There had been a botched terrorist attempt at the railway station just before we arrived so naturally everyone was a bit on edge. Jumpy. Trying hard to relax. Laughing too much and too loudly perhaps. Drinking too much certainly.
But sure enough the sun and the luxurious setting began to do its work. Real laughter. The friendly clink of glasses as new friends were made. Cheers. Salut. Prost. Slainte mahath. Skal.The smell of ambre solaire in the air.
Summer. Holiday time!
So. One minute we were all fooling around in the hotel pool, having fun, keeping cool, showing off a bit maybe then
sssSSSSSPPPLASHSHSHSHshsh !
Out of the blue.
Everybody froze.
Stopped in their tracks. .
Statues.
Gape-mouthed. Where? What? Who? When What the….
A boy had just fallen out of the clear blue sky into our swimming pool. Fortunately at the deep end which as usual was pretty empty. Come to think of it, not a big SPLASH either, more a sort of ssssplllup, the sound of something/someone cutting cleanly into water with minimal resistance/turbulence, a bit like that marvellous Tom Daley child doing one of his unbelievable high-platform, triple-jack-knife effortless efforts.
Meanwhile, downtown, in the market place, the woman with blue hair was watching carefully (as careful housewives do) while the fishmonger sliced through a chunk of tuna for her ( If you double-click or whatever to enlarge the picture you will see that she is not exactly a barrel of laughs, this woman with blue hair). However the centre of attention here is not the blue-haired lady – that’s another story – but Mr. Daedalus, the solid-looking fishmonger who is better with fish than with people, who has no idea where his son is at this particular moment nor even the hope that he’s not up to any mischief.
That Icarus! the blue-haired lady would have told him. One word from you and he does as he likes
(to be continued)
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