Carrie was getting some fresh air on the beach that afternoon when she saw Spike. He was surfing and seemed as fresh as a daisy. Lucky bloody Spike. She watched him for a while and thought he hadn’t noticed her. Then he walked out of the waves.
‘Hi there. How you doing?’ he said, as if the previous night hadn’t happened.
‘I’ve felt better.’
Carrie waited for him to elaborate or apologize. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Yeah. Sorry about losing touch last night. I was so out of it, I can’t remember what happened, but I knew someone would look out for you.’
He’d left her there. He knew he had and he didn’t care.
‘I went home with Lola and Matt,’ she said, leaving out the part about being carried home. The odd snatch was returning to her. She remembered something about flying a kite…
‘Are you coming in the water today?’ Spike asked.
The sea was seething and boiling, the waves shifting and rolling, rather like her stomach had been. ‘Maybe not today, thanks.’
‘Like I’ve said already, in a few months you’ll start to get the hang of it. You might even get to stand up for more than a few seconds,’ said Spike with a grin she guessed was meant to be cheeky but just seemed guilty.
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
He seemed twitchy and picked up his board. ‘I’m going to catch some waves. Not every day you get surf like this; it’s too good to waste. I’ll see you tonight then?’
‘Maybe. Maybe tomorrow,’ she said.
‘I think you should know, I was planning on tonight being my last one here,’ he said casually.
So he was moving on already. She waited for the pang of regret, the twist in her stomach, but only felt a kind of freedom. Like she’d been scoured out and cleansed, though that could have been her hangover. He carried on. ‘I’ve been off work long enough so I can’t hang around here any longer. You should, though. You might even get Matt on a board.’
‘I don’t think so. I thought you said you were going to spend the whole summer surfing. I thought that was why you quit your job in the first place.’
He toed the sand, and Carrie realized this was the first time she’d ever seen him look anything other than totally sure of himself. ‘Yeah. I know it’s crap, but I’m twenty-eight. I can’t spend my life surfing. I need a job. A place to live.’
‘You said you used to work in an office and you hated it. What are you going to do back home?’
If it hadn’t been so tanned, his face might have turned red as he looked away at the sea and then, almost, back at her. ‘I was a tax inspector.’
Carrie burst out laughing but Spike didn’t. He looked like a schoolboy who’d been caught cheating. ‘Somebody has to do it,’ he said.
‘But a tax inspector? I just didn’t think you… You mean you worked for the Inland Revenue?’
‘So what? We all get shafted by society in the end. We all get in our family sedans and trundle off to the rat race. I can still surf at the weekends and holidays. So I’ll see you tonight on the beach? We can have a farewell party,’ he said, a wheedling note creeping into his voice.
Carrie knew he was hoping she’d sleep with him again. After what he’d done, he expected just to pick up where they’d left off. The scales had fallen from her eyes with a resounding clatter. Spike wasn’t a free spirit. He was selfish and shallow, and his world revolved around him alone. She didn’t want that; she deserved better.
‘Why not?’ she said, but she knew she wouldn’t be at the party. He leaned forward and gave her a salty kiss before jogging back to the sea, his board under his arm.
***
When she got back to the van, Matt was lying outside the awning, flicking through some medical journal. He was lying on his stomach, in shorts. His bronzed back was bare and his tattoos were startlingly obvious. They really were something, and she had a strange urge to reach out and touch them.
‘Had enough of the ocean?’ he said without turning round.
She dumped her stuff on the grass. ‘For today. You had enough of hunting mermaids?’
Flipping over, he propped himself up on one elbow. He had dark hair around his nipples, a trail arrowing down his stomach.
‘My friends are on the night shift at the hospital. They had to get back and get some rest.’
She sat down next to him and hugged her knees. ‘Matt?’
‘Yes, Caroline?’
‘Do you mind if we move on from here?’
‘What? Now?’
‘Yes. I’d like to see somewhere different. We’ve spent long enough here.’ She hesitated. ‘If that’s okay with you. I don’t want to ruin any plans you might have.’ She was thinking of Lola.
‘What about your plans for tonight?’ he said carefully.
‘I don’t have any plans for tonight. I’ve never had any plans other than to enjoy myself.’
Matt still didn’t know, of course, that Spike had asked her to stay one last night and that she had decided to pass on the invitation. She wasn’t sure why she’d decided to walk away, but it definitely wasn’t the fact that he’d turned out to be a tax inspector and more to do with his obsession with himself.
‘If we are going, I need to say goodbye to Lola first,’ Matt said.
‘Oh. Yes. Of course. I don’t want to ruin anything…’
‘She won’t mind,’ he said, pushing himself to his feet.
Carrie thought he was wrong and that Lola would mind very much, but it was too late now to withdraw the request. Maybe Matt needed to walk away too. But poor Lola… Could any relationship be simple? Couldn’t you just shag someone and forget about it? And if not, why not?