We Own the Sky(45)

The bar was a little round shack, Hawaiian-style with palms and wicker,

reggae blaring out from a little speaker. I lifted Jack up onto one of the bar stools and sat next to him.

“Hello,” the bartender said, in what sounded like a Jamaican accent. “Let me guess. Two beers, one fizzy orange and nothing else.” He winked at me and then bent down into the freezer. “And definitely no ice cream or anything for this little boy.”

Jack giggled, as he did every day with the ice-cream man. The bartender took out a cone and scooped out some vanilla and chocolate and then held it behind his back.

“Definitely no ice cream for this young man...” he said again, shaking his head from side to side, and then suddenly he produced the ice cream, now covered with sprinkles and a Flake, and Jack squealed, and we still had no idea how he did it.

We sat for a while at the bar, the sun on our bare backs, nothing more

important in our little world than the beach and the sea. I watched Jack as he ate his ice cream, methodically, just like Anna would, evaluating where the drips and flows were the most precarious.

“Can we go and see the fishies, Daddy?” Jack said, as we were walking back to Anna.

“Of course. We’ll just take this beer back to Mommy and then we’ll go,

okay?”

I could see Anna was watching us from behind her sunglasses, waiting for us to emerge on the grass that backed onto the beach.

“I thought you’d got lost,” she said.

“Ice-cream emergency,” I said.

“And Daddy drank a beer. That’s his second one.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“You’re welcome, Daddy,” Jack said in a singsong voice, and I dug him gently in the ribs.

“Sorry we took so long,” I said, handing Anna her beer.

“It’s okay. I was happy with my book to be honest.”

She closed her book and put it down on her towel. Anna had always been a

reader. On those long, empty African days, when her parents were busy with the church and her school friends lived a few villages away, she sat on the veranda and read. She devoured Gerald Durrell and Willard Price. She could recite passages by heart from James Herriot novels because she had read them so many times. After she had worked her way through her parents’ collection, she found a library in a nearby township and began to read through the centuries: Jane Austen, Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf.

We finished our beers and then walked along the shoreline, past the big hotels and discotheques, until we came to the public beach, a wide expanse of unsullied sand. There were just a few local families, sitting up closer to the road and grilling lamb on a little barbecue.

The three of us waded into the rock pools, where Jack liked to see the fish.

“Be quiet, Daddy,” he said, standing very still. “Look, there’s the fish.” Jack had his bucket and was trying to catch the little minnows, but they moved too fast, their reactions too quick, changing direction before even a fingertip touched the surface of the water.

“There they are,” Jack shouted, pointing and kicking up clouds of sand. So we tried and tried, first targeting the lone ones that had become separated from the pack. Then we tried the schools, dipping the bucket like a dragnet, but they always evaded us, and we waded back to the beach empty-handed.

“They’re too fast swimming,” Jack said, shaking his head. “They’re turbo

fish.”

“Right, I’m going to show you how it’s done,” Anna said suddenly, adjusting her bikini and taking off her sunglasses.

“Mommy! You’re going in the water?” Anna wasn’t much of a swimmer. She

always said she preferred dry land.

“Yes, and I’m going to catch all the fish.”

“Noooo, you won’t,” Jack said.

“Just watch me,” she said, picking up the bucket.

Anna waded slowly into the water, a look of concentration on her face, as if she were a hunter spearing fish. She pounced and Jack squealed, but the fish were too fast and she just scooped up a bucketful of sand.

She wasn’t to be deterred and assumed her pose once again, staring down into the rock pool, waiting for her moment. Just as she was about to strike, she lost her footing on a rock and went under, kicking up mushroom clouds of sand.

We couldn’t stop laughing. “What are you doing, Mommy?” Jack shrieked, as she tried and failed to get up out of the water. Finally, she managed and wobbled back to us, drenched, wet sand caked over her face.

“It’s not so easy, is it?” she said, wiping the sand away and catching her breath. “I think that’s enough for now.”

The three of us sat sunning ourselves on the edge of the rock pool.

Sandwiched between me and Jack, Anna gently stroked our legs with her

fingertips. “Look at you both. My beautiful bronzed boys.”

I smiled at Anna, as we watched Jack making spiral patterns with his toes in the sand.

“Although I’m putting sunscreen on both of you, the minute we get back to our towels,” Anna added.

I didn’t know how long we sat there, staring out across the azure sea, the mountains looming in the haze. The only sounds we could hear were the shouts and cries of children playing, the distant whir of Jet Skis. What we had, what we so nearly lost, suddenly crushed me, as if someone was standing on my chest. I took a deep breath and looked at them both, Anna counting out seashells into Jack’s palm. The life we had now was sacred. I could never let myself forget that.