All Inclusive

by Judy Astley

  ‘Look,’ Ned said, ‘I hate to be a party pooper but it’s not getting any better, this thunder, do you think we should maybe be summoning our good boatman and heading back?’

  ‘Good plan. Who’s got the blue flag?’

  Nick found Delilah in the sea, paddling around by herself, up to her thighs, her linen dress soaking wet and clinging to her. Her hair was drenched, and all her carefully applied make-up was trickling down her face. Rain or tears? He couldn’t begin to guess.

  ‘I don’t think you should be in the sea when it’s thundery, Del. Lightning might get you,’ Nick called, wading in and taking her hand to lead her to shelter. ‘Hey, you’re a bit cold. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose. Just a bit . . . you know, empty-ish.’

  ‘Is it the wedding? All that lovey-dovey stuff? Can’t be doing with it, me.’

  ‘Liar.’ She punched him gently. ‘Don’t tell me Felicity didn’t get to you – that’s why you came running over to St George, to be in the comfort of your loving family!’

  ‘Now you’re really ripping the piss, Del.’ The two of them walked up the beach and sat together beneath a clump of trees. Mark and Sadie were now on their own in the wedding arbour, having a romantic moment alone with cake and champagne. Sam was spark out in a hammock, his long beaded hair hanging over the fabric and a couple of spliff roaches lying dead on the sand beneath. The rain was easing off now, but the sky was still a menacing, thundery colour.

  ‘I heard you ripping into Sam. Nice one.’ Nick passed her a can from his beer stash and she opened it and took a swig.

  ‘I thought I’d feel better after that, but you know, he’s so arrogant,’ she said. ‘He still thought I’d like, go with him tonight, even after he’d kind of admitted that he’s a total waster with all women.’

  Nick wondered for a moment – should he mention the sweepstake in the water-sports hut? Would it make her laugh or make her cry? Cry, instinct told him.

  ‘It’s partly my fault. You’d never have . . . without a condom . . .’ he stammered.

  ‘How did you know I did?’ Delilah said quickly.

  ‘Oh . . . just, um, guessed. You wouldn’t be so upset if it was only a quick snog. Hey!’ Nick said, a tiny spark of an idea forming. ‘I’ve just thought of something. You got mad – now you need to get even.’ He got to his feet. ‘Wait there a sec.’

  Delilah leaned against a tree and watched her parents and their holiday friends round their table near the bar. Completely wrecked, every one of them, she thought, feeling strangely affectionate.

  She looked across to where Sam was sleeping peacefully. Probably, she thought, because he spent all his nights not sleeping.

  ‘OK – I got these from behind the bar.’ Nick came back, whispering excitedly to her and presenting her with a large pair of scissors.

  ‘What do I do with these?’ she said, feeling confused.

  ‘You are Delilah,’ he said, pointing to the recumbent form in the hammock. ‘There’s Samson. Think about it?’

  ‘I was sure I had it, somewhere.’ Michael patted his pockets and eventually pulled out the bag Carlos had given him.

  ‘Well thank goodness you’ve found the flag, otherwise we’d have been cast away here for ever,’ Angela said. ‘Not that I wouldn’t put it past you to have lost it,’ she added. ‘You were always hopeless with any responsibility.’

  Michael put his hand in the bag and a look of confusion flashed across his face. ‘Um . . . what’s this?’ he said, pulling out the bag’s contents and brandishing a pair of cream and black lacy knickers.

  ‘Yours, aren’t they Cyn?’ Bradley said, taking them and turning them over. ‘You been catting about again?’

  There was an embarrassed silence. ‘So where’s the blue flag?’ Lesley asked at last. ‘Are we supposed to run Cyn’s pants up the flagpole and hope someone salutes them?’

  ‘Many have,’ Bradley said with a sigh.

  ‘Are they yours?’ Beth asked her. ‘How come Carlos had them?’

  There was another silence and she realized she’d asked the question everyone else had been dying to ask.

  ‘Yes they are mine,’ Cyn hissed at her. ‘And no, I haven’t been doing anything with bloody Carlos, OK? Anyway you can talk. You’re not such a goody-goody yourself.’

  ‘Cynthia . . .’ Bradley warned, but she wasn’t listening. Cyn leaned across and grabbed Ned’s arm.

  ‘Your wife, Ned, we had a conversation about “fireworks”, we did. And wouldn’t you be surprised . . .’

  ‘OK, this is getting too personal,’ Michael said, leaning back from the table with his hands raised. ‘Shall we stop now? Before someone says something they’ll regret?’

  ‘I don’t have any regrets. Not like some people.’ Cynthia’s eyes filled with tears and she rooted about in her bag for a tissue. Too late, Lesley passed her own pack over.

  ‘I had some in here . . .’ Cynthia banged the bag on the table, before turning it upside down so everything fell out, much of it onto the floor. Beth, being nearest, leaned down to gather up Cyn’s wallet, purse, chequebook and keys which were strung on a key ring with a horribly familiar tag – one from Tiffany’s, engraved with the single word: ‘Darling’.

  ‘This is yours?’ she heard herself say.

  ‘No.’ Cynthia almost spat at her. ‘Actually,’ and she pointed to Ned, ‘it was meant to be his.’

  17

  Corpse Reviver

  30 ml brandy

  20 ml sweet vermouth

  20 ml Calvados

  Was she supposed to feel like this? There should, Beth thought as she slid out of bed, be an instruction book for cheated-on wives. If she could be bothered to look on the Internet, she’d probably find there was. Somehow, though, she doubted there’d be a chapter on this bizarrely blissful feeling of relief that she was experiencing. Perhaps a support group would be better than a book – then she could talk it through with people who’d nod and look serious, and she’d find out if her reaction to discovering about Cynthia was totally abnormal.

  Beth opened the double doors wide and went out onto the balcony to breathe the humid early-morning air for the last time on this trip. No, change that, she thought, this was going to be the last time ever in this place. Not only did she not want to be reminded of the Ned-and-Cyn events, but she doubted the management would welcome the return of guests who’d assaulted the fitness trainer’s hair with scissors. It was almost Valerie and the archery class all over again.

  ‘Beth?’ Ned called from the bed. ‘Beth, are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine, Ned, fine,’ she told him – again. She wished he wouldn’t keep asking. It must be the twelfth time since they’d come back from Sadie and Mark’s wedding. It wasn’t surprising he’d asked, though. You probably weren’t supposed to find it hilariously funny, not supposed to laugh yourself almost sick, when you discovered the identity of your husband’s erstwhile mistress.

  So it had been Cynthia all the time. Well, for a pretty short time – even Cyn had admitted that. Not some work colleague, not the young, slinky, minx that she’d been imagining with Cat Deeley’s body, Scarlett Johansson’s mouth and all the sexual tricks of a top-class Parisian hooker. Just ordinary (well, reasonably attractive, she’d admit if pushed) old Cynthia. Who’d have guessed? Ned didn’t even like Cyn that much. Well he didn’t now anyway, not this holiday, that had become pretty clear. All this trip she’d vaguely wondered why he’d tried not to be close to Cyn, why he’d looked so uncomfortable when she’d grabbed him to sit beside her at the barbecue, why he’d looked so astounded, shocked even, that she and Bradley had turned up at all. Now it all fell into place.

  ‘She told me they were going east somewhere this time,’ he kept saying, as if she was going to accuse him of planning to meet up with Cynthia here at the Mango Experience (Sport ’n’ Spa). ‘I didn’t think she’d want to trail here after me.’

  ‘Are you sure you aren’t flattering yourself?’ Beth had asked, a
s they’d sat side by side on rain-soaked beach loungers after dinner. ‘Wasn’t it Sadie’s wedding they’d come for?’ No, she hadn’t believed that, even as she’d said it – and saying it was probably not a good idea, for after all, why shouldn’t Ned be desirable enough to be pursued?

  But when he’d told her about finding the knickers Cyn had sneaked in and hidden under his pillow, and about how he’d stuffed them into the used-towel bin . . . Was she supposed to find that funny too? Possibly, not, but she did.

  ‘You can laugh . . .’ he’d said, dourly. ‘You try being chased by a mad stalker.’

  And so it was, as ever, that she somehow ended up being the one who had to make it all right. To tell him it would all be fine, really, once they got home, just . . . fine.

  ‘Aren’t you glad I’m not like that?’ Lesley said to Len as she helped him limp across the terrace to his favourite seat at the Sundown bar. It was almost lunchtime, and it was the last day. Another round or three of drinks wouldn’t make any difference now. When she got home though, that was going to be different. Even if he was the only man in the group, she was going to force him to go to Shape Sorters every week with her till the two of them had lost enough weight to fit comfortably into airline seats again. She’d threaten him with extra poundage – this time of the wallet sort, if they didn’t lose the weight: no way was she going to travel in the back of the plane when they went away next year. He’d have to fork out for an upgrade.

  ‘Well, what do you think, Lesley?’ Len chuckled. ‘Course I’m glad. But it’s Bradley I feel sorry for. No man could be happy with a wife who lists “shagging any bloke with a pulse” under hobbies.’

  ‘I don’t know – it seems like he’s put up with it for years. I mean,’ she said, ‘you either get out or shut up, I suppose. She’s got away with it this long . . .’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll get away with this one though. I bet they’re not back here next year, don’t you?’

  ‘You know, Len, I don’t want to be either. It’s time for a change. We should go somewhere else – there’s a whole world out there. In fact . . .’ She waited a moment while Jim brought their drinks – a creamy, calorie-stuffed pina colada for her, a Corpse Reviver for Len.

  ‘Go on . . . I can see a plan already formed. Just tell me where I’m going!’

  ‘Well . . . I was reading in one of the travel mags in the Haven about this place that’s being all done up out in the Seychelles. Another spa, a bit like this. And it’s got a gym to die for.’ Lesley crossed her fingers quickly – that wasn’t the term she should have chosen. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Book it, sort it. You know me, Lesley – I’ll be happy anywhere. As long as you’re there, I’ll just tag along.’

  Delilah packed quickly, hurling her clothes into her bag and cramming all the free toiletries she’d collected from the bathroom into pockets and corners. She was almost looking forward to being home, to seeing her friends again and even to going back to school. She hadn’t intended to go back ’til after Christmas, but she felt so much better now and she had so much to tell her friends. Her mum would probably faint when she appeared at breakfast on Monday, school books all ready and well in time for the bus.

  Everything was done, packed and sorted. The room looked empty and cold now that all her possessions were stashed away, as if she had never inhabited it and it was waiting, all anonymous and uncaring, for its next occupant. She opened the door, took a quick last look round and placed her bag out in the corridor, reading for the trolley to collect it and take it to the baggage room behind reception. Time for one last swim in the pool. She would not behave like a jealous brat, not try to drown Gina or anyone else, nor would she be looking over her shoulder to see if Sam was around. He didn’t have the same appeal for her, somehow, now his hair was so messily chopped off. Funny how much truth there still could be in those mad old biblical stories. Whoever would have imagined it?

  Cyn’s head was under her pillow. She didn’t want to emerge until Ned and Beth’s plane had taken off later this afternoon and she’d never have to face them again. How stupid she’d been. How pathetic, desperate even. What had she imagined would happen? That Beth would say in her usual reasonable, no-fuss way, ‘Oh it was you all the time, was it? OK, here have Ned, here you are, take good care of him,’ as if he was a puppy who needed a more sympathetic owner? What she hadn’t expected her to do was fall about with laughter. So humiliating.

  And Bradley – how could she have done this to him? Again. When would she stop? She would stop – right now. She was getting too old for this; it was ridiculous to keep boosting her ego with short-term sex with spare (and not-so-spare) men. She should take the Gina route and go for surgery instead. She was sure that in the long run it would be far less painful.

  Bradley had gone. Not left her, but out diving as he always did. He’d said he’d miss Ned. If she went, would he miss her? She doubted it – only a devoted fool would. She’d been an idiot.

  Cynthia emerged from beneath the pillow and considered getting up and dressed, then possibly sitting in the sun on her balcony. She would wear her sunglasses and her big straw hat, so even if every hotel guest came to point the finger from down on the beach she wouldn’t have to see them. She would shower, slap on the factor fifteen and keep out of the way till the coast was clear. Brad might hate her, might want her to move out of their home, but they had three more days in this place. Three days of polite non-conversation (they’d done enough, thank you, to entertain their fellow guests) and then it would be back to freezing England with possibly a curt note from divorce lawyers by way of a Christmas present.

  Cynthia climbed out of bed and yawned. There was something unexpected on her bedside table – a cold cup of tea. Bradley must have made it for her before he left for his dive. She felt a tiny quiver of hope. Surely you only made gestures like that for people you cared about? It was like an expression of sympathy to someone suffering. Maybe there was still that remote chance. Her spirits lifted a little more as she opened the terrace doors. Beautiful day – she loved the heat, this sticky climate. Next year, she very nearly dared to plan, she and Bradley would go somewhere different, to a place where they knew no-one and had no history. That place in the Seychelles should be up and running again by then. When they got home, she’d make a start on checking it out. Just the two of them, she thought, no complications, absolutely no messing it up this time.

  ‘She’s gone!’ Gina came running across the pool terrace to where Lesley and Len, Ned and Beth sat under the tamarind tree. ‘Dolly has gone! Can you believe it?’

  Gina looked furious. Nick and Delilah, hearing the commotion, climbed out of the pool to see what was happening. Without being asked but sensing drama, Jim and barman brought Gina a large Sea Breeze and pulled out a chair for her, gently pushing her down into it.

  ‘God! Are you sure? Gina I’m so sorry!’ Beth came over and hugged her.

  ‘Whatever happened? She seemed fine yesterday, in really good form.’

  ‘She just went!’ Gina looked stunned. ‘In the night, just went. I can’t believe it. Why didn’t she say anything?’

  ‘Um . . . well she sort of has been saying, hasn’t she? All along?’ Ned ventured. Beth kicked him under the table. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘A bit insensitive.’

  ‘Huh?’ Gina gave him a puzzled look. ‘Ah no! She hasn’t gone, like gone gone. She’s not dead. At least, not ’til I catch up with her anyway. No, I mean she’s left the hotel. I called down to reception when I’d found her room empty and they said she’d checked out. She didn’t even leave a note, just her death outfit, all laid out on the bed, shoes too. How selfish is that?’ Gina was getting more furious by the minute. Jim brought her another drink.

  ‘Checked out? What, like she’s just taken it into her head to go home?’ Lesley asked. ‘Maybe she had a message from someone and had to leave. She’d have told you though, surely.’

  ‘She hasn’t gone home, apparently,’ Gina explained,
stopping for a second for another big gulp from her glass. ‘She took a cab to the airport, they said, to catch a flight to Miami. And she hasn’t gone by herself,’ She looked at Delilah. ‘You won’t believe this, honey, and I’m really sorry to be the one to tell you, but she’s taken that young Sam with her.’

  The airport was hot, crowded and sweaty. The check-in lines were slow, and Delilah, as ever when things weren’t moving fast enough, was getting impatient.

  ‘We should have got here earlier,’ she whined. ‘There won’t be time for any last-minute shopping.’

  There was still the queue to pay the airport tax after check-in, and then only one X-ray machine on the way to the departure lounge. She fancied some duty-free vodka. If she could get away with it, she could just about afford a really big bottle of the cheaper sort. It was time she organized another party. Sukinder had a large house – her parents were always going out to visit various family members. There was sure to be a night near Christmas when she’d have a free house and they could ask a few people round. Delilah might even consider getting to know Oliver Willis a bit better. Perhaps they could try something unusual this time, something called ‘conversation’.

  ‘Next year . . .’ Ned said to Beth as they inched their baggage trolley forward in the line, being careful not to run into Lesley’s legs. ‘Next year, where would you . . .’

  ‘Where would I like to go? I’m not sure. But I tell you one thing, it’ll be anywhere but here,’ she told him. ‘Actually . . . a month or so ago, on one of those TV holiday programmes I saw a fabulous place, a sort of spa and sport type of thing, a bit like the Mango but all being newly done. We could go there, I’ll look it up as soon as we’re back.’

  ‘Great idea. A lovely relaxing place where we don’t know anyone,’ Ned said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Beth agreed. ‘The Seychelles it is then.’

  THE END

  About the Author

  Judy Astley was born in Lancashire but has lived for most of her life in Twickenham. She has been a dress designer and painter before writing her first novel, Just for the Summer, in 1994. She has now written twelve novels, all published by Black Swan. She has two grown-up daughters and lives with her husband in Twickenham and Cornwall.