by Rosie Blake
Up ahead, the path was blocked by a man, his chest smooth and rippled as he bent and stretched, as if warming up for a run. I could make out blond hair, in waves, and realised it was Duncan. He stood up, attempting nonchalance as we approached.
‘Hey, Isobel.’
‘Hey,’ I said, wondering why I found myself blushing, checking the gap between Zeb and me.
‘Alright, mate,’ Duncan said, nodding in his direction. The aviators were on and he was wearing teeny white shorts and nothing else.
‘Hey,’ Zeb said, taking a step closer to me.
I felt my breath suspended in my chest.
‘Iz.’ Duncan grinned, taking my hand. ‘You have to see this, I’ve built a man out of beer cans. Entirely. He’s as tall as me.’
He ran off, expecting me to follow.
‘Oh well, I’d better…’ I indicated with my thumb.
‘Of course,’ Zeb said, smiling, his lips stretched tight over his teeth. He didn’t look at me.
I felt strange as I said a strangled goodbye, feeling like I had lost something.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ I said, keeping my voice light.
‘IZ, GET HERE NOW OR I’LL KICK HIM DOWN…’ Duncan yelled.
‘Coming!’ I called back over my shoulder, then turned to give Zeb a small smile. ‘I’ve got to um…thanks for…’
Zeb gave me a wave, a brief one hand up. ‘It was great,’ he said, and then he melted away before I could respond, taking the day’s memories with him.
Chapter 31
Five hours later, I was sitting out on the terrace having just had a shower, my wet hair tied back, my bare feet resting on an upturned crate like the World’s Worst Pouffe. My white cotton dress highlighted the tan I’d developed and my baby-pink nail varnish glimmered when I moved. Dusk was one of my favourite times of day, the whole sky taking on a ghostly lilac sheen, the horizon shimmering as a deep-orange sun sank behind a bank of cloud. I smelled Duncan’s aftershave before I turned around to greet him. My mouth stopped when I saw it wasn’t him at all. Andrew pulled up the chair beside me.
‘It’s you,’ I said, pointing at him too in case he was unclear who I meant.
‘Hello.’
‘Good day?’ I ventured, realising I had hardly seen him.
He coughed. Was he embarrassed?
‘Bed for most of it. Hangover.’ He left the word in the air and I nodded. ‘How about you? I haven’t seen you.’
He’d noticed, I thought. That must be a good sign. I mentally mini high-fived myself, this was definitely progress.
I tried to sound super-cool and nonchalant, glad my voice was still a little husky. ‘I’ve been around.’
‘Oh.’
The silence dragged on, filled with the intermittent call of a bird somewhere overhead.
‘Actually, I went to this amazing place…’ I started and then pulled up short, suddenly not wanting to share it, and then frowning as that thought struck.
Fortunately, Andrew chose that moment to get up and offer me a drink and I raised an eyebrow at him.
‘Hair of the dog?’
‘I’ve never understood that phrase.’
He left the terrace with a baffled expression on his face and returned, handing me a bottle of beer. My stomach rumbled a protest, but I drowned it out with a determined first sip.
‘Thanks. So…’
‘So.’
I raised my bottle at him and looked back out to the horizon.
‘I love this time of da—’ I was cut off by the sound of a large smack, hand on flesh, and turned with a startled expression to Andrew.
‘Mozzie.’ He shrugged.
‘So…’ I wondered why I couldn’t find anything to say. I usually found lots to say, but my tongue felt too big for my mouth and my mind seemed empty of thoughts. Well, apart from the thought that I couldn’t find anything to say and then my brain started racing through things that it might mention: unicycles, circuses, domestic animals, stock prices, the perils of liquid eyeliner. Stop, brain, stop this madness. Andrew was looking at me, a question half formed on his lips.
‘Where are the others?’ I asked as if we were part of a group like in Friends. ‘Where’s Duncan?’ I corrected (not really caring where Liz was unless it was ‘kidnapped by pirates, gone for ever’).
‘Duncan,’ Andrew repeated thoughtfully, blowing into his beer bottle so it emitted a hollow-sounding note.
I tried to copy it but made a raspberry and then coughed to disguise the fact.
‘Actually, Isobel, I did want to talk to you about something.’
I didn’t dare look up at him. Was this the moment, the moment I had travelled halfway across the world for? Was he about to spill his feelings for me? I squeezed the beer bottle so hard I suddenly worried it would smash in my hand, which I thought would really ruin the mood because he’d have to clear up my blood and stuff.
‘Do you?’ I squeaked, the husky, mysterious voice long gone.
I held in my breath, questions zipping across my brain. How much had we really got in common? Did I know him well enough to really know? I had all these childhood memories and we were great when talking about the past but did I really know this adult version?
‘Isobel…’ Andrew said, leaning forward, looking in my face.
‘Yes…’ I swallowed. Was this it?
‘Well, you see, someone likes you and I think you know it already and I’m wondering if you like him, too?’
My brow wrinkled as I realised Andrew was talking about himself in the third person. I gamely tried to play along. ‘I’m glad someone likes me. What might that someone do?’ I looked up at him through my eyelashes in what I hoped was a coquettish way, but he was picking at his big toenail and didn’t catch it.
‘Well I think someone would be keen for something to happen.’
I turned in my chair, leaning forward, my elbows resting on my knees. I wanted Andrew to look into my eyes, and also my boobs looked great in this position.
‘I would really like that.’
I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Last night had actually been a success. Last night had been a triumph and it was obviously Party Girl he’d been most attracted to. I have to say I was surprised; although my memories were patchy, I couldn’t remember Andrew paying me too much attention. In fact, I got a sudden image of him cupping Liz’s cheek in his hand. She was wearing his big pink sombrero and looking at him with mushy eyes. I shook my head, forcibly removing the image; that couldn’t possibly be right if Andrew was now declaring his love for me.
I scraped my chair forward a few inches as Andrew sat up and clapped his hands together.
‘Great, I’ll tell him.’
‘You do that,’ I laughed, leaning forward a fraction in case he wanted to kiss me.
He stood up and almost whacked me with his thigh.
‘He’ll be chuffed,’ he said, moving forward and putting both hands on the balcony. He was wearing a dark-brown leather bracelet and I stared at it, confused.
‘He will be,’ I repeated, realising Andrew might not actually be talking in the third person. ‘Duncan,’ I whispered.
He turned around. ‘He’s a great guy.’
I stood up quickly. ‘Andrew, sorry I…I think you misunderstood. I don’t…’
‘MATE!’ came a yell from behind me, making me leap.
‘Duncan,’ Andrew slowed down the name, looking meaningfully at me.
‘What’s up, you two?’ Duncan flung himself into the chair I’d been sitting in.
‘Nothing!’ I sing-songed at the same time as Andrew replied, ‘Your ears must have been burning.’
‘Well I still feel like I ate a badger and need food so who’s in?’
At the mention of food my tummy did a delighted rumble. You’ve neglected me
today it seemed to say.
‘I think I’m just going to have an early night,’ I said doing a stretchy yawn as if to make my point abundantly clear. ‘You two should go.’ I mumbled a goodnight and rushed down the steps of the terrace landing on the cooling sand and waving a goodbye over my shoulder. Blinking, I walked away replaying that last scene with Andrew in my head. How did he not realise? What was I doing with myself? Then there was today: a snapshot popped up of me in the cave clutching my side over something Zeb had said. I’d had the feeling we had done something special when we’d filmed that vlog. I hadn’t felt like that in years – that thrill in front of the camera, working with someone else to bounce ideas off; it had given me such a buzz.
As I got ready for bed, I realised today had taught me one thing: I needed to get a grip on my career again, get my old confidence back. I could present – I just needed to be fired up by something; I needed to want to tell the viewers all about it. I couldn’t hide here for ever.
The sheets were cool and made me suck in my breath as I slid between them. Faces of Andrew, Zeb and Duncan seemed to roll into my mind, overlap, roll out again. Was I getting anywhere? Did I have my answers? I huffed in the dark, throwing off the duvet in frustration. As I lay on my bed that night, hot and bothered on top of the sheets, I stared at the fan making its pointlessly slow circulation and realised it might be time to go home and stop all this.
Next morning I woke feeling a renewed sense of purpose. I just needed a new action plan. And then, as if the universe had heard me, I opened an email from Mel that simply contained a photo attachment of an aeroplane ticket to Tioman Island, landing in two days’ time. I couldn’t believe it. I stared at the screen for ten minutes straight. Mel was coming here, my Mel. The thought revived me. I couldn’t believe I’d been considering throwing in the towel. What I needed, of course, what I’d been missing, was a wing woman – and there was none finer than Mel Conboy. She’d sort me out.
Chapter 32
The tiny plane skirted the island and I could make out the dots of windows, imagining Mel’s face as she looked down on the island: a lump of lush greens fringed with a strip of white sand and the bright-turquoise shallows out to the deeper blue of the sea. I smiled to myself, stomach drumming
with excitement; I couldn’t believe she was really going to be here.
The plane started making its descent and I tried not to focus too much on the shortest runway in the world and wait for the bump, bump of the tyres trundling along the surface, the engine coming to an idling stop, the noise and clatter of baggage handlers racing out to unload suitcases. The plane had taxied to a halt and I looked out through the canopy of the arrivals lounge (I like to call it that but it was really more of an arrivals shack) and saw three men in orange caps wheeling a small silver ladder over to the door of the plane, the first of the passengers blinking in the sunlight, putting on sunglasses, glancing down the tarmac as the air sizzled with petrol and heat.
Then there she was, her red hair under a straw hat. Her hot-pink skinny jeans, a white vest top and a pair of enormous sunglasses making her leap out of the crowd. She looked like she was from LA. I started waving at her frantically from the shade of the lounge, grinning as she caught my eye and waved back, dropping her handbag and whooping so that other passengers turned to look at her.
She had managed to convince a fellow passenger (male, average build, tattoo of an anchor on his arm) to roll her suitcase along with his and then spent three minutes swapping cards with the hopeful victim. I rolled my eyes to myself, tapping one foot and miming at a watch when she turned around to run at me.
‘Youoooooo!’ she squealed. She held me at arm’s length. ‘You look so brown, and hellooooo,’ she said, slapping my bottom. ‘Someone’s lost weight.’
‘It’s my new diet of rice, with rice,’ I said, laughing and pulling her in for a hug.
‘I need to get me some of that,’ she said into my hair.
‘Right!’ She clapped her hands together. ‘Where’s the nearest bar?’
She looked good. Confident, fun and the Mel I had left in LA. Was there a hint of something in her eyes? A sadness behind the smiles? There had to be a reason for her flying to the middle of nowhere to see me; it couldn’t just be my extraordinarily cool personality. I am not that good.
‘Wait there,’ I instructed, ducking into a small, dusty supermarket on the road. She looked completely out of place standing alone on a patch of churned-up dry mud marked with track tyres and an old faded Coke sign. ‘I won’t be long,’ I called.
Moving towards the large fridge in the corner, I passed a woman sweeping sand and dirt in the aisle, nodding at her. Her eyes crinkled into a hundred folds as she smiled at me. Opening the door, I pulled out four bottles of beer, cold to the touch, peeling price tags on the necks and went to pay.
Returning outside with my small plastic bag, I pointed down the road to a small track off to the left. ‘Let’s go and sit on the beach,’ I suggested.
‘You have the beer, woman, so wherever you go I will follow.’
We wheeled the suitcase down the road, one hand each on the handle and then turned left, bumping it down a grassy, wide path to the beach at the end. Dumping the suitcase under a palm tree weighted down with orange coconuts, I pointed to a couple of loungers.
Lying back on the loungers, the beers impressively opened on the wooden lounger frame, I finally asked her, ‘So…?’
Mel closed her eyes. ‘Can we just lie here a little longer?’
I sipped at my beer, swivelling my legs round so that I was sitting looking at her.
‘Out with it, woman.’
She sighed and played with a loose strand of hair, twisting it and untwisting it as she took a breath. I couldn’t make out her expression behind the uber glasses. She bit one side of her lip. ‘I just wanted to see you. And I needed a holiday,’ she tacked on.
‘No. Sorry. Not good enough.’
Mel slanted her eyes. ‘Could you sound a little more grateful?’
‘I am grateful,’ I laughed, nudging her with my beer bottle. ‘But I also know you and this has “Mel Running Away From a Crisis” written all over it.’
‘Maybe,’ she sniffed.
‘What did Dex say?’ I asked.
‘Um…’ She circled a finger on the mattress of the lounger.
I gasped. ‘You didn’t tell him.’
She carried on circling.
‘Did you really not tell him?’
‘I left a note.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, I think I spelled the island wrong on it, too. I’m lammmmmme,’ she said.
‘Yes, you are a bit lame,’ I agreed, patting her knee.
‘I just needed to get out of there, since the whole pr…proposal.’ She stumbled over the word. ‘It freaked me out, you know. Things were going so well with Dex. He was great.’
‘Is great.’ I chipped in.
‘Is great, but then he goes and does that and we will become one of those couples who become all about the “wedding” and start all our conversations with information about venues and flower suppliers. Why he can’t have a puppy as a ring bearer and why doves are out, too.’
‘Oh no, I love a good dove at a wedding,’ I say, earning myself a slap on the arm.
‘I just know it will consume us. You know what we’re like, Iz, we love a massive row; we would argue over every detail and kill each other before the big day. And for what?’
‘A lifetime of commitment?’ I supplied, earning myself a second slap.
‘We are committed already, Iz.’
‘I know.’
‘So why do we need to load ourselves up with that pressure? Why did he have to go and change things?’
‘Because he loves you,’ I stated.
‘Oi, you’re not helping, Iz,’ she said.
‘
But it’s true. He just wants to do what lots of men before him have done and show the whole world he loves you.’
‘The whole world knew – or rather the world I cared about. I’ve seen it before, Iz, normal, nice girls in good relationships screaming at their mother-in-law about what favours they want, shouting that it will be a cathedral veil or nothing. Then falling out with their fiancé because their mother said something derogatory about one of the bridesmaids…’
‘Hey, who said something derogatory about me?’
Mel laughed and raised one eyebrow. ‘Bridesmaid, eh?’
‘Er hello, yes, chief…’ I grinned. ‘Anyway, I thought there wasn’t going to be a wedding.’
Mel fell silent at that, pushing her beer bottle into the sand.
‘Come on, Mel,’ I said, my voice softer. ‘What’s this really all about? I know you hate talking about it, but you can tell me.’
Nothing. Which was not ‘Shut up, Iz’. I continued, taking a breath. ‘It’s about your mum. How you think you might turn into her, isn’t it? But, Mel, you won’t,’ I pleaded, wanting to get the next part out quickly so she could hear it. ‘You and Dex are tough as anything. You’re a team; he’s your best friend and he’s not going to suddenly flip and change into a different person, he’s not going to walk out on you. And you won’t take him for granted, you will work at it. If anything, you’ve probably learned more from your mum about how to make it work than anyone.’
I let these thoughts hang in the air and we finished our beers, swatting half-heartedly at the insects that hovered round us. People were wandering back along the beach and some teenage boys were still snorkelling on the reef, dipping down out of sight, and then calling to each other.
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly. ‘Thanks, Iz, I knew you’d help.’ She sounded unusually quiet for Mel. My heart reached out to my gorgeous friend.
‘Come on, let’s head back,’ I said, standing up and offering her a hand.
We trundled back to the road to take a taxi back across the middle of the island to Juara beach. A grinning man in a dirty 4x4 drew up on the road with a screech of brakes, skidding on the stones. As we plunged off the road onto the uneven track through the forest, the air became cooler. I wound the window down further and closed my eyes, letting the breeze wash around me. Bumping over potholes and dried-out old tyre marks, we made the descent.