by Lindsey Kelk
‘The water isn’t even cold,’ I shouted back up the beach as I stepped into the water. ‘Louisa, get in here, it’s amazing!’
‘Not a bloody chance,’ she shouted back. ‘And you’re the one who thinks sexting is tacky!’
I strode out into the shallow bay until the water was up to my waist, feeling like a goddess. As soon as my stretch marks were all covered, I was happy. This was great, I decided, I was at one with the ocean, communing with mother nature, connecting to the divine whatever it was Jenny kept going on about in meditation class.
‘Oi, Clark, nice tits!’
Arms clasped tightly to my chest, I swivelled around to see Louisa, Paige and James all standing on the beach, laughing their backs off.
‘Oh, fuck off,’ I shouted. ‘I’m having a nice time.’
‘Wait for me, I’m coming in,’ James called back and he unbuttoned a third Hawaiian shirt and wriggled out of his trousers.
‘If he’s going in, I’m going in,’ Paige said, wrangling her enormous earrings out of her ears.
Holding her breath, Lou scrunched up her face, FOMO personified.
‘Sod it!’ she yelled. ‘I’m coming in in my knickers but I’m coming in.’
Moments later, James belly-flopped into the water, displacing half the Pacific Ocean with a splash the likes of which I’d only ever seen at Alton Towers, while Paige and Louisa followed in his wake.
‘I fucking love this place,’ James shouted at the top of his voice, sweeping his arm across the top of the water to create another almighty arcing wave that came splashing down on top of the rest of us. Louisa’s hair was saturated. ‘I love you and you and you and I love my life and I love Hawaii!’
‘Is he high?’ Louisa asked, doggy paddling over to me.
‘Weed is legal here!’ he crowed before panic crossed his face. ‘Wait, is it?’
‘I don’t think so, no,’ I replied as he did a swan dive under the water, grabbed Paige’s legs and pulled her under with him. ‘But we love you anyway.’
In fact, in that moment, other than Alex’s mother and the fact I sort of needed a wee, I couldn’t think of many things in the world that I didn’t love.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Where were you last night?’ I asked Jenny as I arrived outside the main entrance to Hala Lanai at eight thirty on Sunday morning.
When I got back to my room after our skinny-dip adventure, I’d found a new package of surprises on my bed. A baby-pink boiler suit embroidered with my name on the back, a pink helmet and an updated schedule that said breakfast would be delivered to my door at seven thirty and I was expected outside, on time, in my new ensemble. Even though I looked like a bottle of baby lotion had made a baby with a KwikFit Fitter, I did as I was told.
‘Busy,’ Jenny replied, counting people onto the three baby-pink open-top Jeeps parked out front of the estate. ‘I heard you had fun?’
‘Would have been more fun with you,’ I told her, noticing that everyone else had accessorized their outfit in some way. Eva was wearing hers open with a bikini top underneath, while Paige had the top of her boiler suit pulled down and the arms tied around the waist to show off her black racer-back tank. Even Louisa had rolled up the sleeves and popped the collar when she wandered out into the driveway.
Jenny laughed but I saw the tension in her face, the split second before she could push it away. ‘Natch, I’m the best. Now get your ass into the car. We need to be at the ranch in a half-hour.’
‘Ranch?’ I asked as she climbed into the back seat of one of the Jeeps and hauled me up after her. ‘Why are we going to a ranch?’
Jenny laughed as Louisa and I fell backwards into our seats, the driver not waiting for us to find our seatbelts. ‘Where else are we going to get the horses?’
Horses? I should have tried harder to get through to Alex, I thought, grabbing the roll cage around the Jeep before we took off. It would have been nice to talk to Alice before I met my untimely end.
‘Aloha, everyone.’
‘Aloha,’ we chorused, lining up alongside the Jeeps like we’d just got off the bus on a school trip. But instead of Hampton Court Palace or Alton Towers, we were standing in front of something very different. An actual, bloody volcano.
‘My name is Kekipi and I work with Bertie Bennett.’
A short, stocky man with black hair, brown eyes and a quirked eyebrow that could only mean trouble stood before us. He was wearing a nice black shirt, nice black trousers and, even though I’d always said I would never approve of sandals on a man, Kekipi was pulling them off. There was something about him that made you want to bundle him up in a hug and never let go. He had an open face, wildly gesticulating hands and eyelashes so long and thick you could have hung Christmas ornaments off them. Really, he should have been the one advertising the bloody mascara for Jenny.
‘I manage his estates, amongst other things, and since it meant a free trip to Hawaii, I volunteered to check in on you all.’
I tried hard to concentrate on our tour guide and take in the stunning scenery that lay beyond but all I could really see was a line of horses, all saddled up and impatiently stamping their feet. Just biding their time before throwing me over a cliff, I could tell.
‘Lanai is a very small island with only three thousand inhabitants,’ Kekipi went on, waving his arm with a flourish. The man had missed his calling as what my nana would have called, ‘one of them dollybirds off that gameshow’. ‘The island is only eighteen miles wide and has no traffic lights or stop signs, which makes it a treat for joyriding, though if you tell Mr Bennett I said that, I will deny it to the very core of my being. Legend has it that the island was inhabited by the god of nightmares before he was killed by a young chief from Maui who was sent here as punishment. Of course, there was no one else here to verify this and, as far as we know, the young chief did not manage to catch it on Snapchat, so we just have to take his word for it.’
How fascinating, I thought, never once taking my eyes off the horses.
‘Today, we will be venturing into Keahiakawelo, also known as the garden of the gods, an area of the island covered with fascinating rock and lava formations that the islanders claim were created when the gods dropped pebbles from their gardens in the skies above,’ Kekipi said, quirking that eyebrow even higher. ‘The garden’s famous lunar-like landscape was also, like so many of the best things in life, influenced by a bet. Two Kahuna or priests, one from Lanai and another from Molokai, challenged each other to keep a fire burning on their respective islands. The one who kept it burning for the longest would be rewarded with great gifts from the gods.’
‘Is there a single story in history that doesn’t boil down to a dick-swinging contest?’ Jenny asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not a single one.’
‘So these priests pulled up the whole island and burned it?’ Paige asked.
‘Basically,’ Kekipi nodded. ‘Don’t judge them too harshly, they didn’t have Netflix. Now, it’s said that Keahiakawelo is the best place on all of Lanai to connect with the gods and, if you listen hard enough, you will hear their message to you. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ride your horse up this hill to the Garden of the Gods, where I will be waiting with a good meal and a stiff drink or two, which should make it easier to hear what those pesky gods have to say for themselves.’
‘And when Kekipi says “should you choose to accept it”, he means, this is absolutely one hundred percent what you’re doing,’ Jenny added. ‘We’ll meet you at the end for the feast. Have fun, everyone!’
‘You’re not coming?’ I asked, grabbing her arm as she climbed back into the Jeep.
‘Fuck no,’ she replied with wide eyes. ‘The last time I rode a horse, I looked like I’d been on a super successful date with the entire roster of the New York Knicks. Me and farm animals don’t mix, dollface, I’ll see you at the other end.’
‘Well, me and my post-birth bladder aren’t convinced we’ll get along so well with
Black Beauty over there, either,’ I said, pointing at the giant horse with my name embroidered on his saddle. ‘Can’t I just come with you instead?’
‘Angie, baby,’ Jenny gave me a wicked smile as her driver gunned his engine. ‘This is an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience. It would be cruel of me to deny you this moment.’
‘So incredible, you’re not going to bother?’ I asked.
‘The perils of being in charge,’ she said with a sigh and a hair flip. ‘See you up there, boo.’
And with that, the driver honked his horn and they drove away.
‘Come on, Ange, you’ll be fine,’ James yelled, already astride his horse. ‘Stay close to me. I took Western riding lessons for that Quentin Tarantino film.’
‘You got shot in the first scene,’ I replied, eyeing my new four-legged friend with great suspicion. He seemed no more interested in me than I was in him.
‘I was still in it,’ he shouted back. ‘Get on the horse and shut your yap.’
‘Really, Angela,’ Louisa called, hopping up onto her pretty brown pony with the greatest ease. ‘These horses do this all day, they’ll do all the work. All you have to do is not fall off.’
‘She says it like it’s easy,’ I said to the horse, who huffed in agreement.
With the assistance of not one, not two but three stable hands, I wedged one of my feet into a stirrup and heaved myself up onto the horse’s back, flinging my other leg over until I was in something like riding position.
‘I don’t like it,’ I wailed, shutting my eyes and gripping the reins so tightly the leather cut into my palms. ‘I’m too high.’
‘Or not high enough?’ James suggested.
‘Come on, Angela, you can do this,’ Paige said as the group began to trot away. How was it everyone knew how to ride a horse but me?
‘I’ve already dislocated a hip,’ I muttered, not quite ready to open my eyes. It was a little bit late to regret turning down riding lessons when I was twelve but, at the time, I’d had a choice between horse riding and ice skating and there was a boy at the ice skating rink who looked exactly like Mark Owen and even before I understood why, I was a slave to my hormones.
‘You’re going to end up with a broken back because you were dick-led even when you were pre-pubescent,’ I scolded myself. ‘I cannot believe I’m going to die on a horse in Hawaii.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ James scoffed, circling his horse around to face me. ‘You’ll fall off and break a leg at best. Maybe a hip. Maybe.’
‘Oh good,’ I said, holding my breath and tensing every muscle in my body as the horse began to trot off after the others. ‘Nothing to worry about then.’
‘Nothing to worry about at all,’ he agreed.
Half an hour later, I was very nearly almost close to enjoying myself. Louisa and Paige were hanging back with me, one in front and one behind, while the others galloped off, racing like mad things up the hill. My horse, Alani, was actually all right. Even though he was enormous and muscular and I could tell he was just dying to cut loose, he kept a very respectful old lady pace. I couldn’t feel my bum any more but I wasn’t especially scared, either. I was officially chalking it up as a win.
‘I can’t believe we’re here,’ Lou breathed as we rounded another corner and gazed out on the Lanai landscape. ‘Look at the ocean. I’ve never seen so many shades of blue.’
As we rose higher up the rocky road, I could see the shoreline in the distance and the outline of another island a few miles away across the ocean. On the other side of us was a science fiction landscape, cast in every single shade of red and brown that had ever been conceived. Just when I thought I’d seen enough neutral brown eyeshadow palettes to last a lifetime, Lanai could have come up with a hundred more. Other than the wind and the rhythmic rapping of the horses’ hooves, it was utterly peaceful.
Until my phone started ringing.
‘Shit, it might be Alex,’ I said, fumbling around in my not-Marc-Jacobs bag, clinging to Alani’s reins and trying to keep my balance. I pulled out my phone and swiped to answer without looking at the caller.
‘Hello, Angela speaking?’ I said, awkwardly holding it to my ear, everything tight and tense again.
‘Well, I would hope no one else is answering your phone. I haven’t got long, we’re going to Lynette from the badminton club’s daughter’s wedding but only the night do because we weren’t invited to the service. I told your father we shouldn’t bloody go at all, after we invited them to your wedding, but he’s insisting so I suppose we’re going. I suppose you did cancel on the day. Now where’s my delicious granddaughter?’
‘Mum. Now’s not a good time.’
‘That’s all right, I don’t want to talk to you,’ Annette Clark replied. ‘I want to talk to Alice.’
‘No, I mean, she’s not here,’ I said, pulling a panicked face at Louisa, trying to mouth my issue without falling off the horse. But Louisa was too busy dreamily gazing at the landscape and actually enjoying herself to attempt to help in any way.
‘Wherever are you?’ my mum asked. ‘I have to say, it’s not a very good connection. You’re not on your own in the park, are you? I’ve told you not to go in there without Alex, not after I got flashed by that pervert.’
‘He wasn’t a flasher, Mum, some men just wear their trousers very low these days,’ I explained for the millionth time. ‘And I’m not in the park, I’m in Hawaii.’
It was never a good sign when my mum went silent.
‘Are you still there?’ I asked, praying to the teenage chief who fought the nightmare god that she wasn’t.
‘What do you mean, you’re in Hawaii?’ she screeched.
‘Oh god, even I heard that,’ Louisa whispered, kicking her horse into gear and riding off a little way in front. ‘Good luck, Angela. Don’t tell her I’m here!’
‘Louisa is here with me,’ I replied instantly as my oldest friend flipped up her middle finger and rode away. ‘We’re away for the weekend. It’s a work thing, Jenny organized it.’
‘And where is my grandchild while you’re off gallivanting around Hawaii?’ she demanded, spitting out the name of the state. I wasn’t quite sure what Hawaii specifically had done to raise her ire but I was certain I was going to hear about it.
‘She’s at home with her father,’ I said. ‘She’s perfectly fine. You can call Alex if you want to talk to her. He’d love to hear from you.’
It was a lie but it was all I had.
‘Oh, she’s perfectly fine, is she?’ Mum replied, on a roll now. ‘Left alone with Alex while you’re gadding around with the girls? Has he even had her on his own all weekend before?’
‘He’s not a random babysitter I got off the internet,’ I argued, tightening my grip on Alani’s reins. ‘He’s her father and he’s perfectly capable of taking care of her for one weekend. Besides, his mum is staying with them.’
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I’d cocked up. Annette Clark vs Janet Reid had been, I hoped, a never-to-be-repeated event. It was the Foreman vs Ali of our times, The Rumble in DUMBO. They met at our wedding and, it was safe to say, it had not gone well. It all kicked off when Janet asked if my mum was my grandmother, which my mother promptly followed up by asking Janet where she had bought her wig. After that it was snide comment after snide comment until they ultimately exchanged addresses. They now sent each other passive-aggressive Christmas cards every year; I was fairly sure my mum only kept sending physical Christmas cards in order to keep tabs on her list of mortal enemies.
‘We would have come over to look after her, you know,’ Mum said in a dangerously quiet voice. ‘There was no need for that woman to get involved.’
‘That woman is her grandmother,’ I pointed out, as much as it hurt to stand up for Janet. ‘And Alex’s mum. And, you know, lives an hour away rather than an international flight. It was all very last minute, Mum, don’t worry about it. Everything is absolutely fine. I’ll be home again on Tuesday and it’ll b
e like I was never away.’
‘Except for everything you’ve missed,’ she said with a theatrical sob. ‘Everything changes so quickly when they’re this little, you’ll barely recognize her when you’re back. And you know she’ll not want to feed if she has a few days off.’
Instinctively, I pressed my forearms against my boobs and realized I hadn’t expressed that morning. Or the night before. And I wasn’t leaking. Uh-oh.
‘Mum, I need to go,’ I said, refusing to let her know she’d struck a nerve. ‘I’m on a horse.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Angela Clark,’ she replied. ‘You can just say you’ve got something better to do than talk to me and your father.’
‘Don’t bring me into it,’ I heard Dad yell in the background. ‘I’m waiting to bloody go, I’ve got the engine running. We’ll never get parked at the club if we’re the last to arrive.’
‘No, I really am on a horse,’ I said as Alani snorted loudly to confirm my story. ‘And it sounds like you need to go anyway.’
‘Do you know how old you were before I left you alone with your dad?’
I thought back for a moment. How old was I when he set the garden shed on fire letting off the leftover fireworks that time? No, wait, Auntie Vera was there that time.
‘Five?’ I guessed.
‘Fifteen,’ Mum shouted gleefully. ‘And that was only because I had to go and stay with Marilyn from the library after she had her hysterectomy and you were doing your mock GCSEs! You don’t leave a baby on its own with a man, Angela. This is what happens when you live so far away, you’re doing it all wrong.’
‘I am not doing anything wrong,’ I argued, even though I did remember the time she was talking about. Dad burned the shepherd’s pie she left so we ended up having fish and chips and putting the wrappers in the neighbour’s bin so Mum wouldn’t find out.