Pi turns to me and mouths, “Sorry,” but I wave him away. I know for a fact that Jody swears in front of Logan. He’s told me several times.
“Dad, what does ‘wanker’ mean? Mummy screamed it out of the car window today.”
The water sucks back, builds, then rushes forward again. I watch Pi’s toes scrunch into the sand before the next wave courses over them.
“WOOOOOO!” he cries. He’s still yelling as he says, “Did you know the Atlantic Ocean is the second biggest ocean on earth?!”
“YES!” Logan shouts, chasing the water on its way back out. “I have a book, and it’s my favourite book, and it’s non-fiction. It’scalledBritannica All New Children’s Encyclopaedia, and it says the Atlantic Ocean is forty-one million square miles.”
“I had that book too!” Pi says. “Though yours is probably a newer edition than mine. Did you also know that the currents in the Atlantic Ocean affect the weather all over the world?”
“Even in Australia?” Logan asks.
“Well, I’m not sure about Australia. There’s a lot of land and sea between here and Au—” Pi begins, but in typical Logan fashion, he’s already bored with the answer.
“Have you ever been bitten by a black widow?”
Pi looks at me. “No. That doesn’t happen as often as people think it does.”
“One of Logan’s special interests at the moment is spiders, Spider-Man, and spider-related fatalities.” I shoot a double thumbs-up to let Pi know that if he doesn’t shut the conversation down stat, he’ll be here all day giving answers to my son’s questions, which he won’t even bother listening to.
“Aren’t you coming into the sea?” he says to me instead.
I shake my head. “I’m good here.”
“Please, Dad,” Logan whines.
Pi takes my hand and pulls me into the waves. “It’s not even that cold after a wh—ILE! Holy crap! That went right up my leg!”
I’m too far in to dodge the next wave. The only thing I can do is grit my teeth, brace for impact, and wait for hypothermia to engulf me.
I grew up in Newquay. I’m used to the sea’s sub-zero temperatures. We came here all the time as kids, to go fishing or have a barbeque on the sands, or just walk the dogs. I ain’t never dipped my sun-deprived piggies in the middle of winter, though. I’m not a masochist.
And yet, it’s somehow colder than I could ever have imagined.
“FUUUUUCCCCKKINGHELL!”
A pair of dog walkers some way up the beach turn to look at us. One yells, “You’re braver than I am!”
“You say braver; I say stupider!” I call back.
Pi laughs. “That’s the most British exchange I’ve ever heard.” He takes my other hand and pulls me further into the swell while I make noises like I’m auditioning forScream 8.
“Uncle Aiden, are you my dad’s boyfriend?” Logan says when I’ve calmed down. He lobs a massive pebble into the surge.
“No,” both Pi and I say in unison, but neither of us will look at the other.
“Mummy said I shouldn’t ask you that question.” He throws a bigger rock. This one barely makes it a metre before slapping the sand and spraying ice water in every direction.
“Watch your feet,” I tell him. “No, Uncle Aiden and I are just friends who are boys. We’re not boyfriends. There’s a difference.”
“Is the difference that one you kiss and one you don’t kiss? Because if that’s the difference, then I have lots of not boyfriends but boys who are friends. Except Reuben. Reuben used to be my best friend, but we broke up because he strangled me in PE. We just liked talking about Pokémon and playing Vikings versus Dragons, but we never kissed. Do you kiss Uncle Aiden?”
I share a glance with Pi. His ordinarily tanned skin flushes a deep pink. Thankfully, neither of us has to answer the question. Blessed be my son’s ADHD.
“Mummy has a boyfriend. She also told me not to tell you that. His name is Brandon, and bro has the biggest muscles I’ve ever seen.” Logan flexes his biceps. “Can I take my coat off? I’m hot.”
“The biggest muscles you’ve seen . . . so far.” I flex my own, and Logan shrieks with laughter. “And no. Leave your coat on, at least until we get out of this bleddy tundra.”
