He didn’t move, except the hand, inside his shorts. His mouth was slightly open. She thought of screaming, and then that she might laugh, but it really wasn’t funny at all.

‘I mean it!’ she shouted. ‘Fuck off!’

Abruptly, he squatted down. He stared into her eyes, then pulled his hand out, spat on it, wiped it on his thigh, and reached out to her. His narrow face had a scattering of unsqueezed spots around the edges of his mouth. The sunlight reflected up off the water into his slanting eyes, which were mossy green and quite beautiful. There was something lacking in him. He gestured, as if she would walk towards him through the water and take his hand. She felt slow and calm. She took a big breath.

‘DAN!’ she shouted, confidently.

The boy stopped smiling and looked over his shoulder.

‘DAN!’ she shouted again.

He looked back at her.

‘DAN!’

He glanced quickly behind again, then stooped, and picked up her clothes, laughing.

‘DAN!’

Hopping with excitement, he bundled them into a ball and tossed them into the undergrowth, then sprinted off down the path, and out of sight.

She tottered out of the water on crab legs, blue with cold, and fell onto the ground.

Once she had got her clothes, and dressed, still shivering, she went back to the hotel.

The warm air dried her skin and made it itch. She walked round the back, to go in behind the reception desk, but the seldom-used door was locked, and as she tried the handle, Dan came down the stairs and saw her. He walked towards the door and unlocked it, top and bottom and tugged it open.

‘Hey. Where have you been?’

She couldn’t think what to say.

‘Nowhere.’ She started past him.

He saw her hair was wet. He frowned. Her skirt was sticking to her legs, and ripped from where she had pulled it from the bushes, and there was blood on her arm.

‘What’s that?’

‘Scratches.’

‘Why?’

‘I had to get my skirt out of a bush.’

‘What?’

She didn’t want his concern, or for him to know she had used his name to save herself.

‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I went swimming.’

‘Where? Why?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Bea? What the hell?’

‘You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me how you felt.’

‘I thought that was what we’re supposed to do. Be honest.’

‘I’m going to have a shower.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘No.’

‘We should talk about this.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

He went to take her arm.

She pulled away, but then halfway up the stairs she turned. ‘How could you? You fucking bastard.’

When she was out of sight, round the corner, by Alex’s room, he called up after her.

‘You could at least talk about it!’