4
THEY DID NOT DRIVE straight back to the hotel. On the way her father had agreed to show them the house where he had lived in the seventies.
‘It’s only a house,’ he said when Angela asked to see it. ‘It’s not very interesting. It’s just like any other house. It might not even be there any more.’
‘But it was your house, George,’ Lucy’s mother replied, ‘and that makes it interesting to us. Come on, you’ve talked so fondly of sitting on your verandah watching the sun set over the sea and now we’re actually here, I don’t want to leave without seeing it. I know we probably won’t be able to go inside, but we can just have a look at it from the outside, can’t we? It was part of your life, wasn’t it?’
They drove around the north point of the island and left the car in a shaded passing bay. Walking the final hundred yards, they saw the sea in the distance as they descended a small slope. Reaching a clearing they gazed down a steep incline at a two-storey white house, and the corner of a verandah that overlooked the ocean. Even from a distance Lucy could see the garden was beautiful. Flowering bushes grew there in profusion, shades of pink and red, purple, yellow and brilliant white, their stalks bowed under the weight of huge blooms.
‘How could you bear to leave all this?’ Lucy asked.
Her father stared at the house, a distant look in his eyes.
‘What do you miss most?’ her mother asked, smiling at her husband. ‘The sunsets or the sensational buffets?’
‘Or the water sports?’
He turned abruptly away from them without answering, and walked slowly down the path. Stopping beside an ancient frangipani bush, he picked one of the white flowers. Holding it to his lips, he closed his eyes and breathed in its perfume, rubbing the soft petals between his fingers.
Lucy started to follow him but her mother laid a restraining hand on her arm.
‘Give him a moment,’ she said softly. ‘I think he wants to remember. He never really had a chance to say goodbye when he left. I don’t know if he ever told you but it was all rather dramatic and sudden.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was sent home at a moment’s notice by the authorities.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, just for being British. It happened to a lot of them at the time. The British were very unpopular with the new regime.’
‘Did he keep in touch with anyone he knew here?’
Lucy thought about her fellow students at university, already drifting apart now they no longer lived close to each other. Her friends had been Darren’s mates and their girlfriends. Her affair with Darren was the only relationship she had expected to outlast her student days. Without that, she had nothing much to show for her time there.
‘I don’t think he had many real friends here,’ her mother replied. ‘But he loved the place, the house and its views, and the garden. I think he was lonely but he was still happy here.’
‘Who wouldn’t be?’
Lucy thought how well her mother looked. Her fair hair was swept off her face in a ponytail because of the heat, and the style made her look younger than her fifty-three years. She was already beginning to look slightly tanned, although she had been careful to keep out of the sun, and she seemed more relaxed than she had been for a long time. Lucy felt a stab of guilt as she wondered how much her own distress after the break up of her relationship had affected her mother. It could not have been easy for her parents to witness her meltdown. For weeks she had been too immersed in misery to think about anything but her own disappointment. She smiled, but her mother had turned away and was gazing down at the ocean.
For a long time Lucy’s father stood in the shade of the tall frangipani bush. At last they followed him back up the hill to the car. He sat for a moment, his head resting on his arms on the steering wheel.
‘It’s beautiful here, George,’ her mother said at last, as though her husband was personally responsible for the setting.
He looked away and nodded his head without speaking.
‘It’s fabulous,’ Lucy chimed in enthusiastically. ‘I love it! It must have been absolutely amazing, living here.’
‘Time for lunch?’ her father asked.
Although he had always been keen to reminisce about his experiences in the Seychelles, now they were there it seemed he no longer wanted to talk about his life in the white house by the sea. Lucy thought about his sudden enforced departure. It must have been difficult, being sent home like that.
‘I’m starving,’ her mother said.
Her father drove off without a backward glance.
After lunch her parents went for a siesta, out of the sun. Bored in her room, Lucy went down to the pool hoping to see Adrian. He was not there. She wandered over to the bar where a girl was talking to Eddy.
‘Hi there, Lucy,’ he greeted her.
He jerked his head towards the girl he had been chatting to and introduced her as Judy.
‘So you’re Lucy.’ Judy smiled, speaking with an Australian accent. ‘It’s nice to meet you. Eddy was just talking about you, because he thought I was you. I’m flattered,’ she added politely.
Lucy nodded. ‘I suppose we do look a bit alike.’
‘You could be sisters,’ Eddy said.
The two girls looked at one another and smiled. From behind they might easily be confused, but apart from their slender build and spiky short blonde hair they had little in common. Fair and delicate, Lucy’s turned up nose made her look younger than her twenty-two years, while Judy was more tanned with dark eyes and sturdy features. She was wearing a red and blue bikini. Lucy asked Judy if she was staying at the Garden of Eden and the other girl laughed.
‘In my dreams. No, I’ve got a room.’
She gestured vaguely towards the beach, and a charm bracelet on her wrist jangled delicately.
‘She’s here looking for a rich man,’ Eddy teased and Judy nodded.
‘Too right,’ she laughed.
Lucy was not sure if they were being serious.
While the barman fetched Lucy a lemonade, she fell into conversation with Judy, who told her she was going parasailing.
‘Why don’t you come along?’
Lucy admitted she had never tried it.
‘It’s a breeze,’ Eddy assured her, joining in the discussion. ‘You’ll love it. You can’t come to Mahé and not go parasailing,’ he added when she hesitated.
He winked at Judy who grinned at him. On impulse Lucy asked how much it cost.
‘It sounds a lot, but it’s worth it,’ Eddy assured her.
Judy took Lucy along the beach. They chatted as they walked, and Lucy admired her companion’s bracelet. Every time she moved her arm it tinkled.
‘Thanks,’ Judy smiled. ‘It’s got little bells on it, with gold letters in between. Not real gold, of course. But they are real bells. How cool is that?’
‘What do the letters spell?’
‘Oh, they’re all J. For Judy.’
She took Lucy to a narrow wooden jetty where a small group of people were waiting. A lithe young man was issuing instructions and giving demonstrations, while another man strapped the next customer into a harness and lifted the parachute in the air to catch the wind. The queue of people watched as each one was swept off their feet into the air, some elegantly, some awkwardly, depending on their level of expertise. As one girl raced forward, the wind dropped unexpectedly and she ran straight into the water. The boat spun round to pick her up but she was close enough to the shore to stand up and wade back to her friends who were laughing and applauding her failed attempt.
Rehearsing the instructions in her mind, Lucy ran along the wooden jetty leaning backwards, clutching the straps of her safety harness. Her pounding heart seemed to skip a beat as she was lifted off her feet and she closed her eyes in terrified exultation. Everyone else on the beach had been so relaxed about the exercise: the young men who had provided her with a rudimentary training and strapped her into the harness, and the other
holidaymakers who were waiting their turn to be towed out over the ocean. Her guts churned as she kicked her legs helplessly in the air.
After what felt like hours, she opened her eyes and glanced down. The boat towing her along looked absurdly small. With its engine inaudible at that height, all she could hear was the wind rushing past her as she soared above the water. The beach looked miles away. Wheeling above the ocean like a bird, she felt detached from the world. She wished she could stay up there forever, floating serenely away from her life. All too soon she began to descend until she tumbled into the warm water, the boat approached and she clambered aboard. Her harness was removed and she was driven back to the beach where Judy stepped forward for her turn.
Returning to the hotel, she went for a shower and changed before meeting her parents for a drink in the bar area. They watched the sun set over the sea. Almost a spiritual experience in its beauty, it seemed to put Lucy’s petty disappointments into perspective. She felt at one with the sky, watching the colours of the sunset and remembering her experience parasailing. Her fiancé’s betrayal seemed so insignificant that her recent distress seemed incredible. She was alive and the world was a beautiful place. A sense of wellbeing flooded through her. When Adrian joined them for dinner, she could not tell if she was falling for him or just intoxicated with the magic of the island, and the alcohol she had drunk. He was not the kind of man she usually went for, but maybe that was a good thing. He was certainly attractive and eligible but she was not looking for another relationship yet, and was not sure she had recovered enough from her break up to contemplate a holiday fling. Nevertheless she heard herself flirting with him and knew she was laughing too much, but no one else at the table seemed to mind.
After being so unsociable at the white house that afternoon her father was back on form, relating stories of near disasters in the hotel accounts when he had been working there.
‘Of course we didn’t have computers back then,’ he told Adrian. ‘We had to do all the calculations by hand.’
‘You had calculators.’
‘Yes, but we still had to do all the computations ourselves. Nowadays the accounting programmes do everything. All you have to do is enter the figures. I’m not saying it’s any easier now. It’s just very different, that’s all.’
Adrian inclined his head in recognition of the acknowledgement.
Her mother asked for ice in her white wine, and Lucy did the same. She had already drunk too much, and her head was beginning to spin.
‘We used to have the ice delivered,’ her father said. ‘It took a long time to fathom out why there was always a discrepancy between the delivery note and the amount we received. I thought the supplier was diddling us. There was a bit of barney about it but we never got anywhere. Then I discovered the kitchen staff used to leave the delivery out in the sun, so it wasn’t so heavy for them to carry inside.’
They all laughed. Once he started, her father had a collection of anecdotes to share, and Adrian added a few of his own when pressed.
‘Still keeping Rentokil in business?’ her father asked and Adrian chuckled, putting his finger to his lips.
Her father whispered to his wife, ‘There’s a reason why the staff prefer not to live on site.’
Her mother smiled. ‘I’m going to the ladies. I’m not sure I want to hear this.’
‘Wait for me,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m coming with you.’
On the way back to the table, Lucy noticed an old man perched on a low wall, smoking. She was surprised to recognise the old man from the market; the same face scored with deep lines, hooked nose and penetrating eyes peering out from beneath his straw hat. She gave a tentative smile but he stared straight at her without blinking.
‘I saw that old man again,’ she said as she sat down.
Her three companions looked at her blankly. She saw her parents exchange an anxious glance.
‘What old man?’ her mother asked. ‘I didn’t notice anyone on the way back.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she mumbled.
Embarrassed, she reached for her glass of wine. Her cheeks felt hot and she felt slightly dizzy. She could have been mistaken about what she had seen. The conversation moved on.
5
HER PARENTS HAD BOTH fallen asleep in the shade by the pool. Lucy wandered over to the bar but Eddy was talking to a couple of young girls who were giggling and flirting with him. The whiteness of their skin proclaimed them newly arrived on the island. Lucy bought a cool drink and strolled back to her lounger. The afternoon was overcast so she decided to take advantage of the drop in temperature to explore the coast. Although the sky was cloudy the atmosphere was so humid that she turned back after about ten minutes, tired out. As she drew parallel with the hotel someone called her name and she saw Adrian waving at her from the beach.
‘Fancy having some fun? I’ve got the afternoon off.’
They walked along by the water’s edge until they reached a small bay deserted apart from one wiry brown-skinned man of indeterminate age. His white hair hinted that he was older than his sprightly movements suggested. As they approached him Lucy saw that he was Caucasian with bright blue eyes, tanned as brown as an African Seychellois. Probably well into his sixties, he was still a good-looking man. Adrian introduced him as Tim, a former diving champion from Australia, now living on the island earning his living with his boat.
‘What do you do, exactly?’ Lucy asked.
‘A bit of fishing, take a few trips, nothing official,’ he winked at her and tapped the side of his nose with one finger before leaning over to lift up a pair of waterskis. ‘Come on, Adrian, show the young lady how it’s done.’
Adrian demonstrated the correct way to balance on the skis and hold onto the bar.
‘Tim taught me everything I know about water sports.’
Lucy watched as Adrian swept out to sea, riding the water in the wake of the speedboat. They wheeled around a few times. When they returned Adrian was dripping with spray, his eyes bright with exhilaration.
‘Your turn,’ he told her.
Her arms trembled as she took the bar.
‘You have to be confident,’ he warned her, ‘or you’re likely to come a cropper.’
Easier said than done.
She leaned right back as Adrian had shown her and nodded. With a wave from Adrian and an answering shout from Tim the boat accelerated away, jerking her straight off her feet. She clung helplessly to the bar as she was dragged through the water, struggling to keep her head above the surface. Tim spun the boat around and brought her back to the shore, shaken and drenched.
‘What the hell is out there?’ she demanded crossly, gazing at a small red mark on her shin that stung like a nettle rash.
‘Sit tight.’
Tim fetched a bottle and she read on the label ‘Jellyfish Sting Relief’.
‘Great,’ she muttered.
Adrian watched, frowning, as Tim calmly applied the gel. ‘Any allergies?’
She shook her head. ‘None that I know of. But I’m not too partial to jellyfish.’
‘You’ll live,’ Tim replied cheerily, putting the bottle away. ‘I’ve seen worse. This little blighter hardly touched you. By tomorrow you won’t even be able to see where he got you.’
‘Are you sure?’
He grinned at her. ‘That’s nothing. You should see some of the whoppers I’ve come across. No, believe me, it’ll soon be gone. It’s not a disaster. Apart from the waterskiing. Are you ready for another go?’
‘What about the fish? Aren’t jellyfish supposed to be dangerous?’
Tim laughed. ‘Dangerous? The creatures out there are so tame I could send my mother-in-law into the water to scare them away. Just watch out for spiky black sea urchins. It won’t do you any good to step on one of those blighters. And with your delicate skin you might want to get sunblock with jellyfish repellent. There are some great products around these days.’
Lucy glanced at the barely discernible red mark on her
leg and shook her head. She felt like a fool for having made a fuss about it. On top of her humiliating attempt at waterskiing, she could not have made more of a hash of trying to impress Adrian.
‘Maybe another day,’ she replied.
The clouds had gone, leaving a clear blue sky. Adrian took her further along the shoreline to a secluded cove surrounded by gigantic boulders. High overhead, the sun pounded down on them as they walked.
‘It’s lovely here,’ she cried out.
‘There are a number of these little bays,’ he told her. ‘This is one of the quietest but to be honest they’re all like this most of the time. There’s another one a bit further along, but it’s quite tricky to get to so it’s always deserted. Anyway, we can go there another day,’ he added, as she wandered over to a shady spot and sat down.
‘Are you all right?’ Adrian asked, as she closed her eyes and allowed her head to droop sideways.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, opening her eyes and squinting up at him. ‘I’m just a bit hot.’
He passed her some water and she gulped it down.
The sand of the deserted beach was smooth, and partly sheltered by palm trees. Lucy wanted to lounge in the shade, losing herself in wonder at the breathtaking scenery. With a sharp pang, she caught herself wishing her ex, Darren, was there at her side. It was the most romantic setting imaginable. Blinking back tears, she made a conscious effort to shake off her sudden melancholy, determined not to blight her enjoyment of the beautiful beach. Assuring her he would keep a sharp eye out for jellyfish, Adrian ran into the water, splashing and laughing, so she kicked off her sandals and raced across the sand to the sea.
They swam along the coastline where the water was shallow for a few minutes. Still smarting from her humiliating attempt to waterski, Lucy pointed at a large grey boulder sticking up about a hundred yards out to sea.
Journey to Death Page 4
