Girl Unknown(76)

‘Well?’ he demanded of her. Then, without waiting, he marched to the far end of the pool.

She rose slowly from the sun-lounger, removing her sunglasses with a deliberate air and placing them carefully on the table. In a single movement, she reached down for the hem of her dress and pulled it up over her head, revealing a small mint-green bikini with orange laces tied at the back of her neck and below each hip.

Chris grinned. ‘Here she goes!’ he said, watching as she stepped to the water’s edge. It was not pride or amusement I heard in his voice, but nerves.

I took in the curve of her hip, the crevice running the length of her spine. Shoulder-blades pronounced like wings, she was so thin. Her breasts were small but shapely, neatly cupped by the bikini. Narrow thighs, rounded calves tapering to narrow ankles. Her skin was smooth and lightly tanned, unblemished apart from a large mole the size of a one-euro coin just above her knee.

I was transfixed by her body and held by Robbie’s expression as she took her place beside him. Bare-chested, his shoulders wide and square, his waist and legs skinny, there was something fierce about him, as if the challenge thrown down was far more than just a race. They stood at the lip of the pool, the sparkling water a backdrop to their lithe youthful bodies, and I felt a tug of sadness I couldn’t explain or understand.

Robbie was first to break the water. Harnessing the power in those newly widened shoulders, he charged ahead, Zo?’s strokes even and patient as she glided in the wake of all that froth and foam. They reached the end, tipped the side and turned back. The heat had sucked the life from my own limbs and I could see that once the first burst of his energy had been used up, Robbie was flagging, his strokes becoming more erratic, while Zo? continued calmly. When he reached the end first, he drew himself up, ready to express his triumph, but instead, as she caught up, she simply tipped the lip of the pool, then swerved in the water, kicking off for another lap. The race was not done yet.

He shouted: ‘Hey!’ then plunged after her, messy strokes, like an excited puppy, but she had found her groove, strong and steady. She swam with confidence, never looking back to check his progress, her face turning in the water, her mouth an O taking in air, clearly in control as she tipped the end and turned back for the final lap.

Reaching the finish, she didn’t pause to raise her arms in triumph, or look back at her opponent. Instead, she pulled herself out of the pool, wringing out her hair, her face expressionless.

‘Not fair!’ Robbie shouted, when he reached the end. Standing in the water, he thrashed the surface with his hands in frustration. ‘You never said two laps! I won that!’

She paused, and I saw the way she turned back to the edge of the pool, gazing down at him, towering and imperious. I watched my son looking up at her, the wet bikini gripping her breasts, the outline of two sharp nipples, water dripping from the ends of her hair and between her legs. There was another challenge in the way she stood looking down at him, this one different from the last. Her face was lost from view, but I saw his – the expression changing from outrage to something softer, more secret. He kept looking up at her. I watched as his hand emerged from the water and realized he was reaching out to clasp her ankle.

I don’t know what he had in mind, but something within me reared up against it, seized by a cold revulsion. Don’t touch her, I thought. Please don’t.

She took a step backwards and his hand fell down into the water. Turning from us, she stalked towards the house. Robbie launched himself back into the water, swimming away from us and from his own humiliation. David emerged on to the terrace.

‘Everyone ready?’ he asked.

Chris ran a hand through his hair, momentarily undecided, before he followed Zo? back into the house.

‘What?’ David asked me, but I didn’t answer.

I was thinking about the fire burning at the other side of the island, making prisoners of us. On the limestone terrace Zo?’s dark wet footprints were fading beneath the sun.

We cycled in a row along the narrow white path, through the dead heat. We crossed swamps and marshes, the water glittering through the reeds and grasses. The wetlands, usually straining with life, were unusually quiet that day, no swish of tails in the water, no sudden flap of wings. As we neared Saint-Martin, the smell of smoke changed, became textured with the tang of burning rubber.

We stopped for lunch at the oyster bar and sat with glasses sweating in the heat. It was after midday but the heat was still rising. We ate in silence, the food tasting different now, flavoured with smoke. Looking out at the haze of blue sea and sky, the horizon appeared shimmery and indistinct. The wine had a soporific effect on the men, and they began to voice reluctance to travel any further, content to sit in their own uneasy silence gazing at the ocean. Robbie was locked within the grim confines of his defeat, and so it was that our group split along the gender divide as Holly, Zo? and I mounted our bikes after lunch and continued on to Saint-Martin.

We pedalled the short distance to the town, locked our bikes at the marina and set out through the narrow cobbled streets, Holly going ahead, now and then turning back to check we were still behind her. The air felt dry, the alleyways quiet, and there was a sleepy feeling in the town, as if everyone else was having a siesta while we trudged through shop after shop.

‘Look,’ Zo? said, holding up a black T-shirt she had found, white lettering emblazoned on one side: Sweetness, I was only joking. ‘I’m going to get it,’ she declared, clearly delighted. ‘I’ll wear it any time Chris and I have an argument. It will be my way of apologizing.’