by Judy Astley
Beth pulled up another seat and sat beside her. ‘Don’t take any notice of Cynthia, she’s being a real bitch tonight. I don’t know what’s got into her this year. I do know it’s something from home bugging her, nothing to do with you.’
‘I’ve never felt so fucking humiliated,’ Lesley spluttered, wiping her tears with a corner of the Mango Experience tee shirt she’d just won for her limbo efforts, and blowing her nose on it noisily. ‘Why did she have to say that? I know I made a twat of myself, falling over like that, but . . .’
‘But you still did better than everyone else! No-one got the bar anywhere near as low as you did!’ Beth tried to jolly her out of the doldrums.
‘I still fell over in front of the whole hotel though, fat clumsy lump that I am. And it was true what she said, if I hadn’t put on so much weight this year I’d have got under that bar, no problem.’
‘You look fine, honestly Lesley. Don’t forget Cyn was also bitchy about Gina’s tits and my mumsiness. She’s the one with problems, not us.’
‘I don’t think I want to come back here any more.’ Lesley’s tears welled up again and overflowed. ‘And that’s sad, because now I’ll be taking away a bad memory instead of all the good ones.’
Beth squashed onto the lounger beside Lesley and put her arms round her. ‘Hey, whether you come back here or not, one comment from Cynthia mustn’t wipe out all the good times! You really can’t let her get to you. She’s dropped a few hints that she’s been going through a bad patch at home, so put it down to that and forget about her. That’s what I’m doing.’
‘You’re a kind woman, Beth, you see the good in people.’
‘God, I must be very irritating. And it isn’t always that easy.’
‘No? You make it look easy, as if things go right for you. Stuff I worry about seems to tag along with me wherever I go, even when I know it shouldn’t. It’s why I show off a bit, like tonight. Trying to keep my demons away. And then Cynthia sticks a pin in the balloon.’
‘Actually, Lesley, this is how “not easy” things are: Ned had an affair earlier this year.’ Beth, feeling rather surprised, heard herself come out with it for the first time. It sounded odd, too real, spoken out loud like that.
‘Ned? No!’ Lesley’s teary eyes were wide with amazement.
‘Yes. It wasn’t for long, nothing serious and it’s all over. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you, really, except I don’t want you to imagine your life is the only one that isn’t completely perfect.’
‘Goodness – I hardly know what to say. You never do know about people do you? Did Delilah and Nick know?’
‘No,’ Beth said quickly. ‘They don’t need to. I don’t want them to despise their dad – I certainly don’t, but with young ones things are all black and white.’
‘And everything’s really over, all fine now?’ Lesley asked.
Beth smiled. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure it is. Nothing’s the same, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that it’s changed for the worse.’
Lesley giggled suddenly. ‘She was probably right, really, Cynthia. If she hadn’t shouted it out so everyone could hear I might have forgiven her. It was my fat arse scraping the floor that pulled me over, and my great big tits knocking the bar down.’
‘Which is more than her skinny ones would do,’ Beth laughed. ‘I’d say you were the winner there really, wouldn’t you?’
It was a busy place, the beach, even this late at night. Perhaps it was the aftermath of the barbecue’s party atmosphere that had people wandering about in couples on the sand, trying to work out how to inject some romance into the evening, the way holiday adverts always portrayed it. Beth felt a bit out of place, walking along on her own while pairs of people snuggled and giggled. Ahead, up on their balcony, she could make out Ned leaning on the rail and looking for her. She waved, and he waved back. She carried on towards the doorway that was closest to the steps to their corridor, past a couple lying flat out on the sand staring at the sky, enjoying the moonlight.
Up by the low-growing shrubs close to the building, someone with more than hand-holding in mind had made a nest from pulled-together loungers, with sunshades dug low into the sand, more or less obscuring the view of whoever was beneath. Just as well, for the sound effects from that direction reminded Beth of the Nick-and-Felicity nights at home. Didn’t they have somewhere more private to go to? It could be Gina, she guessed, catching sight of some white fluttery clothing, then quickly looking away and walking on past. That would make at least, what? Three scalps so far? Carlos in the water-sports hut the other night, Sam (the cause of the row with Delilah), and whoever this was. No-one could accuse Gina of failing in the Mango Experience (Sport ’n’ Spa) ethic – making friends and joining in.
Beth turned to go up the stairs and saw shadowy movement from beyond the boats outside the water-sports hut – someone tallish and slender and unmistakably Delilah. Beth waited and watched as she and Sam, holding hands, ran down to the sea, jumped into the shallow waves and kicked water at each other, laughing and shrieking. Well, that was something to look forward to in the morning, Beth thought happily: Delilah in a good mood.
15
Double Standard Sour
28 ml blended Scotch
14 ml gin
Juice of one lime or lemon
Half tsp grenadine
Half tsp caster sugar
Beth could hardly believe it. There was Delilah in the Wellness pavilion, first to arrive at the early Stretch class and already on her mat, legs crossed and her arms stretched out along the floor as far as she could get them in front of her, as if she was praying devoutly to an unknown deity.
‘You’re up early – couldn’t you sleep?’ Beth asked, placing her mat on the floor and sitting down rather heavily. At what point in mid-life, she wondered, did the grace of youth turn into thumping awkwardness? How was it that when she was in her thirties she could still, like Delilah, simply cross one foot over the other and sink down elegantly into a cross-legged position, whereas now, achieving the same thing involved sending her left arm to the floor first to take the weight before letting the rest of her body tumble heavily into place as gracefully as a fully stuffed bin-bag?
‘Just fancied getting up and doing a class.’ Delilah looked at her, big-eyed with faux innocence. ‘Got to make the most of it, haven’t I?’
What a lovely smile she had – and such a rare sight from a sixteen-year-old before midday. Was that all it took? A bit of attention from a boy she fancied? If so, Beth prayed for a constant succession of attentive and attractive young men when they got home, enough to see Delilah through the rest of her teen years and well on to even-tempered maturity.
‘You certainly have,’ Beth agreed. ‘There’s only a few days ’til we go home. It amazes me how quickly the time seems to pass.’
Delilah frowned. ‘Don’t talk about going home. I don’t want to think about it.’
‘And you were the one who didn’t want to come!’ Beth teased her. ‘You’ve had a good time, haven’t you? In spite of being stuck with us oldies?’
‘Not bad. Could’ve been worse.’ Pushed that bit too far, Delilah retreated. You couldn’t, Beth thought, accuse the girl of overdivulging her feelings. She wouldn’t ask her about being on the beach with Sam last night, as Delilah would, and who could blame her, interpret that as spying. So what if she’d had a bit of a snog with him? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of a holiday when you were a teenager? There was no harm in Delilah having a romantic memory to take home and impress her friends with.
Beth remembered a school trip to Italy when she too had been sixteen. The party had trailed around all the sumptuous treasures of Florence and Verona, soaking up centuries of culture, but what had made the trip entirely memorable had been the night she and three friends had shoved decoy pillows down their beds to fool any patrolling schoolmistresses, then climbed out of their hostel window to meet boys in the piazza and snog in a shop doorway till dawn. Only vaguely did she re
call Verona’s famous amphitheatre or the cool pale marble of David, but the cigarette tang of Luigi’s mouth and the combined terror and elation as his confident, eager hand slid into her bra, well, that definitely stayed with her. Remembering now, it still made her smile. Perhaps she could go back to Italy one day with Ned, she thought, and catch up on all that culture she’d so crassly deleted from her schoolgirl memories.
Beth stretched down to ease her hamstrings, while Delilah lay on her mat and closed her eyes. The room filled around them. Sadie came bounding in and sat on the far side of Delilah and prodded her in the side. ‘Hey, what happened to you last night?’ she hissed in a whisper piercing enough to have everyone turning round, agog for any possible reply. ‘I saw you, sneaking off with Sam! Tell!’
Beth busied herself with calf stretches, silently sympathizing with Delilah. Whatever she’d been up to with Sam on the beach (and it had looked more playful than passionate from what she’d seen), Beth understood Delilah’s frantic attempts to keep Sadie quiet. Some aspects of absorbing the local culture you definitely didn’t need your parents to know about.
‘You do realize it’s Cassandra taking this stretch class today, don’t you?’ Beth asked Delilah, mischievously risking fury.
‘Yeah, like so?’ was the instant snappy response. Own fault, Beth conceded cheerfully, her own fault for knowingly dangling a snack to a piranha. Beside her, Delilah now sighed grumpily and clambered (moving less gracefully than before) to her feet as Cassandra bounced up the steps, greeted her victims and started the music going.
‘Mum? I think I might just go and get breakfast and give this a miss,’ Delilah whispered to Beth as Cassandra started the first deep-bend-and-stretch movements.
‘Don’t be daft, it’s only forty minutes,’ Beth told her. ‘You’re doing this for you, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Delilah reluctantly caught up with the stretch.
Excellent, Beth thought. Lesson number one with men: they can wait.
‘See you in the morning’ had been the last thing Sam had whispered to her before he left last night. So where was he? What was with the last-minute class change to Cassandra? Delilah went through the motions of the exercises, miserably certain she’d been stood up. Hell, it was only eight hours since he’d been kissing her goodnight, all afterglowy and affectionate. What could have changed in that time? Perhaps he’d been seen by one of the hotel managers, coming back from the beach with her, and been fired. He’d already told her he was risking his job by getting too close. Staff were meant to hang out with the guests but not . . . and she hesitated to put the words ‘have sex’ into her head . . . not to get involved with them. That was why he wouldn’t go to her room – someone might have seen them. A relief, that, she’d thought. She’d felt she had to invite him up but really that would have seemed an intimacy too far, not to mention her mum would have killed her if she’d found out. The room was full of home possessions: her clothes, her books, make-up, shoes. Delilah-and-Sam was too ‘other’ for such dullness. No way was he going to be part of how ordinary, how normal, her real life was. So it was the water-sports hut, just as she’d pictured, scuzzy in its way, but excitingly dangerous at the same time.
She shouldn’t have come to this early class. Even if Sam had been taking it she should maybe just have kept away, not been sitting there on the floor waiting for him like some sad, hopeful little puppy. She could imagine Kelly back home, tutting and shaking her head at her overeagerness. But where was he? She hated this – he might have had second thoughts, third ones even. Perhaps he’d decided she was just too young. Or maybe – and this was the bit she dreaded thinking about – maybe it was the sex. Was she no good at it? Before, with Oliver Willis, she’d assumed it was their joint lack of practice that had made it a bit of a non-event. It was OK, but mechanical: no sparks, even though she was quite fond of him in the way you are with someone you’ve known since reception class.
This time, well, it started off great, much more thrilling than it ever got with Oliver, but then it sort of finished too soon, almost as if Sam had gone way ahead of her to somewhere by himself and just wanted it to be over, all rushing on before she got a chance to work out what she was feeling. What would a more experienced woman have done? Was it all right to ask a man to slow down a bit, or were there things she should have been doing that would have made it better?
It wasn’t very comfortable, that sofa in the hut. That hadn’t helped. Something under the rug that covered it had been digging into her hip and when she’d suggested moving, he’d just murmured, ‘Yeah, babes, great,’ as if he wasn’t really listening. The room smelled of engine oil and seaweed and she kept wondering if someone would look in through the shutters. If they did it again (and she’d like the chance – her mum had always said you didn’t get better at anything unless you practised, though Beth might have claimed she meant piano and ballet rather than sex) she’d rather it was out along the beach, up towards where the hotel grounds finished and no-one could see them. That was how she’d always pictured tropical sex: warm sand gently chafing her back as she lay under the stars being pleasured (one of her favourite words, like something from a rude eighteenth-century novel) by someone adoring and considerate.
He hadn’t been happy about the condom either, which was worrying. Didn’t he do sex education when he was at school? It couldn’t have been that long ago, surely.
‘Babes, it’s like eating candy with the wrapping on,’ he’d tried to persuade her as he nuzzled her neck. But he’d given in over that one, because otherwise it was no deal, and also, she suspected, to shut her up from going on and on about safe sex, so he must care about her. He must – but where was he?
‘Lesley? I just want to apologize.’ Cynthia caught up with Lesley and Beth after breakfast as they walked towards the loungers on the beach. ‘I was feeling a bit down last night and I wasn’t being very nice to anyone. I’m so sorry.’
‘You’re right. You were absolutely horrid, Cynthia – you were behaving like a bitchy schoolgirl,’ Lesley said coolly. Cynthia blinked, taken aback. Beth guessed that she’d expected Lesley, usually such an easy-going, accommodating soul, to let her off the hook far more easily than that.
‘But as we’ve only got a couple of days left here and I want to enjoy them . . . and as I don’t like atmospheres, we’ll forget all about it, OK?’ Lesley relented at last and smiled at her, though not quite with her usual radiance.
‘Oh. Oh good. And I really am sorry. Um . . . would either of you – or both – like to come into town this morning while Ned and Bradley are out diving? Sadie needs a few last-minute things for the wedding.’ She laughed and looked around sneakily. ‘You’d be doing me a big favour – otherwise I’ll have to be on my own with Sadie and Angela and they fight like cats!’
‘Oh, OK I’ll come,’ Beth said. ‘I expect Delilah might, as well; it’s her last chance to shop for Christmas presents for her friends back home.’
‘And I’m already on the trip – Angela invited me earlier,’ Lesley told her.
‘Did she? I didn’t know.’ Cyn looked surprised.
‘No – well, what she actually said was that we “lardbutts” – borrowing your elegant turn of phrase from last night, Cynthia – we lard-butts should hang out together. Charming I thought, but I’m in a mood for assuming it was well enough meant. So I said yes.’
‘She can be a bit blunt, my sister-in-law.’ Cynthia sighed. ‘I should probably tell you sorry on her behalf, I think.’
‘I wouldn’t do it just yet,’ Beth suggested, still mildly seething from Angela’s comment about Delilah being ‘scraggy’. ‘I should wait till the last day and assemble everyone in the hotel for a mass apology. By then, I doubt there’ll be anyone left she hasn’t insulted.’
Low profile. Nick now understood, almost literally, what the phrase involved. That had been a close one, on the beach. Who would have thought that his own mother would take to going for moonlight strolls on the sand by he
rself in the dark? What had she been doing out there? And as for Gina, Jeez, talk about up for it! They should have gone back to his room right from the off, not started diddling about on the loungers. He’d only intended to get through the openers on the beach: conversation, a bit of a snog, just to see how the land lay. He should have realized she wasn’t going to be the stopping sort, not once she’d got revved up – not that the revving had taken long. Nought to sixty in about ten seconds, a real Porsche of a woman. What did she do, save up all her sexual energy for holiday time? Did all American women launch themselves so enthusiastically into sex, like they were trying out for Cheerleader of the Year? He’d always assumed that women started to wind the pace down a bit by the time they got to her age, whatever her age was – for who could tell under the make-up and the silicone? (No flop-quality in those tits, most strange.) He could hardly keep up. But he was young – he’d managed, and scary though Gina was, she’d been pretty fantastic.
Nick wandered along the beach towards the water-sports hut. It might be an idea to keep out of the way for a bit, in case Gina was prowling around in search of a morning rematch. He certainly wasn’t. In fact he was, to be honest, pretty sore in the trouser department. What he really fancied was some time out by himself, where no-one could get to him. He looked towards Dragon Island. It was more or less deserted at this time of the morning. Most of the snorkel parties went over in the afternoons and only a few nudist stalwarts would be there, up at their end of the island sunning their parts. He fancied taking a boat, sailing over and simply parking himself under a tree, perhaps with a quiet beer and no company.
Carlos was in the hut, feet up on his sofa but keeping an eye on the punters out on the water, one of them roaring around like a maniac on a jet ski.
