The only good thing about this holiday is the pool. I go there before Dad and Karen wake up, slip through the patio doors, straight out into the morning heat. The water is spread out like blue silk and I dive in immediately. It feels good and cool.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a fish: to live in this still, silent underworld with the crowded cotton wool feeling, far away from Dad and Karen.
I swim laps until my insides burn and I'm no longer thinking. Coach says I have tremendous lung capacity. It's true - I can stay under for many minutes. But all I want is oblivion.
The only hints of the real world are the moving speckles of light. Those dapples of red are the petals of the Heliconia plant growing in the corner of the pool. The red dapples; deep blue; these are the curved stage for my underwater thoughts.
There always comes a time, and I tear right through the water's membrane, into the sharp, clean sunlight. My breath pours out all at once. The water is a tender friend, caressing my shoulders. I move to the side, kicking my legs like a frog.
I notice Dad and Karen as I run my hand through my wet hair. Karen lies face down on a white sun lounger. Her spine protrudes like an alien. It's the only real part of her. The rest is filler and botox. Dad sits desperately by her side pumping sun protection out of a plastic bottle, then patting it down on her back like he's mending a wall.
He sees me watching and jolts to his feet like he's been electrocuted. One fuzzy knee collides with a table. Karen's freshly squeezed organic orange juice teeters dangerously:
'Kat!' He waves violently. 'Hey Kat!'
His guilt about the affair has led to a lifetime of embarrassing enthusiasm.
Karen twists her neck round like a snake and peers curiously through bug eyed sunglasses. She had her highlights done in Paris last weekend and I think without concern that the Tunisian sun will utterly ruin them.
As if reading my thoughts, she reaches lazily for an oversized sun hat and sets it on top of her highlights. She raises a quick palm at me - the tips of her manicure flash like shark's teeth - before going back to reading Vogue. Or looking at the pictures.
I swim smoothly to the edge and pull myself out. The sun is a perfect orange ball is hot as molten iron. It beats down on my shoulders; the water from my dripping hair feels suddenly sharp and icy against my skin. I step squelch-ily into my flip flops, watch the dark splotches of water drip into spidery patterns on the red patio flags. The beach is a flash of gold in the distance. I allow myself to look at it for a few unnecessary extra seconds.
I wish I could just pretend I'm not with them, the pantomime duo that is Dad and Karen. But I'm at that awkward age where you must obey the unspoken rule that when the parent who has betrayed your other parent forks out for a luxury holiday to Tunisia, you have to be semi- polite. It would be preferable to upturn Karen's pine nut gorgonzola salad all over her white dress at lunch, or tell dad in detail about mum's antidepressants and five months in bed. It would be preferable to scream and scream.
But I don't. All the screams stay inside.
As soon as I approach, Karen pretends to be asleep. She's wearing a shiny mustard bikini, with a gold ring between the boobs like a sow's snout. Turns out not even working in the fashion industry can buy you taste.
'How's the pool love?' Dad's smile is too wide.
'Fine', I shrug, pretending to be very busy with my hair so I don't have to look at him. When I finally glance up, his face is a wide, ripe tomato. Karen's £350 sun protection factor clearly isn't working.
YOU ARE READING
Tales of Disturbance
Science FictionA young teenage girl, haunted by the memories of her father's execution, attempts to escape a cruel regime by night. A solitary woman, abandoned by her husband, inadvertently plays into the cruel hands of 'the state'. In another totalitarian regime...
