Ivan Vladislavic - 101 Detectives

‘Thanks but no thanks. I’d rather take a dip, clear my head.’

I was in no mood to break the ice with a gang of sun-deprived Europeans, self-basting Germans straight off their sunbeds, and Brits so pale they glow in the dark, all behaving like teenagers on a field trip. Been there, done that. They would let their hair and a few other things down before the evening was over. After the first free drink on the terrace there would be a string of others you had to pay for. Inevitably, someone would discover ‘Dancing Queen’ on the jukebox.

I went to my room, meaning to change for a swim, but an invitation card on the dressing table distracted me. It showed a cocktail glass with a tipsy straw and a stream of bubbles that spelt out Willkommen! Bienvenue! The cartoon had the same outmoded charm as the leather suitcase at the airport. I did not have to be in Floréal before noon the next day. Perhaps a drink would do me good. On an impulse, I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the bar.

The Sandbar was no more than a handful of wooden tables under thatched umbrellas scattered along the beach wall. Stehtische , the Germans call them, tables for standing at. Stairs went down to the sand; the sea was as flat and blue as a swimming pool, and so close you could leave your sandals on the grass and hotfoot it across to the water. Harry the barman had a counter with a sea view so that he could double as lifeguard. He knew some moves with the cocktail shaker and some jokes about Tom Cruise. He remembered my name too.

A dozen people were swirling about under the umbrellas, moored to their drinks on the tables like boats to bollards. A spume of coconut butter and rum drifted downwind. The ice had not just broken but melted. In a rising tide of accented English the odd phrase of Italian or German bobbed like a cocktail olive or a lemon wedge. The whole place was charged with the reckless energy people from a cold climate generate when they feel the sun on their arms and sand between their toes.

The complimentary cocktail was an extravagant thing in a hollowed-out pineapple, mainly rum and strawberry juice, I thought, with melon balls afloat like mines. Looking for a quiet corner, I went onto the terrace beyond the last umbrella, and there I saw them again, the couple from the airport, sitting on the same side of a table in the lee of a windbreak, pressed together, looking out to sea. They had their faces turned to the afternoon sun and their backs to the noise. Her hand was on his neck, rubbing the bristles against the grain.

Nearly every coincidence has a dull explanation — the airline and hotel bookings had probably been packaged by some agency — and I was only mildly surprised to find that we were in the same hotel. I was curious though. On another day, I would have left them there alone, but I went closer. It was enough to hesitate on the edge of their privacy.

‘Would you like to sit?’ the woman asked.

‘Are you sure? That’s kind of you.’

They made place for me at the table by shifting apart, separating into two distinct people.

‘I’m Martha from Rotterdam,’ she said, putting out her hand. ‘And this is my son Eckhart.’

‘Eckie,’ he said. The boy had a fierce handshake and a goofy smile. I imagine it matched the one I kept pasted to my face to cover my confusion. Mother and son? The possibility had not crossed my mind, but now the likeness seemed obvious. They had the same thick blond hair, the same full-lipped mouth. I introduced myself.

‘Are you enjoying your holidays?’ she asked.

‘I’ve just arrived. On business rather than pleasure, I’m afraid, although you wouldn’t think so to look at me.’

‘You must have a bit of fun too.’

‘Well, I’m going to reward myself with a weekend of loafing when the work is done.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘I’m in the rag trade, as we call it. Accessories mainly. We have a factory in Johannesburg, but some of our ranges are manufactured here.’

‘Rag trade!’ he burst out.

Almost everything I said made him laugh, a disconcerting high-pitched snort. I very soon began to wonder whether he wasn’t a bit, well, slow . He was too bright-eyed for a man of eighteen or twenty. Twenty-two? The fact that I couldn’t place his age seemed telling. He had a rough-and-ready masculinity, and he was drinking like an old pro and rolling his own cigarettes expertly from a packet of Drum. His chin was covered with stubble, his neck bulged from a white T-shirt — you could see he’d been working out — but his eyes were childishly innocent. He wouldn’t sit still. He kept squirming around on the bench like a child who wants to go out and play. When he knocked over his drink, a fat pineapple like my own, he looked distraught. His lip actually quivered. A bit slow, I thought, definitely. That would explain the easy physical warmth between them, the way he nuzzled at her neck and put his arm around her shoulders, left his hand to curl over her breast. And perhaps it also explained why she received these attentions with no sense of impropriety, of a boundary crossed or sanction violated.

Eckie went in search of a refill.

‘And what do you do in real life?’ I asked.

‘Real life?’

‘What business are you in?’

‘Oh, we’re just on holidays,’ she said with a laugh that ran deeper than her son’s. ‘We travel together when we can.’

‘Is this your first time here?’

‘Yes, we found it on the internet. You’ve been before, I guess.’

‘Often. I like to stop off on my way to Europe. I’m lucky to have a good excuse.’

‘Then you must give us some advice about the beaches.’

‘There are great places to snorkel. Do you dive at all?’

‘She won’t go in the water,’ Eckie answered, coming up behind her.

‘And he won’t come out.’

‘A water baby,’ I said.

‘Water baby!’

He put down a tub of Bombay mix and went back to the bar. I asked again what she did for a living, but she wanted to talk about the best places to snorkel, to eat crayfish, to buy presents. This is what holidaymakers do: they indulge themselves. They do not want to be reminded of home. When she asked how long I would be staying, I wondered if there was an invitation in the question. She had not mentioned a husband. I looked for a wedding ring and noticed that she wasn’t wearing one.

The party grew as new arrivals checked in and guests came back from their outings. So many Germans, but also Scots, Italians, Swedes. The very pale blondes all seemed to be wearing red cotton pants. The small talk and flirtatious laughter grew louder and hotter until it was a roaring bonfire.

Eckie scampered about, overexcited and glowing, talking to everyone, making a collection of new friends and swizzle sticks. But he could not keep away from her. Every few minutes, he would be back to lace his fingers into hers or lean against her. I liked her neck, the way the tendons showed under her skin as she turned her head, but when he rested his face in that brown curve I thought: impossible. She has a lover already. Metaphorically speaking. She loves the boy too much.

I had another drink, in a glass. The sun slid to the bottom of the sky like a sodden cherry. I was about to excuse myself, when a gust of music and laughter reached us from across the water. A catamaran was coming in, a beautiful white craft with sails furled, running on its engines. The coloured lights strung along the deck were luminous in the dusk, and in that charmed web small figures could be seen dancing. I recognised the Parakeet . I’d done this cruise once before, and I planned to do it again this time, when the work was out of the way. It was touristy, of course, a packaged day trip to one of the islets off the coast, but delightful too. They would moor the cat off a beach strewn with dead coral — it was like walking on bones — and the crew made a barbecue while you snorkelled and sunbathed, and then they fed you fruit and grilled fish and poured rum punch under jury-rigged canvas. Castaways with catering. Perfect.