‘You’re very steef,’ the woman said. ‘Please relax.’
‘I’m trying,’ Leanne said. ‘How are you doing, Mads?’
‘It’s bloody murder,’ Maddy grunted, as her thighs were rubbed by strong hands. ‘But I’m sure this is the easy bit.’
‘Can’t wait for the bikini wax,’ Leanne muttered as she turned over.
‘Facials first,’ Claudia interrupted, sitting up when her massage was finished. ‘Then leg and bikini wax and then, if we have time, manicure and pedicure.’
‘I can cut my own toenails,’ Leanne offered. ‘Just give me a nail scissors and—'
‘Irina will see you now,’ the masseuse interrupted.
‘Uh, great,’ Leanne grunted and got off the massage table.
‘Through that door,’ the masseuse said. ‘And Tina will do your friend.’
‘Good luck,’ Maddy called after Leanne as she left.
‘Thanks,’ Leanne muttered as she entered the treatment room, where a tall brunette greeted her with a cheery ‘hello’ and invited her to take off her robe and lie down on the treatment table. ‘My name is Irina,’ she said, tucking a towel around Leanne’s torso, and giving her a headband. ‘Please put this on to keep your hair off your face.’
‘Are you from here?’ Leanne asked, trying to make conversation.
‘No. I’m from Russia. But please be quiet while I look at your skin,’ she said, shutting Leanne up. She turned off the overhead light when Leanne was lying down on the treatment table, switched on a spotlight and proceeded to examine her face. ‘What is this… stuff?’ Irina asked, scraping at Leanne’s face with a spatula. ‘Some kind of self-tan?’
‘It’s a real suntan,’ Leanne said, feeling like she had just confessed to a deadly sin. ‘I spend a lot of time outdoors, swimming and walking and so on.’
‘A suntan?’ Irina exclaimed with a shudder. ‘Have you never heard of sunblock?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Leanne replied. ‘I do put it on but, well, it could be that it comes off with sweat and water.’
‘Uh, okay,’ Irina mumbled. ‘You seem to have quite sallow skin, despite your fair hair. This is very strange.’
Leanne was tempted to joke that she was an alien from outer space but, being slightly nervous of Russians wielding spatulas, she changed her mind. ‘I’m half Scandinavian,’ she said instead. ‘Scandinavians usually have quite dark skin despite their fair hair.’
Irina was not impressed. ‘Scandinavian?’ she said as if it was an affliction. ‘That explains your colouring.’ She studied Leanne’s face again. ‘I’m going to peel off the dead skin,’ she announced, ‘and then I will put on a hydrating mask and apply a very strong Vitamin C lotion that will boost your cell renewal. That’s all the skin treatment we have time for today. Then I’m afraid we’ll have to do a little waxing.’
‘Okay,’ Leanne said, squeezing her eyes shut. ‘Go for it.’
What followed was an excruciating half hour of peeling and squeezing, which Leanne endured, somehow managing not to scream. The waxing was a different matter, however. Leanne couldn’t help letting out a few yelps and moans as the hair was mercilessly yanked off. But after the suffering came the reward; the hydrating mask on her face that smelled of lavender and a soothing, cooling lotion on her bikini line. Then Irina dimmed the lights, played some classical music, covered Leanne with a soft blanket and left the room, telling her to relax for twenty minutes.
The moment the door closed, Leanne felt her body slump in a kind of after-shock. Not exactly falling asleep, she went into some kind of meditation mode, breathing in the scent of lavender while her mind drifted, feeling as if she was floating, reliving everything that had happened during the past crazy month. Winning the lottery. Her friendship with Maddy. Reuniting with her father. Meeting Carlo and that instant attraction, but most importantly, the discovery of her talent for writing. This, she realised, she wanted to develop into something more permanent – a whole new career, perhaps.
As the last notes of the Nocturne by Chopin faded away, she slowly woke up from her trance, feeling not only physically cleansed but mentally spring-cleaned, ready to start afresh.
When Irina returned and finished off the treatment, Leanne got off the table, ready to head out and face the world again.
‘Don’t forget to exfoliate regularly,’ Irina ordered, as Leanne walked out, her face glowing and her spirits soaring.
‘Promise,’ Leanne said, feeling suddenly very fond of this woman. She met Maddy in the changing room and beamed at her. ‘Fabulous, wasn’t it?’
‘Incredible,’ Maddy said. ‘I feel reborn.’
‘Would you do it again?’ Leanne asked.
‘You mean will I spend what it would cost to have dinner in an expensive restaurant scraping dead skin off my face? And have my hair ripped off delicate parts of my body? Definitely.’
‘Me too. It’s totally addictive.’ Leanne looked around the changing room. ‘But where’s Claudia? Her clothes are gone too.’
‘That’s strange. She must have left early? Let’s go back and pop into that cute shop on the way,’ Maddy suggested. ‘We might find some stuff for the cruise.’
They walked slowly back, popping into the boutique on the way, where they browsed the summer collections. The shop was stocked with designer clothes and they succeeded in buying a lovely cotton sarong for Maddy, two swimsuits and two ankle length linen dresses, one deep blue and the other one a shocking pink for Leanne. On an impulse, Maddy added a gorgeous handbag she couldn’t resist to the pile. As they paid the bill, Maddy declared them ready to depart for the cruise.
Packing only the essentials and leaving the rest in Lucilla’s apartment, they gave Bridget a final walk in a little park nearby, before joining the others in the courtyard to pile into Lucilla’s battered people carrier.
‘Dalmatia, here we come!’ Leanne exclaimed as she got into the back seat beside Maddy.
‘Can’t wait,’ Maddy laughed, pulling a new guide book from the Gucci handbag she had bought earlier as part of her new plan to spend a lot of money before Tom could get his hands on it. ‘Just look at all there is to see and do.’
Tony started the car. ‘All aboard?’
‘Yes,’ Lucilla said from the seat at the very rear. ‘I’m a little squashed here, but I will be looking after Bridget. Everyone’s here and we have all our luggage.’
‘Let’s go!’ Claudia suddenly shouted, making everyone jump.
‘Okay,’ Tony said and drove the car slowly through the entrance gates. ‘No need to shout. We’re off.’
Leanne glanced at Claudia, whose eyes were hidden behind her huge sunglasses. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ she whispered in Maddy’s ear. ‘She looks frightened.’
‘By what?’ Maddy whispered back. ‘Maybe she didn’t get a chance to have a bikini wax?’
Leanne giggled. But when she looked at Claudia again, she felt there was more to it than a furry bikini line…
Eleven
The Ancona to Split ferry ride took a gruelling nine hours in a huge, noisy vessel packed with tourists. All the cabins were fully booked, so they had to find seats wherever they could. Claudia, still wearing her huge sunglasses and her hair wrapped in a colourful silk scarf, sat at one of the tables staring glumly out the window. She nibbled on a ham sandwich Tony had bought for her, muttering about standards and quality and how they should have gone by plane instead of this ‘gypsy’ way of travelling. She waved away Lucilla’s explanations that they had decided on the cruise too late to find seats on any of the flights. ‘Bad planning,’ she muttered, glaring at a family with two screaming children at the opposite side of the table. ‘I’ve never had to travel like this before.’
‘Maybe it’s time you saw how the other half live,’ Tony suggested.
‘Why?’ Claudia asked. She sighed and finished the sandwich despite it being ‘packed with carbs’ and did her best to drink beer straight out of the bottle, before failing and asking for a gl
ass. Then she leant back, announcing she was going to sleep and asking them to wake her up when they docked. Maddy and Leanne left her with Tony, and with Bridget in Maddy’s arms, went to find somewhere to sit. After climbing the stairs to the less crowded upper deck, they managed to buy sandwiches and water and found two free window seats opposite each other. Maddy fell asleep at once while Leanne stayed awake, taking Bridget, who curled up in her lap and drifted off.
A voice startled her. ‘You found a good place,’ Tony said, handing her a paper cup. ‘I got some tea for you both.’
Leanne took the cup. ‘Thanks. But Maddy’s asleep. I doubt she’ll wake up.’
Tony reached over and patted Bridget on the head. ‘Here’s another one fast asleep.’
Leanne smiled. ‘Yes. She trotted around for a bit and got a lot of attention from all the children, but then she got tired. She’s behaved beautifully, considering how unsettling it must be for her not to have a proper home.’
‘Yes, but she seems to love you both. She’s happy to be wherever you are. That’s the way it is with dogs.’
‘I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I’ve had one.’
Tony placed the other paper cup on the table and sat down on the edge of the bench beside Leanne, who moved closer to the window to give him more room. ‘You never had a dog?’
‘Never had as much as a budgie. My mam didn’t like animals in the house.’
‘Oh, that’s a pity. My parents thought it was good for kids to have a pet to look after.’ He laughed. ‘Not that we did a lot of the looking after, though. It was mostly my mamma who took the dogs for walks and fed the gerbils and hamsters and other critters we insisted on having. They let us get whatever we wanted, within reason. Except for white mice after mine escaped and ended up inside the sleeve of her dressing gown, giving her a fright early one morning. Her screams would have woken the dead.’ Tony laughed at the memory.
‘You were very lucky. Sounds like you had a very happy childhood.’
‘Mostly yes. Normal I suppose. I have a sister and a younger brother who’s studying medicine in Dublin.’
‘Like you.’
‘Sort of. But he has no wish to go to third world countries like I did.’
Leanne turned and stared at him. ‘Third world countries? Where did you go?’
‘Africa.’ His eyes darkened. ‘It was… hard.’
‘I can imagine. Do you want to talk about it?’
‘You wouldn’t enjoy it. Not a very pleasant subject to bring up on a summer holiday.’ He got up. ‘I’d better check on Claudia. Being up close and personal with members of the public is traumatic for her. I’d better make sure she doesn’t have a nervous breakdown if she has to queue to go to the loo or something. I just came to see if you were all right. Lucilla said to tell you she has booked a minivan at the harbour so we can get to the hotel quickly.’
‘Oh. Great. I saw she got a seat on the lower deck.’
‘Yes. And Carlo is crammed in with a bunch of soccer players from Belgrade. They’re still discussing some match or other. Not really my bag, but he seems happy.’
‘I was wondering where he’d got to,’ Leanne said, slightly miffed he hadn’t been the slightest concerned about her. Unlike Tony, who had been checking on them.
Tony touched her shoulder. ‘I’d love to stay and discuss the meaning of life with you, but there’s plenty of time for that. See you later. Try to sleep if you can.’
‘I will. Thanks for the tea.’ She drank the tepid liquid when he left, watching him push through the throng and disappear down the stairs to the lower deck. What a decent man. Why couldn’t she fall for someone like him? But he was too nice, and he didn’t have Carlo’s film star looks or sex appeal. Not her type, but a good man all the same.
Love, she thought, as she sat on a hard seat, staring out over the starlit Adriatic. What is love, really? She had never quite understood it, or experienced it. The ‘I love yous’ in movies and on TV didn’t seem to fit her idea of what love was all about. Having grown up in a dysfunctional family, with her father leaving when she was only twelve, there hadn’t been much love or affection in her life during her teenage years. Her mother, suddenly abandoned and raising a child on her own, had been affectionate from time and time and seemed to try her best, but without much conviction. She had mostly tried to make Leanne understand that she had to be strong and independent, to manage on her own, and to never, ever trust men. There had always been her mother’s hand in the small of her back, pushing her forward, urging her to perform well, to be the best at everything. As a result, Leanne had been at the top of her class in all subjects, the president of the students’ union and the captain of both the swimming team and the girls’ hockey team, and just for the hell of it, the editor of the school magazine. And when she became head girl, her mother’s eyes were bright with pride. Not that Leanne had worked hard to achieve those things for her own sake, but simply to earn her mother’s love. Because love had to be earned, Leanne had learned at an early age.
As she grew into a young woman and ventured out into life she still felt that hand in the small of her back, pushing her forward, those disapproving eyes on her as she came home from parties and the odd date. Had she done her best? Had she been strong and independent? Had she resisted men’s advances? those eyes seemed to silently ask. She pretended and avoided and lied her way through her late teens and early twenties, only to finally try her best to do the exact opposite to what her mother wanted, hoping she’d be asked to move out of the house they shared – because she felt too guilty to leave her mum of her own accord. So Leanne changed her look and suddenly bristled with piercings, cut her hair short, swore like a trooper and stayed out until the early hours. But it was no use. Her mother, although visibly shocked by this new Leanne, clung to her, growing needier than ever and using emotional blackmail. That, combined with the rising property prices in Dublin, made it impossible for Leanne to get her own place. But now, with all the money she had won in the lottery and her recent reunion with her father, things were slowly shifting in her life.
But men… Leanne sighed. That was a different story. Her edgy looks had attracted attention both at college and in her professional life. She’d been flirted with, harassed, asked out on dates, all of which she’d handled with a cool confidence that hid her inner fears and doubts, planted by her mother. Plus, her father’s sudden departure was her first experience of rejection, a hurt that never healed. Nobody was going to do that to her ever again.
Her relationships had always been brief, usually ending with Leanne walking out as soon as she noticed his focus on her drifting away. It could be anything; a glance at a phone during a conversation, looking over her shoulder at another woman in a restaurant. Little things she had learned were the first signs of him wanting to break free. Better to end it before he does, she thought, always trying to prevent rejection, unable to bear any more hurt. So she always broke it off, time and time again.
She had never dared to truly love someone. In her mind, giving her heart away was the worst thing a woman could do, her mother being a prime example. In order to beat men at their own game, she learned to act like one, taking, rather than giving, having fun for as long as it lasted and often leaving heartbroken men in her wake. But… Leanne sighed. It also left her sad and lonely. And her friends beginning to drift into permanent relationships and getting engaged and married contributed to her feelings of loneliness and being left out. Not that she yearned for a big wedding or wanted to flaunt a big engagement ring on her finger, she just wanted someone to love her enough to want to commit.
Assumpta and her husband suddenly popped into Leanne’s thoughts. She wondered if Assumpta knew that true love was not about a fancy wedding or a honeymoon in the Bahamas. It was rushing to a supermarket in a foreign country to buy prunes. One day, Leanne thought, she’d find someone who would truly love her, and stay with her for the rest of her life. And buy her prunes if she needed them. But so far she ha
dn’t been that lucky. Until she met Carlo.
There was so much about him that appealed to her. His sweet expression and his liquid green eyes had pierced a tiny hole in her cast-iron heart. And when he’d said he wanted to help that young couple get started with their business, she’d seen a kind, considerate side to him. That, combined with his divine good looks and the way he actually seemed to like her and listened to what she had to say made him all the more attractive. Once they started working together they would get closer and closer. After all, love had to be earned, and she was going to work hard to earn it this time.
* * *
They arrived long after midnight, following a bumpy ride in a rickety minivan from the ferry port in Split, and so they didn’t see Trogir until the following morning. But when Leanne stepped out onto the terrace of the hotel, she was immediately struck by the charm and beauty of the little town. She put on her sunglasses and stood there, mesmerised by the view of the ancient buildings with their red roofs and the glittering Adriatic Sea beyond. ‘Wow,’ she breathed.
‘Beautiful, no?’ Carlo said beside her.
‘Stunning,’ Leanne whispered. ‘I know Italy is lovely, but this—’
‘I know. So special. I’ve never been here before. I didn’t know it was like this. The colours and the air…’ He sniffed. ‘It smells of the sea.’
‘I can smell seashells and seaweed. And breakfast,’ Leanne added with a laugh. ‘Freshly baked bread, peaches and apricots, some kind of pastry – and coffee.’
‘Looks like you’re right.’ He laughed and took her by the arm. ‘There’s a table over there – I booked it for all of us. Let’s go and eat.’
‘Good idea,’ Leanne agreed, and let him lead her to a table set for six under two huge umbrellas, shading them. He pulled out a chair and she sat down, squinting up at him. ‘Thank you.’
‘Prego,’ he said and sat down opposite her. He dabbed at his forehead with the paper napkin. ‘It’s very warm this morning.’
A Holiday to Remember: An absolutely hilarious romantic comedy set under the Italian sun Page 9