Chris, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Mark my words, that girl is the One.’
‘Oh, shut up will you.’
‘No, I’m serious. Look at her. She’s got your name written all over her. Here – I’m going to invite them over for a drink,’ he rose from his chair.
‘What? No!’ said Vince, grabbing Chris’s wrist and pulling him back.
Chris gently unfurled his fingers and stood up. ‘Don’t be so soft, Vincent. It’ll be fine. Trust me.’ Then he was gone.
‘Oh, God.’ Vince clasped his hands together and prayed hard that they’d say no, but he knew they wouldn’t. That was the problem with Chris – he was impossible to resist.
Sure enough, a few seconds later he was scraping his chair around the table, making room for other chairs to be added as Joy and her parents hovered awkwardly in his peripheral vision. He turned and smiled at Joy. Joy smiled back at him, and he snapped his head back. Introductions were made, and Joy slipped her slight frame on to the chair next to him. Vince stared studiedly into his pint and tried to control his blush.
‘Well,’ said Chris, clapping his hands together, ‘what brings you to sunny Hunstanton?’
‘Ah,’ said Alan, the father, ‘just a break with routine. You know.’
‘A break from routine, eh?’ chuckled Chris. ‘Well, you came to the right place for that. Nothing routine about Hunstanton, is there?’ He turned to Kirsty and Vince, and chuckled again.
Vince looked at Joy’s parents, stiff and embarrassed on the other side of the table, Barbara clutching a warm-looking orange juice in a wine glass, Alan sipping masterfully from a pint of stout.
The mother had a strange moon-Like face, baggy eyes of an indiscriminate shade, a slightly beaky nose and an overly ruddy complexion. She smiled benignly as Alan and Chris conversed, taking the occasional controlled sip from her glass. There was a small slick of sweat on her upper lip. She didn’t look as if she’d ever been pretty in her life.
The father had the look of a man who’d persuaded himself a long time ago that he was a catch and wasn’t about to let go of this misguided notion. His features were neat and symmetrical, but were slightly too small for his head, as if someone had forced them all into the middle of his face in order to make room for something that had never materialized. There was something colonial about him, like he’d spent time living in hot climes, being attended to by natives and watching cricket under parasols. It was blatant that he felt he’d done the wretched Barbara a favour by marrying her – it oozed from his body language and his offhand manner.
The conversation rolled on, Chris doing the hard work of steering it, Mum doing her best to inject some levityinto it, Alan tolerating it and Barbara, Vince and Joy maintaining an embarrassed silence.
‘So,’ said Alan, ‘you’re regular visitors to Hunstanton, then, are you?’
‘Aye,’ said Chris, ‘this is our fourth summer up here.’
‘And you like it, do you?’
‘Love it. It’s not grand or anything, but there’s just something about it. And there are some fantastic beaches.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard about the beaches. That was one of the main attractions, to be frank. The rolling sand dunes, the bracing, briny sea air, the pine forests.’
‘Aye, that’s right, Alan. I’ve seen a lot of beaches in my time, but the beaches here – well, you can hardly see the horizon, it’s that far away. Not often in life you can get that much clear space between yourself and the edge of the world. Humbling…’
‘Yeees,’ murmured Alan, dreamily.
‘Sounds lovely,’ said Barbara, as the conversation began to trickle away.
‘Mmmmm,’ said Kirsty, smiling stiffly.
‘So!’ said Chris, breaking through the rapidly descending silence like a brick through a window, ‘Joy. What kind of a girl are you, then?’
‘Sorry?’ She looked at him in bemusement.
‘Tell us about yourself. What do you do? What
Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos
Janet Morris, Chris Morris