Between them, the beach attendant and Georgios are laying out our towels with military precision.
“Bottled water.” Georgios sets a chiller on our table. “Should I open the cap for madame?”
“Don’t worry. Maybe I’ll have some later. Thanks so much, Georgios. That will be all for now. Thank you.” I sit down on a bed, and Ben takes the other. I kick off my flip-flops, peel off my caftan top, lean back, and close my eyes, hoping this will give the message to Georgios. A moment later a shadow crosses my eyelids and I open them. To my disbelief, Georgios is neatly straightening my flip-flops and folding up my caftan.
Is he planning to hang around with us all bloody day? I glance at Ben, who is clearly thinking the same thing.
As he catches me sitting up, Georgios leaps to attention.
“Madame wishes to swim? Madame wishes to cross the hot sand?” He proffers the flip-flops.
What?
OK, this is just stupid. These five-star hotels have gone way, way too far. Yes, I’m on holiday; yes, it’s nice to have some personal service. But that doesn’t make me suddenly incapable of laying out a towel or unscrewing a bottle cap or putting on my own flip-flops.
“No, thanks. What I’d really like is …” I try to think of some time-consuming challenge. “I’d like a freshly squeezed orange juice with honey drizzled in it. And some M&M’s. The brown ones only. Thank you so much, Georgios.”
“Madame.” To my relief, he bows and walks away.
“Brown M&M’s?” says Ben incredulously. “You diva.”
“I was trying to get rid of him!” I retort in an undertone. “Is he going to stalk us all day? Is that what a personal butler does?”
“God knows.” Ben seems distracted. He keeps eyeing my bikini top. Or, rather, the contents of my bikini top.
“Let me rub your sun cream in,” he says. “I’m not giving that job to the butler.”
“OK. Thanks.” I hand him the bottle and he squeezes a big dollop of cream onto his palm. As he starts to apply it, I hear him inhale sharply.
“Let me know if I’m too rough,” he murmurs. “Or not rough enough.”
“Er … Ben,” I whisper. “I meant my back. I don’t actually need help applying it to my cleavage.”
I don’t think Ben can hear, because he doesn’t stop. A nearby woman is giving us an odd look. Now Ben takes another dollop of sun cream and starts rubbing it under my bikini top. With both hands. He’s breathing very heavily. And now several people are looking.
“Ben!”
“Just being thorough,” he mumbles.
“Ben! Stop!” I jerk away. “Do my back.”
“Right.” He blinks a few times, his eyes unfocused.
“Maybe I should do it myself.” I take the bottle from him and start slathering it on my legs. “Do you want some? Ben?” I wave to get his attention, but he seems in a trance. Then suddenly he comes to.
“I’ve had an idea.”
“What kind of idea?” I say warily.
“A brilliant idea.”
He gets up and approaches a couple lying on sun beds nearby. I noticed them earlier, at breakfast. They both have red hair and I’m already worried about them burning in the sun.
“Hi, there.” Ben smiles charmingly down at the woman. “Enjoying your holiday? I’m Ben, by the way. We’ve just arrived.”
“Oh. Hi, there.” The woman has a slightly suspicious tone.
“Lovely hat.” He gestures at her head.
Lovely hat? It’s the most nondescript straw hat I’ve ever seen. What is he up to?
“Actually, I was wondering,” Ben carries on. “I’m in a bit of a bind. I’ve got a very important call to make and our room is out of action. Would you mind if I used yours? Just briefly. I’d pop up really briefly. With my wife,” he adds carelessly. “We’d be quick.”
The woman looks a bit flummoxed.
“A call?” she says.
“An important business call,” Ben says. “As I say, we’d be super quick. In and out.”
He glances at me and gives the tiniest of winks. I’d smile if I weren’t so transfixed with longing. A room. Oh God, we so need a room.…
“Darling?” The woman leans over and nudges her husband. “These people want to borrow our room.” The husband sits up and stares at Ben, shading his eyes against the sun. He’s older than his wife and is doing The Times’s crossword.
“Why on earth would you need to do that?”
“For a call,” says Ben. “A really quick business call.”
“Why can’t you use the conference center?”
“Not private enough,” says Ben without missing a beat. “This is a very confidential, discreet kind of call. I’d very much appreciate a secluded space.”
“But—”
“I’ll tell you what …” Ben hesitates. “Why don’t I give you a little gift for your trouble? Say, fifty quid?”
“What?” The husband sounds flabbergasted. “You want to pay us fifty quid just to use our room? Are you serious?”
“I’m sure the hotel would find you a room for nothing,” puts in the wife helpfully.
“They wouldn’t, OK?” Ben sounds a tad impatient. “We’ve tried. Which is why I’m asking you.”
“Fifty quid.” The husband puts down his crossword, frowning thoughtfully as though this is a new clue. “What—cash?”
“Cash, check, whatever you like. A credit on your room bill. Don’t care.”
“Wait a minute.” The husband jabs his finger at Ben as if he’s suddenly worked it all out. “Is this a scam? You run up hundreds of pounds on my phone bill and give me fifty quid for the pleasure?”
“No! I just want your room!”
“But there are so many other spaces.” The wife looks puzzled. “Why do you want our room? Why not a corner of the lobby? Why not—”
“Because I want to have sex in it, OK?” Ben explodes. I can see heads popping up everywhere under umbrellas. “I want to have sex,” he repeats more calmly. “With my wife. On my honeymoon. Is that too much to ask?”
“You want to have sex?” The wife draws herself away from Ben as though she might catch a disease. “On our bed?”
“It’s not your bed!” says Ben impatiently. “It’s a hotel bed. We can have the sheets changed. Or use the floor.” He turns to me as though for confirmation. “The floor would be OK, right?”
My entire face is prickling. I can’t believe he’s dragging me into this. I can’t believe he’s telling the whole beach we’re going to do it on the floor.
“Andrew!” The wife turns to her husband. “Say something!”
Andrew is silent, frowning for a moment—then looks up.
“Five hundred and not a penny less.”
“What?” Now it’s the wife’s turn to explode. “You have to be joking! Andrew, that’s our room and this is our honeymoon and we’re not having some strange couple going in it to do … anything.” She grabs the room card, which is lying on Andrew’s sun bed, and stuffs it down her swimsuit defiantly. “You’re sick.” She glowers at Ben. “You and your wife.”
Heads have turned all over the beach. Great.
“Fine,” says Ben at last. “Well, thank you for your time.”
As Ben is heading back to me, a large, hairy guy in tight swimming trunks leaps up from a nearby sun bed and taps Ben on the shoulder. Even from here I can smell his aftershave.
“Hey,” he says in a heavy Russian accent. “I have a room.”
“Oh, really?” Ben turns, interested.
“You, me, your wife, my new wife, Natalya—you want to make some fun?”
There’s a pause—then Ben swivels to meet my gaze, eyebrows raised. I stare back in slight shock. Is he actually asking me? I shake my head violently, mouthing, “No, no, no.”
“Not today,” says Ben, in what sound like genuinely regretful tones. “Another time.”
“No worries.” The Russian guy claps him on the shoulder, and Ben comes back over t
o his sun bed. He slides onto it and stares savagely out to sea.
“Well, so much for that bright idea. Bloody frigid cow.”
I lean over and poke him hard in the chest. “Hey, what was that? Did you want to take him up on his offer? That Russian?”
“At least it would have been something.”
Something? I stare at him incredulously, till he looks up.
“What?” he says defensively. “It would have been something.”
“Well, excuse me for not wanting to share my wedding night with a gorilla and a girl with rubber boobs,” I say sarcastically. “Sorry to spoil your fun.”
“Not rubber,” says Ben.
“You’ve looked, have you?”
“Silicone.”
I can’t help snorting. Meanwhile, Ben is deftly flinging a couple of towels up over our parasol. What’s he doing?
“Just creating a bit of privacy,” he says with a wink, and squeezes next to me on my sun bed, his hands all over me like an octopus. “God, you’re hot. You haven’t got a crotchless bikini on, have you?”
Is he serious?
Actually, a crotchless bikini would have been handy.
“I don’t think they even exist—” I suddenly notice two children watching us in curiosity. “Stop!” I hiss, and drag Ben’s hand out of my bikini bottoms. “We’re not doing it on a sun bed! We’ll get arrested!”
“Shaved ice, madame? Lemon flavor?” We both jump about a million miles as Hermes ducks his head under the towels and proffers a tray bearing two cones. I am honestly going to have a heart attack before I leave this place.
For a while we sit in silence, slurping at our shaved ice and listening to the low hum of beach chatter and waves lapping the sand.
“Look,” I say at last. “It’s a shit situation, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Either we sit here, boiling with frustration and getting ratty with each other, or we go and do something till the room’s ready.”
“Like what?”
“You know.” I try to sound optimistic. “Fun holiday activities. Tennis, sailing, canoeing. Ping-Pong. Whatever they’ve got.”
“Sounds riveting,” says Ben moodily.
“Let’s go for a walk, anyway, and see what we can find.”
I want to get away from this beach. Everyone keeps turning to look at us while they whisper behind their paperbacks, and the Russian guy keeps winking at me.
Ben finishes his shaved ice and leans over to kiss me, his icy lips parting mine with a delicious lemony, salty taste.
“We can’t,” I say as his hand automatically finds my bikini top. “Look, stop.” I wrench his hand away. “It makes it too hard. No touching. Not till our room’s ready.”
“No touching?” He stares at me incredulously.
“No touching.” I nod resolutely. “Come on. Let’s walk through the hotel and whatever activity we find first, we’ll do. Yes? Deal?”
I wait for Ben to get to his feet and slip into his flip-flops. Georgios is heading toward us down the path from the hotel, and to my disbelief he’s actually holding a salver bearing a glass of orange juice and a dish of brown M&M’s.
“Madame.”
“Wow!” I drain the orange juice in one gulp and crunch a couple of M&M’s. “That’s wonderful.”
“Is our room ready yet?” demands Ben abruptly. “It must be.”
“I believe not, sir.” Georgios’s gloomy expression descends yet further. “I believe a problem has arisen with the fire alarm.”
“The fire alarm?” Ben echoes incredulously. “What do you mean, the fire alarm?”
“A sensor was knocked as the beds were moved. Unfortunately, this must be fixed before we can allow you back into the room. It is for your own safety. My deepest apologies, sir.”
Ben has both his hands to his head. He looks so apoplectic, I’m almost scared.
“Well, how long will it be now?”
Georgios spreads his hands. “Sir, I only wish—”
“You don’t know,” Ben interrupts tensely. “Of course you don’t know. Why would you know?”
I have a horrible feeling he’s going to flip out in a minute and hit Georgios.
“Anyway.” I hastily join in the conversation. “Never mind. We’ll go and amuse ourselves.”
“Madame.” Georgios nods. “How can I assist you with this?”
Ben scowls at him. “You can—”
“Get me some more juice, please!” I trill, before Ben says something really offensive. “Maybe some … some …” I hesitate. What’s the most time-consuming juice there is? “Some beet juice?”
A flicker passes across Georgios’s otherwise impassive face. I think perhaps he’s cottoned onto my ruse.
“Of course, madame.”
“Great! See you later.” We head up a path lined with white walls and bougainvillea. The sun is beating down on our heads and it’s very quiet. I know Georgios is following us, but I’m not making chitchat with him. Then he’ll never go.
“The beach bar’s this way,” observes Ben as we pass a sign. “We could look in.”
“The beach bar?” I give him a sardonic look. “After last night?”
“Hair of the dog. Virgin Mary. Whatever.”
“OK.” I shrug. “We could have a quick one.”
The beach bar is large and circular and shady, with Greek bouzouki music playing softly. Ben immediately slumps onto a bar stool.
“Welcome.” The barman approaches us with a wide smile. “Many congratulations on your marriage.” He gives us a laminated drinks menu and moves away.
“How did he know we were just married?” Ben regards him with narrowed eyes.
“Saw our shiny new wedding rings, I suppose? What shall we have?” I start looking down the menu, but Ben is lost in thought.
“That bloody woman,” he mutters. “We’d be there now. In their bed.”
“Well. I’m sure they’ll fix the fire alarm soon,” I say unconvincingly.
“This is our bloody honeymoon.”
“I know,” I say soothingly. “Come on, let’s have a drink. A proper drink.” I feel like having one myself, to be honest.
“Did you say it was your honeymoon?” A blond girl heralds us across the bar. She’s wearing an orange caftan with bobbles on the sleeves and has jeweled sandals with very high heels. “Of course it is! Everyone here is on honeymoon. When were you married?”
“Yesterday. We just arrived last night.”
“We were Saturday! Holy Trinity Church in Manchester. My dress was Phillipa Lepley. We had a hundred and twenty to the reception. It was a buffet. Then in the evening we had dancing to a band, and fifty additional guests attended.” She looks at us expectantly.
“Ours was … smaller,” I say after a pause. “Quite a lot smaller. But lovely.”
Lovelier than yours, I add silently. I turn to Ben to back me up, but he’s swiveled away and is talking to the bartender instead.
This is the first time I’ve noticed a trait that Ben has in common with Richard—i.e., being totally antisocial and narrow-minded about new people. The number of times I’ve struck up a conversation with some really interesting, fun person, and Richard just wouldn’t join in. Like that fascinating woman we met at Greenwich once, who he point-blank refused to be introduced to. And, OK, it turned out she was a bit of a weirdo and tried to get me to invest £10,000 in a houseboat, but he wasn’t to know that, was he?
“Ring?” The girl shoves her hand forward. Her nails are orange to match her caftan, I notice. Does that mean all her caftans are orange or that she repaints her nails every night? “I’m Melissa, by the way.”
“Lovely!” I thrust my left hand forward to match, and my platinum wedding band glints in the sunshine. It’s studded with diamonds and is really quite fancy.
“Very nice!” Melissa raises her eyebrows, impressed. “It’s an amazing feeling, isn’t it, wearing a wedding ring?” She leans forward conspiratorially. “I catch my reflection and see the
ring on my hand and I think, Bloody hell! I’m married!”
“Me too!” I suddenly realize I’ve missed this: girly chat about getting married. That’s the downside of rushing off with no family or bridesmaids at your side. “And being called ‘Mrs.’ is weird too!” I add. “Mrs. Parr.”
“I’m Mrs. Falkner.” She beams. “I just love it. Falkner.”
“I like Parr.” I smile back.
“You know this place is the honeymoon resort? They’ve had celebs here and everything. Our suite is to die for. And we’re renewing our vows tomorrow night, on the Love Island. That’s what they call it, the Love Island.”
She gestures down toward the sea, at a wooden jetty extending into the distance. At the end it broadens into a large platform which has been set up with a gauzy white canopy.
“We’re having cocktails afterward,” she adds. “You should come along! Maybe you could renew your vows too!”
“Already?”
I don’t want to sound rude, but that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. I got married yesterday. Why would I renew my vows?
“We’ve decided to renew ours every year,” says Melissa complacently. “Next year we’re going to do them in Mauritius, and I’ve already seen exactly the dress I want to wear. Last month’s Brides. The Vera Wang on page fifty-four. Did you see it?” Melissa’s phone trills before I can answer, and she frowns. “Excuse me a moment.… Matt? Matt, what on earth are you doing? I’m at the bar! As we arranged. The bar … No, not the spa, the bar!”
She exhales impatiently, then puts her phone away and beams at me again. “So, you two must go in for the Couples’ Quiz this afternoon.”
“Couples’ Quiz?” I echo blankly.
“You know. Like the TV show. You answer questions about your partner and the winners are the couple who know each other best.” She gestures at a nearby poster, which reads:
TODAY at 4 PM:
COUPLES’ QUIZ on the BEACH.
BIG PRIZES!! FREE ENTRY!!
“Everyone’s entered,” she adds, sipping at her drink through a straw. “They put on loads of activities for honeymooners here. It’s all marketing nonsense, of course.” She casually brushes back her hair. “I mean, honestly, as if marriage were a competition.”