by Jemma Harvey
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked her.
‘So-so.’
‘You haven’t had a great trip, have you? One thing after another.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Georgie said with sudden sincerity. ‘I’ve been awful company, I know that. I wish . . .’
‘Never mind. Not your fault. Maybe you’ll be better when you’ve eaten. Give the wine a miss, I think, don’t you?’
Shit. She was dying for a drink.
‘Oh yes,’ she said.
She was downstairs before Neville and happily ensconced at the bar when he joined her. ‘What’s that?’ he inquired, indicating the glass of cloudy yellow liquid at her elbow.
‘Pina colada.’ She flourished the bottle. ‘Just coconut and pineapple juice.’
Behind Neville’s back, Juan winked at her. He had topped it up lavishly with rum.
Over dinner she duly ate little and avoided the wine. The rum kept her going. By bedtime she was starving. She went up early, followed, to her alarm, by Neville. When she retreated on to the balcony he pursued her, wrapping his arms around her, telling her he was worried she might take cold (it was twenty-five degrees). She couldn’t evade a long, lingering kiss. Panic set in, and she dived into the bathroom, pleading an urgent need to clean her teeth. She ran the tap, flushed the loo, ran the tap again, scrubbed, gargled, spat. When she eventually reappeared, swathed in a bathrobe, he was lounging on top of his bed in his boxer shorts, looking hopeful. Even the boxers looked hopeful.
‘I need – some milk,’ Georgie said, inventing wildly. ‘For my stomach. To – to settle it. I’ll just pop down and get some.’ She grabbed the card for the door off the table.
‘But you can order room service—’
She mumbled something about it taking too long, and fled.
The bar was nearly empty, though there were still several people sitting on the terrace enjoying the warm darkness. Large sparkly stars twinkled happily in a blue velvet sky. Scattered lights across the valley showed the houses of Deia climbing up the ridge to the church, where Robert Graves might or might not be buried. It’s beautiful here, Georgie thought. I should be having a wonderful time. Bugger.
She sat on her usual bar stool and Juan mixed her a drink containing several kinds of alcohol, slightly diluted with a slice of lemon, a couple of ice cubes, and a splash of some exotic juice. For safety’s sake she ordered a glass of milk on the side, in case Neville put in an appearance. But time passed, and gradually she felt more secure. ‘This is a great hotel,’ she told Juan. ‘I could sit here all night in my bathrobe and nobody cares. If Neville comes, can I hide behind the bar?’
‘Of course. But why don’t you want to be with him? He is a good man. He is a doctor. Is good to be a doctor.’
‘He’s a very good man,’ Georgie sighed. ‘He’s rich and successful and attractive. That’s as good as it gets. I’m a cow. I should never have come.’
‘So what is wrong with him?’
‘Nothing. It’s me. I’m in love with someone else.’ There. She had said it. Not in the heat of the moment, with Cal in front of her, and that look in his eyes which was always a little sad even behind his specs – not to a girlfriend, a confidante, which didn’t count – she had said it when Cal was far away, and their relationship in ruins, to someone who knew nothing of either of them.
‘Then why are you with Señor Fancot? This other man, he is in love with you? He must be: you are so pretty.’
Always responsive to flattery, Georgie managed a smile. ‘Oh yes, he’s in love with me – or so he says. But he’s married. He won’t leave because of the kids; one of them’s severely handicapped. He and his wife don’t have sex any more.’
‘I understand,’ said Juan, leaning on the counter in front of her. ‘I too am married. We have ten children. Now, we cannot have sex. My wife is Catholic, very religious, she will not use contraception, so I am forced to sleep with other women. It is very sad.’
‘That,’ said Georgie pensively, ‘is the biggest load of bullshit I have heard in a long time.’
‘Yes,’ Juan admitted. ‘It is. But many women believe me!’
‘I’ll bet.’
Gradually, the terrace emptied. So did Georgie’s glass. The remaining staff trickled away and Juan, on late shift, produced a bottle of the local speciality, which was dark in colour, extremely potent and probably poisonous. He poured a lavish measure for both of them.
‘It’s no good, you know,’ Georgie said mournfully. ‘No point trying to seduce me. A few years ago, I’d have been your man – sorry, woman – but not now. I’m reformed. It’s awful. Anyhow, I’m old enough to be your—’ she was going to say mother, but changed it ‘– sister. Older sister.’
‘Incest is fun,’ said Juan with a commendable command of English.
‘What is this stuff?’ Georgie demanded, taking a large gulp of her drink.
‘Palo.’
‘It’s disgusting. Give me some more.’
By three o’clock the level in the bottle of palo had sunk out of sight and Georgie decided it was safe to go to bed. She tottered upstairs, draped over Juan for support. ‘Tonight I sleep in hotel,’ he explained, not for the first time. ‘You can share my room. I do nothing you don’t want.’
‘I believe you,’ said Georgie. ‘That’s the trouble. I’d be leaping out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire. I told you, it’s no good. Even when I want to, I don’t want to any more. This love business is destroying my sex life. And it’s very bad for my credit card.’
Juan looked puzzled, but Georgie couldn’t be bothered to go into details. Outside her room, they kissed – not long and lingeringly, but with passionate if brief enthusiasm. Georgie felt better for it. At least it was an honest kiss, if slightly disloyal to Cal. There were no pound signs involved. She said goodnight, swiped her card through the lock, and tiptoed through the gloom to her bed.
Lin was rifling through her most recent photographs – there were none less than two years old – trying to decide which was most appropriate. There were whole albums full of shots of her with Garry or Sean, which obviously wouldn’t do, and an ancient studio portrait from the days when she still looked misty-eyed and wholesome, even though her purity had already been lost. It was all shiny with youth and beauty, so she couldn’t possibly use it: Ivor would be dreadfully disappointed in the reality, should they ever meet. Maybe she should send him an ugly picture, and give him a pleasant surprise. There was one of her with the twins, making a face because Demmy was waving a dead beetle at her. No: that would put him off the boys as well as her. There was another with Meredith, in which she looked anxious (her usual expression when with her daughter), and a third at a party, in which she looked tired. In the end she settled for one in profile, even though it showed little of her appearance, since at least there were no visible circles under her eyes and the tie-dyed lettuce-leaf outfit she was wearing was still one of her favourites. She scanned it into the computer and typed an accompanying e-mail. ‘ . . . taken a couple of years ago, and not me at my best, but I don’t seem to have anything more up-to-date. The furry white cat I’m holding didn’t belong to a Bond villain but to one of the boys—’ an aspiring Bond villain ‘– and was run over shortly after. Sandy spent the next few months taking down car numbers and trying to pin the crime on someone in the area.’ She didn’t mention that, having deduced one of their neighbours was the guilty party, he let the man’s tyres down. She didn’t feel Ivor needed to know that – or not yet, at any rate.
‘The picture mystifies me,’ Ivor responded. ‘I stare at it and will you to turn towards me. I think you’re beautiful, but it’s a shy, secret beauty, like a flower that hides its face from the sun. Which, of course, is not what flowers do, as I’m sure you’ll tell me. I’m not much of a poet, and less of a botanist.’ Like Andy, she thought. I miss the wind off the loch. ‘Sorry about the cat. I sometimes think we give children pets in order to introduce them to the concept of grief and loss at an ear
ly age. That way, they can make a start on the grownup emotions, and how to deal with them, before the trials of adulthood arrive.’ How wise he is, thought Lin. He’d make a good father. ‘I don’t want to press you, but couldn’t you bring yourself to send me a full-face shot? Even if it’s years old, it’ll tell me something about who you were, which is a part of who you are now. I want to know everything about you.’
‘All the early pictures of me are with other men,’ Lin typed in, and then thought that made her sound like a tart, and deleted it. Finally, she sent him the studio portrait. ‘I don’t look a millionth that good now,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I haven’t got fat or anything but I’ve got older and lived through some difficult times and the gloss has worn off. In those days I was still innocent, but life does things to you, and innocence goes, and you can’t get it back.’
‘I can see you were beautiful,’ Ivor replied. ‘I know you still are. Not because of the way you look, but because of who you are. The person I’ve got to know through our correspondence is beautiful, beautiful inside, and I know it shines out. Innocence is just ignorance with a halo. In children, it’s precious, but in a grown woman it would be out of place. As if you still drew stick figures or believed in Father Christmas.’
‘Actually,’ Lin admitted, ‘I do still draw stick figures. I’m not much of an artist. And I write to Santa every year; he just doesn’t answer any more. I can’t think why.’
‘Next Christmas,’ Ivor said, ‘there’ll be a full stocking at the end of your bed, even if I have to climb down the chimney.’
Lin hugged herself at that one, feeling a sudden wonderful glow inside.
Georgie woke late and rolled over, cautiously, to find she was alone. She had missed breakfast (she usually did), the sun was struggling to get round the curtains, and her stomach, once again, was wobbling if not actually churning. She groped for water on the bedside table and in due course found a folded note from Neville. ‘Gone for a walk. Back twelve-ish. I think we should talk.’ Her heart plummeted, which did her innards no good at all. But there was no point in losing her nerve – if she had any nerve left to lose. After all, what could he do to her? Sue her for coming on holiday under false pretences? Tear up her air-ticket home and leave her to moulder in Mallorca forever? (There could be worse fates.) The truth is, Georgie acknowledged to herself, I’ve been deceitful, and wrong, and I don’t like it. But I meant to have sex with him, I truly did. (Didn’t she?) The problem was Cal.
And she didn’t really like the feeling of being paid for her services. Like a prostitute . . . Before her marriage men had occasionally taken her away for the weekend, but it hadn’t made her feel cheap. She’d been madly in lust, and when they picked up the tab it was a plus, not a reason for being there. I shouldn’t have come, she thought, six days too late. How do I get out of this one?
‘Why did you come here with me?’ Neville asked over cold drinks in a secluded corner of the terrace. ‘It can’t have been for a free holiday. You don’t seem to be having much fun. Except,’ he added, in a barbed voice, ‘with Juan.’
‘Oh no,’ Georgie said, glad to find one area in which she could plead Not Guilty. ‘I didn’t – I mean, I haven’t – I don’t want to be with him any more than with you.’ Well, not much more. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘What is it then?’ His tone was gentler. ‘After all, I’m not exactly repulsive. At least, most women don’t think so. This is a first for me.’
The male ego, Georgie thought, suppressing the recollection of his legs. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve behaved very badly. I wanted to come away with you – I mean, I thought I did – but when I got here . . . You see, there’s someone. Back in England. I thought – I hoped – if I could get away from him, be with a nice guy, like you, then I would get over it; but it didn’t work. There isn’t any excuse for me. I should’ve known . . .’
‘He dumped you?’ Neville inquired.
‘No!’ Georgie said with a flicker of indignation. ‘He loves me. So he says.’
‘He’s just not a millionaire with a cardiac condition?’
‘Married,’ Georgie explained, taking conversational shortcuts.
‘And he won’t leave his wife? Doesn’t sound like a good prospect to me.’
She gave him a resumé of the situation, feeling she owed him that much.
‘Are you sure he loves you?’ Neville pursued. ‘It’s easy to say.’
‘Not for him. He isn’t some smooth-talking part-time Casanova; I’ve met plenty of those, I know the type. He’s a bad liar. And . . . I’m not young and credulous. No man’s ever fooled me – or not for long.’ She gave him a look at once beseeching, and regretful, and hopefully just pathetic enough but not too pathetic. ‘Anyway, that doesn’t matter now. I’ve used you – deceived you – I didn’t mean to, but I did, and now I feel cheap and tacky. I’m sorry: you’re a nice guy, you don’t deserve it.’
‘Isn’t being used and let down the usual fate of nice guys?’
‘I don’t think so. You said most women don’t find you repulsive – I don’t find you repulsive –’ except for the legs ‘– so you don’t have to worry. Hell, eligible single men are at a premium nowadays. You could pick and choose.’
‘Right now,’ he said ruefully, ‘I feel like an eligible single mug.’
‘Please don’t. I’ll pay you back.’
‘Forget it. You’re broke. No need to make matters worse.’
‘Oh, I’m used to being broke,’ Georgie said. ‘If I was out of debt I’d panic.’
‘Well,’ he said with an effort, ‘at least we should be able to get along tonight without any more subterfuge. You won’t need to flee into the arms of the barman or indulge in further self-harm.’
‘Self-harm?’
He produced the packet of senna.
‘Oh shit,’ said Georgie.
‘Appropriate. Were you thinking of giving them to me?’
‘Sort of, but I couldn’t. So I took them myself.’
‘For that at least I’m grateful. Nice to know you have some principles.’ He wasn’t quite joking.
None, thought Georgie. You just don’t understand the practical difficulties.
‘I’m going to spend the rest of the day with my friends. I’ll see you in the evening. Suit you?’
‘Thanks,’ Georgie said.
Chapter 8
Love is the fart
Of every heart:
It pains a man when ’tis kept close,
And others doth offend, when ’tis let loose.
JOHN SUCKLING: Love’s Offence
I got back from Greece feeling brown and glowing despite – or perhaps because of – my aborted romance. Georgie, returning from Mallorca, was brown but didn’t seem to glow. ‘How did it go?’ I asked her, at the first available opportunity. She told me – at length. Lin was absent now endeavouring to broaden her children’s minds (do musicals broaden the mind?) and the two of us had dived into the usual pub after work to swap holiday sagas.
‘Have you told Cal?’ I asked.
‘That I’m back? He knows.’
‘That you didn’t sleep with Neville.’
‘Why should I?’ Georgie said. ‘That’s like saying I want to be faithful to him. I don’t want to. I just can’t help it. Besides, I think we’ve split up. All he said to me this morning was hello.’
‘Hello is a start.’
‘Not the way he said it,’ she retorted.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘if you’ve split up, you can’t be faithful to him.’
‘Then I’m becoming frigid,’ Georgie said miserably. ‘That’s worse.’
At that juncture Cal himself walked in with another member of the Design Department, who was looking harassed. However, all the Design Department were looking harassed these days. He greeted me politely and Georgie coldly, and headed for the bar.
‘You could try talking to him,’ I suggested. ‘You don’t have to tell h
im about not shagging Neville.’
After a couple of drinks Georgie duly went over to join him. Ten minutes later she was back, her eyes more spark than sparkle. ‘He answered me in monosyllables!’ she said. ‘Me! How dare he? And he’s giving off enough bad vibes for a pneumatic drill.’
‘What did you say to him?’ I demanded.
‘I said I’d had a great holiday.’
‘Georgie! Deliberate provocation. No wonder he was a bit abrupt.’
‘He doesn’t care any more,’ she insisted. ‘If he did, he’d try to get me back. He wouldn’t just go all taciturn and brooding. That doesn’t get you anywhere.’
‘You’re always telling me men aren’t logical,’ I said. I was facing the bar; Georgie had her back to it. ‘If Cal doesn’t care,’ I went on, ‘how come he’s just walked out, leaving half a pint of beer undrunk?’
‘Has he?’ Georgie perked up.
‘Don’t look round.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too late: he’s already gone. It would have been uncool if you had looked.’
‘I didn’t,’ Georgie said. ‘Still, I would’ve liked to see the expression on his face. Did he look heartbroken?’
‘No,’ I said baldly. ‘He looked . . . bitter and angry and sort of cold, as if his face was a frozen crust on top of the bubbling depths of his emotions.’
‘You’ve been overdoing it,’ said Georgie. ‘With imagery like that, even Jerry Beauman will never make number one.’
‘You just don’t appreciate real talent,’ I said.
Meanwhile, between museums and musicals, Lin was spending every available moment on her computer. Towards the end of the week she telephoned Georgie at work, asking for backup. Since she had yet to patch things up with Cal her Friday night was free, so we picked up bottles and takeaway and headed for Kensington. We found Lin looking lit up, as if the sheen of her youth and much-mourned purity had returned. ‘You’re using a new shine spray,’ said Georgie, gazing at the long ripples of her red-gold hair. ‘And light-reflecting foundation.’
‘I was experimenting,’ Lin admitted. ‘But that isn’t it. I’ve met someone.’
