I watched him swim to the far side.
‘But this is . . .’ Heather said quietly. ‘Why isn’t she coming back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you speak to her at all?’
‘No, I told you,’ I said, struggling to keep the anger from my voice. ‘This is all I got.’
‘God,’ Heather said, handing back the phone and turning towards the house. ‘I . . . Maybe I should phone Ant.’
I glanced at the screen again, as if to check that last message was still the same.
‘Yeah, maybe you should call him,’ I said, then, despite my best intentions, the next sentence slipped out. ‘Does this a lot, does he?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Heather asked, pausing and frowning back at me.
‘Does he make a habit of this? I mean, you don’t seem overly shocked,’ I said.
‘Christ,’ she said, and then she shook her head and continued on her way.
She returned a minute later, wearing a T-shirt and carrying her phone.
‘Well? Does he?’ I asked, as she approached. I was vaguely aware that my anger was misdirected, but I didn’t seem to be able to help it.
‘Does he what, Joe?’ she asked, pausing in front of me.
‘Does he make a habit of seducing other men’s wives?’ I said. ‘Because if he does, you maybe could have warned us before we invited you on our holiday.’
She glanced at the kids and then leaned in towards my ear. ‘Fuck you, Joe,’ she said quietly.
I sat with the kids until, about fifteen minutes later, she returned. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as she passed by. ‘That was out of order.’
‘It was,’ she said. ‘But it’s fine. Come inside for a minute. We need to talk.’
I glanced at the pool and she said, ‘We can watch them from indoors. Come.’
I followed her into the house, where I found her holding on to the edge of the sink and looking out of the window. ‘Ant said the same thing,’ she said, without turning. ‘That they’re not coming back today.’
‘They’re not?’ I said, wondering if this existence of a ‘they’ meant something.
‘He says tomorrow,’ she continued, in a weird, lifeless voice. ‘He says he’ll come and we can talk tomorrow. But he doesn’t want to see you.’
I snorted bitterly.
‘I think he’s ashamed,’ Heather continued. ‘Or afraid. Maybe both.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘because I’m so scary and everything.’
‘He says he thinks he should just fly home.’
‘Home? Really?’
Heather half turned in my direction before she spoke. ‘He thinks the atmosphere’s gonna be awful if he stays.’
‘No shit!’ I said. ‘Jesus, he’s one clever dude, isn’t he? He could maybe have thought of that before he . . .’ But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Instead, I just shook my head.
‘Anyway, we need to work out what to tell the kids,’ Heather said. ‘For today, I mean.’
I shrugged. My brain was refusing to even engage with the subject of what lies we needed to tell our children.
‘I said I’d walk up to the main road to talk to him. Tomorrow . . . when he comes . . .’
‘So I don’t hit him?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Do you think you might?’
I laughed sourly. ‘If he was smaller,’ I said, ‘then perhaps.’
‘Oh, Ant’s no fighter,’ Heather said. It almost sounded like she was egging me on. ‘I thought we could tell the kids they’ve gone to Marbella.’
‘Marbella? Why Marbella?’
‘Well, they know it’s a long drive. I thought we could say there’s a problem with the tickets and they’ve had to go back to Marbella to sort them out.’
‘D’you mean Malaga? Where we flew in to?’
‘Sorry, yes, Malaga.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Whatever.’
‘I don’t know what to think about this, really, Joe,’ she said, her voice beginning to wobble.
‘I know,’ I said quietly. I stepped forward and patted her hesitantly on the shoulder. ‘Me neither. A great fucking holiday this is turning out to be.’
‘It’s awful,’ Heather said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, everyone’s sorry,’ I said, a shudder of bitterness leaking out. ‘It’s just that sorry doesn’t fix anything, does it?’
‘But to answer your question,’ Heather said.
‘My question?’
‘About Ant.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to. I was just—’
‘The answer is maybe. Probably. Look, I’m not that sure, to be honest. I’ve had my suspicions, but it’s never been quite this . . . It’s never been as obvious as this, let’s say.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘And you two?’ Heather asked. ‘I mean . . . you’re . . .’
I frowned at her until she glanced my way. She licked her lips and swallowed. ‘I’m assuming you’re, you know . . . monogamous?’
‘In theory?’ I said. ‘Yeah, we are. We’re like totally, utterly monogamous, so make of that what you will.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘You know last night,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Were they actually, you know . . . doing it? Or were they just messing around?’
‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure,’ Heather said. ‘But I suspect . . . you know . . . that they were.’
We spent the morning alternating between misery time alone and lifeguard duty.
When it was Heather’s turn to watch the kids, I’d walk to the tree and check for messages, but there never were any, and on the two occasions I tried to phone, the call went straight to voicemail. Amy had almost certainly switched her phone off, and as she’d left her charger in the kitchen, it was possible she’d had to do so in order to save the battery.
Other than to negotiate who was watching the kids and a couple of muttered phrases about lunch, neither Heather nor I spoke that afternoon.
Sarah asked at one point where her daddy was, and so Heather had the honour of telling the Malaga lie to all three. When she’d finished explaining about the tickets, Ben glanced at me for reassurance, so I think he suspected that something was up. But he quickly seemed to forget about his mum, concentrating instead on the utter misery of not having a car to take us to the fish-pool.
In the evening, while we were eating, one of the French neighbours dropped by to invite us again for drinks, but a simple
