“Eat in tonight shall we mum?” he asked.
“Whatever darling, it’s your show.”
“Do you see him much?” Peter asked after dinner as we sat on the balcony looking at the marina.
“Who your dad?”
“Yes him,” Peter said smiling.
“Only for school things for Sara,” I lied.
“Things ok?”
“Yes fine.”
“Any er, um step-fathers for S and me on the horizon?” he asked smiling.
“No don’t be silly.”
“Been on any dates?”
“A couple yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Anything serious?”
“No, I don’t really enjoy them.”
“Why not?”
“It all seems a bit contrived.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well they all seem to go through a sort of process, a sifting, a finding out how compatible you both are.”
“Yes, I know what you mean like how much you fancy each other.”
“Yes, I suppose so, something like that?”
“And how compatible were you with them mum?” he asked smiling as I realised where this line of talk was leading. I tried changing the subject but he came back to it.
“Aren’t you lonely mum, don’t you just want some company, maybe someone to cuddle you now and then?”
“Might be nice now and then, but there you go.”
“Don’t you miss the, er um affection that there was with dad once.”
“Yes of course I miss it we had some really good times together but you get over such things the older you get “
“Er I didn’t really mean good times mum.”
“What then?” I asked rather naively.
“Never mind better leave it,” he said looking quite embarrassed.
The next day, Saturday, Peter was at work, his weekend varied between Thursday and Friday and Friday and Saturday, and I was going to spend most of the day by the small but perfectly adequate pool. He went off before I got up. I showered slipped into a one-piece bathing suit, had breakfast, around ten, attended to some emails and texts then went to the pool. I was by myself there for an hour or so during which Peter phoned to see if everything was ok, but then a few more people arrived. I went up to the apartment for lunch had a doze in the cool of my bedroom, replaced the one-piece suit with a blue bikini and then went back to the pool around three thirty when it was quite crowded. During the late winter and early spring, the sun goes down and the heat is lost around four thirty and it was just before then that Peter came wandering across the pool. As he approached where I was lying on a sun bed, I sat up and he bent and kissed me on the cheek as he placed his hand on my bare shoulder; a perfectly innocent looking gesture but one full of such anticipation for me,.
“Everything ok mum?” he said quite loudly, I assumed letting people know we were not a number.
“Yes fine love,” I replied enjoying and being rather thrilled at the way he ran his eyes up and down me.
“Mmmm nice mum,” he muttered sitting on the lounger next to me.
“What?”
“The bikini and er.”
“Er Peter?”
“Er what’s in it,” he whispered.
“Peter stop it.”
“Yes, I had better as people might think we are cohabiting which is illegal.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but as the flat has two bedrooms we are ok. That’s how couples get away with living together.”
“How do you mean?”