His sister got up beside him, all thin limbs and blow-dried hair. She was wearing skinny cropped jeans and red-soled ballerina pumps, a cotton shirt and pearls; she was understated in her style, yet still somehow screamed ‘rich husband’. He, by contrast, was in another faded t-shirt, a hole at the neck, navy cargos, battered boat shoes that looked the same vintage as his actual boat.

She felt her heart constrict as he got up to leave too, his niece and nephew shuffling with bored torpor, fiddling with their headphones. She tried to think of something, a reason to make him stay, an excuse to talk to him; but there was nothing. It was done. He stood by his table and stared at her openly for a moment, before giving a smile as tiny as the nod, hidden in plain sight. No one else was watching. No one else cared. But as he turned away and followed his family out of the garden, she knew she did.

Sandhamn, 27 July 2009

He stared at his untouched lunch, not reading the paper open before him, his hand spread in a tense claw. Their laughter dominated the space, heads turning towards their vibrant group. They were young and beautiful, poised on the cusp of taking on the world.

Though his head was down, the brim of his baseball cap allowed him to sneak furtive glances in her direction. He could see her friends joking about, the conversation open and buoyant – yet always somehow coming back to her, everyone’s eyes settling on her face like bees returning to a flower. Her fingers tapped against her glass as she talked, her bright hair worn up in a sleek ponytail and showing off her slender neck. Under the table, he could see she had kicked off her shoes and was scrunching the grass between her pink-varnished toes, her laughter tickling the air as the guy beside her cracked a joke. She clutched his arm, weak with amusement.

She was with him. His friend. He remembered the contents of her basket . . .

He looked away as she threw a casual, queenly glance around the garden. Was she aware of the way everyone watched her? Was it what she wanted? She had to have known what she was doing in the shop earlier, her impact upon people. Men.

His fingers drummed the wooden table, his sandwich beginning to curl in the midday sun, but he still couldn’t stomach it. He felt tied up in knots. Anxious. Sick. He took a sip of his beer, feeling it slide down his throat. He reminded himself it was cool, refreshing, relaxing . . .

He looked back up at her again, and perhaps it was the abrupt movement of his head that caught her attention too, because their eyes met in the next moment. She looked straight at him – startled, but something else too. Intrigued? Interested? The smile faded on her mouth, but not in her eyes.