Ruby is impressed when Joe’s boat reaches Pentle Bay on Tresco. The long beach is free of litter, its gentle curve hugging the land, no people in sight. It’s a far cry from the endless queues outside Southend’s cafés and packed amusement arcades when her father treated her to a day out. She loved those adventures, sitting in deckchairs on the beach eating fish and chips with him, but this is another world. The bay is a bare strip of gold, the air tinged with the sour odour of seaweed.
‘It looks so calm,’ she says.
‘You should see it in July. Have you done much travelling?’
‘Not really. How about you?’
‘I did the whole gap-year cliché: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Bali.’
‘That sounds amazing. Did it take long?’
‘Ten months, working whenever I could.’ Joe lays down a blanket, then unloads their picnic. Next he kicks off his tennis shoes and walks into the sea, wedging a bottle of wine in the sand to cool in the shallows.
‘I see you’re an expert picnicker,’ Ruby says, laughing. ‘I bet you’ve brought every girl in Scilly here.’
He shakes his head. ‘Only Sharon Reid, in Year 9, which was a disaster. She sent a Valentine’s card to another boy. It put me off outdoor meals for a whole year.’
‘What a bitch. Want me to kill her for you?’
‘I’m over it, thanks, but it’s good to know you’re an assassin. I thought you were a poker player, from that game face of yours.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re a closed book, Chloe.’ He leans over to tap her arm. ‘Give me just one fact about yourself. Please.’
‘I was born in Brighton.’
‘Great, I love southern girls. Any brothers or sisters?’
‘That’s my limit. One fact, you said.’
‘How about parents? Are you close to them?’
‘Mum died giving birth to me.’ The truth slips from Ruby’s mouth before she can stop it, another reminder not to let her guard down.
‘That’s awful.’ The sympathy in Joe’s eyes looks a hundred percent genuine. ‘Your dad must have been heartbroken.’
‘He’s the strongest man I know, but I hate thinking about it.’
‘Let me distract you then.’ He pulls her close, his lips warm on hers.
The kiss wipes Ruby’s mind clean. The moment spins out, until Joe pulls her to her feet, dragging her towards the tideline.
‘Come on, lazybones,’ he says. ‘I’ll chuck you in the sea, then we’ll have lunch.’
They fool around in the shallows until their clothes are soaked, with the ocean behind them azure blue. Ruby glimpses how life might have been if she was another man’s daughter, but the image is fleeting, like fragments of sunlight glinting on the water’s surface.