The Girl in the Corner

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘But I have seen them, Rae. These girls can be so devious.’

  ‘No, Dolly, I really don’t blame her, no matter what her intentions. I dislike her, and I wouldn’t want to see her. I’m angry at her and at the thought of how dismissive she has been of all I hold dear; I know I could never do that to another woman. But blame? I blame him. I blame Howard.’

  I am never going to get married, Mum . . . Marriage is outdated, restrictive and pointless . . .

  ‘You need to figure out how to get over this, Rae. You need to look ahead and not dwell on that one bump in the road.’

  ‘It’s not a bump; it’s a bloody boulder, a mountain! And I wish I could just forget it. I wish it was as simple as booking a holiday, but I see them together all the time and I hear him telling me about it all the time! I don’t think I will ever forget it. I was kneeling on the floor, concerned for his welfare, worried that he might be poorly because he looked so pale, and then when he spoke he launched daggers that have struck my heart! And I don’t know why you think it’s me that needs to try to get things back on track – how does that work? Why is that the case? He broke things, he messed up and yet I have to try to fix them?’ She shook her head. ‘And the thing is, Dolly, I don’t know if I can and I don’t know if I want to.’

  ‘Of course you do! Of course you do!’ Dolly’s tone was proof that her loyalties were split and her advice skewed. ‘I can’t stand it, Rae! I can’t stand the thought of you two not making it through; it kills me!’ Dolly placed her hand on her heart.

  ‘I can’t talk about it any more. Not tonight.’ In truth Rae thought this safer than risking expanding the conversation, which might reveal her utter disappointment that her friend’s concern appeared to be how the situation might affect Dolly, and not its impact on Rae – that, seemingly, her wants and needs were again being sidelined.

  The two sat quietly in the moonlight with the sound of waves breaking on the shore. Rae looked across and felt a quiver of dismay that Dolly had been in receipt of this knowledge all along, her big secret. She felt the stays of trust being severed under the weight of this fact. She did understand Dolly’s dilemma, but ultimately she had put the interests of the family, of her brother, first and not the welfare of her best friend. It left Rae feeling conflicted. As she looked out to sea she realised that the course of their friendship had changed tonight; maybe only by a few degrees, but changed nonetheless. And it might just be that those few degrees were enough to send them wildly off course over time.

  Dolly stood. ‘I’m going to bed. I want to call Vinnie and I just want to shut down and go to sleep.’

  Rae nodded; she understood. In the past when something had upset her, all she’d wanted was to hear reassurance from the one source that could calm her thoughts and ease her worries: Howard.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Dolly asked.

  ‘No, I think I’ll just sit here for a bit longer, if that’s okay?’

  Dolly nodded. ‘Sure. I’ll take the glasses back.’ She held their empty wine glasses in her hand. ‘You know, Rae, this has been the worst conversation we have ever had, one of the hardest.’ She sniffed at the tears that just kept on coming.

  Rae pictured Dolly and Vinnie pitching up at the hospital when she lost the baby, remembered her friend sitting in the chair crying and holding her hand. She shook her head, unable to handle that memory tonight.

  ‘What I need to do, Rae, is lie in bed and replay it all and think about what I say to you next and how I can help you, how I can help both of you. I love you both, I really do.’

  Rae stood and took her best friend in her arms. ’I know you do and I love you too.’

  Twenty minutes later, with the shiver of cool night air around her, Rae stood and made her way along the beach to Max’s. She took a stool at the bar and noticed Nick and Nora sitting on the sofa in the corner and gave a small wave.

  Antonio was busy, mixing a drink with his long dark curly hair tucked behind his ears, concentrating. She felt a flicker of awkwardness that he hadn’t noticed her. He stood with his broad back turned.

  Rae decided to give it a minute or two and then leave; she silently cursed herself for not having brought her book with her, the one time she truly needed the prop.

  Suddenly Antonio spun around and placed a tall glass on the counter with the obligatory paper straw and slice of apple. ‘Here we go, madam: one Cheer Up, Rae-Valentine.’

  Thank you.’ She smiled weakly as she pulled the pale green drink towards her. ‘And tonight I need it more than ever.’

  She realised that at some level, she wanted to be in the company of this young charmer with the well-rehearsed lines whose flattery had hovered at the back of her mind all day. It was a cheap balm of sorts that made her feel a little less bruised.

  ‘You are sad again?’

  She gave a dry laugh. ‘Not again, no. I am still sad; it hasn’t gone away, not really – not for a while now – and now my sadness is getting complicated and I am getting more and more confused.’ She pictured Dolly’s reaction. ‘And I really don’t know why I am telling you this.’ She shook her head at the absurdity and sighed, wondering if being here and chatting to this stranger was really better than being alone with her thoughts.

  ‘This your first time in Antigua?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded, grateful for the change in topic as the sharp, icy-cold drink slipped down her throat. ‘We have a family business, restaurants, and it’s hard work for everyone; the hours are long – but I don’t need to tell you that.’ She looked up to see him nodding. ‘Holidays tend to be short and in Europe, a couple of days here and there. Not that I am moaning. We have a lovely life. A lovely life.’ Or at least I thought we did . . .

  Antonio laughed out loud.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  He bit his lip, hesitant. ‘It always amazes me how many people sit here and tell me they are not lonely, how they like being alone, that they wouldn’t change a thing! Or how very happy they are; and I find it odd that the ones who say they are happiest – the ones who skip and laugh the loudest, who play at being happy – they are usually the people who cry alone on the beach.’

  ‘People like me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Just like you.’

  ‘I suppose you have a point. The happiest among us probably don’t spend time sitting alone at your bar.’

  ‘That’s often the case. Sometimes they are happiest when they are with me, of course.’ He grinned.

  ‘Oh my word.’ She rolled her eyes at his nerve.

  ‘So what does make you happy?’ he asked, wiping glasses fresh out of the dishwasher and placing them on the shelf at the back of the bar.

  Rae laughed out loud; he was the second person to ask that question this evening. ‘Being with my kids, or not even being with them; it makes me happy to know they are happy.’

  ‘So not being with your husband?’ He avoided eye contact.

  ‘Well, he used to make me happy, and who knows?’ She took a sip. ‘We have had a lot of happy years, but we seem to have hit a bump in the road, a boulder . . . a mountain, in fact, and again, I have no idea why I am telling you this.’ She shook her head and closed her mouth.

  ‘So you have said, but it’s the job of the barman – did you not know that? People mistakenly think we are here to give you drinks but that’s only part of the job; the other part is being a listening ear and giving good advice.’

  Rae laughed.

  ‘So what would you do or where would you go if you could go anywhere? Do anything?’

  Rae thought of the conversation she and Howard had had in the bath so long ago, and felt the familiar pang of loss. ‘I would go put on my little red knapsack and I would go island-hopping.’ She pictured the confident girl with the red knapsack, taking great big strides like a giant from one island to the other, tanned, her ponytail swinging and looking like she could take on the world . . .

  ‘Here in the Caribbean?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ She sh
ook her head. ‘Greece, actually. I would like to see all the Greek islands. And then, when I had hopped enough, I would enrol on a course and train to be a chef.’ She smiled at the idea of fulfilling the dream she had harboured for so long, picturing herself in chef whites, busy as part of a brigade in a hot basement kitchen – the kind her parents warned her about.

  ‘So why don’t you?’

  ‘Life is not that straightforward, I’m afraid. There are things I need to do and places I need to be . . .’ She let this hang, picturing the street on which she lived, where she put out the rubbish and swept the pavement, nodded to her neighbours and tried to befriend the lonely lady who had a dog called Fifi. A small life, really, but one that was comfortable no doubt, if a little . . . unfulfilling. A life lived without the confidence to seek out change. Rae pictured herself on a hamster wheel, running continually without looking up or stepping off.

  ‘What about you, Antonio? What would you like to do?’

  ‘I’m genuinely happy now, here. Free. But I guess this life might wear thin one day and when that happens I will go back to Portugal, the Douro valley to be precise. It’s beautiful. I will buy a plot of land and build a house and grow vines, make wine, get married, make babies. Simple.’

  ‘I used to think it was simple.’

  ‘But now?’ Antonio coaxed.

  ‘I am a bit lost. I thought I had a steady life, a stable life. I was satisfied, pretty much like you describe, with wine and babies and our lovely home, but now I don’t know. I can’t see a clear way ahead, and that’s a scary thought at my age – and not the adventure it might feel like at yours.’

  ‘Maybe. But you are far from old.’

  She huffed. ‘I feel it. I thought I filled my husband’s head and heart the way he did mine.’ She stopped talking; this was more information than she should be giving.

  ‘Well,’ Antonio stared at her. ‘I do not know him, but if he has let you slip from his mind he must be a crazy man!’ He tapped his temple.

  ‘I think maybe we got complacent. I don’t know.’ Again she hushed up and looked around the bar.

  ‘In case you were wondering, you did not slip from my mind. I remembered you all day today as well,’ he whispered.

  ‘That’s very sweet of you to say, but a little embarrassing too!’ Rae shook her head, hoping her joviality might help make light of the words that danced in her mind.

  ‘Please don’t dismiss it, Rae-Valentine. I want you to think about it.’ He held her eye.

  ‘Goodness me, Antonio, I am old enough to be your mother.’ She tutted, but still looked up at him through her eyelashes in the coquettish manner she used to practise in the mirror when courting Howard, back when she was seventeen and Antonio would have been . . . one. Urgh! That was too revolting to think about.

  ‘Not old enough to be my mother, not at all, and attraction is not about age or numbers. It’s about two souls who, for whatever reason, become stitched together in time, even if only for a brief while.’

  She laughed loudly. ‘How brief a while? Like, two weeks? Ten days?’ she asked with mock sincerity.

  ‘You can laugh, Rae-Valentine, but there is something going on.’ He pointed to his chest and then hers and back to his. ‘A connection.’

  She instinctively placed her hand on her chest and felt her skin shiver at the prospect of a beautiful young man like Antonio seeing her in her bra and panties with all her lumps, bumps, stretch marks, scars and pouches. She could never do it. Never. Not only would she be far too embarrassed even if she were single, but also the thought of doing something to Howard that might cause him a tenth of the pain he had caused her was absolutely inconceivable. This was followed instantly by a jolt of remorse that she was even thinking these things.

  ‘You are very slick, Antonio. Do women actually fall for the things you say?’

  ‘I only speak the truth.’ He held her gaze for a fraction of a second longer than was comfortable.

  ‘So, I have to ask, how often do you find your soul stitched together in time with another? I should imagine it happens quite frequently while working here in paradise, with potent Cheer Up cocktails flying around.’ She took another sip.

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded, his mouth twitching into the semblance of a smile. ‘Quite frequently.’

  ‘Weekly?’ she pushed.

  ‘No! Not weekly!’ he answered sternly, his smile fading. ‘Occasionally.’

  ‘And what happens at the end of the vacation – do you miraculously become unstitched and go about your normal business?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes.’ He grinned. ‘Sometimes the end of the vacation can’t come fast enough. But sometimes . . .’ He placed the cloth on the bar top and braced his arms on the surface; his words when they came were softly delivered. ‘Sometimes I feel a new emptiness and a kind of deeper loneliness because she has gone and I know she will think of me from time to time, but I cannot have her. She will be back to her office, back to her home, and I am still here.’

  ‘Poor you, stuck here in paradise waiting for the next soul to get stitched to . . .’ Rae blinked at him. ‘I suspect – and correct me if I am speaking out of turn, as I don’t know you at all, and this is largely the cocktail and wine talking – but I suspect that one of the reasons you want those women is because you can’t have them.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He opened two beers and pushed the cold bottles across the bar towards a man in linen shorts and shirt, who took them to his companion sitting on the steps that led down to the beach. ‘Maybe not. Sometimes, but not always.’ He held her gaze again and she felt more than a little self-conscious, as if this confident eye contact was crossing a line.

  ‘I do hope you know that I am not one of those women, Antonio.’

  ‘None of the women I meet are “those women”.’ Again he managed to make it sound sincere.

  ‘No, I am being serious; you need to listen to me.’ She banged her palm flat on the surface of the bar. ‘I have already told you: I am someone’s wife and I am someone’s mum and I don’t go around letting my soul get stitched to anyone else’s. Even if he makes the best cocktails this side of Watford and knows how to make me feel ten years younger.’

  He laughed. ‘You think I am a trickster? I am not. I will never ever tell you a lie. And you think you have a choice? You think you can control when fate is going to deal you a hand that you have to play? Of course not; you can’t control it.’

  ‘Okay.’ She looked up towards the heavens. ‘Maybe I can’t control it, but I don’t have to listen to it and I certainly don’t have to act on it.’ It was the closest she could come to admitting to the frisson of excitement that ran though her veins, a lovely, lovely diversion for a woman feeling so very low.

  Antonio leaned forward and spoke so quietly that she had to bend her head to hear him. ‘But you are listening to it, Rae-Valentine, and you are acting on it because we are talking about it.’

  She stood and grabbed her bag and shawl. ‘Goodnight, Antonio.’

  ‘Goodnight, Rae-Valentine.’ He smiled at her.

  Treading quietly with caution she let herself into the apartment, peeking in on Dolly, who lay still and silent, the absence of her snore suggesting she wasn’t yet asleep. Rae made her way across the floor and slid open the glass door to the terrace, where the cicadas and the hum of tropical life greeted her on this slice of island paradise. She walked outside and sat on the lounger, where she could lie back looking up at the canopy of stars under the clear Caribbean sky.

  ‘Stitched together in time!’ she chuckled, covering her face with her shawl. Her laughter almost instantly turned to tears. It was a combination of too much alcohol and the memory again, crisp and uncensored, of Howard and Karina. Leaning forward, she cried quietly until, for the time being, she ran out of tears.

  SEVEN

  She and Dolly woke, showered and dressed with a new formality between them – nothing marked, nothing obvious; but knowing each other the way they did, even the smallest variation in beh
aviour was noticeable. They made their way along the corridor and across the main reception, their sandalled feet clip-clopping out a loud rhythm on the tiled floors that was usually muffled by their noisy chatter, laughter and observation. Their heart-to-heart the previous evening sat between like them an object made of glass, with both scared not only of its fragility but also of the consequences should they push it.

  Rae had to admit that the wine-and-cocktail combination of the previous evening had washed away a little of the detail of their conversation, and the way Dolly burbled away quietly the moment they took their seats – talking about the weather and the gifts she wanted to buy Lyall and Vinnie, wondering whether they should take a bus or a taxi to Heritage Quay for shopping – suggested she was using chit-chat as a diversion to hide her own discomfort.

  Breakfast was pleasant enough. It was day three of their holiday and they had fallen into a comfortable routine, choosing the same table to sit at and selecting the same items from the buffet.

  ‘I could do with a day out of the sun today.’ Dolly patted her rather crimson shoulders and chest where she had been a little neglectful with her sun cream.

  ‘I think Heritage Quay is a good idea, spot of shopping. I want to pick up something for Hannah, George and Ruby. Lovely Ruby . . .’ Rae smiled. ‘She’s a great girl. Good for George, I think; keeps him grounded.’

  ‘Do you think they might go the distance? George seems keen.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Dolly’s question jogged her mind and seemingly sparked something in Dolly too. That’s right, she remembered now. You and Howard can make it – of course you can . . . You need to figure out how to get over this, Rae; you need to look ahead and not dwell on that one bump in the road . . .

  Dolly looked at her over the top of her coffee cup. ‘I keep thinking of how upset you were last night and it feels awful.’

  ‘Because it is awful.’