‘It was incredible,’ Imogen said, distracted, but trying to keep in her mind the majestic movement of the shark in the water. She didn’t want to forget any of it.
‘Sounds it,’ Luca said, meeting her eyes with his long-lashed ones. The chemistry between them was even stronger now, in the heat of the early evening. He pulled Imogen towards him gently and kissed her on the lips, running a hand over her hair, salty and sun-bleached.
‘So, do you feel like going to the full-moon party tonight? The boat leaves at eight, and I’ve got some Thai whisky here that we can get an early start on.’
‘That would be amazing,’ Imogen said.
Waves lapping on the white-sand shore, a night of dancing under a star-filled sky ahead … when she’d arrived in Koh Tao last October, Imogen thought, she really had stumbled on paradise.
Anna
The keys Anna McAvoy had been waiting for were finally in her hand.
Right there, with the estate agent’s keyring still attached. As she stared at the front door of her new home: Flat 12, 38 Marine Parade, Brighton. The years of working long hours and saving, then the rollercoaster of offering, getting gazumped, contractual toing and froing – it had all been worth it.
She jangled the keys gently, and smiled. At twenty-eight she was officially a home owner, and better still – she glanced back towards the street where her boyfriend’s car was parked – Jon was moving in. In the past she’d wondered whether this day would ever arrive. But here they were. Still together, in love, and taking a big stride forward as a couple. When they’d first met, introduced by their mutual friends Jess and Ed, Anna had thought about holding back – Jon was in the throes of a messy divorce, and his son was just over a year old. But they’d taken the leap together, and against the odds it had worked out.
Jon was still on his phone, his son Alfie, three years old now, asleep in the car seat behind him. Anna walked back to the open car window.
‘Jon,’ she whispered. ‘OK if I go in?’ she asked, pointing at the front door.
‘Sure, sure,’ he said, glancing up at her, his green eyes bright, and covered the mouthpiece of his phone. He winked at her and then showed her his own set of keys. The faint creases on his forehead softened as he focused on her. ‘I’ll follow you in a minute. Just working out childcare for next week,’ he explained. ‘Nursery’s shut for two days.’
Anna glanced into the back window. Alfie looked so angelic when he was asleep, his cheeks rosy and a blond curl pressed against his temple. Her heart softened at the sight of his chest rising and falling. Beside him were two crates of Jon’s things – a tennis racket and some DVDs in one, another full of neatly folded polo shirts and chinos, and then a third with toys and books for Alfie. Jon worked hard as a brand manager and graphic designer, and what spare time he had was precious. Whether it was letting off some steam on the tennis court or taking Alfie to the park, he made sure he took advantage of every moment.
‘Watch out for him,’ Anna said, pointing to the parking attendant making his way up Marine Parade, stopping and ticketing the cars of everyone who’d stopped to admire the sunny sea view without paying.
‘Oh crap,’ he said, the phone still at his ear. ‘Sorry,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Not you, Mia. I’m about to get a ticket. I’ll call you right back.’
He put the phone down and turned to Anna. ‘You go in, hon – I’ll see you up there with Alfie once I’ve found somewhere to park.’ With a hasty kiss, Jon restarted the engine of his Audi and pulled away from the kerb.
Anna retraced her steps up the path towards her apartment building, then took out her own mobile and dialled her Grandma Vivien’s landline. It was the third time she’d tried that morning, and again it went through to answerphone.
Anna hesitated. She could drop by her grandma’s house now, it wasn’t far – just up the side streets to the quiet tree-lined road. But – she checked her watch – she and Jon would need to give Alfie his lunch soon. Vivien could always come and see the flat another day: the papers were signed now, and the place wasn’t going anywhere.
Anna opened the door and stepped inside the entrance hall of the block, saw the postboxes for each of the flats. She climbed the wide, grandly proportioned stairs that hugged the curves of the Art Deco building. With dark-red carpet on the stairs, and brass fittings, Anna could just picture how it had once been a hotel.
She took the stairs two at a time, striding easily – while it hadn’t always helped her when it came to dating, being just under six foot certainly had its advantages. She reached the third floor and opened the door to her flat, number 12. She looked into the hallway with a buzz of anticipation, and laid her handbag down on the floor. The carpet, cleared of furniture now, was a little grubbier than she remembered. But, she thought, stepping forward into the living room, it was airy, and spacious. And out of the bay windows at the front of the flat – what a view. Waves crashed onto the pebbly beach, dogs ran up and down, and lights shone brightly on Brighton Pier. Vivien was going to love it. And Alfie always got excited about seeing Hepburn.
Working around the clock these past few years had all been worthwhile – because now she had her very own home.
Anna spotted Jon walking up the front path, with Alfie toddling along beside him. She tugged the sash window open, and felt a rush of cold air against her face and ruffling her grey silk blouse. ‘Happy new home!’ she called out. ‘Come up.’
Jon raised a champagne bottle and waved it in celebration. ‘Just you try and stop us,’ he called, laughing.
Anna closed the window gently. She couldn’t wait to toast the new flat – and to show Alfie where he’d be sleeping when he came to stay at the weekends. She crossed the living room and peeked into the small room next to the bathroom. The previous owners had used it as a study and now it stood empty, but Anna knew exactly how it would look once she and Jon had finished decorating it. They’d ordered a lovely wooden bed and a colourful toy chest and wardrobe with animals on them, plus a mobile and some pictures for the walls. It was going to be perfect.
She turned round, and took a look inside the master bedroom opposite. She chewed her lip in excitement – it was even more beautiful than she remembered. The large windows overlooked communal gardens, and flooded the room with light. Carefully restored wooden floorboards and an original 1920s fireplace gave the room character – and once her cream fluffy rug was in there it would be cosy too.
Tomorrow, she and Jon would be waking up in their very own place. It didn’t matter who had put down the deposit. Jon’s situation was complicated, and Anna understood that. Two years after the divorce, he and Mia were still struggling to find a buyer for their three-bedroom, mid-terrace house, meaning he wasn’t able to pay into the new flat. But he and Anna had gone to the viewing together, and both fallen in love with the flat on Marine Parade as soon as they’d stepped inside. This place belonged to both of them: the flat was their new beginning.
Anna caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece and attempted to tidy the frizzy mess the sea air had made of her usually sleek shoulder-length brown hair. The one and only downside of living in Brighton, she thought.
She heard the thud of Alfie’s steps on the main staircase and his excited squeals as he ran. He and Jon must be just a floor or so away now. She couldn’t wait for them to arrive.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and checked the screen: Mum.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said.
‘Hello, love.’
‘You’ll never guess where I am,’ Anna said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘I’m at our new flat.’
At that moment, Jon and Alfie burst in through the front door, wide smiles on both their faces – the family resemblance was unmissable. Alfie dashed from room to room, exploring excitedly, his dad following close behind. Anna walked back into the hallway and smiled to greet them.
‘You know I mentioned the damp?’ she said, talking into the phone and puttin
g her head around the bathroom door. ‘It looks like they’ve sorted it out. It’s much better than when we came for the viewing. I can’t see any of the black stuff anyway – you know, the bad mould.’
‘That’s good,’ her mother Jan said, sounding distracted. ‘Listen, Anna. I’ve been trying to get hold of your sister.’
‘Imogen?’ Anna said. ‘Why? What’s up? Is she OK?’
Jon must have heard the concern in her voice, as he looked back at her, his worried expression mirroring her own.
‘She’s fine,’ Jan said. ‘Or at least I think she is, she’s impossible to get hold of.’ Anna could hear that her voice was strained.
‘Then what is it?’
‘I’m afraid we’ve just had some terrible news. It’s about your Granny Vivien.’
PART ONE
The Tide Turns
Chapter One
The ‘fasten seatbelts’ sign pinged, and Imogen undid the clunky metal clasp that held her to the aeroplane seat. She sat back, reclined the chair and looked out of the narrow window at the puffy white clouds that filled the sky over Bangkok: below them a layer of thick smog hung over the city. In just a few air-conditioned minutes they’d be moving out of Thai airspace and even further away from the island.
It had been thirty-six hours and a long boat and bus ride since Imogen had spoken to her sister Anna. She had hardly slept since then, save a few minutes with her head resting against a rattling bus window, her iPod drowning out the sounds of chickens in the aisles.
Imogen recalled her elder sister’s familiar face over the shaky Skype connection in the internet café on the island’s main street. ‘It’s Grandma Vivien,’ she’d said, her brown eyes and thick brown hair pixellating as she moved. ‘Imo, she’s gone.’ The words still swam in Imogen’s head, unreal.
Knowing the details of her grandmother’s death didn’t help – a heart attack, existing health issues she’d kept hidden and only spoken to the doctor about. It still didn’t make sense. Grandma Vivien wasn’t supposed to die, or at least not yet. As soon as she’d finished talking to Anna, Imogen booked her flight home.
The stewardess approached with the bar trolley, and Imogen stopped her.
‘Could I have a vodka tonic, please?’
She thought about what she was going back to. Home – to England, in March. But a different kind of home, without her grandma, one of the people she cared about most. She hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.
‘Actually,’ she said to the stewardess, ‘can you make that a double?’
Imogen took the drink and sipped at it. Slowly, the alcohol lulled her into something approaching sleep. She lost focus on the movie she was watching, and her eyelids drooped shut.
In her dream they were in her grandmother’s back garden, she and Anna playing on the swing-ball set with Vivien keeping score, the sisters battling to hit the ball the hardest. Vivien stood cheering on the sidelines, next to a table laden with home-made lemonade and flapjacks, in a full-skirted flowery dress, a straw hat and those elegant high-heeled sandals she used to wear. As if she was awaiting a call that would sweep her away to a more glamorous party. Sparkling blue eyes, lined with liquid eyeliner. She had always looked, to Imogen, like a 1940s film star.
When Imogen awoke with a start, she could still smell her grandmother’s distinctive scent – almond and honey from the bath oil she used, then a layer beneath that, homier – the trace scents of cooking that clung to her clothes.
Imogen switched off the screen, and tried to focus on the magazine she’d picked up at the airport. But the images of red-carpet dresses blended into one.
She wanted something, anything, to block out the hurt of knowing her grandmother was gone. On the island the news had seemed like a strange dream, but now, on the way home to England, it was becoming painfully real. The last thing she wanted to do was cry here on the plane, in front of everyone, yet the tears felt dangerously close to the surface. To distract herself, she shut her eyes and cast her mind back to the night she’d left the island.
‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ Luca had said, bringing her towards him in the dark water. Bright fire-fly-like scatterings of phosphorescence glittered in the sea around them, and Luca’s face, with tanned skin, dark, wet hair and stubbled jaw, was partially lit by moonlight. They’d spent the evening in Komodo, a beach bar with live music, and then, after Imogen had explained that she’d have to leave, they’d separated off from their group, and she’d come down to the beach with Luca, just the two of them.
‘Of course I’ll be back,’ Imogen said, laughing and kissing him again. This was a necessary trip, not a holiday. Thailand was her home now, and she was only halfway through compiling the underwater photographs for her project. Plus – palm trees swaying, days on the beach and nights with Luca, versus drizzly days and fish fingers in Britain? There was no contest.
‘Promise me,’ Luca said, a wry smile on his lips. ‘You’ll be one of those girls, won’t you? Who gets an offer she can’t refuse when she’s back home, leaves a beach bum like me over here alone, pining and broken-hearted. I’ve seen it before. I just hope I’m not dumb enough to fall for it myself … ’ He looked at her, a shyness and uncertainty in his eyes that was unfamiliar.
‘Oh, you’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Imogen said. ‘It’s only a fortnight. I need to be there for the funeral and to spend some time with Dad and my family. Then I’ll be straight back on the plane to Bangkok. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.’ She leaned towards him and into a salty kiss.
‘Take this,’ Luca said, as he pulled away from her. He took off the shark’s-tooth necklace he wore around his neck. ‘Put it on,’ he said, sweeping her wavy, shoulder-length hair to one side and slipping the leather thong over her head. ‘Then bring it back to me.’
Imogen smiled. Her hand went to the smooth pendant. ‘You’ve got a deal.’
She touched the leather band around her neck now, and thought of Luca. Missed the feeling of his warm skin against hers. Two weeks apart seemed like an eternity.
It would be good to see Anna again, and her parents – well, her dad at least – but still, the thought of going home made Imogen’s heart sink. The last time she’d been there, she’d just graduated from Bournemouth with a photography degree. After sending out eighty job applications, she’d failed to get a single interview, and at twenty-two, living at home with her parents, with her mum constantly checking up on her progress, she’d realised she needed to get away.
After two months, she’d got a bar job, and put away a little each month, dreaming of a way to get out of Lewes and away from her mum’s demands and questions. When she and her friend Lucy had saved enough money for a flight to Asia, they were out of there – and while Lucy had returned six months ago, Imogen hadn’t looked back. She had quickly made friends on the island, including Santiana, a Colombian girl as passionate about diving as she was.
Asia felt a world away from where she was heading back to, the small town of Lewes where she’d grown up.
‘Chicken or pasta?’ the stewardess asked gruffly, rifling through her metal trolley.
Imogen thought of the fragrant Thai green curry and rice she’d eaten just before she left the island. The delicious coconut lassi she’d sipped at a roadside stall while the bus refuelled.
She lowered her tray table. ‘Pasta, please,’ she said, and took the foil tray.
Imogen opened her rucksack in the spare room of her parents’ house, and a little sand fell out onto the hand-made quilt. She brushed it off, then felt a tug at her heart as her hands touched the lovingly created squares. She looked up and her eyes met her sister’s. Anna broke the melancholy silence. ‘There are reminders everywhere you look, aren’t there?’
‘It still doesn’t feel real,’ Imogen said. ‘To think that when we go to Brighton she won’t be there. The ice cream shop, without her … ’
Anna passed Imogen a mug of tea from the oak side table, and put a hand on her arm, sympathe
tically. Her own eyes were puffy and red, and the tip of her nose pink from blowing it.
‘I feel awful. A whole year I haven’t seen her, Anna.’
Outside seagulls cawed, the unmissable reminder that they were back near the south coast in Lewes, in their parents’ two-storey eighteenth-century cottage.
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ Anna said. ‘She loved your phone calls and the postcards – it brightened her days hearing what you were up to out there.’
Imogen fought the lump rising in her throat.
‘You must be exhausted,’ Anna said.
‘It was a long journey, but my mind’s sort of buzzy,’ Imogen replied, taking a comforting sip of the hot drink. ‘How did Granny seem, the last time you saw her?’
Anna perched on the edge of the bed and placed a cushion on her lap. ‘I was round at her house just over a week ago,’ she said. ‘And she seemed fine, good even. She didn’t want to go out to lunch, said she’d rather stay in, but that didn’t seem too unusual. I should have sensed, though, that something was up.’
‘She always seemed so young,’ Imogen said. ‘You know, compared to other people’s grandmas. I was sure we’d have a few more years with her.’
‘Me too,’ Anna said. ‘It doesn’t seem fair. Dad’s crushed, as you’d expect.’
‘Poor Dad,’ Imogen said, biting her lip. They’d hugged hello downstairs, and while they’d barely spoken, she’d seen the grief etched into his face.
‘The cremation’s on Thursday, Mum told you that, right?’
Imogen nodded. ‘Yes. You’ll lend me something to wear, won’t you?’ she said. ‘I haven’t been to one before but I’m guessing the clothes I’ve got in my rucksack aren’t going to be right.’
‘Of course,’ Anna said, smiling warmly and getting to her feet. ‘Listen, Mum said dinner would be ready in about twenty minutes. Jump in the shower and we’ll see you down there.’
Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop Page 2
