Sunlounger - the Ultimate Beach Read (Sunlounger Stories Book 1)

by Belinda Jones

  But I don’t.

  I know in my heart that she wants to do this. She truly loves Pete, however much of a knobhead he might be.

  ‘You can do this,’ I say, holding her face in my hands. ‘It’s Pete. And it’s you. And you love each other. It’s all good, Jane.’

  She exhales slowly, the colour seeping back into her cheeks.

  ‘Thanks, Ginge,’ she says, a smile returning to her face. ‘Blimey. I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ I say as she runs off to get into her dress.

  It will show you what you need to see.

  I take my phone out onto the balcony, hold it up in the air to get reception and type out a text.

  TEXT TO: DAN

  I’ve had some time to think. I think I might want to settle down too. Maybe I’ll even watch Cash in the Attic with you.

  I press send. Done. Figured out. I wait for the feeling of elation to come. But it doesn’t.

  My best friend is married! It was a lovely service. I cried. I think it was happy crying…

  Jane is dancing with Pete and she looks so joyful, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling with elation. Also swirling around the floor is Katy and a young, skinny Greek fisherman, Penny and Sue and Jane’s parents. They all look so happy, so content in their duos. I clutch my glass of champagne with both hands and gaze out at the twinkling fairy lights strung all along the harbour.

  I spot Aris on his boat, pulling up the anchor.

  I wonder where he’s going?

  I wave at him and what he said the other night pops into my head.

  Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

  ‘Come and dance with us!’ Jane says, dragging Pete over to me by the hand. ‘You’re always the first to boogie! What’s up?’

  ‘I’m just contemplating life, you know,’ I say breezily. ‘Sounds a bit naff, but I really feel like I’ve changed out here.’

  ‘It’s magical Alonissos!’ Jane smiles. ‘It’s cast a spell over you!’

  ‘Dan texted me,’ I tell her. ‘I think we’re going to get back together. I’m going to apply for a promotion at work too. Think about buying a house.’

  ‘Hurrah!’ Jane claps. ‘It’s so great that you’re figuring things out.’

  ‘Yep!’ I smile brightly. ‘Arsing about without a plan is for kids. I’m thirty now. Way too old for all that messing around. Definitely.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Pete adds. ‘And Dan’s a great chap. A good, solid bloke. You know, Ginge, we’re going to the Quantocks in November. We didn’t mention it because it was kind of a couply thing and we didn’t reckon it’d be your cup of tea, but… in light of what you’ve just said, it be great if you could come. Cosy fires, great scenery, wine tasting.’

  ‘Yeah. That’d be wonderful!’ Jane says. ‘Oh my gosh, they have some lovely walks there too.’

  Walks?

  ‘You’ll have to book the time off work,’ Pete says, excitedly. ‘But Paul won’t miss you, I’m sure. It’s deader than disco in that tyre centre. ‘

  No… he probably wouldn’t miss me. He probably hasn’t even noticed I’m on holiday…

  ‘Ooh, we could play couples Pictionary by the fire,’ Jane squeals. How fab would that be? Dan loves Pictionary! He once told me that it was number two on his all-time top list of board games. Number one was Cluedo.’

  Couples Pictionary?

  My stomach drops.

  Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

  I picture going back home to my life, a life where the only exciting thing to happen is the planning of a holiday I’m no longer eligible for. I get a vision in my head of my tiny rented bedroom, the bus journey to a job where nothing happens, kissing a man who thinks I’m too excitable. Forever and ever, the end.

  No.

  I look out at the sparkling twilit ocean and all at once everything becomes clear.

  ‘I love you, Jane,’ I say, my heart beating faster. ‘I do. Congratulations to you both. But I won’t be coming to the Quantocks.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I spot Aris, putting up his sail.

  Thirty isn’t about accepting what I have. It’s about changing it.

  ‘I have to go now!’ I laugh, pulling a dumbstruck Jane into a tight hug.

  ‘Um. What now?’ I hear her ask as I hurry down the steps of the taverna and over to Aris’ rickety boat.

  ‘Hi, Aris,’ I say, smiling up at his craggy, handsome face.

  ‘Hello, Ginger. It was a good wedding, I see. You looking beautiful.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ I say, breathless with adrenalin.

  Please say somewhere good, please say somewhere good.

  ‘I will go island hopping for a few months,’ he says. ‘So much beauty to explore, you know?’

  Island hopping…

  Island hopping!

  ‘Are you going to the Mamma Mia island?’ I ask.

  ‘Skopelos? Yes. That is a very good idea. I will go there.’

  ‘Aris,’ I say his name quietly, nerves snaking their way through my belly. ‘I know this is out of the blue, and we don’t really know each other, and it’s all a bit embarrassing because I tried to sleep with you and you weren’t interested AT ALL but—’

  ‘I was interested.’

  ‘You were?’ I feel a flush cross my face, flooding it with heat.

  ‘Of course. You are, how do you English put it? Hot? You are hot?’

  ‘Thanks!’

  He’s right. I am pretty hot.

  ‘But you were sad. And too much alcohol. And that is not good in any situation. I like the lovemaking to be clear and free and intense.’

  Clear and free and intense? I rather like the sound of clear, free and intense sex.

  ‘Can I come with you, Aris?’

  He blinks and then starts laughing, his pale eyes creased at the corners.

  Shit. He thinks I’m a nutter. I ponder turning away, but I can’t turn back now. Not now, when I finally see, when I finally have the courage to change things.

  I stare at Aris with pleading eyes.

  ‘I would love it, Ginger,’ he says. ‘You come with me. We laugh. I would love it.’

  I exhale, tears springing to my eyes. This is mental. And awesome.

  I’m going island hopping. Me!

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

  ‘Ginger!’ I hear Jane cry from behind me. I spin around to see her dashing down the steps of the tavern, followed by the other wedding guests. ‘What the hell are you doing? Come back to the wedding.’

  ‘I’m going island hopping!’ I yell, holding out a hand for Aris to help me aboard. He pulls me up and hands me a bottle of chilled beer from a big red cooler box.

  ‘Now?’ Jane squeaks. ‘You can’t! This is really irresponsible!’

  ‘Irresponsible would be going back home without knowing what else is out there. It has to be now. It has to be! I love you, Jane.’

  ‘You have none of your stuff!’

  ‘I’ll figure it out!’

  ‘What about Dan?’ Pete shouts, frowning.

  ‘We want different things! He knows that deep down. We haven’t had sex for four months! I’ll ring him when we reach land.’

  Jane’s mum gasps with shock before saying. ‘Four months without a rogering? How on earth did you cope?’

  ‘What about work?’ Katy cries, throwing her mum a disgusted look.

  Jane shushes them, frowns for a second and then giggles, giving me a thumbs up.

  ‘You’re bloody cool, Ginge!’ she yells, shaking her head.

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’ I shout back.

  The engine roars and the boat slowly moves away from the quayside.

  I turn to Aris, grin and take a sip of my beer. It’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted.

  ‘Here we go,’ he smiles, clinking his bottle against mine. ‘A new adventure.’

  This is thirty. This is l
ife.

  And Cool Ginger lives to fight another day.

  About the Author

  Kirsty Greenwood was born in Oldham in 1982. She is the founding editor of the popular women's fiction website Novelicious and director of the Novelicious Books imprint (now accepting submissions at noveliciousbooks.com). Kirsty's debut novel is called YOURS TRULY and is available now as an ebook. It will be published as a paperback on the 21 November 2013 by Pan Macmillan.

  Website: www.kirstygreenwood.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/kirstygreenwoodbooks

  Twitter: @kirstybooks

  Visit the Sunlounger website at www.va-va-vacation.com/kirsty-greenwood

  We have everything you need to make this your Best Summer Ever!

  You can also chat with the authors on the Belinda Jones Travel Club Facebook page.

  Return to the contents list.

  HANOI JANE

  ***

  Kate Guest

  Destination: Vietnam

  ‘Miss, miss, this way! I take your bag, miss!’ I’m standing in the arrivals hall of Hanoi Airport, surrounded by my new best friends. Sure, they also happen to be hotel touts, but they’re really looking out for me. ‘Miss, your hotel with me, I take you miss! Not go with him, he is bad man, very bad.’

  My mother would be so relieved. When I announced that I was planning to spend the summer after uni backpacking solo through Vietnam, she lectured me for two whole hours on what a dangerous idea it was. By the end I wished I was going to Ibiza like everyone else on my course. Then when Mum was done, the rest of my family started. ‘We should brush up on your self-defence,’ said my dad, who teaches tae kwon do on Tuesday nights. ‘Don’t let any hot boys buy you drinks,’ warned my sister. ‘Vicky Fraser’s little sister let a hot boy buy her a drink at a bar in Vietnam and wound up fire-twirling on top of the bar in just her bikini bottoms, singing ‘Relight my Fire’. And you know she would never do that sort of thing.’

  My boyfriend would probably have had similar advice. I say probably because we haven’t actually spoken for two weeks, so it’s difficult to be sure.

  Andy and I have been together for four years, since the first week of uni, but it hasn’t always been easy. In the early days we were on the town and all over each other all the time. Pubs, bands, clubs or parties most nights, then home for drunken sex and next days spent entirely in bed, guzzling Berocca. A lot of it was because we were 19, but we’re only 23 now and I’m not sure we should be quite so Mr and Mrs yet. These days our Friday nights revolve around Pizza Express and a DVD on the sofa. Disco balls have been swapped for dough balls. Dance floors for duvets. Bonking for bickering.

  You see, Andy is studying Philosophy. Apparently, this involves being as moody as you like and doing a lot of sitting by yourself in dark rooms, ‘thinking’. For a while I loved having a boyfriend who seemed so sensitive and thoughtful, especially one straight out of central casting – all floppy dark hair and sparkly grey eyes – but now I’m starting to wonder if sensitive and thoughtful are euphemisms for grumpy and git.

  But all of that is minor stuff, really. The main problem is that every few months, Andy announces that he needs some time off. From me. He assures me he isn’t interested in anyone else, it’s just that he finds being in a relationship exhausting and occasionally needs a break. He says he puts so much of himself into ‘us’ that he needs a holiday now and then. But not an actual holiday, as it turns out.

  I didn’t mention it to my mother but Andy and I were supposed to come to Vietnam together. It would be our first trip abroad, and we were being very grown up about it. We pored over guidebooks and trawled through TripAdvisor, carefully creating a three-week itinerary to suit us both. He wanted to crawl through the Cu Chi tunnels, while I wanted to crawl the bars of Nha Trang. He wanted to visit Ho Chi Minh’s tomb and commune with the hill tribes of Sapa, while I wanted to eat banh mi and ride a jet boat down the Mekong. Eventually we reached agreement, but almost as soon as we finished booking our accommodation and transport, something in Andy changed. He started to panic. He wasn’t sure he could handle three weeks of living in hostels, he said. He worried about getting sick from the food. He didn’t know if he wanted to backpack when, actually, he loathes backpackers and everything they stand for (who knew backpackers stand for anything?). And before I could convince him otherwise, he’d backed out and we were back on a break.

  I’d had an inkling he would do this, which is why I hadn’t told my family he was coming. Andy likes his routine and needs his things around him to feel comfortable. I’m the complete opposite. I get bored quickly and love it when one day is different to the next. And there is a tiny part of me that is secretly thrilled to be doing my first big trip on my own.

  So that is how I came to be standing here, alone, in Hanoi Airport. In the distance, parked by the entrance, I see the Vietnam Airlines transfer bus. The itinerary mum has neatly printed out and tucked into a plastic folder tells me it’s the last for the day. I need to get on it or face an expensive taxi ride into town. I start ducking and diving my way towards the door, all the while being urged to follow this good man and not that bad one.

  I finally reach the bus, hand my ticket to a smiling girl, and throw my bag into the aisle along with everyone else’s. There’s one seat left, in the corner of the back row, but just as I’m clambering over the pile of luggage to reach it the driver decides he can’t wait a moment longer and floors it into the traffic like Lewis Hamilton exiting the pits. With a surprised yelp I go flying. My arms flail wildly for a seat, shoulder, clump of hair, anything to stop me barrelling straight into the tanned, blond, undeniably handsome man in the middle of the back row. But it’s no use. In a move that would make the captain of the English rugby team proud, I torpedo directly towards him and land on my stomach at his feet, my face hard up against his legs, my lips practically kissing his ankles. Mortified. Completely mortified. After what seems like a year of silence, I hear a delicious American accent.

  ‘Hi there,’ he says. ‘You seem to have fallen at my feet.’

  Cringing, I slowly lift my head and find I’m staring into the most beautiful pair of smiling blue eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumble as I untangle myself from his legs and slide sheepishly into the seat next to him. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘Forget about it. You’ll get used to the driving,’ he laughs. ‘Let’s just say the Vietnamese are pretty enthusiastic about it.’

  Feeling I should try to be a little bit adult about the situation, I extend my hand.

  ‘I’m Jane,’ I say.

  ‘Toby,’ he says. ‘Nice to meet you, Jane.’

  An hour later, I look up to find Toby and I are the last ones left on the bus. We’ve been chatting non-stop since we left the airport and I have completely failed to do any sightseeing whatsoever. I could still be in London for all I know. I have, however, learnt that Toby has just finished law school in Boston and is spending a year travelling before he joins a big firm. I’ve also learnt that he has a ready laugh, an adorable splatter of freckles across his nose, and that he thinks I’m ‘hilarious.’ I’m yet to determine whether he means hilarious as in ‘amusing and fun to be around’, or hilarious as in ‘mad as a sack full of frogs’ and ‘stay the hell away’. From the way he keeps flashing that Hyannis Port smile at me, it might be the former.

  The bus pulls up outside a small hotel with a ripped awning and a tatty bit of paper stuck to the window: ‘Hanoi Heaven 2 Hotel. Rooms available.’ This must be where Toby is staying, because I’m pretty sure that’s not the name of my hotel. But before I can ask him, the driver slides open the van door, grabs my rucksack and takes off into the lobby. ‘Is this me?’ I call out, but he keeps walking.

  This can’t be my hotel. In the pictures on the website my hotel in the Old Quarter had pink walls and colourful lanterns hanging over the door. I clamber over Toby, again, and dash into the lobby. ‘Ah sir, excuse me,’ I say to the driver, ‘I don’t think th
is is my hotel.’ But he mustn’t understand because he throws my rucksack on the floor and starts running back to the van. I start after him. ‘Sir, not my hotel! I am staying at… different hotel!’ Shit, what was it called?

  While I’m rummaging around in my bag for mum’s itinerary, the hotel clerk steps out from behind the desk and picks up my rucksack.

  ‘Your booking okay miss, we have your room ready,’ he says with a smile that could charm the birds back into the trees.

  At that moment Toby appears at the door. ‘The van has gone. I didn’t want to leave you here by yourself so I jumped off.’

  Alright, deep breaths, I tell myself. Be cool. You are a world traveller now. You can take this sort of hiccup in your stride.

  ‘What?’ I scream. ‘Where has it gone? This isn’t my hotel!’ My voice rings round the tiled lobby like a garroted parrot’s.

  Finally it dawns on me that the driver must get some kind of kickback for bringing foreigners here. I wouldn’t care, if I hadn’t already paid to stay somewhere else. Maybe when I booked my ‘door to door’ transfer I wasn’t specific enough about which door. I wrench my bag out of the clerk’s hands and head for the street, Toby following.

  ‘Right, we’ve got maps, haven’t we?’ he says. ‘Let’s just find your hotel and walk there.’

  ‘Yes, good plan. I have a map of the Old Quarter.’ I’m hoping we are in the Old Quarter. ‘I’m sure the hotel isn’t more than ten minutes away.’

  We launch ourselves into the street, still seething with people even though it’s after 9pm. Tiny old women trot beside us carrying huge wooden rods across their shoulders, like weighing scales, that dangle baskets of vivid red chillies and papery shallots. As we pass a night market, the scent of coriander and incense fills the air and we step over piles of herbs stacked on newspaper on the ground. A woman crouching over a bubbling stock pot drops in a handful of chopped onions, then picks up a cleaver and turns to two live chickens tied up beside her. At a pavement barbershop, chipped mirrors dangle from the trees, and young guys get their Saturday night shave by gaslight.