All That Man Is by David Szalay Page B

go on holiday!’
    Charmian nods. She looks quickly at Bérnard.
    Warming to the subject, Bérnard starts to tell them more about his uncle – how he lives in Belgium to pay less tax, how he …
    â€˜Where you from then, Bernard?’ Sandra asks him.
    â€˜Lille.’
    â€˜Where’s that then?’
    â€˜It’s sort of near Belgium, isn’t it?’ Charmian ventures shyly.
    Bérnard nods.
    â€˜How’d you know that then?’ Sandra asks her, impressed.
    Charmian says, ‘The Eurostar goes through there sometimes, doesn’t it?’ The question is addressed, somewhat awkwardly, to Bérnard.
    Who just says, ‘Yeah,’ and turns his head towards the sparkle of the pool.
    â€˜We’re from Northampton,’ Sandra tells him. ‘It’s famous for shoes.’
    They swim together, later. The ladies, still in their billowing dresses, letting the water lift them, and Bérnard moving more vigorously, doing little displays of front crawl, and then lolling on his back in the water, letting the sun dazzle his chlorine-stung eyes. Sandra encourages him to do a handstand in the shallow end. Not totally sober, he obliges her. He surfaces to ask how it was, and she shouts at him to keep his legs straight next time, while Charmian, still bobbing about nearby, staying where she can find the cool blue tiles with her toes, looks on. He does another handstand, unsteady in his long wet trunks. The ladies applaud. Triumphant, he dives again, into watery silence, blue world, losing all vertical aplomb as his big hands strive for the tiles. His legs thrash to drive him down. His lungs keep lifting his splayed hands from the tiles. His face feels full of blood. Streams of bubbles pass over him, upwards from his nostrils. And then he is in air again, squatting shoulder deep in the tepid water, the water sharp and bright with chemicals streaming from orange slicks of hair that hang over his eyes. He feels queasy for a moment. All those Keo lagers … He fears, just for a moment, that he is going to throw up.
    Then he notices a lifeguard looming over them, his shadow on the water. He is talking to Sandra. He has just finished saying something, and he moves away, and takes his seat again, up a sloping ladder, like a tennis umpire.
    â€˜We’ve been told off,’ Sandra says, hanging languidly in the water, only her sunburnt head, with its mannish jawline and feathery blonde pudding-bowl, above the surface.
    Bérnard isn’t sure what’s going on. He still feels light-headed, vaguely unwell. ‘What?’
    â€˜We’ve been told off,’ Sandra says again.
    Bérnard, from his crouch in the water, which feels chilly now that he has stopped moving, just stares at her. His body is bony. Individual vertebrae show on his white back. Sandra is still saying something to him. Her voice sounds muffled. ‘… told to stop being so immature …’ he hears it say.
    She has started to swim away from him – her head moving away on a very slow, lazy breaststroke.
    The surface of the pool, which had been all discomposed by his antics, is smoothing itself out again, is slapping the sides with diminishing vigour.
    After the horseplay they lie on the side, on sunloungers. Sandra just about fits onto one. Charmian, however, needs to push two together. Bérnard helps her. Then, without saying anything, he takes his place on his own lounger and shuts his eyes. It is late afternoon. The sun has a dull heat. In their dripping dresses, Sandra and Charmian are smoking cigarettes and talking about food. Bérnard isn’t really listening.
    Then Sandra’s voice says, ‘Bernard,’ and he opens his eyes.
    They are both looking at him.
    Charmian, however, quickly looks away.
    â€˜We’re going out for a meal tonight,’ Sandra says. ‘Want to come?’
    *
    They meet in the lobby of the hotel. Bérnard is talking to the smiling man