Pleasure Island

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  Kicking her legs out behind her she began to swim, enjoying the sensation of the soft, salty water against her nakedness. Soon she was doing forward rolls, throwing her legs up in her air, her bare bottom exposed as she flipped and turned, splashing with joy. Lost in a private moment Angelika felt free for the first time in what seemed like an age and yet even so the questions still came at her, relentless; was she really happy? Had she achieved all she’d wanted to so far, what was missing from her life? She was well aware of her professional achievements; she was, after all, a successful journalist and writer with her own column in the UK’s biggest-selling national newspaper. Her opinion counted, her voice carried weight; she was financially independent, owned a beautiful house and drove a luxury car; she wanted for nothing, had a good family and a decent set of interesting friends. And yet … and yet she couldn’t quite connect to any of it. Something was missing, a void inside of her that no amount of money, success or prestige could fill. She pushed these thoughts from her mind but they bobbed right back up again, forcing her to contemplate.

  On the surface she had it all, the perfect middle-class existence that her newspaper voraciously peddled; solvency, success, ‘The White Company’ lifestyle, bar the marriage and kids part anyway. Angelika thought of the abortion she’d had all those years ago. The child would’ve been eleven now, coming on for twelve, practically a teenager. She wondered whether it might’ve been a girl or a boy, she’d never thought about it much before and yet suddenly had a burning desire to know. Her life would’ve been different now of that much she was sure at least. But would it have been better; more fulfilling spiritually? Her friends with children had all told her how becoming a parent grounded you, gave you a sense of purpose, the feeling that there was something bigger, something greater than yourself – and secretly she’d scoffed at it. ‘She’s like my heart outside of my chest,’ was how her friend Alice had described her newborn daughter, although as a writer she had quite liked that. Meaning: wasn’t that what everyone was searching for? Her very existence suddenly seemed so pointless and futile, just a façade for others to look at and aspire to, a cardboard cut-out life with no real depth or substance, trapped by the trappings of social expectation. Had she made choices based on achieving the perfect outward perception? Good God, had she? Angelika swallowed some of the salty water and began to choke a little. She’d read somewhere once that everything you do is a choice and that everything everyone else does is a choice you hope is right for you. And suddenly this statement had resonance. She was pushing forty now: successful, yet childless; married, yet unhappy; and guilt-ridden that she felt as much. She should be happy, shouldn’t she?

  Angelika dived underwater and began to swim, holding her breath for as long as she could. The water was clear and, delighted, she saw a small shoal of fish just beneath her, their silver skin glistening rainbows as the sunlight bounced off their tiny scales. Gasping for breath as she broke the surface, she smoothed her hair from her face and spat out the salty water.

  As beautiful as this place undoubtedly was, something about it gave her an instinctive sense of unease, a feeling she’d experienced from the moment she’d stepped onto the island. Alongside a general malaise, she had felt herself slip into a strange melancholy, her mood spiking in peaks and troughs. It was the plane crash for sure, or perhaps it was just that ‘overactive imagination’ of hers that her husband liked to remind her of, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being observed somehow – that she was being watched. She looked up at the cloudless sky, at the sun blazing from its centre, magnificent and majestic, almost arrogant as it cast a white blanket over everything. Suddenly sensing that someone was behind her, Angelika turned round. She was being watched!

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice echoed across the lagoon like a steel drum. She did a 360-degree spin in the water, eyes scanning the rocks for signs of life. ‘Who’s there?’

  There was a slight pause.

  ‘Hey.’ He appeared as if from nowhere, as though he had been there all the time.

  ‘Jesus, Nate!’ she said, her breathing a little laboured, quickly followed by relief, ‘you scared the shit out of me!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised, smiling, ‘I didn’t mean to freak you out. I … I just …’

  ‘How long have you been standing there?’ Had he been watching her the whole … Jesus Christ! Angelika felt herself flush. She was naked.

  ‘No … no … I – honestly, I just got here.’ He pointed behind him, at something that wasn’t there. ‘I just found the place now a-a-and –’ he was stammering ‘– and … I … j-just … now, right this second …’

  She squinted up at him from the lagoon, one hand sheltering her eyes from the sun, the other attempting to cover her breasts, legs treading water furiously beneath her until her muscles began to burn.

  ‘Honest,’ he added again.

  But they both knew he was lying.

  23

  ‘You were watching me?’ Angelika continued to tread water, although she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up: her thighs felt like two barking dogs. Frantically she searched for her discarded bikini but it was nowhere in sight.

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ Nate said, climbing down the edge of the rock face surrounding the lagoon towards her.

  Angelika wasn’t sure if she was flattered or offended. Either way she was embarrassed. Had he seen her do the roly polys? She cringed at the thought.

  ‘How did you find this place?’ she asked.

  ‘Same way you did,’ he said.

  ‘I’m naked, Nate,’ she said, finally, suspecting he’d already worked that one out for himself.

  ‘I know.’ He tore his T-shirt off and threw it down to her. ‘I’ll turn my back while you put it on.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, watching as he turned away from her, his toned, lean, back muscles highlighted by the sunlight as it hit his skin. The Golden Bolt. His body was covered in tattoos, though he was too far away for her to tell what they were exactly. ‘Must’ve hurt,’ she remarked, looking for something to say while she scrabbled to put the T-shirt over her wet head, ‘all those tattoos … not fond of needles myself.’

  ‘Yeah, they did. The bigger ones in particular,’ he said, his back still towards her. ‘But I guess they were worth it. Where there’s pleasure there’s pain, right?’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth,’ she said.

  With the T-shirt sticking to her naked, wet skin, Angelika scrambled up onto the sheltered rocks, pulling it down as far over her thighs as it would stretch.

  ‘Can I turn round now?’ he asked.

  ‘All decent,’ she winced. All decent. It sounded like something her grandmother would say. She watched him as he carefully made his way towards her, navigating the rocks barefoot, naked himself save for a pair of battered denim shorts that sat dangerously low on his waist. His hair was ruffled, his expression pensive and at once she thought how he was both too young and too good-looking, though for what or who she couldn’t say.

  ‘I didn’t mean to disturb your swim,’ he apologised as he took up next to her on the rocks, though it sounded disingenuous.

  The harsh sun was already causing the beads of water on Angelika’s skin to evaporate, the outline of her nipples through the wet T-shirt gradually fading.

  ‘It’s stunning isn’t it?’ he said, squinting out across the lagoon, the sound of the waterfall churning in the background providing a musical backdrop.

  ‘Spectacular,’ she said, through a hundred-mile stare, mesmerised by it for a moment. She turned to him, snapping out of it. ‘Have you seen much of the rest of the island yet?’

  ‘I’ve been down on the beach this morning,’ he said, ‘for an early stroll. Watched the sun rise.’

  ‘Bet that was something else,’ she said wistfully, tugging at the T-shirt as she stretched her legs out in front of her self-consciously. It had been years since she’d been alone, semi-naked with a man, accidental or otherwise.

&nb
sp; ‘Yeah, it was pretty special, quite romantic really. The whole place is, I guess.’

  Angelika shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘How’s Billie-Jo faring? She put a fair bit away last night.’ Shit. Why had she mentioned last night? She’d been mortally embarrassed and would rather forget it had happened.

  Nate’s eyebrows twitched.

  ‘Billie-Jo is … Billie-Jo,’ he said by way of an answer. ‘Put it this way, she’s getting to grips with things.’ Although he had no idea just how or who his wife had been getting to grips with. ‘Her bark is worse than her bite you know … she just doesn’t think before she speaks. She gets carried away, she doesn’t really mean to upset and offend people, not deliberately, at least not all of the time. Anyway, she’s gone to the spa in a bid to have her hangover pampered out of her.’ And the rest.

  ‘Good, I’m glad she’s OK,’ she said, touched by the fact he had defended his wife, only wishing her own husband possessed such loyalty.

  ‘And Rupert?’ he returned the question. ‘He seems like a very capable bloke. Good in a crisis.’

  ‘And terrible on the brandy.’ She felt ashamed by her husband’s little diatribe last night. He’d humiliated her by airing his grievances like that. Why didn’t he just talk to her, for God’s sakes? Why did they find it so difficult to communicate anymore?

  She stifled a deep sigh. ‘Rupert’s … Rupert.’

  They both laughed a little nervously as if an unspoken understanding had passed between them. There was a moment’s pause, a silence filled by the buzzing of crickets and the waterfall, the lapping of water against rock, gentle as a lover’s sigh.

  ‘Anyway, last night, I don’t think anyone really said anything they truly meant. It’s the bloody booze I’m telling you!’ she said, making light of it.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ He cocked his head and flashed her a small smile. She tried not to return it, and pretend she hadn’t a clue what he’d meant, but she couldn’t help it; it was instinctive.

  ‘You know, I’m truly sorry for the way my paper … the way you found out about your adop–’ She stopped herself short of saying it. She shouldn’t have brought it up but it had seemed like the perfect opportunity to change the subject.

  He stretched his legs out in front of him too, now, their feet almost touching.

  ‘There’s no need for you to apologise.’ He dipped his chin. ‘Wasn’t you who wrote the piece, was it? You weren’t the one digging up dirt on me … were you?’

  ‘Good God no! … But still, I feel guilty by association. It must’ve been such a terrible shock. I can’t imagine.’

  Nate swallowed uncomfortably. It was still raw, still difficult to talk about. He’d hardly been able to process it all himself yet.

  ‘That’s an understatement. I mean, it’s not every day you find out via national newspaper that your family isn’t really your family at all, that the person you called Dad your entire life wasn’t actually your dad, at least not by blood.’

  She saw the anguish etched onto his brow, slightly furrowed, and felt compelled to place her hand lightly on his. It was a gesture that spoke louder than anything she could respond with.

  ‘I’ve got a private detective working on it,’ he said quietly, his voice low and soft, almost a whisper. ‘Some ex-DCI dude. You see, I need to find out. I need to know who they were: my real parents. I need to know who they were so that I can know who I am, if that makes any sense.’

  It did, perfectly.

  ‘I owe the guy who brought me up – my dad – I owe him everything, I know that. He was the greatest bloke that lived, and I certainly don’t think I would’ve had the career I did without him, but now that he’s gone – and now that the career’s gone – well, I’m just grateful that he isn’t alive to have seen what the papers wrote. I think it would’ve destroyed him. But it’s left me with so many questions.’ He looked at her directly then, their eyes meeting, her hand still lightly touching his fingers. ‘Like, why didn’t he ever just tell me I was adopted?’

  Angelika finally exhaled deeply. He had opened up to her and she was again touched by him.

  ‘Perhaps he felt you were better off not knowing; maybe he knew deep down you would want to discover who your blood parents were and couldn’t handle it himself, or maybe he was protecting you.’ She wasn’t sure if she was saying the right thing but felt compelled to offer some kind of explanation.

  ‘How would you feel?’ he said, ‘if you discovered the woman you’d thought was your mother hadn’t given birth to you?’

  She tugged at the T-shirt once more. It felt like it was shrinking in the heat.

  ‘God, Nate, I don’t know how to answer that.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Betrayed, perhaps. Confused, angry, sad …’ She looked out at the tranquil lagoon. ‘All at sea.’

  He nodded.

  ‘All of those things,’ he said, ‘and more.’

  Angelika’s career had brought her into contact with a handful of adopted people over the years and mostly they had said they’d never wanted to discover who their blood parents were and that they considered their adoptive parents to be their ‘real’ parents; after all, they were the people who’d loved and cared for them unconditionally, taught them right from wrong, comforted their tears and supported them throughout their lives. Isn’t that what made you a parent at the end of the day; that the child wasn’t from your genes was merely circumstantial, wasn’t it?

  ‘Is it nature or nurture, I don’t know,’ she said, struggling with the complexity of it.

  ‘Nothing natural about giving your child up for adoption,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she said, thinking of the abortion again, ‘but there are always reasons, Nate, for everything.’

  ‘Which is why I’ve got a PI on it,’ he said, his mood lightening a little, ‘questions I need answers to.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ she said, ‘what’s your take on all of this?’

  ‘This?’

  ‘Everything … all of it. From day one I’ve been asking myself questions …’

  ‘Like?’ He ruffled his hair and rested back onto his hands, looking at her quizzically with one eye, watching her lips move intently, appreciating the shape of them, naturally full with a pronounced cupid’s bow, and the way they parted to display her neat teeth except for the slight snaggle one at the front.

  ‘Like … oh, God I don’t know … the plane crash. I can hardly remember anything about it. And Aki, the stewardess – don’t you think McKenzie’s wife seemed completely unperturbed by her disappearance. And by the pilot’s death, come to mention it? And then there was the rescue plane, the one that took Joshua off somewhere, God knows where. Why didn’t it just fly us all off the island? And last night, that game … call me paranoid but it was almost as if it was designed deliberately to cause conflict between us.’

  He was staring at her intently now and she felt a slight slither of something pass between them, though what it was she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Then there’s the lack of outside communication, the fact the staff are all mutes and, oh, yes, I almost forgot the wardrobe full of clothes … all our individual preferences. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?’

  ‘When you put it that way it’s all odd,’ he said, ‘the whole damn lot of it.’

  ‘I just can’t seem to shake this weird feeling.’ She shook her head. ‘Maybe I’m just being silly … like we’re being watched or something.’ She looked around at the tranquil setting, nature in all its splendour and realised how absurd it sounded.

  ‘Watched by who?’

  ‘That’s just it – I’ve no idea!’ Even while she had been swimming naked she couldn’t quite shirk the feeling that she wasn’t entirely alone.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘we’ve been through a pretty traumatic time. It’s natural to feel a bit shaken.’

  ‘S’pose,’ she murmured, ‘but why do you think we’re here, Nate?’ She fixed him with a direct stare. ‘And I don’t just mean for
a promotional exercise … I mean really here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head with a degree of resignation. ‘I guess we’re going to find out though.’

  Their eyes reconnected and she smiled coyly at him, her fingers gripping the T-shirt.

  ‘I guess I should find my bikini,’ she said, looking down at the lagoon, ‘before it floats out to sea. I don’t suppose it would look too good if we return back to base, me without my bikini and wearing your T-shirt.’

  ‘No,’ he smiled, ‘I guess not.’ Though in all truth in that very moment he didn’t care; he was just happy to be in her company. There was something about simply sitting next to her that gave him a sense of peace. She had an easy tranquillity to her that made him feel as though everything was going to be OK. He began to renegotiate the rocks that led down to the lagoon, being careful not to slip barefoot.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Protecting your modesty,’ he called back at her, diving halfway from the bottom into the inky blue in a bid to show off.

  She laughed as he thrashed below her.

  ‘Hey, I’ve got the top!’ he said, holding it above the water triumphantly like a trophy, diving back under in search of the bottoms. Angelika stood, one hand pulling the T-shirt over her intimate region, which it barely covered.