The Vacation

by T. M. Logan

  Izzy walked over and set out her towel on the rock next to mine. She lay down, propping herself on her elbows, face to the sun. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, gentle.

  “So, Kate. Are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “I’ve hardly seen you crack a smile once since I got here. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just a bit preoccupied, that’s all.”

  “You can’t fool me, woman. Half the time it’s like you’re not even there, you’re away with the fairies somewhere.” She paused. “It’s Lucy, is it?”

  “I feel like she’s having a tough time of it at the moment.”

  Izzy shrugged. “She’s at a difficult age. Boys and hormones and exams and bitchy friends—can’t be easy.”

  “What were you like at sixteen?”

  “Me?” She smiled. “I was awful. A nightmare. Me and my dad used to fall out on a daily basis. He’d threaten to take my bedroom door off if I didn’t do as I was told, but I still wouldn’t. One day I came home from school and it was gone, hinges and all. Weeks and weeks I went, with my brother peering in every time he walked past my bedroom, helping himself to my stuff if I wasn’t there.”

  “You’d calmed down a bit by the time you went to uni, then?”

  “Mark used to say I had the temper of an Italian housewife. In a good way.” Her smile faded and I could see echoes of the pain that was normally hidden, but which had never really left. Not completely. “It’s fifteen years ago this year, you know?”

  Despite the heat of the morning, I felt a cold wave wash over me, a chill of grief and guilt. Sudden memories of a life cut short. Mention of the name was a sudden gearchange I was not prepared for, a lurch into the past that I had built a wall around in the years since.

  “Since the accident?” I said.

  The accident. Not since it happened, or since he died. Definitely not since your fiancé was killed.

  The accident.

  “I still think about him sometimes, you know,” Izzy said. “Weird things, like how he’d have three sugars in his tea, or his weird obsession with Al Pacino. The silly catchphrases he’d come out with. He’d have loved it here. This place.”

  Words bubbled up in my throat, words that would always be inadequate. If it hadn’t been for me, Izzy might well have been sitting here with Mark by her side, maybe a couple of kids, too. Maybe a girl and a boy, like mine, splashing in the rock pool. Her life could have taken a very different course.

  Their wedding had been just a week away. Plans made for the future. An apartment together.

  If it hadn’t been for me.

  That night, fifteen years ago. The night Mark was killed. A funeral instead of a wedding.

  Justice never done.

  In the days and weeks that followed, I would try to remember that night, Izzy’s bachelorette party, the sequence of events that led up to what happened. I could remember the meal, having a few drinks and being happily merry—but not out of control, not falling-down drunk. I could remember walking into the nightclub, some random guy insisting on buying me a glass of champagne at the bar. And after that, nothing. A blank. A dark hole in my memory. It was only much later that I learned that champagne was a popular choice for spiked drinks because the bubbles helped to disguise any aftertaste.

  I didn’t remember the other three walking me out of the club, or being so calamitously sick that no taxi driver would take me.

  I didn’t remember Izzy texting her fiancé, Mark, asking him to drive into town to pick the four of us up instead.

  I didn’t see Mark arriving, parking across the street, waving and smiling as he crossed the road.

  I didn’t see the car hit him and leave him dying on the tarmac.

  But I vividly remembered Izzy’s withdrawal from everything afterward, locking herself away from friends and family. Selling the apartment, quitting her job, a flight to the other side of the world. A life of traveling and teaching that she’d been leading ever since. Over the years she had grown tougher and more resilient than ever, more self-sufficient than any of us.

  The emotions I had been holding at bay for the last few weeks surged to the surface and suddenly I was on the point of crying. Which was ridiculous, considering Mark had been her fiancé, not mine. But I couldn’t stop them.

  “I’m sorry, Izzy.” I swallowed, my voice cracking. “For everything, for making Mark come into town that night to—”

  “Shush yourself,” she said, putting her hand over mine. “That’s in the past. Everything that needs to be said has been said, a long time ago. You don’t have to apologize anymore.”

  Oh, but I do. I do.

  And maybe losing Sean is my penance.

  Maybe it’s revenge. Karma. Some kind of payback for what happened fifteen years ago.

  25

  “We’re not talking about that night,” Izzy said, forcing a smile, “we’re talking about you and Lucy.”

  I used a napkin to wipe a tear from the corner of my eye.

  “Lucy’s … oh, I don’t know. She doesn’t talk to me like she used to.”

  “She’s growing up.”

  “Too fast.”

  She took a drink from a bottle of water. “It’s more than that though, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  The urge to confide in her was rising, pulling at me like a riptide.

  But what if it’s Izzy? What if she’s the one? She’s already admitted there’s a new mystery man in her life.

  She looked at me for a long moment, seeming to weigh up her next words. Finally she gave me a sad little smile. “It’s not my place to say anything, and please tell me to shut up and mind my own business if you want to, but I’m a bit worried about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Is something going on with Sean?”

  My stomach dropped.

  “What?”

  “The thing that’s bothering you. Is it about him?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Seems like it’s a bit tense between the two of you. There’s kind of a weird atmosphere thing going on.”

  Is she just trying to get inside my head? Probing to find out how much I know? Or does she really want to help?

  I picked up a flask of coffee and poured myself half a cup. It was intensely strong but I was glad of the caffeine hit after two sleepless nights.

  She had known Sean longer than me, longer than any of us. Maybe she could help.

  “Not sure if I ever told you this,” I said. “But there was a woman, Zoe, I met at birthing classes when I was pregnant with Daniel. We stayed in touch after the kids were born and her husband was really lovely, charming, funny—he doted on them both. Absolutely no sign that anything was wrong, and then last year—boom—he left her for someone he’d met through work, totally out of the blue. She came home one day and he’d taken a car trunk full of his stuff and just left her a note. That was it.”

  “Did he come back?”

  “No. And it was only after it happened that she looked back over everything, properly looked, and saw that the signs had been there all along, for months. That he was preoccupied and secretive and making more effort with his appearance, going to the gym four times a week. All the usual giveaways. Zoe had just chosen to ignore them, pretend everything was OK. But it wasn’t.” I paused, shaking my head. “It feels as if the same thing is happening to me with Sean. And, just like her, maybe I’ve seen the signs too late.”

  Izzy looked me straight in the eyes. “I don’t think Sean would do something like that. Not him.”

  But I’ve seen the evidence. I’ve seen the messages. I know what he’s doing.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said in a small voice. “That’s what Zoe thought, too.”

  “I’ve known Sean since primary school, Kate, since we were five years old, and I can honestly tell you he’s the most straight-up-and-down bloke I’ve ever known.” She smiled and put her small hand over
mine. “He’s so honest it’s funny, sometimes. When we were in the same class at St. Jude’s, he used to admit to things he hadn’t even done, things he couldn’t have done. It’s one of the strange and wonderful things about your husband.”

  Tell her what you saw.

  But what if she’s the one?

  Just tell her.

  What have you got to lose?

  “There were messages, too,” I said.

  Izzy looked up sharply.

  “What? Where?”

  “On his phone.”

  She studied me for a moment, her smile fading.

  “You saw them?”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly did you see?”

  “I was only on his phone for a few seconds but there was a back and forth about how he couldn’t stop thinking about her, that he couldn’t go on lying to me, whether or not I suspected anything…”

  “What else?”

  “That they were going to figure out the next step together, in France. This week.”

  “And you don’t know who was sending the messages?”

  “No.”

  She sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers.

  “But, logically, it must be one of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Either Rowan or Jennifer?”

  “Yes.” Or you.

  “Right. OK.”

  I wanted to tell her what I’d found in Rowan’s bedside drawer, but sneaking around my friend’s bedroom sounded too crazy, even to me. I decided to hold it back for now.

  “Have you seen anything weird, with Sean and one of them?” I said instead. “Overheard anything? Picked up any vibes at all?”

  “Nope. Nothing.” She looked up the valley for a moment, gray peaks rising ragged and bare into the blue sky. “Although I suppose there is another possibility.”

  “Is there?”

  “That it’s neither of them.”

  I turned, slowly, to look at her. What was this? Was she about to confess, to come clean? Right here, now? Was this what everything had been leading up to?

  Working to keep my voice neutral, I said, “If not them, then who?”

  “Rowan and Jennifer aren’t the only ones,” she said carefully. “What about the boys?”

  “The boys?”

  “Russ and Alistair are here, too.”

  I blinked in surprise, my mouth opening slightly.

  What?

  “Russ and Alistair? But they’re not … Sean’s not … I mean they’re married. They’re not gay.”

  “The human heart is a strange old thing, Kate.”

  “The messages are from someone called CoralGirl, so I assumed that the sender was a woman.”

  “I’m playing devil’s advocate,” she said. “Trying to see it from every angle.”

  “Do you know what, Izz, that had actually never occurred to me.”

  She shrugged.

  “Just saying it’s a possibility, that’s all.”

  “Christ, I don’t think I’ve got the headspace for that just at the moment.”

  “Have you got anything else to go on, any other evidence?”

  I thought again about the multimillion-pound deal that depended on Rowan keeping the relationship a closely guarded secret. What I’d found in her bedside drawer. Russ’s drunken revelation on the balcony.

  I think Rowan is having an affair. Something’s going on. I’m bloody certain of it.

  “Nothing … conclusive.”

  “And did you ask him about it?”

  “I couldn’t, I didn’t want to. It was such a shock at the time and I’ve just been trying to work out what to do for the best.”

  “Oh, Kate.” She pulled me into a hug, rubbing my back. “You poor thing. You must be so upset.”

  I nodded, a painful lump in my throat. Willing myself not to cry again. Not again. “I’ve had better weeks. What do you think I should do?”

  “To put your mind at rest?”

  “So I’ll know one way or the other.”

  “I honestly don’t know, love. If it were me, I think I’d talk to Sean directly, face-to-face.”

  Daniel called up to me from the rock pool. “Mummy?”

  “Just a minute, love.”

  I turned back to Izzy, keeping my voice low. “But you still don’t think he did it?”

  “Sean’s not got it in him to lie like that.”

  “How can you know that, though? How can any of us really know?”

  She shrugged. “I just do.”

  I wanted to believe her, I really did. But one thought was bouncing around inside my head like a crazy firework.

  You would say that, wouldn’t you, Izzy? If you’re the other woman?

  26

  Russ

  Russ sneaked a look at his phone while his daughter counted up their scores, scanning a handful of work emails and taking a quick peek at the FTSE 100 and the Dow: nothing too startling in the markets today.

  Someone—some massive sadist—had included Hungry Hungry Hippos in the collection of board games at the villa. As every adult knew, Hungry Hungry Hippos was the loudest game ever invented, every round a frantic earsplitting forty seconds of BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG, with plastic smashing against plastic as the players tried to get their hippos to gobble up more balls than the opposition. The noise was like a machine gun, a pneumatic drill—it was like putting your head inside a steel bucket and having people hurl golf balls at it, especially the frantically competitive way that Odette played. Russ still had painful memories of games against his daughter at five thirty last Christmas morning, a truly catastrophic hangover making the noise sound as if someone had set off a string of firecrackers inside his skull.

  Still, Odette loved it, and that was the main thing.

  “I have nine balls and you have twelve,” she said sadly. “You win again, Daddy.”

  Russ didn’t believe in letting his daughter win at games. Rowan let her win. Rowan’s parents let her win. The bloody nanny always lets her win, at everything. But it wasn’t good for her, not at five years old: it took away her competitive edge, her drive to succeed. There was no real pleasure in being handed success on a plate; on the other hand, nothing tasted better than a hard-fought victory that you fully deserved.

  The downside of that, of course, was that she always wanted to carry on playing every game until she did win.

  “Play again?” she said.

  Stretched out full-length on the tiled floor of the games room, Russ sat up with a groan as his joints protested. He crossed his long legs underneath him.

  “Do you want Hippos again, or shall we look for something else?”

  “Hippos! Want Mummy to play as well.” She looked around the room. “Where is Mummy, anyway?”

  He looked at his watch. Where was Rowan? They were supposed to be doing things together on this vacation, the three of them. But she was missing in action, again, even though she’d promised to put her phone up in the bedroom and leave it switched off for a couple of hours. His suspicions had hardened since he’d confided in Kate the other night and it was even tougher to keep track of his wife here than it was at home. Something was definitely going on with her. She’d been increasingly secretive and elusive these past few weeks, and yes, the business deal with the Americans was massive, with a life-changing amount of money involved, but there was more than that. There was something else, he was sure of it.

  “Good question, Odette. I don’t know where she’s got to.” He leaned forward. “Hey, I’ve got an idea: how about we play some hide-and-seek?”

  Odette’s little face lit up. “Yay! Let me hide! Let me hide!”

  “Not yet, sweetie.”

  “But I want to go first!”

  “You can be next. Let’s say Mummy’s gone first and we have to find her. But we have to be superquiet so we can sneak up on her without her knowing.”

  Odette jumped up and down. “Yes!” she shouted. “Superquiet!”

  Russ put a finger
to his smiling lips.

  “Shh,” Odette agreed.

  “Do you want a piggy?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, holding her arms up.

  He turned and knelt down, lifting her up to give her a piggyback. She put her little arms over his shoulders and kissed the back of his neck. Russ felt a little rush of love, of pride, of paternal joy, and couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his face. Odette was so small, so light, she weighed almost nothing clamped onto his broad back.

  “I’m as tall as you now, Daddy,” she whispered.

  “You are, sweetie. Tall as a tree.”

  He walked up the stairs to the main living area, then the next flight up to their bedroom. No sign of Rowan. Back down to the kitchen, the balcony, the pool, and the garden. Still no joy. One of Jennifer’s lads—the surly, blond pretty boy—pointed him around the side of the villa and he followed the path through a gate into the front garden, looking across to the parking area and the tree-lined drive up to the main gate.

  There she was, leaning up against the rental car with her back to him. On her phone.

  Found you.

  “Shh,” Odette said, her breath hot in Russ’s ear.

  Russ nodded and moved off the gravel path, onto the grass. Quieter. He walked slowly and noiselessly across the lawn toward his wife.

  She still hadn’t heard him.

  Russ turned and winked at his daughter as he carried her on his back. She was grinning hugely, excited to take her mother by surprise: this was a good game. He crept a bit nearer, slowing down now, until he could just about make out her side of the conversation.

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Rowan said. “I’m asking you, I mean. I want to know what all the options are, when everything is supposed to happen.”

  He took another step toward her, straining to hear every word.

  “No,” she said forcefully, her back still to them. “No. Of course I haven’t told him.”

  She switched the phone from one hand to the other, tucking her dark auburn hair behind her ear.

  “I know that. I know! How do you think it makes me feel?” She paused for a moment, listening. “When the time’s right, I’ll tell him. When I’ve had enough time to make a decision that’s based on what I—”