Libby felt suddenly a bit shy. Sitting next to her once best friend. Acting over-polite as a result. ‘Yeah, fine. Are you OK?’
Eve blew out a breath that flicked her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Fine. Apart from the on-a-break thing. We’re like a bloody sitcom, aren’t we? Although less funny.’
Libby couldn’t laugh along. It embarrassed her that they were both facing the same challenge in their relationships. It wasn’t meant to happen like this. Libby was always the together one and Eve the shambles.
Eve tied her hair up, half of it immediately falling out because it was too short for a ponytail. ‘God, I’m all over the place. I feel really weird without the kids. No one has dropped anything on me or whacked me in the face. You know, that’s what they don’t tell you about kids. How often you get unintentional injuries. They sit up and whoomph, their head has smashed you in the jaw.’ She toyed nervously with her phone as she spoke. ‘Sorry, I won’t talk about the kids. I know it’s really boring.’
As Libby pulled out of the maze of airport roads and onto the motorway she couldn’t resist a glance across at Eve’s profile. She was fascinated by how many lines she had round her eyes and the grey tint to her skin. Eve used to glow, that was her thing. Her skin shone like a mermaid’s. Her hair was the envy of everyone. She’d do those big messy plaits in her hair, all intricate and knotted, that would have taken Libby two days to achieve while Eve would do it watching Countdown. Now she had almost half a head of black roots and it looked as if she’d done the blunt chin-length cut herself.
Eve seemed to sense the scrutiny and redid her ponytail self-consciously. ‘It’s all a bit shit really,’ she said, and Libby turned back to the road ahead saying nothing.
While Jessica waited for Dex to wake up so they could finish a work project they were meant to have done before they left, she decided to go for a walk. First she explored the local town which took mere minutes as it consisted of a shop, a church, and a square, but then she found the lake—the main attraction. An epic expanse of blue that stretched like a mirage out towards the Tuscan mountains in the distance, their peaks jutting into the horizon like fat kings on thrones.
Jessica stood and watched the glassy water from a slatted boardwalk that seemed to run the circumference. The wood was warm beneath her bare feet, like walking on soft leather; the water lapped gently against the pebbles and shivered through the reed beds, and the shimmer of the sun made her shield her eyes.
She knew she should be thinking that this was paradise. It was paradise. But Jessica had never been particularly good at relaxing. She could feel her hair starting to curl annoyingly in the humidity, her skin smelt overpoweringly of coconut suntan lotion, and her mobile kept losing reception.
She knew she should enjoy the fact that she was unreachable. Even though she loved her job, thrived on it, she knew that just for a week she should wallow in being decision-less. But she liked the routine of work, the purpose it gave her. Every time she went away she would draw a blank at what exactly she was meant to do. In the back of her mind was always her mother’s voice as they arrived at the Isle of Wight caravan, never wearing anything less than skirt, tights, and blouse, refusing ever to be seen without her shoes on, sitting in a deckchair saying, ‘Well what’s the point? It takes a week to settle in and by that time I’m ready to go home.’
All that on top of the fact that Miles was or wasn’t about to appear made it almost impossible for her to relax into the moment. It made the view feel like a canvas rather than reality, like the screen at the front of her spinning class that was meant to make it feel like they were cycling a lush mountain road rather than pedalling in the sweaty old gym. It made her barely acknowledge the beautiful old white boathouse when it rose before her like a floating castle as she walked further along the boardwalk. It was only the stone-spitting skid of a motorbike drawing up at the front that made her stop short and take notice.
The building shone with fresh white paint, the windows gleamed with diamonds of stained glass like boiled sweets, and a huge, green wooden door was propped open with a beer barrel. From the soft chill out music wafting her way and the white cushioned couches she could glimpse, she deduced it was some sort of languid café bar full of people posing with martinis—not really her thing.
‘You are lost?’ the man on the motorbike said, lifting one leather-clad leg over his great red Yamaha. He was fractionally taller than her, cropped haired, receding slightly, week old stubble on his jaw, nose like a Roman soldier.
Jessica glanced surreptitiously behind her to check he was talking to her before saying, ‘No,’ and pulling her sunglasses off her head ready to slip them on and walk away. But she’d forgotten her hair had started to curl, had forgotten that sunglasses caught in curly hair. And as she tried to untangle them she fumbled her hold and they dropped to the ground. Taking a step back to pick them up from the gravel she lost a flip-flop and had to steady herself on the barrel propping the door open as she slipped it back on again. The fumes from the bike were making the sun somehow hotter and she had to fan herself as she finally stood up straight and pushed her sunglasses on.
There was a smirk on the guy’s lips as he watched the whole little routine while pulling one leather glove off, then the next, and tucking them under his arm. ‘You’re not looking for the bar?’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, retying her hair. ‘I’m just walking. This way.’ She pointed ahead about to walk away but she was caught by his expression; his eyes looking her up and down. Never before in her life had Jessica felt someone so clearly imagining having sex with her from just a look. She was momentarily stunned. Felt like she should tell him to stop looking. And then to her horror she found herself blushing.
‘You want to come in for a drink?’ he asked, his presence like a looming shadow beside her.
‘No,’ she said, annoyed with her blush, annoyed that he’d had any effect on her at all.
His mouth quirked as he watched her with his lazy gaze. ‘Do you ever say yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said and then turned away to carry on along the boardwalk.
She felt him still watching.
It was like being stalked by a tiger. He was somehow primal. The word made her snort as she strutted away.
Primal. It was a word her mother had used once about the new postman. She would refuse to open the door to him when he knocked. Jessica had never understood what she was on about.
‘Are you staying at the Limoncello?’ she heard him call after her but she didn’t reply.
She heard him laugh and kicked herself for not just saying yes.
She could hear her mother, ‘Say one thing to him and he’ll be in your bedroom window at night.’
Jessica hadn’t thought about her mother so much in years. But it stood to reason that as soon as she lost her sense of self the insidious voice would creep back in. All her good work ruined. She caught sight of one of the bright red curls that had come loose from her ponytail, remembered her mother pulling one like a spring when she was naughty and telling her it was the devil inside her. She pushed the curl back into the elastic band and blew out a breath.
It was holidays. She blamed holidays entirely. They made the mind run wild with too much free time. Really, she hadn’t allowed her mum into her head since she’d