Joe seemed a bit glum, or thoughtful, or just quiet – I couldn’t really decide which – and Ant continued to be sullen and childish and rude. But the kids filled in all the gaps, telling Joe excitedly about the pig and the fish, and thankfully no one mentioned my fear of either.
I put the three kids to bed just before ten, but fell asleep on Sarah’s bed while reading them a story. When I woke back up, the room was pitch black.
I fumbled around and understood that someone had thrown a cover over me, and the book was no longer in my grasp.
Whoever it was had forgotten to plug in the nightlight, but there was a sliver of light leaking beneath the door, so I stood and fumbled my way across the room towards that.
The rest of the house was silent, but when I checked our room, the bed was empty.
I pulled a cardigan around me and stepped out into the courtyard, but that too was empty and, with the exception of the cicadas, totally silent.
It was cool enough that I shivered as I walked to the track, from where I could look out over the plain. There was what looked like a full moon hanging in the sky, and some bats were circling around the single street lamp. I checked that the car was still parked behind the wall – it was – and then, with a shrug, I returned to the house, where I brushed my teeth and undressed for bed.
At some point during the night, Ant returned, sliding in beneath the covers beside me.
‘Where were you?’ I asked sleepily.
‘We went for a walk,’ he said, as he snuggled against my back. ‘It’s such a lovely night. The moon’s amazing.’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I saw that.’
I noticed that he was no longer sulking. If anything, he sounded a bit wired, as if he’d perhaps drunk too much coffee. I wondered briefly if he was going to try to have sex, but sleep was already enveloping me, and I suppose he can’t have, because the next thing I knew it was morning.
Those bedrooms were so dark and silent, it was impossible to know what time it was, and so easy to doze all morning, but I finally dragged myself from the bed to find everyone outside eating breakfast.
‘What time is it?’ I asked. The sun wasn’t as high in the sky as I’d expected.
‘About nine,’ Joe said.
‘Thirteen minutes past nine, to be precise,’ Amy said, after checking her phone.
‘You’re up early,’ I commented, addressing Ant. It was unusual for him to miss the chance of a lie-in.
‘Not really,’ Amy replied. She’d clearly thought I was talking to her. ‘Anyway, I was just telling everyone, I met our neighbours earlier on.’
‘We have neighbours?’ I said, pouring some apple juice into a cup, because there were no spare glasses on the table.
‘We do! Two guys. Hot, too.’
‘Hey, hey!’ Joe said. ‘Calm down. Hubby’s here.’
‘I suspect they might be gay, though,’ Amy added.
‘Oh, well, that’s OK then,’ Joe said, smiling.
‘Really?’ Ant said. ‘Gays? All the way out here?’ And I wondered exactly what he meant by that.
‘Just a feeling . . .’ Amy said. ‘I can’t be sure, but, you know . . . They had matching shorts. Really nice shorts, too, so . . .’
I sipped my juice and watched Lucy buttering her toast. She was a bit manic about toast-buttering, and didn’t like any corner to be spared.
‘They’re in the house down the end,’ Amy continued. ‘The one with the olive trees. They just arrived this morning. They’re French, but they speak good English. And they want us to go to their place for a drink.’
‘Oh?’ Ant said, wrinkling his nose. ‘Really? When?’
Amy shrugged. ‘Sometime,’ she said. ‘Whenever. But in the meantime, they said there’s a lake less than an hour away. And it sounds beautiful.’
By ten, we were all in the car, on our way to Lake Negratin. We’d only been in the house for two days, but it felt good to be on the road again, to watch the parched Spanish countryside rolling past the windows. With seven of us in the car, sitting in three rows, it felt like a proper holiday excursion.
Joe was driving, with Amy in the passenger seat. Ant was with Ben and Lucy in the middle row, while Sarah and I were in the back. At one point Joe switched on the radio, and the station it was tuned to was playing that awful ‘Macarena’ song. But when Joe changed stations, Lucy complained and begged him to put it back on. By the second chorus, Ben and Lucy were singing along, clapping and smiling, and by the third Sarah, Amy and Joe had joined in too.
Ant glanced back at me and pulled a face, but though I agree it’s a pretty awful song, I refused to join him in his cynicism. The joy on the kids’ faces was real, and it felt like a perfect holiday moment. I admired Joe and Amy’s ability to be silly for the children’s sake too, so, instead, I raised my hands and clapped along, grinning at Anthony manically.
It took about an hour to reach the lake, and when we got there the vista was quite breathtaking – a vast expanse of turquoise water surrounded by an arid landscape of cratered weather-worn sandstone.
We clambered down to the water’s edge and immediately all stripped to our swimming costumes. There were a few other couples dotted across the vast expanse of rocky beach, but it was far less crowded than I would have expected. When I commented on this, Joe said, ‘Probably too hot for the locals. Mad dogs and Englishmen, and all that.’
‘Do you think there’s fish?’ Sarah asked nervously, as we waded into the shallows holding hands. Ben and Lucy were already in deeper, splashing around.
‘You see?’ Ant said, laughing. ‘That’s your fault, that is. That’s how
