Across the pool, a French family had put three sunbeds together, like a camp, and the mother was blowing up bright green frog armbands on the skinny arms of her tiny, naked daughter, a baby, of one or two years old. Bea watched how the woman moved. The sun came out in flashes. The tanning women bent their legs like slalom skiers, and their sunflower faces tracked the light. Bea tucked her skirt around her. She felt insubstantial, her headache had gone. She was hollowed out. These moments without thinking were like holidays. With lonely happiness, she watched the ladies sunbathing, and the French family putting on their suncream. The mother of the small naked girl, finished blowing up the armbands and patted her.

‘Bon.’

The tiny child, released, euphoric, ran straight towards the swimming pool.

‘Arrête!’ the mother shouted, but the naked baby laughed.

Quick as a leaping fish, she was off the edge, as if she thought she could run across the water, instead, of course, she dropped, and disappeared. Mouth open, she went under, then bobbed, and down again, and out of sight. The mother was on her feet before Bea had time to even sit up. Fully clothed, she jumped in. There was splashing, consternation from all around, and, a moment later, she carried her baby out, wading through the shallows and up the steps, with the child screaming in her arms. Less than five seconds had passed. The father, laughing now, reached for his phone to take a picture, as the mother carried her daughter back, clothes sticking, water pouring from her like a sea creature. She started laughing along with her husband, but the little girl screamed and screamed. The tanning women, disturbed again, raised their heads and stared.

‘There there,’ soothed the mother. ‘Chouchou –’

She covered the angry baby with kisses, and wrapped her in a striped towel, pulling her arm out to dry it, and buried her face in the wishbone groove at the back of her daughter’s soft neck, and kissed her.