and out of town there’s a secondary market in a car park, more colourful and hippyish in feel. It’s more for the tourists, this one, with the cross-legged bongo players beating out their Balearic rhythms as visitors browse racks of tie-dye tees, lizard sculptures fashioned from driftwood, jewellery stores specialising in amber and beaten silver. Towards the top end of the car park, there’s a whole section of the market displaying the paintings of local artists and heresomething catches Nathan’s eye. Jenn watches him in the wing mirror as he cranes his head out of the window until they’ve almost passed through the town.
They park up on the outskirts, get out and stretch. Nathan’s crimson polo-shirt is already sticking to the mounds of muscle beneath his shoulder blades. They walk back down towards the monastery. Greg points over, for Nathan’s benefit.
‘Built as a royal residence, originally,’ he announces. ‘Then the Carthusian order took it on as a monastery. That’s where Chopin and George spent the winter, a year or two before he died.’
Jenn and Emma quicken their step – they’ve heard all this before. Nathan is not so fast. Greg blocks him off.
‘George Sand. Have you read her?’
‘Never heard of her.’
‘Oh, Nathan, Nathan, you’re missing out. One of the great temptresses of the nineteenth century.’
Emma stops and turns. ‘So not one of the great feminist thinkers of the nineteenth century?’
‘Definitely not.’ Greg smiles. ‘Much more efficient man eater. And womaniser. Chopin died of a broken heart when she left him for that actress.’
‘Thought you said he died of TB?’
Jenn can sense her husband floundering, and this time she’s willing it to happen as she inwardly cheers Emma on.
‘Well, cystic fibrosis, technically, but—’
‘Ha!’
Victorious, Emma flounces off again. Jenn catches Emma’s eye and winks. She can sense her husband blushing behind his beard, muttering some excuse to Nathan. She flits her head round, ready to intervene, but Nathan isn’t even listening. He’s craning his neck back in the direction they’ve come from, fobbing Greg off with an ‘mm’ and a ‘right’ as the disquisition starts up again. Before she can look away, Nathan turns back to her – catches her watching him. She gives him a smile, playful but nervously hopeful of reciprocation. He holds her gaze, but his face gives nothing away. And then he nods and smiles at Greg and skips past to catch up with Emma. He slides an arm around her, steers her away to the other side of the cobbled street. It’s not a rebuttal to Jenn – of course it’s no such thing. Yet it’s confirmation that whatever took place yesterday, took place in her head. He carried her ashore, and that was all. They’d dug out her inhaler, got her breathing back to normal. But once she was fine, she had not been able to look Nathan in the eye. When she did so, it was a hang-dog,sideways glance, like a pup expecting to be told No. Then almost immediately after that, Nathan and Emma had made their excuses and headed back to the villa. She and Greg had lain back as the beach began to empty, enjoying the last of the sunshine – that mellow sensation of having nowhere they needed to be, nothing they needed to do. All the sting had gone from the day and it was all diffused mellow light and soft, slow motion. Greg, soporific, had reached across and she’d taken his hand. Yet all she could think of was Nathan’s big hands on her waist. Nathan, back at the villa, naked. With Emma.
She watches him and Emma conspiring; they’ll be off to do their own thing. She tries to close herself off to the notion stirring within, and yet she cannot stop herself. She cannot stop thinking about the way he rescued her yesterday. Why does she imagine that, almost too briefly to register, he’d pressed his pelvis against her? Why can she not drive that impression from her mind? It is madness. It did not happen – not
They park up on the outskirts, get out and stretch. Nathan’s crimson polo-shirt is already sticking to the mounds of muscle beneath his shoulder blades. They walk back down towards the monastery. Greg points over, for Nathan’s benefit.
‘Built as a royal residence, originally,’ he announces. ‘Then the Carthusian order took it on as a monastery. That’s where Chopin and George spent the winter, a year or two before he died.’
Jenn and Emma quicken their step – they’ve heard all this before. Nathan is not so fast. Greg blocks him off.
‘George Sand. Have you read her?’
‘Never heard of her.’
‘Oh, Nathan, Nathan, you’re missing out. One of the great temptresses of the nineteenth century.’
Emma stops and turns. ‘So not one of the great feminist thinkers of the nineteenth century?’
‘Definitely not.’ Greg smiles. ‘Much more efficient man eater. And womaniser. Chopin died of a broken heart when she left him for that actress.’
‘Thought you said he died of TB?’
Jenn can sense her husband floundering, and this time she’s willing it to happen as she inwardly cheers Emma on.
‘Well, cystic fibrosis, technically, but—’
‘Ha!’
Victorious, Emma flounces off again. Jenn catches Emma’s eye and winks. She can sense her husband blushing behind his beard, muttering some excuse to Nathan. She flits her head round, ready to intervene, but Nathan isn’t even listening. He’s craning his neck back in the direction they’ve come from, fobbing Greg off with an ‘mm’ and a ‘right’ as the disquisition starts up again. Before she can look away, Nathan turns back to her – catches her watching him. She gives him a smile, playful but nervously hopeful of reciprocation. He holds her gaze, but his face gives nothing away. And then he nods and smiles at Greg and skips past to catch up with Emma. He slides an arm around her, steers her away to the other side of the cobbled street. It’s not a rebuttal to Jenn – of course it’s no such thing. Yet it’s confirmation that whatever took place yesterday, took place in her head. He carried her ashore, and that was all. They’d dug out her inhaler, got her breathing back to normal. But once she was fine, she had not been able to look Nathan in the eye. When she did so, it was a hang-dog,sideways glance, like a pup expecting to be told No. Then almost immediately after that, Nathan and Emma had made their excuses and headed back to the villa. She and Greg had lain back as the beach began to empty, enjoying the last of the sunshine – that mellow sensation of having nowhere they needed to be, nothing they needed to do. All the sting had gone from the day and it was all diffused mellow light and soft, slow motion. Greg, soporific, had reached across and she’d taken his hand. Yet all she could think of was Nathan’s big hands on her waist. Nathan, back at the villa, naked. With Emma.
She watches him and Emma conspiring; they’ll be off to do their own thing. She tries to close herself off to the notion stirring within, and yet she cannot stop herself. She cannot stop thinking about the way he rescued her yesterday. Why does she imagine that, almost too briefly to register, he’d pressed his pelvis against her? Why can she not drive that impression from her mind? It is madness. It did not happen – not
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