by Rosie Blake
Chapter 38
I opened my eyes in shadow and panicked briefly as my dream seemed to be coming true. There was a man above me, holding something. I WILL DIE FOR SURE my head said.
‘Gah,’ I say, holding up my Kindle as if I was about to throw it.
‘No, don’t strike me with your Kindle, I might never walk again,’ laughed Zeb looming over me.
‘What the hell? Why are you standing over me like Death? Who does that?’ I asked, lurching into a sitting position and hoiking my straps back up before I flashed nipple. Again.
‘I’m not standing over you like Death. Anyway, Death stands behind you with a scythe. Like this,’ he said, walking behind the lounger and holding up an imaginary scythe, his face in a Death-like grimace.
‘Very reassuring,’ I said.
Zeb flopped on to the lounger next door, one leg bent and one dangling over the edge, his arms crossed behind his head. ‘I was mooching and wanted to see how long I could stand over you before you woke up and freaked out.’
‘What a comforting thought.’
‘Three minutes,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘You were talking in your sleep, too, something about reeds and turtle yolk. It was weird.’
‘Well, I like to keep you amused.’
Zeb turned to me. ‘So where’s your new partner-in-crime? Mel?’ he asked noting my blank face.
I felt strangely snappy as I replied, ‘She’s with her boyfriend.’ I stressed the last word, wondering why I felt the need to point it out so badly.
‘Boyfriend,’ he repeated. Did he look disappointed? His eyes still had the same energy, his lashes thick and dark.
‘He turned up suddenly, from LA,’ I said.
‘Sounds good.’
‘So I can’t go back yet; she’s with him and he’s just appeared off a plane. It’s kind of awesome, really. Well she might brain him or send him back but…’
‘Why?’
‘She’s cross with him: he proposed to her and…’
‘What a SHIT,’ Zeb interrupted. ‘I know girls hate it when we do that.’ Zeb smacked an open hand on his lounger making me jump.
I laughed. ‘Well, yes, I suppose it doesn’t sound bad, but she…Her parents were in love and now they just yell at each other and throw stuff.’
‘What stuff?’
‘Whatever comes to hand. Mostly words.’
‘Hmm, but don’t we know that sticks and stones hurt but names will never actually hurt.’
How did he always manage to make everything lighter? I was balled up worrying about her, but he was right to laugh about it; it wasn’t something I could do anything about and Mel would be okay.
‘So you’re free now,’ Zeb asked, cutting across my thoughts.
‘Free, aside from this very important sun-worshipping.’
‘Vital.’ He nodded solemnly. ‘Well, why don’t we film another clip for the site? People went nuts for the cave piece and it would be great to add more.’
My interest was piqued. ‘What do you mean “nuts”? As in crazy comments?’
‘No, just loads of traffic; it was shared a lot. It was the most-popular post this month, actually,’ he said, looking at me with a wide smile.
I felt a warm glow in my stomach. My video was popular, people liked it. ‘That’s great.’
‘So, up for doing another one now?’
I panicked a little as I realised he was serious. His camera bag was half-submerged in the sand, he was physically attached to the thing.
‘Oh I don’t know, my hair is all gross and sand-filled and…’
‘Come on, Iz, you look perfect, all sun-kissed and natural,’ he said, making me feel hot all over.
Laughing, thrown by the comment, I found myself agreeing. ‘Okay, okay.’ I sat up. ‘Where shall we set up and what do you want it about?’
‘The beach itself, Juara, what’s on offer. Whatever you like, Iz.’
I sat and thought for a bit, the same familiar excitement opening up inside me as I had new ideas about the kinds of things we could mention: the sky-dive, the snorkelling, the waterfall in the jungle… Zeb pulled out his camera and, without really thinking first, I asked him if I could take a look.
There was a momentary pause and then Zeb handed the camera over. ‘You press the triangle to chart back through.’
I nodded, thrilled to be seeing this side of him, the photos he was always taking. As I pressed the button I drew in my breath. ‘These photos are brilliant,’ I said, scrolling back through the shots of the pier, the dense charcoal-coloured cloud sitting like it was interposed on the pale-blue sky below. There were pictures of the cafe owner, mid-laugh, a hand clutching his side; Ahmad in the middle of a trick, the focus on his face touching and real. Zeb captured the mood of the beach perfectly, had taken wide shots of the turquoise sea, the jungle backdrop and, of course, the monkeys. There were pictures of me in the cave, one I couldn’t believe was me. A profile. I was looking at something beyond, lost in thought, and the light traced around my face which was in darkness. It was stunning.
I hadn’t got any more words and handed the camera back silently, not sure how to tell him.
‘Right!’ He clapped, perhaps feeling the mood had changed. ‘Let’s set up.’
We spent some moments choosing a good spot and I rehearsed in my mind what I would say. Raking a hand self-consciously through my hair, I took a sip of water and walked in front of the camera, waiting for Zeb to give me the signal to begin. And then we were off and this time we did two takes before both of us were happy with the clip. I had been presenting to camera and I simply told Zeb about the island: the beauty, the assorted animals, the monkeys…His hair shook as he chuckled at one part, a hand covering his mouth so his laughter couldn’t be heard. It filled me with a confidence I hadn’t felt in years and when we finished I felt elated, breathless with the buzz of doing a job well done.
‘We need to do more of these,’ Zeb mused aloud and I found myself nodding keenly.
He sat back down on a lounger to put the camera away and I joined him, perched on the edge, looking down at my thigh only inches from his. I felt the urge to move closer.
He finished packing up. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked zipping up the bag and stretching out his legs. He wiggled his toes into the sand. For some reason I found myself blushing as I stared at his feet.
‘Um, no, but well…’
‘Want to join me? I was going up to the cafe at the end there; they do this epic Egg Foo Yong which I’ve become obsessed with. If it were a woman I would be with this egg thing it’s so good.’
His jocular tone brought me back from somewhere and I laughed at him. ‘Well that is certainly a lovely mental image and now I am desperate to meet this egg thing and check out whether she is worthy of your love.’
‘Thank you, it’s important, I need to introduce her to my friends, check she’s the real deal.’
I felt my chest lighten as he said the word ‘friends’.
‘I’m honoured you would consult me on such an important matter.’
‘It is important. It could just be a passing fad thing. Like the month where I only ate Jammie Dodgers and then realised I was living a half life.’
‘We’ve all been there,’ I said, reaching out to pat him on the leg.
He looked down and the air seemed to fill with heat and the sound of an insect. I snatched my hand away.
The restaurant was tucked away behind a row of huts. Enormous flowers in fuchsia crawled and twisted up and round the thin columns that stood between tables. The makeshift place had wooden tables and jam jars filled with orange and white daisies. A couple of tables were taken and people were having conversations in low voices. Tea lights were ready to be lit when the sun went down.
We’d been in the restaurant for all of three seconds when the waiter, dresse
d in a red football shirt, came running over to slap Zeb on the back like he had known him for ever. ‘They do it!’ he announced in a loud voice so that the people at the next table looked over at us curiously.
I frowned in confusion but Zeb was laughing. He nodded. ‘Amazing, the Chelsea goalkeeper must have been dodging them for a bet.’
‘No, no, they have pure skill.’
‘Look, we’ve been over this.’ Zeb waggled a finger at the waiter who whisked off to fetch menus. ‘Die hard Man U fan,’ Zeb whispered, a hand on the small of my back as he steered me over to a table in the corner. ‘I literally have no idea what I’m saying but it’s easier to go along with it,’ he whispered.
The waiter returned, holding two menus. ‘We are going to Champions League!’
‘You let yourself believe that,’ Zeb said, shaking his head as the waiter walked off once more.
I leaned across the table. ‘Seriously, what is going on?’
‘You basically say cynical stuff about his team and he gets passionate and gives us money off our bill. Try it!’
The waiter bounced over again with a small notepad in his hands. ‘We keep playing like this, we win the title.’
Zeb pursed his lips and looked at me, a minuscule nod.
‘Hmm I’m not…so sure,’ I said, adding a big frown afterwards for good measure.
‘You like football, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘What team do you support?’
‘Oh, I…’ I thought back to the earlier conversation. ‘CHELSEA!’ I practically shouted in his face.
The waiter’s eyes opened wide. ‘Oh no, no, no, lady, you have it all wrong.’
This was going well; he was smiling at me with all his teeth. Both rows. He had a gold filling. This was easy.
‘Yes we are very good.’ I nodded eagerly.
‘We just showed you who was boss.’
‘You did?’ I looked at Zeb, panic creeping into my voice. ‘Oh you DID, but we will rise again like a football Phoenix from the ashes of defeat and…’
Zeb was doing the international hand signal for ‘wrap it up’.
‘And…And we will get you,’ I said in actually quite a menacing voice.
Zeb was making cutting motions on his neck now.
‘Get you,’ I whispered as the waiter backed away from us, our drinks order forgotten.
Zeb put his head in his hands. ‘Well, there goes our ten per cent, oh sociopath.’
‘What did I do wrong?’ I wailed.
‘So many things that it is safer to just move on and not mull it over.’
The waiter returned and Zeb banned me from speaking to him on any subject, managing to get him back on side discussing some rubbish refereeing. He was so successful my lemonade arrived almost a second after I ordered it. The ice clinked against the edge of the glass as I sipped at it, the smell of grilled fish and flowers clashing in the evening air. We ordered the Egg Foo Yong and it was as fantastic as Zeb had promised: a light folded omelette filled with rice and meats and vegetables. It melted on my tongue and Zeb laughed as I shut my eyes and made ‘nomming’ noises after the first mouthful.
I put down my fork and wiped the corner of my mouth with a napkin. ‘You are absolutely allowed to have a crush on this egg dish, it is incredible. If it were keen, I would ask it to move in with me.’
‘Too slow, it would already be living with me. It’s totally happy there.’
‘Okay, fine, I will move in with you both and we can all be together.’ I blushed as Zeb responded with, ‘You’re very welcome.’
I became aware of my pulse, my fingers and thumbs suddenly feeling foreign to me as I went to pick up the fork.
Zeb was telling me a story about Ahmad and his attempt to perform a magic trick with lighted sticks that had basically ended up almst burning his hands, but my laugh came slowly. I had been focused on his full mouth, hearing the words, but my reaction was impeded by random thoughts about his lips. Oh man, Isobel, get a grip on yourself.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and when Zeb went to the loo I checked it for messages. Mel asked whether Dex and her could join us for drinks somewhere.
As Zeb returned, so tall in this cosy space, his dark hair almost black in the light, I asked him. For a brief moment I hoped he would say no. There was something so magical about this place and I didn’t want to share it.
‘Of course,’ Zeb said, following it up with another easy smile.
I texted her back and, half an hour later, Mel and Dex arrived, both beaming. Dex had changed into a light-blue shirt and jeans and Mel was wearing yellow crop trousers and a white cotton top. Her red hair winked from the fairy lights that had been switched on a few moments before.
Once the introductions had been done and we were settled at the table with drinks, it was clear that Mel and Dex were very much back on form. I loved them in this mood; gentle mocking, a brief squeeze of a leg or arm. There was such a tangible spark between them. They didn’t have to change who they were around each other. They didn’t have to strain for conversation or put on a false face. A thought flickered briefly as I looked over at Zeb. Then I raised my glass to them both.
‘Here’s to Dex coming out from LA,’ I toasted.
‘Yes,’ Mel grinned, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Conversation flowed easily and even on lemonade I felt giggly and punch drunk at times. Dex and Zeb were talking cameras and famous photographers. I hadn’t known Dex was such an enthusiast and Zeb was leaning over the table, his voice passionate as he talked. ‘The first photo must have been amazing, people seeing this image emerge like a miracle. I would pay a lot of money to go back there and be in that moment.’
‘When was all that happening?’ asked Mel, who had always had this random interest in historical facts. Well, facts generally.
‘Start of the nineteenth century,’ Zeb replied.
‘Cool, although it wouldn’t be my first choice.’
‘Where would you go back to if you could time travel?’ Zeb asked, his blue eyes darker in this light.
Mel thought for a second, glass to her lips. ‘Further back,’ she said eventually. ‘Like the first time man ever made fire. That would have been a freaky night.’
‘Iz?’ Zeb asked, shifting his body towards me.
‘Hogwarts,’ I said without a pause.
‘Er, we said the past not a fake world.’
‘Ruin the game, Mr Fun Police, if you can go back to the medieval period and see the camera guy.’
‘Er, more like the nineteenth century and his full name was Mr Niépce, thank you very much,’
‘Well, whatever, your majesty. If you can do that, I want to go back to Hogwarts when Harry turned up.’
‘But you know Harry and Hogwarts aren’t real. In the actual real world. You do know this. Isobel.’
‘Yes,’ I said (quite slowly as, if I’m being honest with myself, I do secretly believe that if I hope enough somewhere Hogwarts does exist and one day I WILL receive my letter telling me I am a witch and I can go there and my patronus would be a squirrel). Note to self: do not admit to the time that I tried running at that wall in Kings Cross. That was a sprained ankle I could have avoided.
Zeb was laughing into his beer.
‘How about you, Dex?’ I said, sniffily turning away from Zeb.
‘I’d go back and tell Hitler he was a jerk and no one likes him now.’
Mel wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. ‘That’d show him,’ she said. ‘Okay, hello, I’d like to change mine. I would go back to the day before a day I knew all the lottery numbers and then dump you lot and go and live the dream on a yacht and be friends with celebrities like Madonna and Gwynnie. FYI I would totally know her well enough to call her that, and Madonna would be ‘M Dog’ and we would be like the Cool Girl Triumvirate and do
yoga and stuff and make some kind of new gluten-free smoothie that makes you lose weight when you drink it.’
‘What are you saying about our friendship?’ I wailed in mock-horror. ‘I could be like M Dog. I could wear my bra wrong and work on my abs. I would totally do that for you,’ I said.
‘Okay, fine.’ She sighed. ‘I won’t go back and win the lottery and become friends with celebrities.’
‘Yay,’ Dex and I cheered.
‘Why are you cheering, Dex?’
‘I don’t think I’d get a look in if Mel was hanging out with them.’
‘You totally would,’ said Mel, stirring her drink. She pointed her straw at him. ‘As long as you were a backing dancer – all celebrities seem to fall for the backing dancer. Or the bodyguard.’
‘Actually, I think that was just Whitney Houston,’ I pointed out.
‘What the hell is going on?’ asked Zeb to nobody.
The evening veered from one conversation to another and I hadn’t laughed this hard in weeks. I felt light-headed and full of declicious food, surrounded by friends and good thoughts. I had long since abandoned the lemonades and had drunk a delicious bottle of white wine. Everything felt woozy and brilliant. As the night wore on, Mel had started to look at Dex with INTENT and the tea lights had long since died. Mel and Dex left and Zeb and I stayed on for a few more minutes. I didn’t really want the night to end but I couldn’t be sure what Zeb was thinking. I wasn’t able to read his expression. He suggested we left and we got up. Thanking the waiter with a ‘Go Chelsea!’ Zeb steered me out by the shoulders before I made it any worse.
We wobbled up the narrow high street together, babbling and laughing. Ducking under a hanging basket, the trailing flowers tickled my face as we came to a stop outside my hotel. Feeling suddenly shy I looked towards the door. ‘This is me.’
‘Great,’ he said. He was standing so close. WHEN DID HE GET SO CLOSE? I felt all the breath leave my body as he seemed to lean in towards me. My brain was whizzing with thoughts such as HE IS LEANING and IS THIS WHAT I WANT? and IS THIS ACTUALLY MY HOTEL? and DOES MY BREATH SMELL OF FISH? and I LIKE HIS FACE. My brain gets really shouty when it speeds up. He was still leaning and I started to close my eyes, felt a warmth spread through my stomach, reached a hand up.