Free Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant

could do with a break. It’s been a tough winter. And now living with my mum. A small sojourn would suit me down to the ground.’
    Ann, a solid, plain woman who was deputy head in a secondary school, said: ‘It’s a family holiday. By definition kids will be involved.’ She gestured to the garden where hers were fighting for possession of a plastic tractor. ‘Family life: isn’t it your idea of hell?’
    ‘They’re not small kids,’ I said. ‘They’re teenagers. Three boys, two girls – both seventeen.’
    Michael stopped picking at the Pyrex and gave me a look.
    ‘They’ll be wearing bikinis,’ I added.
    He grinned, and then looked at his wife, sheepish. She showed her irritation by getting to her feet, doing up the top button of her jeans which she had undone while we were eating. ‘Your pride’s dented,’ she said, filling the dishwasher. ‘You only want to be invited so you can turn it down.’
    ‘It’s the affront of having been invited once. She hasn’t repeated the invitation since we slept together. I don’t understand it. I thought sex was something I was quite good at.’
    Michael gave me an indulgent look. ‘Come to Wales with us,’ he said. ‘The twins would love to share a tent with Uncle Paul.’ It was a fiction we all indulged that I was a favourite with their boys. ‘I know camping’s not quite your thing, but in my experience Greek accommodation can be pretty basic too. I’m talking about loos.’
    ‘Knowing Alice,’ I said, ‘it’ll be luxurious.’
    ‘So, Paul Morris,’ Michael said. ‘What first attracted you to multi-millionaire Alice – what’s her surname?’
    For a moment I couldn’t remember, then it came to me. ‘Mackenzie.’
    I saw him and Ann exchange a glance – almost pitying.
    ‘Maybe she doesn’t realise you want to come,’ Ann said. ‘I love you, Paul. You know I do.’ (I didn’t actually. She had always seemed uniquely impervious to my charms.) ‘But you aren’t exactly a big one for commitment.’
    ‘She’s too old for you!’ Michael said, standing up and wrapping his arms around his wife. He buried his chin in her hair. ‘Forget it! Find another young floozy to entertain us with.’
    I shut up after that, piqued at being misunderstood, at being patronised. Maybe I had long played up the part of the roué, but I still felt cross, indignant, as if they weren’t taking me seriously, and left their house early.
     
    In case Ann was right, I made it my mission to make it clear I wanted to come. I dropped endless hints. We had drinks one wet night at a trendy bar in Brixton. Swags of blossom lay sodden on the pavement. A tarpaulin over the entrance sagged and dripped. ‘British weather,’ I said, as we shrugged off our coats. ‘Don’t you just hate it? If we could depend on a month of sun – two weeks, even – we’d be a happier nation.’
    ‘Vitamin D,’ Alice said.
    I put on a self-pitying voice. ‘You’re lucky. You’ve got Greece. I don’t know how I’ll bear it.’
    No dice. ‘Poor you,’ she said.
    I met her for a coffee in Covent Garden the following Saturday. She had been shopping for Phoebe’s birthday present and began pulling out items for my inspection – itsy bitsy pieces of fabric – a frilly top and a short denim skirt, a pair of gold-studded corduroy shorts, a tiny orange vest, and then, pièce de résistance : a bikini! The bikini was green, with yellow palm trees and pink umbrellas slashed across the pattern; 1950s in style, with a halter-neck and well-upholstered cups. Not sexy enough for my taste.
    ‘Very nice,’ I said, sounding out my appreciation. ‘For you?’
    She slapped my hand. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    ‘For Phoebe to take to Pyros?’
    ‘Yup. Holiday gear masquerading as birthday presents. I’m shameless.’
    I stared into her eyes. ‘So who is going this year?’
    ‘Yvonne and Karl will be staying in a hotel, so in the house it’s just us lot.’
    ‘Just you lot,’ I