The Birthday That Changed Everything

by Debbie Johnson

  Lucy was in a black bikini top and black shorts. Her dyed hair was swinging loose on her shoulders and most of her face was hidden by huge dark sunglasses. I knew she’d be coated in factor 50 to maintain the ghostly white skin tone she was aiming for.

  ‘Lucy! Ollie!’ I shouted, standing up and waving my arms frantically.

  Ollie grinned and waved back, meandering between the tables towards us. Lucy paused to think about it for a second then followed. She stopped a few feet behind him, facing in the opposite direction to avoid any meaningful social interaction.

  ‘Hello, darling!’ I said, hugging Ollie tightly to me and holding on so hard he couldn’t pull away. I was totally over-egging the pudding to show Nympho Gnome that, far from being lonely, I was in fact a woman cherished and adored and held precious at the heart of a loving family unit.

  ‘Do you two want to join us for lunch?’ I asked, praying furiously to whichever god would listen that they needed cash – the only possible reason Lucy would give me the time of day. There was usually a sliding scale of civility depending on how much she needed.

  Seconds after the words tumbled out I remembered that Simon had bunged them both a small fortune in guilt money before we left. They probably had more spare cash than I did. I could almost hear the coffin lid slamming shut on my fantasy image of normal family life.

  Lucy swivelled her head slowly towards me, propping her shades up on to her hair and staring at me with narrowed, reptilian eyes. She looked like one of those Velociraptors that eats everyone in Jurassic Park. I stayed very still and hoped she wouldn’t hone in on my heat signature.

  ‘Why the fuck would I want to do that, Nurse Nancy? Does it look like I’ve suffered brain damage in the last hour? Why don’t you give me a real holiday treat, and not speak to me for the next two fucking weeks, all right?’

  Chapter 8

  Following that latest in a long line of humiliations, I retreated to the pool. I was getting used to the feeling now. So my daughter disowned me in public? No big deal. I’d been through worse in the last few weeks and the party wasn’t even over yet.

  I probably had a divorce to look forward to, or Simon announcing he was becoming the father of Latvia’s first ever naturally conceived sextuplets. I could picture him now, earnestly discussing his amazing virility on Eastern Europe’s version of Richard and Judy. I was so punch drunk, I didn’t even react when Lucy delivered one of her southpaw specials.

  Reverting to my usual coping mechanism, I’d taken a small plate of treats from the lunch buffet to console me. Turkish delight. Yum. That was definitely going to help me lose the extra few pounds I’d gained. Despite the self-loathing, I still couldn’t stop myself eating it. Food had been my only consolation since Simon left, and even though I could see the damage I was doing, I couldn’t stop it. It was as though the carefully contained misery needed to leak out somewhere.

  Allie followed over a few minutes later, carrying another round of drinks and apologising for Miss McTavish and her verbal probing, which had continued throughout lunch. I was counting myself lucky the probing was only verbal.

  She’d covered such scintillating topics as the places sand could get if you had sex on the beach; the merits of photographing your own vagina, and the shocking price of property in Edinburgh these days. I must admit I did have to raise an eyebrow at the cost of a two-bedroomed flat in the New Town.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said to Allie, ‘she’s not your responsibility. I attract nutters wherever I go. She seems so out of place here, though.’

  ‘Yep, I know what you mean,’ Allie replied. ‘No kids, no apparent interest in water sports – not that I’d dare say that word around her; who knows what it might unleash? All we know is that she’s a writer, and says she finds being on holiday helpful for her research. Within minutes of meeting us, she’d found out that Mike’s had the snip, and asked him if it’s affected his orgasms. As if! He’s just thrilled to be getting any!’

  ‘And how did he react to that question?’ I replied.

  ‘With relish. That man never misses an opportunity to pretend he’s Sid James in a Carry On movie. Bizarrely, it’s one of the things I love most about him.’

  We settled down into two sun loungers near the pool. A pool that Nurse Nancy could definitely not enter – my plastic might shrivel up. Allie saw my wistful expression and made a sympathetic clucking noise. She stood up with such purpose, I thought she might just say ‘Alakazam’ and a nice bikini would appear.

  Instead, she waved over to a nearby sunbathing couple, motioning for them to join us. She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted to another pair on the far side of the pool, who dutifully came over.

  Before long, a small coterie of strangers had been assembled around my lounger. They stood smiling down, casting so much communal shadow over me the sun was momentarily eclipsed.

  I sat up as straight as I could, almost dropping the plate of Turkish delight on to the concrete. I was sure they came in peace, but the thought crossed my mind that they could also be a lynch party out to tar and feather me under the little-known Obscene Outfits (While Abroad) Act.

  ‘You see?’ said Allie, waggling her fingers at me in a ‘look, I told you so’ gesture. ‘She can’t wear this all day, can she?’

  ‘Oh my God no!’ shrieked one of the men, dropping dramatically to his knees by my side, reaching out to finger the PVC hem in distaste.

  He was wearing a salmon-pink sarong that not even David Beckham could have carried off. His hair was a suspiciously even shade of black, and his nails were beautifully manicured. Plus, as he continued to bemoan the state of my ‘non-semble’, as he called it, he displayed about as much subtlety as an am-dram performance of Guys and Dolls. Big flaming queen, anyone?

  An exceptionally tall older woman with long, wild, steel-grey hair stepped forward. She was grandly preceded by a very large pair of breasts attempting to escape from two scraps of leopard print masquerading as a bikini.

  ‘Rick! Give her some space, for goodness’ sake – and stop stroking that plastic, you don’t know where it’s been!’ she said. Charming.

  I stood up and introduced myself, with a bright smile and as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Sally,’ said the woman with the enormous knockers. ‘I’m Marcia, and this is my husband, Rick.’

  Even from a foot away, she smelled so much like a brewery that she should have had a ‘highly flammable’ sticker on her forehead.

  It took a second for what she’d said to register. I might have been rendered momentarily unconscious by the second-hand alcohol fumes partying along with my own.

  Did she really say ‘husband’? Big pause for thought at that one – Rick was about as straight as Freddie Mercury, and only slightly less flamboyant. Marcia looked a bit older than him, and certainly plucked her eyebrows a lot less than he did, but she was all woman.

  I wondered how a marriage like that could work, but ‘better than mine’ was the only answer I came up with.

  ‘Hi, I’m Jenny, lovely to meet you,’ said the other woman, a sporty-looking brunette in her late twenties, giving me a hearty handshake and a radiant smile. ‘And this is Ian,’ she added, gesturing to the buff-looking young man at her side. Ian was trying very hard not to stare at my now-sweaty cleavage, bless him. What a gent.

  ‘Between us, Sally, we’ll be able to find you some decent clothes to wear until your suitcase turns up,’ said Allie, ‘so just rest easy. Have another drink, chill out, and we’ll all go off to our rooms to dig something up for you.’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ said Rick, giving me an air-kiss on each cheek and rubbing my shoulders reassuringly, ‘don’t worry about a thing – I’ll have something perfect for you!’

  Chapter 9

  After they’d gone, I settled back down to enjoy the sun.

  I felt some of the tension ease away once I was alone again. Facing all those people at once had been scary. Even without Nurse Nancy’s assistanc
e, I would have found it daunting. I wasn’t sure I liked me very much any more; I was so pathetic – whatever confidence I once had was nowhere to be seen these days. Getting dumped for a woman half your age will do that to you.

  Now, I was just a scaredy-cat single parent to two alien beings who wouldn’t even notice my dead body unless it was blocking the fridge door. Meanwhile Simon was romping his way through his midlife crisis and overdosing on presumably world-rocking sex.

  Our sex life had been nowhere near world-rocking. In fact, woolly mammoths roamed the earth the last time my world so much as budged an inch. When he stopped even trying (because he was getting it elsewhere, I now realised), it had been a relief.

  I could stop pretending to be asleep when he came to bed, and enjoy a rest on the wifely duties front. Now I was more than resting, I was facing eternal celibacy – which suited me just fine. At least that’s what I kept telling myself – apart from in those moments at three a.m., when I was lying alone awake in bed and wishing my missing husband was there with me.

  I’d noticed as I sat there baking and pondering my lack of sex life that a few more children were starting to appear in and around the pool – some escorted by nannies; some in chattering packs of their own.

  Pirate Jake, my friend from earlier, was licking the very last yum of ice cream from a cone and balancing on his left leg like a stork.

  I was considering whether to call him over when I heard the sound of running footsteps pounding behind me. A man dashed straight through the gap between my sun lounger and the one next door, moving so quickly he was a blur of fast-moving arms, legs and, luckily I supposed, swimming trunks.

  The whirling dervish continued to the pool’s edge, where he scooped up Jake in both arms and tucked him into his tummy, yelling ‘Geronimo!’ His momentum carried them both a couple of feet up into the air before gravity plunged them down into the water, the cone flying out of Jake’s hand.

  I watched the whirlpool they’d created when they went in, waiting for them to emerge again. After a couple of seconds they both bobbed back up, shaking their heads like wet dogs and screeching with laughter. Jake was holding on to his father’s neck tightly enough to asphyxiate him.

  They carried on playing for a while longer, splashing along to the other end of the pool Nemo-style, like father-and-son fishes.

  After a lively ten minutes or so, they caroused their way back down to my end and climbed out – not even using the steps. I’m always jealous of people who can get out of pools without using the steps. When I try I look like a whale humping the side wall.

  Jake grabbed his dad’s hand and started walking him over to the bar, jumping up and down with excitement. He spotted me as they approached the sun loungers, and veered over, tugging his dad behind.

  ‘Ahoy there, shipmate!’ I said, saluting him sailor-style. ‘How goes it?’

  ‘I’m not a pirate any more, silly!’ he said, as though I was the dumbest person who ever walked the earth. He must have been conferring with Lucy.

  ‘Dad! This is that lady I told you about – the one with the really short dress made out of raincoats!’

  Oh good. More humiliation – and doled out by a tiddler, at that. I put my game face on and smiled up at superdad, getting my first proper look at him.

  He was about six foot tall, maybe a shade under. His hair was slick with water, but I thought he’d dry out to be blond. Striking blue eyes, the same shade as the cloudless Turkish sky. A strong jawline. A nose that looked as if it might have been involved in a rugby match or two when it was younger.

  He was my age, possibly older, but had obviously looked after himself a lot better than I had. Broad, powerful-looking shoulders, with a perfectly defined musculature. Not an ounce of fat on a torso that wasn’t quite at superhuman six-pack level, but was way better than anything I’d ever seen in real life before.

  His arms looked strong enough to pick a woman up, throw her over his shoulder, and take her back to his cave for a quickie without breaking a sweat. Even if the woman in question had been intimately involved with a box of Ferrero Rocher for the last month.

  I reminded myself that this was the latest in a long list of sex maniacs in my life, and that I was to avoid him at all costs. Allie had described him as a single dad – which probably meant he’d left Jake’s mum for a younger model at some point, like they all seem to do. I mentally painted a skull and crossbones over his perfect chest. Beware. Toxic.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, returning my smile, ‘I’m James Carver. Jake was just telling me about you. Sorry if he went on about me liking short skirts a lot – I must have sounded like a dirty old man…’

  He had the same trace of Dublin in his voice as Jake. But on him, it was so sexy; he should have had his own late-night radio show for sad, lonely women to listen to.

  It made me feel a bit wriggly. Which in turn made me feel a bit annoyed with myself.

  ‘I’m sure you’re not,’ I replied, thinking exactly the opposite. He was looking at me a bit too closely for comfort, which was fair enough under the circumstances. I resisted the urge to cover myself up with my hands.

  ‘I’m Sally,’ I added belatedly. I was too well trained to be outwardly rude.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Sally,’ he said, as Jake started to tug on his hand to pull him away again, bored by the grown-ups’ strange social etiquette.

  ‘Come on now, Dad!’ he said. ‘You can talk to her later. You need to get me a juice right now or I am going to shrivel up and die like a salty slug!’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m coming…’ James said, following him. He turned back as he was leaving, and gave me a killer grin. Good Lord, the man was perfect – it was against all the rules of nature. Where were the missing teeth or turned eyes that usually evened these things out?

  ‘Looks like my presence is required elsewhere – let me buy you a drink later. Love the outfit, by the way,’ he said.

  Ha. I bet he did. I was living out every juvenile male fantasy on the planet, with the help of Mr and Mrs Smith from Solihull.

  Despite my mental repulsion, I felt a little answering throb going on in Nurse Nancy’s private parts. My libido, making a guest appearance at the most inappropriate of times.

  I gestured to the waiter for another drink. James Carver might look like sex in Speedos, but he was, undeniably, male. And therefore a complete bastard.

  Chapter 10

  ‘I’m so fucking hot!’ said Lucy, fanning herself with the Complete Works of Sylvia Plath.

  ‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’ answered Ollie as he buttered his toast. ‘Come and blow on you?’

  ‘No, I expect you to shut the fuck up and die, you stupid little shit,’ she said, throwing her knife at his head like a spear. He swatted it aside with his hand so it clattered to the floor, then gave her what I think our American cousins refer to as ‘the finger’.

  Breakfast time with the Summers family.

  At least they were sitting with me this morning – though, as the minutes ticked by, I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. It was like breakfasting on the Gaza Strip. I’d made a deal with them that they had to sit with me for at least one meal a day, so I could check they were alive and I could at least pretend I was relevant to their existence. Now, I was starting to regret it.

  We were all a bit tired and crotchety after a busy day and a late night. I thought Ollie and Lucy might come to blows, and I was downing coffee like it was the elixir of youth.

  Lucy had eaten alone at dinner, on the opposite side of the restaurant, reading something far more highbrow than the two-week-old Hello! magazine I’d scrounged.

  Afterwards she took herself off to the beach with her book. I occasionally did a sneaky check on her, hiding behind bushes like an undercover agent on a surveillance mission.

  She did nothing more extreme than strain her eyes to read by the light of the lanterns strung up on the jetty. Every now and then I’d see the flare of her lighter as she lit up one of the cigaret
tes she thought I didn’t know about.

  I’m sure I won’t win any mother-of-the-year awards for turning a blind eye to that, but life hadn’t exactly treated Lucy kindly recently, and I didn’t have the heart to tackle her. She seemed content, and it was the first time I’d seen her still and quiet and not surgically attached to her phone for weeks.

  She’d had the stress of doing her GCSEs, her dad leaving us, and on top of all that, the everyday horror of being a sixteen-year-old girl. Peaceful moments are few and far between. Plus, you know, she’s a Gothly creature of the night and all that – who am I to get in the way of her midnight mojo?

  Ollie, as is his nature, had found friends almost immediately, despite being the king of geekdom. He ate with a big crowd of other teenagers, then disappeared off to play pool and table football for hours on end. He reappeared now and then to check up on me, which was sweet. My big scrawny baby thought he was the man of the house now.

  True to their word, Allie and her friends had come up with a range of random clothes for me. None of them fitted properly, but I felt wonderful – even if I was wearing a pair of old running shorts and a T-shirt. Even a cotton-rich blend felt like heaven next to my skin after the day I’d had.

  After dinner I’d joined Allie and the others for a drink. There was a pretty terrace, laid out with tables and chairs and lit with candles, which seemed to be at the heart of the social scene of the Blue Bay Hotel. The entire Wardrobe Rescue Squad was there, apart from the younger couple, Jenny and Ian, who had gone on a ‘moonlight cruise’ – shorthand for a bonk-fest, I was told.

  I met Mike, Allie’s husband, who expressed his regret that I was no longer dressed as Nurse Nancy, but said the T-shirt was tight enough to make up for it. He was a stocky man in his fifties, with shaggy hair that couldn’t decide whether it was red or grey. He had a big belly laugh that rattled the glasses on the table and made his eyes disappear into his face. And, somehow, he could deliver lecherous lines without sounding lecherous, which was quite the gift.