Where the Memories Lie

 

From where I stood at the island I had a clear view down the hallway to the front door. Anna wore a pink sun top and tiny denim shorts.

 

‘Hi, Anna.’ Chris, my brother-in-law, stepped inside and shut the door. ‘How’s things?’

 

‘Good, thanks. We’re almost ready.’ She kissed his cheek.

 

He set down his own large cool box on the floor.

 

‘I’m just going to get my bikini on.’ Anna rushed back upstairs.

 

‘Hi.’ I waved.

 

‘Bikini?’ Chris pulled a face at me.

 

‘What, haven’t you got your leopard-skin Speedos?’ I arched an eyebrow.

 

‘Yeah. Sexy.’

 

Where the Memories Lie ‘It’s going to be another scorching day according to the weather forecast.’

 

‘I’m loving this weather, but I doubt very much I’ll be going in the sea. It’ll be bloody freezing.’

 

Ethan came in through the back door carrying some fold-up chairs. ‘All right, Chris?’

 

‘Yeah. Do you want a hand with anything?’ Chris asked.

 

‘No, I’ll just put these in the car and then load up with the cool boxes and we’re all set.’ He nudged me with his elbow, a warm smile plastered on his face. ‘Come on. You’re always running late.’

 

Ten minutes later we all piled into Ethan’s Range Rover Sport and drove up the road to Nadia and Lucas’s house to meet them before driving in convoy through the beautiful Dorset countryside.

 

We headed past Corfe Castle and finally onto the picturesque sand dunes at Swanage.

 

It was already starting to get busy with families and couples, the promise of a rare spurt of summer weather bringing everyone out of hiding, looking pasty and anaemic. I wondered how many people on the beach would end up with sunburn and heatstroke today.

 

We found an empty spot in between a couple of dunes and set up towels, blankets and chairs.

 

‘Are you coming in the sea?’ Charlotte asked Anna as she stripped off her sundress to reveal a black halter-neck bikini.

 

I lay on a large picnic blanket and watched the two girls walk to the water’s edge and test the temperature with their feet, shrieking and giggling as they realised it was colder than they thought.

 

Nadia lay next to me. ‘What a week!’ She smiled as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if she hadn’t told me the horrible suspicions of Lucas’s affair a few days ago. She slathered a high-factor sun tan lotion on with great concentration since she had a tendency to burn. Thanks to my genes, I was dark with olive skin and could 47

 

Sibel Hodge

 

get a tan sitting in the shade. I think there was some Mediterranean blood in our family way back.

 

I turned onto my side, propping my head up with my hand as Lucas, Chris and Ethan stood to one side chatting about football scores or something equally yawn-inducing.

 

Although Ethan and Chris were brothers, they didn’t look alike at all. Ethan was more like his Dad ? tall, dark, lean but broad-shouldered, with brown eyes below thick eyebrows. Chris was shorter, stockier and blond like his mum, right down to his pale eyelashes that almost looked transparent. When Chris was younger he was bordering on overweight, which he’d been very self-conscious about. As soon as he hit sixteen he started boxing and doing physical work on the building sites with Tom every day so he’d soon lost the puppy fat. Nadia was a mixture of both parents: blonde like Chris but tall with dark brown eyes like Ethan. Lucas looked as if he could be Chris’s brother instead of Ethan’s best mate.

 

Nadia always thought Lucas looked like the actor Ewan McGregor, although I couldn’t see it myself.