Page 75 of The Perfect Son
I wind down my window, kill the engine, and smile. “Hi.”
“I was on my way to the pool and thought I’d see if you wanted to come for a swim, but you look like you’re off somewhere.” She leans closer and when I glance in the wing mirror I see Jamie pulling a silly face at her.
“We’re going to Frinton,” I announce like it’s a holiday to Hawaii. “I’ve got buckets and spades and a picnic.”
Shelley looks surprised but then beams. “What a great idea,” she calls as she jogs back to her car. “I’ll follow you.”
I want to shout back, tell her I’m sorry I forgot we had plans and it’s just me and Jamie today, our day, our new memory, but Shelley is already in her car, and Jamie is whooping in the back seat, making the car jig about.
It’ll still be a good day,I tell myself, ignoring the disappointment curdling in my stomach with my breakfast. I’ll still be present, and Jamie will enjoy it, which was the whole point anyway.
—
A warm breeze blows from the sea and lifts the hair from my neck as Shelley and I lug the picnic and the beach bag down a flight of uneven concrete steps. I can taste the salt in the air, the smell of the beach and my childhood. I have beach towels tucked under my arm, threatening to drop at any moment, and my arms are full and aching to be empty.
“Do you think we’ll need the cricket set and the tennis bats?” Shelley asks.
I laugh and turn my face to the sun. “Sorry. It’s the bag I always take to the beach. I never think to look in it and decide what we’ll need or not. I just grab it. There’s probably still the inflatable ring in there Jamie used when he was a toddler.”
The tide is out, leaving a long stretch of soft yellow sand that darkens near the shoreline. It’s not yet ten and the beach is still quiet, with only a few families scattered here and there and dog walkers throwing sticks and balls into the sea for their dogs to fetch.
We find an empty stretch between two groins. The dark wood fences slope all the way to the sea and make me feel as though this beach, this patch of sand, these waves are ours and only ours. The feeling doesn’t last long and by the time we’ve rolled out the towels another two families are setting up their own areas on the beach.
There’s a boy about Jamie’s age among the families and before I’veeven unpacked the spades and buckets, Jamie is barefoot and racing across the sand with the boy and his football.
The void inside threatens to peel open again watching how grown-up Jamie is. He would never have run off to play like that last summer, or even a few months back. It’s another reminder of how content he is living in the village. Suddenly I’m glad Shelley is with us, glad I have someone to talk to, a friend while Jamie is busy with his.
“Is it too early for lunch?” Shelley asks from the towel beside me. She puts her hands to her flat stomach and dips her head back. Her hair is glowing white in the bright sunshine. “I thought I was going swimming so I didn’t have any breakfast.”
“How about a Party Ring?” I rustle in the cool box and pull out the thin blue pack of biscuits.
“Oh my God, Tess. These used to be my favorite biscuits in the whole world.” She laughs and rips them open, eyeing the different-colored rings as if she’s choosing an exquisite dessert instead of a sugar-filled biscuit with a hole in the middle.
“What else have you got in that box?”
“Pickled onion Monster Munch and jam sandwiches.”
She throws her head back, and her cackling laugh carries across the sand and right out to sea. “You’re hilarious, Tess.”
I smile and glance over to Jamie, wondering if he wants a biscuit. The football has been forgotten. Instead he’s kneeling in the wet sand near the shore with the boy and a girl who I guess is his sister. Three heads are bent in concentration, and they appear to be digging between puddles of sea water, creating an elaborate maze of rivers. Jamie is using his hands to scoop out the sand and I bite back the urge to call out to him to grab a spade, or to take one down to him and join in. He’ll hate me for interfering.
Shelley and I sit in a comfortable silence and watch the tide draw slowly in.
“Are you all right about you and Tim separating?” I ask.
Shelley sighs. “I think so. We haven’t spent time together properly for years. I’m so used to being on my own that it doesn’t feel any different. I texted him earlier to check he’s OK. We got to a point when we stopped celebrating Easter and Christmas. It was just too hard to celebrate them, you know? But I still wanted to make sure he was all right.
“I’m sure I’ll be angry one day about his affair, but right now I feel indifferent. Maybe it’s shock that he’d do this to me after everything we’ve been through together, but I feel like it’s been the push we both needed to end things.”
I nod and stare at the rhythmic motion of the waves. Every day is hard without you, Mark, and I know Christmas will be even harder, but with Jamie here we’ll celebrate somehow, I know we will.
“Fancy a swim?” Shelley asks, lifting her sunglasses and wiggling her eyebrows at me.
I laugh. “Are you kidding? The sea will be freezing.”
“It’ll do you good.”
Shelley stands up and wriggles out of her shorts and T-shirt. She’s wearing a simple black swimming costume that highlights the dip of her waist, and the curves too. I’m wearing an old tankini underneath my dress. The elastic has gone from the bottoms and I can feel them sagging around my bum.
