Sowing Secrets

by Ashley, Trisha

  Paradise Falls

  Thirteen things not to do on a long-haul flight:

  1) Do not drink too much alcohol just because it’s free.

  2) Do not get depressed (see 1).

  3) Do not eat the airline food, it mutates in your intestines.

  4a) Do not sit in front of small children (they kick the back of your seat).

  4b) Definitely don’t sit in front of toddlers, who are inclined to vomit down the back of your neck.

  5) Do not sit behind someone very tall, who will recline their seat so far back their head is in your lap and you can’t use your tray. If you ask them to sit up, they flex their tattoos at you and pretend they can’t speak English.

  6) Do not accidentally lock yourself in the loo to remove toddler vomit (see 4b) and have to shout for help: the whole compartment will be watching you like a floor show when you come out, and may even applaud.

  7) Do not forget to take a change of clothes in your hand luggage (see 4b and 6).

  8) Do not forget to take refreshing wet wipes (see 4b, 6 and 7).

  9) Do not worry about the future (see 1 and 2), because it’s going to happen whether you worry or not.

  10) Do not forget the name of the apartments you will be staying at, thus delaying for half an hour the rest of the queue at the sticky Styx of customs as you attempt to convince them you are an innocent tourist.

  11) Do not attempt to explain the presence of half a gallon of mouthwash, a bottle of sherry, a rancid T-shirt and a hundredweight of assorted men’s toiletries in your hand luggage.

  12) Do not ignore any of the above points or you may arrive jet-lagged, constipated, hungover, depressed, smelly, and so hot you are about to spontaneously ignite like a gum tree because you’re having to wear the thick sweatshirt you set out from home in.

  13) Do not try to work out whether you have lost or gained a day of your life, just concentrate on blocking all memory of this flight out of your memory for ever.

  I oozed out on to the airport concourse in Grand Cayman like a wet and odoriferous dishcloth in need of a good wring out, dragging the suitcase with which I had been reunited after a nail-biting wait by the luggage carousel. Had I been able to remember where my suitcase keys were I might have abandoned all modesty and ripped off my sweatshirt then and there in favour of something much cooler.

  I felt dizzy from jet lag and panic at the thought of seeing Mal again. I was most definitely not the slender sylph he was expecting and I could only hope that he’d be so happy to see me again that he wouldn’t care if I was just a little overweight.

  I’d already put this theory to Tanya, the young woman who’d sat next to me on the plane.

  ‘I’m sure your husband is dying to see you and you’ll have a lovely time,’ she’d assured me sympathetically. Then she urged me to drink lots of water to prevent dehydration, which I did, although I also continued drinking the gin, of which they must have had an endless supply, unless they were distilling it in the galley.

  I could see Tanya now, cool and elegant in tie-waist linen trousers and a sleeveless top, heading off with her husband, who was on Grand Cayman designing a house for a rich client. She’d said we would be bound to keep running into each other on such a small island and pressed on me as a parting gift one of her bottles of expensive sun lotion, which she assured me I wouldn’t be allergic to.

  There was no sign of Mal, but everyone else seemed to be heading out towards the front doors so I followed after them slowly, dragging my enormous suitcase, bulging carry-on bag and duty-free carrier with me. I was starting to have very dark thoughts about butt of malmsey-style, double domestic drowning incidences, one in minty mouthwash, the other in sherry—but that was probably the more homicidal aftereffects of the gin.

  I spotted Mal standing outside in the shade, perfectly bronzed and with his dark, glistening hair clinging like satin to his beautifully shaped head. He wore a crisp blue shirt unmarked by any unseemly hint of perspiration, and ironed cream chinos.

  He didn’t notice me immediately since he was talking to his mother—or to be more accurate she seemed to be haranguing him on some subject. She looked like a wizened sparrow next to him, her skinny frame decorously covered in drab floral cotton and the green lining of her sunhat casting an unearthly pallor across the sagging folds of her face. It rather beggared belief that the one had ever sprung from the other.

  I trudged towards them like the last survivor of an expedition, an unwelcome one they’d already claimed the life insurance for, and when they caught sight of me they abruptly stopped talking and stared.

  ‘My God, it’s the summer pudding!’ Mal exclaimed, unforgivably.

  ‘Well, Frances,’ Mrs Morgan said, ‘you look rather hot and bothered, I must say.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Morgan; hello, Mal,’ I said, with a slight, betraying quiver in my voice, for there seemed to be a complete dearth of bunting, flags and loud hurrahs about my advent. The cherished dream in which, our passion freshly rekindled, we renewed our vows under the palm trees before returning to the marital nest like a pair of homing doves shrivelled and turned to ash on the spot and was blown away by a hot breeze that smelled of coconuts and fruit cake.

  Mrs M. poked Mal with the handle of a furled black umbrella, and he finally advanced and kissed me gingerly on the cheek, then recoiled. I could hardly blame him, for he is so fastidious and I was hardly in the chilled and plumply perfect condition in which I had set out from the refrigerator of North Wales.

  ‘Ugh! You smell rank!’

  ‘Do I? I hoped it had gone off a bit. I’m sorry, darling—a baby threw up on me and the smell sort of lingers. I’m dying to shower and change into something cooler, it’s so hot!’

  ‘And I am urgently in need of a rest, so perhaps now that you have finally arrived we can go back to the apartment?’ Mrs M. said.

  ‘Of course, Mother. And this isn’t hot, Fran,’ Mal said, picking up the case and leading the way towards the car park, leaving me with the carry-on bags and duty frees. ‘This is quite cool for Cayman. You’ll soon acclimatise.’

  Personally, I thought I had more chance of stewing in my own juice until perfectly braised, but all my breath was taken with trying to keep up without dropping anything breakable. By the time we got to the car the sweatshirt was soaked through and I longed to remove it, toss it in the rubbish and never see it again. My jeans felt like thermal corsets.

  Mal’s hire car was a monster: some big four-wheel-drive thing that he had to hoist his mother into. She sat regally in the back while we loaded my luggage in, and then I got in the front, since he said the air conditioning would hopefully take the worst of the smell away.

  This was not quite how I had envisaged the start to my second honeymoon.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked. ‘Only I couldn’t remember for the customs people, and I thought they weren’t going to let me in for a while there.’

  ‘It’s an apartment block by the sea, on the edge of town. Paradise Falls.’

  ‘It certainly seems to have,’ I muttered limply. All my pores were so far open I felt like a loofah.

  ‘That’s the name of the apartments, not the area. I’ve hired a car for you from tomorrow,’ he added casually.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ I echoed, staring at his dark and competent profile. Relaxed and, aside from a faint wrinkling of his patrician nostrils, seemingly happy.

  ‘Yes, of course. How else would you get around? It’s the only way to show Mother the island and do the shopping and so on, because I’ll be working most of the time. You did bring your driving licence, didn’t you?’

  ‘What?’ I was starting to go light-headed and gritty-eyed; was this jet lag or a hangover? Or both? ‘Oh, yes, I think so…Mal, the car’s not as big as this one, is it?’ I enquired timidly.

  I’ve only ever really driven one car, the little Beetle currently rusting mournfully on the drive at home.

  ‘No, it’s quite small, but air-conditioned. Automatic. They’re mos
tly automatic.’

  ‘But I’ve never driven an automatic, Mal!’

  ‘Nothing to it. You’ll soon pick it up.’

  ‘I feel a bit nervous about it,’ I ventured. ‘I’m twitchy enough at home in my own car!’

  ‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ he said impatiently. ‘I don’t know what the fuss is about! They drive on the left here too, and in all the residential areas the speed limit is only twenty-five miles per hour.’

  He pointed things out to me in an instructional sort of way as he drove—not the sights, but a sort of orienteering programme: the supermarket, the way to the hospital, the road to the centre of George Town…I hoped he wasn’t going to test me on them later, because they all passed me by in a glaze of exhaustion.

  ‘Here we are,’ Mal said, turning down a rough road and pulling up on coral sand outside a low white block of apartments. I couldn’t see any falls, paradise or otherwise.

  Inside, it was all open plan, with tiled floors and ceiling fans. Through the windows lay an improbable vista of wooden decking, coconut palms and a swimming pool, and beyond that a coral beach and wide expanse of turquoise sea.

  It was just like an advert; when Mal opened the sliding doors to the deck I expected lithe, tanned young men to rush up and offer me their Bounty bars, but the only thing to rush in was a great rolling wave of hot scented air.

  I was still standing by the door surrounded by baggage, like a wilted lettuce in urgent need of a bit of TLC, when Mal said solicitously, ‘You must be tired.’

  ‘Gosh, yes,’ I began, then realised he wasn’t talking to me.

  ‘The flight out took it out of Mother, Fran: she’s still taking it easy.’

  ‘I’ll just rest for a little while,’ she agreed. ‘I will see you later, Frances.’

  Mrs M. did look pretty whacked, and I was glad to see her vanish into her room like a genie returning to its bottle. I uncharitably wished I had a stopper.

  ‘At last we are alone together!’ I whispered melodramatically to Mal once our bedroom door had swung silently shut behind us, because, truth to tell, I was feeling a bit strange and shy after our separation, and he wasn’t exactly looking user-friendly.

  But I don’t think he can have heard me, since he just said, ‘That’s my bed near the window, Fran, and the shower’s through that door. I’ll leave you to unpack. Oh, and you needn’t bother about the cooking tonight because I’ve got cold food in,’ he added, and vanished without even one tender word.

  Then I finally registered his last sentence: I needn’t bother about the cooking? I was cooking!

  I found I was mournfully singing ‘Don’t You Want Me, Baby?’ Then I caught sight of myself in the long mirrored doors of the wardrobe and decided that even the most loving husband could have been excused a quick getaway: it was definitely another ‘Thriller’ zombie moment.

  Removing my clothes and showering with some exotic-smelling gel (a strange choice for Mal, I thought) was blissful—except I couldn’t get dry afterwards. My pores seemed to be permanently jammed into the ‘open’ position.

  I put the coolest of my old sundresses on, then picked at cold meats and salad in a haze of exhaustion before crashing out on my designated twin bed…but not before reviving just enough under the cooling whirr of the ceiling fan to kiss Mal good night.

  He accepted the kiss rather unenthusiastically, then fended me off with the news that, in deference to his mother’s presence and prejudices, we were not going to cohabit in any meaningful sense!

  ‘I wasn’t intending running through the first ten pages of the Kama Sutra tonight anyway,’ I said tartly. ‘I just wanted a hug! Is that too much to ask after we’ve been apart for so long? Haven’t you missed me, Mal?’

  ‘Yes, but one thing leads to another, and I just feel…well, we should abstain. Until she’s gone home,’ he added, not looking noticeably eager to sweep me into his manly embrace. Then his mobile phone went off and he dashed out.

  Maybe this was all a nightmare, and I would wake up any minute to find myself still at home, with time to cancel my ticket?

  Next morning Mal woke me up at some hideously early hour.

  ‘I’ve had breakfast,’ he informed me, as though he had performed some amazing feat. ‘I let you sleep on, but now you’ll have to get up so I can drop you at Coconut Rentals on the way to work to pick up the hire car.’

  ‘Today?’ I wailed pathetically, scrabbling in my open suitcase for something cool enough, even though I knew there was nothing remotely suitable in there. It would have to be last night’s faded and shabby cotton sundress again. ‘Now? I’ve still got jet lag, Mal, and I don’t know my way about yet!’

  ‘It’s a small island and they’ll give you a map,’ he said callously, easing me out into the living room by sheer willpower. ‘You can’t get lost.’

  I can get lost in our village.

  I made some coffee, hoping it would wake me up a bit, while Mal got himself perfectly organised for work. I opened and closed all the cupboard doors while I drank it, to check out what was in there. The fridge was an enormous thing with an ice dispenser that I would have liked to have taken home with me. Or climbed into.

  ‘I’ve left you some instructions under that piece of coral on the counter,’ Mal said. ‘And I’ve hired you a mobile phone while you are out here in case I need to call you, and you can also use it for brief transatlantic calls.’

  Just as well Nia had explained the newly discovered delights of her mobile phone to me! I expect they all work much the same way.

  Mal was still holding forth, neatly ticking his mental list off item by item: ‘The maid’s not in until Monday. You need to wash up and clear any food spills immediately or we’ll get ants and cockroaches in. Turn all the ceiling fans off and open the doors and windows when you get back—we only close them and use the fans at night, electricity is expensive. We don’t need the air conditioning at all. Here’s your door key. I’ll be back about five thirty, probably, but I usually have a swim before dinner. Oh, and leave Mother to sleep—she hasn’t got back into her usual routine yet.’

  I noticed the washing-up from his breakfast was still sitting in the sink, presumably awaiting my attentions, but since I’d also found the dishwasher I shoved it all in there and closed the door.

  Mal was running late and simply dumped me at the car rental place and drove off, just remembering to kiss me at the last minute. There had been last night’s phone call too: they must be working him very hard.

  The car was small and also—oh, happy, happy day!—air-conditioned, but my legs trembled with tiredness as I sat there in the driver’s seat feeling totally disorientated.

  The lady behind the desk kindly came out and explained the workings in the most soothing accent in the world. ‘And just tuck your left foot back out of the way and pretend you haven’t got one,’ she added as a parting piece of advice. This was easier said than done, but after making a few circuits round the car park, I gingerly set off back to Paradise Falls.

  Remembering the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit in built-up areas I crawled along and a small string of cars appeared behind me like an entourage. It seemed very slow, and when I peered at the dial again I realised that the speedometer was in kilometres. I was doing twenty-five kilometres an hour instead of twenty-five miles. Was that good or bad? I clenched the wheel hard in both hands as if the car might make a bolt for it at any moment, but we seemed to be practically at a standstill.

  ‘Past the airport, turn left,’ I muttered to myself, trying to remember the way. There was the big supermarket…so this morning we’d come out of a turning nearly opposite…

  ‘My God, but I’m brilliant!’ With a triumphant rendition of ‘Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves’, I pulled up outside Paradise Falls.

  Inside, all was quiet, so I cautiously popped my head into Mrs M.’s room to see if she’d died; but she hadn’t, just sleeping the sleep of the righteous. She looked about three hundred and ninety and as frai
l as a bundle of dry twigs wrapped in thin leather.

  I found a bottle of a soft drink called Ting in the fridge, added plenty of ice from the crusher and then retrieved Mal’s instructions from under the lump of coral. The bumper bundle included helpful hints like directions for using the washing machine, a shopping list, what he thought we should have for dinner that night…well, you get the picture. He might as well have hung a banner out front saying: ‘Welcome, new housekeeper/dogsbody’, and so far there hadn’t been any hint of ‘Welcome, lover!’ to sweeten it.

  I was starting to feel angry; and if I’m expected to work all through my supposed holiday, then I’m going to use Mal’s guilt card to get some cool, pretty clothes, and some big clips to get my hot hair up off my neck too.

  I took my drink and a bundle of tourist brochures, and went and lay on a recliner in the shade, remembering Tanya’s parting gift and anointing myself with expensive unguent first.

  I dozed for an hour or so, then woke to find a tall, handsome young gardener swiping at the vegetation with the most enormous blade, which he called his cutlass—and I wasn’t about to argue with him. He engaged me in soft-voiced conversation as he languidly tidied and removed fallen coconuts.

  ‘Don’t you go sitting under the trees,’ he warned me. ‘Coconuts drop on your head, you know about it.’

  He was right: every so often you do hear crashes and dull thuds as they hit the decking or sand, which makes you wonder about all those holiday brochures where bronzed women are lying in hammocks strung between palm trees. There’s probably a special hospital department for concussed tourists.

  Between the decking and the beach lay a strip of white sand, edged with conch shells and large, brain-like lumps of coral, which the gardener raked into a neat pattern. It seemed so much easier than lawn-mowing.