As she walked away from the beach, her silver flip-flops hit the yellow paved path with a gritty crunch—like something out of
The Wizard of Oz
, she thought. And with each impacting step, her left big toe throbbed. The throb radiated from a patch of pink flesh she’d accidentally ignored during a lazy application of sunscreen, the afternoon before. She cursed. Sunburn was common. The kind of thing sported by overweight British tourists in Magaluf. She bet those Manhattan creatures—unknown rivals so alive in her imagi- nation that she could almost feel her fingers dip as they slid across the taut concavity of their Hampton-tanned tummies—never ap- peared at dinner, a
proposal
dinner, with a foot like a pig’s trotter. Damn it. But there was nothing she could do, not at this moment in time. She had stupidly forgotten to bring any after-sun lotion, assuming that she’d buy it at the resort—which of course she could do, but it required an annoying detour and a cart ride to the spa shop.
She kept on walking—throb, release, throb—as her foot hit the pavement and then arched forward through the air. A tiny orange bird,
picking at the path a few meters ahead of her, quickly flickered up in the palm above her head. A wave of pleasure overrode the throb. In contrast to London, where one never had time to think or notice any- thing, here she felt more attuned to her surroundings, especially the ground she walked on. This was partly because of the necessary vigi- lance needed to avoid creepy crawlies, partly because of the painful fo- cus of her toe, but also because she was calmer, thus more observant. She appreciated the care that the managers of the Blue Blossom had ev- idently taken with this path. On either side of it, the grass was as green and neatly trimmed as a Kent lawn. It wasn’t designed in a straight line, but meandered subtly on its way, curving carefully up to villa doors, but not close enough to infringe on the occupants’ privacy. It was well thought out. She liked that. She liked order. It was about time her relationship succumbed to its natural order, too.
Katy squinted at a pretty clump of foliage a few feet to the left of the path. Was that aloe? If only there was a facilitator or a guide- book handy. But, yes, it sure did look like the image on her de- odorant bottle, the same pointed chunky leaves, succulent with something. Feeling emboldened by the lift in her spirits caused by anticipation of
The Dinner
, Katy decided, rather uncharacteristi- cally, to investigate. Rearranging her rattan beach bag on her right shoulder, she intrepidly stepped off the paved path and walked cau- tiously across the crunchy lurid-green lawn to the copse of palms and flowers and the aloe lookalike. She wished that Seb could see her. How intriguing and beguiling she must look, as she tilted her jaw back to smell the huge pink flowers that hung off branches like bowls. Once Katy had finished picturing herself in a shampoo ad, she turned her attention to the stalks of the plant beneath the flow- ers. This was the aloe, surely? She could anoint her foot, perfectly organically. How Gaia. How eco-chic. What a brilliant idea.
Katy snapped the stalk. It required some effort, being so trunk- like and about three inches wide and almost as thick. Its skin was waxy; its edges sharp as a knife. She sniffed it. Hmmm, subtle. Her fingers tentatively touched the transparent glue that oozed from the wound. It was sticky and slid between her fingers. Giving the grass beneath her feet a quick once-over for killer ants, snakes, and scorpions, Katy tugged her sarong out of her bag, spread it on the ground like a picnic blanket, and sat down, her legs stretched straight out in front of her in a way that only thirty-five-year-olds who do yoga are capable of. She pulled the stalk apart further. The fibers broke with a sound like a splitting apple and it released its succulent milk. Katy dipped her fingers into this sensual substance, bent her left knee, and moved her fingers toward her hot, throb- bing foot.
jez decided to let
Stevie sleep. He wanted to get out of the villa, get some air, clear his head. He couldn’t help but feel a little put out that on their first married shag she hadn’t come—or even bothered to fake it. It wouldn’t have killed her. Still, no point pick- ing things over. He wasn’t someone who liked to overanalyze. Jez bent over the dark wood table and wrote a note on some pleasingly creamy Blue Blossom notepaper:
gone exploring, back in twenty, love you
. He sauntered out of the villa, his long crum- pled beige shorts exposing Anglo-Saxon legs gray and freckled as a trout’s underbelly.
Jez looked around, pupils shrinking to pencil points in the sun. The path seemed to lead in one direction toward the restaurants, pool, and spa house; the other toward the Blue Blossom’s famed private beach. Yes, he’d check out the beach. There must be some
decent bars. Jez flip-flopped forward, feeling pale and stocky in the heat and anxious that his white flip-flops were too effeminate. Nearer the beach, the yellow paved path forced him past a selection of prize villas, tantalizing as candy at a supermarket’s checkout. These villas were bigger and fancier than his honeymoon villa. This irritated him unduly.
A door slammed and a couple ambled out of a large—much larger than his—villa, hushing their voices as they passed, but ac- knowledging him with fleeting eye contact. The woman was some- thing else—all breasts and gleaming brown buttocks. But the man was paunchy, bald, and wearing loud flowery swim shorts. Money. He must have money, thought Jez, feeling an itch of dissatisfaction under his skin, a lust for something better, though it was hard to put his finger on what. He watched the back of the woman’s thighs scissor toward the spa house, then quickly re-angled his gaze, lest anyone see him and think him a perv. The path lay before him, empty, winding, its surface rising and falling in the severe after- noon heat as if gently breathing. He continued his heavy flip- flopping to the beach.
Suddenly, breaking the polite accompaniment of birdsong, Jez heard a nasal sound—a sound much like a broken sob, then an in- halation, then another sob. He looked around. Nothing. But what
was
that? It did sound very much like the sound of a woman crying. He hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with some kind of scene.
“Oh, no, oh . . .” could be heard coming from the other side of an exotic tangle of vivid pink flowers and foliage. “Oh, no.”
A lover’s tiff? Too much to drink? Seb wrestled with his con- science. No, better not to interfere. He continued his walk, wishing he could switch off like his dad used to switch off his hearing aid and absolve himself of responsibility. Then, to his relief, the
sobbing stopped. It was only once he was past the copse of trees that Jez dared look to his right, just to check, just to reassure him- self that it wasn’t a child or someone dying.
Oh.
One impossibly long and shapely leg, the color of milky tea, pro- truded from the leaves, strangely disembodied from its owner, like an amputated limb of a mannequin. He was relieved when he saw it twitch. He walked slower now, mesmerized by the leg, curious about its owner. The leg retracted and he heard the sound of some- one standing up and cursing. He looked away quickly and focused on the horizon. And then, sobs, more sobs. Shit.
The vision of leg fueling his curiosity, Jez strode toward the noise and peeked his head around the palms. Wow. A honey. “Is everything okay?” he asked, feeling a little shy in the presence of this astonishingly beautiful woman, her hair like gold in the sun, tears streaking beneath her large dark Jackie O. shades.
The siren looked up, quickly wiping the tears from her cheeks. She tried to smile. “I . . . I . . . Oh, God, look. Just
look
at my leg.”
Needing little encouragement, Jez looked at her leg. “No, this one.”
He switched his gaze to the left leg. Angry welts, shaped like red chiles, climbed from her toes up her calf. “Ouch. Are you okay? What happened?”
The woman sniffed, recalling her stupidity. “I . . . I . . . I thought this was aloe vera . . .” She pointed at a plant beside her. “I smeared its goo on my sunburn and . . . and . . .” The sight of her hideously deformed leg brought forth tears again.
“Ouch.” Jez wondered what constituted appropriate behavior in such a situation. “I’m sure it’ll clear up.”
This weak reassurance only upset the woman more. “Today, of all days . . .” she whimpered.
Jez realized a more alpha-male approach was needed. “Listen . . . firstly hi . . . I’m Jez.” He stuck out his hand.
“Katy,” she mumbled, ignoring the hand. “Does it hurt?”
“It stings terribly.”
“Okay, well the best course of action, I think . . .” Jez puffed his chest out, feeling like the handsome doctor on
Lost
, “is to get you home, well, to a villa, the nearest villa. Mine’s not far. Let’s get this leg washed. I’ll take a sample of the plant to the manager’s office, just to make sure it’s not deadly . . .”
Katy let out a yelp of horror.
Jez raised his hands in protest. “Which I am
sure
it is not. But worth checking in with the natives, isn’t it?”
Katy nodded gratefully, part of her beginning to enjoy the res- cue.
“Now, er, Kate? Sorry . . . Katy. Can you walk?” Katy started to hobble forward. “Bloody painful.”
Thankful he’d put in the work at the gym prior to his wedding, Jez offered an arm. “May I help?”
Not taking his arm as offered, Katy, rather forwardly, extended her slim brown arm over the roof of his shoulders. To counterbal- ance, he had no option but to put his other arm around her waist— which felt shockingly soft and naked, only the ridged hem of her bikini bottoms a reminder that she was wearing anything at all.
“Right, onward march, Katy,” he puffed.
Katy turned to face him. She was fine-featured: an impossibly teeny nose; a disconcertingly full, pink mouth; a clean jawline
up-lit by the shimmer that bounced off the two glorious orbs barely constrained by her bronze bikini top beneath. Strangely, she seemed familiar. He had a strong sense he’d met her before. But, no, he couldn’t have.
“Thanks. You’re very kind. I’m sorry about this . . .” Katy man- aged a weak smile. “Let’s just get somewhere so I can wash this bat- tery acid off.”
Flesh on flesh, linked closer than children in a three-legged race, Jez and Katy staggered slowly back to Jez’s villa, which was, it transpired, far closer than Katy’s.
Inside the villa, Stevie, dressed in nothing but her own insulat- ing layer of soft creamy flesh, was rubbing her eyes, waking up, disoriented and jetlagged, when the door opened with a soft click.
EIGHTEEN
Æ
sitting outside the spa, waiting for her massage,
Stevie still felt winded by the sight of Katy Norris. It had brought it all back in a stomach-squirming rush. Closing her eyes, tilting her face into the sunshine, Stevie could see it all happening as if it were yesterday. August, three years ago, Jade’s thirtieth birthday party at her parents’ farm outside Woodstock. The evening began with two overexcitable girls in red-sequined cocktail dresses, col- ored feathers in their hair, directing cars into a field. It ended as a chilly dawn broke over a chaotic rave, with smashed partygoers grinding their jaws and couples making out in the long, damp grass. Tired and reflective, she and Sam had moved away from the main crowd, sat down on a mossy fallen log, shared a spliff, and watched the sun drip raspberry-pink over the cornfields. For a fleet- ing second, she’d thought that there was no membrane between them—it was a moment of complete intimacy. Despite the fact she was knackered, she remembered feeling spectacularly beautiful, aware of the rosy spill of light on her face, the flush on her cheeks from a night spent outdoors. When Sam looked at her, she could
see
her
beauty in his eyes. And when he cupped her jaw in his soft brown hand, tilted her face up so that her eyes had to shut against the brightening dawn sun, her insides liquefied and a feeling of previously unimaginable happiness spread through her body like a drug. Instinctively, she’d opened her mouth and anticipated the kiss.
But the kiss never came. What did come was a mouthful of hair. Spluttering, she pulled the hair out of her mouth, opened her eyes to see a blond invader sitting on Sam’s knee, whipping her head around in the sunshine, folding her tanned limbs into his taut, rangy body; her face flushed; her pupils dilated. “Sorry, but I’ve been admiring this man
all
night,” she’d whispered breathily, curling her body into Sam’s, her mouth close to his ear. “Excuse me.” The girl was Katy. Sam didn’t brush her off straightaway. And Stevie wasn’t going to wait around to see if he did. She quickly made her excuses and left the party ten minutes later feeling sad and stupid.
She shook her head, trying to clear the memory. So long ago. So irrelevant now. But it was still fucking annoying. Marriage didn’t heal all old romantic wounds. She had to speak to Lara.
“Not Katy there’s-less-to-me-than-meets-the-eye Norris?” ex- claimed Lara. “The one who had that thing with Sam?”
“Yes,
that
Katy.” Stevie sighed into her mobile. She couldn’t get over the fact that Lara sounded like she was a couple of palm trees away, but was in another hemisphere, speaking from New York. The call must be costing someone—caller or receiver, she could never remember which—a fortune.
Lara laughed. “Oh, God, life’s too cruel. You go all the way to Thailand . . .”
“I know,
don’t
.” Stevie swatted a fruit fly off her arm. She already
had two large mosquito bites on her bottom. She wondered whether the divine Miss Norris had spotted them as she had stag- gered into the villa.
“What about Katy’s leg, is it okay?”
Stevie reined in an uncharitable snort. “Jez said it faded on the way home. But it looked little worse than a nasty heat rash to me.” “Once a princess . . .” Lara laughed. “Now I want to hear it
all
.
Where are you standing? Can you see the sea? Fill me in.”
Stevie looked up. “Yes, it’s turquoise and completely flat. From this particular vantage point, I can also admire the state-of-the-art swimming pool, free of fish and currents and sand, inconveniences that the typical Blue Blossom guest would rather avoid. I can also see lots of couples. It’s like a luxury version of Noah’s Ark.”