در ساحل

Chapter ten

On the beach

Tom and Marina had been on holiday for a week now and were feeling very relaxed and very much in love. They had spent the long flight to Barbados telling each other their side of the story.

Marina told Tom about Tracy and the massage and her day in London with the Ironing Man. Tom had told Marina about Phil the detective and the ‘wonderful case of the wrong woman’.

They had both laughed a lot and this laughter was helped by the flight assistant. She thought Tom and Marina were on their honeymoon and returned again and again to offer them more and more champagne.

‘So who was this Ironing Man,’ Tom asked. ‘Where did he come from?’

‘I have no idea,’ Marina said. ‘Maybe it was all in my head.’

Tom thought about this for a while.

‘Well, what about the photographs of Tracy, She wasn’t just in your head and she said the Ironing Man sent her, so,’ he said.

‘Does it matter, He helped us, didn’t he, That’s all that matters,’ Marina replied.

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Tom said.

On the second day - they had slept most of the first day after the long journey and the champagne - Tom had taken a piece of paper and had written ‘things to do’ at the top of the page. He then looked up at Marina, smiled, made a ball of the paper and threw it into the toilet in their bathroom. He was becoming good at throwing things down toilets. First the mobile phone on the train and now the piece of paper.

Since then they had made no plans at all. They had done things as they felt like it, and they had done nothing when they felt like it. They had done all of this together and now they felt like a walk on the beach.

The beach was empty as the sun had already set and most of the other visitors had already returned to the hotel. Tom and Marina felt they had the beach all to themselves.

Suddenly Tom stopped walking and looked along the beach. He could just see a small group of people sitting together, looking out at the sea and laughing. There were three people, two men and a woman.

One of the men was quite big and for a moment Tom thought he knew him. He could not be sure because the man was not wearing a dirty, white raincoat, but he did look a little like Phil, the detective. The second man was good-looking and tall.

Tom turned towards Marina and saw that she was also looking along the beach at the same group of people.

‘Are you OK,’ Tom asked.

‘Oh yes, I’m fine, I’m very, very fine,’ she said as she put her hands around his neck and pulled him into a long kiss.

When Tom and Marina finished the kiss they looked up the beach but the group of people had left. Marina turned again to Tom, ‘It’s just.

did you hear that woman’s laugh, that blonde woman? It sounded a bit . it sounded a bit like Tracy. And the tall man looked a bit like. but no. That’s not possible, that’s not possible. Is it?’