by Henry Sands
*
The following morning, they had a final breakfast together before Sophie took off back to Angus to see Harry.
‘So, when are you guys heading to Mexico?’ Sophie asked across the dining room table.
‘I’m not sure. Jack, do you know how we get it booked?’ Anthony asked, before Lucinda, who was looking down at the table, could say anything.
She had tried to forget about the Mexico trip, rather hoping if nothing was said, it could just be forgotten about.
Sensing that he might have acted with a little too much haste for his parents’ leisurely pace of life, he replied sheepishly, ‘Oh, um, actually yep, I thought I’d help you with that before I left. In fact, I already have. You leave from Heathrow at 10am next Monday,’ Jack responded, trying to drop their departure date into the conversation nonchalantly.
‘What? As in six days’ time? Jack, are you quite mad? This is a ridiculous idea. I can’t possibly do that. I haven’t planned anything or even thought about my packing, not to mention what to do when we’re there,’ said Lucinda, evidently flustered.
Lucinda’s reaction was expected by Jack and Anthony, but Sophie, who was secretly a little envious of the trip, seemed a little more surprised. Her mind sprung back to the conversation she had overheard her mother having with Diana the day before.
‘Well, darling, I think I’ll be fine by then. Just need some beach stuff and sunglasses, right?’ Anthony cheerfully chipped in.
‘Exactly, Anthony. That’s all you need.’ Jack responded, before adding: ‘In fact, here’s your flight itinerary,’ handing over a printed piece of paper.
Lucinda felt ambushed. She didn’t really know what to say. In her mind, Christmas had been exactly as she had hoped, and a fitting final chapter to what had been, in her eyes at least, a lonely and disappointing period of her life.
She looked at her children and then briefly across to Anthony, who was studying the flight itinerary with intrigue, in particular the three-legged journey in economy on the way home.
Lucinda took a deep breath and composed herself. What was one more week in the bigger picture? She could use the trip to talk things through with Anthony and could still be holding wine tastings in the Cape by mid-January, perhaps even with a base tan, she thought to herself.
‘Great. Thank you, darling. You are a thoughtful boy,’ Lucinda smiled, as he passed her the flight itinerary.
*
Jack carried Sophie’s bags down the stairs for her, and out to her VW Golf parked outside.
‘Jack, do you think everything’s okay between those two?’ she asked her brother.
‘As okay as it’s ever been, I’d say. I thought they were quite happy actually over the last few days. Didn’t you?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just something Diana said to her, as if she knew something was up. Oh, I dunno. Maybe I’m imagining it.’
‘I think sometimes Mum thinks too much about this sort of stuff. She needs to chill out more generally, but I think they’re fine and happy muddling on. Besides, it’s not like they’ve got things too tough, is it? And that was sweet, the necklace that Anthony got her.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Besides, maybe your mad Tulum idea will do them some good.’
‘Let’s see. Now drive carefully, and tell Harry I’ll be up to see you guys soon.’
‘You better had. And good luck with the new job. And life in London, for that matter. I dread to think what you and Archie are going to get up to in your bachelor pad.’
Jack laughed and lifted the rest of her bags into the car while Sophie went in to say goodbye to Anthony and Lucinda.
As Sophie got into her car, her phone rang. It was Harry. She silenced it, deciding that it would make more sense to call him back once she was out of the village and back on the A47 where she wouldn’t have to concentrate so hard on the winding lanes. But he called again, and she answered.
It turned out that Harry just wanted to wish Lucinda and Anthony a quick Happy Christmas. Sophie moaned that he should have called earlier, before reluctantly getting back out of the car and passing the phone to Lucinda. They spoke briefly before she passed the phone to Anthony.
Anthony’s conversation followed the normal niceties you would expect, before he walked slightly further down the lane in what looked like an effort to pick a sloe from the bush, despite knowing they had all been picked back in November.
‘Anthony, do hurry up! Sophie must be on the road soon, or she’ll never get home,’ Lucinda barked before leading Sophie back inside to the warmth.
Unbeknown to the slightly cross women, Harry had asked Anthony to move out of earshot of the others, hence his appalling sloe-picking acting skills. Once Anthony confirmed he couldn’t be overheard by the others, Harry’s tone changed.
‘Anthony, I know you’re not Sophie’s father, but you’ve been a terrific support for her entire life, and I know she loves you very much. I wanted to ask you if you would be prepared to allow me to marry her. I was planning on asking her tomorrow.’
‘Ah, yes, Harry, very good of you, very good of you. Of course, I’m not Sophie’s father, you’re right. But if I were, I would not hesitate at all. I know Lucinda and I would be more than delighted if you two were to be married.’
‘Is that your blessing then, Anthony?’
‘Well, you would have it, of course, but I fear it would be presumptuous of me. It is only for Sophie to answer this.’
‘You’re a decent man, Anthony. I’ll take that as I may. That’s why Sophie’s so fond of you. Thank you.’
Anthony put the phone down and walked back to the house.
‘What on earth were you talking about out there for so long?’ Lucinda asked.
‘He, um, well, he wants to make us some sloe gin, you see. As a Christmas present. And, well, he just wanted to find out if one of the sloes he was using would be too far gone to be used still. It being December and everything.’
Lucinda and Sophie, who had now reappeared, looked on confused, but they were used to Anthony’s incomprehensible waffle by now and they suspected that as so often happened, he probably totally misunderstood the conversation. After all, Harry, a farmer, who grew crops for a living, seeking Anthony’s advice on bottling his sloe gin, did seem a little peculiar.
*
The following day, Jack jumped on the train back to London, swapping his backpack and hiking shoes for a suit bag, a number of shirts, many of which had belonged to his father, and a couple of suitcases.
Back at Ferryman’s Cottage, Lucinda and Anthony were alone again.
‘I enjoyed that Christmas, darling. Very much, in fact,’ Anthony said, pouring himself a glass of claret from one of the few Christmas bottles that hadn’t been drunk.
‘Yes, it was a success, wasn’t it?’ said Lucinda, before changing the subject. ‘Anthony? Look, do you really think we need to go to Mexico. Don’t you think we’ll find it all, well, hellish? With all that loud music, and young people dancing around the beach?’
‘Well, actually, I looked it up online, and there does seem to be quite a lot to see there. And I thought we might even book a fishing trip; there are meant to be terrific marlin in that part of the world, you know.’
‘No, Anthony, I didn’t know…’ Lucinda sighed, speaking to herself. How quiet the house suddenly felt again, without Sophie and Jack.
- Chapter Seven -
From Castle Acre, Norfolk to Tulum, Mexico
4 am is a wholly ungodly time for anyone to have to get up, Lucinda thought to herself as she lifted her suitcase into the back of their Volvo. But if they were to get to Heathrow on time, Anthony insisted that it was essential to leave by then in order to avoid the rush hour traffic and catch their flight.
Well, it was if you were Anthony, who liked to get anywhere, but especially airports, with plenty of time to s
pare. In the end, traffic wasn’t as bad on the A1 as Anthony had envisaged and, as Lucinda had predicted, they arrived at Terminal 5 with a little over three and a half hours to spare.
‘Perfect. We’ll find a nice little cafe to have some breakfast and settle down with a newspaper,’ Anthony reassured her, in an effort to squeeze some sort of smile out of her.
*
After a further eighteen hours of travelling, very little sleep and much discomfort, they landed in Cancun Airport at 9.30pm local time. Looking out of the window during the landing, all Lucinda could see was one concrete breeze block hotel after the next, and the neon lights of fast food parlours. She wanted to cry. She was tired, starving (having turned down Anthony’s invitation to an airport breakfast out of principal and then refusing to eat any economy class food for the entire journey) and just wanted to be in her own bedroom back home again. Meanwhile, Anthony seemed to have watched a movie about Christopher Robin, which Lucinda was sure had been made for children, had three gin and tonics, and then slept the rest of the way.
Getting off the plane did little to change her mood. The humidity in the air, even at 9.30pm, brought her out in a hot flush. Once they’d retrieved their bags and made it through customs, they were relieved to see a sign with their name on it being held amongst the others, whereupon they followed their driver to a waiting white minibus. Having squeezed on, they found two other couples and a group of four young men sitting on the back row, each of whom seemed to look, dress and style their hair in exactly the same way as Jack on his arrival at Downham Market just before Christmas.
It took another ninety minutes to reach Tulum, and Lucinda spent much of this part of the journey mentally cursing her son for putting her through this. She was pleasantly relieved, though, to see that after just forty minutes of driving away from Cancun, the large concrete resorts petered out and were replaced instead with jungle and darkness.
They turned off the main 307 Highway running from Cancun along the coast, eventually hitting Belize, and the minibus made its first stop at an Argentinean hotel, a vast open structure built in the shape of a boat, and intricately decorated with woven twigs as the sail, and which even Lucinda admitted looked to be an architectural triumph.
The wave of optimism that Lucinda felt was short-lived, though, as one of the couples climbed out of the minibus and she was able to take a closer look. Even with a limited grasp of Spanish and in her tired state, Lucinda was pretty confident that “naturalista” meant it was a nudist hotel. She closed her eyes and cursed Jack again.
A few minutes later, the minibus stopped again, this time at what looked like a rather more civilised guesthouse, Lucinda thought. Hacienda San Angel, this one was called, designed in more of a traditional Aztec style, with an appealing and brightly coloured restaurant with it too. The other couple got out.
‘Anthony, write down the name of that hotel, please,’ she told Anthony, not caring that she was in earshot of the others on the bus.
‘Whatever for, Lucinda? Jack’s already sorted ours for us,’ he queried.
‘Precisely. If we find that it’s ghastly, as I suspect it will be, I want to go and stay right there.’ She pointed to the smiling receptionist helping the second couple, and who had just been offered refreshing-looking cocktails on a tray covered in fresh pink petals.
‘Oh, darling,’ he smiled, a little too patronisingly for her liking. ‘Jack told me it was very comfortable. Why on earth would it be ghastly?’
‘Because nothing should be called a camp unless it’s a luxury safari hotel in Africa. And Jack stayed there!’ she barked back.
After about another kilometre down the road, and away from the main part of the strip which Lucinda had started to find reassuring thanks to a few decent-looking restaurants and shops, they pulled in and saw a sign surrounded by tealights and with what looked like a pyramid with an eye in the middle of it, saying Camp Mayo.
The driver unloaded their bags on the side of the road and headed back to his seat.
Anthony turned to the four boys, who he took to be French from their conversation, before asking, ‘Vous restez ici aussi?’
They responded, ‘Non, monsieur, nous campons à proximité sur la plage, mais cet endroit est très cool. Vous vous amuserez’ which was beyond Anthony’s limited French comprehension, but which he took as roughly meaning, ‘No, but this place is cool. You’ll have fun.’
A muscular American man in his early 20s, with a baggy-fitting Camp Mayo vest and a blond ponytail arrived by the gate.
‘Welcome to Camp Mayo. You must be the Palmers. We’ve been expecting you,’ he winked.
‘You must be Leonardo then?’ Lucinda said, putting her hand out to shake his.
‘No, I’m Gabriel. Leonardo’s away for a couple of days, but he told me to look after you.’
‘Ah, the Angel Gabriel,’ Lucinda said with a forced smile.
‘Hello, I’m Anthony Palmer. How do you do? We’re pleased to be here,’ Anthony said, before Gabriel had a chance to respond to Lucinda.
‘I’ll get your bags, and then please, follow me,’ Gabriel said, picking up the luggage before Anthony could offer to help, and carrying it on his back through their entrance gate with some rather impressive biceps on full display.
Once they were through the gate and had signed in at what was allegedly a reception hut, they were able to look onto the rest of the camp.
There were no buildings, only a selection of yurts and wooden structures built into the sand dunes, with everything lit up by candle lanterns liberally positioned around the camp.
Over the dunes, you could hear the soft beat of music playing. Lucinda rolled her eyes before agreeing with Anthony that, rather than sounding intrusive and disturbing, the music had an almost reassuring hypnotic rhythm to it.
‘I’ll take you to your sanctuary now, Mr and Mrs Palmer,’ Gabriel said. ‘Come this way, but please first remove your shoes. We operate a fully barefoot policy here; that’s probably our only rule.’
With some difficulty, they both removed their shoes and followed Gabriel through to their yurt.
‘Welcome to your home for the next week. Is there anything else I can get you for now?’
‘No, thank you, Gabriel. All I need is a bed! It’s been a long day,’ Lucinda replied.
‘In which case, I’ll see you tomorrow and we can work out your schedule for the week. Sleep well.’
Gabriel closed the door behind them and then it was just the two of them in their yurt, which, without the light of the lanterns outside, suddenly seemed rather dark and claustrophobic.
Lucinda was normally meticulous about unpacking her bags and clothes neatly on arrival, but after their journey, she could think of little other than going to sleep. Today’s experience had simply confirmed to her that she actually loathed travelling, particularly when exhausting stopovers were included.
Beforehand, though, she would find the light source, use the bathroom and brush her teeth. Using the light from Anthony’s phone, she managed to find a torch by the side of her bed, which she turned on and shone expectantly around the room.
‘Anthony, where’s the bathroom in this bloody place?’ she snapped, having only spotted that the only door to the yurt was the one through which they had just entered.
‘Do you know, I wondered that too, Lucinda. I’m afraid I don’t think we have one. Must be outside,’ he suggested cautiously, not wanting to unleash further scolding from his wife.
‘Outside? What do you mean, outside? For fuck’s sake, Jack,’ Lucinda sighed, before continuing her rant at Anthony. ‘Well, I need to use it, so you’d better come with me right now and hold the torch. Otherwise, no doubt, I’ll end up stepping on a scorpion and that will probably be the end of me,’ before crossly muttering to herself afterwards, ‘perhaps preferable to a week of this place.’
The two of them walked out of
their yurt and towards the main communal area, which still seemed suspiciously quiet. Using the light of the lantern, Anthony was able to guide them towards a wooden sign they had noticed earlier, indicating the “washrooms”.
The washroom was less of a room and more of a canvas structure which, like most things at Camp Mayo, was covered in fairy lights and had a beaded curtain made of shells as an entrance. Inside, there were four sinks and two cubicles, again with shell curtains as doors. The smell of incense was so strong, it overpowered any natural odours.
‘Shine the bloody torch this way so I can at least see what I’m doing in this ghastly little set-up,’ Lucinda demanded.
Anthony obligingly shone the torch towards a cubicle and waited until Lucinda had finished. She then brushed her teeth in the sink and washed her hands, before charging out of the structure as quickly as she could as Anthony scampered after her to illuminate her way.
Back in the yurt, she changed into her pyjamas and lowered herself to the mattress on the floor. She indulged herself with thoughts of self-pity, but not for long, as it was less than a minute before she fell into a deep and much-needed sleep. Anthony waited until he was absolutely sure that she was asleep before carefully picking up the torch and tiptoeing back to the bathroom. Exhausted himself, he retraced their steps and walked straight back through the curtain of shells to the washroom and headed towards the lavatory cubicles inside.
But on pulling back the second curtain, to his surprise, he saw a woman sitting down on the loo staring straight back at him. She was wearing a green one-piece jumpsuit, requiring her to have rolled the whole garment down from the top. This left her bare breasts exposed, between which a gold pendant hung, gently swaying between her cleavage. Anthony knew he should avert his eyes immediately, but allowed himself to stare at the woman for longer than in any other normal scenario he would have deemed gentlemanly. After a couple of seconds, the very limit of what he felt could be perceived as accidental, he turned his head.