by Henry Sands
The wine had tempered any lingering concerns Lucinda had about her outfit, and once the margaritas hit them, she found herself more relaxed than she could remember in a long time. The grilled fish was the most delicious she had ever tasted, and she felt her spirits lifting.
Once they had finished their main courses, they moved to a pair of oversized grey beanbags that were positioned in front of the bar on the beach. After ordering two more margaritas, they lay back on the beanbags listening to the sound of the waves in front of them, and the gentle music from the bar behind.
Before long, Anthony was asleep, dozing to the lazily paced house music. The last time Lucinda could remember lying on a foreign beach with Anthony was their honeymoon to Corfu, six months after their wedding. They decided, or rather Lucinda decided, it made more sense to bring Sophie and Jack with them, so rather than a romantic break it turned into more of a family holiday. Diana and Andrew, when he was still alive, had a three-bedroom villa on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a beautiful secluded cove on the west side of the island, and which they had been given for a week as a wedding present.
Their wedding had been efficient in its preparation and swift in its execution. Chelsea Registry Office on the King’s Road, followed by lunch for ten at Oriel on Sloane Square, before it changed hands due to an unaffordable hike in rent.
She had slept with Andrew only twice before their wedding. Once quite soon after meeting him, when she stayed over at the flat he used to own in Battersea, overlooking the river. They had both drunk too much, after having spent the evening at a friend’s fortieth birthday party.
The second time was the following morning, after he had gone out to the supermarket to try and buy her some breakfast but made such a mess of the omelette, twice, that she’d told him to give up and come back to bed. Both times had been fleeting, without Lucinda giving it much of a thought.
With David, she used to think of their sex as passionate, and sensed a deep connection of two bodies and souls. Even when it was just a rushed fuck after work and before they had to be at a dinner, it was always more than just sex with David. She hadn’t had that same feeling with anyone since David had died. It wasn’t just Anthony. It was the same with all of the men she had been with after David, which wasn’t many; three perhaps.
Once they had arrived in Corfu, Lucinda had wondered if there might have been some additional intimate spark generated in their sex life, simply through being husband and wife. But having the children with them put any thought of that to an end.
It was a strangely polite, slightly awkward embrace, and once the precedent had been set on their honeymoon, it had remained in place ever since.
Lucinda realised then, looking back on when they first started dating each other, that by showing such indifference towards the intimate side of their relationship, the rest of it never had a chance. She had set them off on a downward slope from the start, and Anthony had just adapted accordingly, as men often did.
She remembered back to when they had first met, on that afternoon at Fakenham Racecourse, and when the rain had started pouring down. Despite grinning through the downpour and layering up with several layers of jackets, after just forty minutes of battling with inside-out umbrellas, they decided to call it a day, heading back to the car park.
Anthony had held an umbrella over Lucinda’s head, protecting her further from the gusts of wind by using his left hand to force the umbrella down. Less comfortable for Anthony, admittedly, with the water running straight off one side of the umbrella onto his head as a result, while the wind blew full throttle into his face.
Lucinda remembered how chivalrous she thought he was at the time, if not a little barmy. Once she was safely in the car, with him standing outside the window in the rain, she realised that he was still talking after she had closed the door. She wound down her window a fraction to say thank you. By this point, Anthony was almost shouting over the howling rain, trying to say, ‘Could I have your number?’ But by the time Lucinda finally recognised he was trying to talk, his efforts had resorted to simply shouting, ‘Number! Number!’ at the top of his voice, to the slight bemusement of the young family trying to get into the car behind them.
Once she finally heard him, she laughed to herself at the sight in front of her: what looked like a madman, screaming at her in the rain outside her window, demanding her telephone number. She wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to him through the window. He took it in his wet hand and stuffed it into his only dry trouser pocket.
He waved and headed off to find the others, who were also utterly drenched but in good spirits. Lucinda watched him through the car mirror and felt a fondness for the man she had just met.
It had been so different from her early days with David, when she had been infatuated by every aspect of his life. Anthony was just the friendly accountant with good manners, who started taking the train on the weekends to visit her, initially sleeping in the spare room before the night she invited him into her own.
His entrance into her life had been like simply sticking a pleasing but unexciting extension on a house; there was nothing new, just an additional component. Or perhaps a more accurate comparison, as Lucinda knew only too well, was that Anthony’s arrival was like installing a new roof and no longer having to worry about the utility bills.
The longer Lucinda stared at Anthony dozing peacefully on the beanbag, blissfully unaware of his surroundings and the covey of skimpily dressed young people around him, the more she realised how grateful, in fact, she was for his straightforwardness and ease. Nothing seemed to faze him. Before, she worried that this was because he was empty and without substance, which was part of the reason she didn’t really think of him as more than just someone with whom she could contentedly cohabit. But now she realised how much she appreciated his simple outlook, and his way of ignoring all of the little things that really didn’t matter. Perhaps that’s something that comes with age, she wondered. She looked around the beach bar of beautiful people, realising that the last thing she actually really wanted at this stage in her life was to be worrying about how her linen shirt was tied, or how much leg she was showing.
Lucinda leant over from her beanbag and allowed her head to rest gently against Anthony’s shoulder. Perhaps it wasn’t her relationship with Anthony that was giving her life a feeling of emptiness but instead their rather repetitive and slightly banal daily existence. She knew that she could control that, and perhaps change their outlook on things together, without having to actually change Anthony after all.
When Anthony woke up, he took a swig from the branded glass bottle that had been left out for him by their waiter, and ordered their bill. They walked back to their hotel along the sand, with Lucinda intently observing the different couples, either lying on the sand or walking up and down the beach.
What was going on in their relationships? she wondered to herself. What was it about them that worked together, or was it all just a façade? Did everyone have similar issues? Perhaps that’s just the way all relationships are. But then she thought back to David, and the relationship they had. There had never been any compromise, or rationalising to it. It just was.
She looked at a young couple in front of them, running into the sea together and diving through the breaking waves. She hoped they felt what she had once felt. Perhaps she was wrong to try and base everything on that. Should she not be happy that she had experienced that in her life, and now be content with the life she had? After all, she had two wonderful children, a lovely house, enough money to live comfortably and a husband who, despite his shortcomings, was loyal and decent. How lucky she had been to have had that. She took Anthony’s hand and squeezed it as they walked the final bit back to their camp.
Neither of them paid any attention to the fact that it was the first time for a number of years that either of them had held each other’s hand with any sort of affection.
The rest of the walk didn’t take long; the footsteps along the beach of those who had walked before them washed away with the waves, leaving fresh and unbroken sand ahead of them. In the distance, they could see their camp, and for the first time since they arrived, Lucinda was genuinely pleased to be there. Good old Jack, she thought.
*
Back at the camp, Gabriel was talking to another identikit man, and when he saw them, he waved and walked over.
‘You must be Jack’s parents?’ the young man grinned.
‘Yes, that’s us. Hello, I’m Lucinda and this is Anthony.’
She thought best not to point out that although she was Jack’s mother, Anthony was instead his stepfather, and Anthony didn’t interject either.
‘I’m Leonardo,’ the young man said. ‘We all loved having Jack here; I’m sure you guys are as much fun as he is.’
Lucinda smiled proudly at the thought of her son, and his ability to make friends wherever he went.
‘He asked me to make sure you guys have at least one evening at Casa Jaguar restaurant when you’re here. Wednesdays and Thursdays are generally the most entertaining there; shall I book you in?’
‘Oh, did he? Well, that sounds dangerous! But sure, thanks,’ Lucinda said. ‘What is it today? Monday? Why not Thursday, then, for our final night?’
‘That sounds ideal. And any plans this evening?’ Leonardo asked.
‘Perhaps just a quiet supper here and an early night. It’s been a long day.’
‘Brilliant. We’ll have dinner delivered to the table outside your yurt, and you guys can chill here then.’
They were just about to move on, when Anthony remembered the morning yoga classes on offer. ‘Oh, Gabriel said something about a morning yoga class. Would it be possible to join that tomorrow?’
Lucinda looked bemused. Anthony had never shown any sort of enthusiasm for group exercise, let alone yoga, but rather than find it annoying, which she would have normally done, she saw it as endearing.
‘Of course, sure! Just come along to the beach at 8am. It’s a beginner’s class. Shall I sign you both up?’ Leonardo smiled to himself as his mind raced back to the yoni massaging class he and Jack had done together before Christmas.
‘Certainly not. I’ll leave that one for you, Anthony, and I’ll have a lie-in with Margaret Atwood.’
Leonardo looked confused.
‘She’s an author! She means a lie-in with her book. Not actually with another woman. At least I hope not!’ Anthony said, just to clarify to Leonardo who was still looking a little confused.
Leonardo nodded. ‘Ah yes, of course. Okay, well, enjoy that; and Anthony, we’ll see you at 8am. Coffee will be sent to your room at 7am.’
That evening, they had a large sharing plate of freshly caught tiger prawns and a refreshing bottle of Northern California Pinot Noir sent to their yurt. A small campfire had been lit for them, and they sat back and admired the stars above.
- Chapter Nine -
Tulum, Mexico
Anthony had never done yoga before, but he was interested to learn more about it. At his office, Suzi, the HR woman, had approached him about six months ago saying some of the junior members of the team had asked about having the company pay for a yoga instructor to come in in the mornings to give group classes.
Anthony had agreed, suggesting they tried it out for a couple of months to see what the pickup would be, and re-evaluate after that.
Each morning at 7am, a woman called Charlotte would arrive and temporarily transform one of their boardrooms into a yoga studio, where she would then instruct a class for about forty-five minutes.
After two weeks, the classes had become so popular, particularly with the men in the company, that they’d had to move into another boardroom which was twice the size. When that boardroom started filling up too, they capped the number of available places for each class to prevent constant overflow.
Although Anthony had never been to one of the office classes – he felt there was something undignified about a man in his early sixties doing yoga with juniors in his office – he had walked past the boardroom window on a number of occasions and watched the scene of many of his esteemed colleagues wrapping themselves up into all sorts of curious poses.
He thought that trying it out for the first time here in Tulum would give him at least some sense of what all the fuss had been about. He was, after all, the one signing off on the cost of the office yoga classes.
They were woken with a gentle knock on the door at 7am, Gabriel delivering the coffee. Anthony had already been awake when he had knocked; for his entire life, his internal body clock had had a habit of waking him a few moments before his alarm.
He tiptoed out of the door, picking up the running clothes he’d left out the night before to avoid risking waking up Lucinda.
Outside, he got dressed, drank two cups of coffee and then headed back over the dunes to the wooden yoga deck.
He couldn’t see any sign of life but realised he was still twenty minutes early. He decided to put his towel and water bottle down on the deck, just so the others knew he was awake and ready, and took himself off for a walk along the beach.
Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of dance music playing, the final tracks of a long night for someone.
Ahead of him was a small group of Americans, probably in their early twenties, evidently on their way home, probably from the source of the distant music. Wherever they were coming from, they seemed in no state for polite conversation with Anthony.
Outside each of the hotels, an army of local hotel workers had suddenly arrived and were busy raking the seaweed that had swept in overnight onto the otherwise pristine white, sandy beaches. With military precision, and with each worker seemingly aware of their hotel’s exact boundary, the teams split into two groups; the first team would rake the seaweed into piles, while the second team would be digging large holes in which they buried the amassed algae.
Anthony looked at his watch and turned back towards the camp. When he arrived at the yoga deck, Leonardo had set out five mats. The one for himself at the front of the class had been laid out horizontally, and four others were in vertical pairs behind.
A French couple arrived, who Anthony guessed must be in their early thirties. The woman was dressed in what looked like a rather professional yoga outfit, with fluorescent patterned leggings and a loose maroon vest, and which had yoga fit sketched onto the back. He, rather to Anthony’s reassurance, was in a pair of baggy swimming shorts and a loose t-shirt. If Anthony had to guess, the woman was an experienced yoga participant who had dragged her husband along to join her while on holiday.
Leonardo asked them all to get comfortable and sit cross-legged while they prepared for the class and waited for the final participant. Anthony rather felt that sitting both comfortably and cross-legged was somewhat of an oxymoron, but rearranged his limbs as best he could.
In the background, Leonardo put on some soft music, which sounded as if it could have been from Tibet, and encouraged everyone to close their eyes and focus on their breathing.
‘Deep breaths in, and deep breaths out,’ Leonardo called from the front of the class.
Anthony tried to focus on the sequence of his inhale and exhale, but he became distracted by the sound of the final participant, a latecomer, settling themselves on the mat next to him. The softness of their breathing and lightness of their feet suggested it was a woman.
After a few minutes, Leonardo called everyone up to a standing pose and asked the group to stretch their necks as far as they could to the left before holding. Anthony looked out over the beach he had just walked down and was hugely impressed by the speed at which the seaweed had been buried. Then back to face the centre, Leonardo called out, ‘And now repeat to the right.’
As Anthony turned his head to the right, he immediately noticed the class
latecomer: none other than the woman he had barged into on the lavatory on their first night, with her green jumpsuit rolled down below her waist. The same women whose nipples he had barely stopped thinking about since. Thankfully, she was looking to her right, out along the beach and in the opposite direction from Anthony; otherwise, she would have noticed him almost lose his balance as he felt a rush of adrenalin go through him. He hadn’t experienced a feeling like that since he was a young teenager, when the pretty girl in his maths class had smiled at him.
Now completely flustered, he considered taking the opportunity to run away swiftly while the class was looking the other way, before realising that the woman in green would have already noticed him when they had been stretching to the left. Perhaps she hadn’t realised it was him? Before he had time to consider his options any further, Leonardo was calling the class back to face the centre.
Not wanting to risk her thinking he was ogling again, Anthony did everything he could to keep his gaze focussed on the ground in front of him. When it was time for another stretch to the right, he would wait for a few seconds to ensure that she would already be looking away from him to avoid catching her eye.
His thoughts remained fixed on the situation throughout the whole class, rather than on the actual yoga itself. He felt like he was in an excruciating Mr Bean sketch, rather than on a pathway to spiritual enlightenment. The flip side was the ease with which he was able to admire every aspect of her rear when the woman in green was facing to her right, the pertness of which was emphasised further by her tight yoga leggings.
Her figure was even more desirable than he had remembered. A loo was probably never going to be the most flattering spot for which to admire a female body. But even in the least romantic of settings, Anthony had been taken aback by her athletic figure, and observing her body now in full stretch further reinforced this.
Before the end of the class had even been called, Anthony wondered how he was going to be able to extract himself without having to go through the embarrassment of having to speak to her.