One In A Billion (17 page)

The school bus turned right at the crossroads, and headed towards their village. Alice couldn't remember it being this bad before, but maybe because she didn't take the bus home that often now, she'd just missed it.

What felt like the whole of the back four rows of the bus, perhaps the whole bus entirely, were on their feet and chanting. It took a while to tune into what they were saying, but when she did work out what it was, she was absolutely horrified.

She'd witnessed this happening before, but never on a scale like this. It was like an orchestra, or a football terrace, the vile, hateful ringleader Martin Jackson leading the chant.

'Fuck off gypsy, fuck off cunt. Fuck off home, you fucking runt.'

There were people of all ages joining in as though it were a game. When she turned around, she saw year sevens picking up the lyrics with no real idea of the meaning of them or the direction they were being sung in.

Toby sat with his head leaned against the window, staring through the rain smeared glass to the distant world outside. He didn't turn around, he didn't shout back, he didn't even make out that he could hear what they were saying, but Alice knew he was listening, and she knew how much he was hurting inside.

Toby was on the other side of the single decker bus to her, and slightly in front. He was sat on his own, because even if there were no others seats left on the bus apart from the one next to Toby, and the one next to the driver, no-one would ever sit next to Toby, for fear of being accused of being his friend. As the bus pulled into the village, and the singing group knew that soon they would lose the target of their persecution, they began to sing louder and throw things down the bus at Toby, by way of creating some kind of vicious climax to their horrible, hate filled build up. They threw anything they could find at him, which included crisp packets, balled up paper, rubber bands and a banana, which Alice saw smack him hard on the back of the head.

Toby still didn't turn around. The worst Alice had seen was a group of maybe three or four chanting at him for some of the journey about his ginger hair, but this must have been new, and seemed to be too fluid to not have been prepared in advance. Finally salvation arrived when the bus pulled up to their stop. Richard, Katy, Toby and Alice all got up to get off the bus, nobody saying  anything at all to each other. While Richard and Katy headed for home, Toby headed for the church and the woods beyond it. Alice knew exactly where he was going, and after she'd made sure the bus had pulled away - everyone waving and cheering at the dejected figure skulking away - Alice ran after him.

'Toby', she said, when she caught up with him.

'What do you want Alice?' Toby said.

'Do you mind if I walk with you for a while?'

'So you can make fun of me?' Toby said.

'No', Alice said, hurt he would think it. Hurt that it was right for him to do so.

He turned to her. They had both grown up. It was the first time that Alice really realised it. She put his hand on his arm and then took it away again. Toby was on the way to becoming a man, and she could tell he was going to be a good looking one. He was already broad across the shoulders, and strong in his arms and legs. His freckles looked like the milky way, and his eyes were just the right shade of blue that sparkled even though they were sad.

'Do you want to come and smoke a spliff', Toby said.

'Can I come and be with you while you smoke it?' Alice said.

'Ok', Toby said.

Alice hooked her arm into his, rested her head on his shoulder and together they walked up the dirt path that led past the church, across the fence with the red well underneath it, and towards the worn away tree house.

'I'm sorry', Alice said.

'It's ok', Toby said. 'I understand. You did what you had to do. It's ok, I forgive you.'

There, six years after he had first shown it to her, three years after they had become blood friends for ever, and a year after Alice had tried to give back the drawing Toby had done of them, which she now kept in a special place in her journal, they turned to each other, tree tops swaying in the distant breeze above, and the whole world going to fuck itself for all they cared, they kissed, a mesh of hot tongues and delicious plump wet lips, and both of them knew that the world would never be the same again.

Chapter 11

I couldn't believe what was happening. I kept having to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming (either that or have Devizes smack me quite candidly across the backside). Devizes. What an incredible man. Enough money to buy half the world if he wanted to, but he didn't have to give it to me if he did. Also, did I mention, he was an absolute tiger in the bedroom? I've never had sex quite like it. It was rampant, raw and extremely passionate, and Devizes made sure he gave me his all every time we bedded down, which happened to be quite often.

The plane landed on an Island called Caloo, which was the main island of a group of smaller islands, three of which Devizes owned outright, in waters that belonged to Polynesia. I had never, ever been further than the south of Spain before, so this was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was just outrageously beautiful. White sand beaches, palm trees swaying delicately in the breeze and crisp blue, non-polluted water you could see through right to the bottom, even from the aeroplane window.

Devizes was greeted like a celebrity at the airport, which was basically nothing more than a runway and a hut. He took out a wad of cash, handed over a huge amount to somebody who looked official (trousers instead of shorts), and we were let through. I didn't even have to show my passport.

From the airport, a car took us to the port, and from the port, we boarded an extravagantly big yacht, which looked completely out of place next to the dozen or so fishing boats that were tied up alongside it. I waved at the people who had stopped to watch us, mouths open like they couldn't believe what they were seeing, and then we cast off, another member of Devizes's staff at the helm, heading for one of his islands.

I hadn't said anything for a while, stunned into silence by what was going on and I think Devizes was getting a bit worried the whole thing had overwhelmed me into catatonic shock. To be honest, I wasn't far off.

'Are you alright Alice?' Devizes asked me.

'Mmmhmmm', I nodded.

'Would you like a drink?'

'Ok', I said.

Devizes smiled. 'You'll get used to it', he said. 'Pretty soon this'll seem normal to you.'

Nothing about this was normal. We'd flown through the day, and the stars were now beginning to come out around us, and I'd never seen anything as beautiful. The night sky in the southern hemisphere, from a yacht in the middle of the pacific ocean, looked like a direct satellite link up to heaven itself. Stars shone thick and fat, with a strength of light that lit up the water in front of us, and the island that was to be our home for the next few days. It had been cold in England, the country lining itself up for another dismal winter, yet here it was warm enough to wear a bikini if I wanted to. If I could have reached, I would have leaned off the side of the boat and put my hand in the water, just to make sure it was real.

Devizes and I watched the sun burn away across the horizon, and the moon take its place in the darkening sky.

'This is incredible', I said.

'We haven't even got there yet', Devizes said.

'Why are you doing this?' I asked.

'Oh Alice, not this question again.'

'Sorry', I said. 'It's just, obviously I've never been out with a billionaire before. I've never been taken on a private jet and flown into the middle of, wherever the hell we are, heaven?'

'Polynesia', Devizes said. 'It's like the closest you'll get to heaven on earth, trust me.'

From where we docked, the island looked massive. I'd kind of expected something smaller, even though I'd accounted for the fact that everything I expected Devizes to be able to do, I knew already he'd do ten times as big. Well, even this exceeded my exceeded expectations. For one, when someone tells you they own an island, you don't expect it to be populated. Well, this one was. It wasn't only populated, it was full of natives and tourists alike, industry and development. The tourists had built the hotels, and the natives worked in them. It seemed to be a system in symbiosis, although I couldn't help notice that what was obviously once a beautiful, secluded and quiet little island, was now filled with unnatural monuments, and had been modernised, or colonised perhaps is a better word. Sipping on my mojito, atop a luxury yacht when we arrived, this irony didn't escape me.

The island we had flown into had the airport, because of the length of the land, but this seemed to be much more developed. Later Devizes told me it was to do with exclusivity, and allowability. Basically because Devizes owned the island, he had allowed it to be developed. The Polynesian government owned Caloo, and wouldn't let anyone touch it. The islands that Devizes owned - this main one and two much, much smaller that couldn't be developed - were sold to him by an American oil magnate, who'd somehow negotiated the purchase of them from the Polynesian government in the 1950s.

It's a bit of a billionaire's playground', Devizes said.

'It's incredible', I said.

Nature had to give way for the hotels, their pools, the private villas and modernisation in general, but it had been done with a token attempt to fit into the surroundings of the island, and the natives (some of them at least) seemed to welcome the development with open arms.

I didn't know what to think. Part of me hated to see nature crushed by the modern world, and the other part of me knew the world couldn't avoid it.

This time we parked alongside several other yachts, some of them just as big as the one we were on, and again someone greeted us at the port. My head was spinning with what was going on. This morning I'd been at home in Blackheath, now I was here stepping out onto the sandy shore of a Polynesian island.

'It's a bit ghastly isn't it?' Devizes said, as our driver took us on the only road through the island, our destination already familiar to him.

I looked up at the line of restaurants that opened out onto the road, and sat at the bottom of a line of high class hotels. I imagined this was what Dubai looked like.

'It doesn't seem to fit', I said.

'We're on the other side of the island', Devizes said. 'Don't worry. This is where the port is, I wanted to show you both sides to see which you'd prefer. I have a private villa, but sometimes it gets a bit boring up there on your own. That's why I let them build this. It's kind of nice to have somewhere you can come and socialise. That and the fact that this alone brings me well over ten million pounds a year in profit.'

The driver took us away from the main strip and towards the centre of the island. Here, it was much more like I had expected. The stars shone above us and carved out the way, while the lights of the hotel disappeared in the distance like a dream upon waking. I leant my head on Devizes shoulder.

'How often do you come out here?' I asked.

'Whenever I have to get away', Devizes said. 'That's if I'm not working.'

The villa was almost as big as a hotel. It was bigger than the London flat he had, and was alone on this part of the island, far enough away from everything else not to be able to hear or see it. The driveway was long and illuminated on both sides by powerful lights. I was beginning to understand that Devizes didn't do things by halves. If he needed to light up a driveway, he'd do so with modern technology. If he needed to arrive on an island, he'd do so on a yacht rather than a fishing boat. If he was going to build something, he'd build the biggest thing possible even if he didn't need it. I guessed that was what having money was all about, it gave you the illusion of needing to have much more than you really did need.

The place was incredible. Ostentatious, but incredible. I couldn't help but be both excited and amazed. Again, someone greeted us - I was beginning to think that Devizes knew everyone on the island, perhaps even everyone in the world, although he didn't seem to know their names - and took us inside. I kid you not, the whole of the lower ground floor level had a glass floor through which you could see the water. Devizes had had a huge hole carved into the earth, into which the house sort of sat like a cork in a wine bottle, and lights dropped into the water to illuminate whatever might be swimming about beneath us, which happened to be a mixture of beautiful coloured tropical looking fish, manta rays and even the odd shark! Later he told me that the whole thing was an illusion, and although it was indeed the water beneath the island, he'd fenced it off with huge perspex sheets to create the desired effect. The fish I saw couldn't ever escape from their enclosure, even though he told me it was much bigger than anything else they would have experienced in captivity, and that they were protected from predators, and well looked after.

The house had everything you could ever dream of needing. Thirteen bedrooms (I told Devizes I wanted to try them all), fifteen bathrooms (thirteen en-suite and two extra, just in case), sauna, gym, spa, swimming pool, games room, bar, nightclub, cinema, bowling alley, observatory, library, huge office, and restaurant (I'm not even joking). The views from the balcony were incredible, as were the three hundred and sixty degree views from every one of the four towers he'd built to make the whole thing look like a castle. The only thing I thought it was missing was a British flag flying from the top.