plunge pool,’ she muttered to him.
‘What?’
‘Think of diving into the ice–cold plunge pool.’
Peadar shivered loudly. ‘I was thinking of McCann with Mother Teresa,’ he replied and stared across at Shane still feigning sleep and clutching his Paddington Bear.
‘I’ve an idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s all eat Paddington for breakfast.’
‘You will not.’ Shane uncoiled himself and landed with one spring on their bed. Peadar laughed and soon had the children laughing too, as he invented songs, with no trace of disappointment in his voice at the sexual tension which, just a few moments before, seemed about to spill over between them.
Alison was relieved some years back when Peadar stopped attempting to explain the rules of the Fitzgerald’s golfing scramble competition to her. It combined the complexity of Einstein’s theory of relativity with a propensity for appalling dress sense on the part of more serious disciples. For lesser mortals like Peadar it apparently consisted of three strangers teeing off, almost everybody picking their ball up again, everyone blaming the prevailing weather conditions or their hangovers and promising to buy each other a drink in the hotel bar that night.
However, she knew it kept Peadar happy for a few hours on the Monday morning, after which he was generally content to put his golf clubs away for the remainder of the holiday. The biggest cheer at the prizegiving every Thursday night was for the golfing competition, with scores calculated by a formula, based on points from individual rounds and a percentage of points from the scramble, which seemed better applied to nuclear physics. Alison could spot the men and women who spent whole days trying to better their scores, and evenings huddled at the bar working out minute calculations.
Every year Peadar simply put his name down to make up the numbers for some old couple’s scramble team and steered clear of everything else. Alison told him she didn’t mind if he entered the competition properly by playing a full solo round now that the children were older. But she knew how a sense of duty held him back from abandoning her for so long. His scramble partners this year, the Irwins, came from Northern Ireland. They hailed him at breakfast time, with Peadar jokingly saluting Mr Irwin as ‘captain’ and arranging to meet them on the first tee at eleven o’clock.
It was only after Peadar had left and she brought the children for their morning swim, that she realised Danny was now too big to be taken into the ladies’ changing room. She had to ask an attendant to stay in the gents’ locker room with him, and even then she was uneasy, not recognising him from any previous year.
She got Sheila and Shane changed quickly and brought them out to where Danny waited impatiently at the poolside. The attendant smiled and walked away to fix the pile of towels, making Alison feel guilty for harbouring suspicions about him.
There were two full–size pools, a kiddies’ one sloping to a depth of five feet and an eight–foot adult one nearly always empty. The sauna and steam rooms were hidden behind statues up steps beside the adult pool, with a plunge pool between them. Out on the terrace, once you braved the sea breeze and occasional rain, was an outdoor Canadian hot tub whose powerful jets of water made the indoor jacuzzi almost tepid by comparison.
Alison knew she would have to give these pleasures a miss this morning to keep an eye on the children. The boys dived straight into the kiddies’ pool. Sheila ran to the steps and waded in. Alison followed slowly, shivering and warning them to let her lower her body into the cold water in her own time. Either her bathing costume had shrunk or else her bottom was getting bigger. She needed to discreetly adjust it under the water. The kiddies’ pool was packed. She looked around, wondering if the boys would make friends this year and might Sheila be left out of things.
Parents took turns minding children while their partners lazed in the steam room or raced outdoors in their bare feet to chance the Canadian hot tub. Danny was a natural swimmer, although Shane stubbornly insisted on wearing one armband. Alison mainly played with Sheila, letting the boys invent chasing games of their own. Somebody switched the fountain on and a thin sheet of water spilled down as children splashed excitedly underneath it. She saw the man who had spoken to the Bennetts last night, just for a second among hordes of parents and children at the pool edge. Then Danny popped up before her, splashing water and looking for a chase. She swam after him in mock rage while Shane joined the pursuit and, from the corner of her eye, Alison noticed Sheila playing with a girl her own age. A powerful water jet burst into life, spraying out a current in the far corner of the pool. She caught Danny who wriggled free and threw himself headlong into the turbulent spray.
Alison turned as Shane followed his brother, knowing the jet would keep the boys busy. That man was watching her again, this time from the Jacuzzi overlooking the children’s pool. He had obviously left his own brood to be attended by his wife. Instinctively she knew he had been watching for a long time, but he didn’t look away, even when she stared back. Instead he nodded slightly. Maybe their families had shared a holiday here before but that didn’t give him the right to blatantly eyeball her. She thought about how her bathing costume had shrunk and wondered had he seen her enter the pool. Sheila swam towards her. Alison made a great fuss of picking her daughter up, annoyed at him and furious at herself for feeling vaguely flattered. But it was a while since any man had gazed at her like that.
When Alison allowed herself to gaze back after five minutes the man had left the Jacuzzi. She glanced around the pool, wondered which mother was his wife and whether she knew that her husband stared at strangers.
Someone was calling her name. She recognised the wild brood of kids jumping into the water before she saw Joan, a woman from Dundalk who had shared this same week as them for the last three years. Alison smiled, recalling Joan’s raucous laugh and how she loved to stay up half the night, gathering other women around her to tell blue jokes.
If they lived near each other in Dublin, then Alison suspected that Joan was the sort of woman she would spend her life avoiding. But here on holidays it was good to have a laugh, without knowing that everything you said would be spun out as exaggerated gossip in the local park. Alison’s two sisters–in–law in Waterford had the same small–town look, getting drunk together at Joe Dolan concerts one night, falling out with each other the next. But at least they were there for one another, even though increasingly distant towards Alison every time she went back to Waterford.
Joan dived in, shivering with the sudden cold. She swam towards Alison, happily complaining in her usual torrent of words: ‘Is your Peadar beating the bushes on the golf course for lost balls like my Joey? I keep telling him, “Joey, you can’t piss in a straight line never mind hit a golf ball.” Joey’s version of course management is not falling into a lake and drowning himself.’
Joan aimed a palmful of water at her eldest son who threatened to swim too near.
‘Would you look at Jason there and him so sick last night we had to eat in our room. I saw Peadar at the bar when I finally got down but you were tucked away out of sight. He must have shagged you out, you know these schoolmasters and their big sticks. Here, off you go and have a sauna while I’ll keep an eye on your three.’
Alison went to protest but Joan raised a mock fist.
‘Away with you.’ She turned towards Danny who had swum over, recognising her and knowing a chase was on the cards. ‘Look at the size of you, Danny! They must be stretching you each night to make sure you make the right height for the cops. Come here till I squash you back to your proper size!’
Alison clambered out, listening to his mock screams and grateful for a few moments’ peace. Neither Shane nor Sheila noticed her slip away. She
