The Staycation: This summer's hilarious tale of heartwarming friendship, fraught families and happy ever afters

by Michele Gorman

  Sophie caught her daughter’s eye. She winked. Katie smiled back. That was enough.

  Sophie sort of liked having no idea what treatment she was about to have. She just turned up and assumed the position. She was about to take her top off this time when Molly whispered, ‘Keep your bra on today, and your jeans are okay. Unless you’re more comfortable with them off?’

  She thought about the paper pants. ‘No, I’m fine with them on, if you are.’

  She handed Sophie one of the spa’s fluffy white robes. ‘When you’re ready, lie on your back, please.’ She gestured like a game show presenter at the massage table. ‘And close your eyes.’

  Already this was fun! She could feel her breathing ease as she lay down on the table, tucked up in her cosy robe. What a transformation in just a few days! She’d been as rigid as one of the ceiling beams in Harriet’s house during her first massage.

  Now everything about the spa felt familiar: the gentle glow given off by all the candles and the spicy incense that tickled her nose. She’d get some of that before she went home to London. The scent would bring her back to this wonderful place. Her fingers found the edge of her robe. So soft. She’d see about buying one of those, too.

  Molly crept back into the room. ‘Now, just relax, Sophie. You’re going to love this.’

  Sophie got ready for the bliss.

  She could hear a jar being opened. With her eyes closed she liked trying to guess what was coming next. It must be a delicious cream of some kind to clean her face.

  She was right! Molly’s fingers slid over her cheeks, her nose, her chin and forehead, spreading the soft, herby scent all around. Then came the warm cloth to wash it off. It was rough, like a cat’s tongue.

  A sigh squeezed out. She might even have a nap. She was already that relaxed. Idly, she wondered where the closest spa was to their house in London. Walking distance, she hoped.

  Then she felt something small, soft and damp pressed to her cheek. Molly held it there. After a few seconds she felt the same thing on her other cheek.

  Stones, maybe? No, those were cool, not warm. Some kind of fruit, she’d bet, although her nose gave her no clues. Kiwi didn’t always have a strong aroma. And they were about the right size. Kiwi, then.

  Molly began moving the kiwi slices oh so slowly towards her nose. What patience she must have, because she was moving them just millimetres at a time. At that rate it would take the whole hour to go once round her face.

  Sophie didn’t mind. She sighed again. It was such heaven being pampered. She’d been right to book this holiday. Well, not this holiday, but the Italian one that turned into this.

  This time her sigh wasn’t because of the facial. The only thing missing, aside from Italian sunsets, was the food. She’d been so looking forward to that. Maybe she’d suggest that Dan try a few pastas later in the week if he still insisted on cooking. Perhaps an oozy cheesy risotto, too.

  She could feel her mouth starting to water. ‘There’s no Italian restaurant in the village, is there?’ she asked Molly.

  ‘No talking, please. Only till the treatment is finished. There’s an ASK.’

  A pizza chain. She had one of those five minutes from their house. ‘Mmm.’ She hoped that didn’t count as talking.

  Molly now had one kiwi slice moving slowly up the side of Sophie’s nose, but the other one was moving down her cheek. She wondered if she was doing something with pressure points. Otherwise why not just put the slices in the same place on either side of her face?

  Was it kiwi? The way Molly was moving the slices made them feel like they were sticking to her skin. The shower squeegee at home suddenly popped into her mind. Not the blade. The suction cup holding it.

  She peeked one eye open.

  Something horrific was slithering towards her eyeball.

  ‘Aaarrrgggghhhhhh!’

  Snakes. There were snakes on her face! She swiped at them. ‘What the FUCK, Molly?!’

  She clamped her hand to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she mumbled through her fingers. She hardly ever swore.

  Molly sprang from her stool and rushed to one corner of the room. She crouched down. ‘Oh, nooo.’

  ‘Molly, seriously, you could have given me a heart attack.’

  She shook her head. ‘You said you didn’t want to know what the massage was beforehand.’ Carefully she plucked something from the stone floor.

  Sophie leaned over the edge of the table to see what Molly had picked up. ‘Is that …?’

  ‘It was.’ Gingerly, she held up the crushed snail shell.

  ‘Oh. Is it definitely …?’

  ‘Dead.’ Then Molly’s head shot up. She stood. ‘Where’s the other one?’

  ‘Um. I think it went that way.’ She pointed to the opposite wall. God, this was embarrassing. ‘I didn’t mean to kill it.’ Well, okay, she probably had, given that she’d thought there were snakes on her face. But only for a split second.

  A split second was all it took for a snail.

  ‘Found ’er.’ Molly cradled the other snail in her palm. Then, to Sophie’s surprise, she started crooning something into her hands. Her voice was gravelly, soulful and reminded Sophie of the blues albums her mum used to play whenever she did the housework. The soundtrack to Sophie’s childhood was Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Henry Hoover.

  Her therapist was singing to the snail. ‘Er, are you singing about salad?’ Sophie asked.

  Molly glanced up from her palm. ‘She likes it.’

  She shouldn’t laugh. She really shouldn’t laugh. She’d just killed a living thing.

  Molly went through one more chorus of ‘Polk Salad Annie’ before the snail’s head emerged.

  Sophie studied it as Molly held out her palm. Not close enough for Sophie to touch, she noticed. ‘It’s huge.’ She was sure she’d never slid on one that big in the garden at home. Not that she ever trod on snails on purpose. Another wave of guilt washed over her. ‘How do you know it’s a her?’

  ‘They’re all ’ers. And ’ims. Hermaphrodites.’

  Sophie had to admit that it didn’t look nearly as scary as when its tentacles had been about to blind her. After a few exploratory wriggles of the stalky bits on its head, it began to stretch along Molly’s palm. Sophie felt slightly sick.

  ‘Snails. Who’d have thought?’ That explained why they hadn’t felt like snakes when she’d dashed the beasts off. And why she’d thought of her bath squeegee.

  ‘These were specially trained.’

  ‘What, like from a circus?’

  At least Molly smiled at that. She must not hate Sophie too much for killing half of her facial product. ‘I am really so sorry. I’ll pay for a replacement, of course.’

  She was glad the receptionist wasn’t at the front desk when she slunk from the spa. The fewer witnesses to this, the better.

  Sophie was just about to start for home when she noticed the pub across the road. Like the other old buildings on the high street, its yellow stone frontage glowed warmly. Well, why not? If they’d made it to Italy, she’d have been liver-deep in Prosecco by now. Besides, she didn’t feel like going back just yet.

  Smiling into the sunshine, she made her way to the pub.

  Inside it looked even older than Harriet’s house. The ceiling wasn’t especially low, but the dark beams overhead made her want to duck. It was probably cosier at night, or in winter, when the huge fireplaces would be lit. At four in the afternoon the swirly stain-hiding carpets and bashed-up wooden tables looked a bit tatty.

  She hesitated near the door, unsure when she’d last been on her own in a pub, but the barmaid’s friendly smile encouraged her. ‘Have you got any Prosecco?’ she asked. An old man sitting at the bar tore his gaze from his nearly empty pint long enough to stare at her.

  ‘I’m afraid not. Oh, wait, you know what? I think there’s …’ She pulled several wine bottles from the fridge. ‘Yep, there’s a bottle of champagne. Celebrating something?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Sophie sa
id. ‘We’re here on holiday this week. And next. It’s the first time we’ve been away in three years. Our original holiday got cancelled because of the ash cloud, you see. We were supposed to fly to Italy, so I thought, when in Rome … or not, in this case, drink Prosecco. Champagne is close enough. May I please have a glass?’

  ‘It’s by the bottle only. Otherwise I’d never sell the rest. The best I could do by the glass is a fizzy cider,’ she said. ‘It’s a nice one. Local. Will that do?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  While she poured Sophie’s half-pint, she asked where they were staying. Sophie’s answer prodded the old man to perk up.

  ‘I knew Jimmy Cooper,’ he said. His pale-blue eyes were rimmed with pink and his hands a bit shaky, but his shave was as fresh as his three-piece suit. Though it looked uncomfortably hot for the summer weather. ‘The young un’s father.’

  Sophie wanted to hear more, after what Marion had said. ‘He was quite successful, I understand. With the farm.’

  ‘Aye, he was better than his father-in-law, but ’e never took to it.’

  ‘Oh, I thought James’s father started the herd.’

  ‘He did, but the farm was his mother’s family. Old Jimmy only took it on after the father died.’

  ‘Then he wasn’t always a farmer.’

  The man finished his pint. ‘’E did something in banking in Cheltenham. The Gentleman Farmer, ’e was known as. ’E hated that.’

  She wondered why Marion hadn’t mentioned that. Though this would have been before James was even born. Maybe she didn’t know.

  ‘The parents are in Spain now, I understand,’ she said.

  ‘Malaga,’ said the barmaid.

  ‘And to you, madam!’ the old man answered and they both laughed. Then the door opened and the man beamed. ‘Ah, young lady, how glorious it is to see you.’

  The way the woman’s grey hair was braided around her head gave her an Alpine look and, like him, she was dapperly dressed. But Sophie felt warm just seeing the flowery scarf looped round and round her neck and tucked into her buttoned-up cardigan.

  He stood when she reached him and, very formally, kissed her lips.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ he told the barmaid. Then he put his finger to his lips, and said, ‘Don’t tell my wife.’ He held out his arm to the woman.

  ‘He’s kidding, isn’t he, about his wife?’ Sophie asked when they’d gone.

  ‘He’s serious. That’s his girlfriend. He meets her here every day. His wife is at home.’

  ‘Every day? But she must know something is going on.’

  ‘She knows,’ said the barmaid, ‘but she’d murder us if we told him she did. This way she gets him out of the house for a few hours. Sometimes she and Alison, that’s his girlfriend, come in here together in the evening. He’s probably asleep at home in his chair, none the wiser. Another half?’ She pointed at Sophie’s nearly empty glass.

  This village was full of surprises. ‘Sure, thanks, why not?’

  On the walk home from the pub, Sophie rang her dad again. ‘You’d love it here,’ she told him when he answered. ‘I’ve just been to the pub and met some of the locals.’

  Her dad laughed. ‘That’s my Sophie, already making yourself at home. You were always good at that.’

  Sophie smiled at her Dad’s compliment. ‘The children are loving the goats. I’m afraid they’re going to want one when we get back to London.’

  ‘How will Spot feel about that? Don’t pythons eat goats?’

  ‘I’ll use that as my excuse, thanks, Dad.’

  ‘That’s what dads are for,’ he said.

  When Sophie told Dan later about her treatment, he thought it was the funniest thing in the world. ‘But I squashed the poor thing!’ she said again. ‘I’m sure that wasn’t a good death.’

  Dan wiped his eyes. ‘I suppose the other one is a widow now.’

  Ha ha-bloody-ha. ‘Don’t make me feel any worse than I already do. You’d have been shocked, too.’ What person in their right mind thinks: I know a great facial cleanser! Live snail juice.

  It couldn’t be good for those snails, either. She had half a mind to ring the RSPCA. Except then she’d have to confess to snailicide.

  He shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t have shocked me.’

  ‘Only because you booked it.’

  ‘Uh-uh. Because I already know about snail facials. They’re huge in Japan. Aw, Soph, don’t be hard on yourself just because you didn’t know. You’ve not been around as much as I have. We’ll make a worldly wife of you yet.’

  He went to hug her but she ducked his arms. ‘I didn’t know you were so knowledgeable about molluscs.’ She saw his raised eyebrows. ‘Yes, I know the word.’

  ‘They’re gastropods, actually, and how about a thank you for booking your facial?’ His voice had turned hard. No more joking.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sophie looked it up later. Snails were also molluscs. She didn’t bother telling Dan. She wasn’t in the mood for that gamble. Sometimes he loved it when she was clever.

  Sometimes he didn’t.

  Chapter 11

  Wednesday / Thursday

  When life gives you lemons, forget the lemonade. Make margaritas. Harriet smiled at James over her salted rim. Was he remembering their nights here, too? That might have been over a decade ago but it hadn’t changed at all. The cramped restaurant was still overlit, overcrowded and overpriced. It smelled strongly of frying cumin and onions from the sizzling grill plates on the tables beside them. She loved it.

  She could hardly believe that it was the middle of their first holiday week already. She swallowed another gulp of tequila along with her slight panic. That left only ten more nights for her plan to work. Nine days. Even worse, because it was much harder to be a temptress in daylight.

  ‘Want to share some guacamole?’ James asked. She smiled at his pronunciation. Gawkermoll. She’d never been sure whether he’d done that on purpose when they’d first met. She’d made a joke out of it anyway.

  James filled her glass again from the sweating pitcher of slush on their table. Delicious slush. ‘What are you having?’ she asked.

  He glanced at the menu. ‘Fageetas.’

  ‘Then definitely yes to the gawkermoll. And another pitcher?’ Those frozen things were mostly ice anyway.

  ‘I love being here with you,’ she told him as she took another sip. ‘It reminds me of when we first lived together in London. Remember?’

  ‘I remember almost not living together because I completely botched asking you.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ she said. ‘I definitely came off worse that time.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t have used Ikea as an excuse, but then you were so keen to go …’

  In fairness to Harriet, if someone says they want help picking a sofa big enough for two at Ikea, why would she think that was code for I love you, let’s live together? Going over the equation now, she should have calculated that they had, in fact, both fitted on his current sofa several times (in various configurations). They’d moved successfully beyond casual dates to the assumed weekends, and most weeknights, together. Add the number of I love yous exchanged, and she should have arrived at the right answer.

  Instead, they’d travelled all the way to the huge shop, shuffled through for hours with the rest of humanity, and it wasn’t until after James had spent five hundred quid on a sofa he didn’t need that he plucked up the courage to ask her outright to move in.

  ‘We did eventually get there,’ she said.

  ‘After you’d put the sofa together. You impressed me with your toolbox.’ He was watching her laugh. He used to do that all the time. He hadn’t lately. Seeing it again, like this when they were remembering, made her sad for what they’d missed.

  ‘One never knows whether an Allen key will be enough,’ she joked. It was better than dwelling on all those lost laughs.

  They clinked their nearly empty glasses as the waitress brought more margaritas
.

  Those pitchers had in fact probably contained quite a lot more alcohol than ice, based on their walk back from the Tube after dinner. Harriet stumbled up the front step. ‘Whoops!’ The key in her hand missed the lock by inches.

  ‘Shh, you’ll wake the kid,’ James said. She leaned into him when he looped a steadying arm around her waist. ‘And then she’ll ground us.’

  Harriet giggled as she opened the door into the dark house.

  James’s hands had moved to more interesting places than her waist. ‘To steady myself,’ he claimed.

  ‘Those aren’t grab rails, you know.’

  ‘Come here.’ He pulled her down with him as he sat on the staircase. When he tucked her hair back, his massive hand nearly covered her face. His gentleness always surprised her. ‘What do you say we do it here?’

  Thank God for margaritas! Or maybe those qwaysadillas were aphrodisiacs. Either way, she was definitely putting Mexican on the menu more often.

  She thought she heard a noise upstairs. ‘Shh!’

  ‘Shshing is just more noise, you know.’

  ‘We can’t here.’ Now she was whispering. She had very clear feelings about traumatising children with their parents’ sexual antics. ‘What if Billie is up? Or Owen?’

  James moved her hand to his trousers. ‘I’m up.’

  ‘Come on then.’ She led him upstairs to their bedroom. Luckily she was holding James’s hand. Otherwise she might have hurt herself when she tripped on the step.

  She was so pleasantly drunk! Why didn’t she do this more often? Probably because there was no Mexican in their village. There was nothing fun in their village. Stupid village.

  ‘Let me brush my teeth first,’ she whispered.

  But the toothpaste tube was slippery as a seal. Slippery as a seal! That was a tongue twister. She knocked the tumbler full of toothbrushes into the sink. Shh! She giggled.

  She put her finger through her tights trying to yank them off to go to the loo. ‘Aw, damn.’ Stupid tights.

  The toilet lid slammed down when she flushed. Shh!