Clouds Below the Mountains

by Vivienne Dockerty

  “Good idea, love, it’ll strengthen your leg muscles and help you on to fitness. I’ll get in and hold you, so you don’t feel nervous at first.”

  “Oh, Nobby, I don’t know what I’d do without you. It’s a good job you’re retired now, there’s so much I would have had to do on my own.

  “Yes, amen to that and we must count our blessings. That accident of yours could have been a lot worse.”

  ***

  Lucy’s mobile ‘phone rang, just as she was counting out change into Ray Keegan’s hand for the excursion he had booked for Thursday, which were for three tickets on the coach that was going to Loro Parque.

  “It will pick you up at ten o’ clock outside the hotel and even if the day is a bit iffy there are plenty of inside shows and demonstrations and the price of the shows are included,” she said.

  “Why, is the weather going to change?” Tricia asked, who wasn’t happy that Ray had booked the excursion once she’d heard that, especially as her jacket was light and she hadn’t an umbrella.

  “Oh, don’t worry, there’ll be a bit of rain in the morning and then it will have cleared up by lunchtime. That’s what it’s like on Tenerife at this time of year.”

  “Hello, Lucy speaking,” she said, when she answered the persistent ringing. “See you later, Joanne. Oh sorry Kath, not you. Yes it’s true, you’ve heard then. No, I don’t think it will keep me from my commitments to Periquito Travel. Anyway, it must have been your boss who endorsed it or Mr. Sanchez wouldn’t have asked me. No, he’s not paying me any money. It seems it’s a good will gesture to keep the owner of the Valia sweet. No, Mr. Sanchez didn’t say that, it’s just my take on the situation. I’ve got another booking by the way,” she said, trying to change the subject, as Kath did sound rather miffed. “Three for Loro Parque on Thursday, so that’s another allocation taken up. Yes, I’ll see you in the morning, I’ll be in the foyer for half past nine.”

  Lucy’s mobile went dead as her supervisor rang off in a huff. It just wasn’t Kath’s day, Lucy thought, she’d have been better off staying in bed!

  ***

  Paul and Cheryl sat by the pool, overseeing their children while they splashed away in the kiddies section. At least Paul was doing the supervising, Cheryl was in a mood and the tension between them was tangible.

  “I don’t know what you expect from me sometimes, Darling,” he said, trying to hold his wife’s hand, but she kept pulling away. “I said before we got married, that I would provide a roof over our heads, pay the bills and keep us fed and watered, but now you want a place abroad and put even more pressure on me. You know what it’s like in the showroom, dog eat dog and as it is I’m the first one to approach a customer, trying to get all the commission I can.”

  “You’ve got those shares that your father left you. You could sell them and then we’d have a down payment. I’m sure the bank would arrange another mortgage if you asked them to.”

  “Oh, Cheryl, sweetheart, those shares are meant to help us if we get a rainy day or to be used for the children’s education in the future. That was what we had agreed on remember, you and I?”

  “Then I’ll have to get a job, there’s no two ways about it. As soon as Jack has started school I’ll go back to being a secretary or a P.A to someone.”

  ***

  Lesley looked through her wardrobe and decided upon a plain red calf length sleeveless dress with a scooped neckline for the evening. Not that she wanted to bring attention to herself, but she wanted to feel confident amongst strangers or she would end up reading her book in the bedroom and not venture out until the morning. She had wondered whether she should go for a walk, have a look at the surroundings after dinner, but worried that a single woman wandering about might be mugged or attacked.

  She sighed as she looked into the bathroom mirror, feeling worthless and wounded again. What had made Geoff leave her, especially for a woman who was plump and spotty, when his wife had been slender with radiant skin? Well, it was beginning to shine again. She’d been pasty faced with brown smudges under her eyes since he walked out on her and spotty faced as well, seeing as she’d hardly bothered eating and her body had been used to fruit and salad before. Not that he had noticed when he had called round one evening to discuss a division of the marital assets, he had averted his eyes, rather than look at her.

  It had been three long weeks before he’d made the effort to visit her. Three horrible weeks when she had gone to Hell and back, wondering what had happened to their marriage, debated taking an overdose and had written numerous pleading letters asking him to come back again. She’d never posted any of them, care of his office, the effort of buying a stamp eluded her. It had taken all her time to walk to the off license for a bottle of milk and bread to make toast. Some days she didn’t even bother, just looked through their wedding album and started to cry again.

  Now here she was in Tenerife, picking herself up by the boot straps her mother would have said. Her poor mother, who had died of cancer a year on from their wedding. Who had died peacefully in the hospice, convinced she had left her daughter in her son-in-law’s loving arms.

  ***

  “Well, I think you look very nice, Sonya,” said Greg, as the family met up in readiness to go down for dinner. “Knock ‘em dead as they say, we’ll be very proud to say that you’re our daughter.”

  “Oh, go on with you, Dad,” she laughed, tickled with his attitude. “It’s not as if I’m appearing at the Palladium. I’m just making up numbers for Mikey, so that he can put on a bit of a show.”

  “Be pleased you’ve got a compliment,” Kate said cynically, linking her arm as they walked along the corridor. “The last time I got one of them, was on our wedding night!”

  ***

  “It’s full in here, isn’t it?” said Paul, as the two families stood at the entrance of the restaurant, waiting for two free tables that they could push together. “I thought it would be quite empty with a coach load going today.”

  “I think it will be Friday when the major exodus begins,” said Greg. “ Those who’ve been here for a fortnight. There’s quite a few I believe.”

  “I wonder how Fiona and Steve are coping?” said Cheryl. “They had quite a trek back to Devon after they’d landed at Gatwick.”

  “Oh, there’s a table,” said Paul, interrupting his wife’s speculation. “ We’ll get one of the waiters to add another, there’s a spare one over there.”

  ***

  “Excuse me,” said a tall slim white haired gentleman in his sixties, standing at the side of Lesley’s table, “ would you mind if I joined you?”

  “Oh,” she replied. “Sorry I didn’t see you standing there. I’m being quite rude eating and reading my book at the same time. I think the spare seat already belongs to somebody. At least someone has left a handbag and a scarf on it.”

  “Sorry to have disturbed you then,” said Harry Wilkinson courteously. “ Ah, I’ve spotted a vacant seat with two ladies over there.”

  Lucy came rushing in, just as Harry was hovering around two women who had come in on the same ‘plane as him from Manchester. “Good evening,” she said to Lesley as she plonked herself down. “I had to rush off to Reception, some minor problem that a guest has with the plumbing. You would think they’d call Reception, without button holing me when I come in here to eat. Sorry, you’re Mrs. Walker, aren’t you? You’ll know I’m Lucy, having come with me on the Mini bus.”

  “I hadn’t realized I was sitting at your table, Lucy,” said Lesley apologetically. “ I just made for the first free seat and I’ve only just noticed your scarf and handbag.”

  “That’s all right,” said Lucy. “Last week I had a guest called Jenni sitting with me, the week before there was a guest called Ken. So come and sit with me whenever I’m here, it’s nice to have a bit of company.”

  ***

  “So, Rita, Maureen, have you done much while you’ve been here on holiday?” asked Harry, once he had come back from the buffet, with his
plate piled high with a thick piece of gammon and varying sorts of salad.

  “We’ve been out and about, went to La Gomera one day, Santa Cruz another and we went to Raffles last Sunday. We’re glad to be going home though on Friday,” said Rita, the elder of the friends, who usually was the spokesperson between them.

  “I’ve been on the island tour today,” he said, picking up his knife and fork to begin eating. “ We stopped at Santa Cruz for a short time and I was able to have a wander around the historic buildings there.”

  “You must be feeling a bit lonely now your lady friends have departed,” Rita continued, as she had been a little miffed that he had chosen to spend most of his evenings with them.

  “Boring people,” he said confidentially. “Once I had sat with them I couldn’t get away though, they kept insisting on keeping a seat for me and well…” he shrugged, “ you know.”

  “Well never mind, me and Maureen will keep you company until we leave for Manchester. We could keep in touch, I could let you have my ‘phone number.”

  ***

  “Is anyone sitting here?” asked Brian, as he spotted that Cindy and Phil were seated at a table on their own.

  “No, there’s just us,” said Phil, before Cindy had kicked him under the table because she wanted him all to herself.

  “Then if you don’t mind, my wife and I will join you. This is Anthea and I’m Brian by the way.”

  “Phil and Cindy, pleased to meet you,” replied Phil.

  “We saw you this afternoon at the pool bar, didn’t we?” said Brian. “ It’s nice to get away to somewhere sunny and relax together isn’t it?”

  “Will you excuse me?” said Cindy, silently fuming because Phil was in the process of setting the scene for the evening, which meant that they’d have no time at all for themselves. “ Main course beckons and that salmon looks rather good.”

  “The wife enjoying it?” asked Brian, after Cindy had got up and his wife had followed to get her starter.

  “Seems to be,” said Phil. “ They can’t wait to get out there with their bikini’s on, so that they can show off the suntan to their work mates.”

  “Know what you mean,” said Brian, eyeing up Cindy’s neat little buttocks, tightly filling out her black satin trousers, “Anthea’s just the same.”

  ***

  “Could you bring us a highchair, love?” asked Denise, as Juan walked passed with a tray full of crockery.

  “Si, Senora, one moment,” he said, staring in appreciation at Vicky’s lovely features, as he passed them by. He came across with one a few minutes later, then proceeded to wipe the tray down with a not very clean cloth.

  “I put baby in for you,” he said to Vicky, whipping Chantelle out of her arms before she could even think about it.

  “What can I get for you two pretty ladies?” he asked, his face bright with hope, now that he had discovered another single girl with a baby that he could dally with. Even better, there wasn’t any father to glower and glare like Sonya’s had.

  “Just a jug of water and perhaps you could fill this cup with milk for our Chantelle,” said Denise, pleased that the waiter was giving attentive service.

  “Si, Senora, enjoy your meal and your evening too.”

  ***

  “That was very nice, wasn’t it?” said Nobby, as he pushed Betty in the wheelchair up the ramp to the lift, on the way to the Sunlight Bar. “If we’re going to be eating like that every day I’ll need a crane to hoist me on the ‘plane.”

  “Well, I must be careful, Nobby,” said his wife. “ I don’t want to put on anymore weight, I’ve piled it on since the accident.”

  “You’ll soon lose it, love. Once you’re up and running again, the weight will soon drop off you. I rue the day I let you go off to go to the Post Office. This would never have happened if I’d been with you.” “Don’t keep saying that, Nobby,” Betty said, putting her hand out to pat him as he wheeled her into the lift and pressed the button. “ It was fate, it was meant to be. The new glasses, the slippy road, everything. You were only doing what you usually did before you went to park the car.”

  “Evening folks,” said Mikey, as he pulled the door of the Sunlight Bar open to help the couple through. “Welcome to a night of unique entertainment, courtesy of Mikey and the Animacion team!”

  Chapter Seventeen.

  “Come and sit with me this evening, Lesley,” said Lucy, as the two women sat over their coffees later. “It’s a homegrown show tonight in the Sunlight Bar. One of our guests, who I believe has a wicked voice and the three members of the Animacion team, have put together a tribute group to Abba.”

  “If you’re sure I’m not intruding on your privacy, Lucy. Surely you need a rest from being a rep’ at the end of the day?”

  “Once I’m out of uniform and I’ve changed into something more feminine, I like to be entertained like any other, Lesley. Anyway, where would I go? I’ve tried the pubs and clubs round here and let’s face it, I don’t have to pay out money in the hotel as it’s All Inclusive?”

  “I agree and I don’t think I’d want to be out after dark on my own some.”

  “Oh, I used to go with some others, Tina and Anna from the Kid’s club went with me, but the three of us are usually broke, long before we get our salaries.”

  Lesley smiled at the rep’, wondering at her self confident attitude. Maybe that had been why Geoffrey left her, because she’d been too clingy and dependent on him all the time. Though she hadn’t been like that in the classroom. She had a reputation for her ability to keep the children quiet and often arranged assembly where she had stood in front of the whole school.

  “Let’s go,” said Lucy quietly, having seen the wave of desolation clouding Lesley’s eyes. “ First to the bar has to buy the drinks.”

  ***

  “We may as well go and have a look at the entertainment,” said Phil, quite liking this couple who had been sitting at their table, although they were older than himself and Cindy.

  “If it isn’t up to scratch, we could always go and sit in that bar that I saw when we were coming to the restaurant,” said Brian.

  “I thought you had to make some ‘phone calls home, Phil,” said Cindy, hoping that she could get him to use the bedroom telephone and then the couple might go and sit with someone else.

  “Oh, I’ll just make a quick one to Sally on my mobile to see how Sukie is. The others can wait until tomorrow night.”

  “Others?” said Brian raising an eyebrow quizzically.

  “Phil has quite a harem,” said Cindy bitterly, by way of explanation. “ There’s Trudi, his first wife, they had three children together, two boys and one girl. Then there’s Sally, who has Sukie and Jake and then there’s me, the new wife of six months standing and yet to bear him fruit.”

  There was an awkward silence for a few moments, then Anthea smiled and said candidly. “ I’m the second wife, aren’t I, Darling? Brian has two children from his first marriage, plus a wife that I get on with quite well and I have a daughter from my first marriage. Happy families, eh? They all came round to ours on Christmas Day and we had a traditional luncheon together?”

  “Oh, same as us,” said Phil enthusiastically. “ On Christmas Day we all went to Sally’s house. There were eleven of us around her dining room table, well actually we had to have two sittings. There was Trudi and her husband, our three, her mother, Sukie and our two kids, her Dad and me. There would have been twelve only Cindy blew a gasket and wouldn’t come with me. Then last summer, well, we had a blast, we all went to Butlins at Bognor and you didn’t come to that either, did you Cindy?”

  Cindy shook her head, pushing down the jealous thoughts that gripped her every time Phil rubbed her nose in it. He was a plonker, an easy going plonker and she often wondered how she’d ever consented to be wife number three? Loneliness perhaps? She had just finished with the love of her life when Phil blew into her shop like a hurricane. He had swept her along, charmed her, courted her and had eased th
e pain of her boyfriend going off to Australia. It had been his dream, his passion and had chosen to go without her, because she had dithered for too long.

  “I’ll just go and ‘phone Sally,” said Phil, breaking into her thoughts and bringing her back to reality.

  “You’ll be all right with Anthea and Brian, won’t you, love?”

  ***

  “Look, there’s no one for me to dance with, now Emily’s gone home,” said Annabelle, standing by her parents looking petulant, while they urged her to join in with the mini disco.

  “You can dance with Jack,” said Cheryl, pushing her daughter lightly by her shoulders. “ Go on, show him how to do the actions for Superman.”

  “No, I won’t, he’s too silly. He won’t copy what I’m doing properly. He was the first to be out before, when we were playing statues.”

  “Come and dance with me, Annabelle,” said Tina, who had been listening to the child complaining. “We’ll be playing musical chairs after this and you’re very good at winning.”

  “Okay,” she said, brightening a little because she’d been asked to dance with a grownup, “ but Jack can’t come, only you and me.”

  ***

  “I’ll put Chantelle into her push chair and walk her round the grounds,” said Vicky, seeing her child becoming restless, after she and Denise had eaten their meal.

  “Well, I’ll go to the Sunlight Bar and have a nosey. Do you want me to get you a drink when I get one for myself?”

  “Yes, just an orange juice, Mum. I need to keep a clear head if Chantelle wakes up in the night. She looks as if she’s teething, because her cheeks have gone red again.”

  “It’s probably because it’s warm in here, the cool air outside will help a bit. Did you bring some Bonjela in the baby bag?”

  “Yes, Mum and some nappies. I’ll go the Ladies on my way, because I think she needs changing again.”

  “You go now, Senora, Senorita?” asked Juan, coming over swiftly when he saw that the two women were moving and he could help by lifting the baby out of the highchair.