The Perfect Holiday

by Cathy Kelly

  Finn couldn’t see it. ‘She loves you, you mad thing,’ he said. ‘Mum is just a bit formal until she gets to know you. Her father worked in the diplomatic service, you know. She was brought up in a different world.’

  Gloria mentioned the diplomatic service all the time. She’d gone to posh parties in embassies all around the world wherever her father was posted. This was where she’d learned to do things ‘the right way’. She was very keen on things being ‘the right way’ at Finn and Susie’s wedding. Susie felt guilty that Finn’s parents were shouldering most of the cost of the reception. So she kept quiet.

  Susie’s dad liked the idea of a bit of lamb at the reception.

  ‘Lamb and spuds,’ he said. ‘That’ll do for my dinner. And mushroom soup for starters.’

  Susie couldn’t tell him that Gloria had her heart set on scallops on a bed of risotto, followed by peach sorbet and then beef wellington.

  ‘To be different from the herd, how about a wedding cake made entirely of profiteroles?’ Gloria had said.

  Susie had to look up beef wellington on the Internet.

  Unfortunately, she’d also looked up a holiday diet. This was where things had started to go wrong. She and Chloe called it the Severe Holiday Diet. It consisted of diet breakfast cereal and one slimming supplement drink for dinner. She and Chloe had done that for three whole days before they’d gone away. They’d lost pounds. Susie had felt weak on the airport bus, but it was worth it. Except that her engagement ring had been loose on her finger. A single sapphire with four tiny diamonds at each corner.

  ‘If you lose it, imagine –’ Chloe had said as they flew out to Corfu.

  Susie had put it on her middle finger.

  ‘Now you don’t look engaged,’ Chloe said.

  ‘It hardly matters,’ Susie pointed out. ‘I know I’m engaged.’

  If she’d been wearing her engagement ring on the correct finger, Lucas would have seen it. Or someone would have seen it and said, ‘You’re engaged.’

  A line would have been drawn in the sand. Men – Lucas – would have realised she had a fiancé. He wouldn’t have gazed deeply into her eyes. Nothing would have happened. Except it had.

  Chapter Four

  Claire put the last of her belongings into the suitcase and zipped it up. She loved those articles in magazines about how to pack your perfect holiday wardrobe, but she forgot all the advice as soon as she started. One pair of flat shoes and one pair of heels was never enough. The high heels that went with her silky blue skirt looked ridiculous with her floral dress. So she’d need a separate pair of heels, like her wedge sandals. And the silvery flip-flops, just in case. Despite the trouble she took, she still never took the right stuff.

  At least today, hours before the coach came to take them to the airport, it wasn’t too difficult. All she had to do was squash everything she’d brought back into the suitcase.

  She found herself remembering a back-packing holiday she’d been on years ago, when she hadn’t brought enough stuff. Determined not to pack too much, she’d packed too little. She’d taken flimsy T-shirts that were perfect for the beach, but she forgot to bring a fleece for travelling or earplugs or socks or her phone charger.

  It had been the most amazing holiday, though. She and Anthony had gone with the gang they’d grown up with in Bray. Their parents had all moved into a new housing estate just outside Dublin in the 1970s and their kids had made friends. There were ten of them and they’d stayed friends through different schools, through jobs and college, through everything.

  There had always been something between Claire Flynn and Anthony Reynolds.

  They’d been totally different. He was a rebel, wore black leather jackets and roared around on a motorbike. Claire was a responsible student, studied hard and never gave her parents a moment’s worry.

  She’d got top marks in her state school exams. Anthony had actually missed one of the exams after a wild night out. His best subject was art, but he refused to study art history, insisting that the exam should be about painting. He was absolutely not the sort of person she should have fancied, but she did. It wasn’t just that he was gorgeous. It was the distant sadness in his eyes that drew her in. When she’d got a place in a teacher-training college, she knew she’d hardly see Anthony or the gang much any more. The college was on the other side of the city. She’d either be in college or travelling to and from it.

  And then Anthony appeared at the college one Friday evening, on his motorbike with a spare helmet. In his leathers, with his tanned skin and unruly hair, he looked sexy and dangerous. The other students looked at him enviously.

  ‘You came to drive me home?’ Claire said that first time, astonished and touched. On the bike, they’d be home in no time. Normally it took her two hours on buses and trains. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her.

  ‘I got off work early,’ he said. He was apprenticed with a local mechanic. ‘And I thought of you trailing across the city for hours. I don’t know if you like the bike, though.’

  Claire’s eyes shone. ‘I love the bike,’ she said, even though she’d never been on one in her life.

  From then on, they were a couple. A very mismatched couple, according to most people. Claire understood why people thought it would never last. Anthony looked as if he should be dating a kohl-eyed blonde with a leather jacket and spray-on jeans. Claire was freckly, with fair curly hair, and people often called her ‘cute’, which she hated. Her only claim to beauty was her eyes, which were cornflower blue and luminous. Spray-on jeans looked stupid on her.

  But she loved Anthony with her heart and soul, and it seemed as if he loved her back. When she got her first teaching job, they bought a small house together not far from where their parents lived. They married the following year and it was nearly the happiest day of Claire’s life. Anthony’s older brother, Stevie, insisted the wedding party take advantage of the hotel’s residents’ bar. In the end, Claire spent a lot of her first night as a married woman waiting for her husband to come up to the bridal suite. He was badly hung over the next day and kept throwing up on the flight to Alicante.

  ‘I’m so sorry, love, please don’t hate me,’ he’d begged that night as Claire tucked him up in bed to let him sleep. She was going downstairs to have dinner in the hotel dining room alone. ‘I don’t hate you, you big idiot,’ she said affectionately.

  Anthony’s drinking took on a pattern. He seemed to be in control ninety per cent of the time, able to go out with friends and have a few glasses of wine and nothing else. Those times, Claire felt utterly happy: he didn’t have an alcohol problem, she told herself. He was fine. And then a night would come when it seemed as if Anthony had decided to get drunk.

  When he did, his dark eyes looked sadder than ever. Claire would watch him drinking and wish she could fix that dark place inside him. The darkness was what made him drink, she was sure. Whatever the sadness was, she never seemed to be able to help.

  Jessica laid out her souvenir presents on the hotel bed and worked out who would get what. The hand-painted plates would be lovely for her friend, Lizzie. They’d be a sort of apology too. Lizzie had tried to get Jessica to go on holidays with her many times since Jack had died, and Jessica had said no every time. And then she’d upped and gone on holiday on her own after a few sessions with a grief counsellor. Lizzie was a good friend.

  The bronzed horse statues would be great for Marty, although very heavy to transport. Liam and his girlfriend, Kathleen, would like the Greek scrolls. They’d be easy to post to Australia, too.

  She’d got a pretty hand-painted vase for Diana, although she wasn’t sure if you were allowed to buy a counsellor presents. Possibly not.

  Looking at her few gifts on the bed, Jessica realised that her world had shrunk. Once, she would have bought so many more presents. A trinket for the neighbours on each side, something for Jack’s older brother, Tommy, who loved getting things from abroad. He adored snow globes. Jack and Jessica had had so much
fun over the years, trying to buy snow globes everywhere they went. The more colourful they were, the more Tommy loved them.

  She hadn’t known how lucky she was then, Jessica decided. She’d always been worried about the future. Would they have enough money? Would the boys do well in school or college?

  Jack wasn’t a worrier. ‘What will be, will be,’ he used to say.

  If anyone else had said it, Jessica might have wanted to hit them. But Jack could say it and make it sound like words from the Bible. He had that sort of way with him.

  He was calm and wise.

  But Jessica had worried in spite of her husband. And she’d wasted time worrying when she should have been enjoying life.

  In her litany of worries, she’d never thought of Jack dying of cancer when he was still a young man. All those years of worrying, and it turned out that she’d worried about the wrong things.

  Susie shook her zebra-print bikini on the balcony to get the sand out of it. It was from Top Shop, like something Kate Moss might wear. She could imagine the pictures in the magazines: Kate, all tanned and leggy, with a straw hat and gladiator sandals, getting off a yacht in St. Tropez. A zebra bikini needed jewellery, and Susie had brought along a couple of cheap gold necklaces with dangling stones, one amber and one pink. She’d worn the whole lot on the third day of the holiday, when everything had still been fine.

  Just herself and Chloe, two girls having fun and ready to enjoy themselves. They’d been so upset about the Hotel Athena, but it had been hard to remain upset for long. The hotel itself was too lovely, the sun was too hot and the sky was too gloriously blue. The water down at the beach was like the water in postcards.

  Susie used to think that photographers faked that type of water. She’d grown up in Galway and was used to the fierce waves of the Atlantic. She loved the wild beauty of the sea there. But it was never like the sea in Greece, a deep, calm blue that lapped gently against the beach.

  If only it was that day again, the day she’d worn the zebra bikini for the first time.

  Susie closed her eyes and wished with all her heart that she could turn back time. Back to the time before Lucas.

  The first night in Club Paradise, she’d only met him briefly. She and Chloe had made friends with the girls from Chester, most of whom worked in an insurance call centre.

  ‘Like us!’ squealed Chloe, delighted. Her delight was partly fuelled by two enormous vodkas with Red Bull. The barmen didn’t measure drinks, they kept pouring until you said stop.

  The life and soul of the Chester gang was a tall girl named Shireen, who was ready for everything, including having a go at the limbo-dancing competition on the beach.

  Lucas had arrived later. His cousin was one of the Chester girls and he was with a group of guys who worked in Bristol. For several hours, they all danced together and laughed. Susie couldn’t keep her eyes off Lucas, but he didn’t talk. He didn’t dance either. When Susie danced, she was aware of his eyes on her.

  It wasn’t disloyal to Finn, she decided. It was OK to have other guys admire her. Then she realised her engagement ring was on the wrong finger. She hadn’t said she was engaged. She would next time.

  When Susie and Chloe finally got a taxi home at three in the morning, they promised to come back in a few nights. Plans were made and phone numbers were exchanged.

  Chloe fell asleep in the taxi on the way back to the Hotel Athena, but Susie didn’t sleep. She was thinking about Lucas and how special it would be if someone like Lucas fancied you. He was incredibly good-looking but didn’t seem to be aware of all the women looking at him. That was nice. Susie hated vain men on principle.

  The taxi lurched to a halt outside the hotel and she pulled a sleepy Chloe inside. Back in their hotel room, Chloe fell on to her bed fully dressed and was asleep instantly. Susie took off her friend’s strappy sandals and pulled off her skirt. She tried to take off Chloe’s long dangly earrings, but it was impossible. Instead, she pulled the duvet up and left her.

  In the cool of their pretty room, the memory of Club Paradise and Lucas was already fading. Susie couldn’t quite believe she’d spent the evening looking at him. She was engaged, for heaven’s sake.

  Before she got into her cosy bed in the Hotel Athena, Susie kissed the little photo of Finn that she kept on the locker between the beds. It was a wonderful picture and showed off Finn’s incredible smile and the wild red of his spiky hair. Finn wasn’t exactly handsome. Women didn’t watch him as he walked past. In the sun, his back looked like a join-the-dots puzzle with freckles. But he was the kindest, warmest, funniest man she’d ever met. It was a mystery how a woman like Gloria could have produced such a son.

  The second night in Club Paradise, Lucas and his friends were there from the beginning. Susie was shocked at how much she wanted to talk to him. Lucas was different from his friends. They were all good-looking, confident and wore cool clothes. But Lucas was quieter. He sat there watching everyone from narrow grey eyes hidden behind shaggy tawny hair. He was very brown with defined muscles in his arms, like someone who worked out a lot. Susie watched him idly twirling the leather bracelets on his wrist.

  His friend was chatty, so she talked to him instead.

  ‘What do you all do?’ she asked, idly.

  ‘I work in a bank,’ the guy said gloomily. ‘It’s no fun, trust me. Lucas used to work in an estate agents, but that’s all over now.’

  ‘I write songs,’ Lucas said suddenly, looking straight at Susie.

  ‘Wow,’ said Susie. Then felt stupid for just saying ‘wow’. She’d sounded like an idiot. ‘I mean, that’s amazing, not many people can do that…’ She was babbling now.

  At that exact moment, Shireen said they should buy some beer and head to the beach. ‘Let’s swim…No.’ Shireen’s eyes gleamed in the club’s lights. ‘Let’s skinny-dip.’

  Susie’s mother had warned her about the sea and alcohol.

  ‘Never swim when you’ve had a drink, promise me?’ she’d said.

  ‘Mum, I’m twenty-seven, what sort of ninny do you think I am?’ Susie had said. ‘I’d never do anything that daft.’

  Lucas got to his feet and held a hand out to Susie. She got up from her seat so fast that she knocked over her nearly full cocktail glass.

  Lots of other people had clearly had the same idea, as the beach was busy with groups of people sitting on the sand, laughing and drinking. It was much quieter here, away from the noise of the bars, although the thump of bass music could be heard. It felt amazing to be outside at night with a warm breeze wrapping itself around her.

  Susie and Lucas walked hand in hand. He held the hand with the engagement ring on it, but the ring was on the wrong finger. Would it have made a difference if it had been on the right finger? Susie didn’t know. But under the silver Greek moon, it made perfect sense to walk hand in hand with this man she barely knew. He held her left hand. Her engagement ring felt different on the wrong finger. Susie knew she should tell Lucas she was engaged, but somehow, she didn’t know how. He’d think she was a tart if she told him now. Engaged and flirting with someone else.

  Nothing would happen anyway, she decided. So it didn’t matter.

  Chloe had teamed up with another of Lucas’ friends, who was called Troy and was teased endlessly about it.

  ‘Are you Helen? Helen of Troy, gettit?’ giggled someone. ‘The face that launched a thousand ships.’

  ‘Wasn’t Brad Pitt in that film? He’s gorgeous.’

  Chloe grinned and ignored them all. But she did shoot Susie a firm glare at one point. The glare said, ‘You’re engaged! What are you doing?’

  Susie couldn’t help herself. It was as if she was being bewitched, in the way the Ancient Greek sailors had been bewitched by long-haired sirens and led on to dangerous rocks.

  With the waves lapping on to the shore, Lucas and Susie kissed and held each other. It was like being in a film. She didn’t feel like herself. She was someone else, someone exciting, kissing a mysterious man on
a beach.

  ‘I share a room with three of the guys,’ Lucas said. ‘We can’t go there. Your place?’

  ‘It’s miles away,’ she replied. Again, she wished she and Chloe were staying close to Club Paradise instead of in the sedate Hotel Athena.

  It was nearly dawn when Susie and Chloe got a taxi back to their hotel. Susie’s face felt raw from kissing.

  Once again, Chloe fell asleep in the taxi. Susie envied her friend her ability to fall asleep so easily.

  This time, Susie had felt even more guilty when she got back to their hotel. Chloe was right – what had she been doing?

  All the next day, when they lay on the beach after getting up at one o’clock, she felt guilty.

  ‘Are you hung over?’ Chloe asked.

  Susie wasn’t. She hadn’t drunk that much, she wasn’t much of a drinker. If she had a hangover, it was a guilt one. What had come over her on the beach? She’d never cheated on Finn before. She wasn’t that sort of girl.

  At least she would never see Lucas again.

  And then that evening, Lucas had simply arrived. She and Chloe had been sitting on the veranda after dinner in the hotel and he’d appeared. He was as gorgeous as ever.

  Again, Chloe didn’t say anything. But her eyes still said, ‘Are you mad?’

  Sarah, the hotel owner, had chatted politely with him and brought him out a glass of wine.

  When Lucas and Susie walked along the beach hand in hand, she knew where they’d end up. Chloe didn’t come back to the blue and white hotel bedroom until midnight, when Lucas and Susie were lying naked in the single bed.

  ‘Is three a crowd?’ Chloe asked awkwardly.

  Lucas said, ‘Yes.’

  He dressed quickly in the bathroom, kissed Susie goodbye and left.

  Susie snuggled down in her bed and dreamed of a Brad Pitt-style movie where a handsome man just like Lucas rescued her from evil. It was a glorious dream, the sort of dream a person doesn’t want to wake up from. In it, Susie was beautiful in a way she wasn’t in real life. All men adored her and wanted her. But only Lucas could have her, his lean body melting into hers…