Becoming Strangers (15 page)

S
TEVE
B
URNS WAS BUSY IN RECEPTION
on Saturday morning with his trousers far too tight. He'd put on weight and his chinos were tight not just around the waist, as it goes with men, but also in the seat. He was reminded of one of his school teachers, who'd contributed to his very acute sense of what was not cool, a man who'd worn too tight maroon Farrah trousers, his arse sashaying rudely between the rows of pupils, his voice drawling sarcasm.

Burns felt like a fruit, handing out leaflets, drawing pencilled circles on maps, reminding the punters of the Saturday night event as they left the hotel. He'd spotted two women of a more mature persuasion, 'Silvers' as they called them in the business, passing comment on him from their huddled position in two cane armchairs, looking at him over their fishing expedition leaflets. He'd asked if he could help them and heard snorts of laughter as he'd walked away. He'd fucking sashayed, he was sure of it, it was the trousers, and then he'd turned round like some Butlin's poof and told them off with a very camp, 'Now, now, ladies, none of that.' It was a loathsome business, at times.

The Yank had been in to discuss with him docking
arrangements for his friend's yacht. He was grave and so Burns was grave in response. This was a hundred-footer they were discussing, not a fishing boat. Burns reminded Mr Ryder, Jason, of what he'd advised him the day before—it would be fine. Mr Ryder had nodded patiently, not listening at all.

'I just don't want any problems,' he'd said.

His friend, not Mr Cohen but a mutual friend of theirs, a serious venture capitalist, was going to dock about eleven. He was going to take a few of the guests there out for the day. Mrs De Groot was going, Annemieke.

Burns couldn't believe that Jason would fancy the Dutch woman given he had a highly amenable piece of ass, as the Americans called it, at his obvious disposal, but he was used to all sorts of arrangements taking place on these holidays. He ought to write a book. He'd seen it all, he said to himself, thinking about the old girl and the young black man.

Ryder was all starched up for the day, khaki-shorted legs, a linen shirt brusque about its Polo emblem, his hair a sticky dirty blond, gelled against the elements.

'Should be a good day for some fishing, what can we expect? Marlin?'

'I've no idea, Sir,' he said.

'No idea? How can that be?'

'You fucking prick,' thought Burns, 'you fucking pompous boring fucking nobody, I ought to tell you to shove all hundred foot of that boat up your big American arse.'

'Bluefish, kingfish, I guess. What the locals call dolphin fish, a frying fish.'

The American shook his head, his nostrils dilated, 'I think we'll be throwing those back. Have some things put together for the lunch. My friend has a staff, they'll cater, but I don't like to show up empty-handed. Some shellfish, some chicken, some salads, nothing too crazy. I guess you can do that? Hello, sweets.'

Burns nodded. The wife had arrived, in matching kit, except her shirt was sleeveless and only half-buttoned and she had a polka-dot navy bikini top underneath it. Ryder pulled one strap.

'Just testing,' he said.

'Honey,' she reprimanded him, 'you'll get the knot too tight to undo.'

Burns looked aside, rolling his closed lips together to stop himself from saying anything. When they were close to the door, he allowed himself to call out, 'Don't forget the disco-beach party tonight, Sir, eight o'clock,' and he added, like the sad bastard he surely was, 'clothing optional!' He groaned and kicked the swing doors of the kitchen as he went through and left a shoe polish stain there. If he didn't wipe it off, no one else would.

'Where are those lunches for the Moloney party?'

'Nearly done,' said Brian, the Rastafarian who was cooking that morning. The man's dreadlocks were tied together up above his head. He looked like a leek. He was leaning over a counter top reading the paper's headlines. It was always a football or a cricket headline. This particular issue was devoted, cover-to-cover, to the
fact that the English cricket team had been caught smoking dope. 'Shit, man! I never knew your people was into the stuff,' he said, prodding the paper. 'But Adam, he likes a puff. He come hit me up every other day, he likes to take it easy.'

'Just as long as he, you, whoever, doesn't smoke it here, on the premises, I don't give a monkey's, mate. Now what have we got to get rid of? We need to put some stuff together for a group of Yanks. What's going to go off?'

'Got some chicken is high.'

'How high?'

'Not as high as your cricket team.'

'All right, sort that out and some seafood. Lots of it. The rough stuff. And the leftover salads, chuck loads of mayo in, and any old crappy bits hanging about. Let's give our friend Salmonella a run for his money on this one, mate. Make it look good. You know they'll waste most of it anyway.'

'Sure, when we gots Americans staying I know it, them bins is filled from their plates.' The chef shook his head. 'Make me mother cry real tears to see it.' He put an arm on Steve's shoulder. 'Don't worry, man, I'll see to it.'

'By eleven, if you can, mate,' said Steve, softly, 'and have a beer on me.'

'T'anks, man.'

Well, he said to himself as he went back into the reception area, there was one thing, at least. He, Steve Burns, was not a complete and utter cunt.

D
OROTHY AND
G
EORGE HAD BREAKFASTED
as soon as the dining room opened, at seven, dawdled down at the beach for half an hour, then killed time by walking the perimeter of the hotels buildings. They exclaimed over the garbage skips, watched a cat make its way along the top of a wall, waved to the security cameras and then returned to reception to find they had an hour to wait. They'd gone back to their room so that George could use the toilet again and Dorothy had leafed through the hotel details and checked their homeward bound tickets. Happily, their increasing desire to examine the details of their life coincided with having the time to do it. They had started out liking the big things, schemes and plans, talking in spans of years, and they had ended up content to pore over the minutiae of day-to-day retirement.

Jan came through reception at nine, on his way to breakfast with Annemieke, having taken an early-morning dip in the sea. The elderly couple stood up, then sat down as Jan looked at his watch, patted his stomach and made his excuses.

'I don't often feel hungry, so I'm going to take advantage of it. Maybe an egg,' he said.

They went back to the leaflets they were reading.

'I say,' said Dorothy, 'it's that Chinese lady.'

George looked up, over the rim of his glasses. She was standing by the reception desk, looking through
the few papers there, which George knew to be notes on the protection of valuables and warnings about the sea.

'Shes dressed up nice,' he said.

Dorothy looked at her husband and then at the woman. She was wearing a skirt and top, with finely beaded straps, and open-toed mules; all coordinated in pale mauve. Her thick dark hair was tied behind her head and she had large-rimmed ornate sunglasses on her little head. When she turned round she waved and came towards them. George laid his brochures on the side table and took off his glasses. He stood up.

'Morning.'

'I'm coming along too,' she smiled, 'Bill talked me into it. I hope you don't mind. Hope it won't make it too uncomfortable.'

'I shouldn't think you'll take up much room,' said Dorothy with a bucket of a grin and a laugh.

'Jolly good,' added George.

'Do you think I need a bathing costume?' she asked, addressing Dorothy.

'I've no idea. Should hope not. I haven't got one myself.'

The woman nodded gravely and they fell silent.

'Hot,' said George eventually, 'hot, today.' The women seized upon this observation and agreed with it.

When Bill Moloney arrived, he was greeted with the familiarity a man of his proportions and generosity accrues so quickly, particularly when he has turned acquaintances into his guests. He was slapped on the back
by George, upbraided by Dorothy for being late, then, on saying that he was early, was upbraided for being too early. Laurie smiled at him all the while, holding the handle of her small bag with two hands.

Jan and Annemieke walked in shortly after Bill had shown the others the route he proposed on his driving map. Dorothy recalled what Annemieke had told them about Bills religion and was relieved to see that he had brought just the map and his keys; there was no ominous briefcase. It was hard to imagine he was a man of God; he was such a character, larger than life. If Jesus was around these days, we'd never notice him, she'd told George more than once, there was too much else to look at. He might have stood by her at the bus stop and she'd have been distracted by the ad there.

'I'm not coming,' Annemieke said quickly, waving a hand at them, 'just dropping off my husband.'

Jan kissed her on the cheek. 'She's been invited out with the Americans, on their friend's boat.'

'Ooh, wear a life jacket,' said Dorothy quickly, as if she'd just remembered it.

Annemieke gave a half-smile and left them. She was going back to the room to put on her Caroline Herrera shift dress.

'I hope you don't mind if I come along,' said Laurie, once more, looking serious.

Jan looked at her directly, then looked down at the floor, removing his spectacles, and shaking his head.

'No,' he said, shortly, his mouth taut, 'no.'

Dorothy saw Laurie's expression falter as if she
thought she might have made a mistake. Laurie looked over to Bill, who was at the reception desk, smoothing the map out before the girl there to double-check a direction. He turned about and gave her a small wave.

'Be right with youse' he said, then he gestured at the basket on the floor by the side of reception. 'That's the lunch,' he grinned, blowing air into his cheeks.

His guests shared exclamations of surprise and pleasure.

'Too hot to eat,' said George, who found himself salivating at the idea of the wrapped barbecued chicken legs.

'You'll manage,' said Dorothy. The others laughed. George had already proved something of a prodigy at the buffet. ('I don't waste it, I eat what I take,' he'd said in his defence.)

Jan stepped away from the group, his glasses back on his nose, interested in the brochures that they had all read before.

T
HEY WERE ALL GLAD
to get out of the car after an hour's drive, each adding his or her own reason, building a polite consensus of pleasure.

Bill had procured a Bob Marley greatest hits tape for the ride. The rental car bumped along tarmac road and dirt track, reared up behind the yellow or blue buses and slowed down in harmony with Bill's remarks. From
a confident sixty miles per hour they could be at a snail's pace within seconds if something crossed his mind, with Bill pointing something out to them, shouting so that he could be heard.

To lean forward would have meant rubbing legs with Laurie who sat in the middle between himself and Dorothy, so Jan merely inclined his head towards the centre so that Bill could see he had his attention. Bill had his sunglasses off and on, jabbing a pork sausage finger at the map that George held like a copilot, and flailing around at the controls when he laughed, causing George to call out, 'Watch it!' and put both hands on the dashboard.

The comedy of the driving, the impeccable sunshine and the appeal of the music with its simple pleas, stirred Jan. He had an overwhelming sense that this entire scene had been directed for his benefit; action, music and message. He wondered whether it was because Annemieke was not there, and he wondered also, slightly ashamedly, whether it was because the Chinese woman was there, next to him.

Bill pulled the car up alongside a lay-by and told them they'd struck lucky. This beach was without any doubt the best kept little secret in the world.

'We'll have ourselves a wee luncheon here, so we will,' he said, hamming up the Irishness and walking around the car with a comic gait, each knee lifted high and to the side.

The women started to murmur together about
bathing suits, and Bill hushed them from the boot of the car.

'Now will you stop your blathering on about that little formality, the good Lord gave us what we need to swim with, and for those who feel he didn't give them enough or he gave them too much, there's my own home-grown remedy.'

'I'm not wearing a pair of your underpants,' said Dorothy.

The others laughed. Realizing then that she had made a joke, she went on hurriedly as though she had a lozenge in her mouth that she would never taste again. 'Well, I'm not, even if they are clean.'

'No chance of any of our underpants being clean after that drive,' said George. Jan recalled his grandfather saying that the English liked to joke about underpants. He'd not believed him. He smiled now at Laurie, thinking of his grandfather, at the kitchen table, shaking his head, tears of laughter in his eyes, telling one of the jokes he had to tell about the First World War. A man who'd emerged with his humour intact, who had only good things to say about his fellows. Jan had thought once that it was his experience that had taught him such endurance and dignity, but now he knew it had been a choice. The hull of his character had been hewn from strong materials, and steered with a knowing eye.

'So what's the remedy, Bill?' he asked.

'About five bottles of wine and two cases of beer.'

'It'll need more than that to get me in the nude,' said Dorothy.

'It didn't use to take more than a half of shandy,' said George.

'Who's going to drive back?' asked Laurie.

They looked at each other.

'Now, by my reckoning,' said Bill, squinting up at the sky, 'seeing's how the sun is overhead and the temperature is up in the nineties and I'm sweating like a bastard, I'll be passing the beer through my system at a rate of one point seven five pints an hour. That allows me three bottles an hour, say six in total before we go on.'