and booze can make you feel when there are no mirrors around.
Lunch was to die for. Griddle-blackened tiger prawns pulsating with garlic and parsley, fantastically crunchy chips to soak up the juices and a lovely fresh salad to make us feel virtuous. The food, wine and swim (not necessarily in that order) have certainly sorted out my hangover, I think, as I weave my way through the bodies on the sand back to our table.
‘How was the water?’ asks Poppy.
‘Absolutely gorgeous! So refreshing, I feel like a new man. What’s the wine situation?’ I pick up my empty glass.
‘Don’t panic, we’ve ordered a couple more bottles,’ says Ben, laughing.
Looking around the table I feel a moment of pure joy. I’m with three of my favourite people in probably my favourite place on earth, mellowed with sun and wine, with nothing but more pleasure to look forward to until we leave this magical island. It’s so hot I’m drying off already, salt crystals forming on my sunbaked shoulders, my wet hair keeping me cool. Whichever direction I look, I am confronted by sunshine, beauty and laughing faces. It seems as if nothing can pierce my bubble of happiness.
And then I see him. Walking up the beach towards us, skinny brown legs in way-too-short denim cut-offs, barrel brown chest revealed by a batik silk shirt left open to the waist. His shoulder-length hair is thick and grey, his chest hair white and wispy. A shark’s tooth dangles from a leather string around his neck, above which his strong mahogany face is etched with deep vertical grooves. He is carrying – oh God – a guitar in one hand and what looks like a spliff in the other.
‘Bella,’ says Damian, following my gaze. ‘Isn’t that …?’
Yes, the ageing hippy openly checking out all the topless babes on the beach is my much-loved but thoroughly disreputable father.
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