The Birthday That Changed Everything: Perfect summer holiday reading!
Debbie Johnson
'A lovely, emotion-filled, giggle-inducing story' – Sunday Times bestselling author Milly JohnsonShe wanted a birthday surprise, just not the one she got…The last thing Sally Summers expected from her husband on her special day was that he’d leave her for a Latvian lap dancer half her age. So with her world in tatters, Sally jets off to Turkey for some sun, sea and sanctuary.The Blue Bay resort brings new friends and the perfect balm for Sally’s broken heart in gorgeous Dubliner James. He’s just the birthday present she needs. And when the chemistry between them continues to spark as the holiday ends, Sally wonders if this is more than just a summer fling.But James has scars of his own and Sally isn’t quite ready to turn her back on her marriage. This birthday might have changed everything, but what will the next one bring?
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2016
Copyright © Debbie Johnson 2016
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Debbie Johnson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008150167
Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780008150174
Version: 2018-02-15
This one’s for Ann Potterton and the Turkey gang – who inspired the whole idea in the first place!
Contents
Cover (#u3fa6386a-c4ab-5ff8-9b56-0df757908aca)
Title Page (#u53011a5f-7e04-5422-9e2d-c50745fc385e)
Copyright (#ub738ccf6-8cb2-5347-8567-75583b577717)
Dedication (#ufbfbc28d-2f82-553e-adbd-b56fc2b04324)
PART ONE: Oxford – 39 and Counting… (#udc7310ae-7627-5028-be17-f34304421750)
Chapter 1 (#u55092f47-27e0-531b-b3ff-d9c0736817e1)
Chapter 2 (#u8735a0f2-e69c-50e3-b4b8-d57ad20bbbfb)
Chapter 3 (#u85b28acf-8536-5e31-9470-97ea0231931d)
PART TWO: Turkey – The Big 4-0 (#ua9113b55-b972-53f4-94f8-d16f3148d2f6)
Chapter 4 (#uc387393a-1ebc-51b2-82f0-d25124394d5e)
Chapter 5 (#u6bb8bda0-77f9-554b-8dd4-328174dd2e8c)
Chapter 6 (#u9ea438a5-4ee5-50fe-82d8-8b2128016d6c)
Chapter 7 (#ue38440dd-d7f3-55d2-9e07-2795a2a0316e)
Chapter 8 (#u9c6514ef-b010-5c4f-b4f0-65611541b241)
Chapter 9 (#u763a86b3-fd38-5f6b-aee5-777cd66f7b7b)
Chapter 10 (#uf18b045b-c4fb-5a21-89f8-b6fa04362dfa)
Chapter 11 (#u6762c9cc-63f7-500b-953b-c2f1593dfdaa)
Chapter 12 (#ud304525d-10c3-5dc9-a2cb-228358d02584)
Chapter 13 (#u263bbe98-1fa4-55ad-bb5c-913b25a01243)
Chapter 14 (#u467e3d29-d27e-5ed6-afde-df1076804e30)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
PART THREE: Heading to Turkey – Almost 364 Sleeps Later… (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
PART FOUR: Endings and Beginnings (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo)
PART FIVE: Turkey – Two Years Later (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo)
Back Ads (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Debbie Johnson (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE (#u6c59fd95-bf25-5959-8374-20bd2d0accd6)
Chapter 1 (#u6c59fd95-bf25-5959-8374-20bd2d0accd6)
I was online, buying myself a fortieth birthday present from my husband, when I discovered he was leaving me for a Latvian lap-dancer less than half my age.
Now, I like to think I’m an open-minded woman, but that definitely wasn’t on my wish list.
One minute I was sipping coffee, listening to the radio and trying to choose between a new Dyson and a course of Botox, and the next it all came apart at the seams. The rug was tugged from beneath my feet, and I was left lying on my almost middle-aged backside, wondering where I’d gone wrong. All while I was listening to a band called The Afterbirth, in an attempt to understand my Goth daughter’s tortured psyche.
The Internet wasn’t helping my mood either. I knew the Dyson was the sensible choice, but the Botox ad kept springing into evil cyber-life whenever my cursor brushed against it. Maybe it was God’s way of telling me I was an ugly old hag who desperately needed surgical intervention.
The fact that I was having to do it at all was depressing enough. As he’d left for work that morning, Simon had casually suggested I ‘just stick something on the credit card’. He might as well have added ‘because I really can’t be arsed…’
He may be my husband of seventeen years, but he is a truly lazy git sometimes. We’re not just talking the usual male traits – like putting empty milk cartons back in the fridge, or squashing seven metric tons of household waste into the kitchen bin to avoid emptying it – but real, hurtful laziness. Like, anniversary-forgetting, birthday-avoiding levels of hurtful.
Of course, it hadn’t always been like that. Once, it had been wonderful – flawed, but wonderful. Over the last few years, though, we’d been sliding more and more out of the wonderful column, and so far into flawed that it almost qualified as ‘fucked-up’.
It had happened so slowly, I’d barely noticed – a gradual widening of the cracks in the plasterwork of our marriage: different interests, different priorities. A failure on both our parts, perhaps, to see the fact that the other was changing.
With hindsight, he’d been especially switched off in recent months: spending more time at work, missing our son’s sports day, and not blowing even half a gasket when Lucy dyed her blond hair a deathly shade of black. I’d put it down to the male menopause and moved on. I was far too busy pairing lost socks to give his moods too much attention anyway. Tragic but true – I’d taken things for granted as much as he had.
As I flicked between Curry’s and Botox clinics, an e-mail landed. It was Simon – probably, I thought as I opened it, reminding me to iron five fresh work shirts for him. I don’t know why he bothers – it’s part of my raison d’être. If he opened that wardrobe on a Monday morning and five fresh work shirts weren’t hanging there, perfectly ironed, I think we’d both spontaneously combust.
‘Dear Sally,’ it started, ‘this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I need to take a break. I have some issues I need to sort out and I can’t do that at home. I won’t be coming back this weekend, but I’ll contact you soon so we can talk. Please don’t hate me – try to understand it’s not about you or anything you’ve done wrong, it’s about me making the time to find myself. I’d really appreciate it if you could pack me a bag – you know what I’ll need. And if you could explain to the children for me it would probably be for the best – you’re so much better at that kind of thing. With love, Simon. PS – please don’t forget to pack my work shirts.’
And at the bottom of the e-mail, rolling across the page in all its before-and-after glory, was an advert. For bloody Botox. I stared at it and gave some serious consideration to smashing the laptop to pieces with a sledgehammer.
Instead, I remained calm and in control of my senses. At least calm enough to not wreck the computer.
The only problem was what to do next. When you get news like that, especially in the deeply personal format of an e-mail, it renders you too stupefied to feel much at all. I think my brain shut down to protect itself from overload, and I did the logical thing – started making lunch. Lucy would be back from a trip to Oxford city centre soon with her friends Lucifer and Beelzebub. Well, that was my name for them. I think it was actually Tasha and Sophie, but they’d changed a lot since Reception, and I wasn’t sure if they were even human any more.
They’d left earlier that morning on some sort of adventure to mark the end of the school term. They were probably sticking it to the Man by shoplifting black nail varnish from Superdrug.
My son, Ollie, was out at Warhammer club at the local library, where he took a frightening amount of pleasure in painting small figures of trolls and demons various shades of silver. He still looked like a normal fourteen-year-old, at least – apart from the iPod devices that had now permanently replaced his ears. I’d got used to raising my voice slightly when talking to him, a bit like you do with an elderly aunt at a family do, and playing ad hoc games of charades to let him know dinner was ready or it was time for school.
They’d both be coming home soon, even if Simon wasn’t, and they’d be hungry, thirsty, possibly lazy, grumpy, and a variety of other dwarfs as well.
On autopilot, I opened the fridge door and pulled out some ham, mayonnaise and half a leftover chocolate log, starting to assemble a sumptuous feast. Well, maybe not that sumptuous, but pretty good for a woman who’d just been cyber-dumped.
Simon was leaving me, I thought as I chopped and spread. Leaving us. My handsome husband: orthopaedic surgeon to the stars. Or at least a few C-listers who’d knackered their knees skiing, and one overweight comedian who snapped his wrist in a celebrity break-dancing contest.
It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t let it be real. Our marriage had survived way too much for it to fall to pieces now. Me getting pregnant when we were both student doctors working twenty-hour days. Lucy arriving, Ollie soon after; struggling to cope on one wage as Simon carried on with his residency. The miscarriage I’d had a few years ago, which devastated us both, even though we hadn’t planned any more…seventeen years of love and passion and anger and boredom and resentment couldn’t end with an e-mail, surely?
Except I knew marriages did end, all the time. At the school where I work as a teaching assistant, the deputy head’s husband had recently run off with a woman he met through an online betting website. Apparently they bonded over a game of Texas Hold ’Em and next thing she knew, he’d buggered off to Barrow-in-Furness to start a new life. And my sister-in-law Cheryl divorced my brother Davy after twenty-two years, once the kids had grown up and she realised he was only ten per cent tolerable, and ninety per cent tosser.
As you enter your forties, it feels like the bad news overtakes the good. More cheating spouses and tests on breast lumps, and a lot fewer mini-breaks to Paris. I’d seen enough marriages crumble to know the risks.
I suppose I’d always thought, maybe a bit smugly, that Simon and I were solid. Solid as a big, immovable, maybe not particularly inspiring, rock. More Scafell Pike than Kilimanjaro, but still solid.
‘Mum,’ shouted Ollie, having walked into the room without me so much as noticing his size ten feet stomping through the hallway, ‘stop!’
‘Stop what?’ I said, wiping my hands on the tea towel. My face was wet. I hadn’t even noticed I’d been crying. I wiped that with the tea towel too.
‘Stop spreading mayo on that chocolate log, because it’s going to taste like puke – are you going senile or what? And are you…crying?’
I glanced down. It looked a bit like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where everybody was trying to sculpt a big hill out of mashed potato. Except ruder – because a chocolate log covered in a white creamy substance does look kind of gross.
I scraped it all into the bin and took a deep breath. The tears were still flowing. Even if my brain wasn’t quite processing what was going on, my emotions had kicked in against my will. I swiped my fingers across my face to wipe the tears away, smearing my cheeks with chocolate mayo cake.
Should I tell the kids or not? Was there any point, if it wasn’t real? Perhaps I needed to read that e-mail again. He had said it wasn’t to do with me. That he just had some issues to work through. Maybe he’d go on a retreat to Tibet and fix himself, and all this emotion would have been for nothing.
Maybe I should wait and see what happened. What he had to say for himself. The Simon I knew, the Simon I’d loved for so long, wouldn’t do this. Maybe it was just a rough patch. Maybe he’d come round tomorrow, see me in my finest negligee and realise the error of his ways. He’d come crying into my arms, and bury his head in my heaving bosom…except I don’t own a negligee. Or anything more sexy than a T-shirt from the local garage that says ‘Honk here for service’ across the boobs.
When you’ve been married for seventeen years, have two teenaged children and are almost forty, you’re more likely to be shopping at Mother Malone’s Big Knicker Emporium than Ann Summers. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I should have been greeting Simon at the door every night dressed in garter belts and stockings, bearing a G&T with a blow-job chaser.
‘Come and sit down, Mum, I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ Ollie was saying, carefully taking the knife from my hands and putting it on top of the fridge. He gently placed his arm round my shoulders and guided me over to the sofa. He’s already much taller than my five foot five, and it’s disconcerting to have to look up at your own baby.
I realised then how seriously he was taking my newfound pallor and altered mental state – he’d actually taken his iPod earphones out, and they were dangling like silver tendrils down the front of his I Heart Tolkien T-shirt.
‘What’s up, Mum? You look terrible. Has there been an accident? Is it Lucy? Have you finally accepted you should have let that priest do the exorcism when you were up the duff?’
His lame attempt at humour both warmed my heart and made me feel even worse. I felt more tears welling up in my eyes, running down my face in big, fat, chocolaty drops, pooling under my chin and making my neck soggy.
I stared into space while the deluge continued, barely able to breathe between sobs, lovely Ollie patting my hand and looking slightly more hysterical with every passing moment.
He jumped up as he heard the front door slam – I don’t think he’d have cared if it was a gas salesman, or a hooded figure carrying a scythe. It was the cavalry as far as he was concerned.
My own heart did an equally big jig – was it him? Was it Simon, coming home to tell me it had all been a mistake? Telling me he was sorry? Telling me to forget all about it? I felt so impossibly weak, so impossibly broken by his proposed absence, that the thought of him walking back through that door was like being zapped by a defibrillator.
‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ Lucy shrilled at us as she stormed into the living room. Not Simon after all. Someone much scarier.
Lucy is five foot eight, most of it legs, and does a very good storm. Hands on hips, she stared down at her weeping mother, fidgeting brother, and the tea towel smeared with the remains of mayo-on-sponge. She narrowed her eyes and threw her head back. Her hair didn’t budge – probably because it was dyed midnight blue-black, straightened, and glued to her head with industrial-strength hairspray.
‘Tash, Soph!’ she yelled. ‘Bugger off, will you? Mommy dearest is having some kind of spaz attack and I need to deal with the dramatics…’
I heard a very impolite sniggering from the hallway, and a slight creak of the door as the Devil’s Daughters sneaked a peek at the crazy woman.
They might listen to a lot of songs about the unbearable agonies of stubbing your toe on a guitar amp, but they had no empathy with a real-life human being at all. They’d be more upset at missing an episode of The Vampire Diaries than seeing me in tears, and I’d known them since they were four. They departed in a fit of giggles.
Lucy looked down at me, not knowing quite how to behave for a change. Her usual loving approach – verbal abuse combined with facial representations of complete contempt – normally served her well, but she was clearly a bit unsettled by all the tears.
‘Okay, Mother, what’s the big deal? I know this is probably just some stupid retarded midlife crisis, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt – have you got cancer?’
Momentarily thrown by a worldview where having cancer was preferable to a midlife crisis, I managed to stop my sniffling and stem the torrential waterworks. Attagirl, Lucy.
‘No, I haven’t got cancer,’ I said, feeling poor Ollie deflate slightly beside me with relief – he’d obviously feared something similar. But, unlike my darling daughter, he’d actually given a shit.
‘It’s your dad…’
‘Has he got cancer?’ interrupted Lucy, kicking her Converse-clad feet impatiently against the coffee table. She was dressed in leggings with black and purple hoops, and could have passed for the Wicked Witch of the West.
‘And if he has got cancer, is it in some disgusting place like his testicles? Because I’m telling you now there is no way I am going to sit around listening to people discuss my dad’s balls—’
‘No, no, your dad’s balls are fine…well, I suppose they are, I haven’t seen them up close recently…’
‘Oh, gross, Mum!’ cried Ollie, making gagging gestures with his fingers in his throat and pretending to vomit. Lucy looked similarly disgusted at the mere mention of me in close proximity to her father’s genitals. Clearly she preferred the theory that she had been hand-delivered by Satan’s stork.
‘Oh, just shut up, both of you!’ I said. ‘Your dad, and his testicles, are okay – but he’s leaving us. No, that’s not right. Not us – me. He’s leaving me. For a while. Just for a bit, while he gets his head together. I’m probably being dramatic for no reason. But…well, I only just found out. He told me today. Kind of. He e-mailed me today, actually—’
‘Hang on a minute – did you say e-mail? Are you telling me he frigging e-mailed you to say he was doing a runner?’ asked Lucy, incredulously.
‘Yes, well, you know how busy he gets at work…’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Mum, you,’ she replied, leaning down over the sofa and poking one of her fingers in my face so hard that I went cross-eyed, ‘are such a loser! He e-mails you to say he’s walking out and you justify it because he’s busy? This isn’t about him, it’s about you. You’re a doormat. You’ve got no backbone. You’re just a human being made of fucking jelly. No wonder he left you – you probably bored him to death!’
Exit Lucy, stage left, in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. I could practically feel the ceiling shake as she stomped up the stairs to her room, slammed the door, and started blasting music so loudly through her speakers that nomadic tribespeople in Uzbekistan would be wondering where the party was and if they should bring a bottle.
Oh good. The Afterbirth again. My favourites.
Chapter 2 (#u6c59fd95-bf25-5959-8374-20bd2d0accd6)
‘Nobody else my arse,’ said my sister-in-law Diane on the phone from Liverpool. ‘There always is, Sal. It’s rule number one in the big book of rules about men – they never, ever leave a woman unless there’s someone else to go to, no matter how miserable they are. They treat their sex lives like a relay race – they always need to pass the baton…’
Phallic imagery aside, I knew she had a point. And Di should know. She was married to my brother Mark, who was pretty much the best of a bad bunch, but they’d really gone through the mill when they were younger. He’d had affairs. She’d had affairs. It got to the stage where they needed a PA to remind them of who was shagging who. Eventually all the mistresses and toy boys became a burden, and they decided to have an affair with each other instead. Two decades on, they’re still married, so they must have done something right.
It was the day after my exciting e-mail treat, and the kids were handling it about as well as could be expected. Lucy was out, probably scaring toddlers in the local park as she sat having a fag in the playground with the Demon Twins. Ollie was upstairs in his room, playing Lords of Legend online.
And Simon was due to come round any minute.
‘But he says he needs to find himself, Di. Don’t you think there could be some truth in that? We’ve all been so busy for so long since the kids came along, and there’s his work. What if he genuinely just needs a bit of time and space?’
‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted, ‘of course. Let’s face it, Sal, any man who spends as much time in front of the mirror as Simon does shouldn’t have any problem with finding himself. And, as for his work, are we supposed to feel sorry for him because he’s successful? That could’ve been you if things had worked out differently. I know you wouldn’t be without the kids – well, not Ollie anyway – but if Mr Lover Lover Man hadn’t got you knocked up when you were still a student, you’d be a doctor too.
‘He couldn’t have done everything he has without you at home backing him up. So don’t give me that “finding myself” crap. Take my word for it, he’s got some little tart he’s shacking up with who gives him seven blow jobs a day and treats him like God. I know it’s not really in your nature, but you need to find your inner bitch. He deserves it for dumping you by e-mail.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘I keep thinking I might have missed something and opening it again…For a while I convinced myself it wasn’t real, it was some kind of freaky spam…Anyway, better go – he’ll be here soon. Thanks for all the advice and I’ll try to stay tough, okay?’
‘Okay, love, you do that – and you better not have ironed those bloody shirts!’
I put the phone down, still marvelling at the thought of a woman who had the time – never mind the oral dexterity – to give seven blow jobs a day. How would that even be possible? She’d have to go to work with him, and live under his desk. And it could be really distracting when he was in surgery – she’d have to scrub in, and even then I’m not sure it would be hygienic…
Had Simon and I ever reached those levels of sexual athleticism? Maybe – but if we had, we’d been too drunk to notice. I was only twenty-one when we met, and sex at that age is all about enthusiasm, not expertise. And, in our case, it was also all about the contraception. Or lack thereof. Before long I was puking my guts up on morning rounds at St Sam’s, realising I was pregnant with the blob of cells that would become Lucy. She was a lot less trouble then.
I spent the next four weeks vomiting. Simon spent the next four weeks planning our wedding – or at least his mother did, as soon as she found out what was going on. She was a force to be reckoned with and we weren’t left much choice. Within minutes of peeing on the pregnancy test, she told us when and where we’d be getting married. I was too tired to care really, and Simon – well, he’d come from money, and respectability, and having a bastard child in his twenties was never going to be part of the plan.
Up until now I thought we’d made the right choices. For everything I’d given up, I’d gained tenfold. A good man, two healthy children, a nice home. It was more than most people got, and I’d been content. On the whole.
But maybe I’d got it all wrong. Maybe I should have spent more time getting blow-job lessons at the local College of Sex. Seven times a day? Really, was it possible?
Simon had texted me to say he’d be round at eleven, so he must be taking a break from his BJ schedule for at least an hour. He was always on time for everything; it was a point of pride with him, so I had exactly ten minutes left. Ten minutes left to rehearse speeches I knew wouldn’t come out right, as I didn’t have a clue how his side of the script went. I didn’t know if Diane was right about there being someone else, or how I’d cope with it if there was.
I’d got up early, exhausted after a disjointed and dream-ridden night’s semi-sleep. My eyes were swollen and stinging from fatigue and tears. I’d walked the dog, cried, had a shower, cried, done the ironing, cried, and had a Force Ten row with Lucy, all before calling Diane. I’d also tried on three different outfits and rearranged my hair several times before giving up in disgust. I mean, where are the style guides on How To Look Good Dumped? Or What Not To Wear While Confronting Your Probably Cheating Husband? You never see that on bloody telly, and I bet it’s not just me who needs it.
Physically, I’m not in bad nick considering I am, as my kids charmingly put it, ‘halfway to dead’, but I’m definitely at the stage in life where the perfection of youth is a distant memory.
I’m in a gym, but in all honesty the only pounds I lose are from my bank balance. I had been hopeful that the sheer effort of carrying round a membership card in my purse would reinstate me to my size ten glory days, but apparently not. What a con.
I still fit into a size fourteen, or at least most of me does. But I have a wobbly blancmange tummy that never left after childbirth, and my derrière is, diplomatically speaking, comfortable. My boobs are too big for their own good, and need an awful lot of help from a very strong push-up bra fairy. I’d ‘let myself go’, as my gran might have said.
Eventually, after a load of fretting that did nothing but get me hot and bothered, my hair had ended up in its usual slightly unruly shoulder-length bob, and I stuck with jeans and a T-shirt. I had no idea what to go for – seductive, dignified, aloof? All I felt was shattered and confused. And I knew the fact that I was focusing so hard on clothes and preparations was just a way of avoiding the ugly truth: the fact that my marriage, and life as I knew it, could be over.
I heard the key in the door, accompanied by an inappropriately cheery ‘Hello!’ as Simon arrived and let himself in.
He was wearing a pair of new jeans – at least jeans I’d never seen before. Skin-tight on the thighs and boot cut. His fair hair was styled slightly differently, swept straight back and gelled rather than parted in his traditional ‘trust me I’m a doctor’ look. And he smelled – a lot. Of some quite powerful cologne or aftershave that he’d never used around the house. He looked younger, and cooler, and actually pretty damn handsome. It was him – but not him. It was his sexier evil twin.
‘You’re having an affair with some little tart who gives you seven blow jobs a day and treats you like God, aren’t you?’ I said immediately.
I just knew – from the second he walked into the room, I could tell. It wasn’t only the new style and the new smell – it was the new swagger.
He was trying desperately to hold a serious and sympathetic expression on his face, but I could see it there in his eyes: a newfound confidence, self-belief…happiness, I suppose. The bastard.
He sat down next to me on the sofa, taking my hand in his and looking at me with that same sympathy. The look I’d seen on his professional face so many times over the years. The one that said: ‘I am the bearer of bad news, but don’t worry, I’m here for you.’
‘Don’t lie, Simon – I can see it all over you. There’s somebody else, so don’t deny it. How long has it been going on?’
‘Oh, Sal,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry…I never wanted to hurt you, I really didn’t…I wasn’t looking for this. It just happened. We’ve drifted apart so much in recent years. I honestly don’t think you’re happy either…’
I slapped his hand away and looked straight ahead. I couldn’t bear to see that sparkle he was trying to hide, the way he was sad about destroying me, but unbearably happy for himself. The emotional conundrum of the newly freed male.
‘What do you mean you weren’t looking for it? Did you accidentally fall into another woman’s vagina, then?’
‘There’s no need to be crude about it, Sal; it’s not like that! It’s not just the sex…’ – the never-ending, headboard-pounding, scream-out-loud sex, I added in my own mind’s eye – ‘it’s more than that. I’m in love with her. You have to believe me when I say I’d never do anything to intentionally make you suffer, or the kids. I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t serious. But I just couldn’t go on like we were any more. You must know what I mean!’
Uhm…no, actually. I’d been perfectly happy the way things were. Or, at least, definitely not unhappy. I obviously had a much higher boredom threshold than he did, and significantly lower expectations of how exciting family life in the suburbs was supposed to be. Simon, though, seemed to mean what he was saying, and appeared confused that I didn’t ‘get it’ – he genuinely thought we’d both been unhappy, that this was somehow inevitable or necessary, a natural progression rather than a thunderbolt from the blue.
‘So who’s the lucky woman then?’ I asked, focusing on the mistress straight away. The other issues – the fact that he’d seen our marriage in a totally different way to me – were too complicated to tackle just then. The fact that he was shagging someone else was, in a twisted way, more palatable.
Even as I spoke, I recognised that my tone of voice could curdle milk. I sounded like a bitter old hag, and might as well buy seven cats and stop washing right now.
‘Her name is Monika,’ he replied, intonating the name with such reverence that he could have been talking about the Virgin Mary. Except not in this case, it would seem, unless the Blessed Mother had taken a very unexpected turning in life. ‘We met in a…in a hospitality venue I visited when I was on that Ortho conference in London in March.’
‘The one you said was full of cranky old men talking about hip replacements over their peppered steak? And what’s a “hospitality venue” anyway? Is it double-speak for a pub or a…’
The light slowly dawned as he started to shuffle slightly nervously next to me, casting his eyes down for the first time.
‘A strip club? A strip club. You’re running off with a fucking stripper. My God, Simon – could you be any more predictable? You’re giving up your wife, your home, your kids and your bloody dog, all for the sake of someone who shakes her tits for a living?’
His head snapped up again, and I could see I’d hit a nerve. ‘She’s not just some slapper, you know! Back in Latvia she was training at catering school, then the opportunity came up to travel to London. She’s a really intelligent girl, I’m sure she’ll do very well for herself once she goes back to college!’
‘In Latvia? Back to college? Please tell me you mean as a mature student…how old is she?’
A beat of silence. He didn’t want to tell me. This was going to be bad – very bad.
‘HOW OLD IS SHE?’ I yelled in his face.
‘Nineteen,’ he mumbled, jerking his head back in shock, ‘she’s nineteen, all right? But that means nothing. Where she’s come from, that’s mature. She’s been through more than most people have already. It’s not easy growing up in Latvia, you know. There wasn’t much money, no jobs, no way out. She needed—’
‘She needed a really stupid man, Simon, that’s what she needed. A really stupid man with a bit of money and his brains in his balls. And it looks like she got exactly that. It’s pathetic…Ollie and Lucy are losing their father because you can’t keep it in your pants? Have you any idea how much this is going to hurt them?’
‘But it won’t,’ he replied, edging away from my anger. ‘They’ll understand, even if you don’t. They’re older now – we’ve done a good job raising them. They’ve had a solid start in life, and they don’t need us to be together for their sakes any more. They’ll know I deserve a chance to be happy and in love – and so do you. And there’s no problem with the house – obviously you’ll keep that for as long as you all need it – or with money. I’ll make sure you’re all provided for…’
I was momentarily struck dumb by his use of the phrase ‘together for their sakes’. Was that how he’d been feeling? Is that what our marriage had been? Had I been so stupid I hadn’t noticed – or was Simon rewriting our history to justify current actions he must be ashamed of, deep down?
It was as though I was talking to a stranger – and one who certainly didn’t understand at least one of his children.
‘If you think for a minute that Lucy is going to accept this in any way,’ I said, ‘you’re even dumber than you look in those sprayed-on jeans. She’ll hate you for it. And I don’t blame her.’
I don’t know how he’d expected this conversation to go, but I was clearly not reacting the way he’d expected. He looked almost afraid as my voice rose. He stood up, retreating by several steps and taking refuge by the bay window – presumably so he’d have witnesses if I whacked him round the head with a paperweight.
‘Don’t worry, Simon, you’re not worth it. If I’m not what you want any more, that’s your choice. Before you came here today I was really hoping we could patch things up. That we could put things right – that I could try and be more like you want me to be. But without the aid of a time machine, that’s obviously not going to happen. I can’t believe you’re leaving me for someone who’s not much older than your own daughter. We’ve gone through all these years together and you throw it away like it means nothing…’
My quieter tone calmed him, and he took a step forward, holding out his hands in supplication. How could somebody so familiar, so beloved, suddenly be a complete alien? I suppose we’d taken each other so much for granted over the years that it seemed unbelievable that anything could change. Now here he was in front of me, as a totally different person. Amazing what the love of a bad woman can do for a man.
I wanted to kill him, and spit on his bleeding corpse. And I wanted him to take me in his arms and tell me he’d stay, that everything was going to be all right. I wanted the whole damn mess to just go away. I wanted my husband back. I wanted to sleep for ever. The shock of it all was starting to really kick in, and I didn’t know where to put myself. The anger of my words was real – but the changing landscape of my future life was now becoming a hideous reality, a poisonous shift that I could do nothing to control or avoid.
‘I’m sorry, Sal,’ he said, sounding genuinely regretful. ‘If there was anything I could do to make you feel better, I would…but I belong with Monika now. If I don’t try and make a go of this, I’ll never forgive myself – and I won’t be much use here with you, either.’
I gulped back the sobs I could feel coming. I needed to weep and wail and beg God to help me, but that was between me and the Almighty. I’d never forgive myself if I broke down in front of Simon.
‘You’d better go then,’ I said, waving him towards the door. ‘Leave the keys behind. Call to arrange a time to see the kids. Your bag’s in the hall. And yes, I did pack your five freshly ironed work shirts.’
With five freshly burned holes through the backs, I silently added. But he didn’t need to discover that until Monday morning, did he?
Chapter 3 (#u6c59fd95-bf25-5959-8374-20bd2d0accd6)
Oxford is a beautiful city. Full of beautiful people, leading beautiful lives. On a good day it’s an inspiring place to be; surrounded by ancient, ivy-clad colleges, woodland walks, quaint bookshops and the sense of being somewhere truly special.
This, however, was not one of those good days. I’d driven into town with Lucy, planning to do some shopping, but we’d almost come to blows within minutes of arriving at the Covered Market. She wanted her nose pierced. I said no. She said I was a boring bitch. I said thank you very much Lucy and headed for the Ben’s Cookies stall. She stomped along behind me, knocking dangling pigeons out of the way as we passed the butchers’ stands, sizzling with fury.
Erring on the side of caution, I went for the ten-cookie box – you can never have too much chocolate chip in a time of crisis. I passed one to Lucy, hoping it might shut her up for a minute, and wandered over to a stall that was selling fresh lardy cake and tiffin as well.
‘For God’s sake, you’re disgusting,’ she said, attractively spitting out tiny chunks of chocolate as she hissed at me. ‘All you do these days is eat. So he’s gone – so fucking what? Did it ever occur to you that eating yourself to death might not be the answer? It’s all your fault anyway…’
This was a rehashed version of one of her very favourite theme tunes of the last few weeks – a catchy ditty known as ‘You Drove Him Away (You Stupid Selfish Cow)’. She launched loudly into an extended remix, and I noticed small crowds of backpacked tourists edging around her nervously, as though she was a terrorist attack in Emo form – a weapon of mass destruction who could go off at any minute, taking all our eardrums with her.
‘And anyway,’ she screeched, crumpling up her cookie wrapper and throwing it on the floor, ‘it’s all so fucking embarrassing! Why did he have to bugger off with some teeny trollopy Iron Curtain whore, for fuck’s sake? My mates will piss themselves laughing when they hear about it! Why couldn’t he just shag his secretary like any other self-respecting middle-aged fuck-up?’
I often wonder why my kids are so foul-mouthed. I’m not. Very. But Lucy is in the Premier League when it comes to swearing. We were called into school when she was six because she called the dinner lady a ‘bastarding shit’ for giving her beans instead of spaghetti hoops. When she was forced to apologise she said, ‘I’m fucking sorry’, kicked me in the shin, and ran away laughing. Simon always blamed the Liverpool side of my family, and he may be right. I suspect those Scouse Irish genes definitely play a part in it.
She was still going great guns, lecturing me on how I was a bloated pig, a nightmare to live with, and completely bereft of any redeeming qualities. For her finishing touch she told me, and the other few hundred people in the market that Saturday afternoon, that a blow-up doll had more personality than I did and was probably better in bed, too. Nice. I can’t say it didn’t hurt, but I understand the way Lucy ticks – loudly, and like a bomb about to blow.
She was missing her dad and hurting like hell and, short of kicking the dog, which would contravene her moral code, Ollie and I were the only victims in sight. Ollie didn’t listen, and occasionally punched her in the kidneys anyway, so she was wary of him. I did listen, and as a responsible adult tried to avoid the kidney-punching thing, so I made a much better target.
I let her finish, then pointed at the wrapper on the floor. ‘Pick that up and find a bin,’ I said quietly, walking away. I heard her scream – full throttle – in the background. Priceless glass objets d’art probably shattered across the city, and shocked poodles in parks covered their ears with their paws.
‘I’m going home!’ she yelled after me, oblivious to the mounting concern of nearby stallholders, and strode off. Hopefully in the direction of the bus stops on Cornmarket, but entirely possibly to the nearest stockist of voodoo dolls, air rifles or nose piercings.
I clenched my eyes against tears, and reminded myself for the millionth time that she didn’t mean it. Most of it. That I was the grown-up, the mother, and no matter how much I was crumbling inside, she was hurting too.
It might have been stress-induced psychosis on her part, but she was right about one thing at least – it was time to stop seeking solace in the biscuit barrel. I’ve never been the kind of person who loses her appetite due to heartbreak. I’m far more likely to go the other way. At tough times in my life, a multipack of Penguins has often been my only friend. If I carried on like this, I’d put on masses of weight, be the size of two Latvian lap-dancers, and feel even worse about myself than I did already.
Since Monika-gate broke, Lucy had, predictably enough, refused to see her father, and had given no consideration at all to meeting the new love of his life. Or the ‘teeny trollopy whore’, as she affectionately called her.
Ollie had done both and, bless him, reported back hilariously on how Dad was now dressing in Bart Simpson T-shirts and pink Crocs in an attempt to look younger. I’d tried hard not to pump him for too much information, but he’s a bright boy – he gave me a full run-down before I had the chance to even consider interrogating him. ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘I can’t lie – she’s not a munter. In fact she’s pretty fit, if I’m honest, which feels wrong when your dad’s holding her hand. But she talks weird – like a Russian villain in a spy film. With this really deep voice. So there’s always the chance that she’s actually a man and Dad just hasn’t discovered her internal willie yet.’
Which I must admit I found strangely comforting.
I wandered along Turl Street and out on to the High, narrowly avoiding a collision with a pack of cyclists waging guerrilla warfare on pedestrians. No, this definitely wasn’t one of those good days in Oxford. It was the new Oxford, setting for the new me, and my new, vastly unimproved life. The one where I felt completely and utterly alone, adrift in a sea of misery.
In fact, all the beautiful people and the beautiful buildings were just making me feel worse. For the first time I could understand the urge to take a semi-automatic weapon, climb the stairs of St Mary’s Church tower, and just let rip.
I stopped outside the travel agent’s, looking at the offers in the window. We hadn’t booked anything for this year. Simon had been reluctant to commit to our usual two weeks in France. He said he was getting bored of it. Now I knew he wasn’t just bored of France. He was bored of his entire life. He’d been gone for six weeks now – which equated to 294 blow jobs by my reckoning. That probably made things a bit less boring for him.
For me, it had been a torment of tedium combined with near paralysing anxiety. Six weeks of yo-yoing between ‘I can do this’ and utter desperation. Six weeks of total loneliness. Six weeks of watching mindless TV and doing household chores and wearing false smiles; my heart leaping every time the phone rang or the door was opened. Just in case he’d come home. Of worrying about the kids and worrying about me and worrying about a future I couldn’t quite get a hold of.
Six weeks of total crap, in all honesty.
Maybe, I thought, I needed a holiday too.
Ollie had told me his dad and Monika were heading off to Ibiza for a week. Clubbing in San Antonio. The thought of Simon waving his forty-one-year-old hands in the air and blowing a fluorescent whistle at a beachfront rave was one of the few things that had made me crack a smile in recent days. A lesser woman than I would hope he’d overdose on E and get trampled to death by a tranny in platform heels.
The door pinged as I wandered in, and I sat down, plonking the cookie box on the seat next to me. My new life-partner.
‘How can I help you today?’ said the sales assistant, who had ‘Nikki’ printed on her name badge. Nikki had disconcertingly huge bleached-blond hair, and skin that looked like it had been marinated overnight in a vat of Bisto.
‘I’m looking for a holiday,’ I replied. ‘I’m not quite sure what, but something special. We all need a really special holiday. So knock yourself out, Nikki – anywhere in the world, anything at all. Money,’ I added, safe in the knowledge that I still had access to Simon’s credit card, ‘is no object.’
‘Well, that’s the kind of challenge we thrive on in the travel consultancy business!’ she said, keeping a straight face. I was about to laugh but then I realised she meant it.
Her fingers started to fly over her keyboard, her face frowning in concentration. She was murmuring to herself as she worked; a steady subconscious flow that sounded something along the lines of ‘Yes! No! All booked up! No availability there…maybe…possibly…Ebola virus outbreak…border control…diamond mines…mosquito nets…’
‘Stop!’ I said, leaning over the desk to break her concentration. I had visions of ending up on a camel-back tour of Alaska or blue-tailed-skink-watching in Cameroon.
‘When I said anything, what I actually mean is a holiday with a beach. A swimming pool. Cocktails. Possibly the opportunity to do “Macarena”-style Euro-pop dances with waiters in restaurants. Lots of activities for the kids. Other teenagers, but nobody too scary who might teach them how to use flick knives or get one of them pregnant. And somewhere I can get a tan just like yours.’
Her face froze like a teak mask, clearly unhappy at this dull change of direction.
‘Well, my tan comes from the Boots in Summertown, but I presume you’re looking for somewhere a bit further afield than that?’
Suitably chastised for my lack of adventurous spirit, I watched her manicured nails go back into overdrive. Occasionally she paused to ask me a question, like how old the kids were (easy), if they liked water sports (um…possibly) and if I was into tennis (yes, if it involves watching men in tight white shorts at Wimbledon).
After what felt like a lifetime of waiting and watching, she finally looked up from her screen, a brilliant smile breaking out on her face. She had great teeth too – I wondered if they were from Boots as well but didn’t dare ask.
‘I’ve got it. It’s in Turkey, and there are just two interconnecting rooms left. Very nice, exclusive resort – lots of planned activities for young people, like sailing, windsurfing, water-skiing, as well as for adults. Tennis lessons. Golf if you want it. Beauty treatments, spa. If you don’t mind me saying, you look a bit tired – I think this is just what you need. A perfect holiday.’
She was right. I was tired. And more than a bit…A perfect holiday.
Now, that sounded even better than another cookie.
PART TWO (#ulink_012ee13c-6cd3-554c-aab0-63cdb74b30d4)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_94e9ed33-f6ba-5337-82e8-c1f2f1caa082)
‘You mean to tell me there’s no fucking hairdryer in this dump?’ said Lucy, stalking round our rooms as though she’d just been stranded on a landfill site and told to lick old tins of cat food for tea. ‘You told me there would be!’
‘I’m sure there is, somewhere, Luce, I’ll look later…’ I answered, puffing a bit as I dragged the suitcases through the door. Ollie followed, hefting the biggest case into the corner and kicking it straight.
‘I’ve got a solution, Lucy,’ he said. ‘When you’ve washed your hair, go down to the kitchens and stick your bloody head in the microwave.’
He accompanied this with a mime of a skull exploding.
‘Ha-fucking-ha,’ she said, falling backwards on to the bed and declaring she was exhausted.
I sat next to her, glancing around – two interconnecting rooms, one with a double bed for me, and the other with two singles for Lucy and Ollie. An en-suite for each, with walk-in showers big enough to live in. Whitewashed walls, wrought-iron headboards, pretty blue bedspreads, and views over a sparkling turquoise bay. All of which would be worth nothing if Lucy didn’t find a hairdryer soon.
As I leaned down to unzip my case, I realised that either my ears were still dodgy from the flight, or the luggage was buzzing. I walked up closer to it, straining my ears to listen, telling the kids to shut up.
‘This case is buzzing…’ I said, cautiously flipping over the name tag with one finger. Mr and Mrs Smith of Solihull, it read. Which was odd, as I was expecting it to say Mrs Summers of Oxford. I said as much out loud, and Lucy instantly snapped out of her catatonia.
‘You picked up the wrong case, you fucking idiots!’ she declared, jumping up with more energy than she’d shown in the last year and dashing to her own luggage to inspect it. ‘But that’s okay! Phew! It doesn’t matter, panic over – at least you got mine right!’
‘And mine,’ added Ollie after checking. ‘Looks like it’s just you with the buzzing luggage, Mum. Should we call the bomb squad or something?’
‘It’s probably just one of Mum’s vibrators – imagine them giving an armed escort to a Rampant Rabbit!’ sniggered Lucy, loving every moment now she knew her straighteners were safe.
‘I do not own a vibrator!’ I snapped back, prodding the case with my toes to see if the buzzing stopped, ‘although maybe I’ll buy one when I get back, seeing as your dad has opted out of active service on that front, and I’m not quite dead yet!’
Silence from both offspring at that comment – a double-whammy reminder of the fact that not only had their father left, but their mother had sexual needs. Guaranteed killer.
I decided to open the case. It was probably just an electric shaver that had been switched on by accident or something. The bags had been through the wars, and had sat out in the sun for a lot longer than they should have while the baggage handlers enjoyed a second cup of coffee. I mean, how weird could a Mr and Mrs Smith from Solihull be?
‘Yeuuw!’ yelled Lucy, jumping away as I opened the lid.
‘Gross!’ added Ollie, so shocked he took several steps back.
‘Shit!’ I said, as it was the only word I could remember. The pungent aroma of overheated rubber and sweaty plastic wafted up from the case, making us all wrinkle our noses in disgust. It was like being held face-down in a ball pool after a couple of toddlers had vomited in it.
Inside Mr and Mrs Smith’s suitcase was a dazzling display of sex toys. I mean, dozens of them. A stash easily big enough to start their own shop, or at least a well-stocked market stall. As the smell cleared, the three of us stared down at the contents.
Even at first glance, I could see cock rings, dildos, vibrators, whips, baby-pink butt plugs and items in gaudy cardboard boxes promising a real kinkorama. There was a Make Your Own Vagina moulding kit, some actually rather attractive-looking red vibrating pants, and a blow-up doll called Suck-Me-Dry Sally.
Ollie reached out and picked one of the boxes up, eyeing the cover photo with interest. ‘Fake Pussy,’ he read from the blurb. ‘This pussy ain’t too fussy, let it stroke your cock for the purr-fect orgasm…’
‘Give me that!’ I shrieked, grabbing it out of his hands and throwing it back into the case. Lucy, in the meantime, had lifted what looked like a tramp-red lipstick and was snorting away as she informed us that it was, in fact, a Clit Stick. Which are not words you want to hear coming from your sixteen-year-old daughter’s mouth. I made a lunge for that as well, but she’d already pocketed it.
I had no idea who Mr and Mrs Smith were, but if they’d ended up with my bag, then somewhere in Turkey they were currently crying with disappointment. There was nothing more stimulating in it than a pile of trashy novels and swimsuits with control panels in the tummies. Not much that could compete with his-’n’-hers Hole Lot of Fun vibro-sticks, that’s for sure.
The suitcase switch also presented some very practical problems – like the fact that I had no clothes other than the ones I was standing up in. And they were in such a state, they could probably stand up without me.
Jeans, Timberland boots and a fleece sweatshirt might not be unreasonable for four a.m. in England, but in Turkey I was likely to boil to death and die if I couldn’t find an alternative.
I was already so hot and bothered I thought I might faint at a moment’s notice – although that might also have been a delayed reaction to seeing the Black Beauty Joy Rider in its nine-inch glory.
I needed a shower, fresh clothes, and a glass of something very cold and very alcoholic. Not necessarily in that order. On cue, Lucy grabbed her suitcase, walked into her room, and clicked the lock shut.
‘No,’ she shouted, ‘you can’t borrow any of my clothes – you’re too fat, and it’s your fault I don’t have a hairdryer…’
Chapter 5 (#ulink_4cb4b44a-e195-5352-887c-446c0c3ed800)
There was a stunned silence as I walked into the Blue Bay Hotel’s poolside bar to catch the last few minutes of our welcome meeting.
The rep’s voice trailed off to a stammering standstill, and a gentle murmur of surprise did a noticeable Mexican wave around my fellow holiday-makers.
As I sat down, I was feeling decidedly nervous. Even under normal circumstances – without lost suitcases and the sudden appearance of sex aids – I wasn’t used to doing this kind of thing on my own.
Every holiday I’d been on for the last seventeen years had been with Simon. Simon was good at social situations. He was charming and confident and always completely at home in a room full of strangers. I usually got away with being the support act, something I had rather pathetically mastered over the years. Now I was on a steep learning curve to becoming Miss Independent, and I can’t say I was enjoying the climb that much.
I’d been left with two options – staying cooped up in the hotel with two surly teenagers waiting for a stray suitcase to turn up. Or finding an alternative way forward. I had things to do, people to meet. I wanted to sign up for sailing lessons, take mountain-bike rides through the hills and perfect my serve. It was kill or cure – either I’d simultaneously find my inner strength and lose a stone, or I’d drop dead of a heart attack.
More to the point, I wanted to go downstairs because I was absolutely gagging for a drink – it had been a long day. Travelling is never easy, but doing it mid-marriage collapse and accompanied by the alien beings known as teenagers is torturous.
After a few wardrobe malfunctions and a lot of swearing, I eventually found something I thought I could live with, and made my way downstairs into the midday heat. It wasn’t the perfect outfit choice, but it covered my bits at least.
I sat alone; glancing around, I saw that every other table was filled with smiling couples and their children. Children who didn’t hate their parents. Husbands who hadn’t run off with Latvian lap-dancers.
More to the point, they were all dressed in nice, normal clothes. Colourful swimwear, sarongs, shorts, bright T-shirts – nothing more outrageous than a straw hat at a rakish angle. Their suitcases had obviously been packed by smart-casual beachwear experts.
Mine, on the other hand, had been packed by a pair of perverts from the West Midlands – which explained why I was wearing a Naughty Nurse Nancy costume, complete with shiny white plastic miniskirt and a name tag that said ‘Sister Slut’.
All in all, it was a less than perfect start to my allegedly perfect holiday.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_d516b33e-3024-5a9d-a317-3ee6b438b909)
As the meeting ended, I stayed put at the table for a minute until I took the first few mouthfuls of my gin and tonic.
The bar was surrounded by a luscious loop of garden, dripping with riotously coloured flowers and fringed with broad-leaved palm trees that edged down to the beach. I could see right out to sea from where I was sitting. The midday sun was blazing down, and the waves rippled gently into the horseshoe-shaped bay.
Out on the water I could see windsurfers and sailors bobbing around in the distance. Idyllic. If only I wasn’t dressed like a comedy prostitute, it would be perfect.
As soon as I felt confident enough, I flip-flopped my way across the garden and over to the water’s edge. It was lined with a pristine row of sun loungers, each with its own umbrella.
It’s quite hard to gracefully arrange yourself into a horizontal position when you’re wearing an outfit designed for swingers’ parties. Even though other women were letting it all hang loose in string bikinis with bare boobs akimbo, for some reason I felt even more exposed than them.
At least I’d been able to borrow some of Ollie’s flip-flops and dump the Timberlands. Lucy was no help, and very much enjoying it. Short of kicking the door in, there wasn’t much I could do, except vow to get my revenge when we were home.
Ollie was far more willing to share but, much as I tried, I couldn’t squeeze myself into the surfer shorts he offered. I couldn’t even pull them up over my ‘womanly’ hips.
So here I was. Naughty Nurse Nancy catching a few rays. I was getting a bit itchy. And the top half – complete with a blue cross on the chest, presumably to show I was a medical professional – was rather too tight for comfort as well.
Still, I was caring less and less about that, and pretty much everything else, by the minute. The combination of sun, alcohol and hysteria was sluicing around to make me feel quite merry.
Before long I’d be up and dancing, leading a conga round the pool and flashing my matronly breasts at the waiters. Believe me, it had happened before. A few decades ago, to be fair, when my breasts were a lot more perky and the waiters a lot more interested. If I did a topless conga now I’d be in danger of breaking my own kneecaps.
I closed my eyes, loving the sensation of heat on my face. I listened to the lapping of the water as the tide crept in, and the occasional high-class horsey tones of the Sloane Ranger sailing instructors further along the shore. I was finally starting to relax, and wished very hard for another drink to magically appear next to me so I wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet back to the bar.
‘You look like you could do with one of these,’ a woman’s voice said, jolting me back to reality as she sat down on the lounger next to me. There were probably many things I looked like I could do with right then, including a mental-health assessment and a whole new wardrobe, but blessedly she was bearing a long tall glass clinking with ice and lime.
‘Mehmet at the bar said you were on G&T. And possibly also some type of magic mushroom, but he was out of stock. I’m Allie, by the way. Allie Garrity.’
Allie was long and slim, maybe in her late forties, but clearly very fit and active. She had those lean yoga muscles in her arms and legs that went on for ever. Her hair was curly and cropped close to her head, and her gorgeous green eyes crinkled all around the edges as she smiled.
‘Oh thanks! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that!’ I said, almost salivating as I took the chill-frosted glass from her. ‘Not that I’m an alcoholic or anything…but it’s been the day from hell.’
‘I thought so, from the amount you were drinking, and what you’re wearing,’ she replied, stretching out and turning on her side to face me, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand.
‘Or maybe you always walk round half cut and dressed for an orgy – I’m not one to judge. It’s caused quite a stir among the menfolk, though. My husband Mike’s had to retire to his room for a cold shower. Men and their penises – show them a busty nurse and they all want to cry matron…’
‘Oh my God,’ I muttered, taking a quick restorative gulp of my drink. What a way to start my first holiday as a single mum.
‘I don’t know quite how to explain this,’ I said, ‘and it sounds ridiculous considering what I’m wearing, but this was the best I had. I got my suitcases mixed up. I’ve spoken to the airline and they’ve found mine, but it won’t be here till tomorrow. All I had to wear was a really thick fleece and jeans, sticky and icky beyond belief. And you wouldn’t believe the stuff that was in that case. Pervert’s paradise.
‘My other choices included a rubber dominatrix costume and a French maid thing I thought wasn’t too bad, until I saw the six-inch black dildo in the front. I tried to pull it off but it wouldn’t budge…but, well, yeah…with hindsight maybe I should have just used a bath towel, or done something less noticeable like come down stark naked doing the hand jive…’
Allie was quiet for a few moments. She was busy wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, and snorting with hilarity. Sister Slut, stand-up comedian.
Once she’d stopped shaking with mirth, she said: ‘Look, under the circumstances you probably made the right choice, and I’m sure it’ll all seem hilarious one day. A crowd of us have been coming here for the last few years so I know a load of people. I’ll ask around. You won’t have to wear that all day, don’t worry. Although the dildo thing could be fun in the buffet queue, I have to say…Where’s the rest of your group, anyway? Is your hubbie hiding upstairs wearing arseless lederhosen and nipple tassels?’
‘No, although spookily enough, I think both those items are up there somewhere if you want to borrow them later. It was only my stuff that went missing,’ I said. ‘And, as for the rest of my group, well, that’s another story. But as I had practically a whole bottle of gin in that last drink, I might as well tell you – my husband isn’t here. He’s fallen madly in love with a Latvian lap-dancer who’s only three years older than our daughter. They’re shacked up in what the papers would call a “love nest”, three miles away from where we live, presumably having nonstop sex. The bastards.
‘So tell the other women to lock up their menfolk, I’m here unchaperoned. I’m not technically on my own, but my kids are both teenagers, so I might as well be.’
‘Yep, I know just what you mean,’ she replied, seeming to take my tale of woe in her stride. Maybe this kind of thing was the norm where she came from. Maybe she was a marriage guidance counsellor. Maybe she was secretly shitfaced and hadn’t taken in a word I’d said.
‘Teenagers are like that,’ she said. ‘Mine’s one of the good guys in private, but he still cringes every time I walk into the room, especially if he’s with a girl he wants to impress – which seems to be all of them.
‘I’m here with my husband,’ she went on, ‘the aforementioned Mike, and Max. He’s seventeen, and if you keep that thing on, he’ll probably try and seduce you with the first instalment of his six pack. He’s very proud of it.
‘But for a while I was on my own with him, so I know exactly how you feel. It’s weird, isn’t it? We split up when Max was twelve and I did the single-mum thing. Holidays are tough. It feels like you’ve sprouted two heads when you sit down for dinner and everyone else is in couples.’
‘So what happened? Is this your second marriage?’ I asked. We’d probably have swapped entire life stories by the time we finished our first drink together. It’s a woman thing. Men can see each other in the same pub every night for thirty years and find out nothing more than what football club they support.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘second marriage, but to the same man. He saw the error of his wandering ways, and I still loved him. So we gave it another go; got married again the day after the decree absolute came through. Sometimes they need to know what they’re losing before they realise how much they want it.’
That, of course, was only true if the man in question wasn’t besotted with another woman. I didn’t know if Simon would ever realise what he’d lost. At the moment he didn’t seem to think he’d lost anything at all, other than a millstone round his neck. A burden of guilt that he was trying to carry: sending me odd enquiring texts, checking up on me, attempting to be mature despite his immature actions.
‘But enough of all that, we’re on holiday!’ she said, seeing Mrs Glum take over my face. ‘Try and forget all about your husband for a couple of weeks. Auntie Allie and her friends will look after you. You’re not the only single parent here – you’ll meet James later; he’s been coming with his son on his own for years, and they love it. Max will help your kids settle in as well. He knows the place inside out. I think this year he’s hoping to add a few more bars and clubs to his repertoire, though.’
She grimaced slightly with the last sentence – but in a mock-rueful way that showed she wasn’t really stressed at all. I, on the other hand, was. If Lucy decided to discover the local bars, I’d have to learn the Turkish for ‘how much is the bail?’ fairly quickly.
‘Oh God no – tell him to leave my daughter well alone, she won’t appreciate it. She treats people who are nice like they have leprosy,’ I said. ‘I don’t even defend her any more, and I gave birth to her. For a while I hoped it was just a phase, but I suspect it may actually be her personality.’
I could tell Allie wanted to protest, and declare her heartfelt belief that Lucy couldn’t be all that bad – but we were spared my hysterical laughter by the sound of merriment approaching from the shore.
The noise level increased tenfold, as a miniature fleet of bright yellow kayaks headed in and beached right in front of us. It was a gang of kids and nannies, all dressed as pirates, with painted-on moustaches and colourful headdresses made of soggy cardboard.
An angelic-looking boy of about six or seven spotted Allie and ran over to her. He jumped on to her lap, soaking her to the skin and smudging black paint from his fake eye-patch on to her bikini top. She rubbed his halo of wild blond curls and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead.
‘Wassup, Jake?’ she asked, wiping some of the black goo out of his eyes with her fingertips.
‘That’s Pirate Captain Jake to you!’ he shouted, leaping back down on to his bare feet and jigging about.
He looked me over with his big blue eyes.
‘Who is this lady and why’s she dressed so weird?’ he asked Allie, his voice slipping out of his fake pirate lingo and into his own soft Irish accent.
‘I’m Sally, and I’m a special pirate nurse,’ I said, raising my eyebrows in what I hoped was a roguish fashion, but might have been more tipsy pantomime dame leering at Prince Charming in his tights.
‘Well, the nurse at my school doesn’t dress like that,’ he answered.
‘But she’s not a pirate nurse. Bet she’s just a landlubber who puts plasters on your knee and checks your hair for nits, isn’t she?’
He thought about it.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘so…if you’re a pirate nurse, are you wearing those plastic clothes because they’re waterproof?’
I nodded – it was a better explanation than the real one, that’s for sure.
‘And because it’s much easier to get all the blood off after a battle. It gets really messy when you have to chop off a leg or sew an ear back on. The worst is when eyeballs pop out, but at least if I’m wearing this, they just bounce straight off and I can catch them.’
He giggled a bit at the slightly scary references to gore and guts.
‘That skirt is too short, though,’ he said. ‘You’d get blood on your knees. My daddy likes ladies in short skirts. He says it’s very kind of them to let other people look at their legs in the summer, especially grumpy old men like him. One time last week in the shops there was this lady wearing a skirt a bit like yours, but with pointy white shoes that made her really tall, and he pushed our trolley right into a shelf of beans and they all fell off. He was really embarrassed and we pretended we wanted all the cans of beans in the trolley, even though I don’t even like them—’
‘Pirate Jake!’ bellowed one of the pert blonde nannies. ‘It’s time to put away your paddle and get your ice cream!’
He whirled round to give me and Allie a final stab with his stick sword, then galloped off.
Hmmm. His dad was clearly an old lech, I thought, staring at hapless womenfolk in the shops. I made a mental note to avoid Jake’s dad for the entirety of the holiday – an extra dose of sex maniac was something I could live without. Sex maniacs were at the heart of all my current problems.
His son, though, was a real cutie. It didn’t seem so long ago that Lucy and Ollie were that age, so responsive and playful. These days they’d sell me into white slavery for a £20 iTunes gift card.
I’d been down here for over an hour, and had no idea what they were up to. I nervously did a quick check over my shoulder. The hotel looked peaceful. Its whitewashed walls were still standing. No smoke, no sirens, nobody running out of the building screaming and looking for holy water.
They must still be in their rooms, then.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_da8e443d-9df9-5f5f-8f4b-d369c6c38038)
Allie took us both off to the restaurant for lunch, steering us towards a table for four. A waiter held a bottle of water for us, opening it with as much aplomb as you would a vintage Bollinger.
‘That’s Adnan, the head waiter,’ said Allie, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially as he left, ‘he’s got twelve kids…that he knows of.’
‘Bloody hell!’
Our scurrilous gossip was interrupted by the arrival of an elderly lady, who stopped at our table and greeted Allie enthusiastically. She was so short and round that she could have passed as a garden gnome. A garden gnome who’d been kicked out of Gnomeland for having terrible dress sense and making the other gnomes look bad.
Head to toe she was dressed in a shade of pink so vivid I could feel it burning holes in my retinas. Her dimpled knees were peeking out beneath the hem of her shorts, and her freakishly small feet were encased in pink socks and pink trainers.
Little Miss Pink’s hair was short and snowy white, tightly permed around a tanned and deeply wrinkled face.
‘My, my, my! What an interesting outfit you have on, my dear!’ she said, in a delicate Scottish accent. Yes, well. She had a point. So much for critiquing her look.
‘Miss McTavish!’ exclaimed Allie. ‘Come and join us for lunch – this is Sally. She’s just arrived and she’s here with her kids.’
‘Och, no husband?’ she asked, as she sat down. Her plump pink derrière spilled over both sides of the chair until it was completely subsumed. It looked like she was floating unaided in front of the table, like a levitating pink blancmange.
‘Dressed laike that and unchaperoned? How very adventurous of you, Sally! I like your style already – you’ll have to tell me how you get on with all these fit young hunks!’
She chuckled disturbingly as she helped herself to a breadstick, inserted it into her puckered mouth and started to suck on it. I closed my eyes for a second and hoped the image would go away one day.
I wasn’t here for fit young hunks, or overheated body parts, or sharing sex tips with the Incredible Glowing Granny. Admittedly from the looks of things she had a better love life than I did, but that applied just as well to Trappist monks who’d taken vows of celibacy. I’d given up on men. I was going to turn into a sexless old woman who wore beige cardigans and got her kicks from walking really slowly over zebra crossings.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Miss McTavish, but there won’t be any of that going on. I’ll be living like a nun for the next two weeks.’
‘Now then, that would be an entirely different costume, wouldn’t it? Maybe a spot of leather for that one, with a matching rosary for whipping naughty bottoms?’ she said, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.
Allie and I stared at her, rendered speechless, as she continued to fellate her breadstick.
‘But if you’re sticking to the quiet life, dearie, won’t you be a wee bit lonely?’ she asked, when we didn’t respond.
It was a semi-serious question, and not one I was prepared to answer honestly. Because yes, I was lonely. And more than a wee bit. I felt it every time I looked at a couple holding hands. I felt it every time I saw a couple bickering. I felt it every time I saw some harassed-looking bloke putting the bins out, and every time I woke up in the morning and every time I went to sleep at night.
I felt it pretty much all of the time, in fact, which I didn’t even want to admit to myself. I’d been married to the same man for seventeen years and had fully expected that to continue until one of us popped our clogs. I was so lonely I might sink in a sea of despair if I even let myself acknowledge it. I was functioning purely on autopilot, and flying straight into turbulence.
‘Of course not,’ I lied, ‘I’ll be too busy to be lonely, and I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with my children.’
Assuming they’d had personality transplants, I added silently.
Right on cue I saw Ollie and Lucy walking towards the restaurant. The need for sustenance must have driven them out into the wild to hunt.
Ollie was wearing those surfer shorts I hadn’t been able to fit into earlier. They hung so low on his bony hips you could see the waistband of his almost-as-low boxers peeping out.
Lucy was in a black bikini top and black shorts. Her dyed hair was swinging loose on her shoulders and most of her face was hidden by huge dark sunglasses. I knew she’d be coated in factor 50 to maintain the ghostly white skin tone she was aiming for.
‘Lucy! Ollie!’ I shouted, standing up and waving my arms frantically.
Ollie grinned and waved back, meandering between the tables towards us. Lucy paused to think about it for a second then followed. She stopped a few feet behind him, facing in the opposite direction to avoid any meaningful social interaction.
‘Hello, darling!’ I said, hugging Ollie tightly to me and holding on so hard he couldn’t pull away. I was totally over-egging the pudding to show Nympho Gnome that, far from being lonely, I was in fact a woman cherished and adored and held precious at the heart of a loving family unit.
‘Do you two want to join us for lunch?’ I asked, praying furiously to whichever god would listen that they needed cash – the only possible reason Lucy would give me the time of day. There was usually a sliding scale of civility depending on how much she needed.
Seconds after the words tumbled out I remembered that Simon had bunged them both a small fortune in guilt money before we left. They probably had more spare cash than I did. I could almost hear the coffin lid slamming shut on my fantasy image of normal family life.
Lucy swivelled her head slowly towards me, propping her shades up on to her hair and staring at me with narrowed, reptilian eyes. She looked like one of those Velociraptors that eats everyone in Jurassic Park. I stayed very still and hoped she wouldn’t hone in on my heat signature.
‘Why the fuck would I want to do that, Nurse Nancy? Does it look like I’ve suffered brain damage in the last hour? Why don’t you give me a real holiday treat, and not speak to me for the next two fucking weeks, all right?’
Chapter 8 (#ulink_c70affde-c9ab-5f79-96ca-4cdc3464386a)
Following that latest in a long line of humiliations, I retreated to the pool. I was getting used to the feeling now. So my daughter disowned me in public? No big deal. I’d been through worse in the last few weeks and the party wasn’t even over yet.
I probably had a divorce to look forward to, or Simon announcing he was becoming the father of Latvia’s first ever naturally conceived sextuplets. I could picture him now, earnestly discussing his amazing virility on Eastern Europe’s version of Richard and Judy. I was so punch drunk, I didn’t even react when Lucy delivered one of her southpaw specials.
Reverting to my usual coping mechanism, I’d taken a small plate of treats from the lunch buffet to console me. Turkish delight. Yum. That was definitely going to help me lose the extra few pounds I’d gained. Despite the self-loathing, I still couldn’t stop myself eating it. Food had been my only consolation since Simon left, and even though I could see the damage I was doing, I couldn’t stop it. It was as though the carefully contained misery needed to leak out somewhere.
Allie followed over a few minutes later, carrying another round of drinks and apologising for Miss McTavish and her verbal probing, which had continued throughout lunch. I was counting myself lucky the probing was only verbal.
She’d covered such scintillating topics as the places sand could get if you had sex on the beach; the merits of photographing your own vagina, and the shocking price of property in Edinburgh these days. I must admit I did have to raise an eyebrow at the cost of a two-bedroomed flat in the New Town.
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said to Allie, ‘she’s not your responsibility. I attract nutters wherever I go. She seems so out of place here, though.’
‘Yep, I know what you mean,’ Allie replied. ‘No kids, no apparent interest in water sports – not that I’d dare say that word around her; who knows what it might unleash? All we know is that she’s a writer, and says she finds being on holiday helpful for her research. Within minutes of meeting us, she’d found out that Mike’s had the snip, and asked him if it’s affected his orgasms. As if! He’s just thrilled to be getting any!’
‘And how did he react to that question?’ I replied.
‘With relish. That man never misses an opportunity to pretend he’s Sid James in a Carry On movie. Bizarrely, it’s one of the things I love most about him.’
We settled down into two sun loungers near the pool. A pool that Nurse Nancy could definitely not enter – my plastic might shrivel up. Allie saw my wistful expression and made a sympathetic clucking noise. She stood up with such purpose, I thought she might just say ‘Alakazam’ and a nice bikini would appear.
Instead, she waved over to a nearby sunbathing couple, motioning for them to join us. She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted to another pair on the far side of the pool, who dutifully came over.
Before long, a small coterie of strangers had been assembled around my lounger. They stood smiling down, casting so much communal shadow over me the sun was momentarily eclipsed.
I sat up as straight as I could, almost dropping the plate of Turkish delight on to the concrete. I was sure they came in peace, but the thought crossed my mind that they could also be a lynch party out to tar and feather me under the little-known Obscene Outfits (While Abroad) Act.
‘You see?’ said Allie, waggling her fingers at me in a ‘look, I told you so’ gesture. ‘She can’t wear this all day, can she?’
‘Oh my God no!’ shrieked one of the men, dropping dramatically to his knees by my side, reaching out to finger the PVC hem in distaste.
He was wearing a salmon-pink sarong that not even David Beckham could have carried off. His hair was a suspiciously even shade of black, and his nails were beautifully manicured. Plus, as he continued to bemoan the state of my ‘non-semble’, as he called it, he displayed about as much subtlety as an am-dram performance of Guys and Dolls. Big flaming queen, anyone?
An exceptionally tall older woman with long, wild, steel-grey hair stepped forward. She was grandly preceded by a very large pair of breasts attempting to escape from two scraps of leopard print masquerading as a bikini.
‘Rick! Give her some space, for goodness’ sake – and stop stroking that plastic, you don’t know where it’s been!’ she said. Charming.
I stood up and introduced myself, with a bright smile and as much enthusiasm as I could muster.
‘Nice to meet you, Sally,’ said the woman with the enormous knockers. ‘I’m Marcia, and this is my husband, Rick.’
Even from a foot away, she smelled so much like a brewery that she should have had a ‘highly flammable’ sticker on her forehead.
It took a second for what she’d said to register. I might have been rendered momentarily unconscious by the second-hand alcohol fumes partying along with my own.
Did she really say ‘husband’? Big pause for thought at that one – Rick was about as straight as Freddie Mercury, and only slightly less flamboyant. Marcia looked a bit older than him, and certainly plucked her eyebrows a lot less than he did, but she was all woman.
I wondered how a marriage like that could work, but ‘better than mine’ was the only answer I came up with.
‘Hi, I’m Jenny, lovely to meet you,’ said the other woman, a sporty-looking brunette in her late twenties, giving me a hearty handshake and a radiant smile. ‘And this is Ian,’ she added, gesturing to the buff-looking young man at her side. Ian was trying very hard not to stare at my now-sweaty cleavage, bless him. What a gent.
‘Between us, Sally, we’ll be able to find you some decent clothes to wear until your suitcase turns up,’ said Allie, ‘so just rest easy. Have another drink, chill out, and we’ll all go off to our rooms to dig something up for you.’
‘Yes, darling,’ said Rick, giving me an air-kiss on each cheek and rubbing my shoulders reassuringly, ‘don’t worry about a thing – I’ll have something perfect for you!’
Chapter 9 (#ulink_00fbf745-1f4b-58ed-9968-1cb1b06087d8)
After they’d gone, I settled back down to enjoy the sun.
I felt some of the tension ease away once I was alone again. Facing all those people at once had been scary. Even without Nurse Nancy’s assistance, I would have found it daunting. I wasn’t sure I liked me very much any more; I was so pathetic – whatever confidence I once had was nowhere to be seen these days. Getting dumped for a woman half your age will do that to you.
Now, I was just a scaredy-cat single parent to two alien beings who wouldn’t even notice my dead body unless it was blocking the fridge door. Meanwhile Simon was romping his way through his midlife crisis and overdosing on presumably world-rocking sex.
Our sex life had been nowhere near world-rocking. In fact, woolly mammoths roamed the earth the last time my world so much as budged an inch. When he stopped even trying (because he was getting it elsewhere, I now realised), it had been a relief.
I could stop pretending to be asleep when he came to bed, and enjoy a rest on the wifely duties front. Now I was more than resting, I was facing eternal celibacy – which suited me just fine. At least that’s what I kept telling myself – apart from in those moments at three a.m., when I was lying alone awake in bed and wishing my missing husband was there with me.
I’d noticed as I sat there baking and pondering my lack of sex life that a few more children were starting to appear in and around the pool – some escorted by nannies; some in chattering packs of their own.
Pirate Jake, my friend from earlier, was licking the very last yum of ice cream from a cone and balancing on his left leg like a stork.
I was considering whether to call him over when I heard the sound of running footsteps pounding behind me. A man dashed straight through the gap between my sun lounger and the one next door, moving so quickly he was a blur of fast-moving arms, legs and, luckily I supposed, swimming trunks.
The whirling dervish continued to the pool’s edge, where he scooped up Jake in both arms and tucked him into his tummy, yelling ‘Geronimo!’ His momentum carried them both a couple of feet up into the air before gravity plunged them down into the water, the cone flying out of Jake’s hand.
I watched the whirlpool they’d created when they went in, waiting for them to emerge again. After a couple of seconds they both bobbed back up, shaking their heads like wet dogs and screeching with laughter. Jake was holding on to his father’s neck tightly enough to asphyxiate him.
They carried on playing for a while longer, splashing along to the other end of the pool Nemo-style, like father-and-son fishes.
After a lively ten minutes or so, they caroused their way back down to my end and climbed out – not even using the steps. I’m always jealous of people who can get out of pools without using the steps. When I try I look like a whale humping the side wall.
Jake grabbed his dad’s hand and started walking him over to the bar, jumping up and down with excitement. He spotted me as they approached the sun loungers, and veered over, tugging his dad behind.
‘Ahoy there, shipmate!’ I said, saluting him sailor-style. ‘How goes it?’
‘I’m not a pirate any more, silly!’ he said, as though I was the dumbest person who ever walked the earth. He must have been conferring with Lucy.
‘Dad! This is that lady I told you about – the one with the really short dress made out of raincoats!’
Oh good. More humiliation – and doled out by a tiddler, at that. I put my game face on and smiled up at superdad, getting my first proper look at him.
He was about six foot tall, maybe a shade under. His hair was slick with water, but I thought he’d dry out to be blond. Striking blue eyes, the same shade as the cloudless Turkish sky. A strong jawline. A nose that looked as if it might have been involved in a rugby match or two when it was younger.
He was my age, possibly older, but had obviously looked after himself a lot better than I had. Broad, powerful-looking shoulders, with a perfectly defined musculature. Not an ounce of fat on a torso that wasn’t quite at superhuman six-pack level, but was way better than anything I’d ever seen in real life before.
His arms looked strong enough to pick a woman up, throw her over his shoulder, and take her back to his cave for a quickie without breaking a sweat. Even if the woman in question had been intimately involved with a box of Ferrero Rocher for the last month.
I reminded myself that this was the latest in a long list of sex maniacs in my life, and that I was to avoid him at all costs. Allie had described him as a single dad – which probably meant he’d left Jake’s mum for a younger model at some point, like they all seem to do. I mentally painted a skull and crossbones over his perfect chest. Beware. Toxic.
‘Hi,’ he said, returning my smile, ‘I’m James Carver. Jake was just telling me about you. Sorry if he went on about me liking short skirts a lot – I must have sounded like a dirty old man…’
He had the same trace of Dublin in his voice as Jake. But on him, it was so sexy; he should have had his own late-night radio show for sad, lonely women to listen to.
It made me feel a bit wriggly. Which in turn made me feel a bit annoyed with myself.
‘I’m sure you’re not,’ I replied, thinking exactly the opposite. He was looking at me a bit too closely for comfort, which was fair enough under the circumstances. I resisted the urge to cover myself up with my hands.
‘I’m Sally,’ I added belatedly. I was too well trained to be outwardly rude.
‘Nice to meet you, Sally,’ he said, as Jake started to tug on his hand to pull him away again, bored by the grown-ups’ strange social etiquette.
‘Come on now, Dad!’ he said. ‘You can talk to her later. You need to get me a juice right now or I am going to shrivel up and die like a salty slug!’
‘Okay, okay, I’m coming…’ James said, following him. He turned back as he was leaving, and gave me a killer grin. Good Lord, the man was perfect – it was against all the rules of nature. Where were the missing teeth or turned eyes that usually evened these things out?
‘Looks like my presence is required elsewhere – let me buy you a drink later. Love the outfit, by the way,’ he said.
Ha. I bet he did. I was living out every juvenile male fantasy on the planet, with the help of Mr and Mrs Smith from Solihull.
Despite my mental repulsion, I felt a little answering throb going on in Nurse Nancy’s private parts. My libido, making a guest appearance at the most inappropriate of times.
I gestured to the waiter for another drink. James Carver might look like sex in Speedos, but he was, undeniably, male. And therefore a complete bastard.
Chapter 10 (#ulink_5e2209c3-2ad7-5f79-b70f-c97395a80fed)
‘I’m so fucking hot!’ said Lucy, fanning herself with the Complete Works of Sylvia Plath.
‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’ answered Ollie as he buttered his toast. ‘Come and blow on you?’
‘No, I expect you to shut the fuck up and die, you stupid little shit,’ she said, throwing her knife at his head like a spear. He swatted it aside with his hand so it clattered to the floor, then gave her what I think our American cousins refer to as ‘the finger’.
Breakfast time with the Summers family.
At least they were sitting with me this morning – though, as the minutes ticked by, I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. It was like breakfasting on the Gaza Strip. I’d made a deal with them that they had to sit with me for at least one meal a day, so I could check they were alive and I could at least pretend I was relevant to their existence. Now, I was starting to regret it.
We were all a bit tired and crotchety after a busy day and a late night. I thought Ollie and Lucy might come to blows, and I was downing coffee like it was the elixir of youth.
Lucy had eaten alone at dinner, on the opposite side of the restaurant, reading something far more highbrow than the two-week-old Hello! magazine I’d scrounged.
Afterwards she took herself off to the beach with her book. I occasionally did a sneaky check on her, hiding behind bushes like an undercover agent on a surveillance mission.
She did nothing more extreme than strain her eyes to read by the light of the lanterns strung up on the jetty. Every now and then I’d see the flare of her lighter as she lit up one of the cigarettes she thought I didn’t know about.
I’m sure I won’t win any mother-of-the-year awards for turning a blind eye to that, but life hadn’t exactly treated Lucy kindly recently, and I didn’t have the heart to tackle her. She seemed content, and it was the first time I’d seen her still and quiet and not surgically attached to her phone for weeks.
She’d had the stress of doing her GCSEs, her dad leaving us, and on top of all that, the everyday horror of being a sixteen-year-old girl. Peaceful moments are few and far between. Plus, you know, she’s a Gothly creature of the night and all that – who am I to get in the way of her midnight mojo?
Ollie, as is his nature, had found friends almost immediately, despite being the king of geekdom. He ate with a big crowd of other teenagers, then disappeared off to play pool and table football for hours on end. He reappeared now and then to check up on me, which was sweet. My big scrawny baby thought he was the man of the house now.
True to their word, Allie and her friends had come up with a range of random clothes for me. None of them fitted properly, but I felt wonderful – even if I was wearing a pair of old running shorts and a T-shirt. Even a cotton-rich blend felt like heaven next to my skin after the day I’d had.
After dinner I’d joined Allie and the others for a drink. There was a pretty terrace, laid out with tables and chairs and lit with candles, which seemed to be at the heart of the social scene of the Blue Bay Hotel. The entire Wardrobe Rescue Squad was there, apart from the younger couple, Jenny and Ian, who had gone on a ‘moonlight cruise’ – shorthand for a bonk-fest, I was told.
I met Mike, Allie’s husband, who expressed his regret that I was no longer dressed as Nurse Nancy, but said the T-shirt was tight enough to make up for it. He was a stocky man in his fifties, with shaggy hair that couldn’t decide whether it was red or grey. He had a big belly laugh that rattled the glasses on the table and made his eyes disappear into his face. And, somehow, he could deliver lecherous lines without sounding lecherous, which was quite the gift.
Rick and Marcia were there, and they both looked amazing in very different ways. Marcia, still necking down the booze like Prohibition might be round the corner, had her thick grey hair tied in a long plait down her back. She was wearing a majestic peacock-blue maxi-dress that held her boobs up on a kind of shelf. They looked like a pair of ripe melons perched on silk. Every man in the vicinity was surreptitiously sneaking a peek, while trying hard to pretend they hadn’t even noticed.
Every man except Rick, that is. Perhaps because they were married, and Marcia’s melons lost their novelty value a long time ago. Or perhaps because he was too busy chatting to all the handsome young barmen.
And, of course, there was James. The Probably a Bastard, and Definitely a Player. Wearing a pair of just-tight-enough Levis that showed off his arse to perfection. Bet he hadn’t spent hours in his room, dislocating his neck to see if his bum looked too big. He was one of those comfy-in-their-own-skin people who always rubbed me up the wrong way. Just like Simon, in fact – so confident they’d probably not had a moment of self-doubt since they were six.
Still, the Levis did look excellent. A pair of well-used 501s, on the right backside, is one of the sexiest sights on earth. Perhaps it’s a generational thing. I grew up watching those TV ads with the gorgeous hunk taking his pants off in the launderette and I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered. He was probably an arrogant bastard as well.
As if the jeans weren’t enough of a shock to my system, his short-sleeved white shirt was showing off that golden tan and those yummy biceps. You could see them flexing every time he lifted his pint. I couldn’t understand why all the other women hadn’t fainted on the spot.
True to his word he did buy me a drink, and pulled a seat up by my side, but we didn’t get much time to talk. It was a group affair, with tables and chairs clustered together as everyone chattered away and started to catch up on what had happened in their lives over the last year. Births, deaths, marriages – a living tableau of newspaper small ads.
James gave me a running commentary on who was who and what was what, so I’d ‘feel like one of the gang’. I replied politely, trying not to encourage him. Just because I’d been dressed like a sex nurse when we first met didn’t mean I was easy.
Nothing about me was easy – especially not the strangely conflicting way I was feeling right then. One minute morose and wishing Simon was there with me; the next wondering what James would smell like if I leaned over and sniffed his neck. Confusing, yes. Easy? No.
Luckily for my blood pressure, he had to leave early to pick up Jake from the kids’ club. Everyone waved him off, with a chorus of ‘see you in the mornings’ and ‘sleep wells’ and similar comments. They all seemed so comfortable together – like lifelong friends, rather than people who met each other for two weeks on holiday.
Nobody seemed to think this was weird; the same groups of people had been coming to the Blue Bay for three – or in some cases four – holidays in a row, and were like an extended family who only saw each other once a year. I felt borderline jealous, and had to give myself a bit of a telling-off – these people shared friendship. Which was something I was capable of – even if Simon had dumped me, I could still be a friend. I just needed to try a bit harder. I was only one day in – I could do this.
As James walked away, I noticed two things: how nice his backside was still looking in those jeans, and Miss McTavish giving me the beady eye. I prayed to God she wasn’t about to ask me if I’d glanced at the crotch of his jeans to estimate bulge size. Which of course I had. Instead, she just gave me a wee wink and a little smile.
Maybe she was a mind-reader, or some kind of Scottish Dr Ruth-style sex guru. I should probably go to her for counselling. Lord knew, I needed it – why was I even noticing James’s backside in my current emotionally crippled state?
Maybe it was a rebound thing. Or perhaps my ego needed boosting after its recent battering, and James’s mildly flirtatious kindness was doing the trick, despite my best efforts to ignore him.
I couldn’t deny the fact that I fancied him, but I wasn’t going to act on it. It was way too soon for that kind of thing, and when I did act on it, it wasn’t going to be with a holiday lothario on the prowl for sex on the beach. He was gorgeous – but not for me. Even if he was sparking off some delicious feelings in places I’d forgotten existed.
I’d been fighting off complete breakdown since Simon left. My life consisted of either crying, or mindless tasks to distract me from the pain. The house had never been so clean, and the dog had started to hide in the broom cupboard when he saw me approaching with the lead. I’d assumed that that was it for me and men: game over.
My reaction to James suggested otherwise, but still…it would end in tears. Mine. Whatever was causing me to notice James – backside and the rest – was a momentary blip. I was barely holding myself together surrounded by all these new people; coming to terms with my new status as a singleton. Any more stress would be too much – I’d be like that donkey in Buckaroo! and do a complete flip-out.
No. I was middle-aged, free and single – surely a cause for celebration, I’d decided, reaching for the rosé and topping up my glass.
I got so busy celebrating, in fact, that I spent my first night in Turkey completely pickled. I’d woken up half an hour ago, still dressed and desperate for the loo. Now I was popping paracetamol with my croissants as the kids bickered across the table.
‘So, are you just going to lie on your fat arse all day and get shitfaced again?’ asked Lucy. Ollie, the traitor, laughed out loud.
‘Of course not!’ I said. ‘I’m getting stuck in to the activity programme today. And don’t talk to me like that.’
‘Yeah, right, whatever,’ she said, implying, ‘I know you’re lying’ and ‘I don’t give a fuck’ at the same time. ‘Maybe you’ll try some extreme sunbathing. Or the gin Olympics.’
‘No, come on, Luce, let’s go and sign up for something together now, it’ll be fun,’ I said, standing up and dusting myself down. Today’s ensemble was a very interesting combo of Jenny’s shorts, which were too tight, and Marcia’s bikini, which was slightly too big. Not haute couture, but circus clowns wouldn’t stop on the street to point and laugh either.
Lucy didn’t even bother to reply, so I walked off without her. I marched over to one of the reps, full of indignant outrage and determination to find the New Me.
‘Hi! How are you?’ said the rep – a scruffy-haired surfer dude with wide blue eyes and an accent like Prince William’s.
‘I’m keen,’ I said, ‘but I can’t do anything and I’m really unfit. What do you suggest?’
He laughed. As though he thought I was joking and I’d said something really funny.
‘I’m not joking,’ I said, just to be clear.
‘No, of course not,’ he replied, busying himself looking through the piles of papers and timetables on the desk.
‘What about windsurfing for beginners? That’s on this afternoon, should be a nice day for it as well.’
‘Yes, great, sign me up for that – what else? What about tomorrow?’
‘Ummm…tennis? There’s an assessment session first thing if you’re interested?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘put me down for that. Sally Summers. But I don’t need to bother with the assessment thingy. I’m rubbish, so put me in the lowest group possible. And have you got the times for yoga and Pilates and Boxercise there as well?’
Fully armed with notes, class times and a set of safety instructions which I’d never look at, I wandered back to our breakfast table, planning to wave them in Lucy’s face. I’d show her what a super-fit super-mum I really was.
When I got there Ollie had already left. He’d mentioned something about snorkelling earlier and said he’d see me for lunch.
Lucy, however, was still there – sitting with a terribly good-looking teenaged boy. He had beautiful brown hair that caught auburn glints in the sun, and gorgeous green eyes.
Sylvia Plath was lying forgotten on the table. Lucy’s iPod was no longer attached to her ears. She was listening to him, talking to him, and even issuing the occasional girlie giggle. I almost fainted from the shock.
‘Hi!’ I said as I joined them. Lucy gave me a look that made me feel about as welcome as raw sewage, but the junior hottie returned my smile and actually stood up to greet me. Good looks, and manners too. What on earth was he doing talking to Lucy?
‘Hi, you must be Sally,’ he said. ‘I’m Max – Allie and Mike’s son. I thought I’d come and see how Lucy was doing, and whether she fancied coming swimming with me later – if that’s all right with you, Sally?’
I was momentarily flummoxed by the thought of Lucy requiring my permission to do anything, and apparently so was she. ‘Yeah,’ she said quickly, ‘that sounds great! I love swimming. I’ll go and get changed and meet you back downstairs, okay?’
And off she went. She started running, then remembered her cool and slowed down to a saunter. I swear there was an extra waggle in her hips as she went, like she knew she was being watched.
Weird, weird, weird. Especially as she hadn’t been swimming of her own free will for the last two years.
Chapter 11 (#ulink_d58440bc-8d77-52c3-af3f-7833d14b6c6b)
Windsurfing wasn’t for another few hours, so I followed the extreme sunbathing route. I needed to rest now, in advance, as I’d be using up a lot of energy later on. Preventative napping – I’m sure it made perfect scientific sense.
Once I was creamed up, hydrated and reclining, the sun started to heat all the tension out of my bones, and I relaxed completely into a state of woozy wellbeing.
All I could hear was the gentle slapping of the water at the pool’s edge, occasional laughter floating up from the beach, and the low-pitched singing of the cicadas in the palm trees. The haunting sounds of the call to prayer from the local mosque echoed around for a minute or two, reminding me that I was somewhere really quite exotic.
Perfect.
So perfect, I may possibly have drifted off to sleep for a little while. Or ‘rested my eyes’, as my gran used to say when she nodded off in the armchair.
I jerked roughly awake when I heard Ollie shouting ‘Mum!’ in a tone that implied it wasn’t the first time. I leaped up, opening my eyes to be confronted by his plastic face inches from my nose.
He pulled off his snorkelling mask, laughing away at his little joke, and said: ‘You were dribbling. And mumbling,’ then did a running jump into the swimming pool.
I investigated my face for slobber, slapped on some more cream and turned over. I tan easily, but cooked on one side and not the other is never a good look.
I was just drifting off again when a feeling of discontent started to swirl around me. I knew Lucy was standing there before she said a word – I could sense her dark aura chilling the air.
I turned round, reluctantly, and looked up into the eye of the storm. Her black hair was wet and dripping round her shoulders. She seemed less tough without a coating of hairspray – like a tortoise without its shell.
Her stance, though, was pure street fighter. Hands on hips, glaring down at me.
‘Yes?’ I asked cautiously, racking my brain for something I’d done to annoy her recently. Other than breathe.
‘You know it’s all your fault I don’t fit in here, don’t you?’ she said, in a quietly furious voice. From bitter experience I knew she’d get louder and louder from this point onwards. I should have dispensed earplugs to all my fellow hotel guests as soon as we’d arrived, out of common courtesy.
‘Erm…if I just say yes, can we leave it there?’ I asked, hopefully.
‘I look like a freak,’ she said, as if I’d never spoken, pointing at her own hair and the thick black mascara that was clumping her eyelashes together.
‘I look like a freak and it’s all your fucking fault! What kind of mother helps her daughter dye her hair black? And wear the kind of clothes I wear?’
‘I don’t know, Lucy,’ I said, ‘a supportive one? And to be fair I did draw the line at that tattoo of a spider’s web you wanted for your birthday—’
‘Shut up!’ she shouted – at about fifty per cent capacity, I’d say.
‘You’re a fucking nightmare! I’m sixteen! I need something to rebel against, but no, you’re always too busy being Mrs Fucking Understanding Sympathetic Parent, aren’t you? It’s all “yes, dear, of course you can dye your hair”, “yes, dear, of course you can paint your room black”, “yes, dear, of course you can shoot up fucking heroin at the dinner table!”’
Cranked right up to seventy per cent now, and building to a big finale.
‘For God’s sake, what do I have to do in the madhouse you call our home to break the rules? Go teetotal or join the SAS? It’s a joke. You’re a joke. You’ve screwed up your own life and now you want to do the same to me! No wonder Dad left!’
She stomped off, flip-flops smacking angrily against the concrete as she headed back to our room. Time for a bit more Sylvia Plath, I suppose.
The woman lying on the next lounger was looking on in horror. She was far too polite to say anything, but her face was frozen somewhere to the south of shocked.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘My only consolation is she’ll be leaving home soon.’
I walked over to the pool’s edge and shouted Ollie over. ‘What’s wrong with Lucy?’ I asked.
‘Do you want a list?’ he answered. I put on my no-nonsense face and folded my arms in front of my chest.
‘Okay, okay…I don’t know. She went swimming with Max and then his mates came and it was no big deal but I think one of them might have called her Morticia.
‘Don’t see why that would bother her, she’d normally just break their arm, but I think it might be ’cause she likes Max so she flipped and got embarrassed. It’s girl stuff, Mum – I don’t understand girls. You should go talk to her.’
Yeah, right. Whatever, as Lucy might say. That was not going to happen. She’d said her piece. She currently hated me. I’d been here before, bought a shop-load of T-shirts, and knew she needed time to calm down before I went anywhere near her. A year or so should do it.
Instead, I walked to the bar. Allie was sitting there under an umbrella, her bare feet propped up on the chair opposite her, a paperback that looked to be about serial killers splayed across her lap.
She glanced up as I arrived, and cracked open one of her best smiles.
‘Trouble in paradise?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow and closing her book.
‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘You heard that, did you?’
‘Yes. Because I’m not deaf. Don’t let it get to you – she doesn’t mean it. She’s probably in her room regretting it right now.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ I said, looking yearningly at her cold bottle of Peroni. ‘That would be what a normal human being would do. Lucy, though, will be upstairs plotting evil acts that wouldn’t be out of place in that book you’re reading. But don’t worry – I’m used to it. And I met your Max earlier, Allie – how lovely is he?’
‘On a scale of one to ten,’ she said, smiling proudly, ‘he’s probably a twelve. But that’s what he’s like now – you should have met him when his dad first left, years ago. He was a monster. He was caught shoplifting bags of Wotsits from the corner shop; got into fights at school – the works. I felt so guilty – I knew it was all because of what we, the alleged grown-ups, were doing, messing with his poor little head. I suspect that’s something you understand.’
I pondered it and, while I did so, she kindly pushed her Peroni over and gestured for me to have a swig. True friendship.
‘I do,’ I eventually replied. ‘I do feel guilty. Even though it’s not me who had the affair, or me who walked out. Even though I’d be willing to try and make it work if he wanted to come home. Probably. But…well, it’s complicated, isn’t it? I didn’t walk out – but maybe I switched off. Maybe I didn’t give him what he needed. Maybe I didn’t notice how miserable he was, because I was so busy leading our perfect suburban middle-class life. Maybe it’s at least partly my fault.’
‘And maybe,’ said Allie, grinning across the table at me, ‘he’s actually just a complete wanker.’
‘That is also a distinct possibility,’ I answered, feeling laughter bubble up inside me.
I realised, as I drank my pilfered lager and laughed with my newfound pal, that it was the first time I’d felt genuinely amused, or even capable of anything approaching ‘fun’, for a very long time.
Perhaps the holiday magic was starting to work.
Chapter 12 (#ulink_d0f20497-e0bc-5004-9a20-a3b6b2a0686f)
Windsurfing looks really, really easy. I could see loads of people doing it – gliding effortlessly along in the choppy blue bay, like humans who’d been transformed into graceful swans.
All of which made it especially galling that, so far, the only technique I’d mastered was falling into the sea and coughing up litres of salt water. I couldn’t get enough balance to even stand up on the board, never mind heft the sail upright.
I wanted to give up and go for a little lie-down, but my instructor, Mo, was having none of it. Mo was about thirty and must have weighed in at a good seventeen stone, half of which was made up of ratty brown dreadlocks.
‘You can do it, Sally,’ he said, after my third drenching. ‘You’ll get it eventually and then there’ll be no stopping you. Concentrate. Don’t let it defeat you!’
I tried again. And again. All around me, there were giant splashes, occasional shouts of triumph, and the sound of sails whooshing down to hit the water. Clearly this was a class full of people who were probably also picked last for their netball team during PE lessons.
I took a deep breath, and tried once more. A miracle occurred – I got my sail up, and managed to keep it up, clinging hard to the handle. Okay, it might have been called something like the boom; I’d already forgotten the jargon. I don’t know how it happened – it was a complete fluke, like scoring a 147 in snooker when you’ve never picked up a stick before.
‘Mo! Look!’ I shouted, terrified I’d fall off again before my mentor could witness my moment of glory.
He was knee-deep in water, helping one of the other physical incompetents, but turned round to see what I was up to.
A broad grin split his round face in two, and he made a thumbs-up gesture with both hands. ‘Go for it, Sally! The bay’s your oyster!’
With hindsight I suspect he didn’t mean quite that. What he probably meant was ‘don’t go further than ten feet away from me under any circumstances, but I won’t bother saying it as you’re bound to fall off again any second now.’
I wasn’t listening anyway. I was too busy congratulating myself. I could do it! I could windsurf – and I was the first person in the beginners’ class to actually be up, up and away. Unbelievable. First actual laughter with Allie, now a physical triumph. Things were looking up.
It was probably the most self-satisfied I’d felt since I got through childbirth without an epidural. If only Simon could see me now. And Ollie and Lucy. Maybe I’d get a certificate, or a prize, or possibly some sort of championship jersey and a trophy…
I was gliding along, sun glinting from the sail as I went, cutting my way through the waves, moving the mast backwards and forwards to catch the breeze.
This is a piece of cake, I was thinking. I must be a natural – I’d found my sporting forte at long last. After being crap at everything from darts to horse-riding, I’d finally discovered something I could do. I was now anticipating further lessons back home, possibly competing at international level.
Pride, of course, is the traditional forerunner of a fall. Or, in my case, the onset of a panic attack. I realised, when the learners back on the shore started to look like tiny colourful ants, that I’d travelled quite a long way without really noticing what I was doing. It felt as if I was miles away. Halfway to the nearest Greek island at least.
Despite my obvious natural talent and the international windsurfing career that beckoned, I had one very big problem: I had absolutely no idea how to turn this thing around. I could head in only one direction – towards a watery death.
The instructors were back there, dealing with all the others crashing into each other and almost drowning, and I was out here. On my own. Far, far away.
Would they send out a search party when it got to dinner and I didn’t show up? Would Lucy and Ollie notice I was gone at all until they needed their passports? How far away was the next Greek island anyway?
I made a few weedy attempts at twisting the sail around in the opposite direction, but that didn’t work. I dipped my foot in to use as a kind of rudder, but one size-five foot against the whole ocean wasn’t much use. My arms were getting tired. My legs were starting to feel like rubber. And I was so scared I thought I might wee my pants some time soon. Where was David Hasselhoff when you needed him?
I’d just decided to jump for it and try to swim my way back, somehow dragging the board with me, when I heard a shout coming from behind.
‘Sally! You okay? Can you tack?’
I recognised the voice straight away. James. Bloody typical. Of all the gin joints in all the world…I had to splutter into his. Drowners can’t be choosers, though, so I yelled back: ‘No! I can’t tack! I don’t even know what that is! Help! Send out a distress flare or call the coastguard or something!’
‘Just jump off,’ he yelled, ‘and swim to me – I’m not far behind you. Don’t panic – you’re going to be fine.’
Easy for him to say. He was probably an expert on tacking, whatever the hell that meant – and I was presuming at that stage it was nothing to do with dressmaking.
I jumped in, holding my nose, fighting back a surge of panic as I splashed down.
James was in a small white boat, leaning over the edge and holding out his hands to me. He had his lower body stretched out over to the other side for balance.
I doggie-paddled my way over, choking afresh each time a wave hit me in the face, until I was by the side. He grabbed hold of my hands and pulled me up. I landed in a wet, undignified heap in the middle of the boat, with what felt like a wedge of wood poking up between my bum cheeks.
‘Ouch!’ I shrieked, wanting to leap up but only capable of throwing myself forward on to all fours. James was sitting directly in front of me, trying not to laugh. He was wearing form-fitting cycling-type shorts, and a second-skin top that made his muscles look as if they’d been coated in shiny black paint. None of which made it easy to hate him.
‘Thanks,’ I said, perching myself on the opposite ledge. ‘I think you might have saved my life…or at least saved me a long swim. I kept going and going and I just couldn’t turn round…’
‘Tack,’ he said, ‘that’s what you do to turn. I’m impressed you made it this far on your first lesson, even if you did get stuck – most beginners just fall in for an hour.’
‘I know!’ I answered, wringing out my hair, ‘I’m made up with myself! Not sure I’ll be doing it again any time soon, though. I had a few minutes before you turned up when I was petrified. I don’t think a life on the ocean wave is for me really.’
As we spoke he was untying some rope, pushing a stick around, and doing something that made the sails move. As you can tell from my masterly use of the terminology, I am a sailing expert.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘I bet you could sail this. I could show you how.’
Yeah, I thought. And I bet it was like golf or tennis in the movies, and he’d have to put his arms round me in the process.
‘Erm…what is this anyway? A little yacht?’
‘This is a dinghy. Small enough to sail single-handed, but big enough for a few more if needs be. Jake loves them – next year he might even start going out on his own.’
Even a six-year-old was better at water sports than me. Why wasn’t I surprised?
‘Okay, well, good for him. I need a bit of a rest, though. Give me a few minutes to dry out and then maybe I’ll try. And what do we do about the gear?’
‘Don’t worry, they’ll nip out in the speedboat and collect it later. They’ll just be glad you’re back. I’d like to pretend I’m your knight in shining armour, but they’d have fetched you before long. So relax – take your few minutes,’ he said, a gentle smile curving those luscious lips. He went back to doing things with ropes and sticks and sails, and I did as I was told.
I stretched out my legs as far as I could, closed my eyes, and let the sun soak into my skin. It was so quiet out here. Serene, in fact, if all you had to do was act like a cat on a window ledge on a summer’s day.
We were both silent for a few minutes, and I could feel from the stable bobbing of the waves that we were staying put. Perhaps he was taken aback by my beauty and unable to move. More likely I was supposed to do something to help him.
‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you out on a bigger boat. Then you can bring a blanket and just stretch out in the sun all day like that…’
I opened my eyes sharply and looked at him. That sounded blissful – and dangerously flirtatious.
‘We could always take Jake if you need a chaperone,’ he said, a hint of challenge in his voice. ‘Anyway, come on, help me sail this little yacht back to shore – it’s easy,’ he said, before I had chance to answer.
He pointed at the stick. ‘This,’ he said, ‘controls the tiller. You use this to steer, and turn around. When you’re sailing a dinghy, you use your bodyweight as ballast, which is what stops it from capsizing. That bit there’s called the dagger board. You sat on it earlier. You can see the sails yourself, and they’re attached to the boom at the bottom. Watch out for it, if you don’t pay attention it can whack you on the head.’
Great. Another way to injure myself. I was obviously fated not to get to shore safe and sound.
He did some strange slow-motion action that involved him feeding the stick – sorry, the tiller – behind his back, pulling on the ropes, and moving from one side of the boat to the other. All of which he did with total ease, of course. Bet he was never picked last for the netball team.
He tried to make it simple, but I was distracted by a million and one things: exhaustion, stupidity, and the lazy curl of lust in my tummy as I watched him moving and listened to him speak.
‘Right – your turn,’ he said.
‘No. Sorry, but I’m knackered. I need you to be a knight in shining armour for a bit longer.’
‘Well, when you put it like that,’ he answered, laughing, ‘how could a man resist? I’m going to need you to move around when I tell you to, though, okay?’
As we made our way back, he mentioned that Jake’s mother took him sailing when he stayed with her for holidays. Hmm. That meant he had Jake full time, which wasn’t what I’d assumed…I’d assumed, in all honesty, that he was a weekend dad. Shagging his way through his middle-life crisis Monday to Friday, and going to McDonald’s on Saturday.
It sounded as though I’d been wrong. I hated that. Before I could find out any more, he moved quickly on to another subject.
He asked about Ollie, who he’d met that morning snorkelling, and about Lucy, who he hadn’t met and who I hoped he never would meet, for his sake. He didn’t ask about their father – showing me the same discretion he misguidedly expected himself. Probably, knowing how close these Blue Bay people were, Allie had already filled him in on the situation.
I was pleased if she had. It saved me having the whole conversation again – I was here to try and forget Simon for a while, or at least relieve the pressure of thinking about him twenty-four hours a day. I’d have been happy if she’d issued a press release about it, in fact, if it saved me having to describe my loveless state to anyone else.
Instead, we talked about Jake. About his school life. About Dublin. And, against my better judgement, I realised that I was starting to relax around him. Even enjoy his company. It was a mix of his obvious competence, his drool-inspiring voice, and the fact that he looked like a walking piece of erotica.
But I still knew that – no matter how attractive the packaging – he was a man. I was still an emotional wreck, and jumping into bed with someone really wasn’t going to help at this stage, no matter how well defined their abdominal muscles.
I could still enjoy window-shopping, though, I thought, stretching my arms up into a long, languid stretch and allowing myself a few naughty thoughts. I fear I might have even purred, or at the very least sighed.
‘Shit!’ he shouted, out of the blue.
I snapped to – he was sitting with his head in his hands, blood trickling from between his fingers. The boom was swinging, a matching patch of red shining in the sunlight.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said, clearly in pain. The wound was a few inches above his hairline; like most scalp cuts, it was bleeding like crazy. He tried to wipe some of the blood out of his eyes, smearing it over his forearm.
I moved across to take a look.
‘No!’ he said. ‘Stay there or we’ll go over. I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.’
He’d taken quite a bang, but didn’t seem on the verge of passing out or falling overboard. Which was lucky for us both; we’d have been floating adrift for eternity if it had been up to me to captain the ship.
‘I’ll get us back then I can sort this out. Can’t believe I got caught by the bloody boom,’ he said.
‘What happened?’
‘Erm, I got momentarily distracted,’ he said, nodding towards my chest. I looked down, having the awful feeling I knew exactly what I was going to see.
Yep. Two large brown boobs, enjoying the sunshine a lot more than they’d enjoyed Marcia’s bloody bikini.
Chapter 13 (#ulink_0cb14685-6af7-5cd7-8c77-a93efc94696e)
We splashed back to shore as soon as the boat was safe in the shallows.
‘Come on, up to my room,’ I said, taking his hand, ‘and don’t argue.’
‘Okay…but is this really the time?’ he asked, looking shocked as I led him along.
‘Oh shut up – your virtue’s safe. I’m not planning to seduce you, I just want to get a better look at that cut.’
We made our way up the stairs to my room, stopping to answer a few enquiries as we went. James’s inner macho man kicked into action. He stood there, looking as though he’d been slaughtering a pig, insisting there was nothing wrong. Men and their egos. A constant source of amazement to me.
‘Can I tell them what happened?’ he asked as we climbed the stairs.
‘Do, and I’ll kill you.’
‘Okay. But that’s not fair – I’d feel like less of an idiot if I could at least tell the blokes. One look at you and they’d all understand why I lost it…’
Even under the circumstances – gaping scalp wound, all my fault – a comment like that made my heart skip a beat. My bruised ego was lapping it up like double cream. Pathetic.
I unlocked the door, having first knocked on Lucy’s room to see if she was still around. No answer. She must be out sacrificing goats in the woods.
‘Come on in, ’scuse the mess,’ I said, leading the way. I went over to the windows to throw open the curtains, and turned back to tidy up the bed. I needn’t have bothered – a messy duvet was the last thing anyone would notice in this particular room.
‘Oh, the little cow,’ I said, stopping dead and gazing around in shock. My room had been transformed into Mr and Mrs Smith’s house of horrors – a showcase for their amazing Range of Rubber. Stupidly, I’d left the interconnecting door open at a time when I was number one on Lucy’s shit list. Served me right really.
Suck-Me-Dry Sally was fully inflated and propped up on my pillows, handcuffed to the wrought-iron headboard. She had Black Beauty between her plastic legs and was looking understandably shocked.
The butt plugs were lined up on the dresser in order of size, next to a giant jar of lubricant that said Slippery Dick on the label. Both my bedside cabinets had vibrators on them, as though I kept them there for night-time emergencies.
‘Interesting room you have here,’ James said, deadpan.
‘None of it’s mine,’ I snapped back. ‘It’s all from the suitcase that got swapped. My cow of a daughter has been in here doing this. And it looks like the cleaners have been, too, so they’ll have me down as a pervert for the rest of the holiday as well. I’d like to throttle her scrawny neck…’
‘I’m sure the cleaners will have seen it all before. And I won’t hold it against you – I was a teenager once myself; I know what they’re capable of.’
It was so the right reaction. Not a sign of the nudge-nudge wink-wink I’d expected, even with severe provocation. I pulled myself together and told him to sit on the bed. The man was dripping blood on to my carpet, for goodness’ sake – I could kill Lucy later.
I went to fetch my first-aid kit from the bathroom. I have the world’s best first-aid kit. Occupational hazard of being a mother, a teaching assistant, and an almost-doctor.
I held back his blood-clotted hair and examined the wound. I gently cleaned it with some warm water, and probed as softly as I could to see how deep it was. James sat stoically, wincing only slightly as I poked around.
‘You’ll live,’ I said. ‘It looks much worse than it is. I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but I’ll dress it and you’ll need to wear a very attractive bandage for the next day or so. Keep your head away from blunt objects, don’t swim for a while, and avoid salsa dancing because your balance might be off. If you feel sick or sleepy, let me know.’
I bustled around, getting gauze and a long strip of bandage, then stood in front of him, tilting his head slightly so I could work at a better angle.
‘You seem pretty good at all this – are you a nurse in real life as well as fancy dress?’
‘Nope,’ I said, trimming off some tape, ‘but once upon a time I was going to be a doctor. Lucy came along and it never happened. Can’t say I’d be much good at open-heart surgery, but the basics like this you never forget.’
‘Why don’t you go back and finish your training?’ he asked as I leaned in closer to apply pressure to the dressing.
I couldn’t answer for a few seconds. My bikini was still damp and the air-con was on full, giving me goosebumps. I could feel his warm breath on my breasts as he spoke. His lips were only a whisper away, and the unexpected heat on cool flesh was amazingly erotic. All I’d need to do was lean forward an inch or two…
It was an odd moment to feel turned on, but I was, and I was sure it was obvious. I was seriously considering seeking medical help for these inappropriate rushes of lust. I wasn’t usually like this. It could be early menopause.
I reminded myself to breathe, and to talk.
‘Well, that was a long time ago. Lucy’s sixteen now. My training is probably next to useless these days,’ I replied, feeling my hands tremble slightly as I secured the dressing and started to wrap the bandage.
My patient was quiet. All I could hear – and, deliciously, feel – was his breathing against my chest.
‘Am I hurting you?’ I asked, pulling away slightly to look at his face. His eyes were glazed and he was struggling to focus. Maybe he had concussion after all.
‘No, you’re not,’ he said, ‘and I’d probably wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t for the head injury…but even through that bikini, your nipples look exactly like the tops of Walnut Whips…’
Yikes. Time to get him out of my room right now, or I was going to have to carry out a full physical.
Chapter 14 (#ulink_b25ee273-da20-5c91-b3f5-5e4ec227dfda)
Breakfast on the Gaza Strip again. But that morning, there seemed to have been something of a ceasefire.
Ollie was chirpy as ever, his little round glasses perched on his nose, reading a book with a dragon on the cover. Lucy was uncharacteristically chatty. She’d been into town with Max and his friends the night before, giving me barely enough time to lecture her about the dangers of alcohol before she dashed off.
There was a lot of laughter and surreptitious shuffling about on the corridor outside before I finally heard the key turn in the lock. I considered bursting out to catch them in the act, but I didn’t really want to see my daughter with her tongue down someone’s throat. It’s like world poverty – you know it’s happening, but you don’t necessarily want to witness it up close.
She’d wisely kept herself scarce most of the day, knowing the longer she avoided me, the less angry I’d be about the pervert’s parade she’d ambushed me with. I’d spent a good half-hour packing it all up again ready for the airline people to collect, and was fairly sure a few smaller items had gone missing.
Still, seeing her smiling and laughing at breakfast made it impossible to stay mad. In fact, it had totally thrown me – that boy must be a heck of a kisser.
‘So anyway,’ she said, between bites of toast, ‘turns out that Max is really cool. I know he seems total surfer boy, but he’s read all The Walking Dead graphic novels, and runs an online forum on classic horror, and he’s really into The Smiths as well.’
‘Are you sure he’s not just gay?’ Ollie asked, peering up from his page.
‘Shut the fuck up, John Lennon,’ she answered, reassuringly. Glad to see that love hadn’t quite tamed the beast.
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