Love Is a Four Letter Word by Claire Calman Read Free Book Online Page B

reflection. ‘Brings out the colour of your eyes, too.’ Alessandra’s glittering eyes, flecked like tortoiseshell, brightened in the mirror.
    â€˜Do you really think so?’ She smiled, her feathers smoothed. ‘Let’s go down and have some coffee.’ The reflection blotted its lips, turning to left and right. ‘I’ve made some new biscotti. You must try and guess what’s in them.’
    Bella inhaled the salt air and looked out across the sea. It was a clear, bright day, but windy, whisking the water into froth-topped waves. She loved the beach on a day like this, cold enough to keep the Thermos brigade cocooned in their cars, watching the ocean with undisguised suspicion. Although she now lived not far from the sea herself, she had a fondness for this particular stretch of coastline, the beach of her childhood ten miles from her parents’ house. Dad had evidently wanted to come, too, but she’d just scooped up her car keys and swept out as if she were distracted. But then her mother wouldn’t have wanted to be left out and it would have turned into a sad parody of a family outing. There’d be all that hunting for a spot sheltered from the wind and the fussing about her hair and it just wouldn’t have been the same.
    Two windsurfers bounced over the waves, dipping and soaring, their dazzling pink and green sails like the wings of exotic birds. The tide was out and, down by the water’s edge, a small girl shovelled sand inexpertly into a bucket. Her white hat was pulled down so lowthat Bella thought she must only be able to see directly downwards. She looked intent on empire-building, but her cardigan sleeves kept getting in the way and she was too young to have mastered the art of rolling them up properly. Her mother sat nearby, reading a magazine and taking swigs from a can of Coke.
    Bella chucked another pebble hard towards a small piece of driftwood further along the beach. It skittered along the shingle. A man with a yapping Jack Russell scowled at her, as if she had been aiming at his dog.
    â€˜Nearly,’ she told herself. ‘One more go, then back to the House of Fun.’
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    Daddy takes her onto the beach and starts to help her off with her shoes and socks.
    â€˜Fancy a paddle, ding-dong?’ He sometimes calls her that for fun, because of Bell, short for Bella, but Mummy says it is silly and not right – Bella is a beautiful name. It means beautiful and she should know because she chose it and she’s Italian.
    â€˜Me do it.’
    He takes off his own shoes and socks and rolls up his trousers so they are all bunched around his knees. The sea is cold and she squeals as it rushes up over her ankles. Through the water, her feet look as if they do not belong to her, as if she had just found them while searching for shells. They are pale and soft and the sun makes little bright lines on them through the waves. When she steps out of the water, the shingle seems twice as hard and sharp on her soles.
    â€˜Ow, ow, ow!’
    Daddy scoops her up and holds her high above his head, up with the big white gulls that he says cry out for all the sailors and fishermen lost at sea. She is not sure how they can get lost because there are no roadsand you do not need a map. You only need to look around and there is the beach. Then he swings her suddenly upside down and the world is shingle and sea and sky then sky and sea and shingle again. She screams with delight.
    â€˜Daddy, Daddy, put me down.’
    She lets him put her socks back on because her feet are still damp and they are hard to do properly. He gets them all crooked so the heels are round at the side, then he buckles her red shoes too tight and the left one pinches her foot a little, but she doesn’t say.
    He takes her for cherryade and ‘Welsh rabbit’ in a café which has bright strips of colour hanging in the doorway, slapping softly in the breeze. All