Lullaby
I saw them at the airport, the woman and her young lover, but I would surely have forgotten them by now if everything had ended well. You know how it is: unhappy endings sharpen the memory. So many things snagged in my mind afterwards, details that would otherwise have slipped away in the torrent of experience that courses through each of us without leaving a trace. One of their suitcases had split during the flight and the baggage handlers had sealed it with yellow tape. It was an old-fashioned case, not the hard mussel-shell you’re advised to use these days, a battered brown-leather carryall stuck with labels showing palm trees and hula skirts, like something out of Casablanca. The boy, the young man, wrestled it off the clanking conveyor and they laughed about the tape: the chevrons made it look like the scene of a crime. Their second bag went by, a backpack full of zippered pockets, clips and slings, and he chased after it, squealing with laughter again, and nearly knocked me over. The suitcase must be hers and the backpack his: luggage and gear. Two styles of travelling, two versions of the world. He tugged a wisp of red from the gaping case and pinned it with hooked thumbs across his hipbones, a lacy thong, barely there, and she snatched it away, pretending to be embarrassed, and buried it in her shoulder bag. Quite a bit older than him, I thought, but young enough to show those slivers of belly and back between T-shirt and sarong. Half the passengers were in Hawaiian shirts and Bermudas, signalling that their island holiday had already begun. The couple sharing my row had ordered G&Ts for lunch. In my suit, even without a tie, I felt like a grown-up among the kids, and it was a relief to get out of the terminal and into a taxi.
My hotel was on the edge of Grand Baie. I knew the Coconut Palm well, a comfortable, touristy place close to a good beach and half a dozen restaurants. The exclusive resorts are more beautiful, but what’s the point when you’re on your own? Mr Appadoo at reception greeted me by name and asked how the new range was moving. Little touches like this make you feel at home, whereas chocolates on the pillow and the bedclothes turned down remind you that you’re not.
‘You must join us for sundowners at the Sandbar,’ Mr Appadoo said.
‘Thanks but no thanks. I’d rather take a dip, clear my head.’
I was in no mood to break the ice with a gang of sun-deprived Europeans, self-basting Germans straight off their sunbeds, and Brits so pale they glow in the dark, all behaving like teenagers on a field trip. Been there, done that. They would let their hair and a few other things down before the evening was over. After the first free drink on the terrace there would be a string of others you had to pay for. Inevitably, someone would discover ‘Dancing Queen’ on the jukebox.
I went to my room, meaning to change for a swim, but an invitation card on the dressing table distracted me. It showed a cocktail glass with a tipsy straw and a stream of bubbles that spelt out Willkommen! Bienvenue! The cartoon had the same outmoded charm as the leather suitcase at the airport. I did not have to be in Floréal before noon the next day. Perhaps a drink would do me good. On an impulse, I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the bar.
The Sandbar was no more than a handful of wooden tables under thatched umbrellas scattered along the beach wall. Stehtische, the Germans call them, tables for standing at. Stairs went down to the sand; the sea was as flat and blue as a swimming pool, and so close you could leave your sandals on the grass and hotfoot it across to the water. Harry the barman had a counter with a sea view so that he could double as lifeguard. He knew some moves with the cocktail shaker and some jokes about Tom Cruise. He remembered my name too.
A dozen people were swirling about under the umbrellas, moored to their drinks on the tables like boats to bollards. A spume of coconut butter and rum drifted downwind. The ice had not just broken but melted. In a rising tide of accented English the odd phrase of Italian or German bobbed like a cocktail olive or a lemon wedge. The whole place was charged with the reckless energy people from a cold climate generate when they feel the sun on their arms and sand between their toes.
The complimentary cocktail was an extravagant thing in a hollowed-out pineapple, mainly rum and strawberry juice, I thought, with melon balls afloat like mines. Looking for a quiet corner, I went onto the terrace beyond the last umbrella, and there I saw them again, the couple from the airport, sitting on the same side of a table in the lee of a windbreak, pressed together, looking out to sea. They had their faces turned to the afternoon sun and their backs to the noise. Her hand was on his neck, rubbing the bristles against the grain.
Nearly every coincidence has a dull explanation — the airline and hotel bookings had probably been packaged by some agency — and I was only mildly surprised to find that we were in the same hotel. I was curious though. On another day, I would have left them there alone, but I went closer. It was enough to hesitate on the edge of their privacy.
‘Would you like to sit?’ the woman asked.
‘Are you sure? That’s kind of you.’
They made place for me at the table by shifting apart, separating into two distinct people.
‘I’m Martha from Rotterdam,’ she said, putting out her hand. ‘And this is my son Eckhart.’
‘Eckie,’ he said. The boy had a fierce handshake and a goofy smile. I imagine it matched the one I kept pasted to my face to cover my confusion. Mother and son? The possibility had not crossed my mind, but now the likeness seemed obvious. They had the same thick blond hair, the same full-lipped mouth. I introduced myself.
‘Are you enjoying your holidays?’ she asked.
‘I’ve just arrived. On business rather than pleasure, I’m afraid, although you wouldn’t think so to look at me.’
‘You must have a bit of fun too.’
‘Well, I’m going to reward myself with a weekend of loafing when the work is done.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘I’m in the rag trade, as we call it. Accessories mainly. We have a factory in Johannesburg, but some of our ranges are manufactured here.’
‘Rag trade!’ he burst out.
Almost everything I said made him laugh, a disconcerting high-pitched snort. I very soon began to wonder whether he wasn’t a bit, well, slow. He was too bright-eyed for a man of eighteen or twenty. Twenty-two? The fact that I couldn’t place his age seemed telling. He had a rough-and-ready masculinity, and he was drinking like an old pro and rolling his own cigarettes expertly from a packet of Drum. His chin was covered with stubble, his neck bulged from a white T-shirt — you could see he’d been working out — but his eyes were childishly innocent. He wouldn’t sit still. He kept squirming around on the bench like a child who wants to go out and play. When he knocked over his drink, a fat pineapple like my own, he looked distraught. His lip actually quivered. A bit slow, I thought, definitely. That would explain the easy physical warmth between them, the way he nuzzled at her neck and put his arm around her shoulders, left his hand to curl over her breast. And perhaps it also explained why she received these attentions with no sense of impropriety, of a boundary crossed or sanction violated.
Eckie went in search of a refill.