‘You, too,’ the woman said to Ben and Jerry, and Nina noticed how the woman batted her false eyelashes at Ben, pouting seductively. Nina realised why the woman had been so friendly to her, as a way to get into Ben’s pants. Ben, recognising a fellow party-goer when he saw one, obligingly pulled up his chair, trailing Jerry behind him with all the force of a yacht towing a dingy.
Trapped, Nina sent dagger-eyed glowers at her grandmother, but Flossie was oblivious, prancing around the stage with a parrot on her head. Hope it poops on her, Nina thought, trying to send pooping vibes in the parrot’s direction via the power of her mind.
At this time of night, her mind had about as much power as one of those wishy-washy hand-held fan things you can buy from the Pound Shop. She was exhausted, fed up with the raucous laughter, and definitely not in the mood for a party.
‘Here, try this.’ The woman who’d invited Nina to share their table put a drink in front of her. ‘I’m Lauren, this is Mandy and Rhian. And who are you two gorgeous fellas?’
Nina sniffed the drink and took a miniscule sip, whilst she waited for the inevitable screams of laughter when Ben introduced himself and Jerry.
Wincing at the noise, Nina took another mouthful; the drink wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was quite nice. She couldn’t taste any alcohol at all, so she finished the lot and gestured to a waiter. Being continually embarrassed was thirsty work.
‘Another one of these… what was it?’ Nina asked Lauren.
‘A Raunchy Cowboy. Make it two,’ she said.
By the time Flossie was evicted off the stage, Nina had polished off both drinks, and realised there was alcohol in them after all. She felt a bit tipsy and the lack of sleep last night was really getting to her. She could hardly keep her eyes open.
Flossie, however was raring to go. ‘What time does this party kick off?’ she asked, dancing in her chair and waving her arms about, nearly knocking a tray out of a waiter’s hand.
‘Any minute now, though I don’t think the foam starts until later,’ the one called Rhian said.
How much later is later, Nina wondered; it was late enough already. She checked her watch – ten o’clock – and stifled a yawn.
Trust Flossie to notice. ‘You youngsters haven’t got any stamina,’ she said, proving she had lots of it by jigging up and down in her seat, whilst Nina slumped in hers.
‘I’ve got plenty of stamina,’ Lauren said to Ben, her eyelashes flapping about like washing on a line. Nina almost gagged on the innuendo.
‘You’re no spring chicken though, are you?’ Flossie pointed out to Lauren. ‘Not like her.’ She jerked her head in Nina’s direction. ‘She’s years younger than you.’
Lauren looked quite indignant. ‘She can’t be that many; I’m only thirty-three.’
‘Aye, and the rest. Our Nina’s only twenty-eight. Just the right age for having babies.’
Nina pursed her lips. Thanks, Gran – you’ve insulted a total stranger and you’ve let everyone believe I’m only here to bag myself a husband.
‘I want kids one day,’ Jeremy piped up. ‘I thought I’d have them with Sally—’ he broke off.
See? That there, him, Jeremy – he was a walking talking advert for not falling in love, Nina thought. There he was, two thousand miles away from home, missing his ex, being forced to watch a parrot show, with his best mate who was not being at all best-matey, and probably wishing he was tucked up in his own little bed with a mug of cocoa and a re-run of Downton Abbey on the telly. She knew that was what she would like to be doing right now, but not necessarily watching Downton Abbey, not that she had anything against the show (she didn’t), but that book she’d got out of the library on Greek myths and legends was calling to her. She’d been too frightened to bring it on holiday, in case it got lost or damaged.
Flossie elbowed her in the ribs.
‘Ow! What did you do that for?’ Nina cried.
‘Because you’ve got a face like a slapped arse. Stop being so miserable; no wonder you haven’t got a fella if you go around looking like that all the time.’
‘We’re all here because we haven’t got fellas, my love,’ Lauren said. ‘But that’s about to change, isn’t it?’ More eyelash fluttering in Ben’s direction, followed by a seductive pout.
Oh, give it a rest, Nina thought, and wished they’d bring the parrots back on – anything was better than watching these two playing the mating game.
Ew!
Chapter 10
A huge yawn split Nina’s face and she couldn’t help giggling as she ran through the evening in her head. She’d enjoyed herself, despite being propositioned by several hopeful males (Nina had quickly put them in their place), and watching Lauren and Ben getting increasingly loved-up as the night wore on. It hadn’t been too bad, as she’d been able to ignore it most of the time. Her grandmother had made her laugh (had made her cringe too, but Nina chose to try to forget that).
‘Split your difference,’ she chuckled, remembering. ‘Where do you get your sayings from, Grannie?’
‘My mother, my own grandmother, TV.’ Flossie was stripping off with abandon, and Nina averted her eyes from her gran’s naked backside. She’d already de-robed in the privacy of the bathroom, and she wished Flossie would follow her example and do the same.
‘It’s been nice,’ Nina said, suddenly. ‘Spending time together, I mean.’
‘You used to spend a lot of time with me when you were little,’ Flossie replied, pulling her voluminous nightdress over her head.
‘We had a laugh tonight, didn’t we? What with Ben and Jerry’ (Flossie still didn’t get why Nina sniggered every time their names were mentioned together, despite Nina explaining it to her twice), ‘and that guy you offered to show your knickers to. Then there was that man who kept telling you he missed his Nonnie, and stroking your cheek. What was all that about?’
‘Bless him. His grandmother died when he was in teens and he doesn’t appear to have got over it. I think he was a bit tiddly.’
‘A bit! He was totally wasted.’
‘I would have liked to have stayed for the foam,’ Flossie said, wistfully. ‘I’ve never been to a foam party before.’
‘We’re both dead on our feet,’ Nina argued. ‘We can hardly keep our eyes open.’ As if to prove a point, she was overtaken by an enormous yawn. ‘We’ll have another quiet day tomorrow,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe lie on the beach rather than by the pool; then we’re off on that jeep safari the day after. You need to conserve your energy for that.’
‘I need to buy a water gun, that’s what I really need,’ Flossie declared. ‘The biggest one I can get.’ Her smile was on the evil side of naughty. ‘You should get one too.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t like violence and—’
‘It’s a water gun, it’s not exactly a Kalashnikov. Get over yourself.’ Flossie clambered onto her bed and slid under the sheet.
The air-con was loud in the ensuing silence. Get over myself indeed! Nina huffed as she turned over to get comfy. She spent half her teaching-day trying to keep the peace and stop a teenage version of World War Three breaking out in her classroom, and the other half persuading pupils to try mediation when they had issues with their peers. And here was her grandmother positively relishing the thought of blasting complete strangers with the holiday equivalent of a water cannon. Surely it should be the other way around – her gran warning her about such things? Had her grannie always been this feisty? Or should she say “reckless”? Nina was ninety-nine percent certain Flossie had been more like a normal grandmother before Grandad died – into baking cakes for the church fete, rather than getting drunk and pinning cardboard penises on cardboard men. Okay, she’d always been a little off the wall, but not this much.
Maybe this was her gran’s way of dealing with Grandad’s loss. Nina had read somewhere that grief could do strange things to a person, making them act in unusual ways, and the images of Gran holding an oversized cardboard penis chased her down into sleep, acco
mpanied by the old lady’s heavy breathing.
She had no idea what woke her: late night revellers returning to their rooms, the ceaseless hum of the air-con, or her grandmother snoring in the next bed?
Whatever it was, she couldn’t hear anything now, apart from muted music coming from one of the hotel’s bars and the distant peal of laughter and voices. With the balcony doors shut and the air-con burbling away, not much outside noise penetrated their dark room, unless it was someone right outside their door who had disturbed her.
Nina was just grateful the noise hadn’t woken her gran. Flossie claimed to be a light sleeper, and maybe she did have a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and find it hard to drop back off to sleep again; but she had fallen asleep quickly enough tonight and was fast asleep still.
Fully awake now and cross because of it, Nina quietly got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Blackout curtains ensured the room was almost completely dark, and she felt her way along the wall until she reached the bathroom door. Business taken care of, she rinsed her hands, wincing as the water splashed loudly into the basin, and made her way back to her bed, pulling the sheet up to her chin, thankful not to have disturbed the old lady.
Her grandmother hadn’t stirred; not a snore, or a sigh. Or the sound of breathing. Nothing.
Nina pushed the sheet down to her waist and sat up; then leaned as far across the gap dividing the two beds as she dared, without risking falling out, and stared intently, ears straining.
Flossie’s bed was nearest the balcony doors and by the tiny amount of light seeping in through a chink in the curtains, Nina made out a lump.
She concentrated on it, willing it to move.
Nothing.
She swung her feet out of bed and perched on the edge of the mattress, holding her own breath as a terrible, horrible thought occurred to her.
What if…?
No. Gran couldn’t be.
But…?
Stop it! You’re being silly, she told herself, arguing against the insidious internal voice which, once it had started talking, simply wouldn’t shut up.
It was no good; she’d have to check. Not that there was any possibility, but just to reassure herself. She knew she was being daft – of course Gran was still breathing, it was just that the hum from the air con masked the noise. There was nothing to worry about, but she had to check, all the same. Just to make sure.
A bedside table separated the two single beds, forcing Nina to lean across the divide. For some inexplicable reason she was reluctant to actually leave her own bed, as if the flimsy sheet she was hanging onto with one hand could protect her from the aftermath of a visit from the Grim Reaper. There, she’d said it. Not out loud, but she’d thought it. She’d acknowledged the possibility that her grandmother might have moved on.
An old Monty Python sketch popped unbidden into her head – the one with the dead parrot (how fitting!) – and she had to stamp down hard on an urge to laugh. Or cry. Or was it, scream? Because she’d never seen a dead body before, and had certainly not been in the same room as one, at night, alone, in the dark.
Nina let out a yelp. It had moved! The body had twitched, she was certain of it. Eyes wide with fear, she paused, her hand outstretched, waiting for her dead grandmother to turn over and reach towards her with grasping fingers.
Nerves shot to pieces, Nina lunged for the switches on the wooden headboard and slapped on the light. She didn’t care if Gran was really asleep and she woke the old lady up – the not-knowing was killing her. She’d be the one they’d be grieving over if she had to spend another second in a room with a corpse!
Bright yellow light flooded the room and Nina had to blink several times before she became accustomed enough to see properly.
Flossie hadn’t moved so much as a hair. She lay under the sheet, still, lifeless, and very, very small.
Wait a minute. The mound in the other bed was too small. At least two feet or more, shorter than it should be, even accounting for old lady shrinkage.
And her head was missing.
Nina leapt across the space between the two beds.
Flossie’s bed was empty, apart from a pillow strategically placed lengthwise down the centre.
Her grandmother had gone.
‘I’m gonna kill her when I find her,’ Nina muttered, dragging on a pair of trousers and the first top she laid her hands on. As she wrangled her big toes through the loop in her sandals, hopping first on one foot then the other, she hunted around for the key to the room. Gone, like her grandmother. Why didn’t that surprise her?
Wondering if she should grab their passports (just in case, but of what, she wasn’t entirely certain), Nina stuffed some money in her pocket and slammed the door shut behind her.
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at the closed doors to either side of her own, hoping she hadn’t woken anyone in her haste. If she had, then Flossie could jolly well apologise in the morning, because it was all her fault.
What was the time anyway? It couldn’t be too late because noise from the bar still drifted across the well-tended gardens, and it sounded as if quite a few people were still up.
She set off down the path, music and voices getting closer. Stumbling slightly on the cobbles, she hurried towards the first people she saw, a couple weaving rather unsteadily away from the bar. They had their arms wrapped so tightly around each other, that in the softly-lit darkness Nina couldn’t tell where the one ended and the other began. When she drew level with them, she noticed the bloke had his tongue shoved firmly in the woman’s ear as his beau giggled and squirmed against him.
Maybe Nina would give these two a miss. They were so engrossed in each other it was doubtful whether they would have noticed a little old lady anyway. Instead, she pattered up the steps to the bar area and made a beeline for the nearest occupied table.
‘Excuse me, have you seen an old woman? She’s about this tall,’ Nina held a hand up to her shoulder, ‘and she’s got white hair and false teeth.’ Why did she feel the need to mention Flossie’s teeth, or lack of them? It wasn’t as though false teeth would be the first thing someone would notice.
She received some blank looks and one bloke shook his head.
Nina moved on to the next table, and the next.
‘You are looking for Flossie, yes?’
‘Yes!’ Nina, could have hugged the man who’d spoken. He wore a polo shirt with a “Bar Staff” logo on his chest. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘The free drinks ends at two o’clock. No more all-inclusive, so the bar is closed. The lady, she is going with other guests to Talk of the Town.’
‘What… where?’ Nina ground to a halt. Was it another hotel?
‘On the main street,’ he said. He turned to point at the promenade-side exit. ‘Leave the hotel here, walk to the right and in a few minutes you will see the main street. Many bars and restaurants are there. Shops too.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ She offered him a grateful smile and trotted towards the exit.
Having not yet explored outside the hotel, she was rather nervous. What if she got lost? Or propositioned? Or worse?
Stopping to get her bearings, she knew the hotel’s main bar was situated right on the promenade with a view over a grassy strip where paragliders landed (she’d watched them come down and had shuddered at the very idea), with the even-wider beach and the sea beyond. It was a prime spot with a beautiful view, and Nina and Flossie had watched the sun dip down over the mountains, with a drink in one hand and a fag in the other before dinner (Flossie had the cigarette, not Nina – she still couldn’t get over the fact that her grandmother smoked!), and they’d people-watched for a while until the evening’s entertainment started.
She turned right, following the instructions, and walked swiftly, passing shops and restaurant, many of which were closed for the night. There were a surprising number of people around, tourists and locals alike. Most tourists were strolling or staggering, probably back to their hotels, while the local
s were engaged in an array of activities, from sweeping the pathway to smoking pungent cigarettes and drinking tea out of tiny glasses. Some lay under the trees which dotted the grass, fast asleep, and others slept curled up amongst the various goods displayed outside their shops.
When she came to the main street which ran at right angles to the beach front, she paused. Music bellowed from several different places, and lights flashed and sparkled for about half a mile. She peered at the first two signs, but neither of them said Talk of the Town, so she ventured further on, not liking what she saw. Most places were closed, lights off, and battened down for the night, but the bars which were still open seemed to be competing to see which one could play the loudest, raunchiest music. And none of the places, not even the shops were like those back home – they were all open-fronted, encroaching onto the road. Thankfully the street itself appeared to be pedestrianised, though a man on a pedal bike dodged drunken revellers with wobbling caution.
There it was! The neon sign was huge, the words an incandescent purple with white stars flashing so fast the whole thing should have carried a warning for anyone suffering from epilepsy. She recognised the music – she’d caught one of her pupils listening to it on his phone when he should have been listening to her explain how best to answer a question on the rise of fascism in Europe. He had been so pleased with his “toon” he wanted to let the whole class have a listen to the song because it was “sick”, though Nina didn’t consider it a song suitable for anyone his age.
Nina caught a brief glimpse of figures hopping and bopping on top of the actual bar itself, before she turned her attention to the tables. All were occupied. As she wove her way in between them she realised Flossie wasn’t seated at any of them.
She might be in the loo, Nina thought, trying to make out any signs for the toilets through the frantic pulsing, flashing lights (was that a disco ball?), the smoke, and several gyrating bodies on the dance floor. No use – either she’d have to wait and hope Gran would appear, or she could ask at the bar.
Summer on the Turquoise Coast Page 7