I looked at him and smiled.
19
After a breakfast of croissants andpains au chocolatat the table outside, I chilled out in my room, going over and over Antoine’s lesson in my head, replaying each wave and desperately trying to recreate the feeling. By the time I emerged from my room, it was almost time to go back to the beach. But I had to speak to Dad first.
I found him inside, making coffee while the girls got changed in their room.
‘Dad. I’m sorry for getting so angry last night,’ I said, because I knew it wasn’t all on him, my reaction. A lot of it was from all the shit with Felix. I watched as he put down his coffee cup. He sighed and turned round, his expression soft.
‘I am too. And you were right. The girls, they really do love it. I just worry, you know?’
‘I know.’ I nodded. Of course he did. We all did. ‘You know you can come and watch?’ I offered.
Dad laughed. ‘Rue won’t let me. She’s adamant it has to be you.’
‘Well, I am pretty cool.’ I grinned, and Dad smiled as he poured his coffee, then walked outside with it.
‘Tell me what you did this morning, Margot,’ Rue said as she came out of her room wearing her swimsuit, followed by Wren. The excitement on her face was photo-worthy.
‘It was so cool. I learned this thing called a bottom turn, it was incredible.’ I told the girls all about my lesson with Antoine.
‘Do you think I could do it?’ Rue asked, her eyes wide and hopeful, and the guilt was like a gut punch. It was tactless, saying stuff like that, when I knew that Rue probably wouldn’t be able to do it in the same way.
‘No way,’ I teased – it was always the best way to diffuse Rue.
‘Why not?’ She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes, and I had to double take, because it was like I was looking right back at myself ten years ago.
‘Too small.’ I shrugged, and she threw a pair of goggles at me.
‘It sounds too complicated,’ said Wren. ‘I like what we’re doing.’
‘Wren’s right. You’ll do something way better,’ I said.
We passed Dad on the way out. ‘Going to the beach?’ He looked at his watch.
‘Yep,’ I said.
‘Ruthie, Wren, come here a wee minute,’ Dad said, calling them over. He sat on the steps, where he was eye level with them.
‘Promise me you’ll tell Margot if it’s too much or you want to stop?’ He said it to them both, but it was really for Rue. And I could call him overprotective, but he knew Rue as well as I did, and that she would push herself as hard as she could. Too hard sometimes. And maybe I knew her because I knew me.How hard I pushed myself during swimming training, and with Antoine.
They nodded and he hugged them both, making Rue groan.
‘I’ll be there, Dad,’ I promised.
‘Have fun, girls!’ Mum called from the doorway.
The beach was packed with people when we arrived.
Rue was fizzing with excitement, while Wren was stuck to my side.
‘You OK?’ I asked her.
‘I’m fine,’ Wren said, smiling in the way she did when there was clearly something up but she didn’t want to say. I always got the feeling that Wren would say she was fine when she didn’t want to add anything ‘extra’ to the situation.
‘Well just tell me if you’re not,petit oiseau.’
She giggled. ‘What does that mean?’
