‘One bed, yes?’
‘Yes.’ She rummaged in her bag, conscious of his eyes on her. ‘Five euro?’
‘Si.’
She paid him and took the ticket he tore from his book. When he’d gone she shoved her bag under her towel and strode to the sea, needing to cool her burning face, to calm her rapidly beating heart. She waded out past the paddling children, past the other swimmers, until the water lapped at her neck. She ducked her head underneath, hearing the soft roar of the sea, seeing her ghost-white feet planted on the sand.
She flipped onto her back and stretched out, eyes closed, sounds muffled by the water pounding in her ears. He wasn’t there, it was his day off. Tomorrow they would meet. She’d waited this long, one more day was nothing.
But the following day he wasn’t there either. Her heart sank at the sight of the same older man patrolling between the sunbeds. Could she have been unlucky enough to choose the very week he was on holidays too? She lay despondent for most of the day, her book open but ignored, her only plan to keep returning each morning and hope that he showed up.
The days passed with no sign of him. She followed the routine she’d set at the start: breakfast at the little café, the beach till mid afternoon, another hour whiled away with a small glass of blessedly cold beer in the same café. A trip to the mini market before returning to the hotel, a shower and then a bottle of Prosecco drunk slowly on the sunset-drenched balcony. Her head swimming as she assembled her meal, heavy sleep coming quickly afterwards, little memory in the morning of getting into her nightdress.
She spoke to nobody apart from the café owner and the cheerful young girl who swept and mopped the hotel corridor each morning. The man in charge of the sunbeds was polite but distant, no interest in the woman who turned up alone every day.
Her highlights turned yellow in the sun. Her skin grew pink and freckled, despite her vigilant application of sun cream. In the evenings she would stand in front of the full-length mirror and peel off her damp bikini and regard the white shapes it left behind on her body. She would step under the shower and imagine his hands on her again, she would try to recollect the thrill of his warm touch.
The second week began. He didn’t return. With ten days of her holiday gone she summoned her courage and asked the other man about him.
‘Giovanni?’ He pursed his lips, shook his head slowly. ‘I do not know this man, signora. I no see him.’
‘He was here last year,’ she said, but he shrugged and walked off.
That evening she wept on the balcony as she drank her Prosecco. She cried for her gullibility and her foolish hopes and her shattered useless dreams. For the rest of her holiday she avoided the beach and lay on a sunbed she didn’t have to pay for by the hotel pool.
‘You caught the sun,’ her mother said disapprovingly when she got home. ‘Are you not afraid of skin cancer? And what happened to your hair?’
Patrick didn’t seem particularly pleased to see her. She wondered why she’d got a cat in the first place. It wasn’t as if they’d ever bonded.
At the weekend she returned her novels to the library.
‘You got the sun in Italy,’ the librarian said. ‘It’s done you good.’
She looked at him properly for the first time. He was older than her, she thought around fifty. He wore glasses and his greying hair was receding.
He was always friendly when he spoke to her. His eyes were kind. He had a gentle face, and a lovely warm smile.
‘I’m going off duty in half an hour,’ he told her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me buy you a coffee, would you?’
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He had access to her address. If he wanted to post anything to her, say a Valentine card, he’d know where to send it.
He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d make love to someone and then turn his back on them. He didn’t strike her as the sort of man who’d break anyone’s heart.
‘Coffee would be nice,’ she said.
About the Author
Despite having lived in Africa, London, Canada and San Francisco, Roisin Meaney is Irish through and through. In 1977 she entered a competition on the back of a cereal box and won a car. In 2001 she entered a ‘write a bestseller’ competition and won a two-book publishing deal. Since then she’s had nine adult novels and two children’s books published, and she’s made the Irish top five fiction list three times (with one number one). Her books have been translated into several languages and two have been published in the US and Canada. She currently lives with a cat in the west of Ireland. In her spare time she tells stories to tiny tots in her local library, and she occasionally enjoys a Guinness. Roisin's latest novel is called SOMETHING IN COMMON.
Website: www.roisinmeaney.com
Twitter: @roisinmeaney
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ESCAPE TO RUNAWAY BAY
***
Kiri Mills
Destination: Jamaica
There is something about airports that makes me nervous. Everything, until I am actually sat on the plane and on my way, makes me want to convince each member of staff that I am not a criminal of any kind. I feel the need to explain my bad hair day on my passport picture and show my boarding pass to the lady in duty free even though she has only asked if I need any help.
Today I feel more nervous than normal; there is an extra fizz in my belly telling me ‘This is it!’.
Almost five years to the day, we are on our way back to Jamaica. The island where everything is ‘irie’ even when everything is clearly not ‘irie’. It’s very re-assuring to hear a Jamaican person say that and it never fails to make me smile.
We are on our way to start a new life and open our dream business – a small beach bar on the sandy Caribbean shores. The plan is to spend the first week as tourists and then attempt to become business-owning locals.
We are ready for this. I think.
After we have shown our boarding passes one final time, we are seated on the plane and I turn and look at Patrick. He smiles and I feel myself relax into my seat. With a tight squeeze of my hand, he puts in his headphones and closes his eyes. He hates flying but would never admit it. He is very much a macho man (and bloody gorgeous, did I tell you that already?).
After what seems like an eternity, the Captain announces that we are making our descent into Sangster International Airport, or Montego Bay as it’s more commonly known. He tells us to expect a small amount of ‘liquid sunshine’. The first time a local dismissed the torrential downpour this way I wanted to kick him in the shin but, trust me, after a couple days in Jamaica you won’t mind the showers. They seem to last no longer than five minutes and next thing you know, the sun has got his hat on (hip, hip, hip hooray!).
‘Oh my god! We are here! This is it! No going back!’ I trill at Patrick. He just smiles and gives me the calm-down-dear look. But he looks happy too.
On the coach transfer to our hotel it strikes me all over again just how beautiful this place is. On one side is the water, every shade of green and blue, and on the other are hills and mountains covered in thick greenery. It is difficult to ignore the extreme poverty at the roadsides, some people living in what can only be described as tin cans. Having said this, everyone looks to be happy. There are half-built houses all the way along; I never really found out much about them. It seems as though the owners/builders had plans for great decadence and then just stopped. Lack of money or lack of interest? Either way it does seem a shame.
Our destination is Runaway Bay. And I don’t mean the name of a hotel either. I mean in the same way you or I would say, ‘I come from London’, they say ‘I come from Runaway Bay’. That’s how I first chose this place as a holiday destination – based on the name alone.
The bay itself is quite small but the sand is so clean and soft and white. One of the things I adore is how you can see that gorgeous sand through the crystal clear water. In fact I would say it was mum’s-secret-vinegar-and-lemon-glass-cleaner clear. That clear. Without the funky smell, of course.
The hotel staff are eagerly awaiting us with glasses of freshly squeezed pineapple juice – there is truly no other way to drink it. Unless you add vodka. Obviously. James, one of the old-timers, greets me with his familiar sad old smile. He is possibly the oldest bell boy in the world and yet still remembers the name of every returning guest and which football team they support. His smile seems slightly sadder than normal today but I don’t question it. I give him a friendly wave and tell Patrick to get a move on.
Before I know it, we are in our beach hut next to the sea and crashed out on the bed. The excitement and anticipation of the last few days has finally caught up with us and we sleep straight through to the next morning.
When I wake, I jump out of bed with a rush of excitement, open the front door of our hut and find that Storm, our housekeeper, has already folded and rolled fluffy white towels into the shape of swans and laid freshly cut bright pink hibiscus flowers in front of our door. I see her across the way in another hut and she waves. I will catch up with her later – right now I am starving.
I say starving, but I am still not sure I can handle curried goat for breakfast. I opt for buttered toast and the glorious taste of freshly brewed Blue Mountain coffee. Every time I take a sip I say in my head, ‘This is not just any coffee, this is Blue Mountain coffee’ – one of the most sought after, expensive coffees in the world.
I sit looking out to sea and let my mind empty completely. I must have been there for over an hour before I realise Patrick has joined me. He has a lazy smile on his face and gestures for me to follow him. I know where we are going. We do the same thing every time we come here.
First day is always a trip to Dunn’s River Falls. You begin at the seafront, watching the bubbling waterfall blend into the calmness of the sea – it’s just mesmerising. On our first visit, we joined one of the tour groups where you are instructed to hold hands in a line and make your way up to the middle of the falls through a whole series of cascades. The guide then invites the tourists to slide down the rocks into pools of sparkling, cold water. And it is cold! All the while this is being filmed, every laugh, scream and kiss captured forever for you to buy at the end. Normally I wouldn’t go for this type of souvenir but it is near impossible to take your own pictures without serious water damage to your camera, as we found on our first visit.
But today, Patrick and I have opted out of the tour and instead spend the day lazing on the beach and making our own way up the falls. It’s so much more fun when you can take your time and really take in the surroundings. Afterwards we take a taxi back to the hotel as we have a meeting.
Did I mention that we are getting married tomorrow? After ten long years I am going to become Mrs Jacobs, and we are getting wed here at the hotel. A small ceremony, nothing over the top, I don’t even have a dress – white swimwear and diamonds is our dress code! We are meeting with the hotel staff to finalise food and music, although I have already decided on both: jerk chicken and pulled pork dishes for the main meal to be shared with all hotel staff and guests, many of which have become like family to us. Music-wise I know it’s going to be a Bob Marley fest but the one song I insisted had to be our first dance is Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’.
At six in the evening, Patrick and I are sat on the quiet jetty bar waiting for Jerome to come and discuss the wedding with us. We sit and sip cocktails in comfortable silence but by seven o’clock he still hasn’t arrived. It doesn’t bother me too much as I know Jamaicans are famous for their laid-back attitude and I have every confidence the day will be perfect.
Seven-thirty arrives and it becomes clear that Jerome is a complete no-show. Then I remember we have another trip planned this evening, which totally slipped my mind.
Glistening Waters is a lagoon in Falmouth that really doesn’t look anything special in the daylight but by night it’s amazing. Without going into the science too much, there are microscopic animals in the water called, well, I can’t remember the proper name but Patrick and I nicknamed them ‘dino-fling-flangs’. It’s similar, honest. When the water is disturbed they glow.
It’s very quiet tonight and we are lucky enough to have the boat to ourselves. I remember the first time we came I was massively disappointed – where was the infamous glow? – but now I know you have to be patient. The boat travels out around fifty meters or so and stops. The captain takes a bucket and scoops up some water. When he whisks it with his hand they appear – tiny flecks of green and blue light, like glitter shining…
Now it’s our turn – he invites us to dip our hands in the surrounding water. It is so dark and I can barely see my hand in front of my face but as my fingertips touch the water they appear to glow. Splashes of water look like magical sparks and I can see the silhouette of my hand, glowing in the black waters.
We can get in if we wish, but the captain tells us not to jump because it’s shallow. Patrick and I lower ourselves in and begin to swim; it’s strange to see the outline of our bodies in the dark water, leaving trails of light as you move.
We’ve switched to paddling now. As Patrick takes my hand I start to feel drops of rain landing on my face, and before I know it, it is pouring down. This has to be the best rainstorm I have ever been caught in. All around us we can see the raindrops hitting the water, causing tiny sparks of light followed by glowing ripples. It’s one of those moments when there are no words. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I have never witnessed this before and it’s stunning.
Returning to the hotel, we crash on the bed once again and fall asleep within minutes, knowing that tomorrow is the big day.
I awake bright and early to find that Patrick is gone. He must have gone to breakfast. I feel slightly nervous but I am happy and feeling refreshed. Ready for the first day of the rest of our lives. I glance through the blinds and see that last night’s rain has given everything a fresh sheen.
The rest of the morning passes quickly. I shower and dress in my crisp white bikini and tunic, all that’s needed is a slick of mascara and a dab of lip gloss and I am done. I sit on the bed and look at the clock. Half an hour to go. Patrick must have decided to get ready elsewhere – I knew he was superstitious about seeing me before the wedding.
I walk slowly and dreamily through the hotel gardens taking in the bold colours and the fruits growing in abundance. I make my way to where the ceremony is to take place – a small bandstand looking out towards the water.
Something is wrong. There are no flowers, no music, no guests and no Patrick waiting. I panic slightly trying to figure out if I have my days muddled. Have I got sunstroke? What is going on? I am meant to be getting married in five minutes! I know Jerome is laid back but this is ridiculous.
I stand in the middle of the bandstand alone, thankful I didn’t opt for the big white wedding dress. I feel hot tears burn my eyes and then I spot a blurry, familiar face.
‘Patrick!’ I call.
I blink and he is gone. Then I spot James, the oldest bell boy in the world. He still looks sad. He is walking towards me, no doubt about to tell me Patrick has changed his mind and I am not about to become Mrs Jacobs.
As he approaches, he reaches out his arms to me and I collapse into him and sob.
‘Jessie girl, you know he’s gone.’
It’s a statement that stabs through my chest.
‘I said, you know he moved on.’ He repeats.
‘What? Everyone knows?’ I accuse. How could everyone know this and not tell me?
‘Jessie girl, yes. Everyone knows Patrick died, what are you doing my girl?’
The emotions crash into me at a thousand miles per hour. I feel everything I know shatter, glisten and disappear like last night at the lagoon. I
had blocked this out for a month. I had refused to accept what happened and decided to carry on living out our dreams alone.
Patrick had died in a crash one month earlier. We were just weeks away from our new life and I was devastated. The only way I had coped so far was to pretend he was still here.
I sat in the bandstand with James and cried until the tears dried up. It must have been hours. The sun was beating down hard although we were in the shade I could feel the heat and my legs were numb.
James lifted my chin and smiled.
‘Now every ting is gonna be irie, Jessie girl. You hear me? So…I hear ya have a bar opening tonight? Are we on or not?’
I smiled reluctantly, ‘Yeah mon!’
The opening of Patrick’s at Runaway Bay was a huge success; everyone turned out to wish me well and I felt a huge weight lift. It was everything we hoped it would be. We drank Red Stripe beer and shots of firewater in honour of Patrick.
At the end of the night, the sky was twinkling with a million stars. Our amateur DJ cut the music and our song came on. I raised my glass to the sky and I’m sure the brightest star twinkled back as Aerosmith sang ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’.
I whispered, ‘You won’t. I love you.’
As the song came to an end, it was time for another Bob Marley classic. It’s a good job I like reggae; I’m going to be hearing it for a long, long time.
One Love.
About the Author
Kiri Mills was born in Northern Ireland but is currently based in North Yorkshire – sunny Catterick to be precise. She is a soap addict and stay-at-home mummy with two toddlers keeping her busy. Her husband, Garry, is in the British Army but soon to be crossing over to civilian life. Kiri has worked for the MoD on an IT Helpdesk and in a call centre. She will try anything once unless it involves jumping from any height. Kiri has not written for any magazines or had any books published but she did once win a Blue Peter Badge.
Sunlounger - the Ultimate Beach Read (Sunlounger Stories Book 1) Page 42