Chapter 6 #2
‘Of course not.’ Edie glanced at Hannah. ‘Fancy making it a threesome?’
Ralph put down his knife and fork and stretched his arms above his head. ‘Ah!’ he said, finishing his stretch and bringing his arms down with a theatrical sigh. ‘Music to my ears. The women go food shopping while the men relax. Just how things ought to be.’
Edie and Hannah knew he was kidding and merely raised their eyebrows. Jessica, though, rose to the bait.
‘I hope that was a joke,’ she said sharply.
Ralph quickly backtracked, raising his hands, palms forward. ‘It was, I promise. A bad one. Sorry.’
‘Well, it wasn’t very funny.’
Her sour face seemed to amuse Mac, who gave a loud laugh.
‘God, you women are so easy to wind up.’
There was a pause while Jessica weighed up her response. Sensing danger, Edie cast round desperately for some form of distraction.
‘Who do we think will win in the local election?’ she said fake-chirpily, breaking her own rule about not mentioning politics at the dinner table. It was the first thing that had come into her head.
‘The Tories again, unfortunately,’ Ralph said quickly. ‘Labour’s making a bit of a mess of things nationally. I reckon it’ll be a landslide.’
‘Agreed.’ It was Mac, who’d already forgotten about Jessica. Edie’s plan had worked. ‘God help us. They’re a bunch of hypocrites.’
Jessica raised her glass of wine and stared at the contents thoughtfully. ‘The Tories are supposed to be the party of low tax, but taxes skyrocketed the last time they were in power. Then Labour whacked them up even more. No wonder the country’s in chaos.’
‘We need more investment, not less,’ Mac replied, quick as a flash. ‘The NHS, schools, social care, they’re all fucked.’
Jessica shook her head. ‘That’s because we can’t cope with the numbers. We’re desperately overcrowded and getting more so by the day, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. As a single person with no children, I resent having to pay more and more for services I barely use.’
Mac’s eyes glittered dangerously and even Edie felt a shiver of dislike. Jessica seemed smug and self-satisfied, sitting there in these beautiful surroundings, with a delicious plate of food in front of her and no one to think about but herself.
Edie’s other single friend, Marianne, who also had no kids, was the complete opposite.
She had numerous godchildren and even paid for ballet classes for one of them, because the parents were hard up.
She also had a voluntary job, mentoring troubled teenagers, and often sang the praises of the NHS.
Edie had rarely met anyone more community-minded.
‘It’s the kids who are in schools now who’ll be paying for your pension,’ Mac snapped. ‘And funding your healthcare needs when you get old.’
Jessica sniffed. ‘I’m not saying education’s not important.
Of course it is. I work in it, for heaven’s sake.
But having children is a choice. No one forces you to have more than you can afford.
Why should I have to pay through the roof for other people’s irresponsible decisions?
And for your information, I have private healthcare. I barely use the NHS.’
Mac’s face puffed up and he turned so red, he looked as if he might explode. The first supper of the trip was supposed to be a relaxing affair, but it was turning into a battle zone and Edie could feel the blood pounding in her temples.
Hannah, who’d been quiet up to now, made a half-hearted attempt to defuse the situation.
‘I do see your point,’ she said evenly to Jessica.
‘But most people can’t afford private healthcare.
Surely everyone should have access to good doctors and hospitals, regardless of income or the number of children they have?
But equally, of course, you can’t have people abusing the system. It’s not fair on everyone else.’
Jessica was about to respond when Edie abruptly rose from her seat.
‘Enough politics!’ she said in a loud, stern voice, which surprised even her. ‘I’m on holiday. I haven’t come here to listen to you lot arguing.’
‘Quite right!’ Ralph raised his glass. ‘Hear, hear!’
Edie shot him a small smile; she was grateful for the support.
Mac looked daggers at Jessica on the opposite side of the table, but she ignored him, smiling graciously at Edie, Hannah and Ralph instead.
‘I totally agree,’ Jessica said, rising like Edie and raising her glass, too. ‘This is the most perfect place. I think we should give a toast to Edie, who was so clever to find it for us!’
‘Here’s to Edie,’ they all said, even Mac, though he looked as if he’d eaten a lemon from one of the nearby trees.
All of a sudden, a gust of wind blew out the candle in the centre of the table, plunging them into semi-blackness.
Edie squealed, ‘Help!’ and instinctively went to Ralph’s side, while Mac howled like a werewolf: ‘Ow ow oww!’
‘Shut up!’ Hannah hissed.
It was Jessica who marched over to the wall to fetch a box of long matches before swiftly relighting the candle.
‘There!’ she said, her pale face glowing once more while her bright blue eyes had turned a strange shade of purple. ‘No cause for panic. Now, you all stay there and chat. I’ll fetch the pudding.’
* * *
Hope flight was OK. How’s the villa? And the weird woman you invited too?! Have fun! Your favourite daughter xx
Edie was pleased to see Maisie’s message when she and Ralph returned to their bedroom, but she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
‘What shall I say?’ she asked her husband, who was standing naked at the washbasin, cleaning his teeth. She’d been watching him through the open bathroom door.
‘I can’t really tell her the truth, can I? “The villa’s great but Mac and Jessica want to kill each other” .’
Ralph took the toothbrush out of his mouth and turned, giving her an eyeful.
‘I’d leave out the last bit,’ he replied, scratching his side unselfconsciously. ‘No need to involve her.’
Edie nodded, but she wasn’t really listening. It was a long time since she’d looked – really looked – at her husband in the nude. At home, it seemed they were always rushing to get somewhere, barking orders at each other and making arrangements on the hoof.
Either that or they were too tired even to notice whether or not they were naked before diving into bed.
Now, though, they were in no hurry to go anywhere or do anything and Edie liked what she saw.
She was about to send a quick message to say everything was fine when the phone rang. Maisie had always been impatient; she clearly couldn’t wait.
‘I still think it’s weird, inviting a random person with you on holiday,’ she said, not even bothering to say hello. ‘What if you realise after a few days you don’t like her? What if she smells ?’
Edie switched her mobile from one ear to the other and smiled. She could always rely on Maisie to lower the tone.
‘She doesn’t smell,’ she replied. ‘I see her almost every day at work, remember? I wouldn’t have agreed to her coming if she was whiffy.’
‘You might find she does terrible farts. She wouldn’t do them at school but maybe she stores them all up and lets them out when she’s on holiday.’
‘She’s not the kind of person to fart in public. She’s far too proper.’
‘She sounds really boring,’ Maisie replied with a sniff. ‘I hope I don’t ever have to meet her.’
There was a loud bang in the background and the sound of a sweary male voice.
‘What’s happened?’ Edie asked, alarmed.
‘It’s only Sam,’ came the nonchalant reply. ‘He’s cooking supper – spaghetti Bolognese. He’s just dropped the saucepan and there’s boiling water all over the floor.’
‘Oh dear. It’s very late to be doing supper. Do you need to give him a hand?’
‘Nah. He has to learn.’
‘Learn what?’
‘How not to drop saucepans, of course.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Ralph replaced his toothbrush in the holder and rinsed his mouth with water before padding over to the bed and lying on top of the cool white sheet beside Edie.
It was terribly distracting, but as Maisie rarely answered calls or rang herself, Edie didn’t want to hurry her along; she might not hear from her again for a week.
Maisie was just over a year into her first job on a graduate banking scheme, and was working and playing hard. She shared a flat in Hackney with three former university friends but seemed to spend more time in Sam’s one-bed apartment in trendy Kentish Town, bought for him by Daddy.
‘I hope you’ve stocked up on nice bikinis?’ she asked her mother next.
‘Not really. I think my bikini days are almost over, I’m afraid.’
‘Nonsense,’ Maisie retorted. ‘You’ve got a great figure, Mum. None of my friends can believe you’re in your fifties. They all think you look much younger.’
Edie laughed. ‘Well, that’s nice. Don’t disillusion them!’
Maisie decided to switch subjects.
‘How’s Ollie?’ she wanted to know. ‘I haven’t heard from him for ages. He never replies to my texts.’
‘Nor mine.’ Edie sipped from her glass of water, which had been sitting on the bedside table. ‘I did manage to speak to him briefly before we left, but he was in a rush as usual. He sounds fine. I’m not sure how much work he’s doing, though.’
‘No one does any work in their first year,’ Maisie said confidently. ‘I didn’t do much till the third year and I still got a 2:1.’
Edie shuddered. ‘Don’t tell him that, whatever you do.’
When they finally hung up, she replaced her glass, put her phone face down in her beside drawer and firmly closed it. As Ralph was engrossed in his book, she decided she wouldn’t disturb him yet and allowed her mind to wander freely.
Soon, she found herself reflecting on Hannah’s delighted reaction to the news Jessica would be coming to Crete, too.
‘I know Mac thinks she’ll change the atmosphere, but maybe that’s a good thing,’ Hannah had said to Edie on the phone after work. ‘He can say what he likes with you and Ralph because he’s so comfortable with you. He might behave better when she’s around.’
Hannah had laughed, as if it were a joke, but Edie’s mind had clouded over.