The Beach Wedding

by Dorothy Koomson

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Tessa Dannall is excited and happy when her daughter, Nia, arrives at their family’s tropical beach resort to get married.

  Tessa is also trying to forget the last time she went to a wedding on this beach and how that day changed her life for ever.

  But as the big day draws near, Tessa realises she must face the deadly ghosts from her past – or they may ruin her daughter’s future …

  About the Author

  Dorothy Koomson, Totally Beached

  Dorothy Koomson has been making up stories since she was thirteen and hasn’t stopped since. She is the author of twelve novels including The Friend, When I Was Invisible, The Chocolate Run, and The Ice Cream Girls. While writing The Beach Wedding, Dorothy spent a lot of time thinking of all the wonderful beaches she’s visited in her life.

  For more info on Dorothy Koomson and her books, visit www.dorothykoomson.co.uk

  To all readers out there.

  1

  24 years ago

  ‘Don’t, Drew, please don’t!’ I shouted as he ripped off his tie and jacket while running across the beach. We’d heard shouting, the cries of a mother whose little boy had been swept out to sea. And Drew, my fiancé, didn’t think twice. He just ran towards the water.

  ‘Wait for the lifeguards,’ I called after him, but he didn’t stop. He ran out as far as he could. He was just ahead of his best friend, Jake, and two of the staff members from Bussu Bay, the beach hotel where we were staying. He was different from the others, though – that was why I told him not to go. He wasn’t as strong a swimmer. He wasn’t at ease in the water. It wouldn’t take too much for him to get into trouble out there. It wouldn’t take too much for ‘Don’t, Drew, please don’t!’ to be the last words he ever heard me say.

  2

  Nia & Marvin

  Invite you to their beach wedding!

  On: 2 March 2018

  At: Bussu Bay Beach Resort

  (Ghana)

  11 am till you drop

  Rooms, food, water sports, booze all included

  (We don’t really expect any of you to come, so there’ll be a party in Brighton when we get home.)

  (But do come if you can – Bussu Bay totally rocks!)

  3

  Now

  ‘Mum, this is Marvin. Marvin, this is my mum, Tessa. You can call her Ms Dannall.’

  It’s still hard for me to believe that I have a daughter who is old enough to drive a car, drink alcohol, vote – and get married. Which is what my little girl will be doing at our family beach resort in just under a week.

  They’ve just arrived from Brighton and they both look jet-lagged, but happy and excited to be here.

  I stare very hard at Marvin, my daughter’s fiancé. This is the first time I have met him in real life. He is often there when I video-call Nia, and he seems polite and nice. But he wants to marry my daughter, so he has to be more than polite and nice – he needs to be amazing. They met doing work experience at an IT company two years ago and have been together ever since.

  I’m not sure what I make of you yet, I think to myself.

  ‘I am not sure what I make of you yet,’ my 70-year-old mother actually says. ‘I am not sure if you are good enough for my precious granddaughter.’

  Bussu Bay Beach Resort is our family home and business in Ghana, West Africa. My parents opened it nearly thirty years ago – and ran it until about four years ago when I had to take over. My mother, who was in charge of the resort while my father took care of the watersports side of things, fell and broke her hip. Even with all the help and staff they had, they couldn’t see how to keep the business going in the way they wanted so they talked about selling it. I was living in Brighton, England, I had a great job and a great life, but I couldn’t let them sell this place when it had been all they had worked for. So I had to move here and take over.

  It’d been such a difficult decision. I hated the thought of leaving Brighton, and I hated leaving Nia, but I especially hated the idea of living here after what had happened twenty-four years ago. But I had no choice – my parents needed me. Now that my mum doesn’t have to worry about the business, she enjoys bossing me around. And she enjoys embarrassing her granddaughter.

  ‘I suppose you are almost handsome,’ my mother says to Marvin.

  Nia glares at me, trying to tell me to control her grandmother. I want to laugh in my daughter’s face and ask her: since when have I ever been able to control my mother?

  ‘Mother,’ I say and hook my arm through hers, ‘let’s go and show the happy couple where they’ll be sleeping.’

  I whisper to Nia and Marvin, ‘It’s the Honeymoon Suite.’ Over the years, our resort has grown from ten rooms to fifty, all varying in size. For Nia and Marvin, I have chosen the biggest room that is part of the main complex, with views out over the large green palm trees and the ocean. As well as a luxury bath and shower, it has its own private patio where they can have breakfast in peace, and a little path leads down to the drop-off where the beach begins.

  My mum stops and, leaning heavily on her walking stick, she turns to me. She looks at me like she is about to tell me off.

  ‘Honeymoon?’ she says sternly. ‘Do you see a wedding ring on my granddaughter’s finger?’

  Me and my big mouth, I groan inside. ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Then they will not be sleeping in the same room, let alone the room for those who are married.’ When she says the last part, my mum turns to glare at Jake, my other half.

  Mum is still so put out that we’re not married, but live under her roof, that I have to keep a room free for him. Every night, if Mum is up when Jake goes to bed, he has to declare, ‘Goodnight all, I’m just off to my bedroom’. Otherwise she gives him one of her world-famous stares. Jake doesn’t complain. Just like he didn’t complain when we packed up and moved here. Mum continues to stare at poor Jake.

  ‘Mama,’ Jake says to my mother, raising his hands in peace, ‘every other day I ask your daughter to marry me, and every other day, she says no.’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘Excuses, excuses, excuses.’

  Nia says to Marvin, ‘I’m sure I told you how Grandma and me both think Mum and Jake should be married by now. They’ve been together nearly twenty years and she still won’t marry him. That’s just wrong, isn’t it?’

  I smile at my daughter. I am so getting her back for that. ‘So, seeing as you agree with Grandma about people who aren’t married not sharing rooms, I think it’s best that you each get a room on either side of Grandma and Grandpa’s room?’

  My grin gets even wider as Nia’s mouth drops open.

  ‘Sounds great,’ Marvin says.

  My daughter doesn’t move. ‘I can’t believe you’ve just done that to me,’ she says.

  ‘Well, babe, to be fair, you did start it by mentioning her not being married,’ Marvin says. ‘And I think we’ve all learnt a valuable lesson today, don’t you?’

  ‘What lesson is that?’ Nia asks him.

  ‘Don’t annoy your mother.’

  I grin at him. ‘Oh I like you, Marvin,’ I say. ‘I like you very, very much.’

  Nia takes her wedding dress, hidden
in a large silver cover. Marvin picks up some of their bags, and they begin to follow my mother down the hallway towards their rooms.

  Before Jake and I move to gather up the rest of the luggage, we stare at each other. We haven’t talked about it since Nia said she wanted to get married here. We haven’t talked about it, but how could either of us forget the way the last wedding we went to on the beach changed our lives for ever?

  4

  Now

  When my parents opened Bussu Bay nearly thirty years ago, everyone said they were crazy. No one would think to come to West Africa to dive, surf, fish, jet-ski or simply relax on the beach for two weeks. But my parents had an idea they believed in. This place was their dream, so they kept going despite what everyone else said. All those years ago, there had only been one posh hotel in the area and that was a bit of a walk from the beach. It took a while – five years, in fact – but people began to notice Bussu Bay and tell their friends. And they told their friends, who told their friends, until it became a place where people come back to again and again.

  All along the coastline there are now other hotels and resorts. My parents were the first but not the last. This week I’ve decided to keep the resort private for the wedding, so only Nia and Marvin and family and friends will stay here.

  After Nia and Marvin have showered, we eat dinner on the large patio with a corrugated-iron roof, attached to the dining room. The three cooks have laid on a feast that would feed twenty people, not six, and we are all absolutely stuffed.

  The night is a beautiful silky black, the kind you never truly get in England. The blackness slips itself around your senses and mingles with the taste of the delicious food, the feel of the heat on your skin, and the sound of the ocean hitting the shore. Either Kwame or Edward, the only members of staff who live here full-time, is playing highlife music somewhere and the air around us is alive with the upbeat party rhythm.

  Both Nia and Marvin have shiny faces from the heat, and their eyes keep closing as though they are going to fall asleep right there at the table. I love sitting here with my daughter – we haven’t spent time together since I sent her the money to come here for Christmas two years ago. Mum and Dad have gone to bed because they have an early start.

  Sitting here, I don’t look at the ocean. It is gorgeous, and at night, when there is no wind, the water is like a sheet of black glass, but I still don’t look at it. I can’t. I don’t collapse every time I see the ocean now, but it doesn’t take much to make me feel like I am reliving the worst day of my life.

  As if he knows I am becoming upset, Jake covers my hand with his, and gives me a reassuring squeeze. Reminding me that he’s there. He was there that awful day and he’s been there ever since.

  In five days my daughter is going to stand on the beach, surrounded by family and a few friends, and get married. Like I tried to do, all those years ago. Sometimes, it feels like it happened yesterday. I remember the hot sand under my bare feet, the weight of the bouquet in my hands, the feeling that I was the happiest, prettiest woman in the world. And then the nightmare began.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ I say. It’s too much. I can’t sit here, wondering what happened to Drew on what was meant to be the most perfect day of our lives.

  My daughter coughs into her hand while saying, ‘Lightweight.’

  ‘Carry on, Nia, if you want to end up sharing a room with Grandma,’ I say to her. ‘You know I can make that happen.’

  Jake and Marvin both laugh before we do our goodnights.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ I tell my daughter. I mean it, too. Despite everything, it feels right that she’s come here to get married.

  24 years ago

  The little white boy’s mother had been hysterical until Jake handed him back to her. Jake was the strongest swimmer of the men who had gone into the water so he had got to the child first and he was the first to come out again. The two other men who had tried to rescue the boy came out, coughing, until they collapsed on the sand. All of them would have had to fight to keep on swimming once they got out to sea. The water hadn’t looked that rough, but it was tricky out there – you would think it was calm, but the undertow of the waves could suddenly suck you down.

  My uncle was a doctor and had run to his room to get his medical bag. He was now working on the little boy. Jake had dropped on to the ground, trying to breathe normally again.

  I stood at the water’s edge, waiting for Drew to appear. I couldn’t see him. Out in the waves, in the tossing and turning of the sea, I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked Jake.

  ‘I didn’t see him out there,’ Jake said between coughs. He kept looking at the boy, who was now surrounded by people. ‘I saw the other two, I got the boy, but I didn’t see Drew.’

  I looked at Jake, and then at my dad who was standing a little way behind him. Drew hadn’t even been out on the fishing boat with my dad since we arrived because he hadn’t been that strong a swimmer. Why did he run into the water like that? I asked myself. What did he think he was doing?

  ‘You men, get the boats!’ my father shouted. He could see what was going to happen. How this day, my wedding day, was going to end. ‘Kumi,’ he said to a young boy who often came to Bussu Bay to earn money helping with chores, ‘you run and get the police. I will give you five hundred cedis if you run, fast-fast.’

  Kumi took off at a speed I had never seen him move at before – he was a little boy, small and wiry, who did not like to exert himself. Mum always joked that he was storing up his energy for the day when the Almighty might call on him. I watched the boy become a blur at the corner of my eye while I frantically searched the sea. ‘Where is he, Jake?’ I said again, quieter this time since I knew Jake had no answer.

  The men pushed the boats out into the water but the sea seemed to resist, rising up and creating huge waves to push them back.

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ Jake said. He was on his feet now and standing beside me. ‘They’ll find him.’

  I stopped looking out to sea and I looked at Jake instead.

  I heard it in his voice, and I saw it on his face: they weren’t going to find Drew. Jake knew it. Just like I did. They weren’t going to find my husband-to-be, Drew.

  5

  Now

  When Jake slips under the mosquito net into bed beside me some time later, I’m wide awake and staring up at the ceiling. The heat hasn’t dropped tonight, not like it usually does, and the ceiling fan is turning round and round above us.

  ‘Thought you’d be asleep by now,’ he says.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ I reply.

  ‘Are you … Are you still thinking about …’ Jake stops speaking. We’ve both been thinking about it, but we haven’t talked about it. I roll over on to my side and stare at the blank wall.

  ‘Have you thought about anything else since Nia said she was getting married here?’ I reply.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Jake says. ‘Of course I haven’t.’

  24 years ago

  ‘Come on, Tessa, you have to come back in.’ Jake spoke gently and carefully to me. Many people had tried to make me leave the beach by saying they would run to fetch me if there was any news. I’d said no to them because I had to stay where I was. If I stayed where I was, wearing the white dress, he would see it. He was lost in the darkness of the ocean and seeing me waiting for him would give him something to come back to.

  ‘No, I’m not moving,’ I told Jake. We were alone on the beach – the search had been called off hours before because no one could have survived so long out there, they said. But I knew different; I knew Drew was coming back.

  ‘Please, Tessa. You’ve had no food, you’ve barely drunk any water. In this heat that’s dangerous. And,’ he leaned in close and lowered his voice, ‘it’s no good for the baby.’

  ‘How did you know?’ I asked, shocked.

  ‘Since I came out of the sea, you’ve had your hand on your stomach as though you’re protecting a child
.’

  ‘Drew has to come back,’ I told Jake. ‘He doesn’t even know that he was going to be a dad. I was going to tell him on our wedding night as a present. It was what he wanted and he would’ve been so happy. And I can’t do it without him. I just can’t.’

  ‘You can,’ Jake replied. ‘You’re one of the strongest women I know. And you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you every step of the way.’

  ‘He needs to come back to me,’ I sobbed. ‘I just need him to come back to me.’

  Jake put his arms around me, hushed and rocked me as I cried and cried for the father of my child who had left me.

  Now

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jake says to me. We are so many years away from that day, but every so often, when he guesses I am thinking about Drew, Jake will say that. He will say sorry.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I reply.

  He still feels guilty that he came back and Drew didn’t; and I feel guilty because, despite all the time that has passed, I still blame him for being alive and well when Drew was not.

  24 years ago

  Jake held the door open to my Brighton flat as I walked down the stairs.

  It was two months after the wedding and I had only just managed to get home to Brighton from Bussu Bay because there’d been a break-in at the resort.

  We’d been given the awful news that a body had washed up further along the coast, and we had to go and see if it was Drew. The trauma of the not knowing as we went up there, had been whisked away when we found it wasn’t Drew. I’d been hopeful again that he might yet turn up.

  Then we’d gone back to find the resort had been burgled. All the jewellery, money, passports and credit cards had been stolen. It then took weeks to sort out new passports and credit cards, and Jake almost lost his job. I did lose my job which was another level of stress, because I now had a baby to support. I didn’t know how I was going to cope in many ways, especially since my parents were thousands of miles away and Drew’s parents had died before I met him.