by Ruby Soames
She lies back on the couch and turns her gaze to the mirror. I take a few tentative steps in the sandals.
The Medusa purrs in an affected drawl. ‘They’re grrreat.’
‘You think so?’
‘Sure. I’m going to try those too but I’m still waiting for the Loubintins …’ she rolls her eyes and juts out her chin, ‘but that stupid girl can’t even remember one type of shoe,’ she laughs. ‘When d’you get here?’
‘Today.’
‘Me too. Where from?’
‘London.’
‘Same ‘ere.’ She leans back on the banquette, claps her hands together and throws her legs in the air. ‘Aha! I knew it! London! I thought that as soon as I saw you.’
‘I’m that pale, right?’
‘Ha, that’s funny! Nuh. You know how I knew?’
I sit back.
‘I’ll tell you.’ She jangles her bracelets in the air. She looks at me as if explaining something fascinating to a child.
‘London people have a look.’ She raises her eyebrow to make sure I’m taking in all this wisdom. ‘They look like they could fit in anywhere – it’s unique. See? The Germans always aggressive, the French are killer bitches – not just the women. The Italians – all on cell phones and talking, talking rubbish; the Americans, so loud and obvious – no class at all – but the English? These people are subtle; they’re like universal keys – they always fit in. Discreet. Charming. They don’t adapt to anyone else. Am I right or am I right?’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I answer.
‘Bravo!’ she points a long, manicured finger at me. ‘You understand! You see? You’re smart. I can tell that too.’
I can’t work out where she comes from, especially as an undeniably South London accent comes through her mishmash of unusual vowel sounds.
‘I bet you’re from somewhere very interesting, and exotic, right?’
‘Me? I’m like, from everywhere … and nowhere. I love people, people love me,’ she picks up a stiletto and starts screwing the heel into her palm. ‘I don’t need to be –’ she shakes the shoe in my face, ‘pigeon-holed, categorised. Y’know, I spent time in the States, Qatar, Stockwell. You know what? I’m a nomad of the soul – I’ll tell you a secret,’ she bends so that her mouth comes close to my ear not before a brush of wiry hair, ‘I have a gypsy heart.’
I duck away from all that hair. The salesgirl hovers around us with the boots but is too afraid to come close.
‘Exciting,’ I say.
The gypsy opens out her palms and closes her fingers into the spaces of each hand like a Venus fly trap decimating a green fly. ‘Exciting – yes – I am – and y’know what? I just got married!’
‘Congratulations! Who’s the lucky man?’
‘Henry Hardwick. He has a law firm. He’s a QC – you know, Queen’s …? Whatever.’
I nod, ‘A QC – very impressive!’
‘He’s English, of course. We have an estate in North…Norf…. somewhere in England. An estate – not like council estate but like garden-open-to-the-public estate? Get me?’
‘A very big house.’
‘Very. Twenty-five bedrooms. And we have an apartment in Mayfair – you know Mayfair? Imagine. Me? The perfect English wife – cool, eh? English wife but with a spicy twist!’ She wriggles as her skirt rides up.
‘Sounds fun,’ I gasp.
‘Fun! Fun! That’s right, fun! You are absolutely right. Fun has no language, no passport – it’s a state of mind not a country!’
The shop assistant chucks the boots at her before retreating back to the shelves.
‘Hey you! Help me get them on!’ demands the bride.
The assistant returns, opens the box and holds one out for her approval as if it were John the Baptist’s head. But the customer waves her away, annoyed at the interruption. ‘I say to Henry, my husband, “Darling, as long I have a Platinum American Express card I’m at home!” ‘
I laugh to keep her talking. She responds by laughing even louder and slapping her thigh. ‘It’s weird. You and Henry have the same laugh!’
‘Really?’
‘Sure! The English have a sense of humour. Hard to find these days, huh? People who laugh are like the ozone layer, disappearing all the time, with all the pollution. We must hang out, hey, you and me and Henry, huh? We need people around us otherwise, well, he can get a bit … you know … old! We’re going to have a great time! No really, we will, I can tell you’re cool, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you.’ She feels for my hand, takes me by the wrist and pulls me closer to her. ‘And you should go blonder.’
‘Thanks,’ I mutter. She releases my hand and jumps up.
‘Henry’ll be wondering where I am, he can’t bear it when I shop without him.’ She gathers her handbag and puts it over her shoulder. ‘Henry just loves to watch me getting in and out of clothes, and me? I just love to watch him pay! Ha! I couldn’t resist those boots when I walked by – don’t you think I’ll look just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman – imagine, little French knickers, this bra –’ she lifts her top over her balloon-like breasts, over each one is a shiny, yellow triangle, ‘Yah, real gold-plated!’ She snaps her top down and shouts, ‘Excuse me!’ to the girl who’s disappeared into the stock room out of the firing line. ‘Girl!’ she calls out, giggling at her own audacity. ‘Have those sent up to the Marco Polo Honeymoon Suite. I want them in red and black.’
The shoe assistant comes out, flustered by this new request.
‘Got it? The red and the black. Mrs Henry Hardwick.’ She turns once again to me. ‘Darling, if you see us, you must come up and say hi, uh? I’m Yuleka. And you’re –?’
‘Sarah.’
She puts out her hand for mine. I take it, careful that the nails don’t slice through a main artery. She looks at the sandals I’d tried on, ‘Get them in pink.’
8
I sit on my terrace watching the last light edge over the slick, secretive sea and munching on the roasted cashew nuts left by Ferdi. I need to work out a strategy for meeting my father. Surely, he’d recognise my name? And if not, at what point in the two-week holiday do I plan telling him I’m his daughter? And from telling him, how do I make him add his name to my birth certificate?
The door in the next villa opens. Lights go on and I see a shadow lengthen along the teak planks. Footsteps. A man walks to the end of his terrace, looks out to the sea. He’s well-built and, as he smiles at the coming night, I see good, healthy teeth. A man in his late twenties, handsome, like something out of a men’s weekend-wear catalogue.
He drinks from a bottle of water before taking off his T-shirt, then he lets his coral-coloured linen trousers slide to his ankles. He stands naked on the terrace with his buttocks to me. I’m staring at his firm backside, not daring to breathe. To make matters worse, he starts swaying his arms in the slow, graceful dance I’ve seen people do in Holland Park. T’ai Chi.
I pray he doesn’t turn around and pretend to be asleep by half closing my eyes and letting my head loll onto my shoulder to prove it.
His exercise finishes with a climactic ‘Pah!’ He puts his hands together in a prayer position, bows to the sea and looks out into the sky. He watches the ocean for a few moments, airing his extremities. Then he saunters across his terrace. At the entrance to our shared garden, he reaches down into a nearby bush to pick up a pair of swimming trunks left to dry out. It’s strange, but I’m sure the room was empty earlier.
My neighbour pulls up his trunks, ties a knot in the waistband and strides back towards his room – but then spots me.
‘Oh hi!’ he says.
‘Hum?’ I yawn.
Instead of appearing in the least embarrassed, he sweeps his lips over his big white teeth and challenges me with a facetious smile. ‘Enjoy the floor show?’
‘Sorry?’ I ask.
He laughs to himself, amused by his shamelessness. ‘You must have arrived this afternoon.’
We shake hands.
‘Yea
h, from London. Sarah. The snow was settling when I left.’
‘That’s when it’s time to take a vacation. I’m Peter.’
‘I’m Sarah.’
‘Yeah. You said.’
The firm handshake is still going on over the terrace wall, ‘And you’re from …?’ As if it wasn’t obvious.
He raises an eyebrow and cocks his head to one side. ‘New York. You here on your own?’ he sneaks a look into my villa.
‘Yes.’
‘Me too. I always prefer travelling alone, that way you get to meet people.’
‘Particularly naked men,’ I wink.
‘Yeah … sorry about that. I had no idea … I would have used a fig leaf or a coconut shell if I’d known.’
‘I didn’t see much … only enough for a short YouTube clip.’ He chuckles, resting his arms on the wall that separates us. ‘Been on the beach yet?’
‘Not properly.’
‘Not properly – love your accent.’ He puts his hands on his hips and looks out to sea, ‘This is the best time. The sand’s cooled down and the water’s warm; it’s going to be a full moon tonight. I’m just going to have a last dip now.’
We watch the seagulls cutting into the sky like blades.
‘Say, want to join me? I mean, only if you want –’
I hesitate. The birds cackle. A strange man who goes around naked … a strange place. ‘I’ll just get my things.’
It takes me a minute to dash in and remove the price tag from my new swimsuit, put my hair up with clips before dabbing a little lip-gloss on my lips – and I stop. Something’s different. I feel like I’ve left something behind. That gnawing pain which has been with me for so long – it’s gone.
When Peter sees me standing on the terrace, he rests his hand on the wall and levers himself over in one athletic bunny hop. He lands with a smile and settles an arm around my shoulders. He takes my towel and cardigan and opens the little gate. We both stand on the beach and wriggle our toes into the warm sand.
‘No guesses why they call this the platinum coast,’ Peter says, sifting the sand through his toes as we skip over the powdery shoreline. It’s growing dark so he can’t see that I’m grinning to myself at the thought that I’m here, in the Caribbean, walking with a half-naked man under a full moon. But, strange as it is, there’s something rather homely about Peter that puts me at ease. He’s friendly, relaxed and fine with the occasional silences that fall between us.
Some of the restaurants have turned on their strings of coloured light bulbs as well as the volume on their sound systems. We continue walking along the coast, over rocks and through mango groves until we’re clear of the hotels and bars. And I’m smiling because it’s kind of erotic, the moonlight, my feet being massaged by the soft sand and the warm air.
‘Is it your first time in Barbados?’ he asks.
‘Yes. And you?’
‘No, I’ve come here every year since I was a kid. My folks used to have a house over the other side but now they take vacations on some of the other islands – they say the social life’s better. But I still love it here. Feel the water.’
I walk up to the ripples and let them tickle my feet. The temperature’s perfect. Peter is behind me, loosening his shorts.
‘You OK with this?’
I shrug, ‘Nothing I haven’t seen already!’
‘You can leave your bathing clothes here,’ he suggests.
‘Sure,’ I say slipping out of my top. This is the first time I have undressed in front of someone I’ve only just met, but I know already this is going to be a holiday with a lot of firsts.
9
We swim naked, at first together, then separately and then side by side. I lie on my back, letting the water hold me. He’s right, there really is a full moon above us, throwing silver flakes onto the water. I watch Peter doing little dives up and over the waves before we float, slow and weightless. We wade onto the beach.
‘Come on,’ he whispers and lifts me up by the hand.
‘This is bliss!’ I sigh, seeing the dark outline of our villas in the distance.
‘Sure is, you picked a perfect night to arrive. Oh my God!’ he laughs, staring at my legs. ‘Sarah, are you a mermaid?’
‘What?’
‘Look!’
‘What?’
He’s laughing so much I have to wait for him to get the words out. ‘You got scales! Look, up and down your legs.’
I look down to see my skin streaked orange and white from my toes to my thighs. There’s a dark brown V shape on one knee and on my other ankle speckles of yellow like I’ve got trench foot.
‘It’s the St Tropez tan,’ I say.
‘I’ve been to St Tropez, honey, and I’ve never seen a girl look like that!’
‘Oh God I … it’s a … she said don’t go in the water for four hours,’ I mumble.
Peter laughs, ‘I love it! You look like a giraffe! I love giraffes – except for their black tongues. You don’t have a black tongue, do you?’
I stick my tongue out at him. He laughs, then goes to kiss my cheek.
‘You know, you don’t need that stuff. Your skin is perfect, so pure and smooth.’
He puts an arm around me and we amble back to the hotel, half in, half out of the water, talking easily about nothing in particularly. As we get nearer the hotel, Peter says, ‘You know, I’m glad I met you today. Most people at this hotel are kind of old and dull. I was even thinking of moving on to another island, but I’m gonna hang around now.’
A few yards away, his room butler is placing what looks like a large warmed brandy on his table.
‘Want to come over and have a night-cap?’
‘Sure.’
‘Asari, wait.’ He calls out to his butler. He looks to me, ‘What would you like?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
‘Make that two Armagnacs,’ he calls over. ‘You like Armagnac?’
‘The book of prophesies?’
‘Better make them doubles.’
Sitting on his terrace, we sip our drinks while I comb out my hair and despair over the remains of my tan. Every time he sees my stripey legs he chuckles. We look out onto the beach where I see a couple holding hands with a little boy walking between them. I notice that the parents have matching tattoos on their arms.
‘Hi, Peter,’ the girl calls out. He waves back. She smiles at me before the trio disappear into the night. Peter nods as his butler rests another two drinks on the table.
‘Isn’t she that model? Audrey something –?’
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘You know her?’
‘Kinda, but I’m not into that Beautiful-People-TriBeCa-junkie scene.’
I agree, although I have no idea what he’s talking about.
‘Having said that, I’m pretty partial to a little Bajan grass.’ He goes to his room and returns with a little bag. ‘Want some? I got the best the island grows. Hey! Maybe I could put it in a tree and you could stretch your neck and nibble at it?’
A few hours later, I float back to my room where Ferdi has turned down the bed, planted a family of chocolates on the pillows and sprinkled rose petals over the covers.
Forty-eight hours ago I was ready to end it all – it never occurred to me that things could actually get better.
I flick on the TV from my bed and go through the channels, stopping when I catch Joseph’s face, unshaven and brown, talking to a woman about his early life. The camera pans down to his shoe. His foot twitches as he talks. The camera drifts over his hand. He scratches his knee. I can hardly bear to watch. His soft, intelligent voice sounds dry and tired. Then there’s a clip from a movie. Joseph is crawling through a paddy field with water droplets on his forehead and a rifle in his hand. A building blows up behind him. We return to the interview. He’s congratulated and gives the interviewer one of his smiles, one of those long, heart-felt beams which he’s pulled from his catalogue of devastating expressions that turn women’s blood to Champagne.
She stumbles over the next question, he helps her out by suggesting words, but that makes her worse. That’s my Joseph.
I turn the TV off and watch the fan above my head. I can still hear Joseph’s voice in my head. I tell him that I’m here and I’m going to meet my father and that maybe when I do that, I’ll be able to let someone really love me.
10
The impeccably polite, punctual and philosophical Ferdi brings me breakfast at nine o’clock.
‘Did you find the drink I gave you reviving yesterday, ma’am?’
‘I felt great. And this morning I thought I’d have jet lag but I don’t.’
‘Excellent.’
He opens the shutters, and I sit up in bed. ‘Oh look, the sea!’
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s still there.’
‘Sarah,’ I correct him.
‘Yes, Miss Sarah.’
We’re getting somewhere.
‘You certainly are feeling better,’ he smiles.
‘Yes, I am. You must thank your mother for me.’
‘I wish I could, ma’am, but sadly she expired two years ago.’
‘She …?’ Then I see the grief on his face. ‘Oh Ferdi, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It was only her physical body that died. Our relationship is still as strong as ever and I’m sure she’s delighted you benefited from her cure. Some people on the island used to think of her as a witch, a white witch. She was a very good woman.’
‘She sounds very special.’
‘She was.’ He closes his eyes for a moment before they spring open. ‘Miss Sarah,’ he puts out his hand to present the tray. ‘I thought, being English, you would want eggs. I didn’t know how you liked them so I asked chef to give you …’ he begins lifting the top of each salver in turn, ‘eggs fried, scrambled, poached and boiled.’
‘Scrambled. That would be lovely. I’m sorry – I forgot to say I don’t eat meat.’
‘This I had anticipated.’ He serves the scrambled eggs on to a plate, adds some toast. ‘This is vegetarian sausage. Do you have any plans for the day?’