Excess Baggage (32 page)

‘There’s to be no conditions,’ she told him, ‘that’s the condition. It’s really kind of you and I will use it for somewhere to live, I promise, but not necessarily to buy, not just yet. I’ll see how things go.’

Perry frowned. ‘You’ve spent the past thirteen years seeing how things go. They’re not though, are they?’

‘What do you mean, “they’re not”? They might not be on your terms but I’m taking good care of Colette, aren’t I? I run my own business, I’m good at my job.’

‘Painting. If you can piss you can paint. Doesn’t take a genius. You had a good brain, A levels, you could have done anything.’

‘But I do what I enjoy doing. I like working with colour and texture, I love getting a scruffy knocked-about
room
to look clean and new and fresh. What’s wrong with that?’ Lucy was sick of being defensive about her job. This would be the last time. No-one ever said to Simon, ‘Oh, how horrid. How can you spend your working life staring into open mouths and wiring up adolescents’ grotty teeth?’ If anyone else in the family wanted to have a go at her she’d just grin at them inanely, she decided, let them think the paint fumes had gone to her head.

Perry shrugged. ‘Nothing’s wrong with it, I suppose. As long as you’re good at it, as long as it makes you happy and brings you in enough to live on. Things like that hurricane, well, perhaps they make you realize you only get one go.’

‘Heavens, Dad, you’ll be proclaiming “Peace and Love” next!’

‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘about the money. All right, no conditions.’ He wagged a finger at her, playing at being serious. ‘Just don’t fritter it.’

‘I don’t fritter.’ Lucy giggled. ‘I’d be no good at it, I haven’t had any practice.’

‘And what about this young man, this Henry? Does he fit in anywhere?’

Lucy hesitated. ‘Henry’s just a friend, Dad.’

‘“Just a friend” she says. With a relationship there’s nothing more important. Don’t knock it.’

‘I’m not. There is one thing though, he’s different from all my others, and I don’t just mean he’s a different colour.’

‘He’s different all right, he’s three thousand miles away from home. I expect you’ll get over him. Plenty more in the sea and all that, though I don’t suppose you want to hear that …’

‘Not really, Dad. No, what I mean is that there’s something he knows he can’t have from me, something
all
the others expected to have and didn’t like not getting.’

‘Do I want to know?’ Perry pulled a face at her. She laughed. ‘Not
that
. I told you, he’s just a friend. No, the thing is that he doesn’t expect to get priority with me, he would never expect me to put him first. Colette is the most important person in my life. Oliver is the most important in his. Whoever either of us end up with has to understand that. I think that for both of us nobody else has understood that so far.’

‘Hmm.’ Perry considered. ‘Looks like you’ve been doing some serious thinking about this.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘I have. Though whether there was any point or not I’ll probably never know.’

‘Thinking’s never wasted, pet. It’ll always come in handy sometime.’

Paul and Cathy had taken Theresa completely literally. With a view to selling their story to one (or perhaps more) of the less glossy but highly popular women’s magazines, they had gone out of their way to select the most disaster-hit background for photos. The preacher who was to conduct the wedding ceremony was astounded to be led to the devastated pool area instead of to a beautiful stretch of beach.

‘Right here. This is perfect,’ Cathy ordered, arranging herself and Paul beside the wrenched-out roots of the tamarind tree. They were surrounded by the worst effects the hurricane had had on the hotel. Chunks of corrugated roof from the central block of rooms were still scattered across the terrace. The pool water had turned a turgid dark brown and there were unidentifiable slabs of wood and plasterboard and glass lying everywhere. Most of the hotel guests, the manager and many of the staff had congregated to watch the
wedding
, and there was a lot of surprised murmuring about the choice of venue.

‘The Sugar Mill’s still standing, they could have gone up there. With the sea in the background it would have been so pretty,’ the gold lady said.

‘What are their families going to think? And how can you display your photos on the sideboard when you look like you’re standing in a demolition site?’ Shirley whispered to Plum.

‘If they wanted urban blight, they could have stayed at home and popped up to Moss Side,’ Perry commented to Theresa.

‘It reminds me’, Mark said, ‘of those fashion shoots
Vogue
used to have in the late Sixties, all industrial wasteland and thousand-pound ball-gowns.’

‘But don’t the girls look lovely?’ Shirley admired her granddaughters, who stood solemnly beside Cathy and Paul, clutching their bunches of bougainvillea that Tula had picked for them out at the front of the hotel and tied up with trailing green vines from the lobby.

Theresa, watching the simple exchange of vows, found the ceremony more moving than she’d expected. Tears, she thought, were becoming rather a habit, one she wasn’t very keen on. She looked forward to going home and regaining her usual composure. It wouldn’t do to be an emotional wreck, she’d end up weeping over the cook-chill cabinet in Waitrose. It wouldn’t do to let Mark think he’d turned her into a pathetic pushover either. That way he’d feel he’d won, that he’d got away with his appalling behaviour. He might even think he could sneak off and do it all over again. One way or another, she would have to make sure he didn’t want to. Before that, though, what had to be faced was the ordeal of The Clinic for
the
clearing up of any disgusting bugs he’d passed on to her.

As she smiled encouragement at Cathy while she and Paul exchanged rings (rather broad gold bands, she noticed, as if they were a bolder statement about marital intent than the slender little narrow ones she and Mark had), her thoughts were on the delights of the medical examination to come. She’d have to go somewhere miles from home, somewhere anonymous in central London, probably. She’d have to give a false name, and even then what if there was, after all her care about secrecy, someone there that she knew? Suppose there was someone she used to work with? Or another shamed Surrey mum that she’d have to face at the school gate? That would be such typical bad luck. And what could you say? What kind of appalling conversation could you have in the waiting room? At that type of clinic there wasn’t any doubt about what you were there for. You couldn’t speculate about whether each of you had a touch of flu or needed a course of malaria pills for a holiday. No, it was a case of what are you in for? Chlamydia or clap? Trichomoniasis, herpes or what was that pretty-sounding one she’d read about … gardnerella? What she did know was that she wasn’t having any patronizing little just-out-of-training doctor thinking she’d been up to anything herself, catching sordid diseases and handing them round like a bag of sweets. She’d make damn sure they knew where the blame-finger was to point, that was for sure.

Lucy caught up with the hotel manager as he was about to return from the wedding to his office.

‘The airport is open now,’ he said, anticipating her questions. ‘And the road to it has been cleared. The
runway
lights don’t work though, so they say any planes leaving have to be out by sundown. I was just going to put up a notice.’

Lucy felt enormously disappointed. Somehow she’d assumed there would be such a backlog of people ready to go that they’d be told to hang on, wait just another few days. The manager wanted them all out. He needed all these people off the premises so he could close and get on with serious repairs.

‘So you’ll be back to work with no delays!’ He sounded as if he was jollying her along, trying to cheer her up.

‘It looks as if you could use my services better here,’ she commented. ‘I’m a painter and decorator, a good one. I could give you a hand.’

He grinned at her. ‘Hey, every few months we get one or two who can’t bear to leave. We’re never surprised, St George is the most beautiful place in the world!’

‘So you won’t have any trouble finding enough workers to get this place back to normal again then?’ she said.

‘Ah, well, I didn’t say that,’ he conceded. ‘The island doesn’t have
that
many skilled workmen. There’ll be a lot of angling for the best pay. Could take ages, but that’s island life.’

‘So take me on. I don’t do angling,’ Lucy told him.

The queue at the airport made the check-in line at Gatwick that had so dismayed Theresa look like a Sunday afternoon bus queue in the depths of the country.

‘There must be about five thousand people here,’ Shirley said as they all climbed out of the hotel’s minibus.

‘They must be all the people who couldn’t get away the last few days,’ Plum said.

‘But we’re actually booked on this flight, they have to let us go.’ Simon craned his head to try to see if there was another point of access to the terminal building. If there was, it would be down to him to find it, usher them to the departure lounge where seats and sanity could be found for his parents. Surely the old and frail, and the very young like Theresa’s brood shouldn’t have to stand around on a blazing hot pavement, shuffling along slowly with all their luggage and nowhere to shelter from the sun? The gold lady was twenty yards ahead of them and a little way back in the queue Lucy could see two of the Steves swigging beer.

‘So many people, think of the state of the loos,’ Theresa muttered, pulling her children towards her as if to protect them from the inevitable scattered tissues and soaked floors.

‘Listen, give me all your tickets and I’ll wander up and have a look-see.’ To Simon’s annoyance, everyone handed over their documents and Mark sauntered off before he could protest, taking over as troop leader without any consultation.

‘You’re very lucky there, Tess.’ Shirley prodded her arm. ‘He’s a lovely chap. I’ve always said so.’

‘Yes Mum.’ Theresa looked at Lucy and they both giggled.

‘Now what have I said?’ Shirley demanded.

‘Nothing, just what you always say!’ Theresa told her. ‘But that’s OK. Sometimes you like what you’re used to.’

‘Well, of course you do. Unless you’re Lucy of course,’ Shirley said.

‘Now Shirley, don’t start …’ Perry warned with a grin.

‘Yeah Mum,’ Lucy laughed, then she and Theresa chorused, ‘Don’t spoil things!’

‘OK, we can go up the front.’ Mark returned still brandishing the tickets. ‘I’ve managed to swing a couple more upgrades. They were so grateful for the extra tickets. So come on … let’s go home!’

It was almost too abrupt, as if they were being too quickly snatched away from her. Lucy’s determination, at the last minute, was close to wavering. She and Colette did the rounds of hugging and promising. Yes we’ll phone, yes we’ll come back for Christmas (Lucy already wouldn’t call England ‘home’), and yes, Lucy said, she’d sort out the flat and her possessions with the long-suffering Sandy-in-the-basement. Everyone said the usual parting words, mostly on a theme about the world not being as big as it once was, about them only being nine hours away. Perry’s voice was shaky as he hugged Colette. ‘Don’t forget, you can always come back.’

‘We know. But we want to try this,’ Colette told him. She made it sound so simple. He could only hope that it was.

Lucy stayed till they went through to the departure lounge. Her mother lingered behind the others, reluctant to let go.

‘I won’t be able to keep an eye on you when you’re this far away,’ Shirley said as she hugged Lucy for the last time.

‘I know, Mum,’ Lucy said. It would have been horribly unkind to mention that that was rather the point.

Lucy and Colette moved their possessions into the Villa Hibiscus. Henry’s offer had been tempting but it was too soon. They could wait, there was time, so
much
of it now, to see how things worked out. Lucy and two of the hotel’s maintenance staff were to start work on all the villas the next day, as, with their roofs already mended, water reconnected and all the damaged furniture taken away, they were ready for some cosmetic renovation. The walls had been badly stained by salt-laden rainwater but would be ready to paint after a thorough wash-down and some repairs to chipped plasterwork. After the villas were finished, with any luck the builders would have the rest of the hotel well on its way to being ready for her skills, though, as the manager had shrugged and told her, with island life you could never tell. ‘It’s a different pace. Well, you’ll see,’ he’d warned her.

It was close to sunset. Henry and Lucy sat together on the beach in front of the dive shop.

In the water in front of them Oliver and Colette splashed about, diving and swimming, leaping around and having fun. Close to them was only one other figure, a large man with a beard. He reminded Lucy of a pirate.

‘Sing us something,’ Colette demanded.

‘Yeah,’ Oliver joined in, ‘sing us something from the Three Sopranos.’

Lucy groaned. ‘Sopranos!’ she murmured to Henry. ‘Aren’t kids priceless? It’s a pity the gold lady’s gone. She’ll never know she won our sweepstake.’

‘First you sing something to me,’ the man said.

‘OK.’ Colette thought for a moment and conferred hastily with Oliver, then the two of them sang the first verse of ‘Morning Has Broken’.

‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said, and Luciano Pavarotti, standing waist-deep in the Caribbean sea, sang ‘
Nessun Dorma
’ to an audience of four.

Against the darkening blue of the sky and the first few stars of the night Lucy could make out the lights of a plane leaving the island. ‘That’s probably them,’ she said quietly.

‘But no worries?’ Henry asked.

‘No,’ she told him. ‘No worries.’

Judy Astley has been writing novels since 1990, following several years as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. She has two grown-up daughters and lives in London and Cornwall with her husband.

For more information on Judy Astley and her books, see her website at
www.judyastley.com