Clouds Below the Mountains

by Vivienne Dockerty

  “Yes, we’ve finished, thank you,” said Denise, thinking that he was a very agreeable young man.

  ***

  “What made you decide to become a travel rep’, Lucy?” asked Lesley, after she had begun to relax after a vodka and tonic. “Yes, I’ll have another one, thank you.”

  “I saw the advert’ on the Internet,” Lucy replied, after she had handed Lesley her second drink and had sipped her own thoughtfully. “ I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to take an unexciting job, then settle down with a husband and a family.”

  “That’s all I ever wanted,” replied Lesley sadly. “ I went to Uni’, got my teaching qualifications, had a couple of boyfriends and then I met Geoff. We were married for nine years until he did the dirty on me.”

  Lucy tutted sympathetically.

  “We couldn’t have children, but it didn’t seem to matter. I had my class of seven year olds and Geoff never mentioned again about having kids, once we had assumed we weren’t going to have any. Then just before Christmas, he came home after work and said he wanted a separation. Said he’d made a woman he worked with pregnant and he was duty bound to set up home with her.”

  “Gosh,” said Lucy, her heart going out to this unfortunate lady.

  “I have to say it knocked me off my perch, I had no idea he was seeing someone else. If he was going to be late home, it was due to paperwork or he had dropped into a pub’ on the way to have a drink with a colleague. I believed all his lies, because I thought we were in love with each other. It never crossed my mind he was having an affair.”

  “And have you got family who helped you through it?” asked Lucy gently.

  “No, my mother died of cancer and my father left home when I was little. I was an only child and there was only Aunty Marion who lives in an Old People’s home.”

  “Friends?”

  “Oh plenty before Geoff and I split up, but they were friends we had made together and I must admit that they might have ‘phoned or called to see me, but the tablets the doctor gave me made me comatose for a couple of weeks.”

  “Poor you,” said Lucy, patting Lesley’s arm comfortingly. “So you decided to get away and put everything behind you?”

  “Something like that. I stopped taking my tablets just before I came here and I’m beginning to feel stronger, now that I’m not using them as a crutch.”

  “Good for you. Anyway there’s plenty to do and see on Tenerife that will take your mind of it all and we have a disco every night after we’ve watched the show. I’m usually around in the evenings, so you don’t have to feel on your own and I’ll introduce you to some others later. Shall we have another drink?”

  ***

  “Shall I get some Bingo tickets, Tracy?” asked Gary, as he spotted Damion still selling them, when they walked into the Sunlight Bar after dinner.

  “Why not,” said Tracy back to her usual self, having gone to great trouble getting her hair how she wanted it, teasing her tresses into bubbly curls with her electric tongs, then pinning the curls onto the top of her head. She had chosen to wear her purple satin cat suit with the plunge neckline and her purple sequined mules on her tiny feet.

  She looked around her whilst Gary had gone for the tickets. It seemed all the new arrivals had joined them that evening. Not so many children though. She recognized the surly looking teenage girl that had been on their mini coach, who was looking bored sitting at the side of her parents. There was the plump little girl who was dancing with a young kid’s rep’ and two little imps who were running around the dance floor and three bigger boys who appeared to be break dancing. Sitting at a table nearer the stage were two couples, she assumed were the parents of the littler boys, though one of the mother’s looked quite old to be of child bearing age. Then there was a white haired gentleman sitting with a couple of women in their fifties, two couples who she hadn’t seen before, a man with his wife who was just getting out of a wheelchair and a woman on her own sipping on a glass of red wine. There was a large family party sitting out of her view because of the pillars, but there must have been three generations of them with a couple of toddlers running around. An assortment of men were sitting at the bar drinking and Lucy the rep’ sitting on bar stools with a rather smart looking woman.

  “Here you are, I got two lots for us, my Darling”, said Gary, looking upbeat and cheerful. “ Let’s hope we have a perfect ending to a rather happy day.”

  ***

  Denise sat at the table waiting for Vicky to come in with Chantelle. She looked around at the couples there, the four who sat near the stage who probably had kiddies dancing, the older couple who had been on their mini coach, the man holding hands with his wife, and the young couple who seemed to be very attentive with each other, though the wife looked as if she should have been on a cruise, not in a family hotel.

  She wished, not for the first time, that her daughter would become romantically linked with someone, but she seemed quite happy to go to work, pick Chantelle up from the nursery and come back home again. Though happy wasn’t the word she’d been looking for, resigned more like.

  It had come as quite a shock when Vicky had confided that she was going to have a baby, there being no one on the scene at the time. Indeed Denise wondered if it was because her daughter was so attractive that she had put the local boys off? She had asked the usual questions that a caring mother would, who was the father, where had she met him, when was the baby due? But Vicky had been close lipped and wouldn’t tell her anything, had gone to her bedroom and cried her heart out, while Denise had listened in a dumbfounded state downstairs. It couldn’t be happening, not to her Vicky, her father was hardly cold in his grave. They had clung to each other, comforted one another, so how had this happened to her darling girl?

  Well, she’d had to be practical. Someone had to be strong between the two of them, so next morning she had taken Vicky down to the clinic to see their family doctor. A woman of around her own age with a couple of teenage kids at home. She had managed to coax her daughter, in her sympathetic way, into telling her how it had happened and was their a boyfriend on the scene?

  Denise took a quick gulp from her glass as she recalled her daughter’s halting words. She’d had too much to drink at a party, listened to a chat up line from a boy who had gatecrashed it and ended up in a bedroom having sex with him.

  ***

  “Gary!” said Tracy, her voice quivering with delight as she checked the numbers she had penned out. “I’ve only got one number for a line!”

  “Oh wonderful, my darling, so have I, but I hope it’s your number that they call out.”

  “Bingo,” shouted someone from the back of the room and the sound of clattering heels could be heard as the woman ran up to the stage.

  Tracy’s face was a picture, she had been sure that her luck was in that night.

  ***

  “So what do you do down in your neck of the woods?” asked Phil, as the two couples settled together as Bingo began to be played.

  “We have a guest house in Bournemouth. Only a small place, five double rooms and four singles,” said Anthea quite proudly. “We bought it a couple of years ago after both our finances had been sorted out.”

  “It sounds larger than a small place,” said Phil impressed. “ Do you have help to run it or is it a full time job for both of you?”

  “My daughter is running it while we’re here,” said Anthea, “ and we have a daily dogs-body who helps us out.”

  “We must come and visit, mustn’t we Cindy? We’ve never been to Bournemouth for a holiday.”

  Cindy said nothing, just smiled sweetly instead.

  “And what line of work are you two in?” asked Brian. “ Let me guess, you’ll be a website designer Phil and you, Cindy will work in a department store, judging by your beautiful clothes and well applied make up.”

  “Nearly right for Cindy, but she has her own boutique and employs two women as alteration hands. I on the other hand ha
ve my own Bookies.”

  “Well,” said Anthea admiringly. “ We have a couple of entrepreneurs before us, Brian. I said when we first saw them that they would have things in common with us.”

  ***

  “You have very pretty baby, Senorita,” said Juan, as he held the door open for Vicky and Chantelle, who was now fast asleep in her push chair. “ She look like you, who may I say is a beautiful lady.”

  “Thank you, “ Vicky said, leaving Juan wondering whether she meant thank you for opening the door, or thank you for the compliment.

  “Will your mother look out for baby while you go to disco?” he asked, walking beside her on a round about way to the bar.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so, we’ll just be watching the show.”

  She left him feeling puzzled. It was very unusual for Juan not to score with the ladies, especially a single mum.

  ***

  “Ten minutes to go and counting,” said Greg, as he looked at the drawn curtains on the stage watching for some activity.

  “Can’t wait to hear, Sonya,” said Cheryl. “ She didn’t say anything about entertaining us tonight.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t,” said Kate, “ my daughter isn’t one for blowing her own trumpet.”

  “Blowing her own trumpet,” giggled Annabelle. “ I thought she was going to sing for us tonight.”

  ***

  “Do you know I’m really pleased you won at Bingo, Betty,” said Nobby, hugging his wife after he came back from the bar with his large beer and a glass of lemonade. “Things are looking up, aren’t they? Who’d have thought that three months ago, you’d be sitting smiling like a Cheshire cat enjoying a sunshine holiday. I thought you were a goner when I came with you in the ambulance.”

  “Yes, so did I, Nobby. Anyway, we’ll walk along the sea front tomorrow. At least you can push me along the sea front tomorrow and we’ll spend a little of the money on our two girls.”

  Betty sipped at her lemonade, wishing that Nobby wouldn’t keep on about her accident. It was hard enough getting rid of the feeling she had in her head, a terror of falling when she’d slipped on that grid.

  It had been a murky morning when Nobby had dropped her off opposite the Post Office, so that she could get a few early Christmas cards sent abroad. She’d been wearing a new pair of varifocals, as the optician had decided she needed them. The road was slippy and she’d been suddenly conscious of the drops of rain that was beginning to obscure her view, so she’d stopped for a moment to search for a tissue in her jacket pocket. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen a previously parked car begin to move quickly towards her and decided to step back before she proceeded forward again. But too late, the passing car had clipped her arm and buttocks, sending her sprawling back in the gutter, where she had slipped on a raised up grid, fell and banged her head.

  It was still a nightmare, though she wouldn’t confess it to her attentive and loving husband. He blamed himself, said it should have been him who had gone to the Post Office, instead of waiting under cover at Asda, while she’d got soaked in the rain.

  ***

  “Seeing as you’ve behaved yourself this evening, I’ll let you go over there and sit with yon lads,” said Ray, looking over to where the boys were swigging out of beer bottles. Something he didn’t approve of at their age, but it wasn’t anything to do with him. He seemed to think that they were with the family contingent who were becoming loud and a bit raucous, obviously they were taking advantage of the All Inclusive drinks.

  “I’ll sit and watch the show with them then,” said Joanne, for once acting sensibly. “ Thanks Dad, I’ll see you later on.”

  “See, I told you it doesn’t do any harm to trust the girl once in a while,” said Tricia, pleased that Ray was letting up a bit.

  “Yes, but I can see her there. What’s she up to when I can’t?”

  ***

  “Right, two minutes girls and then I’m going to make the announcement. All set Damion?”

  “Yes, Boss,” said Damion, standing in readiness behind the keyboard. He had washed his hair and now it hung loosely onto the shoulders of his beige corduroy jacket. Mikey was similarly attired. He had gelled his short hair and had put on a black mandarin collared jacket, with a silver waistcoat over a polo neck shirt.

  “Money, money, money,” the two girls sang, dancing to the front to the stage after Mikey had announced that they were an Abba Tribute band. Many of the people in the audience sang along or tapped their feet and some even got up and did a boogie. The girls soon got through the numbers they’d agreed on, then stood around on stage looking at each other wondering what to do?

  “Sing “ I Had A Dream”, Sonya,” Greg suggested, as he knew that she could sing it beautifully on her own and she did, which brought a tear to her father’s eye.

  “Well, I didn’t know you had such a talented daughter,” said Paul, as Mikey shut the stage curtains and there was a general buzz of talking in the room. “ Oh I did,” said Greg proudly, “ I’ve been singing those songs to my daughter since she was a baby in my arms.”

  ***

  “That went down well,” said Mikey to the others, as they sat at the back of the stage sharing a bottle of sparkling wine. “ Well done all of you, pity we couldn’t do it every week. Maybe Steps or S Club 7, though we would have to be S Club 4. Wouldn’t that go down just as successfully?”

  “ You’re forgetting I go home next Tuesday,” said Sonya. “ Though what about a trio when I’m gone?”

  “We’ll see,” said Mikey, thinking that he’d really have to do something to make this girl like him more than a friend would, before she went home. “Who’s going to man the disco? Susanne, Damion don’t both speak at once.”

  ***

  “Shall we get up and have a go at the disco?” asked Brian to the others, when the sounds of “ Hot Stuff “ started pounding into their ear drums.

  “I feel rather tired,” said Cindy yawning, “I’d rather go to bed if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” Brian replied, leering at his wife who made a face back at him.

  “Come on, it’ll do you good. It’ll shake down some of the alcohol.”

  “Oh all right,” she said reluctantly, getting up and stretching, which revealed her flat stomach and her navel as her top rode up. She walked towards the dance floor expecting to see her husband behind her, but Anthea escorted him instead.

  She danced with Brian, a lewd type of cavorting on his part, especially when the title was mentioned in the song, but she let it pass. They’d all consumed a lot that evening, so she didn’t expect him to behave like a gentleman anyway.

  “ Gosh I’m really tired,” she said, feeling her head was foggy and her legs were ton weighted. “ If you don’t mind, Brian, I’m going off to bed.”

  “I’ll escort you,” he said eagerly. “ Is it all right with you, Phil, if I escort your wife up to bed?”

  “Sure,” said Phil, who was shuffling about with Anthea to a dreamy song by Boyzone. “ I’ll see you up there, sweetheart. Don’t forget to warm my side of the bed.”

  “He’s lost it,” said Cindy, as they walked towards the door, “he gets like this when he’s had a few.”

  ***

  “Right, we’re off,” said Greg, picking up his sleeping grandson, from where he had dozed off on Kate’s lap.

  “Yes, so are we,” said Paul. “ We only stayed up to listen to Sonya. Shall we all make our way to the lift?”

  “Are you coming?” Greg asked his daughter, “ or do you want us to see to Evan?”

  “Oh, would you please, Dad? I’m still on a high. I promise I’ll do my share tomorrow.”

  ***

  The Sunlight Bar began to empty. Denise and Vicky made their way to their bedroom pushing a sleepy Chantelle. Nobby pushed Betty in the wheelchair and Harry said his goodnights.

  The families left, Tracy and Gary walked along with arms entwined, Ray and Tricia chivvied a reluctant Joanne al
ong and only the diehards were left to enjoy what was left of the evening and their glasses of alcohol.

  “I’d best go after Cindy,” Phil said to Anthea, after they’d danced for a little while.

  “No, stay,” she implored. “ I’m enjoying myself, you’re a most attractive man, you know?”

  “Am I ?” he asked, surprised that this woman had called him attractive. None of his wives had ever called him that. “ Well, I suppose I could stay a little bit longer, just another dance, eh?”

  ***

  “I think I’ll go off to my room now, I’m feeling a bit woozy,” said Lesley. “ Thank you for your company this evening, Lucy.”

  “I’ve enjoyed it as well, Lesley. I’ll walk along to the foyer with you, I’ve got an apartment in the annexe.”

  “Are you not staying late tonight, Lucy?” Anna shouted above the pumping disco music, from where she was dancing with Tina and Sonya.

  “No, I’ve lot to do tomorrow. Must get my beauty sleep.”

  ***

  Phil tapped on the door of their bedroom later, hoping that Cindy wasn’t in the shower or had gone off to sleep, but the door was flung open wide in response and Cindy, now dressed in her nightie stood there, her face flushed and angry looking.

  “Don’t you ever leave me alone with him again,” she thundered, gripping her husband’s arm to drag him quickly through the door.

  “Why, what was the matter,” Phil asked innocently. “ Did Brian do something to you?”

  “Do something to me? No he didn’t. He was quite the gent’ until he got me to this door, then he asked could he come in and keep me company? I had my key in the lock and when I said no, he couldn’t, do you know what he said? He said it didn’t matter anyway, because he only shagged women he fancied!”

  Phil started to laugh. He wished he had a camera to capture the look of injured pride on Cindy’s face.

  “What are you laughing at, you little shit?,” she cried. “ Do you think I’m making it up?”

  “I think you must have misheard him, Cindy. When I walked along to the lift with them before, they were all over each other and it looked to me if they couldn’t wait to get to bed!”