Renée Knight - Disclaimer

John recognised Charlotte’s towel and placed his a few feet away, as usual, making sure there were other bodies between him and them. Far enough away so Noah wouldn’t register him, but close enough so he and Charlotte could look at each other. Since that first day in the café, they had been careful about Noah. She didn’t want him to recognise John, she didn’t want Noah to get friendly with him, “in case he takes to you,” she’d said, and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have Noah mentioning anything to his father about the nice man they met on holiday, Mummy’s new friend.

John, eyes closed, head down, heard them arriving back on the beach before he saw them. Noah was chatting away at the top of his voice, thrilled about something, so John sneaked a look, intrigued. Noah was pulling an inflatable dinghy behind him, bouncing it along the sand by a rope. He’d been asking his mother for days for a blow-up toy, nagging, and this their last day on the beach was the day she chose to indulge him. Any inflatable toy would have done, but she chose the yellow and red dinghy, using her charm to persuade the man in the shop to empty his lungs and blow it up. She didn’t have the puff, she’d said and smiled. She’d used up so much of her “puff” the night before.

The dinghy was a gift for Charlotte as much as Noah. It would distract her son, she hoped, keep him entertained so she could relax with her book, with her thoughts. Noah wasn’t very good at amusing himself, but this red and yellow plastic boat seemed to do the trick. For the first time in the holiday, he seemed happy in his own company, lost in his own little world. He sat in it on the sand, chatting to himself, and his mother stretched out on her front and turned her head to face her lover. John mirrored her, turning his head to her, their eyes locking. There were people between them, but they didn’t notice them, so absorbed were they in studying each other. She devoured him and he her. Her red bikini, only just covering the parts of her body he had come to know so well. He could visualise every part without even trying. It was as if she lay there naked. Her breasts, her buttocks, her pubic bone. He imagined her smell too, from where he lay, and his erection pressed into the sand.

He was desperate to touch her, desperate to slide under her and into her. And she knew that, she could see it on his face, in his eyes, and she turned on her side, her breasts moving inside her bikini, pushing against her arm as she leant on it, and she parted her lips and smiled. Then she reached for her book and pretended to read, but really she was posing for him, her lover. Teasing him.

Her arm must have ached after a while, and she sat up. She was restless, bored. She looked at her son, but he was happy, he didn’t need her to entertain him now he was captain of his own ship. She looked up and caught the eye of the mother of the family next to her. Her children were older, adolescents. Charlotte had noticed her smiling at Noah and now Charlotte smiled at her.

“Do you speak English?” she asked.

The woman shrugged and said, “A little.” Then Charlotte mimed a charade of the woman watching Noah while she went to the loo. The mother of the two adolescents was all too pleased to keep an eye on the sweet little English boy. Charlotte was so grateful, she gave the woman her best smile and leaned over to Noah and told him she would be gone for only a moment. She needed the loo. She worried he might need it too, or make a fuss about her going, but he didn’t. He was as good as gold. He didn’t even watch as she slipped on her sandals, thin-strapped silver, flat, a thong between her elegant toes, and walked to the toilets. John was watching though. He watched her as she walked towards the toilets at the back of the beach, her hips swaying. He wanted to follow, but he had to wait, make himself decent, so he focused on a leathery-skinned woman, topless, buttocks withering from her thong, until his erection subsided.

Charlotte had stopped off at the showers, raising her face into the water and slicking back her hair as if she was entirely alone, and not on a public beach. She was well aware of John watching her. She turned off the shower, and walked into the toilets. John followed. No one else was there and he knew where to find Charlotte: in the changing cubicle at the end of the line of toilets. He tapped on the door and she opened up. Straightaway he slipped his hand into her bikini bottoms. He knew that she preferred to keep them on, she’d told him she liked to feel their tautness around her. His fingers searched and found the soft, wet smoothness she had shown him. He lifted her onto the slatted wooden bench and pushed her bottoms to one side, opening her up gently with his fingers, then pushing his tongue up and down her, around her, just where she had shown him, just the way he knew she liked it. She had taught him so much. She pushed her arms against the sides of the cubicle, stopping herself from falling and she was so wet that he couldn’t tell what was her and what was his own saliva. The poor boy was drunk with love. Out of his mind with it. Even when they heard someone come in, he couldn’t stop, and she wouldn’t have stopped him anyway. They heard a bolt slam, they heard a gush of someone else’s pee, and she pulled down his trunks and pushed herself onto him, wrapping her legs around him and kissing his mouth, and taking what had been hers, from his mouth into her own and swallowing it back into herself. And he clung to her, and held her, stronger than her and yet not. And then it was over, and she smiled and took his face in her hands as if he were a little boy. She kissed him on his lips, on his neck, and then finally on his forehead. A punctuation mark so that he would know that was all for now.

They waited for the intruder to leave and then Charlotte opened the door and looked out. She went first, he followed a few moments later. She showered again but John kept walking, passing his towel and running straight into the sea, plunging down into a wave.

Little Noah was still in his boat, chatting away to himself. Charlotte had been longer than she thought. The mother had packed up their things; she and her family needed to go. She waved good-bye to Noah and Charlotte thanked her, stroking her son’s head as she did so. Then she watched, on guard again, as he pulled his dinghy closer to the sea. He wasn’t in the water, he was on the sand. He was happy. She hugged her knees and looked at him, smiling at his contentment. She was exhausted and lay down. If she turned her head just a little, she could still see Noah. John returned to his towel, rubbing himself down, looking at Charlotte, but her head was turned away, so he lay on his back and closed his eyes too. He dozed, thinking about the night ahead, a smile on his face as he imagined what they would do to each other.

When he woke the wind had got up and he put on his T-shirt. Charlotte was asleep. It was then that John noticed Noah. He was still in the boat, but floating now in the shallows, happy being bounced around by the sea. In, out, in, out. Charlotte woke and turned to see what John was looking at. Perhaps she was surprised that something, other than her, had caught his attention. In, out, in, out went the dinghy, but each time the out was a little farther and the in a little less. The sea had become rough and there was a strong undercurrent dragging on the dinghy, pulling it out, a space of choppy water growing between Noah and the shore, where other people swam and played, but none of them noticed the little English boy drifting out to sea.

John stood up and looked over to Charlotte. She was on her feet, but they didn’t move. They stayed planted on her towel. She looked at John, fear on her face, then back at Noah, but still she didn’t move. She called out to Noah, and then she called out to John. “Help,” she said. “Help me.” And John would do anything for her. He ran immediately to the water’s edge, and only then did she move. John led the way and she followed. She called to Noah again and he looked up and waved back at her, not a bit frightened. And still no one did anything and there were no lifeguards on the beach, but John could see that Noah’s boat was heading out in the wrong direction. Heading out to sea. Soon he would be a speck in the distance….