‘Mummy, Fiona says there’s a huge shark in the sea!’ the little one, Millie, would scream.
Millie was five. Behind her, seven-year-old Fiona would grin naughtily.
‘Only a small shark, Mum,’ she’d say.
‘Don’t tease her,’ Tricia would reply calmly. Millie would get a kiss, another bit of suncream on her neck, and be sent off. Tricia watched them constantly. She had a magazine on her lap, but Claire never saw her read it.
Five minutes later, the two little girls would come back with a supply of shells.
‘I want to build a sandcastle,’ Fiona would announce. ‘Give me my bucket.’
‘Please may I have my bucket,’ Tricia would correct.
Fiona, who was blonde, adorable and knew it, would roll her eyes. ‘Please may I have my bucket, Mummy,’ she’d groan.
Tricia’s husband, Pat, was like Anthony in that he liked to read in the sun. Between them, they read book after book. They both loved American thrillers and spent ages talking about them. But at lunchtime, Pat liked a beer with his lunch. So Anthony stayed on the beach to read.
‘If you get any browner, they won’t let you leave the country: they’ll think you’re Greek,’ Pat joked one day, when he’d had a few beers and his pleasant face was tinged with red. ‘Are you sure you won’t come up and have a bottle of beer with me?’
Claire held her breath.
‘Ah no, Pat,’ Anthony said, ‘beer in the sun doesn’t agree with me.’
‘You see, Pat, somebody’s sensible about not drinking too much in the sun,’ Tricia said to her husband, patting his beer belly.
Claire breathed again. The moment had passed.
At night, Tricia, Pat and the children ate early. This gave Anthony and Claire the perfect excuse not to go to dinner with them. Without ever speaking about it, Claire knew how hard it would be for her husband to watch Pat drink lots of wine with his meal.
One morning, Pat had a terrible hangover after the night before.
‘There’s a brass band in my head,’ he groaned, sinking on to the sun lounger and shading his eyes from the sun. ‘That sun’s very bright, isn’t it?’
‘The sun’s normal. You’ve got a headache because of the five Long Island Iced Tea cocktails you had,’ said Tricia crossly. ‘I told you not to drink them. You’re lucky you’re not married to a big idiot,’ she added to Claire.
They both looked down to the water where Anthony was playing in the sea with Millie and Fiona. He was pretending to be a shark chasing them out of the shallow waves. Every time he chased them, the two little girls squealed with delight.
He was slim and handsome, with no sign of a beer belly. He’d been going to the gym at home and his stomach was flat and muscled. In his denim-blue swimming shorts, with his dark hair windswept, he could have stepped out of a film.
Claire felt her heart ache watching him play with the girls. Anthony had never played with children much before. At family gatherings, he hadn’t wanted to play with her nieces and nephews. Instead, he’d sat with the men and the drinks, talking and smoking. Now she watched his face alight with happiness as he pretended to be a shark for two small girls.
‘I’m very lucky,’ she said, and it was the truth.
On the last morning of her holiday, Jessica made herself her cup of coffee with the special little filter-coffee containers she’d brought from home. It was strange how something so small could give a person so much pleasure. She usually didn’t buy them because they were expensive. No, she corrected herself. It wasn’t the expense. She usually didn’t buy them because they were a treat.
The grief counsellor, Diana, had said it was important to be honest. Diana was the one who’d pointed out that the reason Jessica didn’t do nice things for herself had nothing to do with money. She had enough money to survive. Jack’s life insurance meant she’d never go hungry. She didn’t buy magazines or perfume, or go for a facial in the beautician’s because they were treats. It was as if Jessica wasn’t allowed to do anything nice for herself ever again.
Jack was dead and so was all the happiness in Jessica’s life.
‘You can live your life like that,’ Diana had said bluntly during their third session. Blunt speaking seemed to be Diana’s speciality. There had been no mention of such bluntness in her advert. The very name ‘grief counsellor’ had implied a kind person who somehow magically made you feel better. Not someone who forced you to think painful thoughts. ‘But there’s no need to live like that,’ Diana said. ‘There’s no need to keep on punishing yourself because you’re alive and Jack’s dead. You can have nice meals, buy yourself a magazine every now and then, and enjoy yourself with friends. You’re not betraying him. You’re simply punishing yourself by not doing those things. You must ask yourself why.’
Jessica was shocked. In the two years since Jack had died a painful death from pancreatic cancer, nobody had spoken to her like that. The death of your beloved husband changed all your relationships. People spoke to you as if you were the person who was ill. They spoke in gentle voices and asked if you were ‘all right’. They said things like ‘under the circumstances…’
Under the circumstances, it was perfectly normal not to go to parties or weddings. It was normal not to want to get your hair done, normal not to buy new clothes. It was normal to buy the cheapest instant coffee in the supermarket because it was only for Jessica herself. Not for anyone else. So why bother?
Diana had changed all that. She spoke to Jessica with kindness but with fierce honesty too.
‘Live your life,’ she’d said on their last session, the one before Jessica had flown out to Corfu.
In her pretty room in Hotel Athena, Jessica took the filter-coffee container from her cup and threw it in the bin. Then she smelled the rich, strong coffee it had left behind in the cup. This coffee, like the whole holiday, was her way of trying to live again. It was an experiment. Every day for the past ten days, she’d had a cup of lovely filter coffee when she woke up. She’d packed enough for the whole holiday.
When Jack was alive, they had both loved decent coffee. She enjoyed finding new brands for them to try. She’d bought coffee on the internet for him and had beamed with delight to see him open the package from the postman.
After twenty-seven years of marriage, it was easy to fall out of love with your spouse. But that had never happened to Jessica and Jack.
Three years ago, they’d been thinking fondly of what they might do for their summer holidays, but then Jack began to feel unwell.
‘A cruise,’ Jack had said bravely, the day when he went into hospital for the tests.
‘A cruise is for old people,’ Jessica had joked back, trying to be just as brave. She laid clean pyjamas on his narrow hospital bed. She’d packed another pair, just in case. ‘We’re not old. Perhaps we should try one of those 18–30 holidays,’ she’d added jokily.
Jack’s laugh had been loud and genuine. ‘And have you in the wet T-shirt contest? Not likely. I’m too old to fight off all the lads who’d want you.’
Jessica loved the idea that Jack still believed anyone would fight over the sight of her in a wet T-shirt contest. With two grown-up sons and the full-figured body of a fifty-three-year-old woman, she was no longer wet T-shirt