Kiss Heaven Goodbye (5 page)

‘What? Alex Doyle? But what about me? Us?’

Miles pulled away from her. Her voice was beginning to sound like the insistent buzzing of a bluebottle.
Us
. The words made him cringe. He wanted to dump her now, finish it for good, but he knew that it would only lead to a scene, and tonight was going to be bad enough with his father as it was. He was sick of women, with their constant chatter and inane obsessions with shoes and gossip. He just couldn’t see the point.

‘Look, Sasha, we need to talk.’

Suddenly there was an excited yodel from the direction of the tiki hut. Looking over, Miles could see one of the twins – at this distance, he could not tell which one – wrapped around the trunk of the coconut tree, at least twenty feet above the beach.

‘What the fuck ...?’

There was a loud cry. And then, as if in slow motion, the body descended like a ripe coconut, hitting the sand with an audible bone-crunching thud.

Suddenly the beach was full of the sound of screaming.

Oscar – or was it Angus? – lay on the ground, surrounded by a flurry of waiters and butlers who’d sprung into action and were fussing round the body.

‘
Nightmare
,’ said Sasha, beginning to break into a run. ‘I hope the silly sod hasn’t hurt himself.’

‘So do I,’ growled Miles, upping his pace to follow her. ‘His mother’s American, and if the daft twat
has
hurt himself, I bet she goes and sues us.’

5

Dinner was not a success. Despite the perfection of the menu and the free-flowing, premium-quality alcohol, with Oscar in bed, in pain, everyone had to pretend to be concerned about his welfare and spent most of the meal discussing it, even though they all secretly felt that the night was more enjoyable without him.

Although the formal dining under the tiki hut had been prematurely disbanded, Alex had no intention of letting the evening,
the holiday
, finish there, and when Sasha suggested he get his guitar for a sing-song around the fire, he thought it was an excellent idea.

‘Not calling it a night already, are you?’

Alex was coming out of his bedroom, guitar in hand, when he saw Grace coming down the hallway towards him. He felt his mood lift. He had always found his friend’s sister approachable and down-to-earth and he suddenly wished he had been sitting next to her at dinner. As it was, he had been stuck at the other end of the table, next to Sarah, opposite Angus and within earshot of Robert Ashford. Feeling intimidated and completely out of his depth, he’d kept quiet until Sarah had seen his red star tattoo poking out from under the edge of his T-shirt, at which point she had asked, in a loud voice that had echoed all the way down the table, whether he was a communist and, with everyone listening, had grilled him with all sorts of tricky questions about nationalisation versus state control. How was he supposed to know the difference between Karl Marx and Stalin? It was just a design he’d picked out of a book in the tattoo parlour in Manchester’s Afflecks Palace. The only way Alex had been able to get through the meal had been to keep drinking.

‘I was just listening to the football results,’ said Grace, pulling a jumper over her shoulders. ‘The World Cup. England versus Germany.’

‘I can’t believe I missed it, but I couldn’t find the channel on the radio. Did we win?’ he asked hopefully.

‘We lost. Gazza cried.’

He swore under his breath and then began to laugh.

‘What’s so funny? The nation’s in mourning.’

‘I was just thinking of you following the football.’

‘Don’t sound so surprised.’

‘It’s the thighs, isn’t it?’

She smiled. It was a nice smile that warmed her entire face. ‘Like I get an eyeful of Lineker’s legs over the World Service.’

‘Touché.’ Alex laughed.

‘At least Oscar’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Nelson, our caretaker, has got his wife to fuss round him. His foot. It’s just a sprain. Not a break.’

‘So he’ll live?’ He grinned at her.

‘He’ll live.’

‘More’s the pity.’

‘Stop it,’ she giggled.

‘Come on, an arsehole with a sprained ankle is still an arsehole.’

‘Point taken. Miles’ friends have always been on the exasperating side. Present company excluded, of course.’

He followed Grace through the Great Room and out of the house. Outside, he took a deep breath. The salty air, muddled with smoke from the bonfire and the sweetness of coconut from the sun-tan oil on his skin, was a real taste of the tropics.

‘You know, without Oscar on the island, I could stay here for ever,’ he said wistfully.

Grace nodded. ‘Me too. Except I graduate on Friday so I have to get back, even if my dad wasn’t kicking us all off.’

‘I thought you
were
a graduate. You’ve finished uni, haven’t you?’

‘I’ve done my finals but not had, you know, the black cape and mortarboard ceremony with the parents clapping proudly thing, thankful that their child achieved something other than cirrhosis of the liver after three years at university.’

‘You got a first.’ Alex smiled. ‘People who get first-class degrees do not drink their way through uni.’

‘I do drink,’ she said defensively. ‘I’m drunk now. Well, drunkish. I’m pacing myself because it’s my twenty-first on Sunday.’

‘Wow, it’s going to be one massive long party.’

‘Not really. I’m just going out for dinner with a few friends. That’s my kind of celebration really.’

‘
No party?
’

‘What, you think it’s better to have a three-ring circus like Miles’ eighteenth, with six hundred people too drunk to sing happy birthday?’

Alex laughed; she did have a point. His friend had boasted that it was going to be the party to end all parties and it had been quite a spectacle. Held at the Café de Paris, it was rumoured to have cost Robert Ashford £300,000, which worked out at as £60,000 an hour, or £1,000 a minute. Still, at least Miles had enjoyed every single second of it. Unlike Grace, he thrived on being the centre of attention and had swaggered around in a pink suit like Don Johnson’s younger brother. The wild rumour was that he’d ended the night in a suite at Brown’s Hotel with two high-class hookers, although Alex had never heard Miles himself mention it, which suggested it wasn’t true. Miles would never miss an opportunity to boast about something like that.

They were by the pool now, next to the path back down to the ocean. Even from this distance Alex could hear the noise of the ghetto-blaster from the beach, and the braying sounds of Sasha and Grace’s friends singing an off-kilter version of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ drifted up to the house. Suddenly he wanted to stay exactly where he was, talking to Grace.

‘Do you want to hang around here for a bit?’

‘Let’s go and sit in the tiki swing.’

As she touched his arm, an unwelcome memory popped into his head and he regretted his invitation.
The letter
. Six months earlier, he and Miles had gone to see The Cure in Bristol, meeting up with Grace and her friends. He’d had a fantastic time and it wasn’t just the concert. When Miles had disappeared afterwards they’d all ended up in a dodgy club in St Pauls and he’d gone back to Grace’s, where they had stayed up till five in the morning, drinking and laughing. Back at Danehurst Alex hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He’d spent the evening listening to his Cure album over and over just because it reminded him of her. Seized by the romance of the moment, he’d written her a soppy, overemotional letter, adding as a postscript the words ‘Just Like Heaven’, his favourite track, whose lyrics described the way he felt, like some secret message he hoped she’d understand, and had run down to the postbox.

Three days later she’d replied. It was a great letter, smart and funny, inviting him back to Bristol, and she’d signed off with
five
kisses. Alex instantly lost his nerve. Yes, she was smart and funny, a bit too smart if the truth be told. Most importantly she was also off-limits. All it would take was one drunken fumble and his golden ticket into the Ashfords’ idyllic inner circle might be immediately revoked. It just wasn’t worth it.

So he had defused the situation by leaving it another month to respond, telling Grace quite breezily, as part of his one-page missive, how he’d copped off with Petra Williams, the fox of the lower sixth, and how things with his fledging romance were going ‘quite well’. She hadn’t written back. It had been for the best.

Grace pulled her legs up on to the swing and tucked them under her as she arranged herself on the cushions. A hummingbird hovered over the swimming pool and the scent from the blue hibiscus bush was so strong it made Alex quite heady.

‘You sitting down?’

He shook his head. ‘It rocks. The way I’m feeling, I might puke on you.’

‘You charmer.’

He sat down on the edge of the pool, a shimmering sheet of turquoise neon in the darkness, and dangled his feet into the water. Still thinking about the letter, and feeling quite intimate in this dark, romantic space, he wondered how long he could leave it before he went back to the beach.

‘What are you two doing up here being all antisocial?’ asked a self-assured, slightly tipsy voice from the gate down to the shore. ‘Come on. We need everyone we can get down on the beach.’

Alex looked up to see Freya standing in front of them, holding an elaborate cocktail.

‘We’re just hanging out here for a few minutes,’ replied Grace, sitting more upright in the tiki swing.

‘Is he serenading you?’ Freya smiled, nodding her head towards the guitar. She walked over to Alex and picked up the instrument, strumming the strings with her long painted fingernails and making an ugly noise.

Alex winced. ‘Careful with that, eh?’

She looked at him and gave a playful half-smile. ‘Music’s not my strong point. Why don’t you show me how to play? Then I can tell everyone the new John Lennon taught me the guitar.’

Feeling flattered, Alex glanced nervously up at Grace, but she just raised her eyebrows.

Sighing, he took the guitar and put his arm round Freya. ‘OK, put your first finger here on the G string,’ he said.

‘Saucy,’ she purred.

Alex flushed as he felt his cock go hard. Behind him Grace’s sandals clattered on the decking as she stood up.

‘I’ve just got to go somewhere for a minute.’

Alex put the guitar down and frowned. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to the dessert trolley probably,’ sniggered Freya under her breath.

He watched Grace disappear through the gate, and by the time he had turned round, Freya had lain down along the side of the pool, her top riding so high up her torso he could see the curve of her tanned breasts. Unable to help himself, he pictured her naked and wondered, not for the first time that holiday, what sex would be like with her. Part of him definitely wouldn’t mind finding out.

‘Where’s home again when we leave Angel?’ she asked languidly.

‘Cheshire,’ said Alex, hoping it sounded posher than Macclesfield.

‘Are you ever in London?’

‘I will be in September. My college is in Marylebone.’

‘My boyfriend has a flat not too far from there.’

‘I might bump into you then,’ said Alex, wishing he could think of something more funny or interesting to say.

She leant up on one elbow, looking at Alex searchingly. ‘He wants me to move in with him.’

‘And you don’t?’ he replied, wondering if they were about to have a deep and meaningful conversation.

Freya sighed. ‘I should, he’s every girl’s dream really. A banker, got a Ferrari and a huge penis,’ she whispered conspiratorially. ‘But I think I’m too young to be tied down, don’t you?’

She sat up, swept her hair off the back of her neck and tied it on top of her head. The long, tanned nape of her neck was beautiful, just like the skin of an apricot.

‘I’m going inside,’ she said. ‘Are you coming?’

Something in the way she was looking at him suggested she wanted to have sex with him, which prompted a sudden, inexplicable flurry of nerves. She looked experienced in bed. Too experienced.

‘Shouldn’t we go back to the beach? Bit rude to leave everyone for too long.’

Freya touched the top of his thigh. ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ she said. ‘Sarah’s had a skinful and Grace, I love her, but she’s such a bloody bore.’

‘I think Grace is a laugh.’

‘Are we talking about the same person?’

Her disloyalty surprised him. ‘I thought you two had been friends for a million years?’

‘Well, yes,’ giggled Freya,‘because her daddy’s got the best private island in the Caribbean.’ She moved towards him and ran her finger down his arm. ‘Look, I’ve got some Es in my room.’

Alex almost laughed. Here he was, on a tropical island with a gorgeous twenty-something girl offering herself – and some expensive drugs – to him, so why was he hesitating? He looked at her.
Yes, she’s fit,
he thought.
But she’s a bitch
.

‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, for one thing, you’ve got a boyfriend back home.’

‘A proper rock star wouldn’t bother about things like that.’

There was a cough behind them and they both turned.

‘Not disturbing anything here, am I?’

Miles’ voice was barely audible thanks to the French cigarette that was dangling out of his mouth. He was carrying a slim green bottle and a pitcher of water, which he put on the table by the pool.

‘No, no. I was just coming,’ said Alex, picking up his guitar.

‘Is that so?’ Miles smiled, glancing at Freya then back to Alex.

‘What’s that?’ asked Freya, nodding at the bottle.

‘Nothing for young ladies,’ he said, stubbing his cigarette out on the table.

Freya fixed her mouth into a thin, pinched line and tossed her hair over her shoulder. ‘Have it your way, then,’ she said, glaring at Alex, then turned and walked into the house.

‘So, are you going to fuck her?’ asked Miles as she disappeared.

‘No,’ said Alex quickly.

‘Never say never, old boy.’ Miles smiled. ‘The night’s still young, and from what friends in Bristol tell me, she spreads her legs more often than a Russian gymnast.’ He looked at Alex with an amused arch to his eyebrow. ‘Want a drink then?’