I’d expected the caldera to be brown and dead, but it was green and alive.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Iris, as we pulled away from the view, back to the car.
‘What for?’
‘For not taking responsibility lately. Or maybe taking too much. I don’t know. It’s crazy, I know, but it’s been easier to be angry with you for opening a box than blaming you for acting the way you have, or accepting that I don’t always get things right. I’m not perfect. We’ve made our own mess. There was never any curse. Not that sort. I’ve been a fool.’ The wind whisked her words away, as if she were making a confession and nature was absolving her.
‘Then I guess we can clear it up again… Right?’
Maybe there was something in my voice – a fresh spark of optimism. Iris regarded me intently, then smiled. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I’m not a child, Iris. I had to grow up, sooner or later.’
‘I know, Dor. I’ll try not to forget anymore.’
It wasn’t the first time I’d reminded her of the fact; it just seemed, from that point on, she would be true to her words and remember.
*
The day my brother-in-law arrived, haggard and colourless, as if he needed this holiday more than anyone, I insisted Iris move into the room Drew had reserved across the corridor from ours.
I had to remind her she was his wife. ‘You ought to be spending every moment here together,’ I reasoned, ‘you never get enough to yourselves back home. You’ve been missing each other like mad, it’s obvious, even to a plank like me.’
‘But the baby—’
‘Will be fine with me, you know she will. It’s time, Iris.’
And so, the following morning, I found myself nabbing a spot close to the pool in the shade of a hotel parasol; a rare feat. There had been no sign of Iris or Drew at breakfast.
I was drying the baby off after taking her for a float around in the rubber ring I’d bought her, when a nearby voice made me jump.
‘Hello again.’
I looked up. It was the young Welshman Archie, with his cherubic son.
They picked up the striped towels that had been draped over the sunbed next to mine. I felt a familiar stab of panic at having to make small-talk. If I had known who those towels belonged to, I probably wouldn’t have parked myself beside them. The pool was large with concealed areas, and bridges and islands covered with palm trees. I hadn’t noticed Archie and his son when I’d been bobbing around with Asha.
We’d run into each other around the hotel since that first day, in the restaurant or the lavish marble reception area, but while Archie had grinned and looked as if he might attempt conversation, I’d smiled vaguely, ducked my head and continued on route to wherever I’d been going.
‘It’s a furnace today,’ he said now, nodding towards the sky. ‘More than usual. I think that’s why it’s slightly quieter out here. People are hanging around the bars indoors. All the heat’s coming from the Sahara. There’s a weather warning out.’
‘Is there? Oh.’ I racked my brains for something sensible to say. ‘I suppose it beats flood warnings, like back home.’
‘I guess it does. Zach and I were flooded out last winter. Stream near our cottage turned into a river.’
‘Really? Nightmare. I’m sorry. We’re high up where we live. Get a battering from the wind, and snow can be bad, of course. Drew and Iris – my brother-in-law and my sister – have a four-by-four. Makes it easier to get around.’
And that was it. We were making conversation, as simply as that. It didn’t seem to matter for once that I had verbal diarrhoea.
‘I’m Pandora, by the way,’ I said, oddly unabashed.
‘Great name.’ Archie smiled, without mockery.
‘Most people call me Dor. And this is Asha Mae.’ I stroked the baby’s damp, silky curls. ‘My daughter.’
He hesitated for the first time, the wide smile faltering. ‘Oh… I didn’t realise… I thought she belonged to that lady you’re here with. You’re really alike. She’s your sister, right?’
‘Iris.’ I nodded.
I didn’t care what anyone thought anymore, how they reacted to me as a teenage mum. I’d made my decision to keep my baby, and Iris had backed me up, although after her miscarriage I’d known it was breaking her heart to see my belly swell day by day. When Asha Mae arrived, after a difficult last few weeks of pregnancy, my fragile state of mind meant I hadn’t bonded instantly. Iris had taken over, perhaps a bit too much, but I’d been lost in a dull, blanketing fog, and it was only as I emerged from it that I started to resent her closeness to the tiny creature who’d invaded our lives.
‘Asha’s dad isn’t around,’ I felt compelled to add. ‘It’s complicated… but anyway, he didn’t want to know. He went to uni in Edinburgh.’
Archie perched on his sunbed, as the gorgeous Zach took Asha’s hand delicately in his and introduced himself before running off to splash around in the shallow, sloped area of the pool beside us.
‘I know all about “complicated”,’ Archie admitted to me, his voice low. ‘Zach’s mother and I were in the lower sixth when she got pregnant. I persuaded her to keep the baby, we even tried to make a go of it, but…’ He shrugged. ‘She was more wild-at-heart than maternal. We couldn’t hold it together. She’s backpacking around Australia at the moment. I get emails, but we’re not together. Not like that. We were never right for each other,’ he tailed off.
‘I’m thinking of resitting my exams,’ I said, as naturally as if I were talking to a long-standing confidant. ‘Maybe going to college. I enjoy creative writing. Iris says she’ll help with Asha, but I’m hoping she and Drew will have a baby of their own soon, too.’
Archie nodded. ‘I work on a farm. That’s how I’ve got a cottage.’ Unassumingly, he flicked back a lock of his white-blond hair. ‘I’m trying to do a photography course, though. Apparently I’ve got a good ‘eye’. My parents want to help out more, financially, but I’m too stubborn to let them. I guess I’m proud. This holiday’s been my only concession. My mum said I’d been working too hard. But you know, she was right. It’s great to have all this free time with Zach.’
We sat there, blinking at each other, taking it all in.
‘Sorry. I don’t usually talk this much,’ Archie apologised. ‘Not to someone I’ve barely just met.’
‘Neither do I. There’s no need to be sorry, though. Is there?’
Suddenly, as if I were ten years younger, I wanted to believe in Disney-style fairy tales. The possibility of happy endings. Or even, a happy beginning. I’d never really known one of those, if I was honest. And I was only seventeen, when it came down to it. A happy beginning under the swaying palm trees would suffice. My once upon a time, one summer.
‘Have you ever ridden on a camel?’ asked Archie. The grin was back. Daring me.
‘No.’
‘Do you fancy it one day?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Right now, though, I’d rather have an ice cream. Wouldn’t you?’
Archie flashed his wristband. ‘I’ll get these. Stick with me, kid, I’m nothing if not generous.’ The grin expanded. Teasing. Infectious. ‘Name your flavour. If you’re lucky, I might even throw in a lemonade.’
About the Author
Valerie-Anne Baglietto was born in Gibraltar, but came to England when she was three. She wrote and illustrated her first book when she was four. The writing bug had bitten. In 2000 she won the Romantic Novelists' Association's New Writer's Award for her debut novel THE WRONG SORT OF GIRL. After three further romantic comedies published by Hodder & Stoughton, life with her young family took over. Nowadays, Valerie-Anne writes contemporary fairy tales for grown-ups, set in picture-book Welsh villages inspired by her gorgeous surroundings. ONCE UPON A WINTER was an Amazon UK bestseller, reaching #1 in both the Contemporary Fantasy and the Fairy Tale charts. Her latest releases are THE TROUBLE WITH KNIGHTS IN SHINING ARMOUR and THE LITTLE BOOK OF LOST HEARTS.
Valerie-Anne lives in North
Wales with her husband, three children and a headful of plot lines.
Website: www.valerie-annebaglietto.com
Twitter: @VABaglietto
Facebook: Valerie-Anne Baglietto Author
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Hinterland
***
Hannah Beckerman
DESTINATION: Indonesia
Sophie closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the feeling of the Indonesian sun on her bare skin. She wished she could learn to like it more but after a few hours it always made her feel fidgety and restless. And it had been nearly two weeks now.
She heard Sean shift in his sunlounger beside her and she twisted her head, silently, just enough to survey him undetected, although she wasn’t sure why she didn’t want him to know she was looking: after nearly five years together they’d looked at one another often enough. Sometimes she wondered whether they actually saw each other any more or whether their bodies were now so familiar that they’d lost the ability to feel anything much beyond habitual indifference, even semi-naked as they were now.
Sophie frowned behind her sunglasses as she imagined her friends’ reactions if they could hear her thoughts. Sean was beautiful, they’d all said so often enough. With his broad shoulders and solid, rugby-playing thighs, his dark, thoughtful eyes and his extraordinary ability to tan effortlessly, he resembled right now the kind of man women circulated photos of on the internet. Objectively she could see that. Logically she knew it. She just didn’t understand why she couldn’t quite feel it.
‘Are you OK, baby? You seem a bit bored.’
Sophie turned to look at Sean and smiled with what she hoped was reassurance.
‘Sorry, was I fidgeting again? You’d think I might have learnt to relax by now, wouldn’t you? Sorry, I’ll stay still until lunchtime, I promise.’
Sean laughed.
‘You don’t have to apologise. I just wish you found it easier to relax – for your sake. Look, we’ve got this amazing pool all to ourselves and there’s not a single person on the beach. This is exactly the kind of peace and quiet I was talking about.’
Sophie looked out at the cloudless view ahead of her: pool, beach, sea, sky. It was, undoubtedly, postcard-perfect. It was exactly as Sean had promised her, even though she’d never asked.
Coming here had been Sean’s idea. He’d said they needed to relax, unwind, completely switch off their brains. Devote some time just to being together when so much of their life in London – his job as a paediatrician, hers as a news journalist – meant they were often like ships passing in the night. He was right, of course. He often was. It was just that since the day they’d arrived, Sophie hadn’t been able to suppress her impatience to get back to her job, her friends, the rest of her life.
‘I know, you’re right. But you know what I’m like. An eleven-day news black-out for me is like a drug addict going cold turkey.’
Sean grinned.
‘You’re doing very well, my love. Honest. Now I reckon we’ve only got another half hour before we should move into the shade. Reckon you can last that long?’
Sophie nodded with the pretence of conviction as Sean placed his hand on her thigh, just low enough to be appropriate should anyone be watching, just high enough to be suggestive of where it would probably end up before lunch.
This was one of those moments, Sophie thought to herself, when she knew she was supposed to feel something more than she did. The emotional gap was like a square of excised canvas from a great work of art: you knew with absolute certainty that something was missing but you couldn’t for the life of you accurately repaint the blank space, however hard you tried.
As Sean settled back into companionable silence, Sophie tried to concentrate on enjoying herself. She didn’t for a second question Sean’s thoughtfulness in organising this holiday, even if it wasn’t how she’d necessarily have chosen to spend two precious weeks of annual leave. She recalled the pride on his face when he’d presented her with that home-made travel wallet: print-outs of their flights and hotel details, colour photos of the private villa he’d booked and more of the view she was staring at now. This was, he’d almost persuaded her, exactly the kind of holiday late twenty-somethings like them went on: they boarded vastly expensive long-haul flights to boutique hotels where they’d drink cocktails, read books and occasionally take half-hearted dips in the water, all punctuated by frequent bouts of sex to compensate for the lack of it they seemed to have at home these days. Her friends had been green with envy when she’d shown them the details. Who wouldn’t want two weeks on Lombok living the life of luxury with the love of their life? It was a rhetorical question Sophie had been grateful not to have to answer.
Before Sophie had a chance to manage the stab of guilt that was threatening to make her fidget even more, she was distracted by a movement out of the corner of her eye. She shifted her field of vision and watched as a woman walked by the side of the pool, turned left and sauntered along the full length of it, directly across Sophie’s view. The woman was tall – 5’10” if not more, Sophie reckoned – and there was a certain confidence in her stride that suggested she was aware of – or perhaps had just been told many times about – her own beauty. Sophie watched – surreptitiously, shielded by the dark glasses shading her eyes – as the woman reclined gracefully onto a sunlounger at the other end of the pool, furthest away from Sean but still far enough from Sophie, stretching her arms high above her head with feline elegance.
This was surely one of the attractions of these kinds of holidays, Sophie had always assumed: spying on other people undetected, sunglasses concealing covert observations of whispered tiffs between unhappy couples, of the reprimands of bored children by frustrated parents, of the gradual inebriation of a group of friends throughout a long, languorous day of drinking. She wondered whether she should suggest as much to Sean but realised he’d probably just laugh and say no, that was just the nosey journalist in her.
Sophie slid over on to her tummy, her head leant away from Sean, affording her a furtive view of the other woman, whose pelvic bones Sophie could now see protruding from the string of her black bikini briefs. Even with her legs outstretched, Sophie couldn’t identify an ounce of excess fat or even the faintest ripple of dimpled skin on the woman’s thighs. Her skin was smooth, taut, the kind of skin that looks like it’s been pulled tight over her body like starched linen across a mattress.
Sophie felt something that hovered on the border between envy and admiration. That was the other problem with beach holidays, she’d always concluded: too many opportunities for inadequacy. When she’d confessed that to Sean a few days after he’d surprised her with the booking – when he’d asked her, genuine concern in his eyes, why she didn’t seem as excited as he’d hoped, and she’d grabbed at the first acceptable reason that had come to mind – he’d laughed. He’d laughed and told her not to be silly, reassuring her with the kind of kiss that should have been reassurance enough for anyone that she had nothing to worry about. Sophie had known, even then, that he was trying to solve the wrong problem, even though she wouldn’t have been able to articulate whatever the problem might have been. She’d told him, semi-truthfully, that that’s what happens when you’ve spent seven years at an all-girls school obsessing over your own and other people’s bodies: there’s not a square inch of yourself that hasn’t undergone repeated scrutiny by a thousand girls on a daily basis. It’s impossible, she’d said, to break free of that kind of critical assessment even though sometimes, she thought to herself, she wasn’t sure she really tried.
Sophie closed her eyes and tried to turn her brain off. This was why she didn’t like these kinds of holidays, sitting around on beaches or by swimming pools with nothing to do but think. Sean kept telling her to read one of the half-dozen books she’d bought with her but
it was too hot to concentrate on words on a page. Books were for early evening, lazing on the balcony waiting for Sean to finish getting ready. It was a running joke between them, how much longer than her he took to prepare for an evening out. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps he was too vain. Except he wasn’t though, was he? That was one of the things everyone loved about Sean: that someone so handsome could nonetheless be so unassuming about it.
Sophie shook her head involuntarily. She had to stop thinking like this. Her friends would think she was mad even to be entertaining these thoughts let alone indulging them. Her mum had always told her she thought too much. Sophie had always replied that it was a stupid thing to say: how could anyone possibly think too much? Wasn’t thinking supposed to be a good thing? Now she wondered whether her mum might have been right all along.
Sean laughed out loud at whatever he was reading on his Kindle. It was almost certainly a ghostwritten autobiography of some cricketer Sophie had never heard of and, if she had, someone whose personal life she was even less interested in than whatever they did professionally.
Maybe that was the problem? Maybe they didn’t have enough shared interests? Wasn’t that supposed to be important for couples: being interested in the same things so you had common ground for conversation, for the exchange of ideas, for how you spent your spare time? Wasn’t that ultimately why people had children: to provide couples with something to care about together long after they’d stopped caring about each other?
Sophie shivered in spite of the still, breathless sun baking her body. Children. She wanted them – desperately – but for some reason every time Sean talked about trying for them she found herself artfully changing the subject. Magazine articles kept trying to convince her that he must not be The One but it wasn’t that, she was sure. She couldn’t imagine having kids with any man other than Sean. She just couldn’t quite imagine having them with him either.
SUNLOUNGER 2: Beach Read Bliss (Sunlounger Stories) Page 7