be concerned with anything but Sandra.

***

"Yes, come in, all my friends. Welcome to Aegean Taste." Their host was expansive in every sense. His midriff strained at his white shirt as if eager to advertise the taverna. His rounded brown face was as glossy as his raked black hair, and his wide blue eyes glistened just as much, "Everywhere for you, my friends," he said. "Sit where is good."

They were the first customers for lunch. Like its neighbours, the taverna boasted umbrellas as large as the ones on the beach. When Sandra and the teenagers headed for the shadiest, everyone else followed them. "You will drink," the manager said, which stopped barely short of an assumption. "Wine for you?"

"At least two soft drinks, please," Julian said.

"Eat too, my friends. Catch of day is special."

"Pris is mine," Doug took the chance to say.

As Ray and Sandra awarded this a sigh each Natalie said "Then Julian must be my catch."

Ray saw Jonquil find somewhere else to look. Not least in a bid to leave any awkwardness behind he said "Sandra's always been mine."

None of the adults seemed to know how vigorously they should react, and the youngsters were growing more embarrassed. Perhaps Jonquil meant to change the subject by saying "They never have one of the night."

William giggled, if a little tentatively. "What can you catch at night?"

"Nothing at all, I hope," Natalie said.

"That's right, William," Julian said and stared at Jonquil. "Nights are for sleeping and that's all."

The manager's return with a stack of menus came as a relief. "Everything for you, my friends," he said.

Though Ray felt abashed for finding him a little too effusive, he could have thought the man was sweating with the performance. Wasn't he just being hospitably Greek? There was surely no reason to think the effort was conscious, and Ray didn't really glimpse a hint of guilt as their host glanced at the most shaded of the tables, unless the man felt Vasilema had let down its visitors by failing to provide more sun. Everyone ordered the catch of the day, including William. "We take bones away for you," the manager told him.

Having met this with a giggle, the boy seemed uncertain until Natalie said "The gentleman's going to bone your fish."

"You don't like head, my friend?" When William shook his the manager said "We take that too."

Ray couldn't help recalling the corpse in the cave, and saw Julian was reminded as well. He felt as if his thoughts were lying in wait for him without emerging into the open, and made a bid to quash them. "Here's something odd," he said. "Everybody on the beach has only just arrived."

"Now, Ray," Sandra said more mildly than he thought was called for. "How can you know that?"

"Someone asked and they all said they were."

"If you say so," Julian said, "but you'll forgive me, what's the significance?"

It seemed important to answer this, and Ray was struggling to think when Julian frowned at the beach. "Is that that fellow?"

"Who?" Jonquil said but didn't look.

"Not your follower. I've been keeping my eyes open for him, never fear. What's the fellow's name," Julian said more like a protest than a question. "The guide."

Natalie was on her feet, "Jamie," she said.

As Ray located him Jamie caught sight of them all. He was wearing shorts and an open shirt that revealed he hadn't bothered bleaching his chest hair. He glanced aside at once, fingering his lips to mime being overtaken by a thought, and turned away to retreat along the beach. "One moment, James," Julian called, and louder "James."

Perhaps Jamie didn't like this version of his name, since he kept on without looking back. At least he wasn't walking much faster than Ray, who followed Natalie and Julian to hear what might be said. "Jamie, hold on," Natalie shouted loud enough to raise the heads of a dozen sunbathers or whatever they'd be named at Sunset Beach.

This time Jamie had to turn, although Ray thought he briefly put on speed. By the time the guide faced the three of them he'd adopted a professional smile that seemed eager to suggest he hadn't previously noticed them. "Hi there again," he cried. "How's all the family? Having the time of your lives?"

"We're glad we came," Natalie said. "You remember us, then."

"I remember every last one of my clients." Perhaps Jamie decided this was too large a claim, because his smile wobbled for a moment. "Remind me where we met again," he said.

"We were on your cruise around the island."

"You were lucky with your day. We've had to cancel some trips since." With what Ray could have thought was haste Jamie added "Of course, your son was the clever little chap."

"He's the pride of the family," Julian said. "You'll remember you took us to your beach by the cave."

"I don't think we actually took you there. You can say we passed it if you want."