A Meeting With Her Uncle

They chose a secluded spot at the foot of the cliff near a pile of rocks, placed a couple of towels on the sand and opened the picnic hamper Bill had brought.    
 
French bread and Parma ham. Ginger beer and chilled wine that they drank from plastic glasses.  Salad with plum tomatoes. The wine and heat made her heady.  
 
They exchanged bits of news, then sat in companionable silence, watching a boat on the water.  
 
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Bill said, hand rolling a cigarette. The tobacco smelt rich. For some reason, it reminded her of chocolate.  
 
‘I was just thinking.’
 
‘About?’
 
‘About dark chocolate and orange peel.’
 
‘Dark chocolate and orange peel?’  
 
‘Nothing in particular.  Just experiencing the moment as you would say.’
 
‘The best way to be, ’ he said, giving her the thumbs-up. ‘Take that from me.’  
 
A family wandered past with a Frisbee and a smiling Golden Labrador.  
 
For a second or two, she pictured her sister Katie sitting on the swing by the pond in the garden by the Sussex cottage, wearing a long cotton dress, a buttercup pressed to her chin while the family dog Mongo chased after imaginary sticks on the lawn and made deep throaty growls.  

That’s where she and Katie had spent much of their childhood: in the thatched roof cottage with the rusty apples from the tree floating on the pond’s muddy surface, along with the leaves. An idyllic place to grow up, with the woods round the back and the old river further on. But Dad had never become accustomed to living in the country and had disliked Sussex from the start, and later events had forced them to move.  
 
‘Tell me, are you happy here in Dorset?’ Bill said, lighting his cigarette.
 
‘Very much so.  I love the scenery and the quiet. Definitely the quiet.’
 
‘But?’
 
‘But nothing.'