One Day
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‘Dexter, you are so hard.’
He smiled, and continued to watch her from behind his dark glasses, noting the way her raised arm lifted her breast beneath the black material of the swimming costume, the bulge of soft pale flesh about the elasticated neckline. There was something about the gesture too, the tilt of the head and the pulling back of her hair as she applied the lotion to her neck, and he felt the pleasant nausea that accompanied desire. Oh God, he thought, eight more days of this. Her swimming costume was scooped low at the back and she could do no more than dab ineffectually at the lowest point. ‘Want me to do your back?’ he said. Offering to apply sun cream was a corny old routine, beneath him really, and he thought it best to pass it off as medical concern. ‘You don’t want to burn.’
‘Go on then.’ Emma shuffled over and sat between his legs, her head resting forward on her knees. He began to apply the lotion, his face so close that she could feel his breath on her neck, while he could feel the heat reflecting off her skin, both of them working hard on the impression that this was everyday behaviour and in no way a clear contravention of Rules Two and Four, those prohibiting Flirtation and Physical Modesty.
‘Scooped quite low, isn’t it?’ he said, aware of his fingers at the base of her spine.
‘Good job I didn’t put it on backwards!’ she said and a silence followed while both of them thought oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God.
As a distraction she placed her hand on his ankle and yanked it towards her. ‘What’s this?’
‘My tattoo. From India.’ She rubbed it with her thumb as if trying to wipe it off. ‘It’s faded a bit. It’s a yin-and-yang,’ he explained.
‘Looks like a road sign.’
‘It means the perfect union of opposites.’
‘It means “end of national speed limit”. It means put some socks on.’
He laughed and placed his hands on her back, his thumbs aligned with the hollows of her shoulder blades. A moment passed. ‘There!’ he said, brightly. ‘That’s your undercoat. So. Let’s swim!’
And so the long, hot day crawled on. They swam and slept and read, and as the fiercest heat faded and the beach become more populated a problem became apparent. Dexter noticed it first.
‘Is it just me or—’
‘What?’
‘Is everyone on this beach completely naked?’
Emma looked up. ‘Oh yeah.’ She returned to her book. ‘Don’t ogle, Dexter.’
‘I’m not ogling, I’m observing. I’m a qualified anthropologist, remember?’
‘Low third, wasn’t it?’
‘High two-two. Look, there’s our friends.’
‘What friends?’
‘From the ferry. Over there. Having a barbecue.’ Twenty metres away the man crouched pale and naked over a smoky aluminium tray as if for warmth, while the woman stood on tip-toes and waved, two triangles of white, one of black. Dexter waved back cheerily: ‘You’ve got no cloooothes oooon!’
Emma averted her eyes. ‘You see, I couldn’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘Barbecue naked.’
‘Em, you’re so conventional.’
‘That’s not conventional, it’s basic health and safety. It’s food hygiene.’
‘I’d barbecue naked.’
‘And that’s the difference between us, Dex, you’re so dark, so complicated.’
‘Maybe we should go and say hi.’
‘No!’
‘Just have a chat.’
‘With a chicken drumstick in one hand and his knob in the other? No thanks. Besides, isn’t it a breach of nudist etiquette or something?’
‘What?’
‘Talking to someone naked and us not being naked.’
‘I don’t know, is it?’
‘Just concentrate on your book, will you?’ She turned to face the tree-line, but over the years she had reached a level of familiarity with Dexter where it had become possible to hear an idea enter his mind, like a stone thrown into mud, and sure enough:
‘So what do you think?’
‘What?’
‘Should we?’
‘What?’
‘Take all our clothes off?’
‘No, we should nottake all our clothes off!’
‘Everyone else has!’
‘That’s no reason! And what about Rule Four?’
‘Not a rule, a guideline.’
‘No, a rule.’
‘So? We can bend it.’
‘If you bend it, it’s not a rule.’
Sulkily he flopped back down on the sand. ‘Just seems a bit rude, that’s all.’
‘Fine, you go ahead, I’ll try to tear my eyes away.’
‘No point if it’s just me,’ he mumbled petulantly.
She lay her back down once again. ‘Dexter, why on earth are you so desperate for me to take my clothes off?’
‘I just thought we might be more relaxed, with our clothes off.’
‘Unbelievable, just unbelievable—’
‘You don’t think you’d be more relaxed?’
‘NO!’
‘Why not?’
‘It doesn’t matter why not! Besides, I don’t think your girlfriend would be very pleased.’
‘Ingrid wouldn’t care. She’s very open-minded, Ingrid. She’d have had her top off at WH Smiths in the airport—’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Dex—’
‘You don’t disappoint me—’
‘But there’s a difference—’
‘What difference?’
‘Well Ingrid used to be a model for one thing—’
‘So? You could be a model.’
Emma laughed sharply. ‘Oh, Dexter, do you really think so?’
‘For catalogues or something. You’ve got a lovely figure.’
‘“A lovely figure”, God help me—’
‘All I’m saying is completely objectively, you’re a very attractive woman—’
‘—who is keeping her clothes on! If you’re so desperate to tan your bits, fine, go ahead. Now can we change the subject?’