‘Sounds fun,’ she says.
Maisie, in her tangerine bikini.
‘Maybe when you turn sixteen,’ says Becky to her daughter, ever so lightly. Even as she says it, she knows she’ll pay for it but she sees the boy make the calculation. As she intended. Fifteen-year-old girl: that’s a prison sentence.
Maisie looks away from her mother, at her feet and then at the boy. She rests her hands on her waist, above where the bikini ties at her hips in bows. ‘Maybe see you later then,’ she says to the boy. ‘I’m sixteen at midnight. Maybe I’ll come and find you on the beach at 12.01.’
‘Sure,’ he says, though he seems embarrassed, caught between mother and daughter. He lowers himself back into the water.
Becky’s vision dims. ‘What did you mean by that? You’re not going out tonight.’
‘What did you mean by telling him I’m fifteen? I’m not stupid. You might as well just write “It’s illegal to have sex with me” in permanent marker on my legs. Or just draw a big “Stop!” sign over my pussy.’
‘Fucking hell, Maisie!’
‘Don’t pretend you weren’t doing that.’
‘I don’t want you skulking around on a beach on your own after dark looking for some sketchy guy you’ve known for all of two minutes.’
‘I wouldn’t have to do that if you’d let me hang out in the pool for a bit longer instead of dragging me off for cod and chips.’
‘We’re meant to be spending time together!’
‘Don’t shout.’
‘What, because I’m embarrassing you in front of your serious long-term boyfriend?’
‘What is wrong with you?’ Maisie looks tearfully furious now, determined not to show it.
‘You’re being reckless.’
‘I’ve got my swimming badges. I’m OK to be in a pool.’
‘So why were you so keen to stay in?’
‘God, do I have to spell it out?’
‘Yes. Go on.’
‘I think he’s hot.’
Becky crosses her arms across her chest. ‘And so what’s your plan?’
‘I haven’t got a masterplan, Mum. Not everyone’s as neurotic as you.’
‘Any mum would find it worrying you’re trying to get rid of us to be with some boy who could be anyone.’
‘He’s staying here with his parents as well. He has a name and everything.’
‘It’s not safe.’
Adam returns with an overly bright cocktail. ‘Aloha!’ he says, holding it up in a toast. Then, reading the atmosphere, asks Maisie, ‘What’s up?’
‘Mum’s being Mum.’
‘I told her she couldn’t ditch dinner to hang out with a stranger,’ says Becky, matter-of-fact.
‘Can we not do this here?’ hisses Maisie, terribly aware that her boy is swimming short lengths behind her back.
‘Back to the rooms?’ Adam offers, all neutrality.
‘Why do you always do this?’ Maisie says. Now that they are dressed, and behind the solid door of Maisie and Becky’s room, voices are raised, all the way up to how they’re feeling, which is very loud indeed.
‘I don’t do anything,’ Becky shouts. ‘Do what?’
‘Stop me from doing anything! You don’t trust me to make any decisions. What have I ever done to make you not trust me? I don’t smoke crack. I’m not whoring myself. I hardly leave the house without your written permission! Why don’t you trust me?’
‘I do.’
‘You don’t! What the fuck happened to make you like this?’
Becky takes a deep breath. ‘I trust you, of course I trust you,’ she says. ‘It’s boys your age I don’t trust. They get drunk, they get out of control, they don’t think.’
‘You can’t control everyone’s behaviour.’
‘It’s my job to protect you.’ For a moment Becky closes her eyes and in the darkness chides herself. She hadn’t even been able to protect herself.
‘I’m sixteen tomorrow and then your job is over. I can legally do what the fuck I like.’
Becky glares at her. ‘Not while you’re under my roof!’
‘Then I’ll find another roof! It’ll be better than living in Shawcross prison!’
Becky collapses down onto one of the two double beds, suddenly exhausted, wishing Adam would hurry up and stop obsessing about the games console in his room and help her with all this: even just to intervene with a stupid joke to distract them both from this maddening, twisting journey down a rabbit hole.
Maisie glares back at her.
‘Fine then,’ snaps Becky. ‘Go and live your life. Just don’t expect me to pick up the pieces when you’re gang-raped on the beach.’
Maisie looks utterly shocked. Becky feels like the words came out of her mouth without her brain’s say so, all overheated and fearful and vicious.
‘You’ve got massive problems,’ says Maisie. She grabs her handbag, opens the door, steps through it, and is gone.
Becky turns her face into her pillow and sobs and sobs. She is radioactive with pain and shame and fury and guilt. And loneliness.
She pictures herself beating Scott to a bloody pulp with her bare hands, until the individual features of his face are gone, smashed into a uniform pink mush, but it does nothing for her. Nothing will ever be enough for her.
She blows her nose in the bathroom. Washes her face with cold water from the basin.
Surveys the over-sized bath with Maisie’s bikini discarded by the plughole and her vast collection of open tubes and pots of metallic-pink powder, creams, pastes and perfume arranged around the sides.
In the room, Becky perches on the peacock-blue bedspread still flat and made, the iron-smooth pillow dented once from a quick moment checking the hotel’s TV channel. The dark gold curtains are open and quivering with the contrived cold of air-conditioning. She doesn’t know what to do with any of this: the embossed complimentary stationery, the view …
Why won’t Maisie just shout that she hates her? Instead she pities me, thinks Becky.
She flies to a knock at the door, but finds only Adam there, brandishing a packet of popcorn. ‘I’ve got a really well-stocked minibar, if dinner’s off the cards? Chez Adam or stay here? Décor is exactly the same though I prefer my paintings.’
‘Maisie’s not here. She went off in a strop.’
‘Classic fifteen-year-old. It’ll all be different when she’s sixteen.’
‘Adam.’
‘She’ll be
