by Judy Astley
‘Come on in, man. What do you want? Sail? Waterski?’
‘Just a nice quiet sail by myself out there where it’s peaceful,’ Nick said.
Carlos laughed. ‘Hey man, you look like you got woman trouble. Am I right or am I right?’
Nick grinned. ‘Not trouble, exactly. Just sometimes you want time on your own, know what I mean? Just chill time.’
‘Sure thing. Nothing like sailing a boat around for clearing your head; just you and the wind and the ocean,’ Carlos told him, clambering up from the lumpy old sofa. ‘You hang on here for a minute or two while I just go and sort out the crazy guy on the jet ski and I’ll be right with you.’
Nick perched carefully on the sofa’s arm and looked around idly while Carlos went down to the sea’s edge. Hanging off the end of an oar propped against the wall was, to his surprise, a slinky, silky pair of very definitely feminine knickers, all creamy see-through lack and black ribbon. Expensive, he’d have guessed, thinking back to the photos on the Agent Provocateur website he’d looked at when he’d (briefly) considered treating Felicity. He wondered whose they were, and what they were doing there. A trophy perhaps?
When he was at school, there’d been a boy who collected a pair of knickers from each of his conquests – he’d shown them to Nick once, all folded neatly in a box. There’d been about twenty-five pairs and Nick was supposed to feel envy and admiration rather than the mild disgust he’d actually felt. The boy had said they’d been the ones the girls had been wearing at the time: but Nick, sharp-eyed, had pointed out that at least three pairs still had the price tags on them. What a div. Had the boy really expected him to believe that either most girls carried spare knickers in their handbags, or that all twenty-five had cheerfully agreed to hand over their pants and go home commando-style?
There was a large chart on the wall, with the names of all the male sports and spa staff across the top and different countries alphabetically listed down the left side. The UK, he noticed, seemed to have the greatest number of ticks in the relevant box beneath each name, with dates alongside. Germany and the USA came next: several of the staff names had scored there. What was that about, he wondered. Something to do with the weekly sailing regatta, staff against the guests?
‘Got you a nice little Sunfish out here, sails real smooth,’ Carlos said, coming back into the hut. ‘Hey, you looking at our sweepstake chart? Only one clear winner this season! He’ll collect ten dollars off each of us by Christmas, easy!’ He pointed to Sam’s name and laughed.
‘What’s it about? What are you betting on?’ Nick asked. He glanced at the pants dangling from the oar and back at Carlos, who was now looking rather sheepish.
‘Just a bit of fun among the boys, you know?’ he said, shrugging. ‘No harm. Ladies of all nations and that, you know? Hate to say it to you, man, but your Brit girls are the easiest. A pushover, no, a fall-over.’ Carlos tittered.
‘Found those.’ He pointed to the silky pants. ‘Found those in the bin outside where the returned beach towels go. People get up to all sorts here,’ he chuckled, shaking his head. ‘Stuff you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Oh, yeah right.’ Nick grinned at him, lamely trying to do man-to-man. He left the hut and ambled down to the sea to take his boat out.
It was the underwear guy from school all over again, another of those notches-on-the-headboard thing. And was he, Nick, really any better? If only, he thought as he pushed the small boat out into the waves and climbed aboard, if only he hadn’t caught sight of the last UK entry under Sam’s name, dated the day before. Delilah. His lovely, naïve, trusting little sister reduced to a felt-tip tick on a wall chart and a cheap sweepstake bounty. If he felt a bit queasy out there on the boat, it wasn’t because of the sea.
‘Orange! I can’t wear orange. Nobody wears orange!’ Delilah protested in the middle of the shop. Any minute now, Beth thought, she’s going to stamp her foot like a toddler, hurl herself to the floor and scream and scream till she’s sick, like Violet Elizabeth Bott. And who could blame her?
‘But it’ll suit your colouring, and it’ll match Sadie’s flowers!’ Angela was trying to insist as she held up a long limp dress, a shiny man-made fabric, patterned with vast orange daisies and green tendrils. It reminded Beth of cheap ironing-board covers from a market stall.
‘And you’re very pretty, you’re the sort who’d look good in a bin-bag.’ Cynthia added her rather ill-considered opinion.
‘Mum, Cynthia, don’t be ridiculous. It’s completely gross,’ Sadie declared firmly. She took the offending dress from her mother and hung it back on the rail. ‘There isn’t anything good in here – it’s all tee shirts and tourist tat. Let’s try somewhere else, OK?’
‘I suppose so. Maybe . . .’ Angela said, giving Beth and Lesley a sly glance, ‘maybe just Delilah, Sadie and Cyn and I should go by ourselves. Perhaps it’s a case of too many cooks?’
Delilah got hold of Beth’s arm. ‘I want Mum to come too. She’s good at clothes.’ Beth blinked, unused to such a compliment. Back in England, she’d remind Delilah of this, if they ever had occasion to fall out over skirt length in the middle of the Kingston shopping mall.
‘Is she?’ Angela questioned rudely, looking Beth up and down. ‘Oh, well, if you insist. Though if we can’t find a dress this morning, then that’s it. Sadie will have to get married without a best woman. After all, it’s what you wanted in the first place, isn’t it, darling? No fuss, no guests, no hangers-on?’
‘Certainly is,’ Sadie agreed, teeth gritted as she exchanged looks with Delilah.
The shopping party left the store and returned to the small, busy street and the scorching heat.
‘I need a cold drink,’ Lesley gasped, fanning herself with her hands.
‘Me too,’ Beth agreed. ‘And as soon as Delilah’s found a dress I’m happy to go and get one with you. There’s a lovely little bar down by the harbour – Ned and I went there the other day. Just one more shop, OK? Do you want to go on ahead and I’ll meet you there?’
‘I think I will. There’s a gallery I want to look in. I’d like to take a local painting back home. I’ll hang it in the dining room so I can look at it while I’m clearing the guests’ breakfast things, and remember having nothing to do but lie around in the sun under palm trees, reading.’
Beth laughed. ‘And you could get a matching one for Len: a sort of collage of trainers, bicycles, the scent of the Abs and Tums class, a volleyball . . .’
‘. . . and a dozen shots of Jim’s rum punch! That’s my Len, never knowingly underdoes it. I bet you right now he’s in the gym, giving the punchbag what for and sweating like an old gorilla.’
Delilah found her dress in the next shop, tried it on and twirled round for everyone to have their say.
‘Well it’s almost orange,’ Angela conceded. ‘Peach, anyway. Looks all right with her tan, but it won’t suit her when she’s pale again.’
Neither Delilah nor Beth cared – for now the dress, strappy, plain, lightweight linen, would be fine.
‘You can always spark it up with accessories,’ Cynthia suggested, searching through a rack of shell necklaces and bracelets. ‘This one’s pretty.’ She held up a long triple string of coral-coloured beads against Delilah’s neck and said, ‘You do look lovely. I wish I’d had a daughter. You can’t dress up boys once they’re past three or so. They’re all mud and football after that.’
‘Even your Simon?’ Angela said, laughing. ‘I always thought gay boys loved shopping with their mummies.’
Cynthia looked as if someone had hit her. ‘You might think you’re being amusingly clever, Angela, but don’t you think it’s just a bit insensitive, given that Simon lives half a world away from me?’ She turned and slammed out of the shop.
‘Shall we go after her?’ Lesley murmured to Beth.
‘I’ll go,’ Beth said. ‘You go and get your painting – I’ll see you down at the Harbour bar.’
‘Cynthia can’t say I didn’t try to find her,’ Beth said later to D
elilah and Lesley as their cab trundled down the steep, bumpy track to the Mango Experience. ‘I wonder where she went to?’
‘I don’t know why you bothered,’ Delilah said. ‘She’s a grown-up. If she wants to go off by herself, that’s her choice.’
‘You’re right,’ Lesley agreed. ‘She’s probably already back here, in the Sundown bar having her lunchtime rum punch.’
The taxi pulled over by the gate, allowing an ambulance, on its way from the hotel, to drive out.
‘Goodness, I wonder who that was for?’ Beth said. ‘Surely not . . .’
‘Dolly?’ Lesley said. ‘I never really took her seriously, she can’t really have . . . ?’
‘Died?’ Delilah blurted out, matter-of-fact as only extreme youth would be on this subject. ‘Why not? She was really old.’
‘Lordy, poor Gina,’ Beth said as the cab pulled up at the reception area. ‘Do you think we’d better go and find her?’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Lesley said, shoving her painting and her bags at Delilah. ‘Here, darling, take this lot up to 112 for me and see if Len’s in there. If not, leave it outside the door and I’ll be along in a while, OK?’
‘Sure,’ Delilah agreed, looking round and wondering if Sam had shown his face in the hotel yet. ‘I’ll . . . um go right now.’
‘I’m not sure of Gina’s room number,’ Beth said. ‘We could ask in reception.’
‘I tell you what though.’ Lesley hesitated. ‘It might not be Dolly. We shouldn’t maybe race up to Gina’s room if it isn’t, because Dolly might be out somewhere, maybe in the Haven, and then we’d have panicked Gina for nothing. Let’s just go and see if she’s in her usual spot on the beach first, in case it’s nothing at all. If she’s there, we can just ask her if she fancies some lunch.’
The two women set off along the beach to the far end, where Gina liked to doze the morning away under the last palm tree. Someone was there, that was clear, lying stretched out on a lounger, wearing no more than the tiniest bikini bottom.
‘Is that her?’ Lesley squinted at the woman. ‘I can’t see her hair, so it’s hard to tell from here.’
‘We should be able to tell from her tits,’ Beth said, laughing. ‘I know I shouldn’t be thinking it, if Dolly is dead, but you know when Gina’s lying down and they stick right up, no flopping sideways? I always wonder, if you got close enough, if you could see the seam where they bunged in the implants.’
‘You should ask her. I bet she’d show you.’ Lesley giggled. ‘Yes it is her, look – you can see her blonde hair hanging out from under her straw hat. So I wonder who the ambulance was for?’
‘Beth! Lesley!’ Ned came jogging up behind them. ‘I saw Delilah – she told me you were up here. Um . . . look, Lesley, something happened, nothing to worry about, but it’s Len . . .’
‘Len fell off the Swiss ball? What in the name of buggery is a Swiss ball?’ Michael asked Delilah as they strolled together up to the Haven spa.
‘It looks like a giant beach ball. You use it in the gym for exercises. Apparently,’ Delilah explained.
She didn’t want to talk to Michael or to anyone. She just wanted to go and have her facial in peace and lie in the dark not thinking about anything. There’d been no sign of Sam all day. She’d been to ask at reception if it was his day off, but the woman there had just smirked at her like she was the tenth one to ask the same thing since breakfast. Perhaps she was. There was no message for her, no ‘See you tonight’, nothing. So where did that leave her? Dumped? It wasn’t as if they were even, like, going out. This was like some horrible teen-mag cliché – the Holiday Romance Gone Wrong. There was only tomorrow and a bit of the day after left, and tomorrow was going to be mostly – well, the afternoon, anyway – Sadie’s bloody wedding. She wished she hadn’t agreed to be her stupid best woman, bridesmaid, whatever, now. She should have said, ‘Hey, you know what, Sadie, a wedding with just you and your man and nobody else, that’s an ace idea. Go for it.’ Now they were all going and it would be all afternoon wasted over on Dragon Island. Sure, Sam would be there (if he ever came back, that is), but they wouldn’t be able to be on their own.
It was blissfully cool in the Haven. Delilah and Michael went and sat on the cream sofa, waiting to be called in to the treatment rooms – Delilah to her facial (Exfoliate and Enrich), Michael to his Swedish Massage.
‘Lucky he wasn’t badly hurt.’ Michael was still, Delilah realized, going on about Len, had he been rattling on for ages? She’d taken no notice. ‘I suppose they have to get the ambulance in case he sues,’ Michael said. ‘But I heard the Haven nurse had his ankle bandaged by the time they’d got here. Gave poor Lesley a turn though. She thought he was a goner.’
I’m so not interested in Len’s bloody ankle, Delilah thought, feeling mournful tears starting to gather. What kind of idiot had she been?
‘Oh Lordy, you’re crying.’ Michael put a tentative arm round her shoulders. ‘Is this where I give you a hug, is that allowed?’
‘I suppose.’ Delilah put her head on his chest. He smelled of fresh laundry. ‘Why did you ask, is it because I’m young?’
‘Well . . . yes, I suppose so, in this day and age. But mostly because you’re a moody teenager and might bite.’
‘I think he thinks I’m too young.’
‘Is it that lad with the beaded hair, the one who takes some of the fitness classes?’
Delilah gave him as sharp a look as she could, through her tears. ‘What do you mean?’
He laughed, but not, she realized, as if he was laughing at her. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday! I saw you, the way you are with him. And he likes you too, so what’s the problem?’
Delilah sniffed. ‘He did like me. Not now. He’s not even here. He said he would be.’
‘Maybe he’s ill. Maybe it’s his day off and he forgot,’ Michael suggested. ‘No need to get all chewed up about it.’ He reached across the table to a box of tissues and handed her some. ‘Here, have these. You’ve got to stop crying before your treatment or you’ll mess up the creams and potions, won’t you?’
He was kind, surprisingly comforting. Delilah really didn’t mind him trying to jolly her along.
‘I just want to tell you one thing, from the horribly patronizing great height of being an aged fart who’s lived a bit,’ Michael said. ‘And I don’t want to pry, so please don’t tell me anything alarming . . .’
‘Oh I won’t!’ Delilah assured him, trying to smile.
‘Just don’t regret things, OK?’ he said. ‘I don’t mean you shouldn’t recognize when you’ve done something silly, if you follow me, but don’t waste time regretting. You can’t change anything, after the event. It’s over, move on and try to make the best of it. And when you get older, you’ll find it’s the things you didn’t do – maybe out of, I don’t know, timidity, idleness, fear of the unknown and so on – that you regret. Are you with me?’
Delilah frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I might be, once I’ve thought about it.’
‘Exactly. Give it time. At least you’ve got plenty of that,’ he said, smiling and giving her shoulder a final squeeze as Dolores opened the door of Treatment Room no. 4 (Geranium) and summoned him to his massage.
16
Thunder and Lightning
14 ml Parfait Amour
14 ml blue curaçao
14 ml amaretto
21 ml vodka
56 ml sour mix (lemon/lime/dash sugar syrup)
28 ml soda
‘Len’s blaming me for his sprained ankle, you know. Can you believe that?’ Lesley said to Beth as they made their selections from the breakfast buffet.
‘How does he make it your fault? You were out in the town with us!’ Beth sympathized.
Should she have grapefruit and papaya plus a heap of toast today, or pineapple juice and a poached egg with bacon? Beth dithered over so many delectable choices. She’d miss this back home each bleak winter morning when she was shoving a bowl of virtuous dull-beige porridge into the
microwave. Every year, after the overindulgence of a gorgeous holiday, she would stock up with plenty of exotic fruits to concoct these lazy, luscious tropical breakfasts, and every year she was disappointed that somehow those fresh tangy flavours couldn’t quite be reproduced. Whether it was to do with the way the food was chilled for air transport, or something about the grey British mornings, she didn’t know. It just didn’t work. A Tesco banana didn’t taste anywhere near as sweet as one freshly picked on its home ground. Supermarket mangoes and pawpaws, chilled to sterility, seemed always sourly underripe or close to mouldy, and even in midsummer there was that essential factor missing: the sultry, steamy climate.
Lesley’s hand, waving the metal tongs like a wand, hovered indecisively over a heap of crisply grilled bacon.
‘Nobody really diets ’til after Christmas, do they?’ She murmured her habitual mantra as she scooped up a substantial portion and moved on to consider the hash browns and fried plantain.
‘Len thinks that it’s because I’d been going on about him being more careful, you know, with his health,’ Lesley continued as they made their way to their table. ‘He says he’d decided not to go out for a long run for once, out of consideration for me. So that’s why he was in the gym, doing things with that stupid Swiss ball.’
‘And he fell off . . . because he was balancing on it? Is that what you’re supposed to do with them?’
‘I’m not really sure.’ She giggled. ‘Try to lie on them, maybe? Whatever it was, he did it all wrong. And that’s because he won’t ask anyone. Just goes his own sweet way, like with the rubbish he eats and the amount he drinks.’
Beth imagined Len on top of a large glittery ball, walking it across a circus ring under a spotlight, possibly accompanied by a team of performing poodles, dressed in pink frills and up on their hind legs. In her head she had Len kitted out as a clown complete with huge curled-up shoes, scarlet nose and full white-face make-up. He wouldn’t need to stuff his costume to look clownishly rotund – in terms of comedy shape he was almost there. No wonder Lesley worried. Why did men cause so much hassle? You shouldn’t have to be looking after their well-being as well as your own. She thought of Ned, who occasionally, since the affair, she hadn’t been able to picture leaving the house without including in her imagined scene a tempting line-up of alluring women that he’d be helpless to resist. What had his woman had going for her? She wished she didn’t still wonder. And when did the wondering stop? Ever? She certainly hoped so.
