Chapter Two
There are two cubicles. Senoras is painted in red on an old wooden door. I lock myself inside, sit on the lid of the toilet and drag my fingers through my dark hair, pushing it back from my face as I exhale.
This is why I came. Not the bathroom — though it is a perfectly adequate bathroom, with clean tile and a small window propped open to the warm air — but the quiet.
The chosen, deliberate quiet of being somewhere new and alone, with no one to account to.
Fifty years old and I have never once taken a holiday by myself.
I have hardly been abroad at all. I sit with that in the cubicle’s dim light.
I find it remarkable. And, on reflection, a little difficult to look at directly.
I came on holiday because there is something I have been trying to work out.
Not Daniel. Daniel is worked out, finished, no bitterness.
This is different. Older, or deeper, or simply other.
A feeling I have been carrying for some time that I could not seem to put down, or name, or examine without immediately looking away.
Ten nights of warm air and no obligations seemed, at the time, like conditions that might help with the naming.
The romance novels drift in. Then the shape of Emma's shoulders, then her voice; a deep note in it that settles somewhere beneath the sternum.
I have always loved women's company more than anything.
Their friendships, their attention, the way certain women could make a room feel different just by being in it.
My piano teacher, Mrs. Murphy, who had a poise about her when she sat at the keys that I could have watched for hours, and whose praise, when it came, landed somewhere I didn't have a name for.
My best friend, Niamh, at school, who always seemed to understand the world a full year before the rest of us got there; her sense of self so complete, so unhesitating, that I wanted simply to stand close enough to feel it.
Fiona, in the soprano section of the choir, who would hold the sheet music between us and turn it for me without being asked, her shoulder warm against mine, and who would then hold my hand in the pew, Sunday after Sunday.
I put it all down to the closeness women allow each other.
I did not examine it beyond that. It did not occur to me, for fifty years, that there was anything in it to examine.
That it might not be solely appreciation. That it might be desire too.
I fold these thoughts away.
After a moment of reasonable indulgence, I decide I may as well use the facilities while I'm here. Practical thinking. Everyone will descend on these cubicles at the end of the meal, and I have no intention of queuing.
On my way back, a sliding door catches my eye, leading to the front of the restaurant. I slip outside.
The coach takes up most of the car park, which seems like an affront to the view.
Just above its roof, the hills stretch away in shades of parched earth and dry scrub, and the sky boasts a pale, clear blue, so low that the few clouds drifting across feel almost impertinently close.
It is, despite everything, very peaceful.
I let my gaze roam the front of the restaurant slowly, the way you do when you're trying to convince yourself to stay somewhere.
The walls are a deep, warm yellow, bougainvillea climbing over them in vivid bursts of fuchsia and coral.
Three old wine barrels sit stacked in a pyramid, painted with the restaurant's name.
Then, in the shade cast by an umbrella over one of the outdoor tables, is a ginger cat — arranged in a posture of supreme, horizontal contentment.
Crouching down, the cat lifts its head, considers me, then presses its forehead firmly into my palm. “You're enjoying yourself anyway,” I say softly.
I linger, petting it leisurely, the air cooler out here, a small breeze finding its way around my ankles and lifting the hem of my skirt.
A comfort exists in the company of a creature that wants nothing from you except this.
Groups of people have always required a version of me I find exhausting to locate.
The cat requires only a comforting hand and some patience, both of which I have in abundance.
I have also, I remind myself, paid a considerable sum for this excursion. Inside, the clatter of crockery being set down distracts me from my thoughts.
Right.
A bowl of soup has appeared in my absence. Pumpkin, I discover — sweet and faintly spiced, with a warmth that settles something in me.
“It's good,” Emma says, catching my eye across the table. She says it the way people do when they've already decided and want to share the verdict.
I nod.
“Not going to try the bread roll?” She points at it with her spoon.
“I don't think so.”
“It's not bad once you get to the middle,” the man to my left offers, already well into his and clearly pleased about it. French accent, I think.
I smile. Politely. Adequately.
Conversation moves around the table like water finding its level: where people are staying, how the weather compares to home, what they've done on the island so far.
Emma moves between people in a way that seems genuine and assured.
I have gathered, without quite meaning to, that she has been here a few days already — scuba diving, a local market, a karaoke bar that apparently exceeded expectations, and more sleep than she has had in months. She appears to be here alone too.
I eat my soup and feel, gradually, less observed.
“What about you?”
The words land in a silence I wasn't aware had formed. I look up and Emma's eyes are already on me, that steady hazel waiting.
“Me?”
“When Gabe was going round the bus, asking people to shout out if he says where they’re from, you didn't answer.”
I remember. The ascent into the hills, Gabe's microphone, the call-and-response of nationalities. England had been received with what I can only describe as a theatrical roar. When he’d said Ireland next, I sat very still and waited to see if anyone else would answer.
No one did; I was grateful that I'd had the sense to stay silent.
“I didn't feel like whooping out loud at the mention of my country,” I say.
“Fair enough.” She nods and goes back to her soup.
I pick up the bottle of white wine and pour myself a glass.
It is a very small glass — a sherry glass, really — and what I pour into it is not a modest measure.
Only a splash remains in the bottle. I consider the etiquette.
It would be mildly rude to finish the bottle.
It would also be faintly absurd to set it back on the table with so little remaining in it.
I finish the wine.
“Next course is coming,” Emma says, her eyes flicking briefly to mine. This woman has decided we are in conversation, irrespective of whether I have formally agreed to participate.
The small, older woman who appears to be simultaneously running both the kitchen and the dining room clears my bowl with practised efficiency.
“Gracias,” I offer.
“De nada,” she replies, and gives me a smile that seems genuinely warm.
When I turn back, Emma is watching.
“Ireland,” I say. It comes out without a plan. “That's where I'm from.” A calculated offering, I decide. Enough to seem civil.
Her expression shifts. She’s pleased, though she keeps it restrained. “I thought I could hear a bit of Irish in your voice. I’ve never been to Ireland. Always wanted to.” She sips her wine. Her eye contact is, I'm discovering, entirely relentless.
“Ah,” I say.
She gives a small, amused huff.
I pick up one of the excursion leaflets and fan myself with it. I sense Emma's gaze the way one senses the presence of a lamp — directionless but present, and persistent. I wonder what the cat is doing.
Around me, the table has moved on without me, as tables do. The man to my left turns to Emma. “Whereabouts in London?”
“Islington.”
“Lovely area. We visit London often. Our daughter left Lyon to live in Blackheath with her boyfriend.” A small pause. “What brings a girl like yourself to travel alone?”
The phrasing lands where it always does. Not quite rude enough to challenge. Badly enough to grate. Though I wonder: is it the language, the gap between French and English where nuance gets lost? Or does he genuinely see a girl where there is clearly a woman who fills a room without trying?
Emma's smile holds. “I choose to. Most of my friends are fairly settled now, my mum's still working. It's not really a case of ringing someone up and saying ‘fancy a last-minute trip?’ So”— a small shrug —“here I am.”
“And you don't mind it? Alone?”
“Perfectly happy in my own company. Company's welcome when it's there. Not heartbroken when it isn't.”
“Very modern,” he says.
The look Emma sends me across the table lasts perhaps a quarter of a second. It says: you see what I'm working with here.
An involuntary twitch of solidarity escapes me.
She probably takes me for someone like her.
Modern. Self-sufficient. Unfazed. A while ago, I would have been the one doing the pitying.
From my village — from anyone's village, honestly — a woman going abroad alone would read as either sad or strange or quietly desperate.
Perhaps all three. I would have nodded along to that opinion without examining it too closely.
Four days in, I can confirm: it is bliss. Unanticipated, unqualified bliss. My only real decisions most days are limited to pool or beach, and where to position myself at the buffet. It is the most unencumbered I have felt in years.
The waitress returns with a trolley. White plates appear in front of us: chicken darkened with spice, boiled potatoes salted and yielding, a small clean salad dressed in oil. Not what I'd pictured when Gabe said meat. I should have listened more carefully.
I cut into the chicken; the meat is pink, faintly red near the bone.
I'm sure it's fine, though I am not going to eat it.
I eat the potatoes instead — perfect, salt-sharp, soft — and the salad, which is cool and simple and exactly what I need.
The French man's fork appears in my sightline, gesturing at my untouched chicken.
“Pink is fine. It's meant to be. It’s the way they cook it here.” His fork hovers over my plate with the casual conviction of a man who has never once considered that his opinion might not be welcome.
“I know. I just don't fancy it.”
He gestures again, encouragingly, as though I simply haven't understood him. “You're missing out. Give it a go.”
“I'm fine, thank you.”
I turn back to what's left of my potatoes and I’m aware, without looking up, of Emma across the table.
“Better potatoes than home?” Emma's looking at me with an expression that's either genuinely curious or mildly entertained; I can't quite determine which. She shifts forward slightly in her chair, and the warm light through the windows catches the line of her jaw.
“Are you using an Irish stereotype there?”
Amusement flickers across her face, or the beginning of it. “Well. The Irish love potatoes, right?”
I wave my fork towards her. “That's a conversation I'm not certain the English are quite prepared to have with the Irish.”
She absorbs this. The table continues its noise around us — the French man to my left, some observation about the wine — but it seems, for a moment, to recede. Emma was being sociable. That is all she was doing. I am aware that I am not always easy.
“Ouch,” Emma mutters. “Fair point.” She doesn't flinch from it, which is, against my better judgement, interesting.
I watch her for a moment. “You know what I'm referring to?”
“My dissertation was on historical colonial practices.” She takes a sip of wine. “So, yes, Irish history was included.”
A slight shift happens in my chest. A loosening. “I was too harsh,” I admit. “You were only trying to be friendly. I apologise.”
She shakes her head once and opens her hands, cutlery swinging out. “Don't. It was poor chat. I'll try to make better conversation.”
Outside, the light is softer now, the hills less sharp than they were. I reach for my glass, though there's nothing left in it. “You'd still want to?” I ask.
She holds my gaze a second longer than necessary as the corner of her mouth lifts. “Definitely.”