All Inclusive (5 page)

Beth watched her daughter, sympathetic to her embarrassment but determined not to rescue her. She'd have to find her own way of joining in, or of not joining in. She wouldn't be short of things to do at the Mango Experience.

‘Can't beat this view, can you?' Ned leaned on the balcony rail and looked down at the beach, out towards the inky sea and across to the dark mound of
tiny Dragon Island, a few hundred yards offshore. Leafy fronds waved in the evening breeze each side of his head. ‘Even at night you get the sense of where you are in the world, all the scents of the hibiscus and the great palms waving about.'

He resembles David Attenborough on the lookout for a gorilla, peering through the leaves like that, Beth thought as she stowed her underwear into a drawer. This was a good thing, on balance. If this holiday was to rekindle a sex life that had, post-affair, understandably stalled, then it might help if she could think of him in terms of Man She Fancied rather than Bastard Who Cheated. She went to stand beside him and pushed the foliage out of the way.

‘It's all going off down at the bar,' she commented, watching shapes moving in the lamplight along past the pool. ‘Shame Val and Aubrey won't be here, though I'm not surprised, not after what happened in the archery class last year. And Cyn and Bradley won't be here either. Lesley says they're off somewhere else, for a family wedding. I'll miss them. Cyn was a right old queen bee but I liked her.'

Ned winced. His arm, which had been on its way towards settling comfortably round Beth's shoulders, drooped back to his side. He could feel his blood pressure going up a notch. At the airport, when Lesley had mentioned Cyn and Bradley's defection to the other side of the world he'd been this close to saying, ‘Oh I know about that, Cyn told me months ago.' That would have blown it. He'd sat on the plane gulping down a large gin and tonic and almost biting his tongue off at the thought of that particular near miss. He'd have to get the hang of being casual about them – they were likely to be mentioned a fair few times in the next couple of weeks.

‘I'll miss Brad, for the diving,' he managed to say now as he and Beth gazed out over the dark beach towards the pale lazy wash of the sleepy shore waves. That was safe enough, as well as true. Bradley had been an excellent dive-buddy, careful and cautious and reliable. Given the chance now, if he had any idea what had happened between Ned and his wife, he'd probably slice though Ned's air supply and leave him, as the Mafia would put it, to sleep with the fishes.

Not a bad room, for a single. Delilah had been half-expecting a sliver of a cell tacked onto the far end of a gloomy corridor and next to a noisy maintenance cupboard or the air-conditioning units. And the bathroom was ace, with a huge walk-in shower with chunky sky-blue tiles and a lush basin that looked like the kind of mad, uneven pottery one of her mum's hairy hippie friends would make. There were plenty of miniature toiletries, shampoo and body lotion and conditioner that smelled of coconut, the bottles handily inscribed ‘Cosmic Caribbean'. She'd be able to stash away a load to take home, they'd make great, free Christmas presents for her mates.

She flopped down on the bed – which was a high, four-posted small double and hung with muslin net – and spread her arms and legs out, like a long-limbed X. Above her the roof was sloping to a high point above the door and slatted with dark treacly wood. A brass ceiling fan hung, whirring gently. There wasn't going to be much of a view. Her window and balcony looked out towards the sea but in the way of the beach was the building with the smart seafront rooms, in one of which were her parents. She didn't at all mind being a block away from them. She could be anyone she wanted, up here on her own.

She closed her eyes and drifted off into a fantasy in which she was there as a refugee, to hide, running from . . . what? Oh, of course, yes – the favourite one: running from the world's press, every tabloid on the planet in rabid pursuit of the truth about her and Prince William. How likely was that, the unwelcome sensible part of her brain interrupted her reverie to remind her. She ignored it and dreamed on. No-one knew at school that she secretly considered Prince William seriously buff. If her best friends Sukinder and Kell had even the remotest clue she'd be laughed out of the place. Everyone would know, practically within seconds, right down to the babies in year seven. She'd be pointed at and teased and there'd be hundreds, no
thousands
, of stupid text messages on her phone. Every time she went off to the loo someone would snigger and say, ‘Going for the Royal Wee?'
So
not amusing.

Delilah hauled herself up off the bed and looked down at her suitcase. The thought of unpacking her clothes and putting them away made her feel giddy but she also felt travel-grubby and a bit sweaty. She went into the bathroom for a fast and deliciously lukewarm shower, then opened the case and pulled out a sleeveless blue and white jersey dress along with a pair of flip-flops. The rest could wait till morning. Or 'til her mum, remembering she was still a bit feeble, came up to be helpful.

‘So who's already here?' Lesley, stunning in a cherry-red silk halter neck and high, gold, ankle-strap shoes, surveyed the pre-dinner drinkers in the beachside bar.

‘My round!' Len declared. ‘What's everyone's pleasure?' He winked at Delilah and added to Beth, ‘Or
perhaps I shouldn't say that in front of corruptible young folk!'

‘Don't mind her,' Ned said, putting his arm round Delilah and almost daring her to shrug it off. ‘She'll have to get used to us as we are.'

‘Well you're her dad, she should have got used to you by now!' Len countered. ‘OK! Who's on for the opening night? Champagne all round? Grab a table Beth, I'll have a word with young James over there. Oi Jimmy!' he yelled to the barman as he approached through the crush. ‘How's those twins of yours?'

‘I'd better order you a Coke, Del,' Ned said to Delilah, setting off after Len.

‘Oh Dad! You let me have champagne at home!' Delilah wailed.

‘It's not the real thing here,' Ned whispered. ‘Nothing like as nice, not at all-inclusive rates. You're allowed a bit of wine with dinner but that's all. Hotel rules.'

And a good thing too, Beth thought – the last thing she wanted was for Delilah to show them up by getting ratted every night, courtesy of friendly but overindulgent bar staff.

‘Beth! Hiii!' Delilah sat back and watched, for the second time that day, as her mother was rapturously hugged by another female. American-sounding, this one, older than Lesley and only just squeezed inside a strapless blue dress scattered with diamanté. There was exuberantly applied eyeshadow to match. Delilah, in her flip-flops, was starting to feel seriously under-dressed. Wasn't the Caribbean supposed to be a laid-back sort of place? There were people here (well, women, anyway) togged up almost like they were going to the Oscars. This woman had long, long, white-blonde hair like Donatella Versace, and a tan so
deep she must have already been here for weeks. No strap marks either on her bare shoulders, Delilah noticed, just a slight silvery shimmer that looked a bit sweaty but glittered like something cosmetic. She must lie on the beach all day, Delilah imagined, with what looked like double-G-cup breasts out on show, pointed at the sun. She so hoped she wouldn't have to see them.

‘Gina! How long have you been here? You look amazing!'

How could her mother
lie
like that? Delilah wondered, astounded. The woman looked like a hooker.

‘And you
too
, honey! Had a good year? And who is this sweet young thing? Is she
yours
? Surely not!' Gina took hold of Delilah's hand and, rather curiously, inspected her fingers as if to check whether she bit her nails. Delilah gently extricated her hand and wiped it on the back of her dress, then regretted it. There'd probably be an oily patch of glitter now. Imagine Gina's bed, she thought, by morning it would be like rolling in gravel.

‘This is Delilah, our daughter. She's sixteen,' Beth said. Delilah wondered what was the thing with mentioning her age. It was like she was warning the Gina woman off. Was she gay? Like, so what? Delilah had said no to boys (though not to Oliver Willis in the summer holidays, regrettably, and she also wouldn't, of course, to Prince William) and was perfectly capable of saying no to a woman.

‘Ah! So sweet, sixteen!' Gina's head tweaked to one side and she gave Delilah a moist-eyed look as if remembering far-off days. Well they would be: what was it her mother had said? ‘Gina isn't old?' When did ‘not old' finish then? Seventy? Eighty? There was enough Botox in that face to paralyse a whale.

‘I've brought someone else too, this time,' Gina said as she accepted a glass of sparkling wine from Ned. ‘My aged mother. She says she doesn't want to die in the middle of a Wyoming winter so she insisted on coming with me to do it here. She's up in the block now, waiting for room service and having her evening chat with Our Lady.'

‘Your mother has come here to
die
?' Lesley leaned forward to check she'd heard properly. ‘What a fabulous idea. And has she brought something to wear for the event?'

‘Oh sure! Embroidered-silk designer shroud, new shoes, the whole caboodle. She says she knows it's her time and she's gotten herself ready, every detail. I think, personally, you know, she's got another ten years in her, but hey,' she winked at Delilah, ‘parents, what can you tell them?'

Not a lot, Delilah thought, if they're as barking mad as this lot. In fact nothing at all, if you'd got any sense.

56 ml brandy

14 ml dry vermouth

dash Pernod, dash Triple Sec

2 dashes orange bitters, splash of maraschino

Lesley sat in a snug hollow on the sand and watched the early-morning waves frilling along the shoreline. There were pelicans out on the rocky reef, lining up as if they were waiting for each other before tackling a communal breakfast. Every few minutes they would plop into the sea, one after another, scooping up fish and filling their deep throat pouches. Not unlike me, she thought morosely, prodding at the fat-pocked flesh that folded itself in hilly ridges across her stomach. Too much food shovelled up, that's what that was. An automatic, unstoppable process that had become too much of a good and comforting thing, with bad results. Middle age was lying in wait but the spread, the midriff bulge had staked its claim first, ready and eager to meet it. What was it that woman had called it, the Spanish girl who'd stayed at their Guernsey guest house last summer?
La Michelina
, that was
it. A tyre. Terrific – tell it like it is, why don't you?

It was barely light but several people were up and about, either wide awake with jet lag or eager to make the most of every daylight holiday hour. There were the early golfers, out for a swift round before the sun was strong enough to spoil the experience. Under the trees on the hill, solitary t'ai chi practisers were making their slow, ritual shapes beside the Wellness pavilion. The hard-core boot-camp masochists were already back from a five-mile dawn run and were now grunting through press-ups on the terrace between the Sundown bar and the pool. Even Len was out, over-ambitiously joining the power-walk group, striding up around the headland and across to the hillside plantation where Lesley knew he would pick a handful of barely ripe bananas and munch them down too greedily. Later he'd complain about stomach cramps and blame the airline food from the day before (‘Beef or salmon
today
?' the stewardess had offered each and every one of them, as if she'd served these same passengers the day before and would again tomorrow).

Len always did this, overstuffing on something daft, on day one. She always reminded him that he always did it, and then he'd have a go about her nagging and head off for a Bacardi and Coke at ten thirty as soon as the bar opened, claiming she was driving him to drink. He always did that too. She tried not to think about it – it was only once a year, was his mantra, how much could a couple of weeks' overindulgence hurt, out of fifty-two? But she worried about the alcohol intake and the fact that back home he currently considered Pringles (Sour Cream & Onion flavour) to be an essential food group. You could see his clothes were getting tighter by the day. He'd been looking flushed lately and his skin had developed a clammy sheen that
was nothing to do with the mild Guernsey climate.

She would talk to Beth about it, see if she'd noticed a difference in Len since last year, and she'd ask her if she had any idea how to go about tackling the problem without Len sussing what she was up to. Beth was a practical sort, one of those nurturing souls who always came on holiday thoroughly equipped with enough Elastoplast, Imodium, after-sun and stuff for insect bites for half the hotel. Last year she'd even brought an umbrella for those instant torrential downpours. People like that weren't likely to leave their common sense at home – she'd definitely ask her.

These early mornings were Lesley's favourite time. Even at home, making a start on the breakfasts in their guest house, she gave herself a moment to have a long look out at the sea and keep an eye on what it was up to. Sometimes it was hurling itself at the shore, furious and threatening, grey and dangerous. At other times it was as sleek as a pussy cat, and as sly, trickling up and down the beach as if its mind was on something else and making you think it was almost safe to trust it. You never could though, not British sea. It was tricky and unpredictable and every day this past summer she'd lived in terror that another guest would go out for an early lone swim and never come back, leaving a stricken family behind, wondering what they could decently do with the lost one's belongings. It had happened that spring, in March as soon as they'd opened for the season. It was worst-nightmare stuff that leaves a fear.