Life's a Beach and Then... (The Liberty Sands Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

Philippe would have liked to make eye contact with the
stunning woman in the coral dress but he had his back half turned to her and
she had only glanced in his direction for a moment before returning to her
table. He wondered who she was dining with. How annoying that his view of the
back of the restaurant, where she had been heading, was obscured. Maybe he
would leave by the rear doors of the restaurant later in the hope that she
would still be there. He dragged his attention back to his friends.

Robert must have made some kind of joke or amusing comment
because Rosemary was laughing.

‘The suit, Philippe,’ repeated Robert. ‘Had you forgotten
that cream linen is what the restaurant managers here wear?’

‘Actually I had,’ replied Philippe, joining in the laughter.
‘But I have no choice, I only have one suit and I like to make an effort to
dress well when I am dining with you two. I haven’t been here since your last
visit, this place isn’t the same when I don’t have you for company.’

Rosemary shot a warning look at Robert as he opened his
mouth to speak, and quickly jumped in with, ‘It’s nice to be missed. Let’s eat
outside on the terrace tonight and enjoy the warm air.’

‘Wherever you like, my beautiful English rose,’ he said,
linking his arm through hers and guiding her towards a waiter so they could be
seated.

Robert followed, delighted to see his wife happy and
smiling.

Holly gazed up at the night sky, full of bright twinkling
stars, and tried to spot the constellations. She could see the plough and
Orion’s belt but she was struggling to find Venus. Her dad always said that
when Venus was bright he knew she was happy.

Am I happy? she wondered. Well, I’m not unhappy so I guess
my glass is half full at the moment which is how my wine glass has been all
evening, she thought.

Holly didn’t usually drink alone. She had seen the
devastating effect that taking a step onto that particular slippery slope could
have. She shuddered and decided there would be no more solo drinking on this
trip, which meant she wouldn’t be tasting the colourful cocktails currently
being delivered by waiters to others who had come to sit by the moonlit beach,
until she began to socialise.

She looked around at the couples and groups of friends.
Holly was the only person on her own. She decided to head back to her room
before anyone took pity on her and invited her to join them. Normally that was
exactly what she wanted, but not tonight, the drink had made her slightly
lightheaded and it wouldn’t do to be caught off guard and say something that
would blow her cover.

Holly had fully intended to do some work but as she put her
key in the lock tiredness engulfed her and a mere five minutes later she was
fast asleep.

The hum of the air-conditioning unit, churning out freezing
cold air, woke Holly. She shivered and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.
She was used to sleeping in air-conditioned hotel rooms however, when she went
to bed in her slightly inebriated state the previous evening she had forgotten
to adjust the dial and had thrown her blanket to the foot of the bed, sleeping
with only the sheet for cover. No wonder the slight noise of the air-con had
disturbed her. She was too cold so deep sleep had evaded her. She glanced at
the luminous hands of her travel clock. It was only ten past six, which meant
it was just past two in the morning back home. It was a good job she had such a
long sleep on the plane otherwise she wouldn’t be able to think straight today
and she needed her wits about her.

As a thoroughly honest person, Holly struggled with the
little white lies that were a necessary part of her job, but at least she would
probably make a better poker player now than she had at university. She had
never played the game before she met her then boyfriend Gareth, but he and his
rugby-playing mates used to play late into the evening after their Saturday
matches and if she wanted to spend time with him she had to join in. Although
they were all downing pints of beer like it was lemonade, and she was actually
drinking lemonade, they were still able to read her like a book when she was
bluffing.

‘It’s like taking candy from a baby,’ they would joke, as
she watched the pittance she had earned from working long hours behind the
student’s union bar dwindle to nothing. Gareth would always sub her, even though
she would protest that she wouldn’t be able to pay it back.

‘You’ll pay it back in kind,’ he would tease, not unkindly,
winking at his mates.

Holly wasn’t so fond of this side of Gareth, showing off in
front of his friends, but whenever she confronted him about it he would say,
‘It wouldn’t do for them to see my softer side. I’m the captain of the rugby
team. They need to believe I’m hard and ruthless, so that they will trust me on
the field.’

Lying in his arms Holly would always accept this explanation
because she trusted him completely. It didn’t matter what other people thought,
she knew the real Gareth, at least she had thought she had.

Holly shivered again, unsure whether it was the overactive
air-conditioning unit or the memory of her first true love that caused this
involuntary action.

First true love, she thought, only true love would be more
accurate. She felt the familiar weight in the middle of her chest and swallowed
hard, blinking her eyes to stop herself from crying. It amazed her that even
after all these years merely thinking about Gareth could provoke such a strong
reaction.

Suddenly she kicked off the bed covers, slipped on her robe,
crossed to the French doors and flung open the curtains. She unlocked the door
and stepped outside breathing in huge gulps of warm damp air to calm herself.

Why can’t I accept that he left me because he didn’t love me
as much as I loved him? she thought. Why can’t I just let it go?

It was barely light outside, but there was already some
activity in the hotel gardens. The ground staff were raking the sandy paths and
collecting fallen coconuts. The Italian restaurant to her right didn’t serve
breakfast so the shutters were firmly closed, but she could hear the sounds of
cutlery being laid on the tables of the main restaurant, even though the
breakfast service didn’t start for almost an hour.

An hour, thought Holly, wondering how best to fill the time.
Shall I work or walk?

Moments later the decision was made. She threw on a pair of
frayed denim shorts over a bikini, twisted her unruly dark curls under her red
Yankees baseball cap, slipped her feet into her Havaianas and headed for the
beach.

It was deserted. No one had yet appeared to reserve their
sunbeds with brightly coloured beach towels and it was a bit too early for most
people to take a pre-breakfast stroll.

Flip-flops in hand she stood at the water’s edge, with the
shallow rippling waves caressing her toes and looked out to the reef. The sound
of the waves crashing against it created a constant background roar which was
comforting and very different from the rumble of traffic she was used to at
home. She began to walk in the direction of Flic en Flac, carefully avoiding
the pieces of coral that had been carried in by the tide.

Holly had always loved the feel of sand beneath her feet and
the smell of the ocean, which was quite odd as she had grown up in Clifton, a
suburb of Nottingham, one of the most inland cities in England. There hadn’t
been any exotic holidays throughout her childhood, not even a package holiday
to the Spanish costas, but she could still recall the thrill of racing her dad
down the long expanse of beach at Skegness into the chilly waters of the North
Sea. They weren’t joking on the sign that welcomed you to the little seaside
town that announced, ‘Skegness Is So Bracing’!

That was one word for it, Holly thought, but at least she
had been able to enjoy a week’s holiday away from home each year at the caravan
park in Ingoldmells, something she hadn’t been able to provide for her own son,
Harry. He had made do with pitching a tent in their pocket handkerchief-sized
garden when the weather allowed.

A different sound cut through the background rumble of the
waves on the reef. Holly couldn’t place it at first but it seemed to be getting
louder. She raised her chin to look up from under the peak of her baseball cap
but couldn’t see anything, other than the groundsmen from the various hotels
that fringed the beach raking up the needles that had fallen from the filaos
trees and burying them into the holes that they had dug.

The sound, she now realised, was coming from behind her and
it was horse’s hooves approaching at a gallop. She turned to see a blond man,
stripped to the waist, astride a big black horse less than a hundred yards
away. He galloped past, and a vision of Brad Pitt in the movie
Troy
flashed into her mind. The expression on the man’s
face was totally focused, almost trance-like, and she doubted that he had even
noticed her as he passed by, but she had certainly noticed him, tanned and
handsome in a rugged way, and not dissimilar to Gareth. She felt flustered as
she stood watching the horse and rider retreating into the distance, realising
that she had almost called out ‘Gareth’, had the sound not been strangled in
her throat.

Moments later horse and rider had rounded the headland and
if it wasn’t for the hoof marks carved into the sand Holly might have believed
him to be a mirage or a product of her imagination, the result of too much
alcohol and not enough sleep.

It couldn’t be him, could it? she wondered, a tiny glimmer
of hope rising in her as it had done hundreds of times over the years, only to
be quashed by her sensible side. Don’t be ridiculous, it said, Gareth’s gone.

Her heart was thumping in her chest as she turned and strode
purposefully back towards the hotel. The sun was already starting to heat up
and she hadn’t applied her sun protection yet. It wouldn’t do to get sun burnt
on her first day.

Rosemary watched Robert cross the small expanse of grass to
place their towels on the sun loungers closest to their room. She loved to sit
on the beach and gaze out to sea or read a book but these days she did it from
the shade of a beach umbrella. Gone were the days when she would lie out in the
sun from ten in the morning until the sunset with no SPF to protect her skin
and a liberal application of coconut oil to help her ‘fry’. Thank goodness her
mother had instilled in her the need to use good quality skin care products
from a very early age which had minimised the damage caused by the sun. One of
the reasons that she loved coming to the Plantation House hotel was the range
of beauty products that the hotel spa carried. She really enjoyed the decadent
treat of facials and full body massages.

This was her favoured end of the hotel complex away from the
swimming pools surrounded by families and the ‘body beautiful’ types. She had
nothing against either group but she had nothing in common with them either. In
the not-so-distant past women would envy and men would admire her slender body,
with her long lean legs, rounded bottom, flat stomach and small pert breasts.
She still felt confident of her appearance in cleverly designed clothes but
there was no hiding in swimwear.

Robert, or Bobby as she called him, was making his way back
towards her, having reserved their place on the beach for when they had
finished breakfast. She had long since stopped nagging him about his posture.
His rounded shoulders and rounded belly were a consequence of the many hours he
spent at his drawing desk or more often these days at his computer. Just like
all other areas of modern life computers played an increasing role in the work
of an architect. They were a wonderful technical aid for producing the
stunningly quirky buildings he had been working on recently in Dubai but they
couldn’t give the human touch to turn a structure into a place where people
felt comfortable spending their time.

‘I don’t suppose you’d care to join me for breakfast would
you?’ he quipped, extending his arm for her to link hers through.

‘Why I don’t mind if I do,’ she replied in a southern
American drawl, mimicking the accent of her favourite movie character, Scarlett
O’Hara.

Holly was anxious to get back to her room to start on the
work she should have done the previous evening. Fleur, the travel company
representative, was already ten minutes late, which was not creating a very
good impression on Holly or the other guests who were waiting to see her. They
were all gathered in the lounge area where Holly had checked in the previous
day, but noticeable by their absence were the British couple that had arrived
at the same time as Holly. She hadn’t seen them at breakfast either, but then
she had gone quite early.

Breakfast had been a delicious combination of fresh fruit,
followed by griddled tomatoes and a poached egg on toast. Holly’s request for
HP sauce had been met swiftly and her coffee cup refilled several times without
her having to ask. The only cause of disappointment was the fruit juice which
was reconstituted rather than fresh – a big black mark in Holly’s opinion.

Holly glanced at her watch. The rep was now fifteen minutes
late. Holly stood to leave just as a short dark-haired woman, clutching a
clipboard, rushed into the lounge.

‘I’m so sorry,’ apologised Fleur. ‘The traffic was terrible
this morning.’

‘Really?’ said Holly, genuine surprise in her voice, after
all this was Mauritius not the Marylebone Road.

‘Yes,’ said Fleur, oblivious to the sceptical looks all
around her. ‘A bus had broken down on the hill out of Flic en Flac and the
police were directing the traffic, but they were only allowing a few cars from
each direction at a time. Anyway I’m here now, and I’ll try and make-up for my
lateness by speeding through the boring bits.’

There were a few mumbles and grumbles but Holly liked this
woman’s sincerity so she sat back down to listen to the ‘Welcome Speech’. True
to her word, Fleur had finished all the basics in less than twenty minutes.

Most of the other people stood up to leave, but Holly remained
seated.

‘Is there something else I can help you with?’ Fleur asked.

‘Actually there is,’ said Holly. ‘I’d like to have a look
around the island. Would you recommend that I hire a car and make my own way or
would it be better to organise a car with a driver for the day?’

‘I would strongly recommend that you book a day with one of
our driver/guides. They know all the best places to visit and they will be able
to get you discount on some of the entrance fees. Was there anywhere in
particular you wanted to go?’

‘I liked the sound of the coloured earth that you spoke
about,’ said Holly, ‘and the dormant volcano, but I’d also like to visit the
north of the island to see what the coast is like up there.’

‘The tours are normally either in the south, where the coloured
earth of Chamarel and the Trou aux Cerfs crater are, or the north where you can
visit the botanical gardens to see the giant water lilies and then go to the
beach for lunch, but I can ask if any of our drivers would do it.’

‘Perhaps you could ask the driver who brought me from the
airport,’ said Holly, hoping that the 200 rupees she had tipped him would be
enough to persuade him, particularly if he thought there might be another tip.

‘Do you remember his name?’ asked Fleur

‘ I believe it was Sachin,’ Holly answered.

Ten minutes later, after a phone call to Sachin and paying
the fee on her credit card, the trip was arranged for Friday, giving her three
days to sit around the pool and beach and mingle with the other hotel guests.

Right, thought Holly, now I really must get on with some
work.

Holly patiently typed in the premium access code for the
Internet for a second time and pressed ‘enter’ again. Perhaps she had hit a
wrong key. The same message flashed up on her computer screen:

Access currently unavailable.

She reached for the phone and dialled 0.

‘Hello Miss Wilson,’ said the receptionist, answering her
call on the first ring. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’m having a bit of trouble getting on to the Internet
using the premium code you gave me. I keep getting a message saying “access
denied”,’ Holly explained. ‘Am I doing something wrong?’

‘I am very sorry, Miss Wilson, but the Internet access for
the whole resort is currently down. Is there anything else I can help you
with?’

‘Do you know when you are likely to have it up and running?
I have an email I need to send quite urgently.’

‘We should have it back by tomorrow morning at the latest,’
replied the receptionist. ‘It’s rarely off for more than twenty-four hours and
it only went off this morning.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ said Holly replacing the receiver. There was
no point getting cross with the receptionist as it was beyond her control. The
only person Holly was angry with was herself.

It’s my own fault, I should have done this last night, she
admitted. Well there’s no point crying over spilt milk, she thought, it will
just be late.

She pressed ‘save as’, typed in ‘First Impressions’ and then
turned her notebook off. She locked it, her passport, her purse and her
jewellery in the room safe, picked up her beach bag, already packed with a book
to read, a notepad and pen, her camera, towel and battered straw hat, popped
her sunglasses on her nose and headed for the beach.

It was just after midday, so Holly needed the shade of a
beach umbrella. There were plenty to choose from on this stretch of the beach.
Although the resort had seemed quite busy, judging by the number of people in
the restaurant at breakfast, they were obviously nowhere near capacity and
anyway this was the quieter end of the resort away from the two swimming pools.

She hadn’t even finished reading a paragraph of her book
when the first beach seller approached her.

‘You like to buy sarong,’ he questioned, holding up a
brightly coloured piece of fabric printed with hibiscus flowers. ‘Only 600 rupees.’

Holly smiled, shook her head and went back to the pages of
her book. She had deliberately left her purse in the safe in her room so that
she wouldn’t be tempted to buy. She didn’t need anymore colourful beach
sarongs, she had a dozen or more back in the UK plus the four she had brought
with her on this trip. Even so she knew she would have bought something if she
had any money on her. That was the beauty of All-Inclusive, you didn’t need to
carry money with you for anything.

The beach seller hung around for a few seconds to see if she
would change her mind and then moved along to the next occupied sun loungers.
Holly watched as a young woman with short dark hair fingered the fabric and
then said something which she couldn’t quite hear as they were too far away,
but it must have been a question regarding other colours or designs as the
beach seller dropped his sports bag to the sand and started pulling out other
options. The woman was engrossed in her selection and the man with her was on
his mobile phone so neither of them noticed their toddler wandering towards the
sea a few yards away. Holly sprang to her feet and called out to attract their
attention. Within moments the woman had scooped her daughter up into her arms
and carried her, wriggling like crazy, across the sand and sat her down on the
sunbed. She hadn’t shouted or smacked the child, as some mothers might have,
she simply handed her a piece of coral to play with while she completed the
sarong purchase. The man had continued his phone conversation throughout the
episode.

The little girl was very cute with dark curly hair.

It’s funny, thought Holly, that’s exactly how I had imagined
my baby would look, but Harry was blond and blue-eyed, like his father. She
only realised she was staring when the baby’s mother waved and called out,

‘
Grazie
!’

‘
Prego
,’ responded Holly, making
use of the tiny Italian vocabulary that she knew.

Several other beach sellers approached Holly over the next
hour or so, offering necklaces made of beads or pearls, T-shirts and little
carvings of dodos, the national emblem of Mauritius. She refused them all with
a smile. She knew she would succumb eventually, after all they were only trying
to earn a living, but she really must get through her first morning without
making a purchase otherwise they would pester her for the rest of her stay
knowing she was a soft touch.

She closed her eyes behind her sunglasses and must have
dozed off briefly because the next time she looked across towards the Italian
family they had gone, although their towels were still there so they were
obviously planning on coming back.

They’ve probably gone for lunch, thought Holly, what a good
idea.

The condensation formed on the cooled beer glasses as soon as
they came into contact with heat of the Mauritian early afternoon. Holly had
been tempted to order a beer to have with her lunch but had decided to stick to
sparkling water, just as refreshing, no calories and no more drinking alone.

She had chosen a table at the back of Waves restaurant so
that she could see everything that was going on around her while pretending to
look out at the view. She waited for her lunch, a simple Greek salad, and
observed the efficient service of the waiters and waitresses. No one waited for
more than a minute before being shown to an available table, and the drinks
order was usually taken immediately. There was the right mix of friendliness
and respect for the paying guests, with particular warmth and attention
directed towards the children, not that there were many children of school age.
Early March was term time in the UK and probably most other countries around
the world, Holly thought.

She scanned the restaurant for the Italian family but could
not see them. She did however notice the British couple who she had missed seeing
at breakfast. They were talking to another man in a linen suit and as he turned
she realised she recognised him. His face had smiled out from the cover of the
resort magazine that had been pushed under her door at some point that morning.
He was the resort manager. He might have been doing his job, mingling randomly
with the hotel guests, but Holly sensed a degree of familiarity.

I need to strike up a conversation with those two, she
thought, they could be very useful.

At that moment Holly’s lunch arrived and she was about to
protest that she had been given the wrong order when the waitress, Ornelia,
smiled and said, ‘Enjoy your Greek salad.’

It was like no Greek salad Holly had seen before. It was
stacked, having come out of a mould, with a layer of cucumber at the bottom,
followed by a layer of fresh chopped tomatoes, topped with cubes of feta cheese
and sprinkled conservatively with black olives. It looked amazing and tasted
even better.

She was so engrossed in her lunch, trying to eat from around
the edges towards the middle without it toppling over, that she didn’t see the
British couple leave.