It’s late. The others have all drifted to their rooms. Carol takes a cube of ice from her glass of guava juice and runs it lightly across her throat. ‘Become a tour guide then – they’re always looking. I could use someone to share my workload right here.’
Emma laughs. ‘Just like that.’
‘Why not? What’s stopping you? The training only takes a few weeks.’
Carol’s hair, released from its usual scarves, falls in a dark red sheet past her shoulders. The ice has left a glistening trail on her bare skin.
Emma waves away a hovering mosquito. ‘I already have a job. I’m a PA to a solicitor.’
‘You like it?’
Emma thinks of the small silent room where she spends her weekdays. The chipped pine desk with its unblinking computer screen, the grey metal filing cabinet in the corner, the window looking out on a red brick wall that hides the sky from her. The hook on the back of the door where she hangs her coat in winter and her jacket in summer. The intermittent murmur of Mr Flaherty’s voice on the phone in his office beyond the double doors that separate them.
She thinks of her life passing by in that dreary little room, her fingers tapping all day on a keyboard or turning the pages of other people’s files as impala bound across the savannah plains under a deep blue African sky.
‘Well… but I couldn’t just up and leave.’
Carol crunches the ice between her teeth. ‘Why not? I did. Came out here on safari ten years ago, handed in my notice a week after I got home.’
She makes it sound so simple. Pack your bags and move thousands of miles. Change your life, just like that.
‘Moses would like it,’ Carol says, fishing another cube from her glass, ‘if you came back. He’s got quite a soft spot for you.’
Emma watches the tour guide running the ice along the curve of her neck, from the hollow of her throat up to her chin. She imagines how delicious the coldness would feel against her own skin. ‘I wouldn’t be coming back for Moses,’ she says.
En route to London the following morning she eats peanuts and recalls the events of the past five days. She thinks about her fellow travellers, who had made a confidante of the woman on her own.
‘Brendan hasn’t worked since the boys were babies,’ Frankie told her on the second afternoon. ‘He calls himself a house painter, but he hasn’t looked for work in years. He gets his dole cheque and goes straight to the bookies. I do double shifts at the bar to make ends meet. I’m so afraid the boys will wonder why they should bother getting a job, when all they need to do is find a woman who’ll support them.’
‘Laura hates spending money,’ Kieran admitted another night. ‘I used to love how thrifty she was when we were first married, and neither of us was earning much – I used to be proud of how far she could make the few bob stretch. But she couldn’t seem to stop, even when we began to make decent money. She scrimps on everything – clothes, food, heating. She makes out separate shopping lists according to what’s on special offer, does the rounds of the supermarkets. Our daughter’s wedding last year was a nightmare – I wanted to give her a splash out day, but Laura fought me at every turn. She nearly hit the roof when I told her about this holiday. She wanted me to get a refund, but I’d deliberately left telling her until it was too late for that. I knew she’d be mad, but I’m tired of living like we’re penniless.’
‘Ted and I grew up three houses apart,’ Molly told her one morning as they sat in the garden before breakfast. ‘By the time I was thirteen I knew I’d marry him one day. Three months after we got engaged he was diagnosed with leukaemia. We brought the wedding forward by a year. We don’t know how long he has; we might get five years if we’re lucky. He’s made a bucket list. A safari holiday was at the top, so here we are.’
Emma eats dry roasted peanuts and drinks warm white wine as she flies over Sudan and Egypt and France, and she thinks about how life rarely turns out the way people expect it to.
She thinks of her parents, incapable of accepting the way things are with their only daughter, forever trying to mould her into someone they want her to be.
She thinks of Sam, who chose to walk away from the life they had built together. Who hasn’t, she realises, crossed her mind in over three days.
She thinks of their safari driver Moses with his perfect white teeth, who gave her lavender oil to keep the mosquitos away, and admired her unremarkable hair, and ran his finger under each line of a dog-eared copy of The Grapes of Wrath as he sat waiting in the jeep for the group to assemble every morning.
She thinks of Carol, whose skin was tanned to the colour of an almond, who told Emma she’d given up drinking alcohol at twenty after too many out-of-focus teenage years. Who Emma suspects is still looking, at thirty-five, for love.
She thinks of Mr Flaherty who spends his working days in the office next to hers. She thinks of the photo on his desk of the wife who drowned on holidays two years earlier, and the times when there’s no sound at all from the room next door but the low rumble of his weeping.
‘We must keep in touch,’ they all say at Heathrow, and email addresses and telephone numbers are exchanged, but Emma knows they won’t seek her out.
She knows too much about them.
The arrivals hall at Dublin airport is full, a flurry of planes just landed. Emma pulls her suitcase through the crowds, knowing nobody will have come to welcome her home. She leaves the bustle behind and makes her way towards the exit.
‘Emma.’
The voice, quite low, altogether familiar, comes from behind her. She turns and there is Sam, holding a bouquet of pink roses and looking very solemn.
Emma’s mouth drops open, but nothing comes out. Her hand tightens on the handle of her case.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sam says quietly, offering the flowers. ‘I’ve made a horrible mistake. I want to come back. Can you ever forgive me?’
Emma regards the dejected figure standing before her. She remembers the letter that was written, the cowardly departure while her back was turned, the keys that were left sitting on the hall table, keys to a life Sam no longer wanted.
Until now.
She glances down at the roses but makes no effort to take them. So insipid they look, compared to the vibrantly coloured flowers that filled the lodge garden with scent every evening. She remembers the blazing beauty of the blood lily Moses picked for her on the last day.
‘Actually,’ she says, ‘I seem to have moved on.’
And without waiting for a response she turns and walks swiftly towards glass doors that slide open at her approach.
Back home she steps over the splayed newspapers and scatter of envelopes on the hall floor and goes straight to the laptop that sits on the kitchen table. She ignores the several emails in her inbox and opens a new message, entering Carol’s address, which she memorised somewhere over Libya, on the recipient line.
I’m coming back, she types. Tell me what I need to do.
She presses send, and the message disappears. She pictures it making its way to Kenya, the words whirling through the air, reversing the journey she’s just taken. She sits for a few more minutes, wondering how to tell Mr Flaherty she’s leaving. Poor Mr Flaherty. Maybe she could suggest a safari holiday when she’s all set up. He could use a bit of sunshine and blue skies.
Maybe her parents would like one too. Or maybe not.
Eventually she gets up and returns to the hall. She must drop in to the shop tomorrow and cancel the newspaper delivery. She bends to pick up the letters: four for her, all bills, and two for Sam.
Or rather, Samantha. Emma was the only one who got away with calling her Sam. Back in the kitchen she crosses out the addresses on the envelopes that aren’t for her and replaces them with return to sender. Poor old Sam.
Then she goes upstairs for a bath.
About the Author
Roisin Meaney was born in County Kerry in the west of Ireland and has lived in the US, London and Africa. She began writing in 2001 while on a break f
rom her teaching job, and her first novel, The Daisy Picker, won a Write a Bestseller competition and was published in 2004. Four years later she became a full-time writer and is today the author of ten published novels (and an eleventh which is waiting quietly in the wings). She has also written several children's books, two of which have so far been published. On the first Saturday of each month she tells stories to toddlers and their teddies in her local library. She lives in Limerick city and is a fan of cats, chocolate and random acts of kindness.
Website: www.roisinmeaney.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/roisinmeaney
Facebook: www.facebook.com/roisin.meaney
Visit www.sunloungerstories.com to discover more about the authors and their story destinations.
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Currywurst Convert
***
Kiri Mills
DESTINATION: Germany
Brooke was pacing the office floor waiting for her colleagues to arrive. Excitement bubbled in her stomach. Today was a big day.
Even though she knew every page by heart, she reached for one of the travel brochures stacked in the wall display and began flipping through, pausing to study the hotels in New York. Not long now…
‘You’re early,’ Kim snarked as she breezed in.
‘As are you,’ Brooke clipped as she took in the wall clock.
The pair never had been and never would be friends. Everything was a competition between them, but today the heat was really on. Each year the staff of Getaways were given an assignment vacation. In the beginning these were mostly UK-based, or not much further than the port of Calais. But thanks to a rise in profits due to the clever use of social media and personal touches from the five members of staff, Getaways’ business was booming and this year there was the promise of exotic holidays – the Maldives, Tahiti, New York…
‘So, where do you think you’ll get?’ Brooke asked Kim.
‘Why? Are you worried I might go somewhere better than you?’ Kim taunted.
‘I’m just trying to make conversation, Kim!’ she huffed.
Kim was around the same age as Brooke but acted like a moody teenager with PMS. She never worked weekends and always did the bare minimum to complete a task. Brooke couldn’t recall a single occasion when Kim would go the extra mile for a customer. There was no way she would get a better assignment vacation than Brooke. Was there?
She was about to find out – their manager Lisa had just arrived and was summoning everyone into her office.
‘OK. You know what we’re here for. I’m not one to beat around the bush so here goes…’
Brooke suddenly felt like she wanted to throw up.
‘Jason, you’re off to Costa Rica. Tracey, Tunisia for you. Kev, Bermuda.’
Brooke’s heart was pounding.
‘Kim?’
‘Yes?’ Brooke watched her rival step forward greedily.
‘New York.’
Brooke felt her face flush red. That was her holiday! She had already planned the itinerary and exact route she would take around all the shops – Macys, Bloomingdales, Tiffanys…
‘Brooke? Did you hear me?’ Lisa had reached for her arm. ‘You’ll be visiting Germany.’
‘What?’ Germany? That was so not the plan.
‘That’s it!’ Lisa was already ushering the staff back to their desks. ‘I’ll call you in one-by-one to go through your itineraries. Now chop-chop, there’s work to be done!’
Brooke felt the bile rising in her throat as she waited for the others to leave. She stared at the hundreds of postcards from happy customers that covered one whole wall of Lisa’s office. There wasn’t a single one from Germany.
‘Brooke?’
‘Please tell me you’re joking?’ she urged Lisa. ‘I’m the hardest worker you have, I give a hundred per cent every single day and I’ve been the first one in the office for weeks, and yet I’m only going to Europe?’
Lisa chose not to take offense; instead she patiently explained that this was a new destination she wanted to explore.
‘I just don’t get the appeal. Unless you’re really into beer and Christmas markets. And it’s not Christmas.’ Brooke tried to keep the sting of disappointment out of her voice, but failed terribly.
‘You’ve never been to Germany, have you?’ Lisa smiled at her.
‘Well… No,’ Brooke replied. ‘But what am I going to do there?’ she pouted.
‘Well for one thing you can buy me a tube of currywurst sauce.’
‘Where exactly in Germany am I going?’ Brooke was even more suspicious now.
‘We’re sending you to Rudesheim.’
‘Rudey-what?’ Brooke spluttered. Unbelievable. Somewhere she’d never even heard of.
‘Rudesheim. It’s a winemaking town in a World Heritage site.’
Brooke’s shoulders slumped. ‘You mean there aren’t any shops there?’
‘There are shops, just not the type you normally go in.’ Lisa sighed. ‘Look, I can see you aren’t happy but I need someone to suss out this destination and I thought you would be best-suited. I’ve spoken at length with Herr Berger and he has planned some very special treats.’
Lisa handed Brooke the information pack and hoped she would accept it without any more fuss. She always struggled to play the boss character and it wasn’t often she had to do it.
Brooke noticed Lisa’s hands trembling and felt her anger subside. She knew that she owed Lisa a lot. It was a perk of the job to travel, eat and drink once a year, all paid for by the company. She had to go. It was just sod’s law that Kim was the one who lucked out with New York.
Whilst Kim would be flying to America, Brooke was scheduled to travel by coach. The journeys would take approximately the same amount of time but they would end up a world apart.
And so she set off…
It was the start of September and England was enjoying a mini heat wave. Normally this would please Brooke, but she felt decidedly uncheerful sat at the coach station with a bunch of old-age pensioners, sucking on fast-melting ice creams. Then again, the good thing about travelling with pensioners is that the women all had Mary Poppins-style bags, filled with everything you could possibly need: a tissue for a runny nose, a wet wipe for sticky fingers, mini sewing kits, boiled sweets, plasters and aspirin. Just as Brooke was imagining one lady pulling out World War II Medals, her phone buzzed.
Awful start to trip. Seat double booked. Upgraded to First Class. Kim
Brooke suppressed the need to throw the phone under the wheels of the coach as she helped an elderly lady to her seat. This was going to be a long journey. The lady introduced herself as Elsie and asked Brooke to help with a crossword clue every twenty minutes. Brooke even caught her getting the answers from the back pages a couple of times as she pretended to lose her place.
The first stop of the day was around lunchtime, at a rundown motorway service station. Elsie offered Brooke a cheese and pickle sandwich which she politely refused. Elsie then rummaged in her bag and pulled out three more foil-wrapped squares.
‘I also have mustard and ham, egg mayonnaise, and salami. You need to eat something, dear.’
‘I’m fine, honestly.’
Elsie stuck her head in her bag only to produce several different types of chocolate biscuit, a flask, an apple, a banana, a Tupperware tub full of grapes and a box of fondant fancies.
‘There they are. No one can say no to fancies!’ Elsie smiled at Brooke.
She was right, no one refuses fancies. Brooke took one of the pretty little cakes and laughed as she watched Elsie push a whole one into her mouth.
The rest of the journey was surprisingly pleasant. There were comfortable silences and a few short conversations about the weather and such. Each time there was a rest stop, Elsie would share biscuits and sandwiches and Brooke would help her on and off the coach to stretch her legs.
As they neared Rudeshei
m they began to spy little castles on hilltops overlooking the river below. They had a magical quality to them and reminded Brooke of a story she had read as a child but couldn’t remember the name of. And then came her guesthouse – she couldn’t actually see the building as it was completely covered in flowers, bright reds and blues mixed with brilliant whites and pinks, trailing down the walls.
Stepping inside she discovered the walls were just as densely covered, only this time in cuckoo clocks of all shapes and sizes, some with little wooden workmen sawing logs, others with animals and birds, all adding to the feeling that she was entering a fairy-tale world…
She peered closer at the largest clock.
‘Do not worry,’ said the voice behind her. ‘They don’t chime anymore. They are just for show.’
She turned to find a tall man around her age with conker-coloured hair and piercing green eyes.
‘Oh hello,’ she blinked. ‘I’m looking for Herr Berger?’
‘I am he,’ he nodded. ‘But please, everybody calls me Tobias.’
She looked a little confused. Somehow she’d had the impression he would be older…
‘My father is also Herr Berger.’ He seemed to read her mind. ‘I am helping out while he is away.’ He held out his hand. ‘You must be Brooke?’
‘Er yes, that’s me. So…’ She looked back around the room. ‘This is an impressive collection you have here.’
‘My father’s choice, not mine. I think less is more. I will show you to your room.’
Brooke wasn’t sure what to make of Tobias. She couldn’t decide if he was being curt or just, well, German. Either ways, she followed him up the stairs, a small winding staircase which led to a short corridor. There must have been around ten doors and Brooke imagined her room for the next few days would be like a tiny cell.
SUNLOUNGER 2: Beach Read Bliss (Sunlounger Stories) Page 51