The Jaguar (3 page)

He sat up in bed. The pallid light of morning was just beginning to usurp the sodium orange glow of a streetlight through his bedroom curtains. He studied the telephone on his bedside table, remembered Phoebe's request, then realised that his sheets were soaked in sweat. He shuffled across to the cold but dry side which she would periodically occupy. For a long time he lay there in limbo.

David rolled over, grabbed a book and turned on his bedside light. It was a popular physics tome: an exploration of space for the curious, but uninitiated. Cosmology took David far from his own world, and that was the appeal. The stars felt like old friends, but today the text provided new directions in which his fears could grow. He shrank into a hidden extra dimension, the walls receding in every direction. The light from his bedroom curtains became a barely perceptible afterglow - background radiation from the time of the Big Bang. Adrenaline swept through his system as he tumbled back to his particular place in space-time. As on several previous occasions, he couldn't figure out where, or even who, he had been.

The house felt particularly cold and empty as David finally staggered, semi-conscious, down the stairs to the kitchen and a bowl of children's cereal for breakfast. He stared out towards the damp, shaggy patch of lawn that defined the back garden. Droplets hung from the surrounding overgrown shrubbery, giving the whole ensemble a translucent, semi-liquid feel. David made a cup of tea. On route to a cupboard for sugar, he looked out into the garden again. The scene was just as it had been, but now a cat stared back at him from under the eaves of a dark Leylandi fir. It stood rigid, like some Egyptian deity. It was looking straight at him with quite striking eyes which, had they been any paler, might have dissolved away in the mist. The imperious looking animal appeared to be waiting for something. David felt strongly that if he could think of what this was it would leave, satisfied. Something deep inside him reacted as if he knew, but nothing reached his conscious mind, until he realised he had over-stirred the bag in his cup into a dark and bitter brew. He poured his tea into the sink and deliberately turned his back on the cat. Its spell was broken.

David shuffled into the living room then rooted around the scattered items on the coffee table looking for the photograph album that he had recently spent a lot of time contemplating. He made a neat pile of magazines, leaflets and newspapers in one corner. The album failed to emerge. He sighed and pulled a travel magazine from the pile. Why was there a travel magazine there at all? Sudden curiosity took hold. He flicked through the pages then examined the cover:
Mexico and the Caribbean
. It was a fairly standard Carlton Travel Group brochure.

Settling back to examine each destination, David absent-mindedly reached out for his non-existent cup of tea. A resume of historic Cuban towns immediately connected. He imagined himself a deeply tanned and dissolute drifter, dissuading a drunken Ernest Hemingway from starting a fight in a dark, smoke-stained waterfront bar, amidst the bustle of downtown Havana. Both characters staggered further into his imagination, driving off in the day's afterglow in a battered 50's Mustang saloon. Two shapely senoritas materialised on the backseat, starting a shrill argument which served to remind David that he had a headache.

He picked up the telephone instinctively from where it sat on a lamp table beside him, and drew it to his ear. A mercifully soothing, somewhat tentative female voice was asking him if he had yet decided whether to confirm his provisional booking.

“I'm sorry.” David let the apology hang in the ether. It could be applied to all sorts of things at that moment, but the lady to whom he was speaking ignored this introspection and translated it simply as “no”.

“I wonder,” she resumed, “whether you would be interested in considering something a little more adventurous?”

David had the uneasy feeling that whoever this person was knew far too much about him and could even be reading his mind. He also had not the slightest doubt that she was speaking about the very brochure that now lay in his lap.

“I'm sorry,” he repeated, “I don't know anything about this booking.”

“Don't worry. Phoebe said she might leave this bit to me.”

“Oh.” David wondered why this unknown presence seemed to be on first-name terms with his girlfriend, so that he was now a topic of mutual concern. He let a sigh out into a world whose only consistency was its failure to make any sense whatsoever then decided to continue the conversation.

“I take it that the provisional booking is for a holiday. Where does Phoebe want to go?” he enquired, secretly hoping that the lady would suggest Cuba.

This time the pause was at the other end of the line, as the caller grasped that there was much more explaining to do than she had anticipated. “I think,” she began cautiously, “that your girlfriend intends the holiday to be for you alone. Her provisional booking was for Mexico.”

David sat staring into the coal-effect gas fireplace beyond the coffee table. If he were a computer he would have been displaying a small central window with an error message. Try as he might to respond, his mind remained empty of everything except a very familiar feeling of growing panic.

“Would you like more time to think?” The caller was obviously concerned and this tone gave her voice a familiar quality, but one which David again totally failed to compute.

“We get a lot of solo travellers,” she continued. “In fact, they make up the majority of this side of our business.”

Ernest Hemingway drifted again as a companion through David's imagination and somehow managed to make the image of a solo traveller quite appealing. He envisioned himself tapping away deliberately in two-finger style at an old-fashioned typewriter on the vine-strewn terrace of some cheap
Pensione
, a Cuban cigar protruding casually from one corner of his mouth and a glass of red wine beside him, refracting the rays of the sun onto his battered old writing table.

David sighed again, this time in resignation. He gave in to cats, cold-callers and unfathomable females. Anything was better than another week at work and he was certainly due a considerable amount of holiday time. “When do I go?” He felt a large part of himself recoil in surprise and shock, as he assimilated his own response.

The routine nature of the question made the caller rally and she quickly picked up the pace, perhaps as keen as David to escape the embarrassment of the call as soon as possible, as much as to ensure that David had no time to change his mind. “Do you have our brochure to hand, by any chance?”

David nodded. The voice moved on before he had time to reflect on what a ridiculous response this was.

“If you turn to page 47 you'll see we're now offering a range of activity-based trips: everything from scuba-diving and island hopping by yacht, to jungle trekking and exploring little-visited ruined cities from the famous Mayan period.”

David had no idea who the Mayans were, other than some vague notion that they had erroneously predicted the end of the world, but he knew all-too-well that he really was rather scared of anything to do with swimming or deep water. “Trekking sounds fine” he heard himself say, somehow managing to dodge his usual self-image of a rather fat, un-sporty, couch-potato.

“Well done, David. Now, if you can just confirm that Phoebe has given me your correct email address I can put all the details, dates and recommendations in writing. As the package you have chosen is new - in fact you will be one of our first participants - we are able to offer you a considerable discount, if you can confirm your exact requirements within the next week. Once you have spoken with Phoebe, I'm sure you'll be able to think more clearly about what is best.”

There was a pause; the caller apparently unable to decide whether to say more. A half-strangled and unintelligible single word was followed by a barely audible sigh.

“I really enjoyed talking to you, David. Hopefully we'll speak again soon.”

For a long time after the lady disconnected, David held the telephone to his ear, as though its monotone whine might suddenly modulate and offer some reasonable explanation for what had just occurred. “
Well done, David
” echoed incongruously around his head, finding absolutely nothing to befriend. Except that he knew that phrase. He was sure that he knew it from a long time ago and that it was associated with something, or someone, important in his life.

There was a suitcase in the sea: the brown leather suitcase from the Underground. It was bumping along the side of a boat. Laura felt seasick. She reached down and fought a tug of war with the water. The salt-patterned box sprung onto the deck beside her. A sound drifted from the case to her core. Laura knelt and grasped the metal latches. As the lid flipped open, it revealed only darkness and a mother's scream, as at the moment of childbirth, which she really couldn't bear.

Laura rolled over in bed and stared at the patterned ceiling. It moved as though she was still on the sea. She lay there indecisively, swept by a deeply perturbing sense of loss which wasn't, for once, centred upon her dead mother. It felt like losing a child, but this made no sense. She shook her head and made for the bathroom.

Downstairs, coffee in hand a short while later, Laura discovered that the hoped-for letter had indeed arrived. It was a recorded delivery, so Katie, who seemed to have already departed for the office, must have signed for it. She checked the London postmark then turned it over to discover a cartoon version of her own features smiling back at her. A shining orb to her left and a pair of sunglasses provided the holiday touches. Katie, indeed: she was a fine artist. Laura tore into the package and scanned the contents. There was the job offer and also a personal note on scented writing paper from Culjinder, telling her that Marcus would be in touch after the weekend. Finally, there was an expedition kit list; a range of travel items long enough to leave Laura worried about both her bank balance and her fitness. Rucksack, boots, walking poles, full waterproofs: she gave up trying to tally the cost, but it was obvious from the list that, whatever her role, it was going to be hands on.

She lounged on a sofa with her drink and studied the contents of the package again. Laura knew it had been written and posted in haste, but still she felt cheated. She wanted to know exactly when she would start and what she would be doing. Come to think of it, she didn't even know where she'd be working. The original brief had said:
must be flexible about working irregular hours and over weekends, and willing to travel overseas, if necessary at short notice
. Certainly, there seemed no question of her moving to London. Laura felt impatient and still more than slightly nervous. She would need to give in her notice. Doubtless, Simon had already spread the news at the office.

Only one thing for it - she decided to go shopping. Half an hour later she was rooting around an outdoor equipment store, trying on lightweight travel trousers and sunhats. Nothing seemed to fit, or maybe it did, but she just didn't like the style. She settled eventually on a new pair of sunglasses - not unlike those that Katie had drawn - and decided she would be wearing these when her flatmate returned that evening. She let the steep slope of Park Street carry her down from Bristol's main university district towards the city's central square. Slipping into a favourite wooden booth in an old-fashioned café near the base of the hill, she pulled out her phone and paused momentarily to consider how she would broach her sudden change of career to her father. Then she gave up and lost herself to cappuccino and a small electrical storm of excited messages from curious friends.

Chapter Five

Riviera Maya

Marcus almost tumbled down the aircraft steps. He had slept heavily for most of the flight in the relative comfort of business class, after a long week of rushed preparations. His drowsiness - combined with a struggle to prevent his voluminous hand-baggage escaping - had left him more than a little light-headed. Then there were the three glasses of wine that had induced his torpor in the first place. Never mind, he consoled himself. He had pre-booked a taxi from Cancun airport to his hotel, and the others wouldn't be arriving for another day. There'd be plenty of time to sort everything out.

As he was driven south down the long coastal highway, past an endless procession of grand entrances to jungle and palm-enfolded beach resorts, Marcus tried, unsuccessfully, to focus his mind on the task ahead. His chore was not helped by the stream of broken English from the determinedly cheerful taxi driver. Marcus half listened and mumbled the occasional “
Si
” out of a deeply engrained sense of good manners.

The squat, semi-bald, somewhat intimidating local smiled gleefully through a list of what should have been complaints. The car swerved as he stuck a broken finger up to the driving mirror for Marcus to examine, simultaneously lifting his other hand from the steering wheel to demonstrate how it had occurred. It swerved again, this time somewhat alarmingly, as the driver waved the same finger at a passing gas station to highlight the scandalous cost of fuel. Eventually the car started to sway in a manner Marcus could sense was stoking his giddiness and jetlag, as his tormentor complained at the state of the roads. The monologue turned to the unseasonably cold and wet weather. This seemed an unlikely contrast to Marcus' sweaty and increasingly smelly self - an enquiry at this point establishing that the cabbie was called Eric and that he had not felt it warm enough to turn on the air conditioning. He did so, with an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders, following Marcus' polite insistence.

After adding two hours of driving to the ten hour flight, the car swung through a grand, flower-fringed concrete portal and stopped at a security barrier. Marcus woke from fitful sleep to see Eric deep in conversation with the security guard. His attention was drawn to his driver's neck. A tattoo had emerged from beneath his blue and slightly frayed shirt collar. It revealed a complex shield containing symbols including a football, a pistol, a lightning bolt and the letter X. All were in black and somehow the ensemble was slightly sinister and seemingly not the sports insignia that Marcus at first suspected. Moments later the taxi was engulfed by the reassuring sights and sounds of an all-inclusive, 5-star tropical resort. It wove past joggers, family groups on wobbly bicycles, and snake-like land trains. The roadway emerged from a dense patch of trail-pierced jungle to reveal the main car park and a grand thatched, timber-clad reception building. It was fronted by a fountain of leaping dolphins and a shining marble staircase. Standing between these was the familiar figure of Dana Murphy, Deputy Programme Manager for Carlton Travel Group's Caribbean Division and the main line of communication to Tailwind Adventure.