“A patio?”

“You know. A little terrace. Something small with a few plants to tend. Something with a tiny bit of optimism and love. But what I have is a post-nuclear war zone.”

“That’s good.” Lorcan gives a little laugh.

“What do you have? Not a rose garden?”

“It’s kind of alien territory,” he says after a pause. “Like a moonscape.”

Our eyes meet through the murky atmosphere and we don’t need to say any more. We get it.

The steam is still puffing and wreathing around us. It feels healing. It feels as though it’s lifting troublesome thoughts up away with it, leaving behind a kind of clarity. And the longer I sit there, the clearer things are to me. There’s a growing heaviness in my stomach. Lorcan was right. Not just now, but last night. He was right. This has all been a mistake.

I have to give this mission up right now. It’s flashing through my brain like a TV headline. Give up. Give up. I can’t carry on. I can’t risk losing Lottie.

Yes, I want to protect my little sister from the same pain I had. But it’s her life. I can’t make her choices for her. If she breaks up with Ben, so be it. If she goes through a divorce, so be it. If they’re married for seventy years and have twenty grandchildren, so be it.

I feel as though a kind of madness has been propelling me down a crazy path. Was it really about Lottie, or was it about Daniel and me? Is Lorcan right? Has this been my own Unfortunate Choice? Oh God, what have I been doing?

I’m suddenly aware that I muttered those last few words aloud. “Sorry,” I add. “I just … I realized …” I raise my head, feeling abject.

“You’ve been doing your best to help your sister,” says Lorcan, almost kindly. “In a totally deluded, fuckwit, wrong-headed way.”

“What—” I clap my hand to my mouth. “Oh God. What if she found out?” The thought is so horrifying, I feel almost faint. I was so determined to succeed, I never considered the downside. I’ve been an absolute fool.

“She doesn’t need to,” says Lorcan. “Not if you turn round and go home and never say a word. I won’t tell.”

“Nico won’t tell either. He’s my guy at the hotel.” I’m breathing hard, as though I’ve had a narrow escape. “I think I’m OK. She’ll never know.”

“So the honeymoon-sabotage campaign is off?”

“As of this moment.” I nod. “I’ll call Nico. He’ll be relieved.” I look at Lorcan. “I’m never going to interfere in my sister’s life again,” I say with emphasis. “Hold me to that. Hold me to my vow.”

“It’s a deal.” He nods seriously. “And what are you going to do now?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Get to the airport. Take it from there.” I tug at my sweaty hair, remembering again that I’m sitting in a steam room in my clothes. “I must look a sight.”

“I agree,” says Lorcan seriously. “You can’t get on a plane like that. You’d better go under the cold-drench shower.”

“The cold-drench shower?” I stare at him disbelievingly.

“Closes up the pores. Invigorates the circulation. Gets rid of snotty tearstains.”

He’s teasing me. I think. Is he?

“I will if you will,” I challenge him.

“Why not?” He shrugs. I feel a rising giggle. We cannot be planning to do this.

“OK, here goes.” I push the door open and hold it politely for Lorcan. I can see the stares and nudges from hotel guests at the sight of two fully-clothed people emerging from the steam room, one in a business suit.

“After you.” Lorcan gestures politely at the cold-drench shower. “I’ll pull the lever, if you like.”

“Go on, then.” I start to laugh as I step underneath. A moment later a blast of freezing water descends on me, and I give a tiny scream.

“Mummy!” A piercing voice hails me in delight. “You had a shower with your clothes on.” Noah is watching from the table with Richard, his face bright with disbelief.

Lorcan takes his turn and lifts his face up to the drenching shower.

“There,” he says to me when it’s finished. “Isn’t that refreshing? Doesn’t life seem better?” He shakes out his wet suit sleeve.

I pause a moment, wanting to answer him honestly. “Yes,” I say at last. “Much better. Thank you.”


21

LOTTIE

I don’t quite know how to react. Here we are. Back at the guest house. And it’s just as it was. Kind of.

As soon as we descended from the water taxi, Ben took a call from Lorcan, which really annoyed me. I mean, this is our big, romantic, meaningful moment—and he takes a call. That’s like Humphrey Bogart saying, “We’ll always have— Sorry, love, just got to take this.”

Anyway. Be positive, Lottie. Relish the moment. I’ve been thinking about this place for fifteen years. And here I am.

I’m standing on the wooden jetty, waiting for waves of nostalgia and enlightenment to engulf me. I’m waiting to cry and maybe think of something poignant to say to Ben. But the weird thing is, I don’t really want to cry. I feel a bit blank.

I can just glimpse the guest house, far above, from where I’m standing. I can see the familiar dusty ochre stone and a couple of windows. It’s smaller than I remember, and one of the shutters is drooping. My gaze lowers to the cliff. There are the steps cut into the rock, forking halfway down. One set leads to the jetty where we’re standing and the other leads to the main beach. They’ve put in metal barriers, which kind of ruin the look. And a railing across the top of the cliff. And there’s a safety sign. A safety sign? We never had a safety sign. Anyway. Be positive.

Ben rejoins me, and I take his hand. The beach is round a jutting outcrop of rock, so I can’t see yet if that’s changed. But how can a beach change? A beach is a beach.

“What shall we do first?” I ask softly. “Guest house? Beach? Or secret cove?”

Ben squeezes my hand back. “Secret cove.”

And now, at last, I start to feel ripples of excitement. The secret cove. The place we first undressed each other, shaking with hot, insatiable, teenage desire. The place where we did it three, four, five times in a day. The idea of revisiting it—in all senses—is so exciting that I shiver.

“We’ll need to hire a boat.”

He’ll sail me round to the cove like he always used to, my feet up on the side of the boat. And we’ll drag the boat up onto the sand and find that sheltered patch of sand, and …

“Let’s get a boat.” Ben’s voice is thick, and I can tell he’s as excited as I am.

“D’you think they still hire them out at the beach?”

“Only one way to find out.”

With a sudden lightness of heart, I take hold of his hand and pull him toward the steps. We’ll go straight to the beach, we’ll get a boat; it’s all going to happen.

“Come on!” I’m leaping up the rocky steps, my heart thumping with excitement. We’re nearly at the fork in the steps. We’ll see that familiar stretch of beautiful golden sand at any moment, waiting for us after all this time—

Oh my God.

I’m staring down onto the beach in shock. What’s happened to it? Who are all these people?

When we were staying at the guest house, the beach seemed a massive, empty space. There were about twenty of us at the guest house, tops, and we used to spread ourselves over the sand so no one was crowded.

What I’m staring at now looks like an occupation. Or the morning after a festival. There are about seventy people filling the sand in disheveled groups, some still cocooned in sleeping bags. I can see the remains of a fire. There are a couple of tents. Most of them are students, I guess, appraising them. Or eternal students, maybe.

As we’re standing there uncertainly, a young guy with a goatee comes partway up the steps and greets us in a South African accent.

“Hi. You look lost.”

I feel lost, I want to retort, but instead I muster a smile. “Just … looking.”

“We’re visiting,” says Ben easily. “We came here years ago. It’s changed.”

“Oh.” The light in the guy’s face changes. “You’re one of those. From the golden age.”

“The golden age?”

“That’s what we call it.” He laughs. “We get so many people your age coming back, telling us how it used to be before they built the hostel. Most of them spend the whole time whinging about how it’s been ruined. You coming down?”

As we follow him, I’m prickling a little at his words. “Whinging” is a bit aggressive. And “your age”? What does that mean? I mean, obviously we’re a little older than he is, but we’re still, broadly speaking, young. I’m still in the same category.

“What hostel?” asks Ben as we arrive on the beach. “Don’t you stay at the guest house?”

“A few do.” The guy shrugs. “Not many. It’s a fairly ropy outfit. I think the old guy’s just sold it. No, we’re at the hostel. A few hundred yards behind. It was built maybe … ten years ago? They had a big advertising campaign. Really worked. This place is so amazing,” he adds as he walks away. “The sunsets are unbelievable. Take care now.”

Ben smiles back, but I feel like exploding with fury. I can’t believe they’ve built a hostel. I feel livid. This was our place. How dare they advertise it?

And just look at the way they treat it. There’s rubbish everywhere. I can see cans and empty crisp packets and even a couple of used condoms. At the sight of them, my stomach turns. They’ve been having sex all over the place. That’s so gross.

I mean, I know we used to have sex on the beach, but that was different. That was romantic.

“Where’s the boat guy?” I say, looking around. There used to be a lizard-like man who hired out his two boats every day, but I can’t see him anywhere. There’s a tall strapping guy pushing a boat out into the water, and I hurry over the sand to the sea.