Chapter 20
The morning sun is warm and soft on their skin as Lottie, Tim and Josh pick their way along the beach, enjoying the relative peace and quiet before the crowds descend.
This has always been Lottie’s favourite part of the day, when everything still feels new and fresh and nothing has had chance to ruin it yet.
She wishes she could let things roll off her like other people do; her friends, her husband.
Sometimes she thinks it’s because she cares too much, feels things keenly.
Often she wonders how others seem to sleepwalk through their lives without being aware of all the issues, the wrongs, the injustices in the world.
Or if they are, they turn a blind eye, safe in the knowledge it will never affect them in their safe, comfortable world.
But then, as she and Tim know only too well, speaking out, protesting, doesn’t always end well.
Lottie takes a couple of deep lungfuls of the clean, tangy air and refuses to follow this train of thought any further.
She will enjoy this moment, try to be in it fully for once.
The tide is out right now and it means that the three of them can potter, shoes and socks in a bag, poking into rock pools, examining sand worms, picking up driftwood and bladderwrack.
They only have the odd dog walker for company, a couple of early risers out for their daily constitutional, and of course the omnipresent gulls.
Josh’s new trick is to face up to them on the sand, shooing them away, as they regard him warily with beady eyes.
‘No, naughty bird. Go ’way, seagull!’
As the sun creeps higher in the sky and the heat intensifies, the beach begins to fill up while the tide comes in, tempting bathers. A paddleboard lesson is taking place further up the beach and Lottie briefly remembers all the fun activities she and Tim used to do before they became parents.
‘Time to go, I guess,’ she says, turning to her husband and son. Tim has arranged several different shells in a row and as he holds each one up to Josh, he says its name.
‘Razor clam, cockle, whelk …’
Sometimes, she wishes Tim would stop trying to educate their son every second of the day. But then, guilty again, she banishes this disloyal thought.
‘Let’s see if we can have a look at the boats, shall we?’ she says to Josh, trying to offset the predictable protest from her son at leaving.
She and Tim stroll back up the beach, each taking the hand of their child and swinging him between them, as he emits a squeal of happiness each time his feet lift off the ground. It has been a perfect morning, thinks Lottie and she refuses to consider what awaits them back at their holiday let.
As she begins to climb the steps up to the street level, her attention is caught by a familiar figure.
It is the woman she saw the other day. The one with the guy who has started working on the renovation next door.
Petras, she believes he was called. She watches the woman for a moment.
At first glance, all appears normal but then Lottie sees that she is in fact standing in her bra and knickers, not a bikini, and is using the communal shower, the public one provided for beach users.
By her feet are a couple of plastic bags tied together.
Hastily, she shampoos her hair with a bar of soap and rubs under her arms, looking about her warily.
Her skin is so pale, it is almost translucent and the notches of her sternum, her backbone and ribs, stand out prominently.
The woman looks up and stares at Lottie defiantly before turning her back and sluicing her face as the timed water jet cuts out again.
They continue to meander slowly back, through the cobbled streets and alleyways.
Lottie is distracted, silently listening to Tim and Josh’s inane babble as she considers the foreign couple; who they are, where they came from and how they have found themselves in such desperate straits.
Only the rich, gushing voice of Olivia Woolf — she had discovered her full name after another heated conversation with the foreman the other day — breaks through to her consciousness as she spots her further up the street.
Why is it so difficult to avoid these people?
Lottie pauses to watch as Olivia steps out of a local shop, one which has been boarded up since they arrived.
It looks like it used to be an old fishmonger’s but is now derelict.
She is speaking into her phone in her usual high, breathy tones.
Her hair is down today and a woven section of colourful silk thread glints in the sunshine.
She is wearing a linen jumpsuit and leather sandals, which wind halfway up her calves, her enormous tie-dyed beach bag slung over one shoulder.
She’s just a bit of an old hippie really, isn’t she, thinks Lottie.
The type who probably had a long gap year in Thailand or India, fully funded by her family, and came back smelling of patchouli while telling everyone that she had truly found herself.
‘I’ve just been taking some measurements,’ Olivia says excitedly.
‘It’s going to be perfect, darling. Especially if you could give me a hand with it at some point.
Make sure it’s all on point.’ She laughs into her phone.
‘Okay, well I’ll let you go if you’re busy but let’s talk more when we can get the chance. Kisses.’
Lottie stands, open-mouthed, assessing the situation as she watches Olivia loping off down the road in the direction of her hotel.
‘Did you hear that?’ she says to Tim, catching up to him and Josh.
‘Hear what?’ he says, busily counting out the names and numbers of each cottage and B the sun beating down relentlessly amid all this dust and noise.
As she walks past, she keeps her head down, eyes averted, determined to avoid an altercation today.
But then she hears a voice, low and conspiratorial.
It is Petras, the man who had tried to intercede for her, who saved Josh from a skirmish with the cement mixer.
She briefly thinks again of his partner showering by the beach in her underwear earlier that morning.
Lottie’s features soften as she takes in his long, lean face, the imploring dark eyes.
She pauses as Tim and Josh continue on ahead of her and into the apartment.
Petras has laid his tools to one side and is taking something out of his trouser pocket.
To her astonishment, it is a lip gloss, an expensive branded one, its luxury packaging quite at odds with the muck and grime of its surroundings. He offers it to her.
‘I found this here, on the ground, when I start work today. It is yours? You drop it, no?’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘No. Sorry, that’s not mine. I don’t really use things like that.’
He shakes his head at her, disappointment on his face.
‘Please. It is yours?’ he tries again.
‘No. Not mine. Thank you though.’
He shrugs apologetically as though this is somehow his fault and places the lip gloss back in his pocket. She is about to walk away when she stops again.
‘My name is Lottie by the way.’ She pats her chest and repeats her name as he nods and smiles. ‘My husband, my man, is called Tim. And my little boy is Josh,’ she says, indicating his height with her hand near the ground. Petras’s face breaks into a grin and he nods enthusiastically.
‘Your wife? Your woman?’ she prompts him.
‘Mila,’ he confirms and Lottie repeats the name to herself, remembering the woman’s gaunt beauty, her proud look as she washed herself.
‘I wanted to say thank you,’ Lottie adds. ‘For the other day. For helping.’
His eyes register concern and his smile fades a little. He looks about him, at the others working beside them and she sees they are being casually watched, overheard.
Petras leans forward.
‘Take care, lady,’ he urges her.
‘Lottie,’ she reminds him. ‘And you take care too, Petras,’ she says, giving the builders one last sweeping look.