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Brett was saying, ‘Kate and Annabelle seem to be getting on like a house on fire. I must admit, I was a bit anxious when Beverley asked if her niece and the children could join us. After all, Kate and Annabelle might be cousins, but they haven’t seen each other for years, and I don’t think they were particularly close as kids. But she seems nice enough.’
‘She does,’ Ron agreed. She was also sad, worried, and clearly apprehensive about her future (not that she’d said anything, but he’d picked up the vibes last night) but nice all the same. Although “nice” was too bland a word to describe her, it was the only word he was permitting himself to use. Nice was maiden aunt, the woman serving tea and cake in the church hall, the librarian who let you borrow a book even though it was against the rules.
Annabelle, however, was more than nice.
Pushing her to the back of his mind, Ron tried to lose himself in the beauty around him, and his heart lifted when they crested a rise and saw the next bay ahead of them. A length of wide gold sand stretched into the distance, edged by white-topped waves rolling in to break on the gently shelving shore. There were a few dog-walkers, their excited charges dashing around in delight, a lone couple, shoes in their hands, walking through the water’s edge, and three riders on horseback cantering through the shallows, the spray cast up by their hooves catching the sun.
To the right of the beach lay an undulating mass of grass-covered dunes, wildflowers sprouting up between the sparse vegetation, and to either side of the path tiny wild strawberries grew. It was unexpectedly exotic and breathtakingly beautiful, and Ron greedily drank it in.
Everyone had stopped to look, even the boys, who were standing with eyes wide, tongues stilled.
This was what life was all about, Ron thought: not mobile phones, or the latest car, or the trendiest clothes. This was food for the soul and the senses.
However, the mood was soon broken by a flurry of photo-taking and exclamations of delight, accompanied by the excited chatter of the boys and barking from Pepe.
Only Annabelle was still and silent, gazing at the view, and he suddenly realised that she felt it too, the connection with nature and the pleasure of immersing oneself in the moment.
Then he almost laughed out loud at his silliness. She could be thinking about her next dental appointment for all he knew; or comparing the view in front of her to one in Australia and finding it wanting.
As though she felt the weight of his stare, Annabelle glanced back at him and caught his gaze. The light in her eyes and the wide beam of her smile told him she felt the same as he, and in that nano-second of contact a zing flashed through him.
Unable or unwilling to think about what it meant, Ron hastily dropped his gaze, but not before he’d seen an answering flash in hers.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Sam tugged at his sleeve. ‘Ron? Did you hear me? I said, are we nearly there yet?’
Relieved to be distracted, Ron looked down into the boy’s hopeful face. ‘You tell me, Map Boy. You’re the one who told us about this place, you’re the one who worked out how to get to it.’
Sam puffed up his chest with the responsibility of leading them to the lake. ‘I think we need to walk down to that dune there, where there’s a path going over the top, then walk along that.’
Ron nodded. ‘Lead on!’ he cried, although he wasn’t entirely sure Sam knew the way. The dunes were criss-crossed with paths going to God knows where, but he was fairly sure that if they got lost all they needed to do was to head towards the sea, to get them back to Rest Bay. Anyway, a little adventure never hurt anyone.
He glanced around the group to check everyone was all right, caught Annabelle’s eye once again, and bit his lip. He must stop looking at her like that. She might get the wrong idea (or the right one – that he fancied her something rotten) and he didn’t want to cause her any distress. The last thing she needed was to feel uncomfortable because he was ogling her. She was here to enjoy a holiday with her family, and he would hate to think that she might wish she hadn’t come.
As soon as they turned inland and dropped into the lee of one of the tussocky dunes, the breeze immediately subsided, and the air was still. It was getting warm, and Ron paused for a second, shrugged off the rucksack and held out his hand to Beverley.
‘Give me your cardi and I’ll pop it in here,’ he said. When she handed it to him, he cocked his head at Helen, whose face had grown pink. He guessed she might be sweltering with that sweater wrapped around her shoulders.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, lifting her nose.
‘Let me know if you change your mind,’ he offered, and she gave him a look he interpreted as being that she’d rather collapse from heat exhaustion than be beholden to him, even for something as simple as carrying her sweater for her. Which was surprising considering she had a tendency to treat him like a servant when at the house.
‘Silly cow,’ Beverley muttered in his ear. ‘She acts like she’s strolling along the front in Monaco, and people actually care what she looks like. Give me comfort any day.’
‘How much longer?’ Izzie, being the youngest of the group, was starting to flag.
‘Sam?’ Ron asked. Although he knew the answer, he also knew that Sam was revelling in the responsibility he’d been given.
Sam squinted into the distance and pointed towards a stand of scrubby trees. ‘I think the lake is over there.’
‘It is,’ Brett confirmed, moving alongside Ron. He stepped closer and lowered his voice. ‘I checked it out before we left.’ He eased his own backpack off and said in a louder voice, ‘Anyone want some water?’
The three youngest had a drink, but the others were eager to move on.
‘Can we swim in the pool?’ Jake asked, as everyone started walking again. ‘I’ve got my swimmies on.’ He pulled at the waistband of his shorts to reveal his swimming trunks.
‘It’s not recommended because it’s a nature reserve and you might disturb the birds,’ Ron said. He’d done his homework, too. ‘There’s another reason you can’t swim in the pool,’ he added, when he saw the boy’s disappointment. ‘It’s dangerous. There’s a whirlpool in the middle.’ He lowered his voice and the three youngest children slowed to listen. ‘According to local legend,’ he continued, ‘the pool is bottomless. It’s rumoured to be fed by seven springs, and these swirl and converge to form a whirlpool in the middle. Any boats that get too close are dragged into it and sucked down into the depths.’ He gave a theatrical shudder and made a sucking gurgling noise.
The three youngsters listened with wide eyes and gleefully horrified expressions on their faces. Even Ellis and Portia looked mildly interested.
