It was all so unfair. Why couldn’t we have met in London, or at the very least, England, where there wouldn’t be so much distance between us? Why did there always have to be a goodbye? Hadn’t I said goodbye to enough people I loved already? Just when something as momentous as falling in love happens to me, it would be ruthlessly cut short. I would board a plane and it would all be gone and I’d be back to being plain old Izzy.
‘Sometimes it’s difficult to live in the moment,’ I thought and then I realised I’d said this out loud.
‘Yeah it is, isn’t it?’ he said, turning to face me, and I was so relieved that he’d agreed and not looked at me like I was some kind of loony-toon, because what I’d said didn’t have much to do with what he’d been talking about.
‘Everyone talks about living in the past and always looking to the future, but no one really talks about the here and now.’
I really wasn’t sure where all this profound stuff was coming from, or that it was coming out of my mouth at all.
‘You’re so right . . .’ he said, his voice trailing off.
‘Not that the past or future aren’t important,’ I continued, on a roll now. ‘Although I have to confess,’ I said, ‘sometimes the here and now does involve watching a bit of telly.’ I tried to keep a straight face, but it didn’t last long.
‘You know what the best thing about the here and now is?’ he said, when we’d finally stopped laughing.
‘No. What?’ I asked, lowering my eyes provocatively. I was flirting – like, badly flirting.
‘You,’ he said, and he leaned in closer and put his arms around my neck and he kissed me tenderly, and my lips tingled too, just like Juan Pablo’s beads.
* * *
After walking along the sand, hand in hand, for a while, Rex suggested we lie down and look up at the stars, because that’s why he’d brought me here after all.
‘If we wait long enough we might see a shooting star – I’ve seen lots of them this summer,’ he said. So we both lay there, still and silent, hoping we might catch one. But nothing happened and eventually I quietly said, ‘My mum reckons my dad is a star.’
‘Your dad?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘Yeah, after he died, that’s what she told me he’d become, although since recent events I’m beginning to think he might really be a butterfly.’
Rex sat up and crossed his legs.
‘Oh Iz, I’m sorry. I didn’t know your dad was . . .’
‘Dead,’ I said, finishing his sentence, because I was used to people not being able to actually say that word.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
I thought for a moment and then said that yes, I did. It had been so long since I had spoken to anyone about my dad. It was coming up to the anniversary of the day it had happened, and I always thought about it all so much more around this time – in fact, I mostly thought about nothing else.
I had never spoken about the events of that day, the day my dad was taken from me. I’d not even told Willow all the details, unable to bring myself to repeat them in case I would suddenly be transported right back to that very moment and have to relive the agony all over again. Until now I had kept my thoughts buried deep inside me, locked in a cage around my heart, and sometimes the sheer weight of them pulled me down. Now, more than ever, I felt as though I needed to speak about it, to unlock some of the grief that was constantly bubbling under the surface, forever threatening to erupt from me like an angry volcano.
It seemed somehow right to tell Rex. Just being near him made me want to tell him my feelings, explain all I knew and felt inside about everything. It was almost instinctive. I trusted him. I knew it was crazy. In the grand scheme of things, we’d only just met. Yet despite this, it was as if he had found a window into my heart and opened it, letting out the stuffy contents, allowing fresh air into my soul. He made me want to open up to him and show him who I really was. I knew that telling him about my dad was the biggest step I’d ever taken with anyone, let alone someone I’d only known a matter of days. But just so long as I was with him, I sensed all would be well.
The worst, most hideous, thing of all though was that I knew I would have to lie again, explain that it had all happened coming up for twelve years ago instead of the six that it really was, so as not to give my age away. And this felt all the more bitterly deceitful, because when it came to my dad, I never wanted to speak anything but the truth. I knew that now was not the right time to break the whole age thing to Rex, though. Even so, this lie, told to support the other, burned deeper than ever and filled me with an abhorrent self-loathing.
As we lay there together, side by side in the sand, our bodies gently touching, I began to tell him about that day and how my dad had been hit by a car while crossing the road on his way home. It had been a few days short of my eleventh birthday, and he was carrying presents that he’d bought for me in his arms when the car crashed into him. I told Rex about the witnesses who’d said he didn’t stand a chance, because the car was just going so fast and everything. I imagined how the presents must’ve looked, all battered and broken lying in the road – just like him. I talked about how the paramedics had tried to resuscitate him on the pavement and how they really tried hard for, like, twenty minutes or so, but you know, he was gone, just like that. I told him how I vividly recalled standing behind my mum at the door when the police came, because I thought it might be my dad coming home and that I’d catch him with my presents and that maybe he’d let me have one of them early, because my dad was like that. A real soft touch, and my mum always said I could wrap him round my little finger. And I didn’t really know why my mum was crying so much because the police were talking with her in hushed, muffled voices so I didn’t really hear what they were saying. I sensed something terrible had happened, though, by the way she almost collapsed and had to be helped to the armchair by a policewoman.
I could feel my eyes welling up with tears as I was speaking and I tried not to blink so as to stop them from falling down my face.
‘They gave my mum the presents you know. My birthday presents . . .’ I said, my voice cracking. ‘They picked them all up off the street and gave them to her all smashed and broken and torn – except for this one thing; this perfect little pink jewellery box with a ballerina inside that turned round and round and played a twinkly tune from the Nutcracker Suite. It was completely untouched, not a scratch on it – and even though I didn’t celebrate my birthday that year, because, well, there was nothing to celebrate, my mum gave me the little box with the ballerina inside. I just sat there for hours and hours playing it over and over again until I thought it might break. Sometimes now I wake up in the night and hear that tune. I wonder if Dad knows I’m thinking of him and that I love him. Then I wonder if I really do love him or if I just love the memory of him because how can you love someone that doesn’t exist any more? And then I feel guilty and . . . and . . .’
But it was no good. Warm wet tears began rolling down the sides of my face and trickling into my ears as I lay there and I had this dull ache in my chest that stopped me from breathing properly. Wretched sobs escaped from my mouth and although I was now crying uncontrollably, it felt strangely therapeutic to talk about my dad and to finally let it all out.
Rex had listened, just as I thought he would. He didn’t say anything. He just held me tightly and wiped away my tears as they made tracks down the sides of my face.
‘You know just because someone isn’t there any more, doesn’t mean that we ever stop loving them,’ he said gently, as he pulled me closer into his arms then stroked my face tenderly. And he felt warm, warm and strong and protective, and it helped. It helped so much.
t was Friday, six days since our arrival in Ibiza and the longest period of time I had ever gone without speaking to my mum. So when she called, I felt a strange kind of relief, like things would be OK and normal again, even though I felt sure that as soon as I opened my mouth she would hear that something in me had changed. My mum
has this sixth sense of knowing when something is up with me, so I was naturally a bit wary when I took the mobile phone from my sister. Ellie had been chatting to Mum for over fifteen minutes – in private, I had (somewhat worryingly) noticed. I slipped out on to the balcony and slid the door shut behind me. If Ellie could have a private chat with our mum then so could I.
‘Hello, rabbit. Ellie tells me you’re having a ball,’ Mum said, sounding excited and happy for us. I could hear our cat, Montague, purring in the background.
‘Yeah, it’s great here, Mum,’ I replied, trying my best to sound normal, even though I felt anything but. ‘The island is so beautiful and the beaches are great and everything . . .’
‘I’m so glad you’re having a good time, although I’ve really missed my girls; the house has felt so empty without you.’ She sounded a bit sad and I immediately felt bad, because the last time I recall my mum saying something similar was when Dad had died.
‘Bet you’re glad of the peace,’ I said, trying not to think about it.
‘Nonsense, you know I like a full house,’ Mum said, and I was sure she was thinking the same thing as I had been.
‘Montague, get down . . . Do you want me to record That Certain Something for you on Saturday, chickie?’ she asked, changing the subject. Missing my favourite reality TV show was the least of my worries and, besides, I wasn’t even sure I cared about it much any more, or anything on telly for that matter. The only thing I could think about right now was Rex, and when I would next get to see him, and whether or not I should come clean and confess the truth to him about my age.
‘Nah, it’s OK, Mum. I reckon I’ll survive,’ I said.
‘Really? But it’s the final,’ Mum said, sounding a little concerned, and I wondered if I should’ve just said yes so as not to arouse any suspicion.
‘I saw Willow in town yesterday,’ she said, casually changing the subject. ‘She was with a girl friend but I didn’t go over and say hello because they looked like they were deep in conversation and I didn’t think they’d want an oldie like me interrupting them.’
‘Oh,’ I said, instantly worried that the ‘girl friend’ she was referring to was this Chantal that Wils had been spending loads of time with, doing all the stuff we usually did together, like shopping and watching fit lads.
‘Bet you’re missing each other madly, seeing as though you two are usually glued together at the hip.’ Mum laughed.
‘Yeah, I really do miss her,’ I said, although I wondered if Willow really was missing me as much as I was missing her, now that she had this new friend.
‘I miss you too though, Mum,’ I found myself saying.
‘Oh, rabbit, I miss you as well,’ Mum said, getting a bit sentimental. ‘And so does Montague, don’t you, Monts?’ He purred loudly down the phone.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Iz? You sound – well, are you sure everything’s OK? Are you and Ellie getting on all right?’
‘Yeah, Mum, everything’s fine,’ I said, and I really hoped it would be. I was just so confused about everything: about Willow and what was happening to our friendship – if indeed anything was happening at all – and about me and Ellie, and the fact that I had been deceiving her in a big way. And then of course there was Rex, who had come into my life from nowhere and turned everything inside out and upside down and back to front. Even though I had fallen in love, my world before Rex, and the relationships I had within that world, seemed as though they were falling apart at the seams.
‘Good-o,’ Mum said. ‘Greg will be picking you up from the airport. I can’t make it because I’m off to the hospital with Auntie Maureen that day.’
‘Hospital? Is Auntie Maureen sick or something?’ I asked, concerned.
‘Well, just between you and me, pussy-cat, she’s going through some changes at the moment and has turned into a worse version of Fang.’ Mum laughed loudly.
Fang was this pet rabbit we once had when I was a kid that would bite you if you ever tried to touch him – hence the name.
‘I hope you don’t mind, poppet. I’ll be back before you get home anyway.’
‘That’s cool, Mum,’ I said, wishing I could see her, because suddenly I wanted her to hold me and comfort me, like she had always done since I was small.
‘Have you met any boys then?’ she asked, brightly. ‘Go on, you can tell your old mum!’
‘Mum!’ I laughed, embarrassed because I didn’t really speak to her about boys, mainly because when she had asked me in the past, I didn’t have much to tell her. But now I did and I really wanted her advice because she was pretty level-headed. But I knew that even she’d be shocked by my confession about Rex, so I kept my mouth shut.
‘No rich millionaires with their own yacht desperate for your hand in marriage then?’ she joked.
‘No, Mum,’ I said, in mock annoyance.
‘Pity,’ she laughed. ‘I was hoping to marry you off to some rich Spaniard so I could get to holiday in Marbella every year, gratis!’
‘Fat chance,’ I sniffed.
‘Ah well, bunny, plenty of time for all that,’ she said. ‘Gotta dash, Monts is pulling holes in my new bouclé skirt, and I’ve got to get to QuickShop for cat food and eggs before it shuts. Oh, the glamorous life I lead!’ she joked.
‘Love you, Mum,’ I said quietly, because I realised I didn’t tell her enough.
‘Love you too, rabbit,’ she said, softly.
And when she hung up I started to cry. But I was forced to dry my eyes quickly because, soon after, Louisa began banging on the patio window at me and beckoning me inside.
‘It’s going to be totally gangsta!’ Louisa said, pulling a vast array of brightly-coloured bikinis and sarongs from her case and holding them up for inspection. ‘Ellie and Narinda are getting ready in their rooms and Charlie’s in the shower, so I need you to help me decide on some suitable beach attire,’ she commanded.
I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand and hoped she wouldn’t notice I’d been crying. I smiled at her nervously. She was more caustic and abrupt than Narinda and Charlotte and was the only one out of Ellie’s gang who I felt quite jittery around.
‘So what exactly is this champagne-diving party all about then?’ I asked adding, ‘I gather it probably involves champagne and, er, diving . . .’
‘Not bad, Sherlock,’ Louisa said, derisively. ‘It’s like this,’ she continued, ‘loads of us get on this big boat and bottles of champagne are thrown overboard and everyone has to dive in the sea and retrieve them, ideally before they sink to the bottom. Then after the diving and the food and the free drinks, the whole thing turns into one big party and everyone just goes mental until they drop and the sun comes up again!’ She squealed excitedly and began doing this funny little booty-shaking-type dance around the room. ‘It’s a great way to start the week!’
Don’t get me wrong, I was excited about the day’s forthcoming events too, even though I knew I should be showing it more. It wasn’t just the phonecall with Mum; I knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime, but I would have traded it all in for five minutes with Rex. Last night’s conversation had created an unspoken bond between us that I knew could never be broken. I felt even closer to him as a result of opening up to him about Dad. For me to even want to do this made me realise how special he was. He had been so kind, so gentle and understanding. I had told him he was a good listener, and he had said that who or whatever had made us had given us two ears and one tongue, and that people didn’t listen to one another enough. And I had thought that it was just so incredible that he always seemed to say the right thing.
By agreeing to accompany Ellie and Co. to today’s events I had forfeited spending an evening with him. Not through choice, I add, but because I simply couldn’t find a way to get out of it. Ellie had bought five tickets to the boat party and was particularly keen to see my expression when she had handed them out early this morning.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve already made plans with that Edie girl, for
crying out loud,’ Ellie had said to me, almost crossly, before I’d even had the chance to speak. ‘These tickets are like gold dust!’
Rex had sounded slightly dejected when I’d said I wouldn’t be able to meet him that night. ‘My friends have made other plans,’ I mumbled weakly to him on the phone. ‘I can’t really get out of it now and —’
‘It’s cool, Iz,’ he’d interrupted, attempting to sound chirpy. ‘I think I’m DJing at Adam’s Temple this evening, just thought you might like to be my guest. You can bring your friends, they’re welcome to come too.’
‘You know I’d really love to and everything but I —’
‘Hey, it’s no problem, really,’ he said softly, his voice suddenly sounding all husky and sexy, ‘so long as you’re not going off me or anything.’ He was only half joking I could tell.
‘No, really, it’s not that, God, it’s not that at all – I . . . I just . . . well, my friend has already bought the tickets.’ This was a nightmare. I wished I could suddenly turn to liquid and pour myself down the receiver to where he was, and then turn back into myself again and hold him and kiss him and tell him I loved him. Because I did. Even if I knew it might be too soon to say it and wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. The fact was I would’ve foregone a thousand boat parties, even ones with real celebs. I would have forsaken it all just for five minutes in his arms. It had choked me to have to turn him down. And it had worried me too. What if he really did think I had gone off him? Surely not? Not since we’d got so close and last night and everything. I closed my eyes, as if somehow it would help me to stop worrying. Falling in love was so amazing, I thought. It had lifted me right up out of myself and given me a lightness of being I had never felt before. But I figured it was because I’d fallen in love that all these irrational insecurities kept creeping in. I was scared and I sensed that maybe even Rex was scared too. Giving your heart to someone means trusting them not to break it.
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