‘Me too,’ I say simply, because it’s true. And clearly not just because of the safety thing.
We follow our new friends to where they’ve already made a fire on the beach, and soon we’re all dancing barefoot in abig group while someone sitting on a tree stump plays a violin. The music’s haunting, the flames make everything seem almost spooky, some of the people around us are starting to act alittleoddly (one of the men for example has stripped down to a very skimpy pair of black trunks and is doing very strange, twisty and jerky dancing while a woman flicks some kind of dark liquid on his chest – I mean the liquid thing isstrange) and if Callum weren’t here I’d definitely be feeling a little bit spooked.
But he is. And I’m enjoying dancing with him. We aren’t touching but we’re close together and we’re watching each other the whole time and the whole spookiness adds something that makes it all feel special.
Until the birthday woman says, ‘Now it is time for my birthday cakes.’
The birthday cakes turn out to be of the magic mushroomy kind. The woman pulls me in one direction and a man pulls Callum in another and suddenly we’re surrounded by people and I can’t see Callum. I really, really,reallydon’t want the ‘cake’ that the very over-insistent birthday girl is practically shoving down my throat.
I full-onshriek, ‘Callum,’ just as he pops up and shoulders his way through.
‘Great evening, thank you so much,’ he tells everyone as he grabs my hand and we walk away from the group in the direction of the bar.
‘Shoes,’ I remind him and we turn back round and pick them up before setting off again.
We don’t speak until we’re some way beyond the bar back in the direction of the campsite; we just march along at an angry kind of pace. Callum’s the angry one. I’m not angry. I’m just kind of annoyed that he clearly is.
Then he suddenly stops under a palm tree and almost yells, ‘And that is why you should not be travelling alone.’
Sorry, what?The hypocrisy.
‘And that is the kind of thing you used to involve us in all the time when we were young.’
‘And I shouldn’t have done.’ He’s yelling at full capacity now. ‘It was stupid and ridiculous and dangerous.’
‘Iknow that. That is what I told you.’
‘Yeah, you were wise then. Now you’re stupid.Stupid. You’ve changed. In a really idiotic way.’
‘No, I have not,’ I holler. ‘I’ve always been like this. How could I have coped with being with you if I hadn’t been? I would have hated your utter madness, wouldn’t I? Like I wouldn’t have been able to cope at all with it. You just didn’t notice. I just seemed boring compared to your incredibly outrageous lifestyle. And youtoldme to get out there and have experiences andthat is what I am doing.’
‘Not like this, you idiot,’ he shouts back.
We just stand, me with my hands on hips, him with his arms folded across his chest, glaring at each other.
And then, as suddenly as he started shouting at me, Callum takes a pace forward and as he does so he unfolds his arms and holds them out to me. I step into them and then, equally suddenly, we’re kissing.
It starts as the yelling equivalent of kissing, hard and fierce, but then it becomes something softer, still urgent and intense, but it’s a less angry kind of passion now.
Callum has a hand in my hair, tugging gently at my ponytail, and I have my arms round his neck, with one of my hands in his lovely, thick hair. His other arm’s round my waist holding me tight against him, and it’swonderful.
We kiss and kiss and at some point we end up lying down on the beach, which at pretty much any other time would annoy me from a sand-inside-clothes perspective but which right now is justperfect.
We’re there for a long time and I think we’re both in a big haze of passion and don’t initially hear the voices that come out of the night until their owners’ feet pass really quite close to our faces.
We both freeze and now that we aren’t actuallydoinganything, I’m very, very aware that we both have our hands on quite intimate parts of the other and we’re literally just there as though we’re playing some kind of weird sexual musical statues.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re both going to feel a bit sandy in places we might not want to.
‘Um.’ I’m the first one to withdraw my hands, although that isn’t good either because now, owing to Callum being very large and half on top of me, I’m not sure quite what to do with them other than lie with my arms kind of splayed out to the sides.
Callum remains in sexual statue position for a couple of moments longer before clearing his throat and pulling my clothes a bit more into their usual position and then adjusting his own clothes.
He then rolls off me, sits up, pushes himself to his feet and stretches his hand down to pull me up.
He clears his throat. ‘It’s quite late. Shall we go back?’
‘Good idea,’ I say.
