Excess Baggage

by Judy Astley

  Abruptly Colette’s laughter stopped. She stared out over the wall towards the sea.

  ‘I suppose she is. So’s my mum,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Luke was puzzled. Of course Lucy was Colette’s mum, what did that have to do with anything? His mum was a mum too.

  ‘Oh. I get it,’ he said. ‘You mean that she might … like that …’

  ‘Well, she probably does.’ Then Colette added quickly, ‘But not with just anyone.’

  Another snort of laughter escaped from Luke. ‘And not in public!’

  ‘No, not in public.’ And the giggling started again.

  ‘It’s like being summoned for nursery tea,’ Mark grumbled as he and Simon walked up the steps to the terrace restaurant. It wasn’t even six o’clock yet and Mark was beginning a dry-mouthed hangover that could do with a bit of sleeping off, but the staff were eager to get the hotel guests fed early and despatched to their rooms to wait for the storm to hit. The latest forecast was that it was due sometime between nine and ten, but it was anyone’s guess how long it was likely to go on after that. As guests wandered in from the beach and the poolside, staff collected the sunloungers and piled them up, roping them in heaps together and tying them to the big tamarind tree beside the pool or to the turpentine tree beside the beach bar.

  ‘They’ll reek of oil after this,’ Perry commented as he watched. ‘You don’t want to put anything too close to that tree, the whiff lingers.’

  Lucy smiled at him. ‘I quite like the smell, it reminds me of paint,’ she said.

  Mark grunted gloomily. ‘Well, I’m glad you don’t get trees that smell of my job, I can tell you. I wouldn’t want to go on holiday and get smelly reminders of the bank.’

  ‘Wait till your three are teenagers,’ Plum teased. ‘They think there are trees that resemble banks. They think money grows on them.’

  The dining area had been transformed. Many of the tables had already been removed and stacked close to the wall to keep them safe. Those that were left had been laid out in long lines (‘like school dinners’, Colette said to Lucy), covered with bright pink cloths and arranged with free bottles of wine from which cheery silver balloons on green ribbons floated in the breeze. Out on the open section of the terrace a barbecue was blazing and reggae was belting out over the PA in the lobby. Everyone was to eat at the same time and all together, children and babies as well. Marisa, determined to have a good time too, handed over her three charges to Theresa and went to the far end of the table where she could sit with her new friend. The atmosphere was of determined party jollity, with people making jokes about being swept away and meeting up again on the Venezuelan coast. The Manchester group who’d missed out on their flights home had recovered quickly from their disappointment and were now crowing about getting more than a free lunch, and even Cathy was happily inviting everyone to her wedding the day after: ‘If the place is still standing, and even if it’s not,’ she declared.

  ‘Hey, boys, it’s party time!’ the ‘Star’ lady called out to the Steves. ‘Come sit by me and open a bottle!’

  ‘She’s cheered up,’ Perry said to Lucy.

  ‘Happy Hour started at four, that’s why. But they’ve closed the bar for the night now, which was sensible,’ Simon told him. He was frowning. He’d got used to the idea that this hurricane was a serious event. Now the atmosphere felt like the last decadent party on a sinking ship. Drunk people could be a liability – they might do stupid things like come out of their rooms and run about in the wind. Those who were sober would have to rescue them and risk their own lives.

  ‘Lighten up, Simon. We’ll be OK.’ Lucy prodded him gently. ‘Have a glass of wine, relax.’

  ‘I’m not sure relaxing is such a good idea. Suppose we need to be alert?’

  ‘Then we will be. No-one’s going to overdo it, they’re all too scared.’

  It was almost at the end of the meal, when the brief Caribbean dusk had passed and it was now dark, that the wind suddenly stepped up its force. The edges of the tablecloths started to flick and flap upwards, reminding Lucy of whippy updraughts at underground stations that send skirts swirling. Napkins blew off the tables, then leaves began to appear among the food, blown in from the outside terrace. Rain started pounding on the roof just as everyone was finishing the fruit and ice cream, and there was an all-round breath-intake as the lights flickered in a particularly sharp gust.

  ‘This is it,’ Shirley said.

  ‘No it isn’t.’ A passing waiter grinned at her. ‘This is nothing yet.’

  Lucy’s thoughts turned to Henry. She imagined him snugly blockaded into his home with Oliver and Glenda and Glenda’s friend Abby who shared her studio home. She wondered if they were making a party of it too, fending off the potential disaster with good food and wine and jokes. She wished she was with them, curled up with Henry on the big blue sofa along with Oliver and Colette, just like a real family. She imagined the preparations they would have made, the bath filled with water in case supplies were cut off, the candles and lamps ready for when the electricity failed, the cupboards full of emergency food because the roads into town could be strewn with fallen trees. Henry had said there’d been panic buying at the stores in town, with everyone stocking up for a long period of upheaval. All Lucy had with her by way of emergency supplies was a bag containing her toothbrush, her passport, knickers for the next day and the Agatha Christie book she’d started that morning. It was hardly the stuff of survival.

  ‘I haven’t got enough cigarettes, I’m sure of it.’ The gold lady, looking nervy, appeared next to Lucy as they went down the steps on their way to their allocated rooms. There was an outbreak of loud giggling behind them and the two women turned round to find Colette and Luke in fits of uncontrollable laughter.

  ‘What’s the matter with them?’ the gold lady asked.

  ‘No idea. Some private joke I imagine.’

  The gold lady frowned and rubbed at her neck nervously, which sent them off into spasms of hilarity again. Her tan deepened into a blush and she jabbed a painted fingernail towards them. ‘Yes, well, you two, just remember that some jokes need to stay more private than others.’

  Fourteen

  ‘OH GOOD. SIMON’S going to be Safety Officer. That’ll make him happy.’ Theresa sipped at a glass of white wine as she watched her brother carefully lining up all the wooden louvres on the villa’s windows and doors so that they lay down flat and wouldn’t give any provocative resistance to the wind. It was important (it had said in the instructions) that the air should be able to flow freely across the rooms and out the other side where possible. Otherwise the excess pressure had nothing to do but try to lift the roof off. Simon had no doubt that if he didn’t make all efforts to stop it, it would succeed. ‘Well, someone’s got to do it,’ he said. ‘Unless you want one of these wooden planks hurtling across the room. They’re solid teak. It would be like being whacked with a cricket bat.’

  ‘I’m not ungrateful, Simon, really,’ she smiled at him, ‘I’m just amazed you can be bothered to be so meticulous.’

  ‘It’s his job to be meticulous,’ Plum defended him. ‘If he can line up a thumb-sucking twelve-year-old’s overbite, he shouldn’t have any trouble with a couple of dozen slats of wood.’

  Simon had a vague feeling that in spite of this superficial support, Plum had joined Theresa in taking the piss. Why was he bothering to try to make them safe? Why didn’t he just lock them all out on the terrace and let them die? No-one had any imagination; they couldn’t seem to connect this storm with the donations they occasionally credit-carded over to world disaster funds. They could be reduced to a miserable set of statistics by the morning, mentioned in sombre tones on the international news as being among The Rising Death Toll. They were behaving, he decided, like small children at a birthday sleepover, preparing to giggle the night away wrapped in blankets while they guzzled their way through Shirley’s laid-in supplies of drinks and crisps and ice cream. Or at least ice cream till
the electricity gave out and the fridge gave up the ghost. That was the only kind of disaster bloody Theresa understood: running out of ice for the gin. Only Lucy was being quiet and refusing to get overexcited. He put that down to understandable apprehension. At least she’d got a brain, he thought, at least she was sensitive enough to work out that this could be their last night on the planet.

  Lucy was out on the terrace with Colette watching the sea and the sky for signs of change. In spite of Simon’s assumptions, she was not praying away her last hours but thinking how beautiful the night looked. The sky seemed as if it were divided into two, with the area directly above them an almost clear rich deep shade of navy, lit by occasional stars and scattered with a few puffy grey-black clouds. Further away was a thick matt blackness, as if the earth had travelled too close to the edge of the universe and was about to fall off into this infinite hole. Lucy assumed it was the leading edge of the storm, though it looked only slightly different from any other night-time rain cloud. It was certainly coming nearer.

  ‘It’s quite windy now, but nothing special. How will we know when it really starts?’ Luke asked as they perched together on the sea wall.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Becky sneered. ‘I mean what are you going to do, say “Oh is this a hurricane, or do people usually get smacked in the mouth by a flying table?”’

  ‘Well, the wind’s already stronger than it was during supper, so I guess it just gets worse until you feel it’s time to go inside and make sure the doors are locked,’ Lucy told them.

  ‘The sea’s definitely rougher,’ Luke decided, having stared at the dark water till he could barely focus.

  ‘And it’s splashing up much higher,’ Colette agreed. Each foaming wave was speeding way up the beach now. The Caribbean tides were normally barely noticeable, but now the sand was covered as far as the first row of thatched beach umbrellas.

  ‘Don’t suppose those’ll be standing in the morning,’ Mark said, then he leaned over to Becky and whispered, ‘Any sight or sound of our illustrious neighbour?’

  Becky squirmed away from him and dashed back into the villa without responding.

  ‘Something I said?’ he asked Lucy.

  ‘Probably. She is sixteen after all,’ she laughed. ‘And to answer your question, there’s silence from the Great Celebrity next door.’

  ‘Probably hiding under the bed.’ Mark grinned. ‘Which must mean he’s a leader of one of the world’s major powers.’

  Just then a powerful blast of wind howled across the terrace. It was as if the weather gods had stepped on some kind of celestial accelerator.

  ‘Time to go in,’ Lucy declared, leading Colette back through the doors.

  ‘Yes, and time for another drinkie.’ Theresa made for the fridge but Mark got there first. There was a small tussle over a bottle of wine, interrupted by Marisa. ‘You come say goodnight,’ she ordered, ‘so the children will sleep now.’ Lucy watched the Swiss girl shoving herself expertly between Theresa and the fridge. Perhaps she had to do a lot of that at home too. Theresa, unbalanced, staggered a bit. Lucy reached out and steadied her.

  ‘It’s OK, Lucy, I’m not about to fall over. I’m off to kiss my babies.’ She was smiling in a vague way.

  ‘We’ll both go,’ Mark said, taking Theresa’s wrist and leading her through to one of the villa’s two bedrooms where all three of the children had been put into the king-size four-poster bed.

  ‘If you’re this pissed now …’ Lucy heard Mark begin as the door was firmly shut.

  ‘Oh this is really jolly. All the family together, just how it should be.’ Shirley settled herself comfortably onto the sofa and looked around her. Everyone she cared about was right here, either in the room, or, in the case of Theresa and the little ones, just the other side of that door. The teenagers and Marisa were sprawled about on the floor, blankets at the ready in case they felt like dozing off. Shirley felt there was an air of excited expectation, though, unlike Simon, she didn’t anticipate danger. By Luke’s age she’d done danger in wartime Manchester, seen a whole street bombed out, leaving shattered walls standing, with flowered wallpaper tattered in the wind. Below, the collapsed rooms were nothing but heaped-up rubble, poignantly strewn with shoes and broken crockery and the newspapers the dead inhabitants had been reading that day. Once you’d done a war, she reasoned, you’d done your stint of the Worst that Could Happen. What people did to each other was the worst on earth – weather couldn’t come close.

  ‘It’s just like Christmas,’ she laughed.

  Lucy grimaced. ‘I was thinking that too, locked in with your family and no escape. Still, at least with this you don’t have to go through it all again a year later.’

  ‘Your mother meant it was nice like Christmas.’ Perry was frowning, warning.

  ‘Yes I know she did. I was joking, though actually I don’t see why I’m not allowed to disagree.’

  ‘Then why say anything at all? Don’t spoil things, Lucy.’

  Oh, that word again. At one time they used it on Simon, way back. Then Theresa took it over. Why did it always spoil things if she expressed her thoughts? And she had only been joking – well, almost.

  ‘I quite like Christmas,’ Luke commented. ‘Can I have another Coke please Gran?’

  ‘Yes of course you can. Anyone else fancy a drink? I think we could treat ourselves to a little something.’

  ‘Mark and Theresa have got a bottle on the go up there by the sink,’ Plum said, rising from her chair to go and get some wine. She picked up the empty bottle. ‘Oh. Well, they had, it all seems to have gone. Funny, I thought Mark was off booze.’

  ‘Theresa must have had it,’ Becky suggested.

  There was a small, awkward silence in the room while everyone avoided commenting on Theresa’s booze capacity. The murmuring voices beyond the bedroom door were getting louder and nobody wanted to hear.

  ‘Wind’s picking up now,’ Perry said, going to the window and peering through the louvres.

  ‘Just as well, if those two are going to have a blazing row,’ Lucy murmured to Colette. Colette laughed.

  ‘What’s funny Colette? Come on, share the joke.’ Shirley was looking hard at her. Colette went silent. ‘Nothing, it was just …’

  ‘Just something I said, private joke, that’s all.’ Lucy smiled at her mother. There was a tumult of rain battering on the roof. Fat drops of it splashed in through the louvres close to the main door and collected in a rapidly spreading puddle on the tiled floor. The wind, that had at first whispered through the windows on the side away from the sea, now picked up sound and speed, whooping and gusting viciously. Marisa crept behind the sofa and wrapped her blanket round her tightly. Colette went to sit with her and the two of them huddled together between the sofa and the wall.

  The noise of the wind no longer seemed real, Lucy thought. It was beginning to sound mad, crazily wailing and roaring as if it was trapped inside something, hurling itself at the edges to escape. The only time she’d heard anything like it was on TV cartoons when the characters were struggling along, bent horizontal against the exaggerated pretend-elements. Simon’s preparations had been all too effective, for the storm now seemed to be using the villa as a conduit. As the wind made its way across the room, it sent Shirley’s magazines skittering to the floor. Suntan-lotion bottles on a ledge tumbled into the sink. Plum got busy, collecting up all dangerously loose items and stuffing them at random into drawers.

  ‘Are you sure you got it right, Simon?’ Lucy asked. ‘Wouldn’t all the shutters be better firmly closed? Rain’s coming in horizontally.’ It was true. Shirley went into the bathroom and came out with a towel to place under the window by the main door. As she bent, there was a fierce metallic clatter and the mosquito screen behind the louvres fell to the floor, just missing her head.

  ‘God, if it’s like this now …’ Plum muttered.

  ‘Are you coming out or are you going to stay in here all night?’ Theresa was pacing the bedroom but keeping her ey
es on Mark, who had snuggled down on the edge of the bed close to Ella. The children had drifted off to sleep, unaware and uncaring that beyond the window the elements were waging a war. The mosquito net covering them fluttered up and down in the breeze that was sneaking in through unseen gaps.

  Mark opened one eye. ‘What’s to come out for?’

  ‘To be with the others, of course. We should at least try to look as if we’re, you know, together. I’ll make an effort if you will.’

  Mark sat up and rubbed his eyes. He’d been drinking hard all day, making up for the days of antibiotic-enforced sobriety. He was tired and if he didn’t get the light out soon he felt his delicate brain would be burned away through his eyeballs.

  ‘I don’t need to show anyone we’re “together” as you so coyly put it. And anyway what sort of “together” do you mean? As a so-called happy couple or as people who can just about walk a straight line with their eyes shut?’

  Theresa paced harder. ‘You’re so fucking exasperating Mark.’ Sebastian rolled over and grunted so she lowered her voice again. ‘I just don’t want everyone else knowing our sordid bloody business. Or even suspecting it.’

  Mark smiled lazily at her. ‘Ah. So we’re not “together” but we’ve got to look “together” just for the sake of dear Mumsy and Dadsy. I get it. What’s it worth?’

  ‘Worth?’

  ‘Yes, worth. You want me to do something for you so what will you do for me?’ He gave her a louche grin and lay back with his hands behind his head.

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ she hissed. ‘There won’t be any of that for … well, ever.’

  He shrugged. ‘Then why should I be nice to you? Come on Tess, lighten up. I made mistakes, got caught and now you’re going to make sure the punishment’s worse than the crime. How fair is that? If you loved me …’

  ‘If you’d loved me you wouldn’t have …’ She was shouting now.

  ‘I do but I did. Can’t we put it behind us? Move on? Because if you won’t, there’s no point pretending any more. I might just as well go right in there and give your precious sodding parents a divorce announcement. That should make their bloody night for them.’