Beach Walker: Chapter 9
Hot and Bothered
‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea,’ my eldest son’s voice intoned gravely down the line, ‘taking up ocean swimming in winter at — you know …’
After his father’s death, Josh seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that he’s the head of the family, the dispenser of sage advice and stern warnings to a feckless mother.
‘At what, love?’
‘At your time of life, Mum.’
‘And what time of life would that be exactly, Joshua Eric Davies?’
‘You know, Mum …’
‘Twilight? Five to midnight? In my dotage? My declining years?’
‘Mum …’
‘Josh, sweetie, your mother is sixty-one years old. She may be a decrepit old baggage — you clearly think so — but a splash of cold salt water isn’t going to make her curl up her toes. Not just yet.’
‘M-u-u-m …’
That’s better, Josh my darling boy. Less of the twenty-nine-year-old patriarch. More of the whiny teenager.
‘Besides,’ I continued with a good deal more confidence than I felt, ‘Leonard is a marine biologist — an expert diver, snorkeller and sea swimmer. I’m completely safe in his hands.’
