Footprints in the Sand

‘But if we really don’t like it here, we could go back after the two nights you’ve paid for, couldn’t we?’

‘I don’t want to spend my whole holiday moving from place to place like a bag lady.’

‘Now you’re exaggerating.’

‘Well, it’s a bore all this packing up and moving around. I came here to relax.’

She slid the back of her chair down and stretched out with a sigh as if to demonstrate her commitment to the place.

A wasp settled on the bowl of jam.

I made more fuss than absolutely necessary about the wasp, and went back to our room to change for the beach.

The beach was about ten minutes’ walk away. We had to cross a stretch of green swampy marshland to get there. There was a wobbly bridge made of planks which crossed a stagnant-looking stream clogged with reeds.

Below us, standing waist deep in the dyke, was an old man cutting reeds. Up on the bank was another fellow who had a sackful of wet reeds and an old chair frame. Oh, local colour! Mum was going to love this. Sure enough, she’d spotted them.

‘What do you think they’re doing?’ she asked.

‘How should I know?’

‘Let’s go and see.’

The chap on the bank was doing something tediously rustic with the reeds. He’d twisted them into long strands. You could see where he’d already woven some of them back and forth to make a new rush seat for the chair.

Mum went into ‘reverie mode’ at that point.

‘It’s just so timeless, isn’t it? You know – I reckon they’ve been making chairs like that since… since…’ She paused. ‘Since chairs were invented,’ she finished.

‘How long ago is that?’ I asked with a yawn.

‘Oh I don’t know – couple of thousand years – more probably.’

‘That must explain why they’re so uncomfortable.’

‘Oh honestly Lucy,’ said Mum, forging on ahead again.

I followed, scuffing up the sand. ‘Well, it must.’

‘See?’ she said when we reached the beach. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

It was white sand. Acres of it – deserted – not a soul to be seen.

‘Why isn’t there anyone here?’

‘I don’t know. Aren’t we lucky, we’ve got it all to ourselves.’

‘Mmmm.’

I smothered suntan lotion on and lay down on my stomach before Mum could get a good look at my red skin. I wasn’t going to let on, but the skin on my front was still pretty sore from the day before.

Mum stretched out on her towel and took out her book.

‘The sun’s pretty high, so just half an hour and then we can have a lovely cooling swim before lunch,’ she said.

I put a tape in my Walkman and turned it on. Anything to try and put myself in a better mood.

Mum made her usual fuss about the volume. (‘Sounds like people clashing saucepans around – can’t understand why you like that stuff, Lucy.’) So I turned it down a bit. Some holiday this had turned out to be.

It was barely half an hour before Mum started fussing about sunburn, so I agreed to a swim. Or should I say a paddle? We had to walk out about a kilometre before the water got up to our waists. No wonder no-one came to this beach.

‘But there’s no weed,’ said Mum, still trying desperately hard to stress the finer points of the place.

‘And we’re not likely to drown, that’s for sure,’ I commented sarkily.

We had a very half-hearted swim, constantly encountering sandbanks and running aground. And then we went back for lunch and a siesta.

Once back in the room Mum fell asleep almost immediately, but I lay awake staring at the ceiling and silently plotting ways to talk her round. Outside, I could hear the steady rhythmic chanting of the crickets. It really wasn’t fair. There were all those crickets outside, thousands of them by the sound of it, packed tight as bodies on a beach on a hot Bank Holiday, sounding as if they were having the time of their lives. While I was here in positive solitary confinement – except that I had Mum for company. I was starting to feel like those hostages you read about. Locked up with just one other person till they drive you barmy. If this went on much longer, I reckoned I’d start having delusions.

I wondered what Ben was doing. Ben – short for Benjamin, I supposed. I could imagine him now, serving people drinks maybe, at the taverna. A vision of him came into my mind, so vivid it was almost real, of him standing there last night in the gloom…

The low sun had turned him a kind of over-the-top all-over golden colour. I’d had to look away. He’d stood there waiting to take my glass, and when I looked up he was already walking off – but then he turned back slowly and smiled at me. I’d gone hot and cold and tingly all over. It was how he’d smiled. I mean, I’ve got to notice these things. There’s a certain way guys look at you when they fancy you. Kind of eyes halfway between open and closed, trying to look as if they’re not looking, if you know what I mean. We had to go back. I’d get around Mum somehow.

And then I had a dreadful thought. What if someone else had come and taken our room? What if all the rooms in the taverna were booked up? Maybe there was some other girl staying in my room. Who was older. And had a nicer nose…

I stabbed at my pillow and turned over. Oh why had I been such an idiot wanting us to leave like that?

Fate didn’t intervene until that night. I didn’t hear the first one. I woke with a hot itchy feeling on my leg. Switching on the light I discovered that I had the most gigantic mozzie bite.

‘Oh no!’ There was a whole row of them all the way up my leg.

‘Hmm – what is it, Lucy? Why’s the light on?’

‘We can’t stay here! I’m getting eaten alive!’

‘What?’

‘Mosquitoes. Look at them! We’ll get malaria!’

‘Don’t be silly – you don’t get malaria in Greece! Hand me that magazine – I’ll swat it. And put the light out!’

‘How can you see to swat it with the light out?’

‘Well if you don’t put the light out, more will come in.’

‘Too late,’ I announced.

There were already six or seven of the creatures circling round the lightbulb.