other commitments, was surprisingly challenging. Their relation- ship was evidently one that worked better with a few distractions, she thought. Such as a ten-hour working day.
Appealing to Jez’s sportsman ego, she found that encouraging him in the direction of water sport proved successful. The Aqua Zone headquarters was helpfully set at least a mile from the villa and staffed by more than two knockout blond Australians. Under these women’s long salty-lashed eyes, Jez showed off, tackling the windsailing and surfing with an air of competitive machismo, as if the flat Andaman Sea was a furious ocean straight out of
The Perfect Storm
. And he would return from these adventures—muscles pumped, sun-bleached hair splattered flat across his bald spot, nose burned—like a conquering hero, bellowing about his needs for massage, cold beer, and, if she really loved him, a blow job. And if Jez couldn’t be shifted from the villa or the poolside, where he liked to hunker down with a beer, nuts, and a memoir of a great sporting hero, Stevie found other ways of ensuring her own privacy. It was usually half a meter below the surface of the sea, where her breath sounded heavy and coital as it rushed up and down the snorkel tube. Her thoughts flowed free and her only companions were shoals of fish in eyeshadow shades and the occasional back- wash from the high performance flippers of a German tourist.
“More coffee, please,” Jez barked at a waiter. It was 10:30
a.m.
They were not supposed to be at the Blue Blossom breakfast buffet at 10:30
a.m.
They were supposed to be exploring the island, noted Stevie. She was desperate to leave the resort for a few hours. But Jez had a hangover and a dodgy tummy, which he blamed on the previous night’s seafood tempura. He groaned at the sight of the food, contemplated ordering a beer for a bit of hair-of-the-dog action.
Stevie made him eat some fruit. But she had to look away when he ate it. There was something about the way he ground the bits of banana with his molars, the way tiny beads of pulverized fruit clung to the corners of his mouth. She’d never noticed his eating habits before, why now? This question whirled in Stevie’s head as she crunched down on her muesli. She realized that ever since the wedding, she’d been struggling to
not
notice some of his personal habits, such as the way he napalmed the toilet every day at pre- cisely 9:17
a.m.
(Thai time); blew his nose in the shower; stuck out his tongue as he yawned, so it emerged from his mouth a fleshy an- imate pink, like the meat in a mussel. These things had begun to turn her stomach ever so slightly. Is this what happens when you fall out of love? wondered Stevie, with a growing sense of dread. Or is this just marriage? Or am I just a bad wife?
Jez leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “What’s that for?”
“Being my gorgeous Stevie.” Jez grinned and scratched his stub- ble sleepily. “Hey, pumpkin. A surprise. I’ve booked us in for a cou- ple’s massage tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She looked at Jez’s expectantly happy face, relented. “Lovely.”
Jez paused. “With Katy and Seb.”
Stevie spluttered on her freshly squeezed orange juice. “No way!”
Jez put his hand up. “Don’t look at me like that! Listen. I was going to tell you earlier . . .”
“No.” Stevie had an urge to jump, to submerge herself in the swimming pool, as if running from a stinging cloud of bees. “Ab- solutely no way.”
“Well, Katy offered, as a wedding present, a thank you for help-
ing with her leg. Listen, they’ve got this amazing villa. This fuck- ing huge, A-one, top-of-the-line villa, with its own private infinity pool and spa house and Jacuzzi and butler. The dog’s bollocks. Makes our place look like a hostel. Apparently Doherty and Kate Moss stayed there . . .”
Stevie stood up and brushed the creases from her floral fifties- style green sundress. “You go. I’d rather explore the island.”
The sharp, sudden movement and pitch of her voice alerted fel- low dining couples to the possibility of a scene and the terrace restaurant tuned in to table number five. This filled Stevie with a disproportionate toddler-like rage. She was overcome by an urge to stampede over the buffet table, crush the fruit salads beneath her toes, and toss croissants and pastries and soaked prunes at the smug couples who were staring at her through their enormous designer sunglasses like dumbstruck ants.
Jez put his hand over his eyes, as if sheltering from bright light. “Stevie, please . . . What’s got into you? We’re on fucking
honey- moon
.”
Stevie, chastened by the incomprehension on Jez’s fleshy sun- burned face, sat down, turning to face off the other guests as she did so. “Nothing. It’s just . . .” That she wanted more time alone with Jez? Well, actually, at this exact moment, that wasn’t true. A gecko darted across the floor.
“I want you to be happy, pumpkin.” Jez rearranged his features into those of a suffering, misunderstood lover. “But I’m doing it all wrong, aren’t I?”
TWENTY-ONE
Æ
the palms seemed fuller, greener here, like
groomed heads of hair. The proportions of the villa were more or less the same as their dwelling, but the scale was super-sized. There were also architectural additions that commanded the higher rate: a suburban-style porch over the front door, edged with a high trellis; their own stretch of yellow paved path, branching from the main tributary. Another key difference, also relating to the sliding scale of Blue Blossom price, was that this villa was closer to the beach— not the main one, but a small private cove. Here, Stevie could actu- ally smell the sea. It smelled different from the English Channel, she thought—salty but without that wind-lashed fish-and-chip heaviness. As she inhaled the smell and absorbed the view, she had a small epiphany: No longer could she remember the air smelling any different or the sky being anything other than these miles and miles of endless cloudless blue. Yes, she had finally arrived in Thai- land.
Thump thump thump.
Both Jez and Stevie started. What the hell was that? Bass. Loud
dance music pounded over the high wall that surrounded Katy and Seb’s villa. It was an unnameable but familiar tune, which she felt she should know but didn’t. Not for the first time, she wondered how on earth she’d let herself be persuaded to embark on such an afternoon. Then she remembered. Jez had effectively brought up his father once again. He needed some “healing touch” to help with the bereavement process. What on earth was she thinking, going off on her own like that and leaving him—on their honeymoon?
Jez tugged at the tight waistband of his knee-length Ted Baker shorts. “Ready, babe?”
Stevie nodded as graciously as she could. She must take responsi- bility for agreeing to come.
Seb answered the door, beer in hand, wearing a Thai sarong around his waist. Jez noticed, with irritation, Seb’s gym-pumped biceps, and the lack of dough around his waist.
“Hey, guys,” said Seb, allowing himself to sound a little Ameri- can. “Come in. Madam’s by the pool. Beer? Champas?” He turned around and shouted, “Turn the music down, Katy!”
Stevie noted that Katy had done what all the magazines suggest you do when you go to a hotel: “Make it a home.” Brightly colored silk scarves hung over lamps, Diptyque candles burned on the table. There was even a photograph of Seb and Katy on the mantel- piece. She thought about her own smaller villa, already accessorized by dirty underwear and lidless tubes of Boots brand sunscreen. She peered out of the patio doors. Oh. Wow. Rather than just a Jacuzzi, there was a glittering trench of an infinity pool, the water spilling over the sides, its blue surface bleeding into the ocean’s green hori- zon, like a tie-dyed sarong. On either side of the pool was a Jacuzzi, intricately tiled, with gold-bellied cushions plumped around its perimeter. At the end of the pool, breaking the vista, was a square
glass atrium housing daybeds and a vast flat-screen television flick- ering with Sky Sports. Stevie plucked her bikini bottoms out of her bottom and readjusted the top that kept riding up, her breasts not being firm enough obstacles to hold it in place.
“Just ditch the damn thing, hon.”
What? Stevie looked up to see Katy, now the color of a tropical hardwood, sprawled on a chaise, wearing nothing but the tiniest of black bikini bottoms. Her stomach was so flat that there were gaps on either side that gave Stevie a sideways shot of her waxed pu- denda. And resting on top of her ribcage were two impossibly spherical breasts.
“Just ditch it,” Katy repeated. “Don’t you just loathe bikini tops?” Katy craned up from her lounger on her forearms, eyes squinting in the afternoon’s white glare. “Plonk yourself here, sweetie.” She pointed to the adjacent lounger.
Stevie froze. No, no, no. This was so wrong. She was not going to spread her pale sloppy body next to Miss Perfect’s. And she was not about to show off her lopsided breasts, which, unlike Katy’s, had a tendency to droop into her armpits like icing bags the mo- ment she was horizontal.
“Don’t be shy.”
God, she hated it when people said that. It was like saying, “Cheer up! May never happen.” “Well, fucker,” she’d always wanted to yell back, “it already has.”
“Here, Stevie.” Relief came in the form of Seb’s hand, offering a glass of champagne. So early in the day? Oh, to hell with it. Stevie took a grateful swig. She lay on the free lounger next to Katy’s, neatly securing her sarong, legs clamped together. She didn’t last long. “It’s like a furnace. I’m not sure I can bathe out here. Jez? Can you toss over my hat? Yeah, yeah, it’s in that beach bag.”
Jez tossed over a large straw hat and sat down on the poolside next to Seb. After a few moments of blokey awkwardness, they alighted upon discussion of the villa’s sound system, kicking their feet in the water.
“Look at our boys. Sweet.” One of Katy’s cheeks was pressed against the lounger, facing Stevie. “So, how
is
it?” she whispered conspiratorially.
“What? Sorry.”
“The honeymoon sex, of course. I bet it’s awesome, no?”
Stevie’s flush lit up the rim of her hat. The question took her un- awares. “Oh, er, great.” Why did she feel that she had to give her honeymoon good press?
Katy leaned her chin on her arm. “Like that eh? I always imagined . . .”
“Yeah, well, we all come to marriage with such expectations, I suppose,” said Stevie, quietly. She could feel sweat pooling at the back of her knees.
“Oh, that’s a very sensible attitude.” Katy laughed. “But I al- ways think if we girls can’t expect romance and knee-trembling honeymoon sex, when the hell can we?”
Stevie shrugged. Inside she felt something plummet. No, she wouldn’t let Katy, of all people, tell her what was and what wasn’t normal. “I think when you’ve been with someone for a couple of years, and, well, you know, you’ve moved on to that more stable stage in your relationship . . . it’s not always . . .” Stevie stopped. She despised herself for justifying her relationship to Katy. She de- spised herself for not being a loved-up endorphin-soaked honey- mooner. Perhaps Katy was right.
“I suppose.” Katy looked thoughtful and dabbed at the beads of sweat on her forehead with a towel. “Maybe that’s where I’ve been
going wrong . . . you know . . . expecting too much, putting too much pressure on Seb.”
Stevie looked up from under the brim of her hat, surprised at this descent into intimacy. “He’s not proposed. You want him to, right?” Katy looked down at the chewed-up airport novel that she’d been using as a pillow. “I’m thirty-six. I want to move this rela- tionship forward. I want a family.” She sighed and turned over onto her front, suddenly resenting the way Stevie had got her to spill her
insecurities, while she sat there so smugly and safely married. “Yes, I understand,” said Stevie quietly, staring at Katy’s but-
tocks. She noticed the way one crease marked so clearly the transi- tion from thigh to bottom, unlike her own, which were largely indistinguishable from each other.
“Masseuses are here!” thundered Seb, standing up on the pool- side. “Come through to the atrium.”
The Thai masseuses were not young spa girls but tiny bird-like Thai women, with gray-streaked black hair, gnarled hands, and limited English. Katy dropped her arm over one of their shoulders, hinting at familiarity. But she did not bother with the courtesy of putting her bikini top back on before the massage, noted Stevie, who overcompensated for Katy’s insensitivity by chattering ner- vously.
She was soon silenced, lost for both words and air. This was not a soft Swedish massage. This was more like common assault. Her Thai masseuse sat on her back, yanked her limbs, pushed her legs into her chest, pulled them apart, kneed her spine. Stevie gasped with surprise and pain, unnerved by the unexpected skin-on-skin contact with a stranger. She was so
not
relaxed. But the others seemed to be enjoying it. Seb grunted noisily. Katy released small mews of pleasure.
“She has no mercy. Is it over? Tell me it’s over,” joked Seb an hour later, while the rest of them lay still, collapsed like jellyfish out of water. He got up and pressed a fistful of Baht into the hands of the masseuses.
Stevie, relaxed now that the torture had ended, heard the soft shuffle of the women’s barefoot steps and the swoosh of the sliding door as they left. She opened one eye.
“Wow . . . man.” Jez stretched out. “That was quite something.
You all in one piece, Stevie?” “Survived, just.”
Seb and Katy laughed slow and conspiratorially.
“Yup, it’s pretty hardcore. I asked them not to give us the toned- down tourist version,” said Seb. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Bastard, thought Stevie.
“It was delicious,” cooed Katy. “Right. Pool, drinks . . .”
Stevie opened one eye and watched Katy step delicately down from her massage bed, brown feet on the limestone tiles. Seb fol- lowed her. She and Jez were alone at last.
Jez reached a hand across. She took it. He squeezed her hand. “You okay?”
“There is something I need to tell you, Jez.” He frowned. “What, pumpkin?”
“I hate massage. I’ve always hated massage. Please do not book me another massage.
Ever
.”