Chapter 4
FOUR
Mary is a natterer, but I don’t have the heart to press the button for the screen that closes the gap between us.
Sasha doesn’t have that problem. She immediately isolates herself, which might have something to do with the fact that Tom’s snoring sounds like a chainsaw falling past a window every fifteen seconds.
I keep thinking that Sasha will hear me talking to my new friend and turn around, but it never happens.
At some point between chats and meals, I take my nightly tablets to keep my world looking bright and soon fall asleep.
When I wake up again, the colour of the sea beneath us is far more vibrant.
Wherever we are, it feels like summer. It feels the way a holiday is supposed to feel.
It’s also a day later, and I realise that I’m looking out at a brand-new morning.
I try to adjust to the fact I’m half a world away from home.
When I finally catch a glimpse of Mauritius rising up out of the Indian Ocean, it’s almost too perfect.
In the distance, it’s easy to imagine that it is quite uninhabited – a perfect desert island with a turquoise ring around it and mountain peaks rising up here and there.
It’s tempting to believe that I’ve found paradise.
From the time that the captain switches on the seat belt sign until the moment it turns off again, Sasha and Tom revisit their earlier argument.
I don’t want them to know that I’ve heard everything they’ve said throughout the flight and so, as soon as it’s allowed, I pop up from my seat, grab my bag and stand overeagerly by the door.
I’m like a superfan camping outside a concert to run to the stage when the venue opens.
I am the very first off the plane – as the snarling hounds in economy are kept at bay by flight attendants with their arms outstretched to subdue them. I am also the first through passport control and the first to arrive at baggage reclaim.
I already know that this is where I will meet them again.
Oh, Sasha, Tom! Were you on the same flight as me? I will ask them. I didn’t spot you on board.
I imagine the pretence that they will put on to suggest that they haven’t been sniping at one another off and on for the last six thousand miles. I see their wide smiles as we reconnect.
That’s not how it happens.
“The red case, Tom,” Sasha is already screeching when she appears in the hall. “It’s the Montblanc your mother gave me for Christmas. You know the one I mean.”
She is wearing a black and white bodycon dress and stiletto heels which click percussively across the shiny floor.
I can’t imagine anything less comfortable to travel in, and I’m suddenly grateful for my baggy jumper and loose jeans.
It is lucky that her husband sports more suitable footwear, as Tom must be plastered by now and keeps bumping into her as they walk.
They don’t notice me watching them. I keep waiting for them to spot me, but it doesn’t happen, and I just stand there with my mouth gaping open, feeling ignored.
They come to stand right in front of me, even though there is plenty of room and it is obvious that I’m waiting for my case.
They say nothing. They just stand watching the empty belt as if there are bags on it that only they can see.
“We should do something,” Sasha declares when five minutes have passed and there is still no sign of our luggage.
“Like what, my dear?” he replies in that rather old-fashioned voice of his.
Tom comes from money, went to private school, and didn’t fit in with our bohemian uni-mates one bit. I never found out why he went to such an artsy college when everyone knew that he was destined to work in the City like his father. Perhaps it was his form of rebellion against his parents.
Sasha doesn’t answer his question, but six seconds later, the conveyor belt starts turning.
Her red suitcase is the first one out, and Tom’s is just behind.
They load them onto a trolley, and I wait for the battered case that previously belonged to my cousin, who bought it years earlier from a supermarket.
We’re not big travellers in my family. Why would we need more than a few suitcases between us?
As my carefully planned reunion never materialises, I stroll out of the baggage reclaim on my own.
All Ade’s assistant told me in the confirmation email was that there will be someone waiting for me in the arrivals hall.
I walk through a corridor of excited faces, and I suddenly dread the thought of my old friends being disappointed that I’ve come.
Sasha could be painfully honest when I knew her.
Oh, you’re here too, Bridget, I hear her mumbling in that deliberately nonchalant manner.
I find the driver who has been sent to collect us, but the others aren’t there. He is holding a sign that reads Mr Okojie’s Party.
“Excuse me, are you Bridget Hogg?” he asks in perfect English when our eyes meet. He is dark skinned and dark haired. He is neat and subtly handsome, as a chauffeur should be.
“That’s right.”
“I’m glad I found you.” He bows just a little, and I want to tell him not to. “My name is Sendilen. I’ll be your driver today.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a teenage girl pushes between us to say. She points to the sign and blushes. “Are you Ade Okojie’s driver?”
Still all charm, Sendilen remains professional. “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to give out that information, madam.”
The British girl looks a little heartbroken, so I step closer to whisper to her. “But I am, and, yeah, he’s Ade’s driver.”
She instantly starts bouncing about and her cheeks turn red. “Oh my goodness. Wait until I tell my sister. This will destroy her. Can I get a selfie with the sign?”
I feel like I’ve betrayed him just a little, but he looks at me for permission, and I smile before the girl explodes again.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Cheesy grin, peace sign, click. “Is he here on the island?”
She looks back and forth between us and, as I haven’t a clue where Ade is, Sendilen responds. “He’s not far away.”
The girl can’t take it any longer and has to run off to see her friends.
“I’m sorry. Will you get in trouble for that?” I put my free hand out to touch his sleeve, but he doesn’t seem too worried.
“Not I, madam. You’re the one giving away Mr Okojie’s secrets.” I instantly like him, but then I always trust people too easily.
I’m about to ask him something about his life on this heavenly island when a deep voice sounds over my shoulder. “Mr Okojie’s party? You better believe it, mate! I am here to party!”
I turn to see Tom dancing from the waist up. He’s hardly changed since I first knew him. His face is a little fuller, but he has that same stupid goatee, the same aristocratic nose, and I bet his raisin-pip eyes are just as bloodshot as ever behind his shades. He’s also still a terrible dancer.
“Take me to your leader,” he yelps, and the trolley goes rolling away as he claps his hands.
“I’m sorry about my husband. He’s an idiot,” Sasha tells Sendilen before noticing me. “Oh, you’re here too, Bridget.” She holds me in her gaze for three long seconds and then opens her arms to pull me into her. “I am so happy to see you. I really am.”
For a moment, I think she might cry. There was nothing in her tone to suggest it, and we were never so close that the emotion of this reunion deserves tears, but she holds me like she’s been waiting for this moment since we parted.
“You too, Sash. It’s so nice to see you again.” My voice sounds bubblier than it has in years. I almost don’t recognise it. “Bit out of the blue, all of us coming together like this, don’t you think?”
Her eyebrows arch in concern. “It’s not a coincidence, Bridge. Ade invited us too.”
“I know that. I just meant—”
Tom speaks over me. “All right, Bridge? Been years.” He leans in for a clumsy air kiss and almost topples over before righting himself and turning his attention to the man with the sign. “All right, mate. You the driver?” He sticks his arm out straight between Sasha and me.
“My name is Sendilen.” My new friend shakes Tom’s hand with that same in-built politeness that makes me feel guilty.
“Nice, nice. I’ll call you Sendi.” Tom is even less tolerable than I remembered. He is a walking red flag. “Sorry we’re late. We had to stop because Sasha doesn’t go to the toilet on planes.”
Understandably, she punches him on the arm as hard as she can, and he finally shuts up.
Sendilen pretends he hasn’t heard a word of it. He’s good at pretending. “Shall we go?”
He graciously takes my case with the dodgy wheels and leads us off through the crowds.
We are soon spat out of the glistening glass building into the heat of the Mauritian morning.
A thermometer on an advertising hoarding tells me it’s already twenty-five degrees at 10 a.m. I pull my coat off, already a little frightened of how red I will be when I return to Britain.
We reach the flash car that will take us to the yacht, and at least Sasha and I are impressed.
“It isn’t a limo,” Tom inevitably tuts. “I thought rock stars drove limos.”
Sendilen is already tired of him. “It’s a Bentley Flying Spur, Mr Ledger. I’m sure you’ll have no complaints.”
He goes to place our bags in the boot of that beast of a car, and Tom says no more. Personally, I associate limos with drunk teenagers on the way to an end-of-year dance and don’t feel we’re missing out.
Sendilen points me to the front passenger seat, and I clamber into the climate-controlled interior. There must be millions of people in the world who are so used to luxury travel that posh cars are no longer impressive, but I can only reiterate that I am not one of them.
Our driver pulls out of the parking space into a line of traffic to exit the airport as Tom bores him with boasts about his life as a day trader in the City of London.