Alistair started to wade forward to separate his boys, before seeming to think better of the idea. He moved back into his goal, reaching for the ball.

I sat forward in my seat, a hot bloom of anger unfurling in my chest, torn between a mother’s instinct to protect her daughter and a parent’s instinct to avoid embarrassing a teenager. But Lucy dived beneath the surface and came up a few feet away with her back to me, smoothing her hair off her face, holding her hands up to continue the game.

Perhaps I had imagined it. She seemed OK and the shout died in my throat.

Don’t embarrass her. Don’t make another scene. You’ve done that enough already this week.

Sean was taking a long pull from a bottle of beer at the side of the pool and appeared not to have noticed.

The game continued. Lucy intercepted the ball on its way to the goal and drew her arm back to throw, but Ethan was on her immediately. He waded forward and lunged again, hardly even seeming to go for the ball. Both hands held up, he launched himself towards her even more forcefully than the last time. Pushing and reaching, hands grabbing and pulling, his face in hers. Lucy wasn’t giving in so easily this time and she turned to dodge away from him, but then he was all over her, grappling with her for the ball, laughing, both hands on her shoulders as he almost climbed up her back, spinning her around to face him. A thrashing melee of bodies and arms and water splashing everywhere, and then Jake was pulling Ethan away and squaring up to him, fist cocked back, Alistair diving forward, arms out, trying to separate his boys, Ethan dodging away—

Alistair’s hands landed squarely on Lucy’s chest.

Lucy’s shriek of alarm.

Sean’s shout of anger.

Lucy dived under the surface again, kicking hard and surfacing next to Sean in the deep end, gasping for breath, one bikini strap hanging loose on her shoulder, a dark line of fingermarks showing red on her upper arm. Her face seemed to be frozen in shock, chest heaving for breath as she gripped the side.

Sean spoke to her briefly, quietly, a gentle hand on her elbow. She put her bikini strap back into place and said something back to him, her head down, then climbed out and wrapped a towel around her shoulders, pulling it tightly across her chest.

I hurried over to her, putting both hands on her shoulders. She was shaking and wouldn’t look at me. We were both shaking.

‘Lucy, are you OK?’

‘Fine.’

‘Why don’t you head up to your room? I’ll come up in a minute.’

She nodded and walked quickly to the stairs up to the balcony, head still down. Sean was wading into the middle of the pool, his face dark with anger.