About a Girl Page 20

  ‘He said he didn’t know.’ I ignored the burning in my cheeks and his adorable reference to our first kiss. ‘And now he says he wants to be friends again. I just can’t work out why he did it at all.’

  ‘Why did Hillary climb Everest?’ he shrugged. ‘You were there. Men are explorers. Once you’ve got to the top of a mountain and put the flag in, why would you bother climbing the same one again? There are a lot of very exciting mountains out there ? there’s always a bigger one round the corner.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a mountain,’ I said, trying not to whine and failing. ‘And that’s bollocks. If that was true, no one would ever get married.’

  ‘Well, climbing mountains gets tiring after a while,’ he reasoned, his expression perfectly even. ‘I think one day you find one that’s got a really good view, you end up hanging around for a bit and before you know it, you’ve set up base camp and you’re going nowhere. Doesn’t mean you don’t look at the other mountains, though. Mountains are pretty.’

  ‘None of this is reassuring,’ I replied. ‘And you’re not exactly making me feel good about myself.’

  ‘If it helps, you’re one of the most fascinating mountains I’ve ever met.’ He rested a hand on my knee and stroked my skin gently. ‘Sometimes blokes are just blokes, even if they are your best mates. He’s clearly an idiot.’

  ‘For sleeping with me?’ I asked in my quiet voice.

  ‘For not setting up camp,’ Nick replied.

  We sat in silence for a moment, Nick’s hand on my leg threatening to burn a hole right through my flesh. I was so confused. How could I be sitting here, heart hurting like hell for Charlie, and desperately wanting Nick to throw me down and shag me senseless? I shook my head and looked down at the sand again, feeling silly. Feeling like the old Tess.

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t man enough to get all the way to the top of your mountain,’ Nick said, breaking the quiet and taking away his hand. I missed it immediately. ‘Maybe he realized you were too much of a challenge.’

  ‘What, and you are man enough?’ I asked with a laugh that was slightly more bitter than I liked the sound of. ‘I thought this was just sex, Nick?’

  ‘It is,’ he said. ‘But you are giving me more pause for thought than I’d anticipated.’

  I hopped up off my towel and brushed away the sand along with his words. He wasn’t helping. ‘Swim?’ I asked, turning towards the water before I got a reply.

  It was posed as a question but it was definitely more a statement. I wanted to wash away the conversation and pretend it had never happened. This split personality of Nick’s was getting to be too much. One minute he was the devil-may-care playboy, the next an insightful sweetheart. He was funny, then he was crass. He was sweet, and then he was arrogant. And talking about Charlie, stirring up genuine emotions, only made it harder for me to sort through what was real and what was fake. I was having a hard enough time remembering what my name was supposed to be.

  I walked into the water, ignoring the shock of the cold as it crept up my legs. Baking in the sun had warmed me through, and now the lagoon that had been so refreshing before felt icy. Without looking back, I swam towards the waterfall and looked up. I wondered where the water came from, where it went, how it stayed so clean and fresh. Nick gave me a whole two minutes’ peace before I heard him swimming over to me with a strong, straight stroke.

  ‘What happened with your ex?’ I asked as he reached me. ‘Really?’

  ‘Shall we just agree exes are off the agenda?’ he suggested. The fact that he wouldn’t tell me only convinced me that there was something to tell.

  ‘I’m just curious.’ I bobbed up and down in the water, starting to enjoy the freshness again. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Maybe we just shouldn’t talk at all,’ Nick said. ‘Stick to what we’re good at.’

  ‘Maybe we should just stop everything altogether,’ I suggested, kicking my legs underneath me. ‘You do your interview, I’ll take my pictures, and then we all go home.’

  ‘And what happens after we go home?’ he asked, wiping his face and treading water.

  ‘After we go home?’ I was confused.

  ‘Yeah.’ Nick swam closer and our feet touched under the water. ‘When this is over. What’s on the agenda for you when you get back to reality next week?’

  ‘Oh.’ I smiled sadly and ducked my head. ‘Reality.’

  Home. London. Amy, Charlie, Vanessa. Tess again. Of course. I glanced around at the lagoon, the vine-covered cliffs, the palm trees, the golden sand, the blue-green water and cascading waterfall that almost drowned out his words. It was all too good to be true. This wasn’t reality for someone like me.

  ‘Wake up, realize this was all a dream,’ I said. ‘Find my dead husband alive and well in the shower. You?’

  ‘New York,’ he replied. ‘Maybe Hong Kong the week after. Still waiting to confirm.’

  ‘Don’t you ever stop?’ It all sounded like such hard work. ‘Don’t you get tired of moving all the time?’

  ‘I don’t like to stay in one place too long,’ he said, kicking backwards towards the waterfall, away from me. ‘Don’t like to let the grass grow under my feet.’

  I waded towards him, just a half-step, and stopped. ‘How do you have any sort of life if you’re always on the move? How do you cope?’

  ‘When you’ve only got yourself to worry about, it’s not so difficult ? I’m fine,’ he called back as he swam away. ‘You worry too much.’

  I watched him vanish under the crashing water, my heart in my mouth until the moment he reappeared. He was fine, of course he was fine, and of course he was right – I did worry too much. But for the first time, while I was sure he was fine, I was starting to think he wasn’t entirely happy.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The rest of the afternoon passed too quickly. We lazed on the beach, Nick read, I devoured everything Kekipi had put in the picnic basket and we silently agreed not to ask each other any more difficult questions. We also spent so long kissing that by the time we made it back to the cottages my lips were so chapped I thought they were falling off. When we parted ways on the beach, without so much as a goodbye, and trotted back to our respective homes, I paused by the door, looking back at him to see if he was looking back at me. He wasn’t. Without a second glance, Nick let himself into the cottage and closed the door behind him. My heart sank a little but my brain gave me a gentle slap and pushed me inside. I still couldn’t quite work out how things could be so insanely fabulous with someone I hardly knew, someone I barely liked and someone I would most likely never see again in four days’ time. Maybe Nick was right ? maybe I did worry too much. But to be fair, I had quite a lot to worry about.

  And the first thing on the list was the note I found from Paige scribbled on a piece of kitchen roll and stuck to my fridge. At first I smiled ? writing on kitchen roll was such an Amy thing to do ? but once I’d registered what the makeshift message actually said, I felt a little less warm and fuzzy and considerably more queasy.

  ‘I wish she would bloody stop letting herself in here,’ I muttered, casting my eyes over her scrawl.

  The models had arrived.

  There were models. On the same island as me. Not that there weren’t always models on the same island as me. I lived and worked in East London, for God’s sake ? there were usually models on the same bus as me – but these were models I was going to take pictures of. And I was so scared that they would take one look at me, smell the fear and know. Models were like horses. I’d be holding the camera wrong or I’d ask them to smile instead of smize and the jig would be well and truly up. Whenever we did shoots at the ad agency, I always sent one of my team to deal with the models ? they were altogether too intimidating and, hilariously, they always reminded me of Vanessa. We just didn’t see eye to eye. Literally, in some cases. The rest of the kitchen-towel message was no more reassuring. I read it a couple of times over, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

  – Models arrive at 6.00,
staying in cottages next 2 u. Pls go and say hi.

  – I have ‘plans’. Meet outside 2moro @ 7.00 a.m.

  – We are shooting w/Artie NOT Bertie

  Paige xx

  P.S. bring camera

  Next to the last bullet point was a huge winky face.

  Oh good, it was supposed to be a joke.

  So I was the model welcome wagon. What could Paige possibly be doing on the island of Oahu that was so important she would trust me to go and deal with the models on my own? On the upside, when I looked over at the sofa, I noticed the badly written message wasn’t the only thing Paige had left in my cottage. Thrown all over the settee was what looked like three suitcases’ worth of clothes and another note that read, ‘Your wardrobe made me sad.’ I was insulted. And a little bit giddy. Paige’s clothes were much nicer than Vanessa’s clothes. I held up a couple of the dresses and shirts that she’d tossed so carelessly and did the mental ‘will I get my boobs in them?’ test. For at least fifty percent of her offerings, the answer was no. But for the other fifty percent, with the right bra and a positive attitude, I could probably make them work. I recognized some of the designer names from the magazines I’d pored over obsessively on the plane and from the stiff paper carriers that Vanessa left lying around our flat.

  Barely breathing, I pulled out a beautiful silk shift from 10 Crosby, all powder-blue background with a ridiculously pretty coral and white flower design. Very Hawaii. I gently laid it down on the armchair and worked my way through the rest of the pile. After twenty minutes of feeling like a kid in a very swanky sweet shop, I had a colourful collection of silk and satin and the softest cotton dresses I’d ever seen. My pile of borrowed ensembles made Vanessa’s wardrobe at home look like the floor of Primark at the end of a particularly brutal Saturday. Clothes had never really been high up on my agenda; I was always too busy worrying about everything else in the world. Mostly I just wanted to be taken seriously and not show stains. I spilled a lot. But while I was in character, I might as well be in costume. Selecting a pretty, soft-looking cornflower-blue Phillip Lim dress from the pile, I strode purposefully into the bathroom to wash away my perfect afternoon and prepare for my model evening.

  After treating myself to a long, steamy shower and a good talking-to, I stood in front of my neighbour’s cottage and steeled myself. I was in a nice dress, I was wearing a lot of eyeliner. My camera didn’t exactly go with my outfit, but I figured it made a good prop and, if necessary, a decent weapon. What was the worst that could happen? So yeah, OK, they were models; but they were also girls on a jolly in Hawaii. Surely they would be as blown away as I was when I’d first arrived? Surely they would be happy and excited?

  ‘And they’re only people,’ I reminded myself under my breath. ‘They stand in front of cameras and pout for a living. I managed to convince half of the UK to start using a different kind of teabag by making up a singing teaspoon voiced by Barbara Windsor. This is nothing.’

  With one last worry about my non-existent manicure, I rapped on the door and waited. And waited. And waited. One more deep breath and I knocked again. Harder and louder and longer. This time I heard a shuffling noise inside, an awkward rattling at the lock, and eventually the door swung open to reveal what was either some sort of demon or a very, very angry model.

  ‘What?’ she snapped, straw-blonde hair tied up in a topknot and a pair of absurdly big blue eyes red raw and narrowing right in on me. ‘Did I not tell you I was going to sleep?’

  ‘Um, aloha.’ I waved a hand in a futile gesture of friendliness. ‘I’m Vanessa?’

  ‘Yeah, definitely told you I was going to sleep,’ the model nodded, clinging to the door like she might fall down if I took it away. ‘Can you just fuck off?’

  ‘We haven’t actually met,’ I said hurriedly before she could shut the door on me. I pointed at my camera and tried a toothy smile, ‘I’m the photographer. For the shoot. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She yawned without covering her mouth. ‘I’ve just got off a plane that I’ve been on for nearly twenty-four hours, so unless you want to take pictures of the crypt keeper tomorrow, I suggest you go away and let me sleep.’

  And with that, she slammed the door.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, still holding my hand up in a wave. ‘Mahalo.’

  So … that was one of the models. I turned to face the last cottage. No lights on. No sound coming through the windows. Maybe I’d just let that poor little lamb rest.

  All dressed up with nowhere to go, I weighed up my options. I could go for a walk, discover a little bit more of the island. I could go back to my cottage and edit some of the photos I’d taken that afternoon. I could probably find Kekipi and ask him to reenact my favourite scenes from Joe Versus the Volcano. Or I could go to Nick’s cottage and look at how pretty he was. Life was full of tough choices.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  I was just about to slink over to Nick’s when I heard Paige giggling. For no good reason I hid round the corner of the models’ cottage, pressing up against the wall and peeking out to see who she was talking to.

  ‘I thought we were just going to get dinner?’ She was still laughing. It gave her voice an infectious, attractive lilt, the kind of girly voice that made men melt. Something I’d never quite mastered. ‘Why do we have to go in the boat?’

  ‘I want to show you something,’ her dinner date replied. ‘So just be quiet and get in the boat.’

  It was Nick. Paige was getting into the boat with Nick. Just like I had got into the boat with Nick. All at once my heart sank, my face burned and I felt sick to my stomach.

  ‘I’m not dressed for a boat,’ Paige mock whined as I watched her climb aboard in a tiny black strappy dress, her high, high heels in Nick’s hand as he helped her aboard with that half-smile I recognized so well on his face.

  Oh my God, I was stupid. And in no position to be upset, I reminded myself, as I fought back angry tears. In fact, I was stupid to even be surprised. Of course he had moved on to Paige. Hadn’t he explained all of this to me this afternoon? Paige was a proper mountain. Paige was Snowdonia or something. I wasn’t even a hill. Maybe a hillock. Because it rhymed with pillock, and that was what I was. Nick had planted his flag and moved on to the next expedition.

  I stayed exactly where I was until I heard the chug of the boat motor fade away. I didn’t want them to see me. I didn’t want Nick to know that, against all my better judgement, I gave a shit. Wiping black tears away from underneath my eyes, I briefly considered knocking on the cottage door again. Death by model might be better than having to look at the two of them across the breakfast table tomorrow. Paige all loved up, Nick all smugged up. What a clever man ? he’d managed to bang both of the girls on the job before he’d even met the models. Get the amateurs out of the way before you move on to the professionals, presumably.

  Without a plan, I stormed up the beach away from the cottages, away from the lights, away from the mess I’d got myself in. Perhaps I could just keep walking until I found a house and claim amnesia. It almost always worked on telly and when did telly ever lie? I frisked myself for my phone but I’d left it charging by the bed. I was distractionless. No phone, no music, no book, no nothing. Just my stupid brain thinking its stupid thoughts. Nick, Charlie. Charlie, Nick. I wished I had an ad campaign for loo roll to distract myself with. But all I had was my camera.

  ‘Calm down,’ I whispered to myself, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. ‘All that really matters is that you take a good photo tomorrow.’

  I opened my eyes and felt a stillness that had been missing. Hands clamped onto my Canon, I looked around for a suitable subject. A little way down the bay, sitting next to an unlikely-looking surfboard, was Al. He was too far away to shout to but close enough to snap. He looked deep in thought, his tanned face creased into a dignified mask of lines and wrinkles. Underneath his big white beard, his profile was strong and regal ? he looked like a lion of a man. I was sure he must have been rid
iculously handsome when he was younger, but at that exact moment, caught on camera, he just looked so sad. I wondered if he was thinking about his wife. Or his job. Or if he was thinking about all of it at once, like me.

  ‘Aloha, Vanessa,’ he shouted, still staring out to sea. ‘Get any good pictures?’

  ‘Um, I did actually,’ I shouted back, walking as quickly as I could on sand to where Al was still settled. ‘Sorry. That was really rude of me.’

  ‘An artist finds her inspiration in many strange places,’ he said with a welcoming smile, patting the sand beside him. ‘And who am I to stand in the way of art?’

  ‘Thank you.’ I folded my legs underneath me, careful not to show my new old friend my knickers, and nodded towards his board. ‘Been surfing?’

  ‘I have,’ he nodded. ‘I think it keeps me young. My son thinks it will get him his inheritance sooner. So how is it all going? The photo shoot?’

  Wincing, I stroked my camera and shrugged. ‘I haven’t actually taken any proper pictures yet. Lots of random stuff, but there’s been a bit of a cock-up with the job and so we’re waiting for everyone to sort it out. I’m supposed to do the shoot with some models tomorrow and I’m bricking it.’

  ‘You don’t like models?’ he asked. ‘That’s got to be hard for a fashion photographer?’

  ‘I have a confession.’ I rested my camera on my bare knees and wrapped my hands under my legs. ‘I haven’t actually ever worked with models before.’

  ‘Oh.’ Al had the decency to look concerned, but his eyes were still sparkling and I had a very strong feeling that he was about to laugh. ‘So you really haven’t been back in the photography game for long?’

  ‘Not that long, no.’ I looked at the screen on the back of the camera and flicked through the shots of Al. It was easier than looking him in the eye. ‘I was in advertising. And I lost my job. And now I’m here.’