I’m thinking of seven years ago. My mother had just died, taking the secret of her rock cakes with her. All my mates were getting married; instead of playing football on Sundays they took their kids to theme parks. I was thirty-five, and lonely. I had just started work at Peckham Pride and that afternoon, on the beach at Hastings, I fell in love with Eleni and her family.

Perhaps they nagged, but I couldn’t understand the words. Her father owned a wine warehouse in Lewisham and he had hired the coach for a works outing. There were lots of young blokes who all looked dark and related. They chattered and touched, not British at all. It was a cloudy day but nobody seemed to care. Arianna was there, and Maria, and the aunt whose name I couldn’t pronounce, and Costas, his future wife still unknown to him. Zither music played on a cassette recorder; we speeded through the dour London streets. Their mother was already an old woman, in the Mediterranean manner; she sat in the front of the coach and crocheted. There were about twenty children but they didn’t stampede about; they were shiny-haired and twittery, like starlings. In my mirror I could see Eleni; she sat close to her cousin Arianna, whispering; her hair was pulled up and fixed with orange combs.

On the beach the sun came out and the women unpacked the food. They patted a rug and included me; when I closed my eyes they were the family I had never had. Eleni pressed an olive into my mouth. How salty her fingers were! With her family as audience, she was bold and rebellious; she skittered off along the sand like a foal. I watched her. She was knowing and yet innocent; she flirted with the surf, willing the waves to touch her.

Smoke rose from the barbecue and stung my eyes. The women cooked; the men played with the children, it didn’t seem to matter whose, they all belonged. Greek families are like that. Just for today, I belonged too. I rolled up my shirtsleeves and drank sour wine and was filled with contentment. We ate kebabs and Eleni’s eyes met mine. After lunch everybody paddled, even Mrs Savvides, her mother. It was one of those days that you store in a larder, like something nourishing that will keep for ever so long as nobody opens the door.

On the way back everybody dozed, their faces fiery in the sunset. The children flopped like puppies and the cassette clicked off. Only Eleni stayed awake. I learnt her name then. She sat next to me, wriggling her toes in her peep-toed sandals. I could smell her suntan oil.

My hands felt big and manly on the wheel; she made me feel like that. Forty sleeping souls were in my care—I was new to coach driving, and the responsibility of them. She told me about the hairdressing salon where she worked, and how she’d once been on Top of the Pops.