seen much of you lot recently, and I can’t get any reply at Lil’s.’
‘Well, it’s the school holidays.’
But usually she and the boys, Lil and the boys, would have been in and out, and often people waved at them from the street, where they all sat around the table.
‘That boy, Ian, he needs a father,’ he challenged her.
‘Yes, he does,’ she agreed at once: she had learned in the past week just how much the boy needed a father.
‘I’m pretty sure I’d be a father to Ian – as much as he’d let me.’
Saul Butler was a well-set-up man of about fifty, not looking his age. He ran a chain of artists’ equipment shops, paints, canvases, frames, all that kind of thing, and he knew Lil from working with her on the town’s trade associations. Roz and Lil had agreed he would make a fine husband, if either of them had been looking for one.
She said, as she had before, ‘Shouldn’t you be saying this to Lil?’
‘But I do. She must be sick of me – staking my claim.’
‘And you want me to support – your claim?’
‘That’s about it. I think I’m a pretty good proposition,’ he said, smiling, mocking his own boasting.
‘I think you’d be a good proposition too,’ said Roz, laughing, enjoying the flirtation, if that was what it was. A week of love-making, and she was falling into the flirtatious mode as if into a bed. ‘But that’s no use is it, it’s Lil you want.’
‘Yes. I’ve had my eye on Lil for – a long time.’ This meant, before his wife left him for another man. ‘Yes. But she only laughs at me. Now, why is that, I wonder? I’m a very serious sort of chap. And where are the lads this morning?’
‘Swimming, I suppose.’
‘I only dropped in to make sure you are all getting along all right.’ He got up, finished his tea standing, and said, ‘See you on the beach.’
Off he went and Roz rang Lil, and said, ‘We’ve got to be seen about a bit more. Saul dropped in.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Lil, her voice heavy, and low.
‘We should be seen on the beach, all four of us.’
A hot morning. The sea shimmered off light. The sky was full of a light that could punish the eyes, without dark defending glasses. Lil and Roz, in loose wraps over their bikinis, slathered with suncream, made their way behind the boys to the beach. It was a well-used beach, but at this hour, on a weekday, there were few people. Two chairs, set close against Roz’s fence, were faded and battered by storm and sun, but serviceable, and there the women sat themselves. The boys had gone running into the sea. Tom had scarcely greeted his mother; Ian’s look at Lil slid off her and away.
The waves were brisk enough for pleasure, but in here, in the bay, were never big enough for surfing, which went on outside, past the Teeth. For all the years of the boys’ childhood they played safe, on this beach, but now they saw it as good enough for a swim, and for the serious dangerous stuff they went out on to the surfers’ beaches. The two were swimming well apart, ignoring each other, and the women’s eyes were behind the secretive dark glasses, and neither wanted to talk – could not.
They saw a head like a seal’s quite far out grow larger, and then it was Saul, and he came out of the sea, waving at them, but went up through the salty sea bushes and past the houses up to the street.
The boys were swimming in. When they reached the shallows they stood up and faced each other. They began to tussle. Thus had they fought all through their growing-up, boy fashion, but soon it was evident that there was nothing childlike about this fight. They were standing waist deep, waves came rushing in, battering them with foam, and streamed away, and then Ian had disappeared and Tom was holding him down. A wave came in, another, and Lil started up in anguish and said, ‘Oh, my God, he’s going to kill Ian. Tom’s going to kill …’
Ian reappeared, gasping, clutching Tom’s shoulders. Down he went again.
‘Be quiet, Lil,’ said Roz. ‘We mustn’t interfere.’
‘He’s going to kill … Tom wants to kill …’
Then Ian had been down a long time, surely a minute, more …
Tom let out a great yell and let go of Ian, who bobbed up. He was hardly able to stand, fell, stood up again, and watched Tom striding through the waves to the beach. As Tom stepped up on to the sand, blood flowed from his calf. Ian had bitten him, deep under the waves, and it was a bad bite. Ian was standing swaying in the water, choking gasping.
Roz fought with herself, then ran out into the waves and supported Ian in. The boy was pale, vomiting sea water, but he shook off Roz and went to sit by himself on the sand, his head on his knees. Roz returned to her place. ‘Our fault,’ whispered Lil.
‘Stop it, Lil. That’s not going to help.’
Tom was standing on one leg, to examine his calf, which was pouring copious blood. He went back into the sea and stood sloshing the sea water on to the bite. He came out again, found his swimming towel, tore it in half, and tied one half tight around his leg. Then he stood, hesitating. He might have gone back into his house and through it to Lil’s. He might have stayed in his own house, claiming it from Ian? He could have flopped down where he stood near the fence, not far from the women. Instead he turned and stared hard, it seemed with curiosity, at Ian. Then he limped to where Ian sat, and sat down by him. No one spoke.
The women stared at these two young heroes, their sons, their lovers, these beautiful young men, their bodies glistening with sea water and sun oil, like wrestlers from an older time.
‘What are we going to do, Roz?’ whispered Lil.
‘I know what I am going to do,’ said Roz, and stood up. ‘Lunch,’ she called, exactly as she had been doing for years, and the boys obediently got up and followed the women into Roz’s house.
‘You’d better get that dressed,’ said Roz to her son. It was Ian who fetched the box of bandages and Elastoplast and put disinfectant on the bite, and then tied up the wound.
On the table was the usual spread of sausages and cheese and ham and bread, a big dish of fruit, and the four sat around the table and ate. Not a word. And then Roz spoke calmly, deliberately. ‘We all have to behave normally. Remember – everything must be as usual, as it always is.’
The boys looked at each other, for information, it seemed. They looked at Lil. They looked at Roz. They frowned. Lil was smiling, but only just. Roz cut an apple into four, pushed a quarter each at the others, and bit juicily into her segment.
‘Very funny,’ said Ian.
‘I think so,’ said Roz.
Ian got up, clutching a big sandwich stuffed with salad, the apple quarter in his other hand, and went into Roz’s room.
‘Well,’ said Lil, laughing with something like bitterness.
‘Exactly,’ said Roz.
Tom got up, and went out and across the street to Lil’s house.
‘What are we going to do?’ Lil asked her friend, as if she expected an answer, there and then.
‘It seems to me we are doing it,’ said Roz. She followed Ian into her bedroom.
Lil collected up the box with the medicaments and bandages, and walked across to her house. On the way she waved to Saul Butler, who was on his verandah.
School began: it was the boys’ last year. Both were prefects, and admired. Lil was often in other towns and places, judging, giving prizes, making speeches, a well-known figure, this slim, tall, shy woman, in her pale perfect linens, her fair hair smooth and neat. She was known for her kind smile, her sympathy, her warmth. Girls and boys had crushes