This Way to Paradise (10 page)

The beach wasn't too busy and had a taverna at one end and sunloungers at the other. Tom paid a deckchair boy for some beds and we set about the serious business of sunbathing. It wouldn't be long before I looked as brown as one of the locals, because I inherited my father's olive skin which tans easily and doesn't burn. Tom and Kate slathered lotion all over each other and I could see that Robin had the same idea about applying some on to me and vice versa. When he asked, I did put some on his back and then quickly squirted some over myself and rubbed it in before he had a chance to offer. I think he got the message and didn't push it. As I lay back, watching people dip in and out of the sea, and felt the warmth of the sun of my skin, I began to feel relaxed for the first time in days.

At lunchtime, we padded along the sand to the taverna and had delicious feta cheese salads with fresh basil and tomatoes that tasted sweet and juicy. The boys and Kate drank beers and I had Coke. After lunch, as we strolled back to our sunloungers,
Tom picked up Kate, put her over his shoulder, then ran into the sea and threw her in. Robin looked over at me, but I was too quick for him and sprinted down the beach where I went in on my own. In my own time. I've never been one of those people who can dive right in. I have to do it stage by stage, unless it's the Indian ocean, which is like walking into a warm bath. The ocean here, however, was the Mediterranean and not warmed up yet (if it ever was). First I went in knee-deep, then hip-deep, then had a quick dip up to my shoulders. There were some undercurrents that were so cold it took my breath away. Robin came in after me. Straight in, but even he shrieked when he realised how cold it was. I took a really deep breath and ducked myself in properly. After a few seconds, it felt lovely and I swam out about fifty metres, then put my arms out, fell back and let myself float. I love doing that. It's one of the fabbest feelings in the world – the salt water keeping you up, a blue sky above. Heaven.

After our swim, we all had a doze in the sun. Then, Tom drove us back up to the centre where Aunt Sarah insisted he and Robin stay for supper with the rest of the guests.

‘I'm so pleased that he and Kate have hooked up,‘Aunt Sarah said to me when we went up to the buffet to get our meals. ‘Ed and Marcia Stourton have had a place on the island for over twenty years and know all the right people here. Good family to keep in with and I think he'll be a good influence on her.'

I nodded and smiled, but I wasn't as sure that ‘good influence'
was the right description for Tom who had ‘bad boy' written all over him. I decided not to share my opinion with Aunt Sarah nor tell Kate about how pleased her mother was that she was spending time with him. Knowing Kate, she'd dump him immediately just to annoy her.

‘And how are you, India? Settled in OK?' asked Aunt Sarah.

I nodded again. I could honestly tell her that I was fine.
It's amazing how your experience of a place can change in just one day,
I thought, helping myself to roasted vegetables and couscous and going to sit with my new friends. It was so totally opposite to how lonely and strange I had felt last night. I only wished that Joe had been there so that he could see what a popular person I was, who made friends easily, but sadly he was nowhere to be seen.

Ah well, there's always tomorrow,
I thought as I tucked into my supper.

As the week went by, Kate and I fell into an easy routine. Breakfast at the centre, have a laugh and make up stories about the ‘inmates', then a catch-up with Aunt Sarah, who always seemed to be preoccupied with a million things to do. I began to understand how Kate felt about her – she did treat us as if we were on her list of things to do. Check daughter and niece still alive. Tick. Both present and correct. Is Kate's mobile charged so she's reachable wherever she is? Tick. And off she'd go on to the next item.

After breakfast, I'd tidy my side of the room that I shared with Kate. It was funny because it soon looked like there was an invisible line separating it into two halves. Mine was neat and tidy – not a thing out of place. Kate's half was a total mess. Her
sheet was always thrown back and the bed was covered with stuff: her bag, her phone, clothes, nail polish, make-up, tissues, gum, chocolate bar wrappers. I offered to tidy up for her, but she did the raised eyebrow thing, pointed at my side and said, ‘Your space,' then pointed to her side: ‘My space.' I nodded. Understood.

Next, I'd e-mail Erin, Mum, Dad and the boys from the cyber room, which was adjacent to Aunt Sarah's office in reception. Not that it seemed that anyone apart from Erin could have cared less whether I kept in touch or not. Dad sent a hurried message one day.
Darling India, hope you're having fun. Busy busy. Dad. Pff to that,
I thought. Mum sent a slightly longer one but it didn't sound like she was missing me much either. Too busy busy too, having fun with Dad. Pff to her as well. Dylan sent an article about sun damage and the importance of protecting one's skin. He really is one weird twelve-year-old. There were no messages from Ethan or Lewis but that was to be expected. They were hopeless about keeping in touch and always had been. They even forgot birthdays. Only Erin sent regular messages. At least she seemed to be genuinely missing me.

After ‘contact' with the outside world, it would be time for chores. Kate was really good at playing the good girl, chopping veggies for the lunch, preparing peppers for the evening meal, being little Miss Helpful. We even did a couple of the yoga classes to show extra willing, but we drew the line at hippie dancing or any of the healing schmealing ones.

‘Got to play the game,' said Kate as she swept the dining terrace after breakfast one day.‘If I acted sulky the whole time, Mum would only get mad with me. So, I'm the model daughter part of the time and then, the rest of the time, I can do what I like.'

And she did too. I think her mum would have had a heart attack if she knew what she got up to. She drank vodka with Robin and Tom, smoked cigarettes until she stank of them, and I know she was considering having sex with Tom because, on the first Friday after we'd arrived on the island, I saw her buying condoms. She saw me looking at her in the shop and did her ‘raised eyebrow' look. I knew what she meant. I was becoming fluent in eyebrow talk. She meant, ‘You tell Mum and you're dead.'

They always offered me whatever they were having, but I usually said no because alcohol gave me a rash and a headache. Sometimes I felt like the immature, boring straight cousin that had been dumped on Kate because there was no one else to babysit me, but my only alternative was to hang out on my own up at the centre where most of the guests were middle-aged and I didn't want to do that. Sometimes, I had a drink just to show that I wasn't a total killjoy, but I didn't really enjoy it like they seemed to.

After breakfast on the first Saturday, Kate went to wash her hair, so I went to check out the art rooms and found Joe was in there working on something.

He looked up when I walked in. ‘Hey,' he said. ‘Haven't seen you around this week.'

‘You neither.'

‘Been working. Bar in town.'

‘Oh right.'
So that's where he's been,
I thought.

‘Yeah. Need to earn some dosh and it's something to do, you know.'

‘Yeah. What you doing?' I asked, then I cursed myself. It was
obvious
what he was doing. ‘I mean, clearly you're working, drawing, er, doing art. Sorry. I seem to be having an idiot attack. It's the sun. Makes me loopy. Oh shut up, India.'

Joe laughed and his eyes crinkled in a really lovely way that made him look even more attractive. ‘Yes, the sun makes me loopy too. And yes, I am doing some art.'

‘Can I look?' I asked.

‘Er . . .' Joe hesitated. ‘I guess. It's not finished yet.'

‘I won't if you don't want. I hate people looking at my work before it's ready.'

‘You paint or draw?'

I nodded. ‘Both. Not very good . . .'

‘Maybe I could see one day. You know, back in London?'

Yes!
I thought and inwardly punched the air.
Result!

‘Are you doing some classes here?' he asked.

‘I might,' I said. And then I spotted an amazing charcoal drawing on the desk to his right. It was of Lottie. ‘Hey, did you do that?'

Joe glanced over at the drawing. ‘That? Oh yeah. It's my mum.'

‘I can see that,' I said and walked over to take a closer look. ‘It's totally brilliant.'

For a second, Joe blushed slightly. ‘Thanks. I'm trying to brush up my portraiture, you know for my portfolio. I don't usually do people, but it's good to have a variety of work for college interviews.'

‘Well, you've really got an eye for it. You've caught your mum exactly. She looks . . . alive, like she has weight. You know how some drawings of people look like they're floating? Least, mine do – although I like doing people best. I find it hard to make people look like they have flesh, if you know what I mean.'

‘I do,' said Joe, and he looked straight at me like he was sizing me up for a drawing. I felt myself blush because, when our eyes met, I got the lovely warm honey feeling in my stomach again like I'd felt on the first day I'd seen him. I glanced away.

‘Umf, got to go now. Kate's washing her hair.'

‘Kate? Oh right. She needs help?'

‘No. Course not. In fact I don't know why I said that,' I said, thinking,
And I don't know why I told him that!

And there it was again. The look of amusement on his face. ‘Using that shampoo you bought in London, is she?'

‘No. I told you. No head lice. Not in our family.'

‘Just teasing, India Jane,' he said.‘Don't look so serious.'

‘I . . . I . . . Me? Serious? Me. No . . . I'm a laugh a
minute . . .'
Leave now,
said a voice in my head.
You're going to start talking drivel.
‘OK. Super. Later.'

Super?
I thought.
Who the hell says super!!

‘Later,' he said with a grin. ‘Take it easy.'

‘Yeah, later,' I said and cursed myself again.
Idiot, saying ‘later' twice. He must think that I'm simple, And just when I'd managed to have a half decent conversation,
I thought, heading for the door.
Still, we have something in common. Art. I shall think up some wildly interesting things to say about it and impress his socks off.

I spent the rest of the day down on the beach with Kate, Robin and Tom, thinking about what gems I could casually drop into the conversation the next time I saw Joe, but he wasn't around by the time we got back in the evening.

I stuck my head into the art room the next day after breakfast in the hope that he'd be there again but he wasn't. As Kate and I were going down to the town, I persuaded her to cruise by the bar where he worked, but he wasn't there either.

‘Joe Donahue?' said a pretty dark-haired waitress behind the bar when Kate asked where he was. ‘He did the early shift. You just missed him. Who shall I say stopped by?'

‘Oh, no one,' I said.

‘Kate and India Jane,' said Kate.

I punched her lightly on the arm as we left. ‘I don't want him to think I'm following him around,' I whispered, then I noticed that the waitress was staring at us through the window. ‘She's trying to work out who we are.'

Kate glanced back. ‘Yeah. Knowing Joe, there's probably a stream of girls in there asking for him.'

‘Really?'

Kate laughed.‘No. Only you. You
lurve
him.'

‘I do not. I told you —'

‘India! You
can
trust me. I won't blow your cover.'

Later that night, I spotted Joe back up at the centre at the buffet bar where people were queuing for supper.

He glanced around and noticed me standing behind him, so I took a deep breath and launched into the speech that I had prepared in my head. It was something that the art teacher at my last school had said and everyone had thought he was a really cool guy. Joe was bound to be well impressed and, in my mind, we would spend hours walking barefoot on the sand under the stars discussing life and art.

‘I know many say that it's chocolate box art, but personally I like the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Rossetti and Burne-Jones. I think that there's far too much snobbery when it comes to art. Too much intellectualism and one ought to go with one's gut.'

Joe looked at me as if I was talking gobbledegook. ‘Er . . . pardon?'

I repeated my brilliant speech. ‘I know many say that it's chocolate box art but personally I like the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Rossetti and Burne-Jones. I think there's far too
much snobbery when it comes to art. Too much intellectualism and one ought to go with one's gut.'

Joe burst out laughing. Then he made his face look very solemn.‘Wow. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely right. India Jane. Snobbery. Intellectualism. Quite correct. Now. Er . . . Thing is . . . whether to have the roasted veg or lentil bake? Hhmmm? Ought to go with my gut, you say?' He helped himself to the lentil bake. ‘Right. See you then.' And off he went to sit on a table with his mother.