‘This’ll do, mate.’ Dolly gave a satisfied smile, pulling Rae from her thoughts. ‘The boy did good.’ She of course referred to her brother.
With her straw hat in her hand, Rae nodded her agreement and went to look out of the window rather than engage in chat about how marvellous Howard was.
The two women made their way to their apartment, up a flight of stairs and along a corridor at the back, where the one-bedroom apartment with a spacious lounge area and decked balcony afforded them a glorious view of the sea.
‘God, it’s hot!’ Dolly exhaled, fanning her face with the plastic travel wallet containing their welcome pack, a map and tourist leaflets of local attractions.
The well-informed couple from Cheshire called from the path below and waved at them.
‘Oh my God, hide me – now they know where we live! And there is no way I am getting saddled with Nick and Nora Knowitall for my whole bloody holiday! I would actually die!’
‘Are those their names, Nick and Nora?’
Dolly laughed loudly. ‘I so want to say yes so that you call them that, just to make me laugh, but I love you too much. No, I think it was something like Douglas and Mary. To be honest I stopped listening after the phrase “We are like walking guidebooks!” Apparently, “Douglas once had to interrupt the captain of our cruise mid-welcome speech when he said there were twenty-two luxury cabins on board and we knew he was wrong, didn’t we, Douglas? Because we had counted them. There were twenty-four . . .” I mean, kill me now!’
Rae laughed loudly, her friend’s mimicry as impressive as ever. ‘I do wish you had said something earlier; I told them we’d meet up for dinner.’
‘Oh my God, Rae, you didn’t!’
‘No, I didn’t, and I love you too much to pretend for more than a second that I did.’
Dolly twisted her jaw. ‘I will get you back. I will.’
Rae would have quite been quite content to stay on the balcony, where she had a perfect view of the crystal-clear water, the glorious palm-lined beach and the small boats dotted along the horizon. It was a world away from her bedroom window with its view up and down the London crescent.
The apartment’s bedroom was more compact than she had imagined and furnished with two single beds – a mistake that Howard would have been rectifying immediately. The beds were a mere two feet apart and the en-suite bathroom was certainly not spacious. Rae noted that the proportions here would have been perfect if she were travelling alone, but with a roommate like Dolly, who managed to fill every space with her presence and her scattered belongings, she figured that two weeks might prove to be a challenge.
‘This is not a room, it’s a bloody cupboard!’ Dolly stated with her hands on her hips, surveying her mountain of luggage.
‘You can have my wardrobe space,’ Rae suggested. ‘I can leave my stuff in my case and fish out what I need out every day.’
‘Mate, I am going to need next door’s wardrobe space as well.’ Dolly sighed. ‘I think we need to go and get a cocktail. This can wait.’
Rae felt a spike of happiness at the realisation that they were on holiday; it was the first crest of joy that had risen in the misery of the last few weeks.
‘Let’s do it!’ she clapped, grabbing her bag and her straw hat before following Dolly along the narrow corridor and down a flight of stairs that led them to a warren of walkways around a garden. It was beautiful, with varieties of aloe, hibiscus, oleander and bougainvillea growing in beds dug among the spiky grass and filling the air with glorious scents that were only heightened by the midday heat. Tiny green lizards stared at them from branches and peeked out from beneath the shade of leaves.
‘I think we should have tied a piece of string to the handle of our apartment and unwound it so we can follow it back again,’ said Rae, laughing, as they wandered up and down walkways and along plant-lined paths that all looked remarkably similar.
‘Or breadcrumbs, like Hansel and whatshername,’ Dolly suggested.
‘Yes, breadcrumbs are probably better; I’m sure they’d never get eaten by the birds.’ Rae rolled her eyes.
‘Okay, smartarse, we’ll stick to string – how long do you think the string needs to be?’
Rae shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but we could unravel a pair of your knickers and still have spare.’
Dolly gave her friend a long, hard glare. ‘I am about a second away from giving you a dead leg. And if you don’t think I’m capable, just ask Howard.’
‘Oh, I know you’re capable.’ Rae ran ahead of her friend as Dolly chased her along the path. And in that moment of happy frivolity she forgot the ache of confusion that had been fogging her thoughts – and that beautiful second of clarity felt wonderful, like a gift.
The two women found themselves in a clearing with a wide and tranquil kidney-shaped pool, where shallow steps ran along one side and sunloungers with white fluffy beach towels, rolled invitingly, were dotted around the water’s edge to catch the best of the day’s sunshine. Parasols were positioned to provide just the right amount of shade. Rae took a deep breath and could already feel the restorative powers of being somewhere so beautiful, so luxurious. In front of them lay a narrow path to the beach, and to the left of the pool, with a wide, dark-wood terrace littered with rattan sofas like the ones she had seen in reception, was a bar. An aged wooden sign swung on rope, inscribed with the word ‘Max’s’.
Dolly walked in ahead and Rae followed. Despite being open to the elements on three sides, the bar housed deep white bookshelves along the back wall, crammed with all sorts of objets trouvés: wide conch shells, a stack of pale coral, weathered rope and rocks shaped into near perfect spheres by the sea; a wide china bowl that was full of opaque sea glass in a variety of blue and green shades. There were books too – coffee-table volumes with glorious pictures of beach houses with the sea as their backdrop.
‘Fabulous!’ Dolly sighed.
Rae nodded in agreement, feeling the weight shift from her shoulders; and even though she was far, far away from the London postcode that held nearly all the people she loved, this place already felt familiar, safe.
‘Oh, I am sorry, ladies, but we are not open officially. The main hotel bar is open twenty-four seven and they’d be happy to serve you. I could call a waiter?’
Rae tore herself away from the mesmeric view afforded from the vast open deck, taking in the incredible colours of the sea and sky and the particular hue of blue-green where they met on the horizon. Beyond the bar she could see the coconut trees swaying in the gentle breeze.
Beautiful. So beautiful. I think Howard and I would have had a wonderful time here together, before . . .
The young barman was carrying a flat box of glasses and had rolled his shirtsleeves up over his elbows.
‘What about unofficially?’ Dolly asked in her blunt fashion.
He laughed and looked back towards the main hotel. ‘Unofficially I could tell you that I am not allowed to serve you drinks and pour for another hour.’ He reached under the bar and pulled out two mini-bottles of pink champagne, which he uncorked. ‘Also unofficially, I will be leaving these two on the bar and if you and your friend unofficially take them and sit quietly on the terrace and drink them and if anyone asks you say you brought them in with you, then that might work. Officially, if anyone found out I would have to walk the pier and jump off the end.’
Rae let laughter burble from her, the most amusing thing about his statement being that he assumed Dolly might be able to sit anywhere and do anything quietly.
‘You are a superstar and you are my favourite person in this whole resort, apart from her.’ Dolly thumbed in Rae’s direction. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Antonio.’ He flashed his white-toothed, megawatt smile.
‘Nice to meet you, Antonio. I’m Dolly and this is my friend Rae-Valentine.’
‘Rae-Valentine,’ he repeated in a way that for no reason in particular sent a quiver of embarrassment through her core. It had been a long time since she ha
d felt so shy – another realisation of the shift in her world.
Rae took one of the cold bottles in her palm and joined Dolly on a low, pale-blue linen sofa on the edge of the terrace with the most incredible view over the white, powder-soft sand.
‘To Howard!’ Dolly raised her glass of wine.
Rae didn’t intend to show the falter in her face – she had meant to smile and not knit her brow for a second – but Dolly was quicker at spotting it than she was at rectifying it.
She watched her sister-in-law place her drink down on the coffee table, hard.
‘Okay, Rae, enough. Now, are you going to tell me what the fuck’s been going on?’
Rae ran a finger around the rim of her bottle and wondered how best to field the question. It was all well and good being evasive, but Dolly was asking her outright and this meant she would inevitably lie to her – something alien when it came to her best friend. And she hated this feeling of being pulled. Hated it.
‘What do you mean?’ She sipped the sweet foam, buying time.
Dolly laughed – ‘What do I mean?’ – shaking her head and sighing, reminding Rae so much of Mitzy, her mother-in-law, it was scary. ‘I mean I am many things, but I am not stupid. I have known Howard my whole life and there is no amount of work that could keep him from a bloody holiday – no bank meeting that couldn’t be attended by Paul in his absence, no tax matter that the accountant can’t handle. So why didn’t he want to come on holiday? There’s something going on with you two and I want to know what.’
Rae looked at her, weighing how much to burden her sister-in-law with and how much she wanted to keep to herself, thinking of the old adage that had served her well in the past: least said, soonest mended . . . She took another slug of champagne. ‘I guess you could say we’ve been going through a bit of a rocky patch.’
‘No shit, Sherlock! What else is news? Don’t tell me the Titanic didn’t make it?’ Dolly placed her hand at her throat in mock horror.
‘Has it been that obvious?’
Dolly looked wide-eyed out over the beach. ‘What do you think? It’s been weird since your party. You have gone to ground, not answering your phone, and he is like a cat on hot bricks, nervy. You think the family doesn’t notice the atmosphere in your house that you can cut with a knife? Or the way you and Howard act with this new politeness, as if you were strangers?’
We are strangers now. I don’t feel like I know him.
‘Have you had a row?’ Dolly pushed.
‘Kind of.’
‘Kind of? That wasn’t a “kind of” question – it’s either a “yes” or a “no”,’ Dolly huffed.
‘Yes,’ Rae enunciated to satisfy her friend. ‘We have had a row.’
‘Is one of you in trouble? Gambling? Booze?’ Dolly asked with typical directness.
Rae gave a wry laugh, thinking that either of these things might be easier to deal with. ‘No, nothing like that. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Fun fact: I am not that person who when the shit is hitting the fan and her sister-in-law/best-friend says “I don’t want to talk about it” will say “Oh, okay then” and not mention it again!’
‘Fun fact: I already knew that. You are so bloody nosy,’ Rae retaliated.
‘Scrub out “nosy” and replace with “caring”! Jesus, I mean even Hannah said to me—’
‘Hannah spoke to you about it?’ Rae felt her heart race, a combination of out-and-out jealousy and the fact that she had wanted nothing more than to keep the worry from her daughter’s door. Rae felt more than a little hurt that her girl had not felt able to speak to her directly.
‘Don’t look like that! You should be happy that Hannah has me to speak to! It’s kids who don’t have anyone to talk to who take drugs, streak at festivals and go trekking in some bloody godforsaken jungle and then come home with face tattoos and an STD – when all they want is someone to take them by the hand and tell them everything is going to be all right.’
Rae laughed, in spite of the topic. ‘Firstly, I don’t think Hannah is the type to streak or go trekking; and secondly, she knows that I will, whenever required, take her hand and tell her everything is going to be all right.’ She spoke with quiet indignation, taking Dolly’s comments as a slight on her parenting that she would not allow. It hurt.
‘Yes, but saying it and meaning it are two different things – and she didn’t speak to you, did she? She spoke to me.’ Dolly tapped her bottle.
‘What exactly did she say to you?’ Rae bit her lip, waiting to hear second-hand what was troubling her girl.
‘She said there was something going on and that you and Howard were being weird. I told her you were bloody weird and she said, “Weirder than usual.”’
Rae felt her mouth lift in a smile despite her best efforts.
‘I pushed her, of course, and she said you were spending a lot of time in your room and she thought her dad might be sleeping in the spare room, as she saw his dressing gown hanging over the door; and she said that you’d been quiet, as if you were hiding.’
‘I guess she’s right. Maybe I was,’ Rae softly admitted.
Dolly joined her hands and took a breath. ‘You haven’t been yourself for a few weeks and I thought maybe it was because you were worried about the kids being away and Hannah struggling a bit.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Are you menopausal?’
‘Probably.’
Her friend stared at her across the table. ‘How long have I known you?’
‘A thousand years.’
‘Yes, a thousand years – and it still amazes me that you think you can give me vague answers that sound rehearsed and not think I won’t know it’s bullshit!’
‘What do you want me to say to you, Dolly?’ Rae rubbed her temples, hoping this mild ache that had sprung wasn’t going to develop into a headache.
Dolly shrugged. ‘Er . . . I don’t know. The truth?’
Rae looked out over the beach and wondered if she was destined to feel trapped no matter where she was. ‘The truth is, it is complicated and all I can say is that we are trying to work things out.’
‘“Trying to work things out” sounds serious.’ Dolly had lost her undertone of humour. She sat up straight.
Rae’s lip trembled. ‘Can we please not let it spoil the first day of our trip?’ She felt her tears pool, as happened with embarrassing regularity.
‘Of course.’ Dolly reached for her drink. ‘But I want you to know that, firstly, I am only letting it drop because I don’t want you to get upset in public and, secondly, I am here if and when you want to talk to me, properly talk. You might be my sister-in-law but you are also my friend, my best friend. Plus you and Howard are my favourite people on the planet, after Vinnie, my child, my parents, my cat, the man who cleans my windows, Nick and Nora who I only met earlier today and whatever the name was of the barman who gave me champagne.’
‘Got it. And thank you.’
‘I do love you, even though you failed your O levels and could never properly smoke a cigarette. Sogging up the filter: ugh!’
‘I love you too.’ Rae smiled at her friend over the rim of her champagne bottle, this time hiding the pulse of sadness in her chest at how things might be changing; trying to quell the pain she felt at not being able to speak the words and seek the solace she so desperately craved from the woman she loved.
‘Ah, here we are!’
They both turned to see Nick and Nora approaching. Nick had swapped his khaki trousers for short shorts. His socks and sandals, however, remained in place.
‘If you are waiting for drinks,’ he boomed, ‘you might be in for quite a wait; this bar is only operational in the afternoon and evening, but the one in the main hotel is open right now.’
Dolly lifted her champagne bottle. ‘We’re good thanks. Always carry our own.’
Nick looked at Nora with a look of distaste.
‘We have to.’ Dolly pointed at Rae and raised an invisible glass t
o her mouth a couple of times, the universal sign for ‘boozer’ – enough to make Rae choke on her bubbles.
It was in the lull before dinner. The two women had unpacked their clothes and it was hard to believe they had only arrived at the Blue Lodge earlier that day.
Dolly was on the phone to Vinnie, sitting on her bed. ‘It’s lovely, Vin. Paradise! Beautiful beach and a great hotel. Bloody hot! . . . Yes, yes, phone Howard and tell him we are safe and we are settled. I can’t say we are happy, as Rae still has a face like thunder – and I am only saying that because I know she is listening from the lounge.’
‘I am not listening!’ Rae called from the sofa.
‘No, no, I already asked her and she just said they were having a rocky patch, but I’ll keep digging.’
‘For God’s sake, do you have to be so blatant?’ Rae yelled. Her anxiety flared at the fact that the couple were probing the subject she was desperate to contain. Their guessing and interfering felt a lot like ripping off a scab.
‘Thought you weren’t listening – now who’s nosy?’
Rae buried her face in a cushion.
‘Vinnie sends you his love!’
Rae signalled thumbs-up.
Dolly ended her phone call and held up the hotel brochure as she stood in her bra and pants at the open wardrobe door. ‘What does “resort casual” mean?’
‘I’m not sure. Do you want me to nip down to the restaurant and see what other people are wearing?’
‘No, let’s wing it. If we get it wrong it’ll give Nick and Nora something to talk about.’
With a piano player tinkling out a tune in the centre of the intimate dining room, couples and well-dressed families swanned in. There was the excited burble of any good restaurant, but the backdrop of the Caribbean Sea made it extraordinary.
Dolly and Rae took a table by the window. Rae was relieved to see that her choice of a cotton maxi-dress and Dolly’s linen tunic with white cropped trousers were indeed appropriate resort casual wear. Dolly picked up the menu card and studied it.
‘Chicken, fish or vegetarian lasagne?’
‘Chicken.’
The Girl in the Corner Page 10
