Excess Baggage (17 page)

‘Are you all right?’ Lucy asked. She was sitting close beside her but her voice sounded as if it was miles away, like someone down a telephone back in the days of trunk calls. ‘You’re looking a bit pale.’ This was disappointing, Shirley thought, especially as she’d looked in the mirror that morning and seen a tanned face that the younger women of Wilmslow paid a fortune in sunbed fees to acquire every winter. She put her left hand up to move stray hair out of her eyes and found that the hand didn’t quite know where to go. It waved about, lost for a moment, forgetting where it was supposed to be, what it should do. A prickle of confusion warmed the back of Shirley’s neck, then the hand recalled what was asked of it and she pushed the strand of hair behind her ear beneath her hat.

‘You’re cold. You’re shaking.’

‘No, I’m not cold,’ she protested. The hand was back in her lap with the other one now and she raised both sets of fingers a little. They trembled, hard, as if they were seriously afraid of some terror that the rest of her hadn’t yet discovered. Lucy’s hand came down over the two of hers and stilled them.

‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all,’ Shirley told her. Her head ached too, a delicate but persistent throb slightly below the surface of her right temple. She would be all right with a couple of aspirin and a sleep.

EARLY IN THE
evening the bar was noisier than usual, with the guests assembling before dinner to discuss the notices about the approaching hurricane that had been placed on their beds while they were out enjoying the day. The air was buzzing with against-the-elements jokes along with reminiscences about the Last Lot, for everyone British thought they’d seen the worst a hurricane could throw at them, having witnessed the odd BMW crushed by a falling oak, along with a Sussex hillside of struck-down pines. There was talk of battening down hatches and Dunkirk spirit (this last followed by behind-the-hand sniggers, guilty looks round for German guests and hissings about ‘Don’t-mention-the-war’).

Several anxious souls murmured about contacting tour reps with a view to arranging an earlier flight home, but they were witheringly accused either of a ratlike abandoning of ship or of missing out on a potentially thrilling experience, as if it was merely another unmissable local attraction, rating five stars in the guidebook. A frantic Italian couple were avidly questioning the hotel manager, wanting more precise details than he was able to give. However hard he insisted he didn’t yet know if the hurricane was even
heading
for the island, the couple pressed him to tell them more, as if he had a hotline to the elemental gods and was deliberately keeping the truth from them.

Simon brought his hurricane instructions into the bar with him and perched on a stool next to Lucy. ‘I suppose we’ve all got these,’ he said, waving the sheet of paper.

Lucy grinned at him. ‘Well I expect so, Simon, unless you think God is directing a special storm just at you.’ Simon frowned. ‘You shouldn’t joke about it, Lucy. There could be serious danger.’ He was in his own element now, she realized, getting ready to orchestrate the family’s survival in the face of disaster.

‘Listen to this,’ he said, reading aloud. ‘“Pack all your belongings in a suitcase, put the case inside the plastic bag provided and place high in wardrobe …”’

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Theresa interrupted, arriving just in time to claim the last bar-stool. ‘Surely they don’t really expect us to pack
all
our stuff up, do they? All the stuff in the drawers, everything off the hangers, I mean if it’s already
in
the wardrobe …’

‘If that’s what it says …’ The gold lady leaned across and helped herself to cashew nuts from the bowl in front of Lucy.

‘Absolutely.’ Simon was delighted to find an ally. ‘You must do just what it says; after all, the people here have gone through all this before and they know what they’re doing. We’ve got no idea.’

Theresa gave him a look that would have crumpled a non-relative. ‘Thank you Simon, yes I do realize that, but I wonder if it might be a bit over the top, possibly connected with avoiding tricky insurance claims?’

‘We’re all
doomed
!’ one of the Steves mocked loudly from the far end of the bar. Everyone laughed except Simon and the bar staff, who were too busy dealing
with
the extra drinks orders that the overexcited guests seemed to need.

‘And what about this bit, about actually
getting in
the wardrobe?’ Theresa’s perfect cherry-varnished fingernail stabbed at the paper. ‘How are we supposed to get in if it’s full of luggage? Tell me that, Simon.’

‘They’re quite big,’ he ventured.

‘Depends how much luggage you’ve got,’ she countered. ‘And I do have three children and an au pair to cram in as well. It would be like one of those silly student charity stunts they used to do: how many geographers can you cram into a phone box.’

Lucy felt fidgety. The others would be arriving in a few minutes and there was something on her mind that she wanted to share with just Simon and Theresa. ‘Listen, I want to talk to you two. Come outside onto the terrace.’

‘Oh a mystery, I could do with some distraction.’ Theresa picked up her daiquiri and followed, tripping along smartly on her kitten-heeled scarlet mules. She really did look supremely glamorous tonight, Lucy thought, as if this was a special occasion. As well as her nails being wonderfully manicured, her hair had been glossily blow-dried and Lucy knew she must have put in an hour or two in the beauty salon on the top floor. Her dress was spaghetti-strapped, sleek navy blue and fluted a little just below her knees. Lucy guessed it was by Ghost, and probably cost a good percentage of what she herself earned in a week. She tried not to mind, reminding herself that after all what she had
was
what she earned, not what she’d married. Somehow it didn’t feel quite as comforting as usual.

‘So what’s the big secret?’ Simon settled himself at a small ornate iron table, tracing his fingers over the leaf shapes on the surface.

‘It’s not really a secret. It’s Mum.’ There was no point skirting round it. ‘On the boat she was really shaky, and she sort of, well, she sort of lost it a bit…’

‘Lost what?’ Theresa sipped her drink and looked puzzled.

‘It was rather choppy. She probably felt dodgy,’ Simon contributed, but he was frowning, considering.

‘Not as bad as you did. I saw you chucking up over the side.’ Theresa giggled. ‘What a waste of all those lovely prawns!’

‘Back to Mum.’ Lucy glanced round. Soon the others would be looking for them. ‘She doesn’t get seasick. She’s got a stomach like cast iron. Don’t you remember that time when we went to the Isle of Man in a force nine and she calmly carried on knitting while everyone else was groaning and dying and praying around her? No, this was strange, as if her brain had gone walkabout and she couldn’t quite find it. And she shook so much, really trembling, and when we got off the boat she was wobbly. Dad had to hold her arm. I watched: he was still holding on to her all the way back to the villa. It’s the first time I’ve seen her looking frail.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Theresa had finished her drink and she waved to a waiter across the terrace for a refill.

‘I think she got seriously dizzy, had a bit of what she’d call a “turn”. I think maybe we should ask Pa about it, in case it’s not the first time. Simon might have been right all the time, there might be stuff about her being ill that they aren’t telling us.’

‘I knew it,’ he said, ‘I thought they’d have told us by now too. I was just beginning to relax.’

‘But what if it is?’ Theresa pointed out.

‘Is what?’ Simon asked.

‘Is the first time? And she’s perfectly all right now? Old people do have things like this, very mild strokes that are all right till you scare them witless by giving it a name. What’s the point of making a big fuss and worrying them both when there’s not a lot they can do till she gets home?’

Becky flipped a coin. She’d delved into the bottom of her purse and pulled out a two-pence piece especially. It was important to use English money: the local currency might be biased in favour of Ethan’s requirements. She brushed out of her mind the logical consequence of this train of thought: whichever way the coin fell, she knew deep down that having sex with Ethan was something that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to do, even though he’d made her feel more randy than a springtime fox. The thing was, it was time she had it with
someone
; she would be seventeen in a couple of days. Everyone else at school had had sex and mostly with more than one person. Some of them were practically at old-married-couple level, especially drippy Delphine who started every sentence with ‘My Nick says …’ Becky didn’t want that, but she did want to have a clue what sex was like. She listened in on the morning-after discussions, perched on the counter in the girls’ loo, looking as if she knew just what they were all on about, laughing in all the right places when they giggled about squelchy condoms or stuffing their knickers under the sofa when a parent came home too soon. One day, and it was creeping nearer all the time, someone would realize she never actually had anything to contribute to these shrieky tell-all sessions. This must be peer-group pressure, she realized, and she’d always prided herself on refusing to succumb to it. She was still determined
it
wasn’t just that causing her to stand there with a coin in her hand and a decision to make. It was simply sheer curiosity and the ripe, right time to dispose of her virginity. It was like when she’d been younger and had a wobbly tooth, the moment had always come when she’d known that the one final neat twist was all it needed to get it out.

There was no-one back home she really fancied. They were all pale, clumsy big-footed boys with sick-making acne eruptions and soft stupid-looking fleshy faces and thick necks that reminded her of toys that had been a bit too tightly stuffed. Not one of them had any sense of personal style, even the ones from the university (actually those were worse: they were the dreggy ones who couldn’t pull a fellow student and resorted to easier pickings among the kind of schoolgirls who were pathetic enough to give them some status as Older Men). Ethan was different. He wasn’t that tall, but his whole body swaggered up the beach with effortless sexual confidence. His baggy shorts swung perfectly on his hips, not wilting at half mast as if he needed a Mummy figure to pull them up properly. His shoulders were broad and straight under his T-shirt, not apologetic and shivery like those of boys in England.

The chorus of a song kept coming into her mind; the word ‘horny’ repeating itself over and over. It was exactly how she felt. When his warm soft mouth had grazed across hers on the beach, Becky’s body had been overwhelmed by a kind of liquid lurch, a longing to roll beneath him and be pressed hard into the sand. No-one at home had ever made her feel like that. Snogging boys at parties or crushed up in the crowded dark at various clubs, all she’d felt was mild nausea at the taste of recent hamburger or the stench of belched
beer
. They shoved their eager swollen crotches in the vague direction of her pubic bone, neither caring nor even aware that half the time they were rubbing themselves frantically against her handbag or the unresponding soft centre of her lower intestines. Until Ethan, the only good sexual experience she could count on having was spread out in a warm, scented bubble bath, by herself.

The coin came down in Ethan’s favour. Becky picked it up off the cool terracotta floor and shoved it back in her purse, feeling a tweak of encouraging excitement. She wasn’t sure, on the whole, that a spot of hot-weather lust was the best reason to do it, but it would be OK, it was good
enough
. If the whole thing was a disaster at least she could just go home and forget about it, delete it from her memory and decide it didn’t count. And if it wasn’t disastrous, if it was just the best thing she’d ever had, well – she’d left herself enough time to get in a few more goes at it before the holiday ended.

She picked up the piece of paper that had fallen off the bed and skimmed over the list of instructions on it: a hurricane sounded thrilling, though the hotel management seemed to be taking it horribly seriously. ‘No alcoholic drinks will be served in the hours before the storm’ she read. She slid the page between the mirror and its frame, where the list of rules stared back at her as she smoothed on some lipstick. Spoilsports.

‘You shouldn’t read anything into it, Simon. They are quite old and they’ve been out with us in that frazzling hot sun for the whole day.’ Plum watched Simon as he gazed at the two empty places at the table.

‘And there was no shade or shelter on that boat. They’re probably exhausted,’ Mark chipped in. Shirley
and
Perry had phoned the restaurant and left a message: they were having a light snack in their villa and an early night, a message which effectively fended off the possibility of after-dinner visitors.

‘It must be awful being old. Everyone sittin’ around waiting for you to snuff it.’ Luke reached across and helped himself to a hunk of bread, which he ripped apart, scattering crumbs across the tablecloth.

‘Luke! That’s a terrible thing to say! No-one’s wanting them to die!’ Theresa slapped his hand hard, knocking the remaining bread to the floor.

‘
You
did that!’ he accused her, pointing a knife. ‘
And
you didn’t listen. I didn’t mean you
want
them to die, just that you all hang about, looking for signs of it. No wonder they’ve pissed off to their own space.’ His voice faded to a mumble as he added, ‘Bloody wish I could.’ Theresa heard him and glared at Plum, waiting for her to tell her son off, but Plum simply smiled fondly at him and took no notice. Bloody floppy wet liberal, Theresa thought, no way will
my
brood get away with that kind of talk.

Becky also heard what Luke had said and felt sorry for him and a bit guilty. If she hadn’t got these sensational sexy plans of her own for the evening she would have offered to play table football with him in the games room. He liked playing it with her because she was just as good at it as he was and worth having as an opponent. Perhaps the Tom-person with the gold mother was around, or perhaps Colette would take him on. When she got up after the meal and went off to meet Ethan, poor Luke would be stuck with all these boring adults while they wittered on as they always did, disagreeing oh-so-politely about education or acupuncture, or chatted to some of the Steves and got told how much they’d been ripped off for the
catamaran
trip. The Steves did that every night; she’d heard them in the bar bragging on about how much they’d saved by shopping around for cheap car hire and making sure they got well tanked up with cocktails during half-price Happy Hour. She’d seen one or two of them eyeing Lucy’s legs as well, as if they were wondering how much of a discount she was likely to offer for shagging them all at once. In their bloody dreams.