Ghostwritten. Isabel Wolff

stumbles to her feet. ‘Let’s go rock-pooling,’ she says to her little brother.

      He shakes his blond head and continues digging. ‘No.’

      ‘But I want you to.’

      ‘I’d rather stay with Mum.’

      The girl picks up her plastic sandals and bangs them together. ‘You have to come with me.’

      ‘Why?’

      She puts on the right shoe. ‘To help me.’

      ‘Don’t want to help you.’

      ‘Well you’ve got to …’ She shoves her left foot into the other sandal, bends to do it up, then grabs the bucket that the boy was filling and empties it. ‘I’ll carry this; you take the net.’

      The boy shrugs his narrow shoulders, then stands. He hitches up his red swimming trunks, which are hand-me-downs and much too big; he picks up the net lying nearby.

      Their mother lifts her head. ‘You don’t have long,’ she says. ‘We’ll be leaving at six, so you’re to come back when you hear the bell from the tea hut. Did you hear me?’ she adds to her daughter. ‘Hold his hand now. You must hold his hand.’ The girl gives a sullen nod then starts to walk towards the rocks that spill down from the low cliff to the sea. Her brother follows her, dragging the net, its stick leaving a sinuous trail, like the tail of the yellow kite which he now notices, swaying high up, against the blue. He cranes his neck to watch it, one eye closed against the sun.

      The girl glances behind and sees that he’s not following her. ‘Ted!’ she calls. ‘Come on!’ She wants to get as far as possible from their mother and her so-called ‘friend’. ‘Teddy!’ The little boy tears his gaze from the kite and follows his sister, jumping onto her footprints, leaving no tracks of his own. A toddler wobbles across his path, naked except for a sun hat, then tumbles over, wails, and is hastily scooped up.

      Now they’re passing a boy and girl who are digging. The trench they’ve made is six foot long, and so deep that they’re visible only from the waist up.

      Ted stops, entranced. ‘Look, Evie!’ She turns. ‘It’s ’normous.’

      ‘It is,’ she agrees seriously. ‘Must have taken ages,’ she says to the girl who is about her own age, although tall and long-limbed. She’s wearing a white T-shirt with a large black ‘J’ on it. Evie wonders what it stands for. Julie? Jane?

      ‘It did take ages,’ the girl replies. Her face is a pale oval framed by long dark hair. She tucks a hank behind her ear and nods at the rampart of displaced sand. ‘We’ve been digging all afternoon, haven’t we, Tom?’

      Tom, a thickset boy of about eight, straightens up. ‘We’re making a tunnel.’ He leans on his spade. ‘Like that Channel Tunnel they’re building.’

      ‘It was my idea,’ the girl adds. ‘We’ve done it all by ourselves.’ She turns to Tom. ‘Mum’ll be surprised when she sees it.’

      Tom laughs. ‘She’ll be amazed.’

      ‘You making a real tunnel?’ Ted asks him.

      ‘Yes.’ Tom points to a deep recess at the back of the hole.

      Ted peers at it. ‘Can I go in?’

      ‘Maybe,’ Tom shrugs. ‘When it’s finished. But we’ll have to be quick because the tide’s coming up.’

      ‘The time’s coming up?’ Ted looks at the sea.

      ‘The tide, silly,’ says Evie. ‘Come on, Ted, we’d better go …’

      On the other side of the beach, the children’s mother closes her eyes as her companion’s hands caress the swell of her hips. ‘That’s lovely,’ she says. ‘Can you hear me purring?’ she adds with a laugh. Someone nearby is listening to Radio One. She can hear the Pet Shop Boys. ‘Always on My Mind’.

      Her boyfriend lies down beside her. ‘You’re always on my mind, Babs,’ he murmurs.

      She puts her hand to his chest, spreading her fingers against his skin. ‘This is the best holiday I’ve had for years …’

      By now her children have reached the rocks – jagged grey boulders thinly striped with white quartz. They clamber up, and Ted peers into the first pool. He stares at the seaweed, some brown and knobbly, some as green and smooth as lettuce. He pokes his net at a sea anemone and, to his delight, it retracts its maroon tendrils. Then he spies a shrimp and thrusts the net at it. ‘Caught something!’ he shouts, but as he inspects the mesh his face falls – all that’s in it is a brown winkle. ‘Evie!’ he calls, dismayed to see that she is fifty or sixty feet away. ‘Wait for me!’ But Evie keeps on jumping across the rocks, the bucket swinging from her arm.

      As Ted follows her he looks out to sea and spots a yellow canoe with two people in it, lifting and twisting their paddles. He hears a distant roar, and sees a motorboat rip across the water, the wake fanning out in widening chevrons that make the canoe rock and sway. Then he returns his gaze to Evie. She’s peering into a pool. ‘Evie!’ he yells, but she doesn’t respond.

      Ted steps onto the next boulder but it’s crusted with tiny black mussels that cut into his feet. The rock beside it looks smooth, but when he stands on it, it wobbles violently, and his thin arms flail as he tries not to fall. Sudden tears sting his eyes. The rocks are sharp, and his trunks won’t stay up and his sister won’t wait for him, let alone hold his hand like she’s supposed to. ‘Evie …’ His throat aches as he tries not to cry. ‘Eeevieeee!’

      At last she turns. Seeing his distress, she makes her way back to him. ‘What’s the matter, Ted?’ She stares at his feet. ‘Why didn’t you wear your beach shoes?’

      He sniffs. ‘I forgot.’

      Evie heaves an exasperated sigh then turns towards the sea. ‘Then we’d better go this way – the rocks are easier. Mind the barnacles,’ she adds over her shoulder. ‘Ooh there’s a good pool.’ It’s long and narrow, like a little loch, with bands of leathery-looking weed that sway to and fro. As Evie’s shadow falls onto the surface, a small brown fish darts across the bottom. ‘Give me the net!’ Ted passes it to her and takes the bucket as Evie crouches down, thrusts the net under a rock and swiftly withdraws it. There’s a glint of silver. ‘Got it!’ she yells. ‘Fill the bucket, Ted! Quick!’

      Ted dips the bucket in the pool then hands it to her. Evie tips the fish in and it swims to the bottom then scoots under a shred of bladderwrack. ‘It’s huge,’ Evie breathes. ‘And there’s a shrimp!’ She feels a sudden euphoria – her loathing of her mother’s ‘friend’ forgotten. ‘Let’s get some more.’ As she dips the net in the water again she hears, faintly, the bell that the woman in the tea hut rings when she’s closing.

      A few yards away the waves are breaking over the rocks; the two children can feel the spray on the backs of their legs.

      Ted shivers. ‘Is it high time yet, Evie?’

      Evie remembers Clive’s hands on their mother’s flanks. She thinks of his hairy chest and his thick arms, with their tattoos, and of the grunts that she hears through the bedroom wall.

      ‘It isn’t high tide,’ she answers. ‘Not yet …’

      Ted picks up the net again. ‘The bell’s ringing.’

      Evie shrugs. ‘I can’t hear it.’

      ‘I can, and ’member what Mum said, she said—’

      ‘Let’s find a crab!’ Evie yells. ‘Come on!’

      Thrilled by the idea, Ted follows his sister, relieved that she’s going more slowly now, even if it’s only to avoid spilling their precious catch. Here the rocks are not sharp with mussels, but treacherous with seaweed, which slips like satin beneath Ted’s feet. He longs for Evie