‘That’s right,’ Robyn said, rather wistfully. ‘I had stubble rash for a full fortnight after we got back and had to pretend it was sunburn.’
Once they’d finished eating, Kate led her friend along the coastal path towards the hub of Hvar Town, pointing out various landmarks as they went. Alex’s boat was not in its usual spot because he’d gone over to the neighbouring island of Vis for a few days to help a friend. Those were the exact words he had used when Kate asked – ‘help a friend’. Kate had wondered if he could be going to visit the much-mentioned Josh, only to remember what he’d said about him being ‘long gone’. She hoped that did not mean he’d died. Presumably Josh had been a close friend once upon a time, and she hated to imagine Alex losing someone he cared about. He should have people around him that he could rely on, who would be there to support him if or when he needed help.
At least she could pick up her phone and call Alex if she wanted to. Not that she had. And nor had Kate told anyone about the kiss they’d shared, or what had taken place on the secluded beach in Jerolim. It wasn’t because she was ashamed – in truth, she felt quite the opposite – but she was concerned that in trying to explain, her words would somehow cheapen the experience or make light of it. So much of the time she’d spent alone with Alex had felt so profound, so honest, so brave and so unlike anything else she’d done. He had revealed things to her that she suspected he kept hidden from most people and she wanted to respect that. But more than that, she wanted to keep those parts of him for herself, to cherish them; not tarnish their shared moments by offering them up for debate.
‘You weren’t lying when you told me this place was stunning,’ Robyn said, her words bringing Kate out of her momentary trance. ‘This sea is something else,’ she said, staring down at the crystal-clear water. ‘I just want to dive in, right now, in all my clothes. Can we go swimming later? Is there a beach?’
‘Yes and yes.’ Kate was amused by Robyn’s overflowing levels of glee. ‘But you’re here for a whole week so there’s plenty of time – and don’t worry,’ she added, ‘I have a comprehensive itinerary of fun planned.’
‘I like this new Kate,’ said Robyn admiringly. ‘Look at you, taking charge and making decisions. James wouldn’t even recognise you.’
‘Wouldn’t be able to see past all this hair,’ Kate joked.
‘Seriously,’ Robyn insisted. ‘I was worried that you’d waste away without him, but you’ve gone and done the opposite – you seem so happy, so confident, so free . . .’
‘I don’t see it as being free,’ muttered Kate, stepping to the side to allow a mother to pass by with a buggy. ‘I see it as being cast adrift. That’s all I’m doing in Croatia – floating without course, waiting in limbo for James to come to his senses.’
Robyn did not attempt to disguise her disgruntlement.
‘Don’t make that face,’ Kate pleaded. ‘It’s been so great to come and live in a new place, meet new people and spend more time with my brother and Filippo. All the interior design stuff is fun, too. I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed every bit of it, but this isn’t my life, not really. The life I want most is back in London with James.’
Robyn did not reply straight away, but Kate could tell she was despondent.
‘Let’s not talk about James now,’ her friend suggested. ‘We can come back to the subject later – preferably over a few drinks.’
Kate, feeling awash with relief, agreed without a murmur.
Only a few weeks ago it had been she who’d had to follow Alex through the tangle of backstreets in Hvar Town, but now Kate was the guide. It was gratifying to be the person responsible for her best friend’s many ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ as Robyn gazed up in awe at the explosions of bougainvillea, insisted on having artful photos taken in front of peeling-paint doors, and went into ecstasies over the quaint cafés and bars they passed. After exhausting the bowels of the town, Kate led the way through St Stephen’s Square and treated the two of them to a blueberry sorbet, which they consumed in contented silence as they set off further around the coast.
Despite having done this walk countless times in the weeks she’d been on the island, Kate remained utterly captivated by the view across the water of bobbing sailboats, splashing bathers and majestic palms. When Robyn made a remark about the deafening crickets, Kate realised with surprise that she no longer heard them. Her time in Hvar had apparently taught her many things, including the ability to tune out the resident insect orchestra.
‘Can we stop somewhere for a drink soon?’ pleaded Robyn, who had paused to tie back her hair. ‘I feel like I’m melting faster than the sorbet did.’
‘Of course.’ Kate did a mental calculation. ‘Hula Hula is the closest place, but will likely be busy, or we can keep walking and go to Falko, where they have hammocks under the trees.’
‘I vote Hula Hula, and not just because I like the crisps.’
Kate laughed. ‘And you say I have a weird sense of humour . . .’
Hula Hula beach club came within earshot long before they reached it, and Robyn and Kate exchanged a bewildered look as they drew closer and a gaggle of girls in string bikinis and high heels stumbled out, tossing their hair and muttering to each other in what sounded like Russian.
‘Are you sure you want to brave it?’ Kate checked, but Robyn was already making her way down the steps and across the wooden decking towards the bar, where she promptly ordered them each a bottle of the local beer, Ožujsko.
‘To us,’ she said, clanking her bottle against Kate’s. ‘And to the first proper holiday I’ve had in two bloody years. And to Hvar, which might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.’
‘I will definitely drink to all those things,’ agreed Kate, trying not to dwell on the fact that it was barely lunchtime, and therefore inadvisable to start drinking.
The seating on offer at Hula Hula ranged from booth-style tables with wraparound benches, squat wooden boxes topped with cushions, and high stools that faced out to sea. As Kate had predicted, almost every available space was taken up, but they eventually found an empty spot halfway along the club’s wide concrete jetty and took off their sandals so they could dip their toes in the water.
‘Now this is living,’ Robyn said, sighing with pleasure as she angled her face towards the sun. ‘I can see why your brother chose to move here.’
‘The Croatian people are wonderfully laid-back and so welcoming,’ said Kate. ‘That’s partly why Toby fits in so well here – he’s a born host, that one.’
‘I would argue that the same could be said for you,’ Robyn pointed out. ‘Aren’t you at all tempted to stay on beyond the summer?’
Kate shook her head as she took a swig of beer. ‘I wouldn’t want to live in a different country to James.’
Once again, her friend did not attempt to hide her exasperation.
‘Have you heard from him?’ she asked.
Kate shook her head before taking a determined sip of her beer. ‘Not since I hung up on him that time.’
‘But you still think there’s a way back? You still believe he’ll change his mind?’
‘I have to,’ she said simply. ‘It’s the hope that’s keeping me going.’
‘But look at everything you’ve done since you’ve been here,’ urged Robyn. ‘No way would any of it have happened if you were still in London, where James makes all the rules.’
‘That’s not strictly true,’ Kate protested, leaning back to avoid being splashed. A rowdy group of men were taking it in turns to leap off the jetty, while towards the back of the bar, a DJ was setting himself up on a raised platform. The whole place seemed to Kate as if it was thrumming with anticipation, but she felt apart from it; an outsider peering in.
‘You make it sound as if James kept me chained up in front of the telly, but if anything, he was the one encouraging me to try new things all the time. Honestly, Rob – he was forever pushing me out of my comfort zone. It’s not James’s fault that I lack ambition.’
<
br /> ‘But those new things always consisted of something he was interested in,’ Robyn pointed out gently. ‘When did he ever consider what your passions were and act on those?’
‘How could he, when he didn’t know what they were,’ argued Kate. ‘If I don’t know what I’m passionate about, how the hell should he?’
She could feel frustration tiptoeing through her now, like a sniper stalking his prey.
‘He isn’t a mind reader,’ she added defiantly. ‘You can blame him for a lot of things, but not my own shortcomings.’
‘Why has he never asked you, though? Like, really asked you? Sat you down and said, “Kate Nimble, love of my life, woman of my heart, what are your passions?” Or did he find it easier to mould you into someone who had the same passions as him?’
‘He didn’t need to ask me,’ Kate mumbled. ‘He knew I was passionate about him – about our future. He knew I would have done anything to make it work – would still do anything.’
‘Hold that thought,’ said Robyn, getting to her feet and holding out a hand for Kate’s empty bottle. ‘Nature calls. I’ll get us another two of these on my way back.’
Kate nodded distractedly, hunching her shoulders as she gazed down at her feet below the water. Music had begun to thump out from tall speakers and a great cry of exultation rose up around her as one of the diving men executed a perfect forward flip, while another popped the cork on a magnum of prosecco.
Alex would hate it here. This would be his idea of hell.
How often her mind seemed to stray to him lately. It was almost as if he’d become her internal antidote to James; a spoonful of Alex to sweeten the bitter taste of rejection. Is that why she’d kissed him?
‘Miss me?’
Kate shrieked as a returning Robyn pressed a cold bottle of beer against her bare arm.
‘Are you trying to make me fall off this jetty, woman?’
‘No, but I’m up for a swim if you are?’ she said hopefully.
‘Maybe later. We were talking about James . . .’
Robyn visibly slumped. ‘So we were.’ She sat down and kicked at the water. She always painted her toenails different colours, and today’s were an eclectic mix of pink, purple and blue. ‘He hurt you so badly,’ she said. ‘Seeing the state you were in after your birthday, after that bloody video appeared . . . It was tough. I hate the idea of you ever going through that again. What can I say? I’m protective. I’m like the SPF fifty of best friends.’
‘You’re amazing,’ Kate told her, examining her bottle before taking another large sip. ‘But nothing and nobody could have protected me from being hurt. I was hurting long before I stood up on that chair and asked James to marry me.’
Robyn frowned; her expression distorted by concern. ‘Is this to do with the polycystic—’
Kate nodded.
‘I thought the doctor had given you tablets?’
‘He did.’ Kate tried and failed to smile. ‘But it wasn’t just that – there were other reasons.’
‘Such as?’
‘Another time,’ she said, taking off her glasses to rub her eyes. ‘This is your first night of your first holiday in two years – I insist we start having some fun immediately.’
‘I don’t care about that,’ Robyn started to protest, but Kate lifted her Ožujsko and clanked the neck of her friend’s bottle so hard that beer began spurting out. Caught unawares, Robyn had no choice but to plant her mouth over the top and swallow it down, spluttering with laughing as Kate cheered her on.
‘You do realise,’ Robyn choked, once she had come up for air, ‘that the only acceptable punishment for a crime as heinous as that is to drink whatever shot I buy you?’
Kate grinned. There was only one direction this day was destined to go now, and for once, oblivion was a state she was more than happy to welcome.
Chapter 33
There were a few blissful minutes after Kate woke the next morning in which she was able to luxuriate. The events of the previous evening were kept at bay, trapped behind the dense fog of a hangover that she hoped might somehow have passed her by.
Then she attempted to move.
Groaning with misery as her dehydrated brain seemed to push against the back of her eyeballs, she fumbled around on the floor beside the bed, desperately trying to locate a glass of water. Snatches of memory flashed up like index cards, an image of herself and Robyn spraying champagne over each other, of the two of them leaping fully clothed into the sea as the sun set, of a man’s arms around her waist, lifting her into the air.
Kate sat up too fast, recoiling as a fresh wave of nausea crashed over her. Putting on her glasses, which were thankfully in their usual spot on the bedside cabinet, she peeled aside the sheet next to her to find Robyn’s side of the bed empty. Had her friend even made it back to the hostel? Kate could vaguely recall the two of them singing in the streets, two slices of pizza waving between them like conductors’ batons.
Her reflection, when she had stumbled as far as the bathroom, confirmed her worst fears. Mascara was streaked across her cheeks; her hair was a knotted mess, and her arms were covered in scratches. She looked like a moth that had been sucked into a jet engine.
After locating and forcing down two paracetamols, Kate stood for a while with her hands on either side of the basin, trying to quell the urge to throw up.
What the hell had happened last night?
Dressing as rapidly as her still-pounding head would allow, Kate made her way to the roof terrace, gripping the banister and whimpering all the way up the stairs. She had checked her phone already, fearing the worst, but there were no outgoing calls to James listed, nor had she sent him any drunken messages. There were, she discovered, a lot of selfies plus at least fifteen pictures of Robyn curled up on the lap of Hula Hula’s resident DJ. At least, it looked like him – Kate couldn’t be sure because his face was obscured in the same way Stelios’s had been all those years ago in Corfu. She was extremely relieved to find no photographic evidence of herself kissing anyone, but then, it was her phone. If anyone was in possession of such material, it would be Robyn.
Kate had reached the door now and steeled herself for a moment before pushing it open. The sun was for once shielding behind a bulbous patch of clouds, but the heat that greeted her felt damp and heavy. Robyn was, as Kate had hoped she would be, perched up on a bar stool talking to Toby, the remains of a cooked breakfast on a plate in front of her. When she saw Kate staggering unsteadily towards her, she beamed.
‘There you are. I was just saying to Tobes that I’d better come down and wake you up. How are you feeling?’ she added, as Kate clasped the bar with a clammy hand. ‘Bit rough?’
Toby eyed her with concern as she levered herself up into a seat, then made a ‘T’ shape with his hands.
‘Yes, please,’ she croaked. ‘But not too much milk – I don’t think I can stomach it.’
Glancing at Robyn, she groaned. ‘How are you so perky? You must have drunk the same amount as me, if not more.’
‘I swapped to water around ten,’ she said blithely. ‘I tried to make you do the same, but you were adamant that gin was a better option. You told me, and I quote, “You have to put gin in it to win it”, and by “it”, you meant yourself.’
‘Oh god.’ Kate lowered her head into her hands. ‘What else did I say?’
‘Well,’ Robyn began, sucking orange juice up through a reusable straw, ‘there were a lot of grand plans of how you were going to lure James back – although if you ask me, it’s him who should be begging for a second chance, not you – and then we spent a long time chatting to that group of men about brand building.’
‘We did?’ Kate raised her chin. ‘Why would we do that?’
‘They worked for a creative agency and you made a big point of showing them your Unexpected Items Instagram account – don’t you remember?’
‘Kate swayed slightly as she shook her head.
‘Sort of. It’s all a bit hazy.’
&n
bsp; ‘They were very complimentary,’ Robyn went on happily. ‘You insisted they all follow you there and then, and told them you’d soon be available for hire.’
Toby was back with the tea, which he plonked down in front of her along with two slices of buttered toast.
‘I can’t.’ Kate shuddered. ‘I’ll be sick.’
‘You need to eat,’ he and Robyn said in unison. ‘You’re so skinny now,’ her brother added. ‘If those cheekbones get any sharper, I’ll be able to slice salami on them.’
‘My BMI is fine,’ she protested, but he pushed the plate towards her anyway.
‘You need some sustenance,’ he said. ‘How else will you have the energy to recreate the Dirty Dancing lift that you apparently partook in last night?’
‘I did what?’
Siva chose that moment to saunter along the bar, her blue eyes narrowing as she clocked the newcomer.
Robyn cooed a greeting, reaching forward a hand only to snatch it hurriedly back. ‘Ouch,’ she said, sucking at the blood that was now oozing out from a scratch across her knuckles. ‘Was it something I said?’
‘Siva might look like Dobby the House Elf,’ said Toby, smiling with affection as the cat nonchalantly pinched the remaining half of Kate’s toast, ‘but personality-wise, she is pure Voldemort.’
Kate felt she should laugh but thought it quite likely she would be sick if she did.
‘How did I get all these marks on my arms?’ she asked Robyn. ‘I didn’t try to get into bed with Siva when we got back, did I?’
‘Nah.’ Robyn subdued a laugh. ‘You fell into a cactus – one of those massive ones by the beach. I had to rescue you.’
‘This is why I should never ever drink,’ wailed Kate, again putting her face in her hands.
‘Clearly, you needed to let off some steam,’ said Toby, who was whickering like a pony as he flicked through the photos on Robyn’s phone. ‘Blimey! You’re twerking in this one.’
The Getaway: A holiday romance for 2021 - perfect summer escapism! Page 20