‘We will. It’s super. She won’t be long, she’s drying herself, look.’

Matilda rubbed her arms, looking out to sea where the boat with the dog on board sailed slowly, the sail turning purple. The barbecue party moved continuously, bringing driftwood, fidgeting, throwing their long young limbs about. Their inane voices carried in the clear air.

‘Shall we swim now or later?’

‘I want to swim naked.’

‘Super! Why not?’

‘Well –’

‘She’d go more quickly if we stripped.’

‘Super. Do strip Bobby – go on.’

Matilda pulled off her bathing suit and dried herself standing on the hot rock, baked all day in the sun.

‘Christ! She’s stripped. D’you think she heard us?’

‘No, of course not. She’s old, she can’t have.’

‘Old people aren’t necessarily deaf.’ The girl called Vanessa spoke crisply.

‘Oh Vanessa, you are so witty, why don’t you strip?’

‘I’m not beautiful enough or old enough not to care.’

She meant me to hear that, Matilda thought, sitting down on the warm rock. That girl would murder her mother without hesitation if she thought she wouldn’t be caught. There’s no passion in that voice. I bet the Matricide has passion.

‘I want that flat rock as a table. I had it all planned.’ The voice held a whining note.

‘She’ll be gone soon.’

‘Yes, poor old bird.’

Feeling the rock warm on her bottom Matilda reached for her shirt thinking. ‘Yes, I’ll be gone soon, you despoilers of my beach.’

Pulling her shirt on and buttoning it slowly she suddenly wept, remembering this rock with – well, with him her love, he lying back, his hips in one of the hollows, his crane-like legs stretched long and thin towards the sea, grey hair falling back onto the rock, the colour of the granite and the hair merging. Or of watching him stepping slowly along the edge of the water like a heron, unhurried, thoughtful, beaky nose, grey hair, elongated legs, flapping his arms to tease Stub who barked to attract his attention, to make him play, and the children tailing heel and toe along the sand, pressing in toes to form a pattern with Stub’s paw marks, Stub who dearly loved swimming and even once with Gus who had become so emotional he’d messed all over the rock and the car going home. Matilda let herself pee allowing the hot urine to flow into a dip in the rock. She stood up, dried between her legs, pulled on her jeans, zipped them.

‘She isn’t wearing knickers,’ a girl’s voice hissed. ‘Fancy, an old person like that!’

Matilda picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She remembered she had a sweater in the car and was glad. She took up her basket feeling the weight of the Beaujolais. It would be heavier by the time she got back to the car park.