‘So you made out like a bandit in the City till the economy broke,’ teased Lucien.
‘Hey.’ She punched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘That’s not fair. I was a tiny cog in a huge machine at a time when nobody was really seeing the big picture.’
‘Hmm. Didn’t you get sacked for insider trading?’
‘No I bloody didn’t! I left by mutual agreement, and it was market manipulation, not insider trading.’ Eva paused and then continued more slowly. ‘But with hindsight I realize that I may have done some. . questionable things.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Markets moving fifty basis points in milliseconds, billion-dollar fortunes made and lost. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.’
Lucien grinned. ‘Yeah, yeah, all right, Deckard.’
Eva grinned back, but quickly returned to looking serious. ‘The thing is, at the time, everything we did felt like it happened in isolation from the rest of the world. It’s only when you get older you really understand how everything’s connected: money, power, politics, markets, people’s actual lives.’
The song on the radio changed abruptly, replacing the Beatles with the angry staccato of the latest Rihanna hit, and all three of them looked towards the shore, where Allegra was busy trying to put a bucket on Will’s head.
‘This new generation, though,’ continued Eva, waving a hand in the direction of the radio, ‘they seem worse than we ever were. To read the news you’d think it was all meow-meow and donkey punching. We thought we were pretty wild, but this new crop, it’s like they’re dead inside. Or does every generation think that about the next one? I dunno, maybe it’s just that I’m getting old.’ Eva reached up unthinkingly and smoothed away the lines by her eyes that seemed to grow deeper every morning in the bathroom mirror. She had realized just the other day that she was now older than her own mother had been when she died.
Sylvie laughed. ‘I think we’re all fundamentally the same. Us, them, every other generation. We all think we’re unique snowflakes, but we’re not really. Do you remember how we thought we were so different when we were young, like we were on the fringes of society because we dyed our hair and did drugs at parties? Christ, we’d have loathed it then if we knew how like everyone else we are, how people are just the same the world over. Funny, because it feels rather comforting now, I feel sort of grounded by it.’
The children had quietened down now and were collecting pieces of shell washed up on the shore, and the teenagers had packed up and taken the radio with them so that the only sound was the sloshing of the water and the occasional call of a seagull. The air was warm and the glare bounced off the water with dazzling intensity, making them squint and transporting them to other places of shimmering light. For a moment Sylvie was far away in a valley in the Languedoc, and Eva was haring along a road in Corfu, Benedict beside her.
‘Nothing really turned out how we expected, did it?’ said Eva.
‘Nope.’ Sylvie shook her head. ‘I didn’t realize how much things would change and how little we would be able to control.’
‘It felt like we were invincible,’ said Lucien. ‘Back in the day, I mean. We weren’t stupid, I knew life didn’t stay the same forever, but I didn’t really know it, y’know?’
Sylvie took up the theme. ‘And there was always going to be a way out. You’d go over a cliff in a Ferrari, or overdose in a squat in a tragic-yet-glamorous act of artistic excess. I never really thought about having people relying on me. Let alone trying to raise a child on my own.’
A mischievous look crept over Eva’s face. ‘By the way, Sylvie, Big Paul happened to let slip the other day that he’d been over to your place last week. Called it an “investor update” when he cottoned on to the fact you hadn’t mentioned it to me. But of course, you two wouldn’t be conducting investor meetings without your CEO there, would you now?’
‘Oh, jog on. He just comes by for a coffee and a walk on the Heath with me and Allegra every now and again. He gets a bit moony-eyed sometimes but I don’t really think there’s anything in it. Believe it or not, men aren’t queuing around the block to take on a single mother with a disabled child. Anyway, I’m not even sure I’d want one. I haven’t done too badly on my own, have I?’
‘You’ve been brilliant,’ Lucien told her. ‘I’d never have dreamt of having kids, what with how messed up our own childhood was. You know how that shit runs in families. So double pat on the back to you.’
‘Oh, Lucien, I know we’re going to still be having this argument when we’re eighty, but having Allegra has made me sympathize with Mum more. I mean, it’s really tough, being a parent. She asked how you were doing when she phoned the other day, you know. And I think she’s drinking a bit less now.’
‘Whatever.’ He held his hand up in the air, last two fingers looking pinker and shinier than usual in contrast with the tanned skin of the rest of his hand, and turned it around slowly in front of his face. ‘I know who my real family are. They’re right here on this beach.’
‘Speaking of which, Sylvie, you do know you’re not really on your own, don’t you?’ said Eva. ‘Even if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, there’d still be me and Benedict and Lucien to look after Allegra. And when we’re gone, Will and Josh will be here to make sure she’s all right, she’s virtually a sister to them. If there’s one thing that I’ve realized since Keith died, it’s that friendship and love are pretty much all we’ve got that’s worth anything. Everything else is noise.’ She reached out and took her friend’s hand, and they all fell quiet.
‘Talking of love,’ said Lucien eventually without opening his eyes, ‘did you know that Eva used to be in love with me?’
‘Yep,’ answered Sylvie casually, and then at Eva’s squeak of horror, added, ‘You could hardly miss the way you used to hang on to his every word. I used to wish he’d just put you out of your misery.’
‘Bloody hell! Put me out of my misery? It wasn’t all unrequited pining, I’ll have you know.’ Eva glanced towards the shore to make sure Benedict was out of earshot. ‘Do you know what he did? He slept with me. Back in Bristol, in our first year. And then acted like it never happened, the complete bastard.’
Sylvie looked up and arched an eyebrow first at Lucien and then at Eva.
‘Really? You actually shagged her? And you didn’t tell me?’ This last directed at Eva.
‘Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t know how you’d take it. I figure you can’t bollock me for it now, seeing as it happened a good couple of decades ago.’
‘Christ. You could have ended up my sister-in-law.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Lucien. ‘I wasn’t really looking for the white picket fence experience back then, and she was way out of my league by the time I realized what she was worth.’ He tugged her towards him so that his arm was around her neck, half embrace and half headlock.
Eva laughed and inhaled deeply, her face in his neck. ‘You still smell the same,’ she told him quietly.
Sylvie made a gagging noise. ‘I heard that, you know. Now you’re really grossing me out.’
They all laughed and settled back down against the blanket. Eva stared out at the luminescent water and thought back to the day when she had scattered Keith’s ashes into the sea. She wriggled out of Lucien’s embrace and peeled off her dress to the bikini underneath, then walked down to join Benedict and the children at the water’s edge.
‘Find any sea monsters?’
‘No, but we did find some seaweed and a dead starfish to decorate our sandcastle.’ Benedict waved towards the elaborately moated and turreted fortress that the boys had built, which was now being demolished under the onslaught of Allegra’s enthusiastic embellishment.