Kiss Heaven Goodbye (8 page)

‘I’d better get back,’ she said.

‘So soon?’ His fingers touched her bare back and she flinched. Naked, she felt more than just exposed, she felt vulnerable.

‘I’ll be missed,’ she said, picking up her Dior bra, part of a set that Miles had bought her for Christmas.

Sasha’s back was towards Bradley as she hurriedly dressed, but she could feel his eyes on her. Finally she smoothed down her dress and glanced at him. Her head was spinning. ‘You’re not going to say anything about this, are you?’

He paused for a moment. ‘Who to?’

‘To Miles, to anyone,’ she said, her heart pounding in panic.

Bradley just stared at her.

‘Well?’ Her tone was brusque and irritable and she immediately regretted it. She was usually so expert at manipulating men, but right now she was spooked, nervous. She knew she had made a mistake that could cost her dear. She wasn’t used to being on the back foot.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said, turning towards him. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’

He shrugged. ‘Disappointment,’ he said, eyes challenging hers. ‘What happened just now ... I thought we had a connection.’

She scoffed inwardly.
A connection
.‘What do you expect happens now, Bradley?’ she asked pointedly. ‘I’ll go out with you? We’ll have a nice little holiday romance?’

‘Maybe not, but I don’t expect you to get up and walk away the second I’ve come inside you.’

‘We’re drunk.’ She flinched. ‘I have a boyfriend. And that’s where I am going right now. To find him.’

He paused, then gave a low, shallow laugh. ‘I know where your boyfriend is.’

She looked at him sharply. There was an edge to his laugh she didn’t like.

‘Where?’ she asked quietly.

‘Making out by Paradise Cove with his boyfriend. You know, the tall good-looking one.’

Her heart was beating hard now. ‘What? What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I caught them together and that’s how I got this,’ said Bradley, pointing to the burn on his cheek. ‘Your boyfriend stubbed his cigarette out on my face because he didn’t like what I had seen.’

Sasha felt cold all over. It was unthinkable, but there was a distant, unpalatable ring of truth in Bradley’s words that chilled her to the core.

‘You’re lying.’

Bradley shook his head slowly. ‘Your boyfriend’s queer, Sasha.’ ‘You’re lying!’ she yelled.

She closed her eyes tight. It couldn’t be true.

But it is, isn’t it?
said a calm, insistent voice in her head.

No, it was just a poisonous lie dreamt up by some low-rent gigolo who wanted to strike back when he found out there would be no repeat performance. It was!

The inner voice mocked her.
You know it’s true.

‘My boyfriend is not gay,’ she said, fighting to control her voice. ‘It’s a ridiculous idea.’

‘Whatever,’ said Bradley sourly, not even looking at her.

She moved towards the door, then turned back. ‘You never answered my question.’

‘Which one?’ he said with a note of insolence.

Right then, she hated him. Her body boiled with fury at this jumped-up nobody who had tricked her into bed. She clenched her hands into fists, using every ounce of willpower to control herself.

‘You’re not going to say anything to anyone about this.’

He looked up at her with contempt. ‘You’re all the same, your type,’ he spat. ‘You use people and then get rid of them at your convenience.’

‘I mean it, Bradley,’ said Sasha, her voice quivering with anger and frustration. ‘Don’t even think of breathing a word about what just happened...’

‘Or what?’ asked Bradley.

‘Or you’ll regret it,’ she said, staring at him with cold fury. Then she opened the door and slammed it behind her with such force, the entire cabin shook.

7

Grace wasn’t enjoying the party. It was almost 2.30 and she knew she should have gone to bed hours ago. There were over a dozen people on the beach, but the guests were outnumbered by the steel band, chefs and waiters keeping the unending supply of drink and food coming. Only Angus, Sarah, Gabby and herself were sitting by the bonfire and the previous high spirits had long since disappeared. Grace popped a final toasted marshmallow into her mouth – brought to her on a silver tray, naturally – and stood up unsteadily.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Sarah. ‘I thought we were trying to stay up for one last sunrise.’

‘I’m just going for a walk. I want to try and sober up a bit or I’ll feel terrible for the flight back tomorrow.’

Sarah ran after her as she walked up the sand.

‘Are you really feeling ill or are you just trying to torture yourself? ’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you might find Alex and Freya in flagrante behind the sand dunes.’

Grace felt unusually irritable. ‘Why are you talking in Latin? You’re not a lawyer yet, you know.’

Sarah raised her brows.‘Touchy,’ she said and Grace tried to smile.

‘I’m not torturing myself,’ she replied quickly. ‘Freya will want the luxury of soft cotton sheets, not some gritty sand dune. Anyway, I’m not bothered. I’m really not.’

‘He’s only eighteen, after all,’ said Sarah more kindly. ‘Probably a bit immature. There’re many more fish in the sea.’

Grace nodded as convincingly as she could. ‘I just need to walk off the drink. It’s a long flight back home.’

Sarah eyed her sceptically. ‘You sure?’

Grace nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Catseye Beach was the longest on the island, a half-mile stretch of sand that shone like a silver ribbon in front of her. It got quieter and darker as she left the bonfire behind and Grace welcomed the isolation. Sarah had been right: the last thing she wanted was to catch Freya and Alex at it in the sand dunes, and she didn’t want to go back to the house because Freya’s room was next to hers.

What a cow,
she thought angrily. Freya was supposed to be her friend! It was bad enough that she had been flirting with Grace’s father at dinner but what she had done with Alex was nothing short of a betrayal.
She knew I was interested, we talked about it earlier on
, she thought. Freya had never shown an interest in Alex before. Maybe that was it, maybe Freya just wanted to prove she could pull Alex. For some people friendship didn’t matter; everything was just a game. It was all about power, survival of the fittest.

And that was the real reason Grace was angry; she was angry at herself. She’d tried her best by the pool, inviting him on to the tiki swing, letting her kaftan slip off one shoulder ... She cringed. But she was an amateur. Freya was obvious. Subtlety never won prizes – not when it came to sex and eighteen-year-old boys ...

She had reached the end of the beach now and climbed inland through a thicket of red and black mangrove. The dark didn’t frighten her; she felt completely at home on the island and loved its remoteness from the world. As a child, she would pretend she was some character in
Lord of the Flies
and spend whole days exploring on her own, looking for sea turtles or exotic flowers.

She was walking up a steep path back towards the headland when she heard a rustle in the long grass next to her. Someone was sitting there, a familiar shape.

‘Alex?’ she hissed, squinting in the dark. ‘Is that you?’

He sat up holding a cigarette and notebook in the strong moonlight.

‘Writing some lyrics,’ he said, a little embarrassed.

Noting he was alone, Grace laughed, mainly from relief. ‘How can you see what you’re writing?’

‘Can’t really,’ he said, flicking his lighter so she could see the blank page in his book.

‘I see you’ve found your muse, then,’ she said, sitting down beside him.

‘Cheeky. These things take time,’ he replied defensively. ‘Keith Richards used to spend days writing songs without going to bed.’

‘Ah, but didn’t he have Mick Jagger to help him?’ she said, all the time her mind repeating,
Where’s Freya? Where’s Freya?

She took a deep breath.
Just bloody ask him
.

‘Well, I didn’t think I’d see you for the rest of the night, lover boy,’ she said as casually as she could. Even in the moonlight, she caught the look of surprise on his face.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You and Freya.’

He gave a small laugh.‘No, no, nooo...’ he said.‘Much too scary.’

Grace raised a sceptical eyebrow, but Alex shook his head.

‘I mean it. At one point she was going on about some banker boyfriend with a massive cock and a Ferrari. I don’t want her talking about
me
like that.’

‘Which bit? Your cock or your Ferrari?’

She felt her cheeks flush and was glad of the dark.

Think
obvious
, she chided herself.‘Want to go back to the beach?’ she asked and he helped her up, then followed her, stumbling and cursing at hidden tree roots and branches.

‘Anyone would think you’d never been to paradise island before,’ teased Grace when they were safely back on the sand. They walked along the beach in silence, occasionally looking up at the vast starry sky, the only sound their footsteps and the gentle lap of the waves.

‘You glad you came?’ she asked softly.

‘Obviously I’d rather be in Macclesfield right now.’

She giggled. ‘What are you going to do when you get back?’ she asked. ‘I mean, you don’t start music college until September, right?’

‘Miles is talking about a trip around Europe but I’d need to get a job first. My mate says there’s something going at Piccadilly Records, this really cool record shop in Manchester, but it’s a long shot. Anyway, anything’s going to be a bit of a comedown after this.’

‘Maybe you could have a working holiday.’

He pursed his lips thoughtfully.

‘You could go to the Cote d’Azur and be gigolos. Like Richard Gere in that film.’

‘Except he got framed for murder, didn’t he?’ Alex smiled.

‘Without the murder.’

‘Anyway, I’d be with Miles. Can you see him waiting tables in some Greek taverna?’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Can I tell you something?’ he asked.

‘Of course, what is it?’

Alex shrugged. ‘I don’t want to go to the Royal Academy.’

It was Grace’s turn to gape. ‘But didn’t you get a full scholarship? I thought you were like the most promising musician in the country or something?’

He looked away, embarrassed. ‘Yeah, but it’s not what I want. I want to get on with playing music, get into a band, start gigging, all that. Studying Gregorian chants or Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony just doesn’t seem like as much fun. I’d actually rather be going to art school – all the best bands formed at art school: Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Devo . . .’

‘I can see you now. Long hair, spray-on leather pants, an electric-blue guitar . . .’

‘I’m never going to wear spray-on leather kecks,’ said Alex with feeling.

‘Oh you say that now, but wait until you start as a gigolo.’

She paused and observed his bleak face. ‘So why are you going there then?’

‘Because it’s the Royal Academy of Music,’ he said expansively. ‘Because it’s my mum’s dream that I go there.’

Grace laughed. ‘Ah, now that sounds familiar.’

‘Because it will break her heart if I don’t. She’s made so many sacrifices for me over the years.’

‘She’s your mum. She wants the best for you. She wants you to be happy.’

Alex met her gaze. ‘So why haven’t you told your dad you want to go to Oxford?’

She felt a prickle of shame. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘You told me in Bristol. Then I heard your dad talking at dinner about you joining the company in August. I asked him about your MA course at Oxford and he looked at me as if he had no idea what I was talking about.’

She felt startled, panicked. ‘Oh, no. You didn’t mention that, did you? I’ve not told him. Not yet anyway.’

‘Bigmouth strikes again.’

‘No, I’m glad,’ she said, not entirely convincingly. ‘It needs to be said. At least now it might not come as such a big surprise.’

Alex nudged gently into her. ‘Wherever we end up, we will stay in touch, won’t we?’ he said finally.

A beam of excitement pierced through her worry. ‘Sure. We could go to, er, a gig or something.’

‘You should come up to Manchester,’ said Alex. ‘We could go to the Haç.’

‘The Haç?’

‘The Haçienda,’ he said, as if it was blindingly obvious.‘You know, the club? One night a week, they even have a swimming pool.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Grace, keen not to look completely square. ‘Loads of girls on E stripping down to their G-strings lost in love and a wall of sound? I guessed you’d like that.’

‘Of course,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Or we could go out in London. I’ve never been to the Mud Club. Or the Wag.’

‘But I might be in Oxford.’

‘Then we can go punting.’ He laughed.

They kept on walking around the sandy headland. This far away from the house, it was almost pitch black, with just watery moonlight to light their way. Scrambling over a patch of rocks, Alex reached back to take Grace’s hand, and even when they reached the flat sand again, he kept hold of it. Grace’s heart was pounding, her mouth dry and she didn’t dare talk, frightened of breaking the magic.

Just kiss him, you bloody idiot,
she willed herself. It’s now or never.

‘Alex,’ she whispered, turning towards him.

‘Hey, is that Sasha?’ he said suddenly, looking up the path.

Grace felt her heart sink. ‘Think so.’

‘Should we hide?’ He gave her a small embarrassed grin and then dropped her hand. Grace knew the moment was over. She walked on towards the dark figure, feeling as if her heart might break.

8

At the top of Catseye Cove Sasha was feeling sick. Alcohol and a few more hits of cocaine were swirling around in her bloodstream, but the main reason for her nausea was an unfamiliar sense of guilt and – most of all – the horror that she had done something which could not only rock the boat, but could completely capsize it altogether.

What the hell was I thinking?
she thought, kicking her toes against the sand.
Why work so hard to hook Miles only to throw it all away on some nobody?