All Inclusive

by Judy Astley

  ‘It’s all going off down at the bar,’ she commented, watching shapes moving in the lamplight along past the pool. ‘Shame Val and Aubrey won’t be here, though I’m not surprised, not after what happened in the archery class last year. And Cyn and Bradley won’t be here either. Lesley says they’re off somewhere else, for a family wedding. I’ll miss them. Cyn was a right old queen bee but I liked her.’

  Ned winced. His arm, which had been on its way towards settling comfortably round Beth’s shoulders, drooped back to his side. He could feel his blood pressure going up a notch. At the airport, when Lesley had mentioned Cyn and Bradley’s defection to the other side of the world he’d been this close to saying, ‘Oh I know about that, Cyn told me months ago.’ That would have blown it. He’d sat on the plane gulping down a large gin and tonic and almost biting his tongue off at the thought of that particular near miss. He’d have to get the hang of being casual about them – they were likely to be mentioned a fair few times in the next couple of weeks.

  ‘I’ll miss Brad, for the diving,’ he managed to say now as he and Beth gazed out over the dark beach towards the pale lazy wash of the sleepy shore waves. That was safe enough, as well as true. Bradley had been an excellent dive-buddy, careful and cautious and reliable. Given the chance now, if he had any idea what had happened between Ned and his wife, he’d probably slice though Ned’s air supply and leave him, as the Mafia would put it, to sleep with the fishes.

  Not a bad room, for a single. Delilah had been half-expecting a sliver of a cell tacked onto the far end of a gloomy corridor and next to a noisy maintenance cupboard or the air-conditioning units. And the bathroom was ace, with a huge walk-in shower with chunky sky-blue tiles and a lush basin that looked like the kind of mad, uneven pottery one of her mum’s hairy hippie friends would make. There were plenty of miniature toiletries, shampoo and body lotion and conditioner that smelled of coconut, the bottles handily inscribed ‘Cosmic Caribbean’. She’d be able to stash away a load to take home, they’d make great, free Christmas presents for her mates.

  She flopped down on the bed – which was a high, four-posted small double and hung with muslin net – and spread her arms and legs out, like a long-limbed X. Above her the roof was sloping to a high point above the door and slatted with dark treacly wood. A brass ceiling fan hung, whirring gently. There wasn’t going to be much of a view. Her window and balcony looked out towards the sea but in the way of the beach was the building with the smart seafront rooms, in one of which were her parents. She didn’t at all mind being a block away from them. She could be anyone she wanted, up here on her own.

  She closed her eyes and drifted off into a fantasy in which she was there as a refugee, to hide, running from . . . what? Oh, of course, yes – the favourite one: running from the world’s press, every tabloid on the planet in rabid pursuit of the truth about her and Prince William. How likely was that, the unwelcome sensible part of her brain interrupted her reverie to remind her. She ignored it and dreamed on. No-one knew at school that she secretly considered Prince William seriously buff. If her best friends Sukinder and Kell had even the remotest clue she’d be laughed out of the place. Everyone would know, practically within seconds, right down to the babies in year seven. She’d be pointed at and teased and there’d be hundreds, no thousands, of stupid text messages on her phone. Every time she went off to the loo someone would snigger and say, ‘Going for the Royal Wee?’ So not amusing.

  Delilah hauled herself up off the bed and looked down at her suitcase. The thought of unpacking her clothes and putting them away made her feel giddy but she also felt travel-grubby and a bit sweaty. She went into the bathroom for a fast and deliciously lukewarm shower, then opened the case and pulled out a sleeveless blue and white jersey dress along with a pair of flip-flops. The rest could wait till morning. Or ’til her mum, remembering she was still a bit feeble, came up to be helpful.

  ‘So who’s already here?’ Lesley, stunning in a cherry-red silk halter neck and high, gold, ankle-strap shoes, surveyed the pre-dinner drinkers in the beachside bar.

  ‘My round!’ Len declared. ‘What’s everyone’s pleasure?’ He winked at Delilah and added to Beth, ‘Or perhaps I shouldn’t say that in front of corruptible young folk!’

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ Ned said, putting his arm round Delilah and almost daring her to shrug it off. ‘She’ll have to get used to us as we are.’

  ‘Well you’re her dad, she should have got used to you by now!’ Len countered. ‘OK! Who’s on for the opening night? Champagne all round? Grab a table Beth, I’ll have a word with young James over there. Oi Jimmy!’ he yelled to the barman as he approached through the crush. ‘How’s those twins of yours?’

  ‘I’d better order you a Coke, Del,’ Ned said to Delilah, setting off after Len.

  ‘Oh Dad! You let me have champagne at home!’ Delilah wailed.

  ‘It’s not the real thing here,’ Ned whispered. ‘Nothing like as nice, not at all-inclusive rates. You’re allowed a bit of wine with dinner but that’s all. Hotel rules.’

  And a good thing too, Beth thought – the last thing she wanted was for Delilah to show them up by getting ratted every night, courtesy of friendly but overindulgent bar staff.

  ‘Beth! Hiii!’ Delilah sat back and watched, for the second time that day, as her mother was rapturously hugged by another female. American-sounding, this one, older than Lesley and only just squeezed inside a strapless blue dress scattered with diamanté. There was exuberantly applied eyeshadow to match. Delilah, in her flip-flops, was starting to feel seriously under-dressed. Wasn’t the Caribbean supposed to be a laid-back sort of place? There were people here (well, women, anyway) togged up almost like they were going to the Oscars. This woman had long, long, white-blonde hair like Donatella Versace, and a tan so deep she must have already been here for weeks. No strap marks either on her bare shoulders, Delilah noticed, just a slight silvery shimmer that looked a bit sweaty but glittered like something cosmetic. She must lie on the beach all day, Delilah imagined, with what looked like double-G-cup breasts out on show, pointed at the sun. She so hoped she wouldn’t have to see them.

  ‘Gina! How long have you been here? You look amazing!’

  How could her mother lie like that? Delilah wondered, astounded. The woman looked like a hooker.

  ‘And you too, honey! Had a good year? And who is this sweet young thing? Is she yours? Surely not!’ Gina took hold of Delilah’s hand and, rather curiously, inspected her fingers as if to check whether she bit her nails. Delilah gently extricated her hand and wiped it on the back of her dress, then regretted it. There’d probably be an oily patch of glitter now. Imagine Gina’s bed, she thought, by morning it would be like rolling in gravel.

  ‘This is Delilah, our daughter. She’s sixteen,’ Beth said. Delilah wondered what was the thing with mentioning her age. It was like she was warning the Gina woman off. Was she gay? Like, so what? Delilah had said no to boys (though not to Oliver Willis in the summer holidays, regrettably, and she also wouldn’t, of course, to Prince William) and was perfectly capable of saying no to a woman.

  ‘Ah! So sweet, sixteen!’ Gina’s head tweaked to one side and she gave Delilah a moist-eyed look as if remembering far-off days. Well they would be: what was it her mother had said? ‘Gina isn’t old?’ When did ‘not old’ finish then? Seventy? Eighty? There was enough Botox in that face to paralyse a whale.

  ‘I’ve brought someone else too, this time,’ Gina said as she accepted a glass of sparkling wine from Ned. ‘My aged mother. She says she doesn’t want to die in the middle of a Wyoming winter so she insisted on coming with me to do it here. She’s up in the block now, waiting for room service and having her evening chat with Our Lady.’

  ‘Your mother has come here to die?’ Lesley leaned forward to check she’d heard properly. ‘What a fabulous idea. And has she brought something to wear for the event?’

  ‘Oh sure! Embroidered-silk designer shroud, new shoes, the whole caboodle.
She says she knows it’s her time and she’s gotten herself ready, every detail. I think, personally, you know, she’s got another ten years in her, but hey,’ she winked at Delilah, ‘parents, what can you tell them?’

  Not a lot, Delilah thought, if they’re as barking mad as this lot. In fact nothing at all, if you’d got any sense.

  4

  Morning Glory

  56 ml brandy

  14 ml dry vermouth

  dash Pernod, dash Triple Sec

  2 dashes orange bitters, splash of maraschino

  Lesley sat in a snug hollow on the sand and watched the early-morning waves frilling along the shoreline. There were pelicans out on the rocky reef, lining up as if they were waiting for each other before tackling a communal breakfast. Every few minutes they would plop into the sea, one after another, scooping up fish and filling their deep throat pouches. Not unlike me, she thought morosely, prodding at the fat-pocked flesh that folded itself in hilly ridges across her stomach. Too much food shovelled up, that’s what that was. An automatic, unstoppable process that had become too much of a good and comforting thing, with bad results. Middle age was lying in wait but the spread, the midriff bulge had staked its claim first, ready and eager to meet it. What was it that woman had called it, the Spanish girl who’d stayed at their Guernsey guest house last summer? La Michelina, that was it. A tyre. Terrific – tell it like it is, why don’t you?

  It was barely light but several people were up and about, either wide awake with jet lag or eager to make the most of every daylight holiday hour. There were the early golfers, out for a swift round before the sun was strong enough to spoil the experience. Under the trees on the hill, solitary t’ai chi practisers were making their slow, ritual shapes beside the Wellness pavilion. The hard-core boot-camp masochists were already back from a five-mile dawn run and were now grunting through press-ups on the terrace between the Sundown bar and the pool. Even Len was out, over-ambitiously joining the power-walk group, striding up around the headland and across to the hillside plantation where Lesley knew he would pick a handful of barely ripe bananas and munch them down too greedily. Later he’d complain about stomach cramps and blame the airline food from the day before (‘Beef or salmon today?’ the stewardess had offered each and every one of them, as if she’d served these same passengers the day before and would again tomorrow).

  Len always did this, overstuffing on something daft, on day one. She always reminded him that he always did it, and then he’d have a go about her nagging and head off for a Bacardi and Coke at ten thirty as soon as the bar opened, claiming she was driving him to drink. He always did that too. She tried not to think about it – it was only once a year, was his mantra, how much could a couple of weeks’ overindulgence hurt, out of fifty-two? But she worried about the alcohol intake and the fact that back home he currently considered Pringles (Sour Cream & Onion flavour) to be an essential food group. You could see his clothes were getting tighter by the day. He’d been looking flushed lately and his skin had developed a clammy sheen that was nothing to do with the mild Guernsey climate.

  She would talk to Beth about it, see if she’d noticed a difference in Len since last year, and she’d ask her if she had any idea how to go about tackling the problem without Len sussing what she was up to. Beth was a practical sort, one of those nurturing souls who always came on holiday thoroughly equipped with enough Elastoplast, Imodium, after-sun and stuff for insect bites for half the hotel. Last year she’d even brought an umbrella for those instant torrential downpours. People like that weren’t likely to leave their common sense at home – she’d definitely ask her.

  These early mornings were Lesley’s favourite time. Even at home, making a start on the breakfasts in their guest house, she gave herself a moment to have a long look out at the sea and keep an eye on what it was up to. Sometimes it was hurling itself at the shore, furious and threatening, grey and dangerous. At other times it was as sleek as a pussy cat, and as sly, trickling up and down the beach as if its mind was on something else and making you think it was almost safe to trust it. You never could though, not British sea. It was tricky and unpredictable and every day this past summer she’d lived in terror that another guest would go out for an early lone swim and never come back, leaving a stricken family behind, wondering what they could decently do with the lost one’s belongings. It had happened that spring, in March as soon as they’d opened for the season. It was worst-nightmare stuff that leaves a fear.

  On that awful day, Mr Benson’s fidgety wife and pair of plain, bony, grown-up daughters had been sitting in the dining room, waiting politely, unwilling to start breakfast without him. Mrs B. had kept looking at her watch and saying, ‘It’s not like Bill to keep good food waiting!’ Married thirty-five years, she’d told Lesley, and they’d only ever once had breakfast apart – after the night the birth had been going wrong and she’d ended up having her youngest in hospital. That sad Guernsey morning marked the first of Mrs Benson’s new lifetime of solitary breakfasts. The police had found his clothes on a rock, neatly folded and safely weighted down by his holiday sandals, a grey sock tied round the strap of each. He’d been a tidy, careful man. It could only have been an accident: he’d left a return air ticket in his wallet and he disapproved of waste, which was to be a clincher later with the inquest verdict and a relief to Mrs Benson, who’d dreaded what she’d called ‘the slur of suicide’.

  The family had stayed on an extra week just in case, as if he’d been washed away over to Herm on the tide and had been making his slow way back. It had been a harrowing time for them all, with hope seeping away and being replaced with frantic despair. Of course he never turned up. Now, with the season long finished and the victim’s room completely refurnished and repainted, Lesley found it hard to go in without fearing that his lonely ghost still hung around, waiting for someone to take it back home to Bromsgrove: a rootless spirit, a corpse unburied and unrested. She knew his presence was still there; she sensed it loitering in the hallway, felt sure that she passed it on the stairs and the garden path.

  In a few moments, when the sun had brightened, Lesley would take off her sarong and walk into this gentler, softer sea. She’d swim fast out to the small reef that protected the hotel’s foreshore, then along and back, the length of the grounds, parallel to the beach. She wouldn’t go any further – beyond the reef was the treacherous ocean. She felt weightless in the water, lithe and elegant and – oooh the bliss of it – thin. Swimming reminded her of how supple she’d been, how in her ballet days she’d been the one whose legs would go the highest, whose pliant body could spin and fold and fly. It was easy for her doctor to tell her that she’d be fine again, that the horrible gnawing anxiety since the Mr Benson episode would go in time and that she might feel better if she could ‘just lose a few stone’. Not so easy to do. Not when your life is in dire need of a comfort zone. She wouldn’t have any toast today, she decided, just a bit of pawpaw then the crispy irresistible bacon and tomatoes and a couple of those spicy little plantain patties – that would help.

  ‘Hiya. How did you sleep?’ Beth flopped down onto the sand beside Lesley.

  ‘Morning, pet. Not bad – woke up at four desperate for a bit of something to nibble, but I got up and made a quick cup of tea and the moment passed. I’m supposed to be dieting.’ She pinched a hunk of the ample flesh round her stomach and made a face.

  ‘You said that last year, and the year before.’

  If Lesley had a holiday catchphrase it would be ‘Ooh, no I mustn’t!’ faced with any food that was sweet, cream-laden or gooey. Even with drinks she went unerringly for the high-cal option, creamy pina colada, banana daiquiri. She knew the Weight-Watchers points value of each one, the exact number of Slimming World syns, the calorie content and the carbohydrate count. ‘Fluent in all diets, that’s me!’ she joked.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said now. ‘It would only be news if I wasn’t dieting, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You can’t do it here though
, not on holiday!’ Beth said – as she was expected to. ‘Not with all the fab food we get.’

  ‘That’s what Len says. He says, “It’s paid for, don’t waste it.” Drowned Mr Benson’s sentiments exactly, Lesley suddenly thought – then wished she hadn’t; he was the one item from home she definitely hadn’t wanted to bring with her.

  ‘Well there you are then. Fancy some breakfast in a bit?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind. Got to have my swim first though. Begin as I mean to go on.’

  She stood up and started to untie her sarong and looked down at Beth, all ready for action in her trainers and Lycra shorts and a skimpy sleeveless vest top that any woman conscious of batwing upper arms wouldn’t wear. ‘You go on and make a start, Beth, I’ll not be long behind you.’

  Beth hesitated, then recognized an unfamiliar shyness in Lesley. This was new; Lesley might have put on a few pounds (well quite a lot of pounds to be honest, you couldn’t help but notice) over the last twelve months but she was still the same woman who’d been the weighty but supple star of last year’s yoga class, brash in her turquoise all-in-one and broad bottom up and proud in the air for a perfect Plough.

  ‘Right, er OK, then.’ Beth hauled herself up and dusted sand off her shorts. ‘I’ll just go and see if Delilah fancies joining me for the Wake Up and Stretch class and then I’ll see you by the Healthy Options.’

  Healthy Options be buggered, Lesley thought, her spirits lifting as she banished hauntings from the late Mr Benson, plunged into the sea and blissfully let the warm salt water take her considerable weight, the day needed a good setting-up with bacon and eggs.