Cents and Sensibility

by Maggie Alderson

  I’d assumed the Italian guy who had come to speak to Jay would be our pilot, but he carried our bags out to a small prop plane, opened it up, had another quick word with Jay and then handed him the keys.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Jay had said, showing me how to manoeuvre myself into the cockpit passenger seat, over the wing. ‘You can sit in back, if you like,’ he said. ‘But I’d rather have you up front with me.’

  ‘Do you fly like you drive?’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘I hope not.’

  As far as I could tell, he didn’t. After sitting around for a while to get clearance, he took off smoothly and we headed out over Venice before turning left, so we were looking straight down the Adriatic Sea.

  ‘Do you know where we’re going now?’ Jay asked me.

  ‘Croatia?’ I suggested. I was good at geography.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Jay. ‘Close. The next one down, actually – Montenegro. It’s beautiful, you’ll love it.’

  It was a glorious flight down the coast and over all the islands, and then after just an hour or so, we started to descend and head inland, to somewhere called Tivat – at least, that was what it said on the roof of the terminal.

  There was a man waiting to park the plane for us and we grabbed our bags off the back seat and just breezed through passport control and out towards the taxi rank. As we passed great stressed-out hordes of people waiting for their bags to arrive on the luggage carousel, I decided I could really see the point of private planes.

  A driver – who clearly already knew Jay, judging by his bear-hug welcome – was there to meet us and after about twenty minutes driving at terrifying speed through a classic Mediterranean landscape, we arrived at a small town on the coast, screeching to a halt just in time at the water’s edge.

  Tied up at the stone jetty was a speedboat which looked like the love child of an Ε-type Jag and a stealth bomber. It was so sexy, it was positively rude.

  ‘Wow,’ was all I could say. ‘Is that for us?’

  Jay was beaming.

  ‘Oh, she’s a beauty, Mishko,’ Jay was saying to the driver, patting him heartily on the back. ‘That’s just the one I wanted. Thank you. I’ll call you when I’m going to bring her back. OK?’

  Jay swiftly concluded his business with him – I looked away when I saw he was about to hand over a massive wad of cash – and then he tossed our bags into the speedboat’s cockpit, before leaping aboard, and turning to hold out his hand to me.

  ‘So, do you like her?’ he asked me.

  ‘It’s the most filthy gorgeous boat I’ve ever seen,’ I said laughing. ‘What is it?’

  ‘This, my darling,’ said Jay, patting it lovingly, ‘is a Rivale. It’s the latest model from Riva. You know all those fabulous teak speedboats in sixties films? The sort you’d see Brigitte Bardot riding around in? They were all Rivas and this is the twenty-first-century version. Shall we go?’

  I nodded and waited while he checked everything, the way that people who really know about boats do. I just stood and admired the scene – a beautiful place, a beautiful man, a beautiful boat.

  Eventually, he signalled to Mishko, who was still waiting happily on the quay, to untie us. He threw me the mooring rope and Jay throttled her up. It made more noise than the plane had and once we set off, I think it went faster too.

  I sat down with a bump, taken by surprise at the acceleration. Jay was standing up, grinning into the wind, his white teeth brilliant against his skin, shades on, black hair whipping back. I’d never seen him look happier.

  ‘Are we going anywhere in particular?’ I asked, as we zoomed over the water. ‘Or just going?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Not as long as I’m with you.’

  He put his arm round my waist and pulled me to him.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry, I know these waters really well. Do me one favour, would you, though? Take my clothes off for me.’

  So while he steered the boat, I undressed him. Jay was never happier than when he was naked and he was so at ease with himself in that state, he didn’t look remotely silly, standing there driving a major speedboat with nothing on, so it seemed only right to join him.

  ‘Get rid of those tan lines, eh?’ he said, slapping me on my bare buttock.

  We spent the rest of that day just cruising and speeding through the crystalline waters, until Jay located a deserted island that he said he’d stopped at before, and we anchored in a small bay.

  We spent the rest of the day and night there. Just sunbathing, swimming, eating the lobster and salad that I had found ready prepared, in the boat’s fridge, and drinking the perfectly iced white wine. The oiled-wheel nature of Jay’s life was really beginning to sink in. Money was the ultimate lubricant, I now understood, it made everything run smoothly.

  As I was climbing aboard after a late swim, that first afternoon, I noticed the name on the Rivale’s stern. Some words in Italian, I didn’t understand.

  ‘Hey, Jay,’ I called down to him, from the ladder, pointing at the name. ‘You speak Italian. What does that mean?’

  He swam over to me and grasped me firmly from behind. I gasped.

  ‘It means “Extreme Bliss”,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘And you’re just about to experience some.’

  The rest of the trip continued in this mode without a moment of friction between us. Whatever we were doing, Jay and I just got on – as long as we stayed off the subject of his family and my job.

  We never ran out of things to talk about and were endlessly engaged by the same things, whether it was the porpoises leaping in our wake, the books we were reading, or the very particular smell sunlight leaves on skin at the end of a hot day.

  After a couple of nights on the boat, our food was running out, and Jay headed further south along the Montenegrin coast, past various little towns and the odd ugly hotel development, until eventually we came in view of a particularly picturesque place, that looked like an ancient village, entirely covering a tiny little knoll of an island.

  ‘That looks pretty,’ I said.

  ‘That’s Sveti Stefan,’ said Jay. ‘That’s where we’re going.’

  As we curved round to the shore side of the island, I could see it was connected to the mainland by a narrow footbridge. There was a beach club on the side where we were cruising in, and I could see the people on sunbeds sitting up to look at the boat as Jay leapt out – back in his shorts, for once – to moor us, with me slightly terrified at the wheel.

  Sveti Stefan, it turned out, once a fishing village, was now a hotel – the whole place. It was a maze of little streets of houses, each of which was a guest villa. There was a restaurant, a pool, a casino, an ancient church, even a funny old hairdresser’s, with bright orange seventies pod hairdryers, and a saltwater pool, set into the rock, with amazing views out to sea.

  It was spectacular, but our villa, when we were shown to it, took shabby chic to new levels, in fact, it was just plain shabby. The loo was constantly running, and the taps were dripping, leaving nasty brown marks on the sink and bath. The tiles were broken, the towels were as thin as dishcloths, half the light bulbs didn’t work and the nasty cheap polyester-velvet curtains were hanging off their poles. It was clean, but it was nasty.

  I tried not to look dismayed, as Jay tipped the boy who had carried our bags in. He didn’t seem bothered at all, marching into the room, throwing open the window and leaning out to look at the sea, crashing on to the rocks beneath.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he said, turning to me, looking so happy, I knew I would have to put up a good front. It wasn’t the Cipriani, and it certainly wasn’t an Aman. I did my best.

  ‘It’s, er, amazing,’ I said. ‘The setting is amazing…’

  ‘But the rooms are foul dives?’ He laughed. ‘I know it’s really shabby, but I love this place. I first came here when I was five years old, and I love it. Trust me, once you get used to it, it’s much more relaxing here than
any five-star resort.’

  He came over and put his arms around me.

  ‘It used to be a five-star resort, actually. We would arrive, by yacht or helicopter, and all kinds of famous people would be here, but since the war in Yugoslavia it’s been really neglected. The government runs it – really badly – but I still love it. And I hope you will too…’

  I wasn’t convinced, but I was prepared to put on a good show, for him. That night, though, even Jay’s patience was stretched to its limit.

  We went to bed early, after a pretty terrible dinner on the stunningly beautiful restaurant terrace, only to find that if we so much as moved a leg, the bed creaked and twanged like an orchestra tuning up. We couldn’t even get comfortable, let alone do anything more active.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Jay was saying, after rolling over to put his arm around me and setting off a noise like someone throwing a grand piano off a tall building. He bounced up and down a little to test it – it was deafening.

  I moved a little, to see if it was just his side. It wasn’t. Just moving my hips a tiny bit sounded like someone hurling saucepans down metal stairs.

  We bounced up and down together and it was so unbelievably noisy, we collapsed into hysterical laughter. It was the ultimate irony for Mr Eveready, as I had christened him – a hotel bed you couldn’t move around in.

  We laughed for a long time, setting each other off by seeing just how small a movement it took to make it jangle – and scratching your head could do it – until eventually Jay started to get properly pissed off.

  ‘Actually, this is a joke,’ he said. ‘Forget screwing – we’re not even going to get any sleep on this damn thing.’

  He lay motionless for a moment and then sprang up – sparking a noise like Beethoven’s Fifth, played backwards.

  ‘Get up a minute,’ he said, and then he pulled the mattress off the bed and threw it on to the floor. ‘That should do it,’ he said, putting his hand out to me. ‘Madame?’

  The next day, he had the hilarious bed taken away, and an extra mattress brought in to put on top of the other one, and with the loo, taps, curtains and lamps fixed immediately, with a bit of his folding banknote persuasion, we settled in very comfortably.

  And he was right. It may have been rough and ready, with sunloungers which could have been used in a Sean Connery-era James Bond movie, but Sveti Stefan was a uniquely relaxing place.

  We read, swam, snorkelled and sunbathed by day, sometimes taking the Rivale out for a run. We went for long walks along the coastal path in the evening, had dinner at local fish restaurants, and went early to bed, if not always to sleep. All my cares were forgotten.

  I made a sneaky call to Chloe, to make sure she and Daisy were OK, but that was the full extent of my concern about the place I called home, and Chloe made no efforts to try and intervene between me and Ham. She knew there was no point. Mostly, I hardly gave him a thought – and the same went for the office.

  One afternoon, when we’d been there over a week and I had relaxed into an almost inert state, I was sitting on the terrace outside our villa, idly checking my phone for text messages to delete.

  I’d been away from home for over a month by then and had pretty much stopped even reading them – when I saw I had a new one which made me stop and look. It was from Peter Wallington.

  Peter despised text messages even more fervently than he did milky coffee and the euro – probably because they didn’t suit his grandiloquent style of communication – so if he had sent me one, something was definitely up.

  ‘Please telephone me as soon as possible. Peter.’ That was it. Probably the shortest sentence he had ever written.

  I wouldn’t have responded to anyone else – except Doughnut, of course – but I had to know what was going on. Jay was having a post-lunch nap inside the villa and so as not to wake him, I walked round to the resort’s little salon de thé, to make the call.

  Peter answered his desk phone on the second ring – something was definitely up.

  ‘Ah, Stella, at last,’ he said. ‘I’ve been leaving messages for you, but you haven’t returned them, you naughty girl. In the end I had to resort to “txt”-ing, or whatever you call it.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ I said. ‘I knew it must be serious for you to send one of those…’

  ‘Well, no, nothing’s all right really, Stella. The thing is, you see…’

  I was starting to feel really uneasy.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Duncan’s been sacked,’ he said finally.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ I said.

  ‘Quite,’ said Peter.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, it’s all to do with these wretched budget cuts they want to make. Remember I told you he had some difficult board meetings coming up? Well, a couple of the new board members – the ones who want the big spending cuts – got together and campaigned against him and they used what they called his “poor showing” at the board meetings to oust him. It’s appalling. It’s all about the share price here now, not the journalism. It’s sickening.’

  He was right, I did feel physically sick. Then a terrible question raised its head.

  ‘So who’s the new editor?’ I asked, tentatively.

  ‘That’s the really bad news, darling. It’s Martin Ryan.’

  I just groaned. There was no way of looking at the bright side of it, there wasn’t one.

  ‘I suppose that’s the end of the section, then?’ I said, already knowing the answer.

  ‘I fear so, my dear girl,’ said Peter.

  ‘Oh, well, thanks for letting me know,’ I said, my heart starting to pump with stress. ‘I suppose I better come back, hadn’t I?’

  ‘I would,’ said Peter. ‘And quickly. They’re moving your things out of that office as we speak.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Not into packing cases, but back to your old desk. I thought you’d want to know. Come back soon, Stella. I miss you.’

  And he hung up. I just sat there, my arms hanging by my sides, feeling like I had been punched in the stomach. My head was whirling with the implications. Martin loathed me and he was Jeanette’s great buddy. Forget the section – if I wanted to keep my job at all, I would have to get right back there and fight for it.

  I was just dialling Ned’s number, to get his take on it all, when Jay came loping round the corner, his beautiful face breaking into a broad smile when he saw me. I immediately put my phone down.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here,’ he said. ‘Little Miss English Afternoon Tea. Having a little morsel of apple strudel, are we?’

  I looked at him. So handsome, so suntanned, so relaxed and suddenly our glorious lazy days together seemed just that – lazy. If I could have got into a Star Trek transporter right there and rematerialized in the Journal office – preferably wearing something more than my bikini – I would have.

  Jay sat down opposite and played footsie with me under the table.

  ‘Did you have a nice nap?’ I asked, a slight tension creeping into my voice, although I struggled to keep it out.

  ‘It would have been nicer if I’d woken up to find you there,’ he said. ‘But it was pretty nice. So, what are you having?’

  ‘Actually, Jay,’ I said. ‘I’m not having anything. I just came out for a walk and now something’s happened I’ve got to tell you about.’

  A cloud descended immediately across his face. We’d spent so much concentrated time together by then, we were acutely tuned into each other’s moods and it was clear he knew immediately it wasn’t good.

  ‘Wassup?’ he said.

  ‘I just got some bad news from home,’ I said.

  ‘Not your family?’ he asked, looking sincerely concerned.

  ‘No, no, thank God. They’re fine. No, it’s about work.’

  ‘Work?’ said Jay, looking mystified. ‘I thought you were on holiday. Why are you even thinking about work?’

  ‘Someone called me,’ I said. ‘Well, the
y texted me and I called them.’

  ‘Bad move, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘To call work, when you’re on holiday…’

  I sighed.

  ‘I had to,’ I said, shortly. ‘Anyway, my editor-in-chief has been sacked – and I have to go home.’

  He looked as though someone had thrown a bucket of iced water over his head.

  ‘Go home? When?’

  ‘As soon as possible.’

  He looked at me completely uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Why? Can you get your editor-in-chief his job back?’

  ‘No,’ I said, my voice rising.

  He matched me. ‘So why go home?’

  ‘To hold on to my job,’ I said, as though trying to explain something to a dense child.

  He sank back in his seat, sighing and rolling his eyes.

  ‘It’s always the goddam job with you, isn’t it? Don’t you remember it was your beloved colleagues at the newspaper who shopped us to the tabloids right at the start and nearly split us up before we even began – and got you into all the trouble with your dad? Yet, still you cling on to this job. Why does it have such a hold on you?’

  I just looked at him. I didn’t know what to say.

  He leaned forwards, speaking more softly and clearly trying to control his irritation.

  ‘Don’t you get it, Stella? If you’re with me, you don’t need a job. You don’t have to work and put up with all the stress and crap that goes with it. And I want you to be with me, like this, all of the time – and I mean that, all of the time – and if you’re with me, you don’t need to work.’

  ‘But I want to work, Jay,’ I finally burst out. ‘I love being here with you too, but this is a holiday, it’s not real life. I love you, Jay, but I love my job too and I need it – to be me.’

  I paused for a moment. ‘It’s been fun living like this for a few weeks, but I don’t want to be some kind of a kept woman.’

  He just looked at me, puzzled.

  ‘I don’t think you understand me, Stella,’ he said quietly. ‘How would it be if you were my wife? Would you be a kept woman then?’