Each time the boy comes up clutching the coin, a short, hirsute man on one of the sunbeds claps and shouts, ‘Way to go, Timmy.’
Barry walks slowly along the edge of the pool. Though he is a better colour now, he wears a baggy, black T-shirt over his shorts and a straw trilby to protect the bald patch at the back of his head. He reaches into his bum-bag for his cigarettes. As he is about to light one, the woman sitting at the table beneath the coconut palm says, ‘You want one of these?’
Barry turns round and says, ‘Sorry?’
The woman is sitting across from her daughter, smoking and flicking through a magazine. The girl is frowning as she scribbles in a colouring book. The woman picks up a yellow packet of cigarettes from the table and holds them out. ‘American Spirit,’ she says. ‘All natural. None of the crap, you know?’
‘Yeah, I’ll give it a go,’ Barry says. ‘Thanks.’ He puts his own cigarettes away as he walks over, and takes one from the woman’s packet. She leans forward to light it for him. She is wearing a bikini today, and her blonde hair is tucked away beneath a white baseball cap with an ‘A’ embroidered on the front.
She sees him looking at it. ‘Atlanta Braves,’ she says. ‘You know anything about baseball?’
‘Same as rounders,’ Barry says. ‘Just a bit more complicated.’
The woman shakes her head, not getting it. She lifts her sunglasses and puts a hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘Thanks again for the other night, by the way. For being so sweet about everything.’
‘Not a problem,’ Barry says. He takes another long drag and says, ‘These aren’t bad, as it happens.’
The girl looks up and blinks at him, then turns to her mother. ‘When can I go swimming, Mom?’ she asks.
‘Soon, OK.’
‘I want to go swimming now.’
The woman rolls her eyes at Barry. ‘The pool’s still a little busy right now,’ she says. ‘So you’ll have to wait.’
‘I want to go swimming.’
‘She’s hot,’ the woman explains to Barry. ‘But she can get a little noisy, well, you know … so I thought I’d wait until things got quieter.’
It’s not clear if either Ed or Dave has heard what the woman or her daughter were saying, but Ed stops at the end of the next length and Dave moves to the end of the pool and climbs out. Dave walks back to his sunbed to pick up a towel before moving across to stand next to Barry. Ed just heaves himself out of the pool and walks, dripping, towards the table. He stops just short of it and shakes his head like a dog.
The girl watches him, her mouth opening and closing slowly. When he looks at her, she goes back to her colouring. Her mother picks up her cigarettes again, waves the pack at Dave, and then at Ed. ‘You guys want one?’
‘Not for me,’ Dave says.
Ed hesitates for a second or two then says, ‘I will.’
The woman shakes one out and hands it to him then leans forward with her lighter. Her smile suggests that she can see it is not something he does very often. Not something he does when his wife is around. As if to confirm her suspicions, Barry nods and says, ‘Naughty …’
Ed shrugs. ‘So? I’m on holiday … and these are the ones without any additives, right?’
The woman nods. ‘Right.’
He pulls out one of the tatty wicker chairs around the table and drops into it. ‘These fags are actually good for you. It’s like one of your five-a-day!’
Behind them, the boy surfaces and holds the coin aloft. His father’s enthusiasm shows no sign of abating.
‘So, you guys on your own today then?’ the woman says.
Ed nods towards Barry. ‘His wife’s at the mall.’ He takes a drag and exhales through a grin. ‘Giving the old credit card a hammering.’
‘She wants to pick up a few bits and pieces for the kids,’ Barry says. ‘T-shirts and what have you.’
‘Is that stuff cheaper here?’ the woman asks.
‘Yeah, loads cheaper.’
‘And our two are at the beach,’ Ed says, with a nod in Dave’s direction.
‘They’ll be back in half an hour or so,’ Dave says. Dry enough now, he drapes the towel around his shoulders and looks back at Ed. ‘Are we all going out to get some lunch?’
‘That’s the plan,’ Ed says.
The woman puts her cigarette out and reaches for a bottle of suntan lotion. She squeezes some into her palm and starts rubbing it on to her arms. ‘So, you guys all work together, something like that?’
Dave says, ‘No,’ and the others shake their heads.
‘He’s a builder,’ Ed says, pointing. ‘He’s a computer nerd, and I’m a professional racing driver and part-time male model.’
Dave laughs.
‘You’re a full-time wanker,’ Barry says.
‘You’re yanking my chain,’ the woman says.
Ed says, ‘Only a bit,’ and tells her he’s not really a racing driver.
The short, hairy man walks to the edge of the pool and tells his son that it’s time to go get something to eat. The boy asks if he can dive down one more time and the man says, ‘OK.’ A few feet away, the middle-aged woman is climbing slowly up the steps out of the water.
‘You do all know each another from home though, right?’
Barry shakes his head and Dave says, ‘We met out here.’
‘Wow.’ The woman starts rubbing the lotion into her legs. ‘So it’s just Brits sticking together.’
‘I suppose so,’ Dave says.
The girl looks up from her colouring book.
‘Ganging up on us, huh?’
‘What about now?’ the girl asks, pointing at the pool.
The woman looks across and sees that the boy is climbing out, that nobody else is swimming. ‘Yeah, OK.’ The girl puts down her pencil and stands up, excited. She is wearing a striped blue and white one-piece swimsuit that is stretched across her large breasts and the soft roll of fat around her belly. ‘You got plenty of sun cream on?’
‘Got cream,’ the girl says.
Dave, Ed and Barry watch as the girl reaches into a plastic bag for a pair of goggles and pulls them over her face. Once her mother has adjusted them, the girl walks quickly away from the table, smacking her hands against her legs, fingers outstretched. As soon as she reaches the edge of the pool, she bends her legs and presses her palms together. She pushes her arms out in front of her, mouths something to herself, then fearlessly belly-flops into the water.
Dave sucks in a fast breath and Ed says, ‘Ouch.’
The girl instantly begins flailing her arms in a frenzied attempt at front crawl, which sends water flying in all directions. She stops after half a dozen strokes and holds out her arms. She shouts, ‘Mom, look!’
‘What about you?’ Dave asks. ‘Did you come here with anybody?’
The woman stands up and waves at her daughter. She shakes her head and says, ‘No, it’s just me and her,’ then she walks across until she is only a step or two away from the edge of the pool. Dave follows a few seconds later and, once they have stubbed out their cigarettes, Ed and Barry drift across to join them.
They stand there and watch the girl.
‘She’s great,’ Dave says.
‘Yeah,’ the woman says. ‘She is.’
The girl scoops up handfuls of water, throws them in the air, then squeals when the water comes back down on her head.
Barry laughs and points. ‘Look at her face.’
‘Happy as Larry,’ Ed says.
SEVEN
It was just her smile, no more to it than that.
When people write about these things – in those paperbacks you see in racks at stations, the ones with the blank faces of the so-called monsters staring out from the front covers – it’s never quite that straightforward, is it? Maybe they need to make it complicated, to justify the fact they’ve written a stupid book in the first place. Maybe they really believe such and such a terrible thing happened because X was locked in a cellar when he was a kid, or Y had to wea
r his mother’s clothes or whatever it was. Or maybe they just don’t want to admit that, in the end, it’s usually something nice and simple.
The colour of a shirt, a smell, a smile …
Trigger, that’s the word they use, isn’t it? ‘Psychologists believe the trigger in this case was blah, blah, blah.’ It’s not the word I would choose myself, but at least it gives you some idea how quickly these things happen.
We might as well stop going round the houses.
This thing.
Thinking back, I suppose it was virtually instantaneous. Just the time it took for that smile to appear … wet-lipped, wide and a little crooked, and for me to see it. Having said that, there must have been something different about the girl’s smile that day, because it wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen it before. So, her smile was different, or I was different, I’m not sure it really matters which. Or perhaps, for all my going on about how simple it all was, there were other things going on which I couldn’t possibly be aware of. The time of day, the weather, some song on the car radio, the combination of all those things, whatever. There’s no way I can know any of that stuff, that’s up to shrinks and scientists to figure out. I can only tell you what it felt like to me at the time.
I can only tell you about that smile.
What I can’t say for certain is that I knew what was going to happen the moment she recognised me. Not all of it. I remember that my mind was all over the place and that I could feel myself starting to sweat, but I can’t remember much of a plan. I just started to drive and before too long, just a few sets of traffic lights further on from where she got in, I was starting to put it all together. She was gabbling, asking questions ten to the dozen, and I suppose I must have been answering her, but all I was thinking about were the wheres and the hows of it all.
I needed good spots. I needed to figure out the timings.
It was strange, but once things came together in my head – when I decided where I was going to pull over and where I would be going later on – I actually found myself starting to calm down. I think I needed that, so that I could focus. So feelings wouldn’t get in the way when it came to the crunch. The trigger or whatever you want to call it, that was all about feelings … but I was kind of detached from everything that came afterwards, and I think you’d have to be, wouldn’t you?
The things I did in the car, the things I said and did later on.
Thinking about it – and obviously I’ve thought about it a lot – I’ve asked myself if what happened was … avoidable, and you know, there’s every chance it might have been if she’d stopped smiling. It’s all hypothetical, obviously, but worth mentioning. Maybe I could just have dropped her off somewhere or she could have wandered back to the resort, but the fact is she wouldn’t stop.
She kept on pulling that trigger.
She smiled, swigging from that water bottle, telling me about her pets and her friends and all the people who lived near her house.
She smiled, asking me where we were going.
Why we were stopping.
Where her mom was.
She smiled … wet-lipped, wide and a little crooked, right up until the end.
EIGHT
Barry’s visit to yet another dissatisfied customer had not left him in the best of moods, though he had hardly been dancing a jig when he’d left the house first thing that morning. With a big dinner in the evening to come, Angie had plumped for a light lunch and had watched as Barry worked his way stolidly through a cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps, looking like he was a hair’s breadth away from topping himself.
A face ‘like a smacked arse’. One of his favourite expressions.
Angie had kept smiling. She had passed the pickle when it was wanted and refilled her husband’s glass with Diet Coke. She had known very well that his foul mood was down to the whole business with his brother, it usually was, but she also knew better than to say anything. Not right then, at any rate. It was all about choosing your moments when it came to that particular hot potato, and picking the wrong one was definitely something to be avoided. It was frightening how quickly Barry could go from being somewhat pissed off at his brother to being seriously pissed off with her.
‘That temper of his can turn on a fucking sixpence. It’s a bastard, I’m telling you, so you want to go a bit careful.’ Something Barry’s younger sister had told her once. Flushed and full of herself, after one Bacardi Breezer too many.
‘You should put your feet up for a couple of hours,’ Angie had said, wiping the surfaces. ‘Go back to bed, even.’ There had been a grunt of interest then, and he had not needed too much persuading before he disappeared into the living room, with lager can, chocolate bar and remote control all within easy reach. Angie knew that – crashed out in front of the TV all afternoon while she did all the work – Barry would not feel the smallest twinge of guilt, but the fact was that she would not want him to, because with dinner for six people to get organised, this was how she preferred it.
With the kitchen to herself, she turned on the radio, tuned it in to Radio 2.
As far as the food itself went, there wasn’t a great deal to do. She got the veggies ready and into pans, chopped the slab of paté into six equal portions and hulled the strawberries. She would put the chicken on as late as possible, let it finish cooking while everyone was tucking into nibbles and dips.
What she really wanted to spend time on was the table.
She dug out the best plates and the posh knives and forks and wiped dust from the crystal glasses that her mum and dad had bought when she and her first husband had got married. She tried to remember the last time they had used any of it. Decided it had probably been the previous Christmas …
Eleven for lunch that day. Dry turkey, sprouts and snide remarks.
On top of Angie’s parents, and Barry’s father – who wasn’t really all there any more, poor old sod – Adrian and his lot had sat around while Angie had waited on the bunch of them hand and foot. His idle wife and spoiled kids. It didn’t help that her kids had been sullen and barely spoken to his, while Barry had been in a foul temper with just about everyone because his ex-wife had gone away for Christmas and taken his son with her. He’d finally managed to get a few minutes on the phone with Nick while everyone else was watching Doctor Who, but it had only made things worse.
Sitting there afterwards, red-faced and muttering ‘bitch’ in his paper hat.
In the end, Angie had decided that she was just going to get ratarsed on Buck’s Fizz. Let the miserable bastards sort themselves out …
Half an hour on from ironing the tablecloth, she laid the last serving spoon on the table, stood back and decided she’d made a nice job of it. She leaned down to straighten the decorative candle-holder she’d picked up in TK Maxx the previous week. She would light the candles just before the guests arrived. Once she’d showered and changed. Now, she poured herself a large glass of Pinot Grigio and sat down at the central island to work out a seating plan. Boy, girl, boy, girl went without saying, with her and Barry at either end of the table. She had been toying with place cards, but had finally decided they would be that one step too far, like napkin rings or a cheese-board.
She took a slug of wine. Partners opposite one another? Directly or on the diagonal?
From the radio, she recognised a song that she and Barry had heard almost every day in Florida. On whatever that station was the radio in the hire car had been tuned to. She closed her eyes, just for a few moments, and remembered the feel of salt drying on her skin.
The taste of daiquiris and ice cream and prawns as big as fish fingers.
The sound of the drummers on the beach nearby at Siesta Key and between the beats, just for a moment before it is drowned out by wind and rhythm, the wail of a woman shouting out her daughter’s name.
She stood up when Barry came in. She slid the wine glass away and watched as he walked across and stared down at the dining table.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘It’s a bit … over the top, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know why I bother,’ Angie said. ‘We’ll just send out for pizza, shall we?’
‘I’m just saying, all this.’ Barry waved a hand towards the table. ‘It’s a lot of trouble to go to.’
‘Not for you it’s not.’
As Barry wheeled away to make for the fridge, Angie swore out loud, realising that she had completely forgotten the big surprise. Her finishing touch.
‘What?’ Barry asked, turning.
Angie eagerly opened one of the cupboards they had built in beneath the island and pulled out a plastic bag. She removed a rectangular package and ripped off the wrapping, then proudly handed one of the six items inside to Barry.
He stared at it.
‘It’s a tablemat,’ Angie said. ‘With a picture of all of us in Sarasota.’
‘I can see what it is,’ Barry said.
‘I got them done at that Snappy Snaps place, when I had the photos put on to a disk.’ She took the others out and laid them in a row on top of the island. ‘They do placemats, mouse pads, all sorts … and I just thought it would be something unique, you know? Something special for tonight, and the best part is, afterwards, everybody can take one home as a souvenir.’
‘Christ,’ Barry said. ‘Why don’t you just go the whole hog and have T-shirts printed up?’
Angie picked up a placemat of her own and looked at it. She moved her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘You know who took this, don’t you?’
They both stared at the same picture of the six of them.
‘This was on our last morning,’ she said. ‘Remember?’
‘Yeah, outside the main entrance.’
‘It makes you feel a bit funny, doesn’t it?’
Barry pointed. ‘You can just see a bit of the sign.’
‘Ed asked her, you remember? And we gave her our camera.’ Angie laid the placemat back down next to the others and reached across for her wine glass. ‘Her daughter was definitely with her, standing next to her, because I can remember she was holding that colouring book. I remember that one of the pictures was only half coloured in. Bloody hell, Barry, this can only be an hour or two before … bloody hell.’
Rush of Blood Page 5