Charlie didn’t know it, but he turned heads at the beach today. I watched from a bench as he stripped down to his swim shorts and waded into the sea. For a guy who spends more time relaxing on his bed rather than putting in hours at the gym, he looked remarkably toned. His ancestral line is Mediterranean, and despite a Paris upbringing, he had the physique of his Marseilles cousins. 

I was a solitary figure and had become the shadow in his life. Inseparable, comfortable, but never lovers in the truest sense. But I was pleased that he was attracting attention from females, and, dare I say it, a few jealous husbands and boyfriends. And yet, strangely, I also felt envious. 

He shaded his eyes, scanned the promenade and waved. A few looked to see who had caught his attention and were disappointed that it was only me. I wanted to shout that Charlie was mine, only mine, and that I was proud of him, and that we shared a bed. But all that glitters is not gold.

The North Sea in April is bloody cold, but Charlie went full steam into the surf and threw himself into the water. His head broke the surface, and I could see that his teeth were chattering. I’d tried to tell him that the water would come as a shock, but he knew better, and would never admit to being wrong. He started swimming, long determined strokes, and completed two sweeps of the beach. 

I contemplated that hypothermia might set in or that he might be out of his depth, but, after thirty minutes he swam back to shore, and pushing hard through the water, he reached dry land again. By now, I’d smoked several cigarettes and thrown the stone-cold remains of a takeaway coffee into a nearby rubbish bin. 

Charlie dried himself on his towel and sat warming himself in the afternoon sun. Only now did he realise that people were looking, and it prompted him to put his tee-shirt on. He rested his arms on his knees and watched the world around him. 

He was perhaps thinking about childhood holidays spent on the beach. He once told me that his family had rented a house every summer at Le Touquet-sur-Mer, and that he’d spent hours playing on the sands with his brother. I thought about Thomas, the older brother, and remembered that the tall boy had asked me to visit him in Paris, but not to bring Charlie along. My heart went out to Charlie, alone on the beach, who suspected that his older brother had an agenda, and was frightened that I might buy into it.