All Inclusive (6 page)

On that awful day, Mr Benson's fidgety wife and pair of plain, bony, grown-up daughters had been sitting in the dining room, waiting politely, unwilling to start breakfast without him. Mrs B. had kept looking at her watch and saying, ‘It's not like Bill to keep good food
waiting!' Married thirty-five years, she'd told Lesley, and they'd only ever once had breakfast apart – after the night the birth had been going wrong and she'd ended up having her youngest in hospital. That sad Guernsey morning marked the first of Mrs Benson's new lifetime of solitary breakfasts. The police had found his clothes on a rock, neatly folded and safely weighted down by his holiday sandals, a grey sock tied round the strap of each. He'd been a tidy, careful man. It could only have been an accident: he'd left a return air ticket in his wallet and he disapproved of waste, which was to be a clincher later with the inquest verdict and a relief to Mrs Benson, who'd dreaded what she'd called ‘the slur of suicide'.

The family had stayed on an extra week just in case, as if he'd been washed away over to Herm on the tide and had been making his slow way back. It had been a harrowing time for them all, with hope seeping away and being replaced with frantic despair. Of course he never turned up. Now, with the season long finished and the victim's room completely refurnished and repainted, Lesley found it hard to go in without fearing that his lonely ghost still hung around, waiting for someone to take it back home to Bromsgrove: a rootless spirit, a corpse unburied and unrested. She knew his presence was still there; she sensed it loitering in the hallway, felt sure that she passed it on the stairs and the garden path.

In a few moments, when the sun had brightened, Lesley would take off her sarong and walk into this gentler, softer sea. She'd swim fast out to the small reef that protected the hotel's foreshore, then along and back, the length of the grounds, parallel to the beach. She wouldn't go any further – beyond the reef was the treacherous ocean. She felt weightless in the water,
lithe and elegant and – oooh the bliss of it – thin. Swimming reminded her of how supple she'd been, how in her ballet days she'd been the one whose legs would go the highest, whose pliant body could spin and fold and fly. It was easy for her doctor to tell her that she'd be fine again, that the horrible gnawing anxiety since the Mr Benson episode would go in time and that she might feel better if she could ‘just lose a few stone'. Not so easy to do. Not when your life is in dire need of a comfort zone. She wouldn't have any toast today, she decided, just a bit of pawpaw then the crispy irresistible bacon and tomatoes and a couple of those spicy little plantain patties – that would help.

‘Hiya. How did you sleep?' Beth flopped down onto the sand beside Lesley.

‘Morning, pet. Not bad – woke up at four desperate for a bit of something to nibble, but I got up and made a quick cup of tea and the moment passed. I'm supposed to be dieting.' She pinched a hunk of the ample flesh round her stomach and made a face.

‘You said that last year, and the year before.'

If Lesley had a holiday catchphrase it would be ‘Ooh, no I mustn't!' faced with any food that was sweet, cream-laden or gooey. Even with drinks she went unerringly for the high-cal option, creamy pina colada, banana daiquiri. She knew the Weight-Watchers points value of each one, the exact number of Slimming World syns, the calorie content and the carbohydrate count. ‘Fluent in all diets, that's me!' she joked.

‘I know, I know,' she said now. ‘It would only be news if I wasn't dieting, wouldn't it?'

‘You can't do it here though, not on holiday!' Beth said – as she was expected to. ‘Not with all the fab food we get.'

‘That's what Len says. He says, “It's paid for, don't waste it.” Drowned Mr Benson's sentiments exactly, Lesley suddenly thought – then wished she hadn't; he was the one item from home she definitely hadn't wanted to bring with her.

‘Well there you are then. Fancy some breakfast in a bit?'

‘Wouldn't mind. Got to have my swim first though. Begin as I mean to go on.'

She stood up and started to untie her sarong and looked down at Beth, all ready for action in her trainers and Lycra shorts and a skimpy sleeveless vest top that any woman conscious of batwing upper arms wouldn't wear. ‘You go on and make a start, Beth, I'll not be long behind you.'

Beth hesitated, then recognized an unfamiliar shyness in Lesley. This was new; Lesley might have put on a few pounds (well quite a lot of pounds to be honest, you couldn't help but notice) over the last twelve months but she was still the same woman who'd been the weighty but supple star of last year's yoga class, brash in her turquoise all-in-one and broad bottom up and proud in the air for a perfect Plough.

‘Right, er OK, then.' Beth hauled herself up and dusted sand off her shorts. ‘I'll just go and see if Delilah fancies joining me for the Wake Up and Stretch class and then I'll see you by the Healthy Options.'

Healthy Options be buggered, Lesley thought, her spirits lifting as she banished hauntings from the late Mr Benson, plunged into the sea and blissfully let the warm salt water take her considerable weight, the day needed a good setting-up with bacon and eggs.

Back in Surrey, Nick and Felicity had heaped up on the hall table the many DVDs that needed to be
returned to Blockbuster. There would be a fine, to which, as it wasn't her house, Felicity was unwilling to contribute.

‘I'm still at college,' she argued, as she pulled on her coat and prepared to emphasize her non-connection with Nick's debts by going home to her own bed for the night. ‘I don't have any spare money at all. And even if I did . . .' She hesitated, realizing it might be prudent not to blurt out that spare money should be shoe money.

‘If you did . . . what?' Nick scooped the DVDs into a Sainsbury's bag as he mentally clocked up the expense of having posted each of these movies into the machine in his bedroom only to watch a few short scenes beyond the opening titles. Time after time it had proved too much: no contest, really, on just about every occasion. It was stonking US box-office-record-breaking epic versus the sight of half-dressed Felicity idly scratching her long, creamy, naked thigh as she lay beside him in one of her gorgeous dick-magnet laced-thong knicker numbers. The times he'd started watching a film, then just hadn't been able to resist rolling her across their carton of popcorn and crunching her into the duvet. Surely she wasn't going cold on him now? She always seemed keen enough, made all the sexy noises, went down, on top, backwards, any old way he'd ever dreamed of. It was just . . . the other night, when they were well under way and in the background Johnny Depp was yelling in the face of the storm and doing the thing with the sword, he could have sworn that her eyes, though apparently half-closed and fully concentrating, were actually focused on the Depp action over his shoulder.

‘If I did have money,' she said, opening the door and huddling into her furry hood against the vicious wind
and rain, ‘well, I can think of better things to blow it on than staying home half-watching a bunch of films.'

‘You love films!'

‘But to go
out
to see them, not to stay
in
every night just to lie on your scuzzy bed watching stuff on your titchy telly. If we went
out
to see movies we might just get to watch them all the way through before you leapt on me and ripped my pants off.'

‘But you always seemed . . . You never said. Why didn't you say? We could go out if you want to.' They could if she chipped in a bit anyway, he thought. She might be still doing her A-levels at college but he was in the real world, saving for the big trip. The two of them stood facing each other in moody silence by the open front door. The wind was blowing crinkled leaves in, all over the carpet. That would be more mess to clear up later. Mrs Padgham had already put him on a final warning after throwing a hissy fit about the state of the kitchen. ‘I'm not here to pick up after you,' she'd grouched (Nick had wisely managed not to suggest that a certain amount of picking-up-after might be in a cleaner's job description), ‘that dishwasher does have an ‘On' switch, you know, even for boys.'

‘You never fucking asked!' Felicity stamped past him and down the steps. ‘
Other
people ask.'

Other people?
Nick chased after her and grabbed her arm as she unlocked her mother's Fiesta. It was only nine o'clock: was she really going home? He'd assumed she was bluffing. It would be a criminal waste of an empty house and the free-sample massage oils he'd picked up in Boots in his lunch hour.

‘
What
other people?' he demanded. ‘
Who?
Just tell me where you want to go and we can go there. And then . . .'

‘And then what?' Felicity put her hand on her hip
and raised her eyes heavenward. ‘Let me guess, Nick. Umm . . .' She put her finger to her lips, acting annoyingly cute, pensive. ‘Oh . . . er, got it! Back here, would that be? For, oh yes of course, more steamy lad's-mag sex? Where do you want me next? Up against the wall? Hanging out of the window while you shag me from behind and make that snuffly noise into the back of my neck?'

Nick put his hands up, surrender style, and backed away, hurt and deeply shaken. He'd got something wrong that he hadn't even begun to suspect. Perhaps he should have, perhaps taking her out to dinner or something would have been a good idea. They could have gone to that little Italian and then afterwards . . . except they couldn't have an ‘afterwards' now, could they? Not without her accusing him of rushing her through the zabaglione so he could get his hands up her skirt. It was all spoiled.

There was a breezy rush as Felicity started the car and skidded off fast across the gravel. She didn't even look at him. There had to be more to it than how they spent the evenings. She'd never complained before. She'd got someone else, that was the bottom line, some other bloke. That had to be it. She'd pulled some college sod who smarmed her and flattered her and let her go on about her uni choices and whether the thing in the play was all Lady Macbeth's fault. Over, that's what he and Felicity were. He was dumped, no doubts, no questions.

Lonely, dejected and sorry for himself, Nick mooched back into the house and slammed the door on the cold damp night. Just don't let anyone tell him, he thought as he went to the fridge and pulled out the last can of beer, just don't expect him ever to believe that Felicity really preferred deep, meaningful
conversation to the other. Not possible, not Fliss.

And also, he thought as he swigged down the beer straight from the can, what had she meant?
What
snuffly noise?

‘Sam! How are you doing?' Beth ran up the polished mahogany steps of the Thai-inspired Wellness pavilion to greet the tall, sheeny-muscled youth who was adjusting the volume of the early-morning ambient music. His hair was finely plaited in shoulder-length cornrows, finished off with clattering beads. She could see that Delilah was admiring them, geeing herself up to deciding to get hers done.

‘Beth – hey, good to have you back! Welcome home! I kept your mat warm,' he said, giving her a warm hug as he handed her a spongy exercise pad ready for the floor exercises.

‘And this is my daughter, Delilah.' Beth laughed as Sam leapt back a good four feet in mock shock, then got down on his knees to plead with Delilah.

‘Whoa! Delilah of the powerful scissors! Don't touch this Samson's hair, beautiful lady, I'll do anything you ask!'

Delilah smiled at him, looking shy. ‘You're not really a Samson?' she asked.

‘Sure am, sweetie. My mother wanted me to be a big strong guy and thought the name would help. She hates my hair like this but I tell her, hey what d'you want?' Delilah laughed as he tweaked at one of his gleaming black strands, all wound through with red, yellow and green thread. Sam handed her a mat and Beth led her to a cool spot close to the open side of the pavilion, where long white muslin curtains fluttered in a welcome breeze. Other guests were assembling for the class and standing around flexing their hamstrings
and choosing spaces for their mats. Among them was the bride who'd carried her dress from the plane the day before, trailing sullenly behind her mother. Both of them looked pale and pasty and extremely grumpy, as if they'd started the day with an argument. There was no sign of ‘Michael'.

‘Haven't seen the happy bridegroom yet, have we?' Beth whispered to Delilah. ‘I wonder what he's like?'

‘Gone, probably,' Delilah giggled. ‘Run off with someone who's more fun, which would be, like,
anyone
.'

Beth, obscured in the pavilion's mirrored wall by the bride's mother in front of her, watched the bits of herself that were visible as the exercises started. She could see her left leg pointing forward as Sam settled the class into a slow calf-stretch. Without being able to see the rest of her body, she felt as if the leg didn't belong to her and she could look at it objectively. It wasn't too bad, fairly curvy and not flabby. The base of fake tan helped. Delilah's leg was the next one along in the line. By comparison it looked almost tragically thin, a mixed result of both her youth and her illness. Delilah had certainly proved it was true that staying in bed made you grow. There must be at least another two inches of her – all length, no width – since the beginning of the glandular fever. No wonder she'd been so exhausted.

‘Don't overdo it, Del. Just lie on your mat if you get tired,' Beth whispered as they slowly rolled their heads down in the direction of the floor and she trailed her fingertips across the top of her feet.

‘Don't fuss!' Delilah hissed back, then looked towards the main entrance as someone clattered up the steps.

‘Sorry I'm late everyone! Hi Sam, sweetie!' Gina
arrived, whizzing into the room wafting a scent of something expensive. She wore tiny tight white jersey shorts and a matching cropped-off sports top, very cutaway at the shoulders. She grabbed a mat from the pile and settled herself quickly right at the front by the mirror and only inches from Sam. The bride's mother, ousted backwards, huffed and shifted crossly, but Gina simply gave her a broad and innocent smile and a cheery, all-American ‘Good morning!'