The Girl in the Corner

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I don’t want to argue with you, Rae.’

  ‘Well, sometimes that’s how things get resolved,’ she snapped.

  ‘This doesn’t feel like things getting resolved; it feels like you are too angry.’

  ‘God, Dolly, I am angry! I am so bloody angry!’ Her fingers balled into fists. ‘I want you to get where I am coming from!’ Because you – you were supposed to be on my side. You are my best friend and I didn’t truly believe that you might let me down, keep secrets, like your brother . . .

  ‘I do get where you are coming from, but I need to put both sides of the—’

  ‘No, you don’t, you don’t! Sometimes you just need to forget you know Howard and be my friend. You say you can do that but you can’t. And I’m not blaming you – it’s just how it is, I get it.’ Rae took a deep breath, not wanting to cover the same points here in the grounds of their hotel, where Nick and Nora were no doubt hiding behind a pot plant with their ear trumpets cocked ready to listen in. ‘But in a funny way, considering I have been married to your brother for twenty-five years, I am only just now understanding that our friendship has boundaries. And this is all new because it’s the first time these boundaries have been crossed.’ I feel hurt. I feel like an outsider. I feel like the girl in the corner . . .

  The two stood enveloped in an awkward silence until Dolly spoke. ‘Are you coming up to the apartment?’ she asked, pointing ahead.

  ‘No. I’m going for a walk. I’ll see you later.’ Rae looked at the floor, keen to put distance between herself and her friend.

  ‘I’ll take your bags.’ Dolly reached out and took the paper bags filled with gifts.

  Rae put her hat on and walked steadily in the direction of the sea.

  The beach was busier than she had seen it – hardly packed, but most of the sunloungers, positioned in neat twos under the raffia parasols, were either already taken by sun worshippers who lay prostrate with a slick of oil on their skin or festooned with the detritus of the experienced beachgoer: towels, books, sunglasses, beach bags; markers for those who had gone for a dip in the sea or to the restaurant to ensure no one encroached on what they considered to be their turf for the day.

  With her head whirring at the latest instalment of the great Dolly showdown, Rae decided to walk along the shore, and with her wide-brimmed straw hat secured, she rolled up her linen trousers and popped her sandals in her large bag.

  She had a feeling of sadness that was hard to shake and it was tinged with loneliness, because Rae knew that if she lost Howard and she lost Dolly, it would feel like the end of the world.

  The sand was hot and a little painful underfoot, and with relief she reached the darker, damp sand where little holes fizzed with bubbles as the water retreated. She let the cool Caribbean Sea wash over her feet and lap her ankles, foaming as tiny waves broke, leaving a jagged reminder on the shore of their presence.

  ‘Hey! Rae-Valentine!’

  She looked up to see Antonio with an orange bucket in his hand, walking towards her. He strode with confidence through the shallow water, at ease in the sea and without the hesitancy that made her walk slowly, a city girl, wary of what her sole might encounter on the seabed and catching her breath when it came into contact with anything too sharp or too soft.

  ‘Hi! What’s in the bucket?’ The interaction made her feel less conspicuous on this busy beach, and to talk to someone other than Dolly was just the distraction she needed.

  ‘How do you feel about octopus?’ He stopped a few feet short of her on the shore, waiting for her reaction.

  ‘To eat?’ She laughed.

  ‘Well, possibly, but in this case they are my bait. And I’ve just hauled two up off the rocks under the dock.’

  ‘Let me see!’ She watched him stroll towards her in his shorts, his chest bare. He was extremely tanned and the tautness to his skin was the biggest indicator of youth. He was quite beautiful and she wished she was wearing a looser shirt to better disguise the slack tops of her arms and the slight bulge to her stomach, unsure why it mattered.

  He held the bucket at an angle and showed her the bulbous, slimy-looking creatures that were curiously intertwined. Their skin was a mottled brown, white and purple, an almost marbled effect, with tentacles lying languidly up the sides of the pail, displaying perfect round white suckers that looked so uniformly spaced it was a miracle of nature.

  ‘They are ugly little creatures.’ She wrinkled her nose.

  ‘You think? I find them beautiful, but then I have funny taste.’ He grinned at her and she felt her blush spread.

  ‘What do you catch with them – you said they were bait?’ She took a step back and fixed her sunglasses on her nose, glad that they hid her eyes, still puffy no doubt from crying quietly in the taxi earlier as she tried desperately to hide her distress from Dolly.

  ‘Black-fin tuna or whatever else takes a fancy. My friend JJ who works up at Sandals has a boat and we go out, take a few beers and try our luck. It reminds me of summers in Portugal when I was young.’

  Younger . . . she silently corrected.

  ‘Portugal is famous for its sardines. My brothers and my sister and I would go out with my grandfather in the summer and come back with boxes full, pulled straight from the sea, and we’d grill them on charcoal right there on the beach and eat them on fresh bread with blackened red peppers or my mãe would make caldeirada, kind of a fish stew and it’s the best, the absolute best! Oh! Even talking about it now I can taste it! It tasted of the sea and of sunshine!’ He laughed. His description was enough to make her mouth water as she imagined the blackened flesh of the fish, thinking she would pair it with a chilled white wine and a fat squeeze of lemon. ‘Do you have things like that, foods that take you to a certain place and time, so that all you have to do is taste it or smell it and you are right there?’ His enthusiasm was charming.

  Rae thought about this. ‘Not really. I mean I love cooking, I love food and I have had nice meals in nice places, but not in the way you describe. My childhood was lived in the suburbs and my mum used to sometimes make spaghetti Bolognese and serve it with a big smile on her face, as if it were an occasion. Perhaps it was; I don’t really remember.’ She felt a tightening in her throat as she thought about her parents and, wanting to hear their voices, planned to call them later.

  ‘It’s those little things in life that make life. That’s what I think.’

  Rae nodded. ‘I think you are right, but sometimes you are so busy living life that you forget to take time for the little things. You forget to go fishing.’

  ‘Not me.’ He grinned and lifted the bucket.

  ‘Well, you are lucky. You are confident and you are travelling, living the dream! God, I spent my childhood hiding, scared a stranger was going to talk to me, and then I spent my teens wishing I was like my big sister, who was really outgoing and fun. Everyone remembered Debbie-Jo, but me . . .’ She swallowed the emotion that threatened. ‘I married into a loud, glamorous family and that made me happy. It was wonderful.’ She pictured herself on Howard’s arm, strolling Las Ramblas and unable to wipe the smile from her face, feeling like she had the whole world in her hands. ‘Before that I was just the girl in the corner, faded into the background, and it wasn’t nice; no one wants to be like that, like furniture!’

  He stared at her and spoke softly, with a sincerity to his words that moved her. ‘You are not like that, not at all. There are fifty women staying here and I can’t tell you the name or the slightest detail about any of them, but you . . .’ For the briefest second she could see how easy it would be to allow her soul to be stitched to his, even if it were only for a fortnight. ‘You stand out, you shine brightly. Yes, you are quietly spoken, but you have energy and kindness; you are many things, but you are not furniture.’

  Rae hated the tears that came on cue. It was wearying. ‘Well . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I thank you for saying that to me, Antonio.’ She drew breath and sniffed, wiping her tears that slipped beneath the frame of her
sunglasses. ‘But I think people must regard you as a girl like that to lie to you, to betray you, because if you mattered to them that much – if you shone brightly, stood out, if you were the most important thing to them – they wouldn’t do that, would they?’

  ‘I guess not.’ He held her eye and took a step towards her and lifted his hand, as if he was about to wipe away her tears. Suddenly he leaped backwards and shouted, ‘Shit!’

  Rae looked down and screamed as an octopus climbed out of the bucket and made its break for freedom.

  ‘Shit!’ he called again.

  Rae shouted and ran back up the beach a little way, where she stood to watch the drama unfold. It was one thing to see the creature ensconced in a bucket, but quite another to have it slither near her feet. Antonio leaped forward into the water and tried to grab the wily cephalopod but it was too quick and seemed almost rocket propelled as it fired through the water. Antonio stumbled, misjudged his footing as he tried to balance the bucket in one hand and catch his escapee bait with the other. There was an almighty splash as he fell forward into the sea. The second octopus, sensing its opportunity, moved with alarming speed to join his mate. Two escapees on the run together. Antonio sat in the water laughing, his bucket empty, his shorts soaked through and his pride in tatters.

  ‘Oh no!’ Rae bent double, laughing hard. ‘I wish I’d recorded that!’

  ‘You think this is funny?’ he called back to her before scrambling to his feet and filling the bucket with seawater. He lumbered out of the water with his wet hair clinging to his face and began chasing her along the shoreline.

  Rae gripped her bag tightly and screamed at the prospect of a cold public soaking. She ran as quickly as she could, with her heart thudding in her chest, coming to an abrupt halt along the beach when she saw Dolly standing with her sunglasses in her hand and her mouth open, watching.

  Antonio took his lead from Rae and stopped to catch his breath. Dolly glared at him. Rae watched as he emptied the bucket of seawater on to the hot sand and slowly made his way back along the beach, walking towards the wooden dock where octopus lurked.

  ‘He . . . he lost his octopus,’ Rae tried to explain.

  ‘Is that right?’ Dolly’s tone was clipped, her mouth tight.

  Rae looked around and could see several sun worshippers watching her from their vantage points. She felt embarrassment colour her neck and chest. ‘Do you want to get a drink?’

  Dolly gave a single nod in response and turned on her heel; Rae followed her up the beach and past the pool. She walked a few paces behind until they found themselves on a terrace in the main hotel, which was thankfully quiet except for a couple taking tea at a table in the corner. Rae sat on the wicker chair and pulled off her hat and glasses, raking her hair with her fingers.

  ‘I spoke to Vinnie.’ Dolly looked at the view rather than Rae’s face.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Fine, said Howard was going over later and they were going on a jaunt together.’

  Rae nodded. ‘Good. That’ll be nice.’ She watched her friend’s jaw muscles tense as she bit down, grinding her teeth. It reminded Rae of when she was young and had smashed her mum’s vase with a ping-pong bat after being told not to use it inside the house, and was waiting for her dad to come home so they could both tell her off. This felt similar. It was agonising, waiting for the words that she knew had been formed and rehearsed in the last few minutes: weapons that Dolly would launch hoping they found their way to their intended target. Her.

  Rae felt awash with shame, as if she had been caught out, exposed, and this gave her another unwelcome insight into the hierarchy of their relationship. How was Dolly in such a position of power?

  She didn’t have to wait too long for her dressing down. They ordered a pot of tea and a bottle of water, and as soon as the waiter had returned, placed their beverages on the table and left, Dolly leaned forward. With her eyes narrowed she spoke, firing a tiny glob of spittle that landed on the sugar bowl in the centre of the table.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are playing at, Rae?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rae knew exactly what her sister-in-law meant, but wanted more time to think, compose herself. She disliked Dolly’s accusatory tone, especially as she was not the one who had been unfaithful.

  ‘You know what I mean. Jesus Christ! Flirting with Antonio, making a dick of yourself. Running up the beach and squealing like a banshee.’

  Rae knew this was not the moment to point out the irony: that it was Dolly who spent her life speaking and screeching at a volume that would put any banshee to shame. She also disliked being told she was behaving inappropriately; always wary of how she was perceived, she found the thought of making a show of herself in public mortifying. She felt undermined. Small. And it didn’t feel nice at all, especially as the accusation came from Dolly.

  ‘Seriously, Rae, I am worried about you – it’s like you are going off the rails! You wander about half the night, you hang out in that bloody bar. It’s dangerous!’

  ‘God, you make me sound like a ticking time bomb! I don’t wander about half the night. I come up at eleven, rather than sit and watch you sleep. And I don’t hang out in the bar. I, like everyone else in the resort, go for a drink. One drink!’

  ‘Yes, but not everyone else in the resort is being chased up the beach by the Spanish cutie playing wet T-shirt competitions!’

  ‘He’s Portuguese actually.’

  Dolly bit the inside of her cheek. ‘The way you are acting, it’s like you’ve lost your head, hanging out with the bloody barman, Portuguese, Spanish, whichever, who is only ten years older than George! You are a ticking time bomb that could blow my brother’s world sky high and I won’t sit back and watch it. I can’t.’ She pursed her lips.

  ‘Oh, yes, poor Howard! God forbid I might do anything that might pull the rug from under him, shock him, hurt him! Well luckily for him and for you I am not like him; I am not selfish. I am not weak and I am not bloody stupid.’

  ‘Oh, is this what it’s all about? Getting him back. Is it revenge?’ Dolly asked with a slight laugh to her question, even though there was nothing about their exchange that was remotely funny.

  ‘How could you say that to me? How could you? You know me, Dolly, you have known me since I was sixteen and you think that’s how my mind works?’ Rae hated the wobble of emotion in her tone, wanting to sound strong, commanding.

  ‘Seeing the way you behaved earlier made me wonder just how much of you I do know.’ Dolly sat back and folded her arms across her chest.

  ‘Well, join the bloody club!’ Rae shook her head and pulled the napkin from the table, using it to wipe her eyes. ‘Because I don’t know who I am! I don’t know who I am . . . And it’s the worst feeling in the whole world!’ She stopped and tried to breathe, her words robbed by the sob that built in her throat. ‘I am so fucking lonely! So empty, sad. I am trying to figure everything out and I am alone and it’s shit!’ she sobbed. ‘My world has been turned upside down!’

  The couple taking tea at the end of the terrace stood quietly and sidled from the floor, making their way back into the hotel.

  ‘Now we’ve scared them off.’ Rae tried to laugh, but it was hard through her tears.

  Dolly took a deep breath and it was some seconds later that she spoke – and when she did, her tone was calmer. ‘You do know who you are.’ She paused again, waiting for Rae to stop crying. ‘You do. You are my best friend, you are Howard’s wife, you are Hannah and George’s mum, Lyall’s auntie, Sadie and Paul’s sister-in-law, Maureen and Len’s daughter and Debbie-Jo’s much less talented sister.’

  Rae couldn’t help but smile a little. ‘Please don’t make me laugh, not now.’ But Dolly’s words, meant to console, left her feeling bereft. She knew this was how she was viewed, defined by her relationships with everyone else, diluted. No one was ever going to look at her and say, ‘Oh, that’s Rae, the traveller, the chef . . .’ She craved a title that was just hers, something she
could claim regardless of who she was related to.

  ‘I can’t help it. Fun fact: making you laugh is the only skill I have. But it’s true, we all love you, all of us.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rae calmed a little. ‘But that’s not what I am talking about, Dolly.’ She dug deep to find the confidence to speak her mind. ‘I don’t mean those labels that you each stick on me, the labels you stuck on me decades ago, owning me, marking me, making me part of the circus that is life with the Latimers!’

  ‘What are you talking about now?’ Dolly’s chest heaved and she looked genuinely perplexed.

  Rae stared at her and gathered the strength to explain. ‘I mean I was quiet but happy – and the day I met you, all I wanted was to be part of the glamorous world you lived in.’

  ‘It was hardly glamorous!’ Dolly snorted.

  ‘It was to me! There was my mum and dad counting yoghurts in the fridge to make sure we had one each, and if we didn’t my dad would go out with the shopping basket and pick up one yoghurt – one bloody yoghurt! And in contrast there was your family . . .’ She shook her head and swiped at her tears that persisted. ‘Flinging around smoked salmon and laughing and drinking wine and sitting by the pool and it felt like . . .’

  ‘Like what?’ Dolly’s voice was softer now.

  ‘It felt like a permanent celebration. It felt like the life I was craving and it felt like escape. Exciting escape.’

  ‘God . . .’ Dolly shook her head. ‘You are kidding me! I used to love being at your house. Your mum quiet and your dad sober and all eating together; supper around the table and no rows, no shouting, no hiding final demands for payment under the cushion on the sofa, no living off credit, overstretched; no drama. It was peaceful and lovely.’