A Proper Family Holiday (9 page)

Though her packing had been somewhat rushed, Chelsea had managed to bring six bikinis. Earlier that month,
Society
had run an article that said that the ideal summer wardrobe should contain a bikini for every day of the week. Preferably two a day, so you could change into a new, dry bikini after swimming. The readers of
Society
didn’t go to lunch with wet bottoms.

In her horrible room, Chelsea changed into a pale blue bikini by Eres. Like the dress, this bikini was ‘borrowed’ from the fashion cupboard. It had been too big for the model in the bikini spread it was picked out for, but on Chelsea it was just right. She felt a little surge of happiness as she checked her reflection and noted that not having eaten anything but a burger without the bun since the previous day, her stomach was pretty well perfectly flat.

Unfortunately, Chelsea knew the second she stepped out through the double doors that packing her fabulous bikini wardrobe had been an absolute waste of time. The pool was surrounded by men, and women, in football shirts. No one above the age of twelve was able to see their own toes for the enormous stomachs they sported, and nobody seemed at all bothered. A man the size of a killer whale belly-flopped into the pool as Chelsea walked by, splashing her from head to toe.

‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘You might as well jump right in now, though, eh? I’ll catch you.’

Chelsea pretended not to have heard him. She just wiped her face dry and carried on. The killer whale confirmed that there was going to be no chance whatsoever of a holiday romance here. Not at the Hotel Volcan.

Chelsea scanned the poolside for her family. She saw them at last arranged around the five sunloungers closest to the bar. Ronnie was hunched over a gossip mag. Beside her sat Sophie, who looked like her mother seen in a fun-house mirror. The elongating type. She was wearing a voluminous black T-shirt that did nothing for her at all. Seeing Chelsea arrive, Ronnie and Sophie managed identical snorts of greeting before Ronnie went back to reading and Sophie went back to texting. Mark was asleep. Jack was once again shy. He watched Chelsea from behind a parasol stand.

Still, at least Chelsea’s parents seemed completely thrilled to see her. Her mother leapt up to grab her for a cuddle, and her father pinched her cheeks.

‘Won’t be able to do that to you much longer,’ he said.

‘You should probably have stopped fifteen years ago,’ said Chelsea.

‘We’re just so glad you’re here at last,’ said Jacqui.

‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ Chelsea lied.

‘Fancy a beer, love?’ asked her father. ‘I’m going to the bar.’

‘Not a beer, Dad.’

‘One of those cocktails, then? With an umbrella in? And a cherry?’

‘Just sparkling mineral water, please,’ Chelsea replied.

‘Very posh,’ said Dave. ‘Is that what they have down in London?’

‘London ways’ reference number two.

‘Where’s Granddad Bill?’ Chelsea asked her mother.

‘Watching Sky Sports,’ said Jacqui. ‘Oooh. That’s a lovely kaftan you’re wearing. Did I see that in Next?’

‘Something like that,’ said Chelsea. If only Jacqui knew. Chelsea could have bought just about everything in the Next catalogue for the price of that one piece of Melissa Odabash.

Jacqui cooed over the rest of her daughter’s outfit: her bikini, her sun hat, her custom Havaianas. ‘You always dress so well,’ she said. ‘Even by the pool. That’ll be that magazine’s influence, I suppose. So what do you think of the hotel, then? I know it’s not up to your usual fancy London standards, but …’

From the corner of her eye, Chelsea noticed Ronnie perk up and tune in to the conversation. As if Chelsea was going to say something bad. Chelsea certainly felt bad. Here she was, the London snob, come to pass judgement on them all.

‘Mum, it’s lovely. Really. It’s perfect.’ Another lie.

‘It’s all right, isn’t it? For the money, I mean. I know you would normally stay somewhere a little more—’

‘It’s great,’ said Chelsea. Her mother’s insistence on pointing out that this was not Chelsea’s usual scene was getting painful.

‘How’s your room?’ Jacqui asked.

‘Lovely,’ Chelsea insisted. ‘Plenty of space. Comfortable bed. It will suit me just fine.’

‘We’ve got one of those wet rooms. Have you got one? Dead fancy.’

‘Yes,’ said Chelsea. ‘They’re very trendy. All the rage in London.’

From the corner of her eye, Chelsea noticed Ronnie’s mouth twitch in amusement.

Dave returned from the bar with the mineral water.

‘So, come on, Chelsea, tell us how come you missed your plane,’ he said.

‘I slept through my alarm.’

‘Slept through your alarm?’ Jacqui tutted.

‘Up drinking the night before?’ Dave suggested.

‘She won’t have been drinking! She’s been working too hard,’ said Jacqui. ‘I told your sister you’d have been working too hard. You don’t take proper care of yourself, you don’t.’ Jacqui tucked a stray strand of hair behind Chelsea’s ear. The gesture, which was so reminiscent of her childhood, brought a sudden prickle to Chelsea’s eyes. She quickly sniffed it back.

‘I do, Mum. Of course I do. But I was actually only ten minutes late to the airport, FYI, Dad. There was a massive queue. Only two check-in desks open. I bet half the people waiting missed their flights. They do it deliberately so you have to fork out for another ticket.’

‘You didn’t have to buy another ticket?’ Jacqui breathed.

‘I got it on my Air Miles,’ Chelsea lied again. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to offer to pay the difference. Chelsea knew her parents didn’t make much in their respective jobs as a school cook and a part-time delivery driver. She was embarrassed that she’d let them pay for the trip at all. But then she didn’t actually get paid that much either. Not by London standards.

‘Well, you’re here now and it’s lovely to see you,’ said Jacqui. ‘We don’t see enough of you by half. Your dad and I understand that you’re busy down there in London, but you know you can come home whenever you want, don’t you? There’s always a room for you. The bed is always made up.’

‘Of course.’

‘We don’t like not being able to look after you from time to time, like we do for your sister. I worry that you work too hard. Are you sure you’re eating properly? You’re looking very thin.’

‘Am I?’ Chelsea asked.

‘Yes, you are. Your hip bones are jutting out. I can see your ribs. You look like a xylophone.’

Jacqui’s eyebrows were knitted with worry, but Jacqui’s concern was Chelsea’s compliment. Chelsea hugged the news that she was looking thin close, even as she assured her mother that she always ate three good meals a day. Though three good meals a day would turn out to be very hard to come by at the Hotel Volcan.

Chapter Eleven

Chelsea

That night, the Bensons had their first meal as a complete family since Granddad Bill’s eighty-third birthday party and the sisterly estrangement that had ensued.

The Hotel Volcan had three restaurants. Guests on a half-board package, such as the Benson family were on that week, could choose to eat at any one of them each evening. Jacqui had chosen the hotel’s ‘traditional’ restaurant, the Jolly Pirate. As far as Chelsea could tell, it was traditional in the sense that the restaurant catered specially for the British holidaymakers in the Hotel Volcan’s clientele. There was not so much as a Spanish omelette on the menu which promised ‘chips with everything’. What an indictment of Brits abroad, was Chelsea’s thought as she picked up the menu and saw what the locals thought the British ate: chips, chips and more chips.

Sitting down between her sister and her nephew, on a broken plastic seat that threatened menace to her thighs each time she shifted, Chelsea couldn’t see a single thing she wanted to order.

‘You’re allowed three courses every night,’ said Dave. ‘That’s what we’ve paid for. And as much salad and side dishes as you can eat from the buffet bar. Might as well get your money’s worth.’

Unwilling to upset her father or seem ungrateful, Chelsea eventually ordered tomato soup followed by the fish and chips. At least she could pick the fish out of the batter. She said she would decide on a pudding later, hoping that no one would notice if she didn’t. On the other side of the table, Sophie looked on the verge of tears.

‘You know I’m a vegetarian,’ she told her mother. ‘I only want the chips.’

‘You’ll get anorexic,’ Ronnie told her. ‘You read too many of those stupid magazines.’ As she said that, Ronnie cast a dark look towards Chelsea. It was starting already. Chelsea wondered how many times Ronnie would get a dig in about her job before the holiday was over.

‘In any case,’ Ronnie continued, ‘you can’t be a vegetarian and still eat your dad’s bacon sandwiches.’

‘That’s the only meat I can eat!’ Sophie protested. ‘Everything else makes me feel sick.’

‘I don’t suppose this is the kind of food you eat in London, is it?’ Having failed to persuade Sophie to order a burger, Ronnie suddenly turned her attention to Chelsea.

‘Not often,’ said Chelsea.

‘Neither do we,’ Ronnie snapped back. ‘We don’t eat chips every night, do we, Mark?’

‘I wasn’t suggesting you did,’ said Chelsea.

‘It’s what everybody eats here. There isn’t any choice.’

‘Which is exactly why this place wasn’t on my holiday wish list,’ said Chelsea, low enough so that she thought no one would hear.

Ronnie heard. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ she hissed back. ‘You’ve already managed to get out of one night. And I know it may not be the kind of holiday a
Society
reader would go on, but Mum and Dad saved for years to pay for this trip, so you might at least pretend to be grateful. I hear you didn’t exactly fall over yourself to offer to pay your share.’

‘And you did?’ said Chelsea.

‘I would have—’

‘And so would I.’

‘Are you all right down that end of the table, girls?’ Jacqui called down to them.

Ronnie and Chelsea turned to their mother with big smiles.

‘Yes, Mum,’ they chorused in unison.

Oblivious to the simmering resentments among the younger members of his family, Granddad Bill was on fine form. He sat at the head of the table and used his best Spanish on the waitress.

‘Grassy-arse!’ He elbowed Jack in the ribs. ‘Grassy-
arse
! Fancy having “arse” as your word for “thank you”.’

‘You said “arse”,’ said Jack, with horrified delight.

‘Granddad,’ Ronnie reprimanded him, ‘Jack doesn’t need encouraging.’

‘Tell her, Jack,’ Granddad Bill nudged him. ‘Say it loud.’

‘Grassy-
arse
!’ Jack shouted at the top of his voice.

‘Jack!’

‘I’m only learning Spanish,’ was Jack’s defence.

‘Bill,’ said Jacqui, in an attempt to change the subject, ‘are you sure you want a steak? You wouldn’t prefer something a bit softer? You know, for your teeth?’

Bill responded by taking his false teeth right out. He clicked them above his head like castanets.

‘Look at this, Jack,’ he mumbled without the benefit of dentition. ‘We’re on a Spanish island here.
Olé!
’ He got to his feet and danced a short flamenco before stumbling over his chair and ending up on his backside. Mark and Dave leapt to haul Bill back up from the floor.

While all this was going on, Chelsea wanted to put her forehead on the table and weep. The waitress returned with their order. Chelsea gave her an embarrassed smile.

‘
Gracias
,’ said Chelsea, hoping she’d got the pronunciation right. She knew the locals in the Canaries spoke a very different Spanish from the people in Madrid. ‘I’m sorry our Spanish isn’t great,’ she added for good measure.

‘That’s OK,’ said the waitress. ‘Neither is mine. I’m from Poland. The fish and chips is for you, right?’

Chelsea stared at the plate before her. The batter was radioactive orange. A teaspoon of Day-Glo mushy peas garnished a potato-chip mountain that could have fed a whole village. All around her, other holidaymakers were tucking in with relish. No wonder they were all ‘Matalan sizes’, as the X-ray-thin
Society
magazine girls nastily referred to anyone over a sample-size eight. While Ronnie berated Sophie for failing to clear her plate, Chelsea could feel Sophie’s pain.

‘Grassy-arse!’ Bill continued to chime to his granddaughter’s decreasing amusement. Even Jack was starting to look slightly embarrassed. Bill hadn’t been such an idiot two years earlier, had he? Chelsea wondered when her grandfather had turned from a loveable and elegant elderly man into an annoying old nutter. The change was alarming. What was with the Coventry FC shirt and the slippers? There was a time when Granddad Bill wouldn’t have been seen outside the house without his regimental tie. Now he was dressed like a refugee from a charity shop, and his exclamations were drawing attention from everyone in the pirate-themed dining room. The wrong kind of attention.

Meanwhile, Dave, Chelsea’s father, was complaining about his steak. It had come with some sort of gravy that definitely wasn’t the Bisto he was used to.

‘I can’t touch it. There are bits in it,’ he explained to his wife.

‘I think it’s just onion, love,’ said Jacqui.

‘I can’t eat onion. You know I can’t eat onion, Jax. It’ll only give me heartburn.’

The Polish waitress was called over. She took the plate away and promised the chef would start again from scratch. Chelsea imagined the waitress rinsing the steak under a tap in the kitchen and bringing it straight back out.

Jacqui was complaining now. She would deign to try the dodgy continental gravy with its daring vegetable bits, but her steak wasn’t hot enough.

‘And it isn’t properly cooked,’ Jacqui told the patient waitress. ‘It’s still pink on the inside. Look.’

‘You asked for medium,’ the waitress reminded her.

The waitress wasn’t to know that the Benson family’s idea of ‘medium’ was the average professional chef’s idea of ‘cremated’.

Who are these people? Chelsea asked herself, as her mother marvelled at the lack of ‘basic cooking skills’ found in the hotel restaurant’s kitchen, her father downed half a pint and belched to make room for the rest, her grandfather sang a loud, lewd song about loose knicker elastic, while her sister tried to force-feed her niece half a ketchup-smothered burger in the name of ‘health’.