by Tina Seskis
I carry on to the far end of the island, jump off my bike and run into the dive centre. There I find Pascal, the resident marine biologist, who is French and slim and deeply tanned, and who usually makes me blush – but today I bound up to him, distraught and jabbering, and he just looks blank, as though he doesn’t even know who I mean.
I get back on my bike, and when I reach the beauty spa with its treehouse treatment rooms I even decide to stop there, just in case, but it’s not open yet. My last hope is the resort pool. He could be having a swim, or be laid out on a lounger. You never know. I’m aware that I’m panting now, and the breaths reverberate through my skull, and when I arrive to see that he’s not here either, I swallow down sweet bitter vomit, and it burns the back of my throat.
There’s only one other couple in the resort that we’ve befriended, but of course we didn’t come here to be sociable, seeing as we were meant to be on honeymoon. Chrissy and Kenny are at the pool already, although sadly my husband is not. They are laid out on sun loungers, apparently asleep, and I’m loath to wake them. I park my bike and hover uncertainly, until one of the pool staff rushes over to give me a towel, which causes Kenny to stir. When he finally acknowledges me his eyes are bluer than I’ve ever seen them, like the water – and it’s as if the world has been beefed up, has had the contrast and colour turned up to maximum. He gives me a brief nod, but his smile is forced, as though he’s not particularly pleased to see me, and I’m suddenly too afraid to ask him if he knows where my husband is.
‘Oh, morning, Jemma,’ says Chrissy, lazily opening her eyes and noticing me at last. She seems slightly awkward too, or have I just become suspicious of everything? ‘You all right? I feel rotten myself, just having a bit of kip.’ She waves vaguely, and then shuts her eyes again, and I think it might even be deliberate, so she doesn’t have to talk to me.
Kenny shifts on the sun lounger next to her. He jiggles his legs and lets out a theatrical sigh. I stay sitting across from the two of them, stiff and fearful, aware I’m wasting yet more time, wondering how it might end up looking to the staff, once they know. I desperately want to talk to Chrissy, but not in front of Kenny.
‘You want another drink?’ Kenny says to Chrissy, even though the cocktail she has is still nearly full. He doesn’t offer me one.
‘Uh-uh,’ Chrissy says. She arches her back and lifts her arms above her head and stretches. Her stomach concaves and her hip bones jut out from her £200 bikini bottoms. She looks like a Bond girl.
Kenny continues to fidget. He adjusts his sun bed, picks up his Sudoku book and promptly puts it down again, drums his fingers. I silently will him to leave.
‘Kenny!’ Chrissy says. She opens her eyes and giggles, but it seems he’s annoying her too now. Doesn’t he ever sit still? She leans over and picks up her drink, and the fresh lime and mint of what I can only presume is a Mojito is vivid against the ice. I almost ask for a sip.
Kenny seems to get the hint at last. He stands up and hobbles over to the beach, which is just a few yards away, beyond the infinity edge of the pool. He lumbers himself into the postcard hammock and swings his legs off either side. He looks muscular in his swim-shorts, but his stomach is livid against their bright yellow swirls. He really shouldn’t be in the sun at all today – he’s so burnt already, and it’s too fierce for his pasty British skin, even at this hour. His bandaged leg gleams white in the sunshine. He starts humming ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, and his voice travels across the pool slothfully, low and perversely melodious. I’m pretty sure his wife finds it irritating.
Chrissy’s eyes are hidden behind her sunglasses.
‘Chrissy,’ I say, quietly. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘OK,’ she says. I can’t make out her tone. She lifts her glasses onto her head and stares at me. She is fully made up. ‘You all right?’
‘No. Not really.’ I lean back on my sun lounger and stare straight ahead, so I don’t have to look at her.
‘Well, you were off your face last night.’
I feel myself going red. ‘I know, I’m so sorry. But it’s not that …’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Probably nothing.’
‘Come on, tell me,’ she says. She looks around. ‘Where’s yer hubby?’
‘Well, that’s just it,’ I say. ‘I don’t know.’ My voice breaks a little. I swivel my wedding ring on my finger, and it’s too tight.
‘What d’you mean, you don’t know?’
‘I haven’t seen him since last night.’
‘Oh.’
‘Chrissy …’ As I hear the distress in my voice, I acknowledge it at last. ‘His snorkelling gear is gone.’
Chrissy pauses for a moment before she speaks. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Exactly that.’
‘What, you think he might have …’ She trails off.
‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Have you told anyone that he’s missing?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Why not? You must. Oh, flippin’ hell, Jemma.’ As Chrissy sits up at last, she almost bursts out of her orange bikini top. She takes another huge slug of her cocktail.
‘I’m going to. I was on my way, but I thought he might have been here, that’s why I came to check. I keep hoping he’ll appear somewhere. I don’t know what to do.’ What a mess, I think as I say it. It’s true, though – he could have just gone off on his own for a while, after what happened last night. He could be hidden away, somewhere on the island. It’s big enough. But even so, I probably need to tell someone.
‘D’you want me to come to Reception with you?’ Chrissy says.
‘Oh, yes, if you don’t mind. Thank you.’
‘OK.’ She puts down her cocktail, plants her scarlet-painted toes onto the pool decking and stands up. When she puts on her beach dress, which is white and holey, like a sexy string vest, she positions it for maximum cleavage. She seems quite pissed already, or maybe she’s still drunk from last night. As she approaches me, she smells of almonds.
‘Come on,’ says Chrissy. Her skin is smooth nut-brown all over. My supposedly doting husband never knew where to look, and my heart takes a dive as I find myself thinking of him in the past tense, and I’d do anything this morning to watch him gawping at her again.
‘Let me just tell Kenny,’ she says. She struts her way around the pool over to the beach, albeit a little less brightly than usual. She passes another couple that we see every day but who still look straight through her, as though just because she’s from Essex she doesn’t deserve to be here. I watch her brief exchange with her husband, and it’s clear that Kenny seems shocked, but he nods and continues swinging in the hammock. Physically he’s as brash as Chrissy, glittering with gold rings and Rolexes, and although he is currently pink, he is all-male and muscular, and they go well together. They look right together. The big man and his trophy. I wonder briefly how we must have looked. I dread to think.
As Chrissy and I leave, Kenny glances over at me, and there is a look in his eyes that unmasks me, as though he knows all my secrets, and for a moment I feel truly terrible. Yet I manage to walk steadily enough along the pristine white path that leads to Reception, still trying to convince myself that there’s probably an innocent explanation. But the closer we get to making this official, the more I shiver and yearn to dawdle – and the more my apocalyptic dread grows.
4
Seven-and-a-half years earlier
‘So … how did it go?’ asked Sasha. ‘You cannot keep me in suspense for any longer.’ She was draped along the length of Jemma’s sofa, like an artist’s nude. A glass of wine was propped between her chin and the cool brown leather. The glass was in danger of tipping over or, worse, breaking at the stem, but Jemma was either too polite or couldn’t be bothered – she wasn’t sure which – to say anything. Leather was wipe-clean anyway, she told herself, and at least it wasn’t red wine.
‘It was a total disaster. I’m
too embarrassed to even tell you.’
‘Ooohh, do elaborate.’
‘It’s not funny, Sasha. Anyway, I am never doing it again, that’s for sure. I would rather my eggs shrivel and die and I end my years being eaten by my cats than go on another date with someone off the Internet. I bloody hated it.’
‘So what was the problem? Was he a weirdo?’
‘No. He was nice enough.’
‘Bad dress sense?’
‘No.’
‘Shorter than you?’
‘Nooo. It was nothing to put your finger on.’ How could she explain it to Sasha? She recalled the intense way Dan had looked at her and how uncomfortable she’d felt, yet also how oddly attractive it had been. There was something about him, but she couldn’t work out what.
‘I just wasn’t in the mood,’ Jemma said, at last. ‘And then I acted like a complete prat.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, you know. I arrived soaking wet for a start. And then I couldn’t look him in the eye, couldn’t think of anything to say, had the personality of a plank – that kind of thing.’
‘Hmmm. It sounds like you fancied him.’
‘I did not.’
‘Ha! Yes, you did! I can tell.’
‘Sasha, I can assure you we didn’t get far enough for me to have any feelings about him.’ Jemma took a gulp of her wine, and then, shoving Sasha’s legs out of the way, sank onto the far end of the sofa.
‘But what was he like?’
‘I’ve no idea, really. I didn’t stay long enough to find out. He did have some nice boots on, though. That’s about as much as I can say. Oh, and he had dirty fingernails.’
‘Dirty fingernails? Eeugh. In that case all is forgiven.’
‘Yes, but he’s a gardener. He works with his hands.’ Even as Jemma said it, she wondered why she was making excuses for him now.
‘I knew it. You do fancy him!’
‘I don’t.’
Sasha sighed. ‘Is it to do with that tosser?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know exactly what I mean.’
Jemma looked out of the window. Now she and her ex-boyfriend had split up, Sasha didn’t hold back. ‘Of course not,’ she said.
‘Oh God. Jem, you’re not back with him, are you?’
Jemma decided to be honest. Sasha had the nose for these things, and would wheedle it out of her sooner or later. ‘No, it’s just he rang me last week.’
Sasha sat up and smacked her legs. ‘Oh, bloody hell, I knew it.’
‘He said he misses me.’
‘He was obviously after a shag.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jemma. ‘Sensitive as ever.’
‘Sorry,’ said Sasha.
Jemma ignored the apology. She picked up two remote controls and busied herself with switching on the TV. Her best friend might well be right, but she didn’t need to be so obnoxious about it. It wasn’t easy dating a succession of losers, not that Sasha would understand – she had Martin, who she’d been going out with ever since they were all at college together. Sasha had no idea what the dating scene was like these days.
After Jemma had spent an age pressing various buttons, the TV finally flared into life in the middle of an episode of Come Dine With Me. A fight was breaking out over one guest’s digestive inability, or else ornery unwillingness, to finish his starter, and that distracted Sasha for a few moments.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Sasha said, when the ad break came on.
‘About what?’
‘About Dan.’
‘About Dan? Nothing.’ A tell-tale flush spread up Jemma’s neck, which she knew Sasha would have spotted.
‘What’s his surname again?’
‘Armstrong.’
‘Hmm, that’s quite manly.’ Sasha’s tone turned casual. ‘Why don’t you contact him again? Give him a chance.’
‘You have got to be joking. He thinks I’m an idiot. A rude, personality-free idiot.’
‘What did he say when you left?’
‘Nothing. Just goodbye.’
‘Was he angry?’
Jemma paused. ‘Not that I could tell. He was perfectly polite, in fact.’
Sasha said nothing, but Jemma knew her too well.
‘Don’t even start, Sasha.’
‘What?’
‘Trying to fix me up with anyone else. I know you’re plotting something.’
Sasha expertly flicked her head, so her thick black fringe covered her eyes, hid her expression. ‘I am not. You are so paranoid.’
‘Hmmm. Anyway, I need to go and check on the dinner.’
Jemma got up and went to the kitchen. She was trying out a new recipe that she was unsure about – but seeing as Sasha was on another of her fad diets, it was the only qualifying dish Jemma had found that sounded even half edible.
When Jemma came back into the room a few minutes later, carrying a plate of pistachio-and-quinoa balls on a bed of radicchio in each hand, she paused, immediately aware that something was up. Sasha was still in her prone, potential-wine-spilling position, trying but failing to look nonchalant.
‘What’s that look on your face?’ Jemma said.
‘Nothing.’
Jemma shoved one of the plates at Sasha and perched on the arm of the sofa by Sasha’s feet. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I mean it, Sasha. I know you.’
Sasha didn’t have time to answer as Jemma’s phone pinged on the coffee table in front of them. Jemma leaned over and snatched it up. Her face turned blush-pink, the colour high on her cheekbones, clashing prettily with her hair. It was an email from Dan, responding to the one ‘she’ had just sent him.
‘Hi Dan,’ Sasha had written. ‘I am so sorry for my rudeness the other day – I just wasn’t myself at all. Of course I entirely understand if not, but if you’d like to give meeting up another go please do get in touch. Best wishes either way and sorry again, Jemma x.’
‘You —’ Jemma rushed at Sasha, swatted her head, slapped at her face, only half playfully.
‘Owwww! That hurt, you nutter! What does it say?’
‘I hate you. How did you guess my PIN?’
‘Well, I know your birthday, so it was quite easy, actually. What’s he said?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Oh, come on.’
Jemma stood up straight, and her face was serious. The room felt smaller suddenly, and she had a feeling that something significant was happening, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted it to, or whether she’d rather it all stopped right there. The guests on Come Dine With Me prattled on, indifferent to her plight. Jemma switched on the table lamp, and the light glowed orange as the corners of the room gained definition. It reminded her of old movies that had been retouched into colour, where the shades are not quite nuanced enough to seem real.
‘He wants to take me up on “my” offer to meet up again.’ Her fingers made speech marks. She pulled her mouth thin and straight, to stop herself saying anything further.
‘I knew it! You’re welcome.’
‘I hate you.’
‘You love me.’
‘No, Sasha, I don’t. You piss me off. And anyway, I’m changing my password. It’s not fair on anyone.’ Jemma headed back across the steel-grey rug, towards the kitchen. She turned at the door. ‘And no, I’m not going,’ she said. ‘Before you even ask.’
5
Now
A slender, sheeny girl is behind Reception, smiling beatifically. She clasps her hands together and bows slightly as Chrissy and I approach. She soon stops grinning, though, as if her computer program has been updated from ‘well-meaning obsequiousness’ to ‘genuine alarm’. I feel bad for ruining her morning.
‘Oh, my goodness grief,’ she says. She appears to lose grip of her English. ‘You think he in sea? When this happen? You should have report.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s just I … I didn’t want to cause a fuss. I thou
ght he might have gone off somewhere.’
‘Mr Armstrong go off island?’
‘Um … yes … no,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure.’
I don’t know what I should say about anything, and it’s clear I’m not helping. But who knows where he might be – it’s pretty hard to hide for long on an island this size. Yet if this turns out to be serious, I realize I might be in trouble. In fact I may even be implicated – I’ve no idea what the police are like here. I start to cry, at first perhaps simply to stop the receptionist from asking any more questions, but then I genuinely start sobbing, until I can’t stop. Chrissy puts her fragrant arm around my shoulder, and I lean into her. It’s as if the scene isn’t real, as though we’re all acting. You’re not meant to cry on your honeymoon. There again, you’re not meant to sully luxury islands with the unfortunate matter of missing husbands either.
The receptionist – Leena, according to her shiny name badge – makes a phone call through her headset, and as she speaks rapidly in Maldivian, she flutters her hands up and down as if they are little caged birds with scarlet wing tips. I hunch my shoulders and try to calm down, while Chrissy pats my shoulder sympathetically.
‘We call Security. We send rescue boat out,’ says Leena as she comes off the phone. I can’t say anything in reply. It’s happening. It’s real.
‘OK, thanks,’ says Chrissy. ‘Should we keep looking on the island?’
‘No, ma’am,’ says Leena. ‘The manager is coming.’
‘OK, fine. Shall we wait here?’
‘Yes, please, ma’am. He here soon.’
Chrissy helps me across the sandy floor of the reception area, as if I’m an invalid, and sits me down at one of the giant round podiums that pass as sofas. The back rests are positioned in a smaller circle in the centre, and they are so far away, it’s almost impossible to sit back without lying down. In normal circumstances it would be heavenly, but it seems inappropriate to lounge around now. This whole place is geared to beauty and relaxation, not to drama and regrets and impossible vanishing acts. I know I should tell Chrissy to go back to the pool now that the hotel has been informed. It’s not fair to get her caught up in all this, although I suppose she already is.
