Life's a Beach and Then... (The Liberty Sands Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

The traffic on the M25 was flowing freely by the time Harry
steered Toby, his old green Corsa, on to it at junction 12. He had insisted on
driving as he thought his mother was too agitated to concentrate and Holly had
put up no resistance.

Holly had left it about an hour before calling Robert back
to ask if it was okay to bring an extra guest to dinner and Robert had been
very enthusiastic, saying that another distraction might keep Rosemary’s
spirits up. He had also insisted that they both stay over, despite Holly’s
protestations, as they always had rooms made up ready for unexpected guests.
This wasn’t exactly true, but he knew where the clean bedding was and making up
two beds rather than one was no big deal.

Harry knew a short cut via Bracknell, which avoided the
busiest bit of the M25 near Heathrow airport, so they were making very good
time. He was chatting excitedly about meeting Robert, which was just as well as
Holly didn’t feel like talking.

‘If your friend is as sick as you say she is, Mum, you’re
going to have to cheer up a bit otherwise she’ll feel even worse.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll put on a brave face in front of Rosemary.
They were responsible for introducing me to Philippe in the first place so the
last thing I want them to feel is guilt now that we have broken up,’ she said,
a slight tremor in her voice.

‘What’s wrong with Rosemary?’

Holly sighed.

‘She has leukaemia.’

‘I thought it was usually kids who got leukaemia,’ Harry
said, remembering a school friend of his whose younger brother had spent months
in hospital undergoing chemotherapy causing him to lose all his hair.

‘So did I until I met Rosemary, but apparently there are
lots of different types of leukaemia that can strike anyone at any age. The
form she has is quite rare, only a few hundred cases a year in the UK, and is
usually controllable with the new drugs that are being developed all the time.
The really sad thing is she was responding well to treatment but then she
developed a mutation that is even rarer and very difficult to treat.’

‘So how are they treating her now?’

‘Well at the moment they are experimenting with different
drugs administered intravenously but if they don’t work there is nothing else
they can do.’

‘Isn’t it leukaemia where you can have a stem cell
transplant?’

‘She’s not well enough. I think she was on a register for a
while but they couldn’t find a match and now she is too weak for them to even
consider the operation.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum. I can tell she has made a real impression
on you. It would have been nice for you to have her as a kind of surrogate
mother.’

Holly shot a sidelong glance at her son. When he was very
young he had come home from school one day with a project to complete about his
family. It had been awkward enough for him not having a father but then having
to explain to him that his granddad was dead and that his grandma was no longer
in contact with them would have floored most children. Not Harry. His project
had been called, ‘My Mum is All the Family I Need’. The teacher had been moved
to tears by some of the things seven-year-old Harry had written about his
relationship with his mum and had awarded him the highest mark in the class.

‘Do you ever think about your grandma?’

‘Why would I, Mum? She obviously never thinks about her
grandson.’

‘She never knew you, Harry. When Dad died she never wanted
to lay eyes on either of us again.’

‘It’s her loss, Mum. We didn’t need her, we have each other.
We’ll always have each other.’

Holly turned to look out of the window, her eyes misting
with tears. She knew one day Harry would have a wife and family of his own and
she wanted that for him. Maybe that was why she had rushed headlong into the
relationship with Philippe. She couldn’t bear the thought of being alone when
Harry was ready to spread his wings.

As though he knew what she was thinking and with a wisdom
way beyond his nineteen years he said, ‘Don’t take things too seriously too
soon in relationships, Mum, they have to be built on trust and trust is earned
over time. Maybe things were just moving too fast between you and the
Frenchman.’

‘Nice try, Harry,’ she said raising a smile. ‘But I’m still
not ready to talk about it.’

‘Apologies,’ said Robert. ‘I’m certainly no Jamie Oliver.’

‘Judging by the swearing coming out of the kitchen when you
were preparing things earlier I would have said you had more in common with Gordon
Ramsay,’ laughed Rosemary, her eyes bright, clearly enjoying the evening. ‘It’s
a good job you only had to put it in the oven when our guests arrived as that
would have been some introduction!’

‘The lasagne was delicious, Robert, you’ll have to give me
the recipe,’ said Holly, but Robert wasn’t paying attention he was watching his
animated wife. She looked so happy and alive it was hard to believe that there
would probably be so few more evenings like this one.

‘Do you do much cooking, Harry, or are you a typical
university student living off Pot Noodles and takeaway pizza?’ asked Rosemary.

‘I don’t cook a lot, I must admit, but Mum taught me how to
make soup out of virtually anything so I make a big pot to last three or four
days and have it for either lunch or dinner depending if I’m working or not.’

‘Where do you work?’ Rosemary asked.

‘Just in a bar,’ he replied. ‘The wages aren’t much but if
you’re nice to the customers the tips are good.’

Robert nodded his head in approval. ‘I’m pleased to hear that
you’re working your way through university rather than getting yourself further
in debt with a hefty student loan. Some of the young architects I know are
still paying off their tuition fees in their thirties. Tiramisu anyone?’ he
added. ‘And no I can’t claim it as my own. It’s a Waitrose special.’

Rosemary declined but the others tucked in to the creamy,
alcoholic confection.

‘It’s a good job I’m not driving back,’ said Harry. ‘I think
that dessert would have pushed me over the legal limit.’

‘Well, as you’re not driving, can I top up your wine or
would you like a brandy with your coffee?’

‘I’ll just have the coffee, thanks Robert. Mum and I are not
really big drinkers.’

At this remark Holly flushed, remembering her admission of
over-imbibing on her first night in Mauritius.

‘Right, well, I’ll put the coffee on and I’ll show you some
of my latest drawings if you like, Harry, as I think the girls want a bit of
time on their own,’ Robert said winking in Harry’s direction.

‘Oh right,’ said Harry, cottoning on immediately. ‘I’d be
honoured to have a look at some of your work.’ He followed Robert through to
the kitchen while the older man set the filter coffee machine going and then
into his office.

The moment the door was closed Rosemary turned to Holly.

‘What a lovely young man, you must be so proud of him,
Holly, and so handsome too.’

‘If I had been told I could only have one child, Harry would
have been top of my list. I look at him sometimes and can’t believe my luck.
He’s kind and caring and unbelievably intuitive for a teenager. I keep waiting
for him to do something wrong but so far he hasn’t put a foot out of line.’

‘It’s more than luck, Holly, it’s the way you have brought
him up. You two have a wonderful relationship, it’s so heart-warming to see.’
She paused. ‘Talking of relationships, Robert tells me you have finished things
with Philippe?’

Holly knew how much Rosemary liked the charismatic Frenchman
and she didn’t want to spoil their friendship so she hesitated before saying,
‘I think perhaps I got carried away with the moment in Mauritius. It was the
perfect setting for romance and I fell in love with someone I barely knew. I
don’t regret a moment of it,’ she added, acutely aware that Rosemary had
encouraged her to follow her heart. ‘But Philippe is too different from me for
things to ever work out long term so I thought it best to end it now before we
got too involved.’

Rosemary was watching Holly closely. ‘Something must have
happened for you to have done such a complete U-turn with your feelings overnight.
Has Philippe said something or done something to upset you? It could all be a
lost-in-translation misunderstanding?’

‘You have known Philippe much longer than you have known me
and I don’t want you to take sides. I don’t want anything to affect our
friendship and I don’t want you to think any less of Philippe. He has done
something which to me is unforgivable but other people might think I’m making a
big fuss about nothing. I can’t risk telling you what it is and losing you as
my friend.’

‘You are going to lose me soon anyway, Holly, and I would
hate to go to my grave without knowing if there was something I could have done
to resolve things between the two of you.’

Holly was really struggling with her emotions now. The stark
reminder that her friend’s life was almost over almost reduced her to tears
again but she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes for a moment giving
her time to clarify her thoughts.

‘I know that Philippe is the novelist Veronica Phillips.’

‘How…?’ Rosemary started to ask, but Holly raised her hand
to stop the question.

‘I know because, as well as writing my travel blog, I also
work as a freelance copy-editor. Yesterday I received a new manuscript to work
on and, as chance would have it, it was the new book from Veronica Phillips.’
Holly was watching for Rosemary’s reaction, but the older woman remained
impassive so she continued. ‘The book Philippe was struggling to write has been
brought to life by some very explicit love scenes. I don’t think I need to say
any more.’

‘I can understand that you would find that very upsetting.
You must feel that he has used and betrayed you but, for what it is worth, I
don’t think that was his intention. I think Philippe is only a good writer when
he writes about something he has experienced.
Maman
was a beautifully written account of his own young life with a fictional story
developed around it. I think he is wrong to have used this particular
experience but, in his head, he may well have thought he was honouring you by
writing about you.’

‘He wrote about me as a high-class prostitute. Forgive me if
I don’t see that as a compliment.’

At that moment the office door opened and Robert emerged
followed by Harry who was grinning from ear to ear.

‘You’ve got a very talented boy here, Holly. He’s just given
me a few ideas for my latest hotel project in Barbados.’

Philippe lay unconscious in the recovery room of the hospital
in Port Louis. Denis had travelled in the ambulance with him and en route he
had called Delphine who had immediately jumped in her car and arrived fifteen
minutes after them.

While Philippe was on the operating table, having the shard
of glass that had almost ended his life carefully removed from its position
perilously close to his heart, Denis had filled Delphine in on the argument in
the bar between Philippe and Jacques.

Although he was her brother, Delphine knew that Jacques was
a trouble-maker, never shy of getting involved in an alcohol-fuelled brawl, so
she found it hard to believe Denis when he said that Philippe was the one
shouting and throwing the first, and as it turned out, only punch.

She rang Jacques. ‘Are you aware that Philippe is lying in a
hospital bed close to death?’ she shouted into her phone the moment he
answered. ‘What did you say to him to make him so angry?’

‘Thanks for your sisterly support,’ he replied icily. ‘I
have no idea what had made the Frenchman so angry when he stormed into the bar
throwing wild accusations around.’

‘What accusations?’ she asked, calming her tone of voice as
there was a little bit of Delphine that was afraid of her younger brother.

‘He was ranting on about someone called Holly. He said I had
deliberately set him up with Candice to split him and his girlfriend up. He was
demanding that I email her again... Not sure why he said again when I have
never even heard of the woman.’

Delphine was puzzled too. What had Philippe meant?

Jacques broke through her silence. ‘Haven’t you got
something to say?’

‘I’m sorry I accused you of starting things... I was upset.’

‘Well if this becomes a police investigation just remember
your family loyalty,’ Jacques said menacingly.

Delphine had needed to lie for him to the police on many
previous occasions but it would seem that this time, confirmed by Denis’s
account of what had taken place in the Dolphin Bar, she would be telling the
truth.

‘You’re my brother, Jacques, and family comes first.’

The phone call had only served to confuse Delphine further
as to the cause of the seemingly unprovoked attack on her brother, and to make
matters worse she was now in his bad books. It was possible that Candice may
know something, she thought so she dialled her number but it went straight to
voicemail.

‘Candice, this is Delphine. I’m at the hospital in Port
Louis with Philippe. He’s had an accident and I wondered if maybe he was upset
when he left you earlier? Please ring me when you get this message.’

Delphine then made her way back to Denis in the visitor’s
room to wait anxiously for news.

As he had done every morning that week, Robert slid out of
bed as silently as possible so that he could wake his wife with a cup of tea
and a piece of hot buttered toast. She never ate more than a bite or two but
Robert reasoned that two bites were better than none. His beautiful Rosie was
wasting away in front of his eyes. She had made a valiant effort to eat the
previous evening but it was still like watching a sparrow peck at its food.

While he waited for the kettle to boil and the toast to pop
up, he set the wooden tray with a white napkin and pulled another pink rose out
of the arrangement in the lounge to lay across the tray just as he had always
done for his Rosie when he brought her breakfast in bed.

As he was climbing the stairs he heard the now familiar
sound of retching. He quickened his pace, careful not to spill the tea, and was
surprised that the sound was coming from the main bathroom rather than their
en-suite. He tapped lightly on the door.

‘Rosie, are you alright in there?’

There was no response, just more retching.

Robert tried the door handle but for some reason she had
locked the door. He raised his voice slightly, in case she hadn’t heard him.

‘Rosie are you okay?’

‘I’m fine Bobby,’ she answered sleepily from their bedroom.

Relief washed over Robert for a moment to be replaced by
concern. That was either Holly or Harry throwing up in the bathroom and he was
hoping his cooking wasn’t the cause. He continued towards the bedroom to tend
to his wife.

Inside the bathroom Holly pressed her face against the
smooth, cool porcelain of the outside of the toilet bowl. The nausea was
starting to subside now and again she wondered if she should pay a visit to her
doctor as the sickness bug that had started in Dubai last week didn’t seem to
be showing any sign of abating. She had read in the hotel information booklet
that if you developed persistent sneezing after a trip to Dubai you should
consult your doctor and she wondered whether the same was true of a tummy bug
but they simply hadn’t mentioned it.

Like they didn’t mention the jelly fish washed up on the
beach with the incoming tide every day, she thought. She had never seen so many
and different types too. There were the pale blue ones with fat squid-like
tentacles, the clear jelly ones and some with purpley-blue markings on their
back. Despite feeling so rough she smiled as she remembered finding the first
one, unsure whether it was a jelly fish or a discarded silicone breast implant

Well, at least I’ve mentioned it in my blog, she thought, so
now people, particularly those with young children, can decide whether or not
to go in the sea.

The nausea had passed so Holly pulled herself up onto her
feet and rinsed her mouth with cold water. She had heard a tap on the bathroom
door while she was being sick and Robert’s voice asking if she was okay. I hope
he doesn’t think there was anything wrong with his cooking, she thought.