I don’t remember seeing anything out of place when I entered the flat. I didn’t notice his jacket hanging on the back of a chair; I didn’t hear music playing, or the TV on. There were no warning signs to help me prepare myself. But then my head was so full of the wedding that perhaps I just didn’t see the signs. In fact, when I first burst into our bedroom, I was so hell bent on collecting the box with the tiara in it from the top of the wardrobe that I was five paces in before I noticed him. Max. Butt naked on our bed. And then, as the room span before me, I saw her: the indispensable Melanie, his PA, also butt naked in my bed but with her head bobbing up and down in my fiancés lap. Most of that day is a blur but I can clearly remember the look on her face when she sat up, turned round and saw me. Her mouth formed a perfect, ‘Oh’. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach so hard that it winded me. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t catch my breath. For a few moments we were all frozen, fixed in that terrible, shocking, life-changing moment in time. Max was the first to speak. I can’t remember exactly what he said. Excuses. Explanations. Something about it being a one-off and a last-minute wobble before getting married. It was bullshit of course. I said nothing. The moment my legs regained any feeling, I turned on my heels and I ran. I never went back to that flat again.
I ran and ran as fast as I could, away from my flat and my fiancé and what I’d thought was my future. I ran towards…what? The realisation hit me that I had absolutely nowhere to go. Max had isolated me from my friends, I’d given up my lovely Shoreditch warehouse to be with him, I couldn’t go back to work, my family were three hundred miles away and Savannah… Tears streamed down my face, passers-by stared at me, and even though I had no idea where I was going, I kept running, running away from him. When Savannah came home from work that evening, she found me huddled in a tiny ball on her doorstep, with my shoulders shaking, tears still streaming and mascara smudged all over my face. We hadn’t spoken for almost a year, but she didn’t ask me any questions. In fact, as she put her arm around my shoulders and helped me to my feet she didn’t say anything at all except, ‘Shhh, baby. Shhh. Everything will be okay. I promise.’
Savannah was the one who called my parents, my boss and all our friends and explained what had happened. She emailed all the wedding guests. She cancelled the vicar, the cake, the reception, the caterers and the cars. She took my key and went round to my flat, Max’s flat, and collected my clothes and possessions when he was out. Then she loaded it all into three waiting taxis. She swore at the time that she hadn’t taken her revenge but much later admitted to ‘accidentally’ keying his beloved Mercedes cabriolet before she posted my key back through the letterbox. I stayed in bed for a week. Maybe two. I missed Christmas and New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s Day, what should have been my wedding day, I hid my head under the duvet and cried for eighteen hours solid before I finally fell asleep with my snotty nose dribbling onto Savannah’s best cashmere jumper.
It was a few days later, when I was wallowing in Savannah’s bed, that I realised I was still wearing that horrible ring. I jumped as if I’d been bitten by a snake, tore it off my finger and threw it across the room. Savannah picked it up, examined it carefully and said calmly, ‘I’ll deal with this monstrosity.’
‘You need to give it back to Max,’ I sobbed. ‘It was a family heirloom. It has to go back.’
My best friend looked at me as if I had finally, totally lost my marbles.
‘Don’t be ridiculous Kirsten,’ she said. ‘He fucked his secretary in your bed two weeks before your wedding. You don’t owe him anything – other than a fat lip. And the least he owes you after everything he’s put you through is…a…yes, that’s it!’
‘What?’ I asked, too exhausted and heart-broken to really care what happened to the ring.
‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,’ she replied, mocking the way Max used to speak to me. ‘You sleep, honey. I’ll be right back.’
She was already dialling a number on her phone.
‘Hi, is that Caleb? Hi honey, it’s Savannah. I have a truly hideous antique ruby and diamond ring I need to get rid of. It’s utterly vile but the ruby is a MONSTER! I’m going to bring it to you now for you to have a look.’
Everybody has useful numbers stored on their phone. For most of us it’s plumbers, electricians and dentists. For Savannah, it’s Monaco-based yacht brokers, racehorse owners and Hattan Garden gem specialists. She arrived back several hours later.
‘Time to get up Kirsten,’ she announced with a grin. ‘We need to pack.’
‘Pack?’ I asked, confused, rubbing the tears and sleep from my eyes. ‘Where are we going?’
‘St Barts,’ said Savannah, matter-of-factly. ‘Turns out that ugly old ruby was worth a small fortune so Max has very kindly paid for both of us to travel first class to the French West Indies. You might not have the wedding, or the groom – thank God! – but at least you’ll have a decent honeymoon. We will be spending the next two weeks in the most expensive suite, in the most expensive resort, on the most expensive island in the world. So get up Sleeping Beauty, or we’ll never be ready in time. We have to be at Heathrow by 6am.’
‘You sold Max’s grandmother’s ring and bought us both a holiday?’ I asked, in disbelief.
‘Not just a holiday. The holiday of a lifetime,’ replied Savannah, chucking a suitcase onto the bed beside me. ‘And I’m going to make you have a good time if it kills me!’
Even on the long flight from London to St Martin I wept quietly underneath my blanket. While Savannah sipped the complimentary champagne and read aloud from the glossy in-flight magazine, I lent my heavy head against the cold window and stared at the clouds below me, wishing I could fall into them and disappear forever in their soft fluffiness.
‘Did you know…’ Savannah talked loudly, ignoring my depression, ‘…that Saint Barthélemy is one of four territories among the Leeward Islands in the northeastern Caribbean that comprise the French West Indies, along with Saint Martin, Guadeloupe and Martinique. It says here that St Barts is a volcanic island, fully encircled by shallow reefs, with an area of eight point five miles square and a population of almost nine thousand. It is the only Caribbean island to have been a Swedish colony for any significant length of time and the Swedish national arms, the Three Crowns, still appears in the island's coat of arms. The language, cuisine and culture, however, are distinctly French. The island is a popular tourist destination during the winter holiday season, especially with the rich and famous… Aha, here’s the interesting bit!’ Savannah elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Listen, Kirsten,’ she implored me. ‘Kate Moss, Ashton Kutcher, Beyonce and Jay Z, Bono, Demi Moore, Lily Cole and Simon Cowell all go to St Barts… Hun? Hun? Are you even listening? Please, Kirsten, try to leave your black cloud back there in drizzly old London. Max doesn’t deserve any more of your headspace. It’s time to start living again. Oh wow, we’re descending. Look, there’s land. Whoop, whoop, Guadeloupe!’
I nodded and managed a weak smile but I felt none of her excitement. When we got off the plane in St Martin, the tropical heat enveloped us like an electric blanket but it didn’t comfort me. Not one bit.
‘Gorgeous,’ announced Savannah, shrugging off her cardigan to reveal a tiny halterneck top. ‘I told you not to wear your Uggs, honey. Your feet will stink by the time we get to St Barts.’
From St Martin we got on a clunky little sewing machine of a plane and flew the last few miles to St Barts. And then the island appeared before us – a tiny speck in the perfect turquoise Caribbean sea. I gripped Savannah’s arm as we descended sharply towards the miniscule airstrip below. The plane dipped suddenly over a sharp mountain peak and missed crashing by what felt like millimetres. I closed my eyes until I felt the plane bounce ungracefully onto the tarmac.
‘Wasn’t that just the best flight ever? So exhilarating! It’s the third most dangerous airport in the world don’t you know,’ laughed Savannah excitedly as I breathed a sigh of relief still to be alive. ‘T
here was a crash here just last week.’
But I was relieved to be alive. And that was something at least. As I stepped off the plane and blinked in the bright sunlight I felt as if someone had turned up the world’s colour and contrast to full glow. It was as if I’d been living in black and white and now suddenly everything was happening in Technicolor. The flowers were luminous pink, the foliage lush green, the sky bright, bright blue. The birds sang louder than any I’d heard before, the cicadas chirruped and the taxi driver chat-chat-chatted enthusiastically about this beach and that club and which celebrities were staying where this week.
Our resort was three miles north of the airport: a five-star plus utopia, nestled in the palm trees on a stunning chalk white beach. Max’s grandmother’s ring might have been ugly, but it sure as hell bought amazing accommodation. Savannah and I were shown to our ‘cottage’. Savannah glanced longingly at the resort’s restaurants, beach bar and enormous infinity pool as we drove past in our chauffeured golf buggy, but I had no desire to mingle with the glamorous, bronzed, bejewelled bodies languishing on the beach. Like a modern-day Greta Garbo, I wanted to be alone. Thankfully, our cottage was hidden at the far end of the resort, in a secluded bay, which faced away from the throng of the main hotel. It was painted candy pink and surrounded by palms and exotic blooms. As we walked up the path to the door, a hummingbird hovered right in front of my eyes. None of it felt real. It was as if I was watching myself in a film. I should have been in the Maldives with Max on our honeymoon at that moment; instead I was in the Caribbean with my best friend – a woman I hadn’t spoken to in a year. The shift in my reality was too much to comprehend. I should have been buzzing with excitement but all I felt was uncomfortably numb.
The cottage was four times the size of any flat I’d ever lived in. It had two massive ensuite bedrooms, an airy white lounge with all the mod cons and a wall of glass doors that opened on to a polished teak deck, which overlooked the impossibly blue sea. We had a private plunge pool and a pontoon, which jutted out over the ocean. At the end of the pontoon were two wooden loungers, scattered with plump, white linen cushions. I already knew that that was where I would spend the next two weeks: staring out to sea with my back turned stubbornly away from the life and laughter playing out in the rest of the resort.
For the first few days, Savannah humoured me. We shunned the fancy restaurants and ordered room service. Not that I ate much. I had become incredibly thin but the feeling of my bones jutting through my skin comforted me somehow – it was as if they were evidence that my inner pain was outwardly real. We drank cocktails on the pontoon, sunbathed, burned, turned brown, chatted a little, slept a lot. Every now and then Savannah would turn her head towards the music being swept over on the breeze from the beach bar and a wistful look crossed her beautiful face. I knew she was dying to put on her skimpiest bikini, her prettiest kaftan and her twinkliest sandals and strut her sexy stuff before the billionaires there. But even beneath the flawless Caribbean sky, I selfishly held onto my little black rain cloud. And Savannah selflessly stayed by my side. I put my headphones on and listened to sad songs that made me cry. When I shut my eyes, I pictured my wedding dress and the flowers I’d ordered and Max’s impossibly long eyelashes and the look on Melanie’s face when I caught them together in bed. I wept until my towel was sodden. Savannah paced the pontoon, dived into the ocean, swam a frustrated front crawl, paced some more, strained her neck to see the people paddling past in a canoe, waved frantically at them, desperate for human contact, jumped up and down with excitement when they waved back. She was Tigger and I was Eeyore. I had imprisoned a wild tiger on my tiny pontoon and at some point she was bound to make a break for freedom.
A week into our holiday Savannah finally snapped.
‘Right missy,’ she almost shouted. ‘Enough is enough. Put this on.’
She threw her favourite white Issa dress at me.
‘And these!’
A pair of coral stilettos almost hit me on the head.
‘I’ll do your hair and make-up.’
I opened my mouth to argue but she pressed a perfectly manicured finger firmly against my lips.
‘No arguments,’ she said. ‘You’ve had your mourning time. It’s time to live again. You and me are going out to dinner.’
I followed her reluctantly along the path that led to the main resort. I dragged my feet in my high, high heels and chewed the lipstick off my mouth with angst. I was dressed up to the nines, ready for a wild night, but I felt like a fraud. All through dinner I moped while Savannah talked and looked around excitedly at our fellow guests. What I couldn’t help but notice was that they were all couples, mostly in their late twenties, and they all wore shiny new wedding bands.
‘You do realize what you’ve done?’ I asked Savannah eventually.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘You’ve brought me to a honeymooner’s paradise. How could you be so insensitive? Everybody here is on their bloody honeymoon! And I should have been on mine and instead I’m here, with you, having to watch them enjoy their honeymoon when it should have been me...’
I burst into tears. A shadow crossed Savannah’s face and I saw the fire ignite in her eyes.
‘Don’t you dare, Kirsten,’ she warned me in an angry whisper. ‘I told you Max was no good. I let you choose him over me and I was the only one there to pick up the pieces when he ruined your life. And now I’ve brought you here to help you heal and all you can do is wallow and cry and complain. You’re acting like a self-indulgent spoilt brat. What happened to my best friend? Where’s the Kirsten that used to dance on tables until two, and tell the smuttiest jokes I’d ever heard, and wear the shortest skirts in London? Where’s Kirsten? I bloody well miss her. I wish she’d come back!’
Savannah pushed her chair back and strutted across the restaurant to the bar. Within minutes she was standing, cocktail in hand, holding court to a couple of honeymooners who were laughing madly at some hilarious thing she’d said. I toyed with my napkin and tried to push her words out of my head. I stared out to sea at the black sky and blinked back the last of my tears. As I gazed into the dark night something caught my eye. I didn’t imagine it. It was real. The brightest star in the sky suddenly shot across the horizon from west to east. I watched the shooting star, blazing its trail, for several seconds before finally it burned out and disappeared forever. I felt my mouth fall open in wonder and something clicked in my mind. I was just a tiny speck, on a tiny dot of an island, on a tiny star in the solar system, and one day soon, in the blink of an eye, I too would burn out and, poof, I’d be gone forever. I stood up, walked across the restaurant, and joined Savannah and her new friends at the bar.
‘Here, grumpy,’ she said with a grin of relief. ‘I bought you a mojito just in case you decided to rejoin the real world. This is Bethany and Stephen. They’re from Somerset and, yes, before you ask, they’re on their honeymoon.’
I smiled politely at the couple of about our age and nodded hello but I felt embarrassed invading their special time together.
‘Sorry,’ I apologized to them. ‘For crashing your honeymoon like this. I’m sure you’d much rather be alone.’
‘No!’ scoffed Bethany, guffawing at the thought. ‘We’ve been together for ten years; we have a baby and a toddler back home. We’ve done all the talking there is to do. Just because he finally got round to making an honest woman of me doesn’t mean I never want to meet anyone new. Christ, we have two weeks off from changing nappies and watching Peppa Pig! We want to live a bit, go crazy, have fun. The more the merrier I say!’
Her husband nodded enthusiastically. ‘Thank God Savannah came over and introduced herself. Bethany was about to start banging on about the attic conversion we need to do when we get home. Again!’
One cocktail turned into two, two turned into four and four into eight. Before I knew it, it was way past midnight and we were the only ones left at the bar. We arranged to meet up with Bethany and Stephen on the beach in the
morning.
‘Praise the Lord!’ shouted a rather drunk Savannah. ‘Finally I get Kirsten off her bloody pontoon!’
The next morning, we chose four sunloungers close to the bar and continued our easy banter from the night before. The newlyweds genuinely didn’t seem to mind our company.
‘Do you mind dreadfully if I go topless?’ Savannah asked the young French waiter when he came over. The poor boy almost blushed to the colour of his red shorts.
‘Um, non, mademoiselle, we do not mind at all,’ he stammered before rushing back to the bar to tell his boss. We could tell he was doing that because the older bar manager stared over at Savannah’s now naked (and undeniably impressive) breasts and smiled lasciviously.
‘These are on the house,’ said the young waiter when he returned with two piña coladas. ‘Compliments of the waiting staff.’
‘Oh how very sweet of you,’ gushed Savannah, sitting up to take her drink and giving the boy a full frontal.
Sunlounger - the Ultimate Beach Read (Sunlounger Stories Book 1) Page 2