My arm is throbbing in pain and my mind is throbbing in humiliation. I can’t do cartwheels anymore? When did that happen?
“Sweets.” Ben approaches, looking embarrassed. “Don’t do yourself an injury.” His gaze shifts to my shorts. “Slight accident, I think?”
I follow his gaze and feel a fresh jolt of dismay. There’s a rip in my tie-dye shorts. I’ve split them, in the worst possible place. I want to die.
Ben hauls me to my feet, and I rub my arm, wincing. I must have twisted it or something.
“You OK?” says a nearby girl in denim shorts and a bikini top, who looks about fifteen. “You need to take off with a bit more spring. Like this.” She throws herself lightly over and performs a perfect cartwheel, followed by a roundoff.
Bitch.
“Thanks,” I mutter. “I’ll bear that in mind.” I take my bag back from Ben and there’s an awkward silence. “So … what shall we do?” I say at last. “Check out the cove?”
“I need some coffee,” says Ben firmly. “And I want to see the guest house, don’t you?”
“Of course!” I feel a last flicker of hope. Even if the beach is ruined, the guest house may not be. “Only, you go first up the steps,” I add.
If my shorts are split, I’m not having him behind me.
I don’t know if it’s the cartwheel fiasco or maybe my heart monitor at the gym has been lying to me, but I’m not as fit as I thought I was. And 113 steps is a lot of steps. I find myself grabbing on to the handrail and using it to haul myself upward, and I’m glad Ben can’t see me. I’m hot in the face, and my hair has escaped from its elastic, and I’m puffing in a deeply non-sexy way. The sun is starting to glare down, so I’m avoiding looking upward, but as we near the top I glance up and blink in surprise. There’s a figure silhouetted against the top of the cliff. A girl.
“Hello there!” she calls down in an English accent. “Are you guests?”
She’s a stunning girl, I realize as I get higher. With quite an extraordinary chest. All the clichés are springing to my mind. Her boobs look like two brown moons straining against her strappy white tank top. No, two brown lively puppies. Even I’m so fascinated I want to touch them. She’s leaning over to greet us as we stumble upward, and I can see right into the cavernous depths of her cleavage.
Which means Ben can too.
“Well done!” she laughs as we eventually reach the top. I’m panting so hard I can’t speak. Nor can Ben, but he looks as if he’s trying to convey something to me—or is it to the extraordinarily shaped girl?
It’s to the extraordinarily shaped girl.
“Fucking hell!” he manages at last—and he sounds absolutely stunned. “Sarah!”
22
LOTTIE
My mind is a whirl. I don’t know what to focus on. I don’t know where to start.
First of all, there’s the guest house. How can it be so different from the way I remember? Everything is smaller and shabbier and kind of less iconic. We’re sitting on the veranda, which is far less impressive than I remember and has been painted in a quite revolting beige color that’s peeling away in strips. The olive grove is just a scrubby patch of ground with a few sparse trees. The view is good, but no different from any other Greek island view.
And Arthur. How could I have been impressed by him? How could I have sat at his feet, lapping up his pearls of wisdom? He’s not wise. He’s not a sage. He’s a seventy-something alcoholic lech.
He’s tried to grope me twice already.
“Don’t come back,” he’s saying, waving his roll-up in the air. “I tell all you young people. Don’t revisit. Youth is still where you left it, and that’s where it should stay. What are you returning for? Anything that was worth taking on life’s journey, you’ll already have taken with you.”
“Dad.” Sarah rolls her eyes. “Enough already. They did come back. And I’m glad they did.” She twinkles at Ben. “You were just in time. We’ve sold up. We’re leaving next month. More coffee?”
As she leans over to pour the coffee, I can’t help staring. Up close, she isn’t any less extraordinarily shaped. Everything about her is sheeny and silky, and her breasts are straining against her tank top as though they’re in breast-yoga class and are showing off in front of everybody.
And this is the other reason that my mind is in a whirl. Several reasons, in fact. Number one: she’s gorgeous. Number two: it’s quite clear that she and Ben had some whole history here at the guest house before I even arrived. They keep alluding to it and laughing and changing the subject. Number three: there’s a spark between them still. If I can see it, surely they can see it? Surely they can feel it? What does it mean?