All Inclusive (28 page)

‘We should be able to tell from her tits,' Beth said, laughing. ‘I know I shouldn't be thinking it, if Dolly
is
dead, but you know when Gina's lying down and they stick right up, no flopping sideways? I always wonder, if you got close enough, if you could see the seam where they bunged in the implants.'

‘You should ask her. I bet she'd show you.' Lesley giggled. ‘Yes it is her, look – you can see her blonde hair hanging out from under her straw hat. So I wonder who the ambulance was for?'

‘Beth! Lesley!' Ned came jogging up behind them. ‘I saw Delilah – she told me you were up here. Um . . . look, Lesley, something happened, nothing to worry about, but it's Len . . .'

‘Len fell off the Swiss ball? What in the name of buggery is a Swiss ball?' Michael asked Delilah as they strolled together up to the Haven spa.

‘It looks like a giant beach ball. You use it in the gym for exercises. Apparently,' Delilah explained.

She didn't want to talk to Michael or to anyone. She just wanted to go and have her facial in peace and lie in the dark not thinking about anything. There'd been no sign of Sam all day. She'd been to ask at reception if it was his day off, but the woman there had just smirked at her like she was the tenth one to ask the
same thing since breakfast. Perhaps she was. There was no message for her, no ‘See you tonight', nothing. So where did that leave her? Dumped? It wasn't as if they were even, like, going out. This was like some horrible teen-mag cliché – the Holiday Romance Gone Wrong. There was only tomorrow and a bit of the day after left, and tomorrow was going to be mostly – well, the afternoon, anyway – Sadie's bloody wedding. She wished she hadn't agreed to be her stupid best woman, bridesmaid, whatever, now. She should have said, ‘Hey, you know what, Sadie, a wedding with just you and your man and nobody else, that's an ace idea. Go for it.' Now they were all going and it would be all afternoon wasted over on Dragon Island. Sure, Sam would be there (if he ever came back, that is), but they wouldn't be able to be on their own.

It was blissfully cool in the Haven. Delilah and Michael went and sat on the cream sofa, waiting to be called in to the treatment rooms – Delilah to her facial (Exfoliate and Enrich), Michael to his Swedish Massage.

‘Lucky he wasn't badly hurt.' Michael was still, Delilah realized, going on about Len, had he been rattling on for ages? She'd taken no notice. ‘I suppose they have to get the ambulance in case he sues,' Michael said. ‘But I heard the Haven nurse had his ankle bandaged by the time they'd got here. Gave poor Lesley a turn though. She thought he was a goner.'

I'm
so
not interested in Len's bloody ankle, Delilah thought, feeling mournful tears starting to gather. What kind of idiot had she been?

‘Oh Lordy, you're crying.' Michael put a tentative arm round her shoulders. ‘Is this where I give you a hug, is that allowed?'

‘I suppose.' Delilah put her head on his chest. He
smelled of fresh laundry. ‘Why did you ask, is it because I'm young?'

‘Well . . . yes, I suppose so, in this day and age. But mostly because you're a moody teenager and might bite.'

‘I think
he
thinks I'm too young.'

‘Is it that lad with the beaded hair, the one who takes some of the fitness classes?'

Delilah gave him as sharp a look as she could, through her tears. ‘What do you mean?'

He laughed, but not, she realized, as if he was laughing at her. ‘I wasn't born yesterday! I saw you, the way you are with him. And he likes you too, so what's the problem?'

Delilah sniffed. ‘He
did
like me. Not now. He's not even
here
. He said he would be.'

‘Maybe he's ill. Maybe it's his day off and he forgot,' Michael suggested. ‘No need to get all chewed up about it.' He reached across the table to a box of tissues and handed her some. ‘Here, have these. You've got to stop crying before your treatment or you'll mess up the creams and potions, won't you?'

He was kind, surprisingly comforting. Delilah really didn't mind him trying to jolly her along.

‘I just want to tell you one thing, from the horribly patronizing great height of being an aged fart who's lived a bit,' Michael said. ‘And I don't want to pry, so please don't tell me anything alarming . . .'

‘Oh I won't!' Delilah assured him, trying to smile.

‘Just don't regret things, OK?' he said. ‘I don't mean you shouldn't recognize when you've done something silly, if you follow me, but don't waste time regretting. You can't change anything, after the event. It's over, move on and try to make the best of it. And when you get older, you'll find it's the things you
didn't
do –
maybe out of, I don't know, timidity, idleness, fear of the unknown and so on – that you regret. Are you with me?'

Delilah frowned. ‘I'm not sure. I might be, once I've thought about it.'

‘Exactly. Give it time. At least you've got plenty of that,' he said, smiling and giving her shoulder a final squeeze as Dolores opened the door of Treatment Room no. 4 (Geranium) and summoned him to his massage.

14 ml Parfait Amour

14 ml blue curaçao

14 ml amaretto

21 ml vodka

56 ml sour mix (lemon/lime/dash sugar syrup)

28 ml soda

‘Len's blaming me for his sprained ankle, you know. Can you believe that?' Lesley said to Beth as they made their selections from the breakfast buffet.

‘How does he make it your fault? You were out in the town with us!' Beth sympathized.

Should she have grapefruit and papaya plus a heap of toast today, or pineapple juice and a poached egg with bacon? Beth dithered over so many delectable choices. She'd miss this back home each bleak winter morning when she was shoving a bowl of virtuous dull-beige porridge into the microwave. Every year, after the overindulgence of a gorgeous holiday, she would stock up with plenty of exotic fruits to concoct these lazy, luscious tropical breakfasts, and every year she was disappointed that somehow those fresh tangy
flavours couldn't quite be reproduced. Whether it was to do with the way the food was chilled for air transport, or something about the grey British mornings, she didn't know. It just didn't work. A Tesco banana didn't taste anywhere near as sweet as one freshly picked on its home ground. Supermarket mangoes and pawpaws, chilled to sterility, seemed always sourly underripe or close to mouldy, and even in midsummer there was that essential factor missing: the sultry, steamy climate.

Lesley's hand, waving the metal tongs like a wand, hovered indecisively over a heap of crisply grilled bacon.

‘Nobody really diets 'til after Christmas, do they?' She murmured her habitual mantra as she scooped up a substantial portion and moved on to consider the hash browns and fried plantain.

‘Len thinks that it's because I'd been going on about him being more careful, you know, with his health,' Lesley continued as they made their way to their table. ‘He says he'd decided not to go out for a long run for once, out of consideration for me. So that's why he was in the gym, doing things with that stupid Swiss ball.'

‘And he fell off . . . because he was balancing on it? Is that what you're supposed to do with them?'

‘I'm not really sure.' She giggled. ‘Try to lie on them, maybe? Whatever it was, he did it all wrong. And that's because he won't ask anyone. Just goes his own sweet way, like with the rubbish he eats and the amount he drinks.'

Beth imagined Len on top of a large glittery ball, walking it across a circus ring under a spotlight, possibly accompanied by a team of performing poodles, dressed in pink frills and up on their hind
legs. In her head she had Len kitted out as a clown complete with huge curled-up shoes, scarlet nose and full white-face make-up. He wouldn't need to stuff his costume to look clownishly rotund – in terms of comedy shape he was almost there. No wonder Lesley worried. Why did men cause so much hassle? You shouldn't have to be looking after their well-being as well as your own. She thought of Ned, who occasionally, since the affair, she hadn't been able to picture leaving the house without including in her imagined scene a tempting line-up of alluring women that he'd be helpless to resist. What
had
his woman had going for her? She wished she didn't still wonder. And when did the wondering stop? Ever? She certainly hoped so.

There was no sign of Delilah this morning, which was probably, Beth thought with some dread, because there'd been no sign of Sam all the day before. He hadn't even shown up in the evening. Poor Delilah's mood, which had started off so confident and bouncy in the morning, had declined like a water-starved flower in a vase, and she'd trailed off to bed early following a sulky after-dinner session in the bar with her brother, during which he'd tried to jolly her along by teaching her to play poker.

‘You know, we haven't had a karaoke night this year, have we?' Lesley said. ‘There's no time now unless it's tonight. Remember we were going to do a load of Kinks numbers this year? Len's been threatening to put one of my dresses on and do “Lola”. Your Delilah would die of embarrassment.'

‘There's a lot of things I meant to do; always are,' Beth sighed. ‘I haven't had a tennis lesson, haven't been out sailing, haven't had a go at the archery.'

‘Yes, well you're not missing much with that one:
you might have had Valerie's kind of luck and shot your husband!'

Hmmm, Beth thought, if this had been three months ago, she might well have aimed at him.

‘I'm only hoping Delilah will get over her Sam passion quickly and take home some happy memories. She only had about half an evening with him. It can hardly have been the big love of her life,' Beth said.

‘A lot can happen in half an evening,' Lesley commented wryly, then, seeing the look on Beth's face, backtracked quickly. ‘Oh she'll be fine! Don't you worry about it – give her a week with her mates back home and she'll have deleted all the bad bits from her head and reworked it into a bloody good time. And there's the wedding to look forward to this afternoon – we can all go out on a good one with that!'

Ned swam slowly upwards, letting the current drift him towards the underside of Carlos's boat. Bradley was just ahead of him, holding onto the ladder that hung from the stern, waiting for his dive-buddy. Their two heads broke the water's surface and Ned pulled his mask up.

‘What's wrong?' Bradley asked. ‘You're looking a bit down. Not looking forward to going back to work's grindstone? I know I'm not.'

‘OK for you – you've got another three days here,' Ned said, trying to sound cheerful. He would miss his annual diving with Bradley. They'd probably never meet again now and it was all his own fault, his and bloody Cynthia's. It might have been OK if she'd simply got over it. She'd been the one in the first place who'd been keen on the no-strings element. Why on earth had he believed her and ever thought that dabbling in sexual shenanigans with her (or anybody)
would be a painless and uncomplicated event? Why didn't he
think
? Just shows, he thought, what a naïve idiot he'd been. He'd have done better, if he really wanted a sexual adventure (and had he really? It hadn't even crossed his mind before Cynthia showed up in Harrods and started pushing his buttons) to visit a professional and get it over with, swiftly and anonymously. Not a scenario any man would dare to run past a wife as being a sound option, but true all the same when you broke it down to basics. He wouldn't have done that, of course he wouldn't. It had only happened with Cyn because it had somehow all fallen into place without him having to make any effort. He realized now that effort
had
been made. By Cynthia: she'd arranged everything, been the one to travel out of her way to see him, the one to book restaurants, hotel rooms.

No excuses, he told himself as he gazed across the sea's shimmering surface. He was about thirty-five years too old to plead that he was Easily Led.

‘Going to be a bit stormy, later,' Bradley commented as they climbed aboard the boat. ‘Carlos says there's a wind getting up and rain due. Hope it's all right this afternoon for Sadie and Mark.'

Ned peered at the sky. It all looked the same as usual to him – clear blue but for a couple of tiny puffs of cloud. There was a small whisk of breeze though, and the surface of the sea was rilled up like cat's fur being stroked the wrong way. It made him nervous, suddenly. As if trouble was quite literally brewing.

Well if Sam didn't want her, all done up like this, then it was definitely, no question, totally over. Delilah looked in the mirror for the thousandth time and admired her own gorgeous face. It was almost time to
go – she wanted to keep how she looked in her head (uncanny resemblance to Kate Moss), so she'd stay feeling confident when she saw him.

‘It didn't feel like Melina put much make-up on me, and yet I look completely different,' she said to Sadie, who was twirling the final section of her hair with the heated tongs.

‘I suppose that's what they mean about all the trouble you have to go to to get the natural look.' Sadie giggled. ‘You don't actually look so different, Del, just more . . . well
more
. Your eyes have got . . . what's the word, a bit of
smoulder
to them.'

‘You have scrubbed up quite nice, I'll give you that,' Angela said. ‘I still think that dress lacks a bit of pzzazz though.'

That would be the contrast with Sadie's, Delilah thought, watching Angela begin fastening the fifty buttons down the back of her daughter's wedding dress. There was enough fabric in it, Delilah calculated, to build a marquee, complete with ruched lining. Sadie was going to look fantastic, in a Cinderella-at-the-ball sort of style, but no way would Delilah ever have chosen a dress like that. Whether she was destined for the Samson-and-Delilah outcome or whether she ended up making do with trusty old Prince William, she would never wear a fat white meringue.