by Henry Sands
She held her breath tight and continued to swim deeper into the rock pool, with one hand guiding her way on the stone. With her eyes closed, she stroked the rock as if it was the face of her late husband, in the way she remembered doing each morning that she woke up next to him. She began to feel her lungs burning but couldn’t quite bring herself to withdraw from her embrace with the rock; her embrace with David. She rested her forehead against him and allowed herself to be comforted as she had been before. Finally, her body starved of oxygen could take no more, and she allowed herself to drift back up towards the surface. She felt she was losing him all over again. With one final kick with her legs, she propelled herself back to the present day.
When she opened her eyes, she immediately burst into tears. Anthony, who had been floating on his back in pretty much the same spot throughout her ordeal, hadn’t even noticed that Lucinda had been under the water for so long.
Anthony heard her cries before he saw her. Assuming she had been stung by a jellyfish or had crashed herself against a rock, he quickly swam over towards her.
‘Lucinda! Lucinda, what’s wrong, darling? What’s wrong?’ he called out to her.
But her cries had become louder and more uncontrollable. By the time Anthony reached her, tears were streaming down her face, and she was struggling to take in enough oxygen before the next round of cries came out again.
‘Please just get off me, Anthony. I’m fine. Just leave me. Will you, please?’ Lucinda managed to say between her sobs.
‘C’mon, let’s get you out of the water. Let’s head back, shall we?’ Anthony said, trying to comfort her.
‘No, please, Anthony. I just want to be here, in the water, alone for a bit. Can you please just give me that?’
Her cries had caused understandable concern amongst the other swimmers, who had now come over to see what was happening.
‘Everything okay there, sir?’ came an American voice above him.
Anthony glanced up to the rock to see the younger oiled man, looking down at him accusingly.
‘I said everything okay? Can I help with anything?’ the man repeated.
‘God, no,’ Anthony responded, before realising he sounded too curt. ‘Sorry. No. I mean, we’re fine, she’s fine; just hit her foot on the wall, didn’t you, darling, that’s all. But thank you.’
Lucinda’s sobs had finally receded, and she was starting to feel embarrassed.
‘I’ll just go for a swim, shall I, Lucinda? I’ll see you back here then, if you’re sure you’re okay.’
Lucinda nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed by her outburst, as Anthony breaststroked himself towards the other side of the rock pool, wondering what on earth had just happened.
She knew that Anthony didn’t have a bad bone in his body, but also that there was nothing he could do to change the way she felt, or didn’t feel, about him. But if her experience under the water taught her anything, then it was that she hadn’t been honest with herself, and it had been going on for too long now.
Since David’s death, she had kept any emotions she had compressed inside her, like propane squeezed into a gas canister; only her body was the canister, and with age, the volume it could accommodate was decreasing year by year.
Finally, she was finding the courage to be honest with herself. Every part of her was still devoted to her late husband. She realised now that she had never truly grieved his death. Her immediate priority after David’s accident was to secure her children’s future. To do everything she could to give them the upbringing that they would have had if David were still around. Anthony was part of that. He was a component in the life she was trying to build, a life that allowed her to protect her children.
At the moment that David’s life support machine had been switched off, she knew that she had stopped living for herself. She had taken herself out of the equation. But as she sacrificed her life for the sake of her children, she denied Anthony his chance of happiness too.
For she realised now that she’d never given him a chance. Her children were now grown up and had their own lives ahead of them. Sophie was starting a new life with Harry up in Angus, and although Jack had not had a serious girlfriend since Bells, who he dated during his first year of Newcastle University, Lucinda knew he would be fine. Jack was always fine.
She recognised at that moment that her duties as a mother, raising her children, were complete. She had done everything she could, and now they were on their own.
But what about her life now? This must be the time to start it again, a fresh beginning. She missed David dearly and had done every day since that dreadful accident. She no longer needed to hide that from the world. She would treasure his memory and vowed to think and talk about him more going forward. It was ridiculous, she felt, to have talked about him so rarely. Not to Anthony, not to her friends, and not even her children, beyond the few stories she had recounted when they were younger and has asked about their father. That would change. By never even telling Anthony how much David had meant to her, and how she still felt, she realised she had never given him the chance to be his own person. She had never even considered what kind of man was hidden there, beneath the rather awkward introvert that had been in the background of her life for the last twenty-two years.
Like a plant cutting that had been kept out of the light, he had never had the opportunity to grow. Whether Anthony’s malnourished buds did have the ability to blossom was another matter, but she at least wanted to give him the chance of experiencing that light. She would give him that, she told herself. She owed that to him.
But first, she wanted to see David one more time. After taking a deep breath, she swam back beneath the surface holding the steadfast rock wall beneath her. She embraced the rock beneath the surface with arms outstretched, while placing her lips upon a piece of jagged limestone on the edge. ‘I love you, David. I always will,’ she mouthed to the rock face. And after one final stroke of the rock, she swam back to the surface to go and find her husband.
*
Anthony, unsure of what was going on with Lucinda, had swam around the corner of the cenote, only to find that it expanded into an even more dramatic rock pool, which meandered its way through various boulders, creating a network of channels and private spaces. With his newly purchased snorkelling equipment now on, he followed the water through a sunken archway between two large rocks, and into a split. One fork linked the channel back to the main rock pool, and the second route was less clear, but he decided to follow it anyway. After a few metres, it opened up into a private area with large slabs of partially submerged limestone, and perfect for sunbathing. Like a frog who had discovered a fresh lily pad, Anthony made himself comfortable against the smooth rock, with his toes in the water. He put his head back on the rock, closed his eyes and began to daydream.
It didn’t take long for his mind to dart back to the woman in the green jumpsuit and her bare, round breasts. The confidence with which she nonchalantly spoke to him, making no effort to cover herself. It wasn’t something he had really come across before.
Anthony had only had one girlfriend before Lucinda and had never really been into sex. It had always been a rather messy old business in his eyes, and so he’d never really given it much thought. But what was it about that woman, he questioned, that he found so difficult to shake off?
Perhaps there was simply a voyeuristic excitement to the whole episode that was new to him. Or was it technically voyeuristic? he wondered, as that would suggest he had been watching her without her knowledge. She certainly knew he was looking at her and had done absolutely nothing to conceal herself. That was different.
Before he could give the whole experience any more thought, Lucinda appeared on the rock next to him.
‘There you are, Anthony. I’ve been swimming about for ages trying to find you. Did you fall asleep?’ she asked, not unkindly. It turned out that he had. ‘I was w
orried about where you’d got to. Thought those nice boys with their oiled bodies might have taken you off with them!’
‘Ha, no, just here. On my rock. Nice place this, isn’t it? Are you feeling better now?’ Anthony asked with genuine concern.
‘Yes, dear. Thank you.’ Lucinda leant forward and kissed Anthony softly on the cheek. ‘Really, thank you. For everything.’
‘Right. Well, sure,’ Anthony mumbled, without really knowing what she was thanking him for.
‘Should get going, I guess. Think our driver will be worried if we’re much longer. I suggest we head back to the hotel, I mean, camp, and park ourselves on the beach for the afternoon, with a cold bottle of wine.’
- Chapter Eight -
Camp Mayo, Tulum
By the time they arrived back at the camp, it was nearly 2pm. After the morning’s activities and having only had a croissant for breakfast, they were both starving and ready for lunch.
‘Why don’t we wander down to the beach and try that nice restaurant, at the hotel where we dropped the couple from the minibus?’ Lucinda suggested.
‘Perfect plan,’ Anthony agreed.
Back in the room they changed their clothes, Anthony got his wallet and his now rather battered, but wonderfully personalised, Panama hat, and they headed out over the dunes towards the beach. The restaurant was about a kilometre down the beach, back towards the centre of town.
From the beach, you could appreciate how sympathetically the hotels and guesthouses had been developed along the stretch, so in keeping with the natural landscape, unlike so many beach resorts these days. From the road, you hardly knew anything was there at all, but from the coast, you could just catch glimpses of the different hotels, all of which had been intertwined with their surroundings of sand dunes and palm trees to create an almost continuous development of boutique hotels, each one probably accommodating no more than thirty guests.
Lucinda and Anthony soon realised that there was no way they were going to be able to spot the particular hotel they had in mind from the beach, so after a short while, they decided to stop at one they liked the look of. It was called 2BE Tulum and had a chic beachfront bar with a collection of rattan furniture spilling out onto the sand.
The chef was cooking freshly caught fish over an open grill under a palm tree, with a number of stylish couples settling down to various seafood platters and magnum bottles of AIX rosé. Lucinda knew this particular brand because it was always what Sophie brought with her when she came to stay during the summer. The magnums were deceptive. Although they looked intimidatingly large when put in an ice bucket on a lunch table, they had a pesky habit of always ending up empty far sooner than you would expect. Lucinda felt confident they could take one on, having felt in need of a drink ever since she emerged from her first dive into the rock pool that morning.
They walked hesitantly towards one of the empty tables, a few feet back from the chef. On the next table sat a beautiful dark-haired girl, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty, with Sanskrit writing tattooed up her left arm and a black bikini that barely contained her bust. Opposite her was an American man with his blue baseball cap back to front, a tight navy V-necked t-shirt, emphasising his bulging biceps. They looked like they could have been the stars of a Hollywood porn movie, Lucinda thought. But now looking around the other tables in the restaurant, Lucinda realised that their attire was seemingly the unofficial dress code.
For the first time since she was a teenager going to one of her coolest friend’s 18th birthday parties, Lucinda felt uncomfortably self-conscious about her own attire. In a moment of panic, she turned around and went to grab Anthony’s arm to return to the beach and find an alternative venue for lunch. But before she could do so, a tall Frenchman, with tight green shorts, white pumps without socks, and white polo shirt saying 2BE Tulum, greeted her.
‘Welcome to 2BE Tulum. If you would like to follow me just this way, I have a nice table for two for you for lunch.’ The waiter then led them back to the table Lucinda had been hovering over only moments earlier, and seated them right next to the adult movie stars. The waiter handed them two menus. ‘And can I get you a drink for now?’ he asked.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lucinda responded. ‘Yes, rosé wine, please. A bottle.’
Anthony looked up and nodded approvingly.
‘Any particular wine? The list is at the back of the menu,’ the waiter added.
‘A very cold bottle of AIX, please,’ Lucinda replied. Lucinda loved wine. All wine, in fact, but particularly cold rosé, or a crisp Sauvignon Blanc for lunch on a hot day. Part of the appeal of going to spend time with her cousin at their wine farm in South Africa, other than starting a new life for herself, was to surround herself with delicious wine. If she couldn’t surround herself with people she loved, then wine would make a sufficient alternative.
She was quite strict with herself, though. At home, she would always try and give herself two days a week on which she wouldn’t drink, and she wouldn’t touch a drop during the day, apart from on a weekend. But when she was on holiday, as she was now, if you could call it that, she wasn’t going to hold back.
When the waiter returned with their bottle, she ignored his offer of tasting the wine first. ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ she said, gesturing to him to go ahead and pour both glasses. He did so, and left the bottle in an ice bucket by the side of their table.
Over Anthony’s shoulder, she watched the dark-haired girl playing on her phone, while her boyfriend seemed to be watching the movements of a seagull near them trying to eat a stray chip from an empty plate left on a sun bed, without getting caught by its now dozing owner.
She must be Instagramming, Lucinda thought. That’s all young people do these days, she had been told. It was certainly worthy of an Instagram shot, she thought, as she glanced, feeling like she could be in a mirror maze with almost identically dressed beautiful couples at every table.
She glanced down at her own clothes and as she did, she felt slightly appalled with herself for even thinking like this. She was far too old and wise to be influenced by such trivial concerns as her clothes. But she couldn’t quite help a little self-doubt creeping in.
Her blue linen shirt had a small rip under her left arm and a selection of gardening stains on the bottom. Her khaki shorts, she realised, were an old pair of Jack’s she had inherited from him a few years back, and her blue deck shoes were the same pair she had bought in Burnham Market four years ago, with the left sole now starting to detach from the rest of the shoe.
Lucinda had never really shown any interest in clothes, even in her Savills days, when all the other women in the office effectively wore the same thing; a short (sometimes alarmingly so) navy blue skirt, a tight white shirt, normally with one button too many left undone, a pearl necklace and knee-high dark suede boots. Now she tended to just live in her Wellington boots at home, her jeans, a couple of shirts and, if it was cold, a jacket. She hadn’t even given much thought to her holiday wardrobe, but now she wished she had at least something a little less old and frumpy.
After a large gulp of her wine, which tasted just as she had hoped it would, she took herself to the bathroom.
Another waiter, who was as equally handsome as the first, directed her towards a separate building, where a bamboo door led to a concrete washroom. Unlike their own at Camp Mayo, Lucinda was relieved that this one had walls, doors and reliable hot water.
In front of the mirror, she looked at herself again. She knew she was still in reasonable shape for her age, thanks to all the walking she did having done her good. But she realised she just looked like she had stopped, well, trying.
She had noticed that one of the women at the restaurant wore her shirt undone and tied into a knot at the front. Lucinda tried that in front of the mirror. At first, she tied it too low, revealing her nude Marks and Spencer bra.
She tried again
, only this time with the knot halfway up her shirt. Still it certainly focussed attention towards her cleavage but was more than passable. Lucinda’s breasts were still in good shape, and the knot reinforced that, giving them additional uplift.
She tightened the knot slightly and rolled up the ends of her shorts, improving their shape sufficiently. As she tucked the back of the shirt into her shorts, which also had the added benefit of hiding the stains at the bottom, the man on the table behind her, in the V-necked t-shirt walked into the lavatory. He nodded at Lucinda briskly then walked into the cubicle behind her. What was he thinking walking into the women’s loo? Lucinda thought as she walked out to double-check the sign on the door. Restroom was all it said, which she realised meant unisex.
She sat back down at the table and poured herself another glass of wine.
‘I took a punt, Lucinda, and ordered you the grilled fish of the day. Hope that’s okay?’ Anthony said from across the table. He didn’t like waiting when it came to ordering. After years of Lucinda’s indecisiveness when it came to ordering food, he had one day just taken control of the situation, and it had mostly worked out fine.
‘Perfect,’ Lucinda smiled back, trying to work out whether Anthony had noticed the change in her shirt. She knew his facial expressions pretty well, she thought, and reading the glance he gave her, she took it to mean: Lucinda looks slightly different, but I can’t for the life of me think what it is. He had noticed something, though, and that was a start.
The rosé, as expected, had done its usual trick of magically disappearing from the bottle rather sooner than they might have originally thought. The grilled fish was yet to arrive, but rather than going for the second bottle, Anthony, who was as guilty as Lucinda when it came to fast wine consumption, suggested they went for some margaritas instead, particularly as they were listed as the 2BE Tulum’s cocktail speciality.
