Spotting his parents treading gingerly between the sand constructions, Freddie leaps up and waves frantically.
‘It got run over!’ he yells.
‘What did?’ Kerry hurries towards Anita and the children.
Anita pulls a wry smile. ‘Well, Sand Island looked great until a dog ran right across the top of it.’
‘Oh no.’ Kerry frowns at the collapsed mound, its toothpick flags scattered everywhere. Daniel, Anita’s youngest, has burst into tears, and Anita pulls him onto her lap.
‘I’m sure it doesn’t matter,’ Kerry tries to console him. ‘The judges probably looked at the sandcastles before the dog came—’
‘No they didn’t,’ Freddie thunders.
‘Dogs shouldn’t be running about loose on the beach,’ Rob declares.
‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate,’ Anita explains. ‘Some guy was chasing it, it must have got loose …’
‘Then it was his responsibility to keep it under control,’ Rob huffs as Kerry and Anita exchange glances.
‘My mummy won’t let us have a dog,’ Freddie bleats loudly to anyone within earshot.
Sitting beside Kerry on Anita’s tartan rug, Rob takes Kerry’s hand in his and squeezes it. ‘Quite right, Mummy,’ he whispers with a smile.
The tinkle of a brass bell from the judges’ table calls everyone to attention.
‘After that unfortunate little incident,’ announces an elderly lady, her gold-rimmed glasses glinting in the weak sunshine, ‘it’s time to announce the winners of the annual Shorling sandcastle competition. Everyone ready?’
‘Yeah!’ Freddie yells. Kerry removes her hand from Rob’s slightly clammy grasp.
‘Okay. It’s been a tough decision but, in third place, I’m delighted to announce … Team Tyler-Jones for their fabulous Hogwarts!’
‘Boring,’ chime Freddie and Anita’s boy Jacob.
‘Shush, Freddie,’ Rob hisses.
The judge tinkles her bell again. ‘Second prize … Team Marshall’s amazing Eiffel Tower!’
‘Show-offs,’ Anita whispers with a grin. ‘Their dad did the whole thing anyway, barking orders at his children like Hitler in a yachting cap.’
Kerry snorts with laughter, sensing the tensions of the past, miserable week starting to drift away, despite the fact that Freddie appears to be the only child here in a tracksuit.
‘And first prize … Team Crawly-Jones and their amazing replica of the Sagrada Família …’
Mia’s face droops. ‘What’s a Farm-ear?’
‘Just some old church,’ Kerry murmurs.
‘I wouldn’t quite put it that way,’ guffaws the yachting cap man. ‘I think you’ll find it’s Gaudi’s architectural masterpiece although, granted, there’s been controversy over the more contemporary aspects of the restoration …’ He smiles smugly and pops a shiny black olive into his mouth.
‘Has there really?’ Kerry asks, feigning wonderment as the woman at the judges’ table calls the assembled crowd to attention.
‘Everyone?’ she calls out. ‘We just had a quick chat among ourselves and decided to award a very special prize to the team who put in so much effort, only to have it all destroyed …’
Mia and Freddie gawp at their mother expectantly.
‘… Team Tambini-McCoy with their treasure island – at least that’s what we think it was before the unfortunate event – so if the children would like to come forward …’ All six surge towards the judges’ table, their rowdiness garnering the odd look of disdain as they return, delighted, with their booty.
Admittedly it’s just an ice cream token each, but Rob is dispatched to the old-fashioned red and white striped kiosk with the children dancing around him as if they’ve scooped a major prize.
Anita stretches out her slender honey-tanned legs on the blanket. ‘So …?’ she says when Rob is out of earshot. ‘How did it go?’
Kerry pulls off her canvas plimsoles and digs her toes into the warm sand. ‘Okay, I guess. He’s still adamant that nothing happened.’
‘Which is feasible …’
‘Yes.’
The small pause is filled with the blur of children playing, and there’s a palpable sense of relief among the kids now the competition is over. Kerry glances at her oldest friend, the one who made all those summers in Shorling so special, and to whom she’d write excitable letters in multi-coloured felt tips during the long months until her next stay at Aunt Maisie’s. When Kerry turned seventeen, her parents had been filled with a new sense of adventure, perhaps relieved that they no longer felt obliged to take their only child back to Shorling every summer. Her father bought an ugly beige campervan – nothing so stylish as a VW camper – and he and her mum took to trundling around France while Kerry started holidaying with friends. The year it had happened – the motorway crash just south of Bordeaux – Kerry and Anita had been in a rowdy resort in Crete. As the red sports car had cut up the campervan, and Kerry’s dad had braked suddenly, veering into the forest below, Kerry and Anita were probably downing fierce cocktails in the Banana Moon bar. What if Anita hadn’t suggested the trip, and Kerry had gone on holiday with her parents instead? She still plays the ‘what if?’ game occasionally.
‘Kerry?’ Anita says gently.
‘Uh-huh?’
She indicates the small crowd clamouring around the ice cream kiosk. ‘Look at poor Rob. The kids are probably confusing the hell out of him. Imagine, having to remember six ice cream flavours all at once.’ They laugh as, surrounded by children, he throws up his hands in mock surrender. ‘You do believe him, don’t you?’ Anita adds.
Kerry nods. ‘Yes, I suppose I do. I’ve only been here a month, but maybe I’ve already lost touch with the real world, you know? I mean, the fact that people make friends in the office and go out after work. It’s all perfectly normal, isn’t it? You socialise with the other teachers …’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘Though you don’t have sleepovers.’
‘Er, no.’ Anita gives her a wry smile. ‘No one would dare. You wouldn’t believe what staffroom gossip is like.’
Kerry chuckles. ‘It’s different for Rob. He’s had an awful time since his new editor arrived, and I think he just had to let off a bit of steam.’
‘We all need to do that sometimes,’ Anita says.
Rob and the children are heading back towards them now, the two girls charging ahead of the pack.
‘I still can’t believe what I did to him, though,’ Kerry says, shaking her head.
‘God, I know,’ Anita laughs. ‘What a bloody great waste of a cake.’
Chapter Thirteen