‘Thought we’d get the party started early,’ said Freya as Gabby went to fetch glasses.
‘So how was snorkelling?’ asked Grace.
‘Amazing,’ said Gabby, playing with the string of brown beads around her ankle. ‘You should have come.’
‘And leave Valley of the Dolls unfinished?’ Grace grinned, holding up a dog-eared paperback.‘After a three-year diet of Chaucer, Milton and Shelley, this is like manna from heaven.’
‘Forget the fish, the highlight of the trip was that new boat boy,’ said Freya, grabbing Sarah’s bottle of red nail polish. ‘I’m not sure where he came from but he is cute, cute, cute.’
Gabby took a sip from her tooth glass of champagne and rolled her eyes. ‘She’s desperate for a holiday shag.’
‘What about your boyfriend?’ asked Sarah disapprovingly.
‘What about him?’ Freya smiled. ‘What goes on on the island stays on the island.’
Grace took the bottle. ‘He must be one of the guys my dad has shipped in from one of the other islands. He’s got half a dozen clients coming here tomorrow evening after we’ve all gone, so they need to put on a show.’
She pressed the button on her cassette player and the sounds of Everything But The Girl floated through the speaker.
Listening to the soulful melody, Grace felt suddenly depressed and vulnerable. The fact that they were leaving tomorrow meant that all the fun, carefree days of school and university were behind them and the void of her real life was rushing up to meet her. Unlike Sarah, she wasn’t sure where her life was going to lead. Since childhood, she had been told that she would go to work in her father’s company, but she had no illusions that it would be a glamorous VIP role with a corner office and a place on the board. Her father had always seen Miles as his great successor and gave Grace the impression that her job would be a safe little distraction until she found someone suitable to marry, preferably someone with connections to add to the sheen of the family company, Ash Corp. It certainly didn’t make her feel excited; it made her feel trapped and, in a fit of rebellion nine months ago, she had applied for an MA course at Oxford, forging a new fantasy of life as an academic, spending term-time in some dreamy, spired university town and her holidays on Angel writing the new Gone with the Wind. Now all she had to do was break the news to her parents.
She poured a generous measure of champagne into her glass, the bubbles fizzing over the top, and drank it down.
‘That’s the spirit, Grace,’ said Freya. ‘Let’s get in the mood.’
Sarah pursed her lips. ‘Grace needs some Dutch courage.’
‘What for?’ demanded Gabby eagerly, sensing gossip.
‘She’s going to cop off with Alex tonight.’
‘Sarah!’ Grace flushed.
‘Miles’ friend?’ asked Gabby, frowning.
‘How many other Alexs are there on Angel Cay?’ Sarah replied.
‘But he’s eighteen, isn’t he?’ asked Gabby.
‘Nineteen in September.’
‘You cradle-snatcher!’ Freya laughed.
‘Actually, that means he’s at his sexual peak.’ Sarah grinned.
‘I can see I’m going to have to get really, really drunk,’ said Grace.
Outside, beyond the plantation shuttered windows, the Caribbean sun was setting, flushing the sky the colour of a Bellini. The scent of honeysuckle and jasmine floated on the breeze.
‘Where do you think we’ll all be in ten years’ time?’ wondered Grace aloud.
‘Back here hopefully,’ said Sarah with a smile.
‘I want to be married,’ said Freya, ‘to someone rich, gorgeous and famous.’
They all laughed.
‘We’ll all be married by then,’ said Gabby, as if it was stupid to think anything else.
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Sarah. ‘My mum and dad have got the best relationship I know and they’ve been happily unmarried for twenty-five years.’
‘Your parents are just a pair of old hippies. Any couple not married after ten years do not want to get married.’
‘They’re hippies all right. But they’re right for each other.’
‘Screw that,’ said Freya, holding up her left hand and waggling her fingers. ‘I want a massive rock on here.’
Grace watched them, wondering to what degree their lives were already set. Freya was off to the glittering lights of Soho, Sarah clearly had found her calling as a lawyer – human rights most likely – and Gabby, who had spent her three years at Bristol trawling the students’ union for the most eligible Old Etonians, was sure that her research and determination would bear fruit in a good marriage. Grace’s parents had decided on her own fate from the moment she was born. But with her MA course tempting her, she knew she could change her destiny. Right here. Tonight, if she could find the courage to tell her dad she didn’t want to join the family business.
No pressure then, she said to herself, smiling, feeling a flutter of hope as the champagne bubbles went to her head.
‘To sexy men,’ said Freya, raising her glass and downing the gently fizzing liquid in one.
‘To Angel Cay,’ followed Sarah.
Grace felt a rush of hope and expectancy. ‘To tonight,’ she said, clinking her glass against the others’. ‘This is the last few hours of our youth and the start of the rest of our lives. Let’s make it a night to remember.’
2
Lying on the deck of Beautiful Constance, Robert Ashford’s ninety-five-foot motor yacht, Alex Doyle pushed his sunglasses further up his sunburnt nose, still not quite able to believe how a boy from a two-up two-down in Macclesfield was able to live a life like this. As far as the eye could see, turquoise waters stretched out towards the horizon, the blue sea broken only by the outlines of the cays. There were 365 islands in the Exumas – one for every day of the year – and as he lay there, Beautiful Constance was heading towards the most beautiful one of all. Angel Cay, the Ashford family’s private island, rose like a mirage out of the clear water. Peaks of tropical jungle – mango, palm and coconut trees – were ringed by sugar-white sands. The pale blue Caribbean plantation house stood on the crest of the tallest hill with a wraparound view of sea, sky and tropical vegetation. Squinting, Alex could see specks of bubblegum pink on the beach.‘Flamingos!’ he chuckled, pulling out his battered Olympus Trip to take this unlikely snapshot of paradise. Whoever said money didn’t make you happy hadn’t been to Angel Cay.
Today they had taken the yacht for some snorkelling off the cays, where the fish were as brightly coloured as Christmas baubles, and this afternoon they had cut out towards Harbour Island for some deep-sea fishing. Sitting in the chair struggling with the line, he’d felt like he was living some feverish Hemingway-fuelled fantasy. Over the course of this holiday Alex had experienced things he’d seen only in James Bond movies – private jets, Jacuzzis, tennis lessons and backgammon, fine wines that cost more than his mother’s car, liqueurs you had before and after your exotic dinners of lobster and quail. To think he hadn’t even wanted to go to Danehurst, the school that had put these opportunities within reach.
The truth was that Alex had been quite happy at Macclesfield’s Ryles Park comprehensive until his mother Maureen, a widow, had sat him down after football practice midway through his first year of secondary school.
‘I was talking to Mrs Kennedy,’ she’d said nonchalantly. ‘She had an interesting idea.’
‘Oh yes?’ he’d asked suspiciously. He knew that his mum had been Mrs Kennedy’s cleaner for many years and had become quite close to the rich old lady. He’d been out to her enormous house in the swish village of Prestbury near their home and had been impressed by the size of her cars and the garden; she even had a swimming pool, which to Alex was the height of wealth for anyone.
‘I mentioned your talent for music to her,’ continued his mother, ‘and she thought you could try and get into one of the top boarding schools off the back of it. They offer music scholarships, you know. Mrs Kennedy said i
t’s a brilliant way of getting a first-class education. ’
‘Boarding school?’ he’d replied, appalled. ‘I’m not leaving my mates for some posho place down south. No way. Never! Boarding school.’
Maureen Doyle, however, was a persuasive woman. She had finally convinced Alex to at least visit one of them. That was all it took; Alex had been seduced by the public school’s grandeur and history, the feeling that you were surrounded by the ghosts of people who had done great things and the bodies of people who would do great things. So finally, having scored one of their prestigious scholarships, he had agreed to go to Danehurst, a huge gothic pile in West Sussex, which, despite the lacrosse pitches and croquet lawns, felt marginally more normal than the other schools he had visited, plus it was co-ed and in the sixth form you could wear your own clothes. Even better, classes were actually voluntary, although everybody seemed to attend, and in any given year there was likely to be a rock star’s daughter or a movie star’s son in residence.
People like Miles Ashford, thought Alex, as he peeled off his T-shirt to catch some last rays of sun. Miles was glamorous, rich and connected and had arrived in the sixth form in a silver Bentley and a cloud of rumours, having been expelled from Eton when a master had found a small lump of hashish in his room. He and Alex had not become friends immediately; after all, there were plenty of other privileged neo-aristos for Miles to hang out with at Danehurst. Alex had, unsurprisingly, been considered an outsider, with his northern accent and his strange taste in indie rock, but in the end that seemed to be what Miles was drawn to.
‘You’re interesting, Alex Doyle,’ he had declared, walking into Alex’s room one night. ‘I’m so bored of all these rich halfwits. You think for yourself, you go your own way.’
Of course, it wasn’t long before Alex was going Miles’ way, visiting him in the holidays at the family house in the country, or being invited on head-spinning trips like this end-of-term blow-out on the island. But it wasn’t all one way; Alex had become Miles Ashford’s best friend because, unlike anyone else in his life, Miles knew he could rely on Alex, whatever happened.
Alex reached across to the ice box, pulling out another cold can of Red Stripe, and picked up his Walkman headphones. Ah, the new Pavement EP; he loved the way they were melodic, but spiky and angular at the same time, the way—
‘Arrggh! What the . . . !’ Alex leapt up howling as he felt a cold splash of water across his bare stomach. Wrenching off his sunglasses, he saw Oscar and Angus McKay, two of his Danehurst classmates, doubled up with laughter like stupid little schoolboys delighted at their prank.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ cried Alex, desperately trying to towel off his Walkman and praying it wasn’t ruined.
‘Just checking you’re still alive, Dolly.’ The twins knew their nickname for him grated on his nerves, but at least it had never caught on at Danehurst.
‘What are you listening to anyway? Brass band music?’
Angus, the smaller of the twins, was still so amused he was clutching his rib cage. Alex fought the urge to punch the little squirt. Don’t screw it up on your last day here, he thought. Don’t let them get to you.
Although Danehurst was a liberal, progressive school which tended to attract the children of a rich media crowd, there was still a sprinkling of snooty and arrogant upper-class bores and Oscar and Angus typified the breed. Their father was a Scottish lord, their mother a minor Hollywood actress, and they had inherited both centuries-old snobbery and nouveau riche superiority from their parents. They had invited Miles to spend Easter in Aspen with them and they had all returned to school as thick as thieves, full of private jokes and stories. The twins had jealously tried their best to squeeze Alex out of Miles’ affections, and while it hadn’t worked, they had spent the final term making his life miserable. Somehow they had found out that his mother was a cleaner and had begun to make snide comments about the dust on the school cups or how their socks needed laundering. And the digs had continued on holiday. To his dismay, Alex had found that two of Grace’s friends, Gabby and Freya, had joined in. It’s human nature to want to follow the pack, even if you know you’re doing something wrong, thought Alex.
‘Well, make the most of lying about in the sun, Dolly,’ said Angus with a cruel smile. ‘Tomorrow it’s back to processed peas and meat pies. Where are you spending the rest of the summer – stacking shelves in Kwik Save, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, well. Maybe I’ll have an island like this one day,’ said Alex defiantly. ‘When I’m a famous rock star.’
‘Yah, right,’ said Oscar. ‘Dolly wants to be the new Billy Bragg. Up the workers, down the bourgeois. Better not tell the fans about your time moonlighting as a paid-up member of the rich. Then again, interloping hardly counts.’
Alex closed his eyes and pictured himself pushing both of them over the side of the yacht. He would have done it too, if he’d thought that Miles would take his side, but you could never tell with Miles. Besides, after five years at Danehurst, despite his mum drilling her mantra into him that ‘these people are no better than you’, Alex still didn’t feel secure enough in this world to make a stand.
Seeming to lose interest in baiting Alex, Angus pushed past him and grabbed a beer from the cooler.
‘Shit, I can’t believe we’ve got this boring dinner with Miles’ dad tonight,’ he said, pulling the ring off. ‘I don’t know why we couldn’t have gone to Nassau.’
Alex couldn’t believe how ungrateful they were. All week they had found something to grumble about, despite the island’s incredible hospitality.
‘Why did you want to go to Nassau?’ he asked, containing himself.
‘To go to the casino, of course,’ said Oscar witheringly. ‘Although I doubt it would have been your scene, Alex.’
‘Do you play baccarat, Dolly?’ asked Angus.
‘Haven’t you heard of the Macclesfield Working Men’s Domino and Baccarat Club? It’s internationally famous,’ said Alex, trying to recover some dignity.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked Miles as he walked up from the cabin.
Miles Ashford was an impressive young man by anyone’s standards. Not conventionally good-looking, he had a manner and confidence that demanded attention. In shorts and a pale blue shirt, he looked older and more sophisticated than his years. Alex thought he resembled a movie star stepping out for drinks on the terrace.
‘Oh, we were just inviting Alex over to Nassau for a flutter on the tables.’ Oscar smirked. ‘I’m not sure he’s keen, though.’
Miles’ bright blue eyes darted between the three boys, correctly assessing the mood in an instant. ‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ he said with an elegant shrug of the shoulders. ‘Gambling’s a mug’s game. Probably why you clowns like it. House always wins – didn’t you know that? That’s why the smart move is owning a casino like we do.’
Angus curled his lip. ‘Business is still gambling, Miles. Stocks, shares. Property.’
Miles smiled. ‘In some respects. Then again, there’s a difference between calculated risk and pure chance. Incidentally, Angus, the gaming tables in Nassau don’t let you in if you’re under twenty-one, and I don’t think that fake ID you made at Prontoprint is going to get past the casino Gestapo.’
Angus looked embarrassed. ‘It might,’ he pouted.
‘Not when the name you put on it is Ron Jeremy.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Well, he’s a porn star for a start. Incredibly well hung, which is more than can be said for you, if you believe the rumours Emily Reed was spreading round school.’
Angus glowered at Miles but didn’t say anything. They were all nervous of upsetting their patron. Miles was the Sun King, with everyone else circling round him like courtiers, and not even the twins, with their brashness and arrogance, dared confront him.
Miles walked over and flung an arm around Alex’s shoulder. ‘No, the only thing I’ll bet my shirt on is talent,’ he said, lighting a cigarette and
exhaling a smoke ring towards the lavender clouds. ‘It’s why me and Alex have been friends for so long, isn’t it, Al?’
Kiss Heaven Goodbye Page 2