Chapter 7
SEVEN
‘You made it, welcome, welcome.’
The lady who interviewed me is striding along the marble-floored entrance after I announced my arrival at reception. She is wearing a cool-looking pale-blue cotton top and trouser two-piece, and her dark hair is piled up on top of her head.
‘Your flight was good?’ she asks, whilst gesturing to a young hotel worker to assist me in taking my suitcase to my room.
‘Really good, yes, thank you, Zeta,’ I say, as I stifle a yawn.
I glance around the large reception area that looks far superior to the pictures I viewed online.
A huge chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and the stylish area is dotted with tall plants in pots, and comfortable-looking sofas on cool marble floors.
Zeta walks alongside us, until we arrive at a block of apartments set back and separated by a lawn dotted with trees.
‘This is the staff accommodation,’ she tells me. ‘You are on an upper floor, if that’s okay – hence the suitcase assistance.’ She smiles.
‘Perfectly fine, thank you.’
‘Meals are included, as you know,’ Zeta continues. ‘See you tomorrow in the breakfast room; I will introduce you to some of the new staff and brief you of your duties.’ She smiles. ‘Shall we say eight thirty?’
‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘See you in the morning.’
I thank the hotel worker, and briefly wonder if I ought to tip him, but then remember I am a worker here myself. Thankfully he disappeared the second he set my case down, so I did not have time to overthink it.
It is already eleven o’clock and I am suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness.
Pushing open the bedroom door, I am greeted with a basic but spotless room. The bed has white cotton bedding and pine furniture that consists of a wardrobe, dressing table and a couple of bedside cabinets.
I am pleased to discover I have a double bed, onto which – after quickly putting my things away and glugging down the bottle of water on the hospitality tray – I fall, fully clothed and spread out like a starfish.
I eventually wriggle out of my clothes and slip beneath the cool cotton sheet. It feels so soft against my skin; before I know it, I am out like a light.
I awake the next morning around seven, as the sunlight floods my room. Wrapping my thin robe around me, I fling open the patio doors and take in the scent of the surrounding forest and let it drift inside.
The daylight reveals the surrounding vista in all its glory, and I sigh at the view of a lemon grove in the distance, a strip of sparkling sea beyond.
I can hardly believe that this is to be my home until the autumn, something I would never have imagined a few weeks ago.
After a quick shower, I make myself a coffee, grateful for the hospitality tray in my room. I take it outside onto the balcony and sit on one of the white plastic chairs.
After finishing my drink, I feel a tiny knot of nerves in my stomach. I am well and truly out of my comfort zone here, but I reassure myself that water aerobics is the same the world over. I will gauge my audience first though. I don’t want to be called GI Jane or worse, after my first session.
I smooth my long dark hair down with some gel, and pull it into a ponytail. My large brown eyes look a little tired, so I apply some mascara to my long lashes. A slick of lip gloss and I am ready to make my way downstairs.
I enter the large, airy breakfast room that has a huge buffet of hot and cold food, set out on long tables against the back wall.
Zeta is seated at a table with several other people.
She beckons me over, before introducing me to a couple of new starters including a guy called Kai, who has piercing blue eyes and has been here for a week.
There is a young woman around twenty years old, part of the animation team, another bloke around my age with a shaved head and a ready smile, and a middle-aged guy with greying temples who I am told will be the new bar manager.
‘Our previous bar manager left to go travelling,’ explains Zeta, ‘which is up to him, of course, but he gave me no notice.’ She shakes her head in annoyance.
‘Lucky for me, Carlos agreed to come back for this summer season, even though he wasn’t planning to.
’ She places her hand over his and winks and he looks ever so slightly embarrassed. ‘His cocktails are legendary.’
She hands us all a timetable of events along with our individual rota. I notice there are only morning sessions for the aerobics, but I guess I will be a lifeguard for the rest of the time.
‘Of course, you are all expected to do a little bit of everything,’ says Zeta breezily. ‘You will be, how do you say in English, a Jack of all the trades.’
‘A Jack of all trades?’ I frown.
‘You know, do a bit of everything,’ says the good-looking guy who Zeta introduced as Kai.
‘Yes, I know what it means,’ I say, my heart sinking.
‘I hope it is not a problem,’ says Zeta, as she folds a paper table napkin. ‘We are a team here at the Apollo Hotel.’
‘Yep,’ says Kai. ‘I hope you are up to speed on your Abba song lyrics. Tuesday night is Abba tribute night.’ He points to the timetable, with a grin on his face.
‘I’m looking forward to hosting the kiddie disco,’ says Summer, a member of the animation team. ‘It is going to be such fun.’ She claps her hands together.
At least I am not expected to keep a load of kids entertained. In the pool, sure – outside of it, I would not have a clue where to start.
‘But, erm, I am not sure I am up to it. I thought I was to be employed as a lifeguard and swim instructor?’ I say feebly. ‘I wasn’t told about anything else.’
‘Then I apologise,’ says Zeta. ‘Your recruitment was a little last minute, I suppose. But as your pay is full time, and pool duties are not, you are expected to do a little of everything.’ She blinks slowly. ‘As is everyone.’
‘Of course.’ I plaster a smile on my face. It is not as if I have a choice.
Oh heck, what have I let myself in for? An Abba tribute? I feel physically sick. I have only ever performed karaoke, and even that was only once, when I was stupidly drunk and murdered a Miley Cyrus song at a wedding reception. ‘Wrecking Ball’ was a fitting song.
‘So now, please help yourself to breakfast,’ says Zeta with a charming smile, which I am quickly learning masks a steely interior. She gestures to the impressive-looking breakfast buffet before she disappears.
‘I take it this is the first year you have done hotel work,’ says Kai as he helps himself to some food at the buffet.
‘How can you tell?’ I sigh.
I help myself to scrambled eggs, before selecting some granary bread to drop into the toaster.
‘Don’t look so worried.’ He smiles. ‘There is a resident singer who does the main vocals. The other girls mainly just sing the chorus and dance.’
Sing and dance? Kill me now.
‘And will you be expected to do the same thing?’ I find myself asking as I pour a glass of fresh orange juice.
‘What, put a dress on and a long wig?’ He raises an eyebrow.
‘I mean dress up as Bjorn or Benny from Abba.’
‘Hmm no,’ he says. ‘It’s three women, which I know is not strictly the real Abba line-up, but it seems to work.’ He shrugs.
‘Bit sexist,’ I mutter, whilst waiting for my toast to pop up.
‘Ah you say that, but on Thursday, I will be prancing around the stage in a white jumpsuit singing Freddie Mercury songs, whereas you would not be expected to do that.’
‘Fair enough.’ I shrug, with a smile on my face as I picture the scene.
I can already sense that Kai is someone who could quickly become a friend.
And with his easy charm and good looks, probably a bit of a player when it comes to romance, so someone I know to keep firmly in the friend zone; my life is complicated enough as it is.
And with that physique, he must work out a lot, given the size of the breakfast he is about to enjoy.
‘It was a bit of a last-minute thing,’ I explain. ‘Someone had let Zeta down, so she was keen to find a replacement. Maybe explaining the full list of duties had slipped her mind.’ I sigh as I recall the slight desperation in her voice.
‘Relax.’ He smiles. ‘We have afternoons to practise for evening events. The resident singer will make sure you know exactly what you are doing.’
‘If you say so. I don’t want to mess up though. I get the impression Zeta will expect nothing but the best.’
‘Oh, she’s a perfectionist alright,’ he says as we head to our table. ‘But lovely really. Firm but fair.’
That makes me feel slightly better, and I remind myself that I am here to have an adventure. Sure, I am confident around the water, but I must expand my other talents. Do I have any? If I do, they most certainly do not involve singing and dancing.
Seated at our table eating our food, we chat easily enough, and Kai agrees to meet me poolside at ten minutes to eleven for the eleven o’clock aerobics session.
‘I will bring the music system down,’ he offers. ‘Then show you where it is stored after the class. Do you want me to take the lead on the first session, and you can follow me?’ he offers. ‘We normally do it in pairs.’
‘Sure,’ I tell him. I felt relieved not to be literally thrown in at the deep end, even though Kai only arrived here a week ago. It will also be useful to find out the expected level of tuition, I guess.
Outside, the sun is already beaming down, and I feel the heat wash over my shoulders, before I return to my room and cover myself in sunscreen.
I change into gym wear – shorts and a fitted vest, before slipping on my trainers. It’s 10 a.m. a glance at my watch tells me so I have time to give my mum a quick call. She’d told me to check in as soon as I was able, and I know she’ll have been up at least an hour by now.
She finds it amusing that I am to sing and dance as part of my duties.
‘Oh, Mum, it’s not funny; you know how worried I get.’
‘Which is precisely why you must do it,’ she advises. I can hear the familiar tune to The Archers strike up on the radio in the background. She must be listening to it on iPlayer, given it’s only 8 a.m. there.
‘Shall I call you back?’ I offer, knowing how much she enjoys listening to it.
‘No, it’s just finishing,’ she tells me. ‘As I was saying, just enjoy the experience. You were quite the performer as a little girl, you know.’
‘I suppose I was, wasn’t I?’ I say, recalling me singing around the house, and enjoying taking part in school plays.
‘Oh, yes. I remember you being desperate to be the lead in your school plays. I have some photos of you being Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when you were six years of age. I will dig them out next time you visit.’
‘I would love that.’
Her comment reminds me of how much we can change over the years and that we maybe ought to channel our inner child a little more.
Everything is wondrous as a child, before life takes over and our childhood imagination is slowly eroded and replaced by hard work and the general worries that being an adult brings.
We must never lose the joy and imagination that once inhabit us as children, or else we run the risk of become dull and boring. Unlike my mum.
‘Thanks, Mum, see you soon. Be safe on that zip line tomorrow,’ I tell her, which sounds like a funny thing to be saying to a seventy-year-old.
‘Of course I will,’ she says. ‘Now stop worrying and go for every opportunity that comes your way.’
‘I will,’ I tell her, hoping the aerobics class will be enjoyable. And that it goes without a hitch and no one has an angina attack. But surely something that dramatic could not happen again?