All Inclusive (4 page)

Beth had shaken the whys (midlife panic: pathetic excuse but there it was) and the whens (during a couple of months, back in spring) out of him. The only lie left was the ‘who'. There was nothing to be gained, and a lot of pain to be inflicted, by telling too much truth; so he'd lied, insisted to Beth it had been no-one she knew, a stupid mistake, barely more than a one-off, someone he'd met from work, a colleague on a work exchange who'd gone back to South Africa and wasn't about to reappear. Ever. Cyn and Bradley were off to Mauritius or the Seycelles this year, he couldn't recall which. The opposite direction, anyway – they were
probably already there, a safe half a world away. Thank goodness.

The thing that was nagging at Ned now was whether to believe that Cyn hadn't told anyone who
would
be there. She had promised she never would, sworn on her Asprey's emerald earrings that she hadn't e-mailed so much as a hint to Lesley or Gina. But . . . but . . . once, after one of their back-seat sessions in Oxshott woods, rutting like teenagers and challenging the sedate Audi's traumatized suspension, she'd confessed that part of the fun of the naughtiness was whispering hints and confidences to your female circle, just for the thrill of seeing that envious greedy gleam in their eyes.

He'd know, of course, as soon as he set foot in the Sundown bar that night, if she'd let anything drop. His great dread was that she'd told them all, in lurid detail, as some kind of long-distance revenge. There they'd be, the women in their annual party: Lesley, Gina from Connecticut who always came by herself, and the tall bony woman whose husband played golf all day (what was her name? Hilary? No, Valerie) staring at him and appraising curiously, then glancing at Beth with that pity expression that women kept for victims of marital shenanigans.

If he could cross more than his fingers he would – he so wanted this holiday to be all right, although it could be tricky with the small spanner in the works that was Delilah. How was he supposed to rekindle the sparks of romance with Beth across a softly lit table beneath the bougainvillea, with a moody teenager sitting between them playing gooseberry?

‘You always say the same thing, Mum. You always say it at least three times,' Delilah was murmuring. ‘Such a
paranoia freak
.'

Don't let her get to you, Beth told herself, just
breathe
.

So what if Delilah had a point? So what if Beth always had to come over all head-prefectish and say, ‘Now, you have all got your passports, haven't you?' Why couldn't the girl just laugh it off with a trill of jollity, so much better at seven in the morning than this eternal whinge. Whenever, wherever they travelled by plane, Beth always said the passport thing as they were leaving the house, then again at the M25 junction (still just possible to turn back if, after frantic scrabbling through bags, the word ‘no' came up) and then once more – as just now – way past the point of no return, on this slip road too close to Gatwick. If this irritated Delilah, then tough. As Delilah herself would say,
get over it
.

Her passport enquiry was as firmly a part of Beth's established holiday ritual as crossing herself and her fingers as the plane took off and having a Bloody Mary nerve-steadier in the departure lounge, regardless of time of day. If these things didn't get said/done, the whole expedition would go horribly wrong. Either the plane would plummet to earth somewhere over the Brecon Beacons, or they'd miss the flight altogether and spend the next two weeks at home, miserably thinking of everyone else on the beach slapping on the lotions against too much sun and guzzling daiquiris at dusk. It was nothing to do with control and paranoia, nothing at all, merely good old-fashioned superstition and nothing wrong with that, if it was all the same to everyone.

‘Zone X,' Beth muttered to herself as she followed a heavily laden Volvo estate into the North Terminal's long-term car park. She waited a tense second for Delilah to comment on her talking to herself, but there
was at last a welcome silence from behind. She would take this as a good sign. Perhaps, scenting aircraft fuel in the air, Delilah was grudgingly allowing herself to become just a teeny bit excited to be going with them, rather than spoilt-brat crotchety about it. Surely any other girl would have leapt about with delight to be taken on a two-week Caribbean holiday during termtime? A bit of ‘Wow! Thanks Mum!' wouldn't go amiss. Beth was willing to concede that the weary aftermath of glandular fever ruled out the leaping bit, but, please God – she put in an ardent request – let her lighten up or she'd personally take Delilah snorkelling a long, long way out to sea and get Carlos to drive the boat back fast to the beach, leaving the girl to see how far sulking got her among the sharks and swordfish.

‘Oh. Oh we're here.' Ned shook himself, yawned and stretched, knocking his fingers against the rear-view mirror. He rubbed his hand, yawned again and then clambered out of the car and stood blinking in the chill morning air like a bear fresh out of hibernation.

‘Delilah? Do you want to lock your phone in here?' Beth asked as she stashed the house keys in the Audi's glove compartment.

‘Er . . . no? Like, I'll need it?' She was doing that irritating thing that teenagers did, talking to her with that ‘Are you
completely
mad?' insinuation at the end of every simple sentence. Beth sometimes wondered if she'd been right not to believe in corporal punishment. Obviously she wouldn't ever consider walloping a toddler, but there were certainly times during these mid-teen years of Delilah's when Beth was sure that giving her a hearty slap would do them all some good.

‘No you won't.' Ned seemed to have snapped awake at last. ‘It won't work on the island.'

‘But . . . uh? Texting?'

Her father gave her a look. ‘Oh God,
all right
! Delilah handed over her phone and watched with an expression of utter misery as her absolute best friend and lifeline was locked away.

‘They've got an Internet room at the hotel,' Beth consoled her as they wheeled their luggage to the shuttle bus stop. ‘You won't be completely cut off from the rest of the world.'

What
is
that woman wearing? What does she think she looks like? Delilah sat on the front of the baggage trolley and studied the broad pink velour bottom of the passenger queuing in front of her for the check-in. A prize porker, that's what she looked like. The washed-out pallid back end of a full-grown, overfed Middle White pig, if she remembered rightly from the primary school trip to the Urban Farm. No cute curly tail, of course, but, Jeez, those trousers were so tight you could see individual clods of fat, bagged up like the vacuum-packed meatballs her mum had once (and only once) inflicted on them.

‘Delilah? Can you get up please? I need to get this lot moved on a bit.'

Dad and his precision moves. Six inches max, that's all there was space for and what was the point of that? No-one was going anywhere. Checking in was taking for ever. No wonder they said to allow three hours – it was nothing to do with security but all about not enough staff. And no wonder that stroppy teacher-type voice kept coming over the PA with, ‘This is the
last
and
final
call for flight whatever. Would
all
remaining passengers
please
. . . etc. They were probably still in the long line-up for the X-ray thingy and had been in the building since dawn.

Delilah turned her head and gave her father a look.
He grinned at her, trying to jolly her along into a good holiday mood. She wasn't joining in, not yet, not 'til some serious sun thawed her out.

‘Moved to . . . er . . . where? Exactly?' she challenged. If they moved the trolley any further forward she'd have her nose between the woman's tree-trunk legs. The trolley twitched a warning and Delilah leapt off, aimed a smart kick at the Middle White's left trotter and took swift refuge behind her mother. The pig, awakened from queuing stupor by the kick, turned round and burst into squeals.

Delilah then heard her mother doing a piercing party-screech at the pig and watched her clasp the stout lady to her own comparatively insubstantial front. ‘Lesley!'

‘Beth!'

‘How
are
you?'

‘And
Ned
! Oooh giveusakissdarlin'!' The pink piggy wrapped herself round Delilah's dad and planted a shiny slick of Barbie-bright lipstick across his mouth. He didn't, Delilah was staggered to note, seem to mind at all. He was, in fact, hugging this creature and laughing. He so
wasn't
that sort of person. Her mum was now being squashed by a big thing in a sheepskin jacket the colour of Nutella. So far, a pig and a sheep: a farmyard theme was creeping in here. Was this what it was like in the place they were going to? All these people her mad parentals knew, were they teaming up every year for a fortnight with human livestock? Did they have fancy-dress nights where you kitted yourself out as animal of your choice and won prizes? If she'd known she'd have packed some bunny ears and a fluffy tail, like poor Bridget Jones making a tit of herself at the party where no-one had told her it wasn't fancy dress.

‘And this must be Delilah!' The Lesley person clutched her hand, crushing her skinny ribcage. The sticky lips collided with Delilah's cheek and she inhaled a whole cosmetic counter's worth of perfume samples. ‘Welcome to the party, darling – you'll have a lovely time with us, we have a great laugh, don't we Beth? Hope you've mugged up on your Kinks' classics – did your mum tell you? It's this year's karaoke theme!'

‘Er . . . Who?'
Karaoke?
Her
parents
? Should she make a run for the Gatwick Express and head home
right now
?

‘Youth of today, eh? What do they know?' Lesley laughed and nudged her sheep-man hard in his middle, then turned back to Delilah. ‘Now Delilah my love,
this
is my other half – Len. He'll be after you for the water volleyball. He could do with a bit of young blood on the team!'

He didn't look too dreadful, Delilah conceded, for a sheep. He was chunky and smiley and round-tummied and wearing a zingingly white linen shirt under the jacket. He grinned shyly as if he was terrified of all teenagers (wise man) and looked as if he wasn't sure whether to offer to shake her hand or not. He chose not so Delilah smiled back at him, but promised herself she'd be sure to be miles away from the pool at volleyball time. Flailing about in the water with old gadges like him was so
not
a safe idea. They tended to be heavy-handed and a bit clumsy. Accidents to the bikini fastenings could occur. Surely her mum had told them in some e-mail or other that she'd been ill and needed rest? The only exercise she was planning was climbing onto one of the hotel's spa beds for a gentle aromatherapy massage, followed by a long wallow in the jacuzzi.

‘Ooh! Our turn at last! Here we go!' Lesley screeched as the check-in girl drummed her fingers on the desk and waited for someone to bung her their luggage and tickets. ‘Cross fingers for an upgrade!'

The steamy evening heat hit Beth as soon as she stepped out of the plane onto the steps. Dusk was falling and she was glad she'd remembered to rub the anti-mosquito wipe over her ankles and arms. It was the worst time of the day, dusk. The first time they'd come to the island she'd gathered a dozen fat, oozy bites on each ankle even before she'd got to the arrivals hall. Ahead of her, a pale, stringy blonde girl was making her slow and careful way down the steps clutching a bulky Pronuptia wedding-dress bag. An older man, who Beth would have assumed was father of the bride (except you could never be sure about these things – the girl might be the younger model for whom some long-suffering, broken-down wife had been traded in), caught up with her as she reached the ground and tried to help, scooping up the unruly package only to be elbowed firmly out of the way by a plump bustling woman.

‘We can manage, Michael, thank you
very
much,' the woman said crisply, pushing herself firmly between him and the girl and turning her back on him.

‘Ructions there, methinks,' Ned whispered. ‘I'm surprised the poor girl didn't elope. She's surely not marrying
him
?'

‘Her father, more likely? Divorced, not amicably?'

Briefly, it crossed Beth's mind how a scene like this, a few years on, could have been herself and Ned, squaring up before Delilah's own wedding.

‘Perhaps she tried to elope and the parents just tagged along,' Beth suggested, watching the bride's
mother swinging half of the cumbersome parcel over her own arm so it swung awkwardly between the two women like a fat beige body bag. It must, Beth considered, be a hell of a dress. ‘Michael' trailed behind, alone with his tan leather bag-on-wheels.

‘That dress is one big hunk of hand luggage,' she commented to Delilah as they followed the struggling women across the tarmac to the terminal. ‘She didn't want to risk it going astray in the baggage, I expect.'

‘Why's she got one of those huge meringue frocks?' Delilah looked amazed. ‘Why would you come all this way to get married on a beach and still wear something like you'd have in a village church? I wouldn't.'

‘What would you wear then, love?' Lesley caught up with them. ‘A sequinned bikini? Grass skirt? Ha ha! You'd look luscious in one of those!' Lesley stopped in the middle of the tarmac and did a mock hula shimmy. Delilah groaned, staring at the ground. Would it be like this all the time, she wondered. Was she going to be surrounded by people well old enough to know better, showing off and acting daft like little kids? She hadn't been expecting this, not at all.

‘Take no notice, pet, you'll soon get used to Les's funny little ways.' Len, laughing, took Delilah's arm and marched her into the building. ‘She's the life and soul, my Lesley,' he told her proudly. ‘Life and soul.'