At that stage, we didn’t know her name, and hadn’t even met her, although we had both seen her before.
We hung back at the top of the steps. The old lady snapped on a pair of swimming goggles, shrugged off a long beach robe and started walking across the sand towards the sea. The tide was in, so it was a short walk, but long enough for us to stare in wonder.
Her one-piece bathing suit matched the vivid yellow of her cap and made her long legs and arms – a rich dark brown – seem even darker. She had almost no flesh where her bottom should be: just a slight swelling below the scooped back of the swimsuit. She moved confidently but slowly and didn’t stop when she got to the water, just carried on walking until the sea was at waist level, then she bent forward and started a steady swim out towards a buoy about fifty metres away.
What happened about fifteen minutes later was Mr Mash’s fault. By now, Ramzy and I were on the beach. We’d seen the old lady come out of the water and walk back up the sand to where her stuff was. She was a bit scary-looking, and I didn’t want to have to pass her as we went back up the steps, so we stayed by the shoreline.
I have no idea what Mr Mash could have found even slightly edible about a yellow swimming cap, but suddenly he was running up the beach to where the old lady had dropped it, and he had it in his jaws.
‘Hey! You! Get off that!’ she yelled, and then I was running too.
‘Mr Mash! Off! Off! Leave it!’ I yelled.
‘Give it to me!’ shouted the old lady, and that was it. Mr Mash leapt up at her with the swimming cap in his mouth, and over she went on to the sand, banging her wrist on the steps as she fell. I heard something scrape and the old lady exclaimed in pain.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! He’s just being friendly!’ I cried, and the lady sat upright, sand sticking to her wet skin where she’d fallen. She rubbed her wrist while, behind her, the daft mongrel slowly chewed her bathing cap.
On her wrist was a big watch, one of those ones with pointers and numbers, and she was looking at it. Then she held it up to show me a wide scratch on the glass front.
‘Your dog did that,’ she said. ‘And what the heck is he doing to my swim cap?’
‘I’m really sorry.’ It was pretty much all I could think of saying. I just wanted to run away.
Ramzy, meanwhile, was wringing his hands and shuffling in the sand like he needed to go to the loo, his mouth pulled tight into a line of fear. His skinny legs were trembling and making his enormous school shorts shake. Dudley was yapping with excitement on the end of his lead, while Sally-Ann sat nearby, facing the other way as if she was trying to ignore the commotion.
The woman looked at me carefully as she got to her feet and pulled on the long woollen beach robe that reached to her ankles. ‘You’re lucky my watch isn’t broken,’ she said to me, in her strange, low-pitched American accent. Then she added, ‘You’re the two I saw a few weeks ago, aren’t you?’
I nodded. ‘I … I’m sorry about your wrist. Is it OK?’
‘No, of course it’s not OK. It hurts like heck and there’s a great big scratch on the crystal of my watch.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you said. I get it. You’re sorry. Jeez, is that dog gonna eat the whole darn thing? It sure looks like it.’ Her huge white Afro bobbed as she talked. She stretched her sinewy neck to peer at me and I think I squeaked in surprise when I saw her unusual pale blue eyes: I don’t think I’d ever seen a black person with eyes like that and it was difficult not to stare. I dragged my gaze away to look at Mr Mash.
‘Stop it, Mr Mash!’ I said. I tried to pull the cap from the dog’s mouth, but it was ruined. ‘I’m sorry!’ I said again. Then, ‘Stop that, Dudley!’ to Dudley, who had a dead seagull in his mouth. It was all pretty chaotic.
The old lady replaced her thick spectacles, then she folded her skinny arms with their papery skin. She looked me up and down. ‘How old are you?’ she snarled.
‘I’m eleven.’
‘Hmph. What about Mr Madrid over there?’ She jerked her thumb at Ramzy, who was still hopping from foot to foot with anxiety. He was wearing his black Real Madrid football top, although – so far as I know – he doesn’t follow the team. It’s not a real top: it’s made by Adidas but I don’t think he cares.
‘He’s ten,’ I said.
‘And five-sixths,’ Ramzy chipped in, then immediately looked embarrassed. He’s the youngest in our year.
A trace of a smile appeared on the old lady’s face: it wasn’t much more than the slight lifting of one side of her mouth. I didn’t know then that it was an expression I would get used to. She flexed her wrist and winced. ‘Five-sixths, huh? Well, ain’t you the big fella?’ She took a long breath in through her nose as if she was making a big decision about what to say next.
‘I really don’t want to have to report all this,’ she said, staring out at the sea, and then her eyes flashed to the side, measuring my reaction. ‘You know – a stolen swim cap, a potentially serious injury, a damaged watch, an outta control dog …’
‘Oh, he’s not out of—’
‘Like I say, I don’t want to have to report it. That would be a drag. But you two could help me.’ She turned round to face us and put her long hands on her narrow hips. ‘You know the Spanish City?’
‘Of course.’ I pointed to the big dome a little way in the distance.
‘Yeah, course you do. Come there this evening at six, and we may be able to forget about all … this. And don’t tell anyone, either.’
Ramzy was nodding away like an idiot, but that’s because his Aunty Nush, who he lives with, is super strict about good behaviour. I think he’s on his last chance or something so he’d agree to anything. Me, on the other hand …
I half raised my hand and said, ‘Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, only you say don’t tell anyone, but we don’t know you, and …’
She stared at me, unblinking, and her large glasses seemed to magnify her pale eyes.
‘There’s a rule, honey, and know that you know it: if a grown-up you hardly know asks you to keep a secret from your mom and pop, it is always a bad idea.’
I nodded, wishing she’d stop staring, but I was unable to take my eyes away.
‘It’s a cast-iron rule,’ she said. I nodded again, and swallowed. ‘Which I’m gonna ask you to break.’
She let this sink in. ‘See you at six this evening.’ She turned and, in one movement, gathered up her sandals and yellow beach bag and stalked off up the steps. Then she turned. ‘Pretorius. Dr Emilia Pretorius. Good to meet ya.’
Beside me, Mr Mash sicked up the pieces of bathing cap, then started to eat them again. (Later I added bathing cap to the ever-lengthening list of things Mr Mash has eaten.)
‘What d’you reckon?’ asked Ramzy, watching her go.
I thought a bit and then pointed to his football top. ‘How many ladies of her age would recognise Real Madrid’s away kit?’ I said, impressed. ‘Plus – Mr Mash quite liked her.’
Which meant I was prepared to give her a chance.
So here we are, the evening of the same day, back in the Spanish City.
‘Ha ha ha haaa!’ cackles Dr Pretorius again and I honestly