Deadly Business (18 page)

‘Hi,’ he said, rising.

I sensed that he was unsure how to greet us, so I put him at his ease by kissing him on the cheek as I’d parted from him the night before. ‘You didn’t meet wee Jonathan yesterday,’ I remarked. ‘This is him, Oz and Susie’s younger. We only call him wee Jonathan to distinguish him from his cousin, Jonny.’

‘The golfer?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s doing very well for himself. Rookie of the Year in Europe in his first season.’

‘He lived with us for a while,’ Tom told him. ‘Now he has a house of his own, quite near here. Mum,’ he continued, ‘I want a chicken pig.’

Chicken pig? That’s Vaive’s most celebrated sandwich, half a baguette stuffed with chicken, bacon, salsa and lots of other stuff.

‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘Mine’s a sobrasada. See what everyone else wants then go and order.’

Liam seemed to give the specialty some serious thought, but stuck to his principles and settled for a salad in a bowl. He looked around as Tom went up to the counter. The beach was crowded, but not as much as the one by the Greek wall would have been. There was a light wind coming off the sea, enough for novice windsurfers but boring for the experts. ‘This is terrific,’ he said. ‘Do you guys come here a lot?’

‘In the holidays, yes. Weekends when school’s in.’

‘Does Tom windsurf?’ he asked.

‘He does, but he prefers free surfing. He’s pretty good. That’s not Mum getting carried away either. His Uncle Miles says so too, and he should know. He was a lifeguard when he was young, in Australia and California. Have you ever done any?’

‘A little, but only the kind with the sail. We don’t have big waves where I live.’

‘Where do you live, Liam?’ We’d got through the whole of the previous day without me asking that or him volunteering.

‘I have an apartment in Dublin,’ he replied, ‘but my main base is in Toronto. It’s the city I liked best when I was on the road with the crew, so I made it home. Ever been there?’

‘Yes, I have, but very briefly, only for one night, in fact. Not long enough to form a view about the place.’

‘Then you must give it another try.’ For a moment I thought a definite invitation was coming, but he left it at that.

‘Hey,’ I said quietly, as Tom returned with bottles of still water for all of us, ‘about last night. I enjoyed it very much. We’ll do it again before you leave, but on me next time.’

He peered at me over the glasses (someone told me once, firmly, ‘One drinks from glasses, one wears spectacles,’ but she doesn’t speak Scottish, so I disregarded her advice) and murmured, ‘Likewise and okay.’

As we waited for lunch he asked me about the history of the region … ‘Preliminary research for the book,’ he said … and I gave him a quick rundown, the standard stuff about the Greeks arriving first and establishing a colony, then being succeeded by the Romans, and in the modern era by just about every other nation in Europe and a few beyond, most recently the Chinese who probably do a bigger retail turnover than anyone else in L’Escala these days.

‘Sounds just like Toronto,’ he laughed. ‘We’ve got everyone and everything there.’

‘I’ll bet you don’t have chicken pigs,’ Tom chipped in, with a smile. He seemed to be losing his initial wariness of Liam, and that pleased me.

‘You may well be right, young man,’ he replied, ‘but we’ve got loads of other stuff. And our own wine too. Ontario’s becoming a pretty big producer; they’re quite proud of some of it too.’

‘Why don’t we see more of it in Europe?’ I asked.

‘Because the Canadians drink it all. They have a strange attitude to alcohol, but they’re pretty damn good at brewing and now wine-making. Not that I would know any more,’ he added.

‘Mum makes wine,’ Tom said.

‘I don’t,’ I protested. ‘I’m a director of a company that does, that’s all.’

‘So you make wine.’

I sighed. ‘If you insist. When it comes to arguing a point, you’re as determined as your father … even when you’re wrong.’

He looked at our companion. ‘Is that true, Mr Matthews?’

‘First, chum,’ he replied, ‘you call me Liam. Second, yes, your old man was a pretty determined guy … but I don’t recall him ever being wrong, not in his eyes anyway. Once he made up his mind about something, he wasn’t for changing it.’

I realised that Tom was pleased to be able to talk about his father with someone other than Susie and me, with an impartial witness as he probably saw it; the flaw in that was that Oz was never a guy to inspire objectivity. You either loved him or the opposite; at times I did both.

The discussion was ended by the arrival of lunch, Liam’s salad, bikini toasties for Janet and wee Jonathan and massive sandwiches for Tom and me. We ate in silence, for they demanded concentration. When we were finished, we were full and it was definitely time for the beach.

I gave my son a fifty to pay for what we’d had then led the way over the iron bridge that crosses the little river from which the beach beyond takes its name. As soon as we were on the other side, Janet, who’d been leading Charlie, let him loose, and he went scampering down to the water, riding the small waves that were breaking on the shore. The rest of us walked on, for fifty metres or so, until Tom decreed that there was enough free space for him to pitch the windbreak.

‘Who wants to swim now?’ he asked, after he’d erected the structure. The question was directed at his younger brother more than anyone else. I’m not sure the kid wanted to go into the water, but Tom had become an authority figure, so he took it as a command. He and his little bag disappeared into the tent-ette, and he zipped the front up while he changed.

The rest of us weren’t so fussy. I unbuttoned my shorts, letting them fall to the ground, then spread my beach mat and sat on it, cross-legged, reaching for my sun lotion.

Janet did the same, then popped her bikini top off, in an instant, as always, regardless of our new companion. She might have been stepping into womanhood, but her mind and attitudes hadn’t quite caught up with her body. Liam wasn’t a man, he was an adult, and she hadn’t been brought up to be prudishly modest.

So what could I do but follow her example, as I would have done on any other day?

I tossed my top into my beach bag and stretched out beside her, oiling myself from top to ankles. When I was done, I rolled over and looked around for the nearest man. Tom was busy rubbing his sister’s back with her high factor cream, so I tossed my bottle to Liam, who had spread his beach towel beside my mat.

‘You got the job, beach boy,’ I told him. ‘Do the rest, will you? Sorry if the informality bothers you,’ I murmured, ‘but that’s the way it is here.’

He grinned. ‘If this was Toronto, you’d be in jail.’ He took the lotion from me and massaged it into my back, gently, with hands that were strong but surprisingly soft.

‘I’ll bet you’re glad it isn’t,’ I whispered, but there was nobody close by to hear me anyway. Tom and Janet were escorting a hesitant wee Jonathan towards the Mediterranean. His little bag was slung over his shoulder, as usual. I couldn’t imagine what he carried in it; his pet frog, for all I knew.

‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘Hand-holding’s still forbidden, I take it?’

‘Absolutely,’ I said firmly. ‘So’s this.’ I rolled on to my side, propped myself up on an elbow, took hold of his shirt, drawing him to me, and kissed him, properly, none of that on-thecheek stuff, but long and slow, feeling my nipples harden as my breasts pressed against him. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured as I came up for breath, ‘but I felt an overwhelming need to do that. Let’s just call it a reward for you being so Goddamned nice.’ I smiled at him. ‘But I warn you, if you suggest that you could be even nicer I’ll have to put my top back on.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he chuckled. ‘My nose is hurting already.’

‘I can cure that,’ I said. ‘I’m a nurse.’ I kissed him again, for longer than before, slipping my hand inside his shirt and running my palm over his chest, feeling his heart beat fast against it.

‘People will talk,’ he whispered, when he could.

‘People are talking already.’ I laughed. ‘After last night, I promise you, people are talking all over L’Escala. It’s the way this place is. Gossip moves faster here than a fire through pine needles. Fuck them all. It’s a while since they’ve had me to feed off. Let them choke on me.’

He drew a deep breath. ‘Primavera, I’m having trouble working out when you’re serious and when you’re not.’

I rolled on to my back, felt for my Maui Jim sunshades and slipped them on. ‘Right at this moment, Liam,’ I confessed, taking his hand in mine, ‘so am I. But I promise you this; I might be cautious but I’m not a tease. We’re both going to find out quite soon.’

‘Likely I’m as cautious as you are,’ he said. ‘I promise you something too. I really didn’t come here with anything like this in mind. But I’m not going to run away from it either. Whatever else happens between us, it’ll be at your pace. And suppose nothing else does, the last couple of days are the best I’ve had in years.’

I squeezed his hand. ‘Apart from all the great things that come from being a mum,’ I replied, ‘the same’s true for me.’

Liam slipped off his shirt, folded it neatly, and used it as a pillow. We lay side by side and looked at the cloudless sky for a while, counting the condensation trails of the aircraft passing five or six miles above us.

‘We’ll be on one of them tomorrow,’ I murmured. ‘Tom and me. I’d rather not be, but maybe it’s come at the right time.’

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ he asked. ‘If my speculation last night is anywhere near the mark, will you be welcome?’

‘I hope so, but it won’t matter. I’ll be holding the reins, driving the bus, pick your own analogy. I have to go, Liam, regardless. If you don’t feel like waiting around here, I’ll understand.’

He rolled on to his side and put his hand on my belly, between my navel and my breasts. ‘I’ll be here when you go, Primavera, and I’ll be here when you get back. My word on that as an Irishman,’ he chuckled, ‘and a kung fu master. I’m looking forward to working out with your lad, remember.’

‘I think he is too,’ I told him. ‘You know he’s been weighing you up, don’t you?’

‘Sure. I wouldn’t expect anything else of him. How am I doing?’

‘Okay. I’d say you’re passing his test, whatever that is.’

‘He doesn’t discuss?’

‘Not unless I ask him. He had a slight go at provoking me this morning, but he realised I wasn’t ready to talk, so he dropped it. It’s bound to happen, though, probably while we’re away.’

‘Then tell him that what I want more than anything else is to be his friend and yours.’

I propped myself up on my elbows. ‘Tell him yourself,’ I suggested. ‘He’s coming.’

He was, with Charlie on his lead, and he wasn’t smiling. My instant thought was that he’d seen me snogging Liam’s face off and was about to give us a rollicking for public indecency. If he had, it wasn’t at the top of his worry list.

‘Where’s wee Jonathan?’ he asked.

A small cold spasm of concern grabbed at the pit of my stomach. ‘What do you mean?’ I spluttered. ‘He went off with you and Janet.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but he was being a miserable wee sod, so Janet told him to go back up to you. He did.’

‘If he did, then he was quiet about it. We haven’t seen him.’
Or we were otherwise occupied and missed him
.

‘You must have seen him!’ Tom snapped. He hadn’t raised his voice to me since he was five and I’d said he couldn’t have a third Cadbury’s cream egg.

I jumped to my feet. ‘Well, we didn’t, okay!’ I stepped across to the shelter and looked inside, hoping that he’d be lurking there, but he wasn’t.

Janet had joined us. ‘Maybe he needed the toilet,’ she suggested, as anxious as the rest of us. There’s a chemical loo on the far side of the bridge, parked there for the summer like the others along the beachfront. We’d passed it and wee Jonathan had asked what it was for. He’d made a face when I told him.

‘Maybe,’ Liam agreed. ‘I’ll go and check.’

‘No,’ Tom said, grimly. ‘I will. If he’s there I’ll have a serious word with him. Janet, you look after Charlie.’

I didn’t want that to happen. This was a new version of my son; I didn’t think for a second that he’d thump his brother, but in that mood he was likely to scare the living crap out of him. ‘We’ll both go,’ I declared. ‘Meanwhile, Liam and Janet, you two have a look around here for him. He may just have settled down to play somewhere.’ Janet gave me an
Are you kidding
? look but didn’t argue. I put my bikini top back on and headed after Tom.

There was a queue of three outside the toilet cabin when we got there. A second later the door opened and a lady emerged, so large that she couldn’t have smuggled a Chihuahua in there with her. I asked her, in Spanish, whether a small boy had been in before her. She looked at me blankly. I tried French and we touched base. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘A very smelly German man.’

As I was having that conversation, Tom headed to check out Vaive but neither Theresa nor Philippe had seen him since we’d all left. We asked their customers as well but nobody recalled seeing anyone who fitted our description, not even the windsurfers, and that was bad news, for they don’t miss much.