Free Excess Baggage by Judy Astley Page B

people: tourists jostling and meandering with no real sense of where they were going, market traders accosting all and sundry and shouting about the quality of their T-shirts and sarongs, their crafts and paintings. Lucy’s eyes hurt with the effort of peering through the throng for small , pale Amy in her pink gingham hat. All the worst things crossed her mind, just as they clearly had with Theresa’s. Suppose the lost, crying Amy had been noticed and been led away to a car by someone who sounded kind? Suppose one of those comfortable plump cruise-passengers had more sinister holiday interests than deck quoits and minor shipboard gambling? Or what if she’d strayed as far as the docks and fallen in the water …
    ‘Hey Lucy! I think this is one of yours!’ Just outside the restaurant Henry was sitting on the big blue dolphin, Amy weeping quietly on his lap. Next to him was a miniature version of himself, a young boy with his streaky blond-and-black hair braided into dozens of tiny plaits. ‘We told you if we just waited, someone would show up, didn’t we Amy? And we were right!’
    ‘Oh poor Amy, did you get a bit lost?’ Lucy picked her up and hugged her tightly, almost tearful herself with relief. Over the child’s shoulder she gave Henry a shaky smile. He reached out and squeezed her hand, understanding. Amy, instantly recovered, wriggled round and pointed at the boy. ‘I like him. I like his hair. Can I have mine like that?’
    ‘This is Oliver, the son.’ Henry introduced him to Lucy and Oliver stood up and held out his hand politely, his smile showing the same perfect teeth as his father’s.
    ‘Glenda can do it for you, she’s my Nana. Sometimes she does it on the beach for people,’ Oliver told Amy.
    ‘Can I?’ Amy went on, her small fist thumping Lucy on the shoulder.
    ‘Ouch! You’d better ask your mum.’ Lucy laughed.
    ‘Ask her as soon as you see her, that way she’ll be sure to say yes,’ Henry whispered to Amy. ‘You OK?’ he asked Lucy. ‘You must all be going crazy. The one time I took Olly to London he went down one escalator at Oxford Circus while I went up another. I thought that was
it
…’ Together they made their way back through the crowd across the market square. A ship’s siren was sounding, rounding up passengers for the journey to the next day’s port. ‘Horrid noise!’ Amy squealed, putting her hands over her ears.
    ‘About that drink,’ Lucy said to Henry as soon as it was quiet again, ‘let me buy you one. You’re owed, big time. We could go to that bar you were telling me about.’ She bit her lip, wondering if perhaps he’d rethought since that morning, changed his mind or met someone else – a holidaymaker with instant sexual fun on her mind and less than thirteen travelling companions to fit in with.
    ‘Sure. About nine? See you in the lobby.’
    Theresa’s hand shook as she applied her eyeliner. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The whole point of taking the au pair was that she and Mark would be able to have some time off, time to be together and recapture – well, something. She wasn’t sure what had gone missing exactly (though lately the sex certainly had) but it was as if when Mark went out of the house to work each day he’d left a bit more of their relationship on the train. He was shedding her and the children like a cat moulting away excess summer fur. And now he was always tired too. It was as if the enormous amount of effort that had gone into producing their children had worn his sex drive completely away. There’d been too many years of the mathematical passion-swamping calculation of the ovulation charts, the sex that must be done
now
and the monthly disappointment. But after all the efforts had paid off and the twins had been born, then later the sweet bonus of Sebastian too, it was as if Mark had decided he was now redundant and anything more than minimal bed-effort was pointless. Theresa recalled other holidays, afternoons of