Swimming with Sharks Page 4

  The restaurant is buzzing. Nicola feels comfortable in chaos. It reminds her of the hectic streets of London at peak hour: hearts beating, brows sweating, laptops clutched under arms, copies of the Evening Standard shared on the tube. Enclaves of privacy cut out from the sea of souls. Indifference. She thrives on being a small fish in the big, blue ocean. She is invisible and she can observe others, or read, or get on with her life. The familiar faces of the four Germans from last night are comforting. Familiarity without intimacy has its advantages. They are laughing: big teeth, big faces, shiny cheeks, bright eyes. It looks like they have been lunching for a while – they are on their puddings – but they aren’t in a hurry to leave. For them the restaurant is a temple. They worship here. They worship their food and their own company. Nicola would not dream of joining them (way too loud, way too smug), but she is grateful for their proximity. They make her feel at home. If only she could crawl and hide under their table …

  She is having a hefty meal: a three-course carnivore’s feast. With that a glass of wine will go down well, so she has ordered one. Chilled rosé. It makes her head swivel in a nice, mild way. Today she will not scuttle away like a mouse – she will relish her food, enjoy the ambience. She will take her time. She is a lady of leisure.

  She can hear people behind her talking: London accents, chummy but slightly critical in the way in which it is clear they are bothered but not enough to do something about it – the good old English way. It does feel like home! She cannot see them but she can picture the ladies’ dyed blonde coiffures, sparkling eyeshadow like goldfish scales, full bosoms held up by strapless bras, and the men wearing Hawaiian shirts and sailors’ tattoos.

  ‘By comparison, Egypt is a Mecca,’ one of the women sings.

  ‘Mecca ain’t in Egypt, pet,’ a patient, long-suffering male replies.

  ‘I know where Mecca isn’t. I’m just saying –’

  ‘Tourist-Mecca,’ another woman comes to the rescue.

  ‘Exactly! Have you been to Egypt?’

  ‘Course!’

  ‘More civilised.’

  ‘If you don’t set foot outside the resort. We were swarmed when we went out. Only once. Once was enough.’

  ‘Oooh, I know what you mean.’

  ‘More wine, pet?’

  ‘Just a touch … A bit more than that!’

  ‘Paula?’

  ‘Oh, go on then!’

  ‘The pyramids are well overrated – don’t you think?’

  ‘We went on camel backs. My backside!’ Chuckles follow, and a cough – the wine must have gone down the wrong hole.

  ‘I’ll be calling Reception if the sheets ain’t properly done.’

  ‘Right you are! I can feel every crease. It’s torture.’

  ‘Too much sun if you ask me, pet.’

  ‘But no one’s asking you, George.’

  Nicola tends to agree with George. She feels this place is luxury enough for her, and then, lest she forgets, there are people in London sleeping in cardboard boxes. You don’t hear them complain about the sheets.

  She is on her raspberry-and-bramble trifle laced with Drambuie. A man waddles by her table. A cloud of body heat envelopes him. The man is seriously obese. He puffs and wheezes, clutching a main course plate which seems a miniature in his hand. He bulldozes his way to a table where the rest of his family sits. There is no doubt they are related because they are all huge people. He drops his weight on a chair and digs in. One of the women speaks to him, her mouth swelling with food. He nods but does not stop eating to respond. Nicola scowls at her pudding. She is sure they are lovely people, probably very jovial and kind (somehow big people are invariably jovial and kind, she finds), but it isn’t their character that disturbs her. It is their weight. How did they get to this point?

  It isn’t any of her business, though. It is so incorrect to ask such questions. But she does. She drinks her wine, followed by a glass of water, and, so detoxified, she leaves the rest of her pudding untouched.

  Nicola has never liked Anna Karenina as a person and she sometimes wonders if Tolstoy himself cared that much for her. She was out of control. He let her rave through the story like a woman possessed, and then didn’t know what to do with her so he just let her take the easy way out. Got rid of her because – frankly – he couldn’t restrain her. But it wasn’t really fair of him to inflict that woman on Count Karenin. Now, that’s a man after Nicola’s own heart! He is the sort of man she could fall in love with, if love was ever meant for her. She would fall in love with a man who does not waver, a man of integrity and a man of his word. Honourable. Staunch. Nicola feels for him and feels with him. She would not betray him, like Anna.

  She refuses to see any of the Anna Karenina films, convinced Count Karenin would be portrayed as a hapless old fool. Nicola sees him differently. A man of steel. A strong man who can overcome self-pity and rise above base instincts. He is impeccable in his controlled poise. He is larger than Alosha Vronsky – in body and in mind. Nicola imagines that in films he is shown as shrivelled and dry. He is not like that. He has a deep Russian soul. You need a large frame for a soul of that size.

  Nicola’s cheeks are burning as she tears her eyes away from the page. She is back at the bar with the Christmas tree. Amy and her partner Sarah have not returned. Why is she not surprised? She downs another glass of ice water, and calls for more. She might go for a swim. The ritual around here is simple: drinking and dipping in the pool, on a loop. Everyone does it. At some point you stop seeing individual people – just a mass of quivering bodies hydrating themselves in a relentless struggle against the heat.

  She watches the heads bobbing in the pool to check if the two Russian brats are there. They are not. But there is a couple that draws her attention. She is not sure what to make of them. They are at the far end of the pool where earlier the two kids were playing. Unlike the two kids, this couple is not aware of her existence. The man’s back is to the wall of the pool. The woman’s head is just above his, her arms hooked over his shoulders. She seems taller than him. Though their bodies are tightly pressed together, she is going up and down. It is a rhythmic motion that creates small ripples around them. Up and down.

  Nicola realises: no, the woman isn’t taller – she is sitting astride the man’s hips. His arms are submerged. He is holding her. She is sitting – nesting – in his hands. And he pushes her up and lets her fall down, into the water, onto his … Well, it is clear: they are having sex.

  Nicola is frazzled. She is worried for them. It is an irrational concern. It is as if she was in on it: an accomplice. What if someone sees them? Will they be in trouble? What if someone sees her watching them without protest? She knows from her travel agent that the Maldivians are repressed that way. The mores are strict: no bared arms or midriffs in restaurants, no public displays of physical intimacy. It is a Muslim country.

  The woman starts bobbing faster and faster. It isn’t going to last much longer, surely? He isn’t going to last – the man. They freeze for a split second. Smile at each other: wickedly, Nicola thinks, like a pair of rascals up to serious mischief. The woman laughs, flips back, detaches herself from her man and swims away on her back. It is over. Nicola breathes relief. She half expects to see a trail of sperm floating on the surface in the woman’s wake, but there is nothing to affect the pure blueness of the water. All is well.

  She enters the pool and swims to the far end where not long ago the randy pair were doing their best to offend common decency. She fancies that the water here is warmer. Nicola cannot tell whether she is disgusted or fascinated. She is definitely stirred – intrigued. Perhaps she has imagined it. It has been a hot day. She has had too much sun.

  It seems like a blessing that the sun is sinking fast on the far horizon. Dusk happens unexpectedly. The pool empties. Nicola climbs out, dries herself with a towel. She slumps in a deckchair, takes out Anna Karenina. A wriggle of her fingers brings a Skipper-boy with a tray and a friendly grin. She orders a Greyhound. Sh
e needs something stronger to steady her nerves. Before the waiter returns with the drink, the two Russian boys dive into the pool. Nicola sighs, picks up her things and leaves. She cannot take those two little weasels. She tells the waiter she must dash; he can have the drink on her. He stops smiling. His face hardens.

  They don’t drink alcohol here, do they? Their religion doesn’t allow it, you idiot! Nicola scolds herself.

  No one has commented on her Facebook page, which does not come as a surprise. Nicola is used to it. Facebook is there mainly for her to keep track of her old friends, so old and distant that, if pressed, they wouldn’t be able to recall her face. She knows that but she doesn’t mind. She is more of a follower than a newsmaker. She enjoys peeking into people’s busy lives. She studies their faces and changing body shapes. Sometimes she will zoom in on their eyes to explore their laughing wrinkles or their hooded eyelids which say more about them than their laconic Facebook entries. Nicola is an exemplary Facebook friend: she is there for others, but she doesn’t expect anything in return. She is low maintenance. She can be God-sent when someone needs tender loving care without strings attached. Too much attention would probably send her reeling. So no comments is perfectly OK. In any event, her last entry wasn’t much of a ground-breaking revelation. People go on holidays every day. Only for Nicola it is one of those once-in-a-lifetime events, like getting married, or dying …

  Today she has all these fantastic pictures to post. The memory card in her camera phone is brimming with them. It is quite a job to select just a few. No, it won’t do. She will upload all of them. It is her adventure, her memories. She copies one photo after another. It takes a while. She works tirelessly through the evening; pictures are spilling onto her webpage, impossibly blue, impossibly bright.

  That done, she surfs through her friends’ pages. She has a bit to catch up on. Fiona – the long-suffering, endlessly jilted, darling Fiona – has broken up with her partner of two years, David. That is her fifth boyfriend in so many years, since she divorced Ben (or he divorced her; exactly which has never been quite clear from her entries). Nicola had high hopes for David. He had the staying power, she thought. Fiona was proud of him and at last at peace with her lot, but even he has let her down. She must be devastated! Not very lucky with men, poor sausage! Ben habitually fails to keep up with maintenance payments; the others care at first but then find Fiona’s twins impossible to live with. They walk over her – she lets them go. What else can she do? Some of them get angry: with the kids bumbling under their feet, with the school runs, with Fiona. They flee and Fiona is left behind to pick up the pieces. Nicola sends Fiona hugs. If there is anything she can do … Deep down, she is glad of her own inner peace and her single status that points to no men – no pain – in her life.

  Good news on Barbara’s front: she’s got a new job! It’s not what she’s used to, not as high-powered, and the money is half what she was getting, but it is a change after fourteen months of job-hunting. In today’s market it is a success story. But Barbara sounds cautious and a little flat. There aren’t as many exclamation marks as Nicola would expect to see. She remembers Barbara’s joie de vivre back in their university days. It has been missing from her posts and it hasn’t quite come back with her new job. Nevertheless, Nicola joins seventy-six others in congratulating Barbara.

  Her brother, Robert … She always checks his page. His Facebook is her peephole into his new life. He signed up with Facebook after moving to Australia and since then Nicola has learned more about her brother than she had ever known before. He has a decent job selling IT technologies, though it involves lots of travelling abroad, especially in Asia where the new markets are. Hannah, his wife, stays at home with the girls. She tried to find a job and held on to one for a few months, but lost it and Robert decided she didn’t need the stress of looking for a new one. The money is tight, but the children are happy to have their mum around and are doing well at school. There are photos of their escapades into the Outback and to the East Coast. They all look happy and healthy: ruddy faces and white-toothed smiles, bless them! Nicola doesn’t leave comments on Robert’s wall – she wouldn’t dream of imposing. Robert is just like her. He never comments on her wall. She wonders what he makes of her Maldivian holiday. He is probably scratching his head in bemusement. Nicola smirks. She is going to send him a postcard.

  On her way to lunch Nicola stops at the Reception hut. There is a small souvenir shop next to it, where they sell everything you don’t need but which may capture your fancy if you’re in the mood. They also sell postcards and stamps. She buys a beautiful card with an orange-red sunset. She sends her love to all: Robert, Hannah, Tammy and Grace. She wishes they were here.

  Meals are proving tortuous: sitting alone at a table, avoiding eye contact, focusing your thoughts on the copious number of dishes on offer until you begin to feel sick, keeping your back straight and a faint smile quivering on your lips as if you are having a whale of a good time and can hardly contain yourself. At mealtimes the spotlight is on Nicola, a lone woman amongst pairings, a sore thumb – a social disaster in the making.

  She has claimed the little table in the corner as her own. It is secluded and very much out of sight. Most diners sit with their backs to her, which suits her fine. She can watch them without being seen. She can listen to their conversations and take part in them, by proxy. Slowly, she is becoming one of them. Slowly, she hopes, they will stop noticing her. She is growing on them: the bawdy Germans, the bunch of cantankerous Londoners, the Big Table (as she decides to call the obese family) and the handsome man with an older wife. Count Karenin.

  He and his wife are sitting at the same table as last night. They are creatures of habit, just like Nicola. It is comforting to discover that she has something in common with others, especially with him. She can’t help watching him even though he sits at the one table which faces hers; there is a chance of their eyes meeting. Nicola cherishes the thrill. Is this what one calls ‘living dangerously’?

  Count Karenin tells his wife something that he finds funny but she does not. His laughter is full-bodied and open. He throws his head back. His wife glares at him in condemnation. She tries to keep her face straight, but it doesn’t work. His laughter catches up with her. In the end, she has to smile. Is the joke on her? He calls to a waiter and passes him his wine glass – orders another drink. The woman sticks resolutely to sparkling water in a tall glass with melted ice. When his drink arrives, he clinks his glass against his wife’s. She scowls at him as he downs his drink in one go. It is an extravagant way of drinking wine, the man can’t possibly appreciate it, Nicola observes. And the man observes her … He smiles and winks at her! He does! Nicola scuttles away, heading for the buffet despite her full plate. What a fool!

  She is piling up more food on her plate, pretending to be totally absorbed in the process. The effect is astonishing: a raw fish swimming in beef stroganoff, an odd lamb cutlet on the raw fish’s back, a couple of chips stabbing at a mound of couscous like unexploded missiles.

  ‘Here you are!’ Amy confronts her by the salad counter. Nicola jumps.

  ‘Oh … hi! Hello again! Hi! What … what are you doing here?’

  ‘Having dinner, I should think …’ Amy’s tone and the glint in her eye tell Nicola she has been found out – a proper idiot! ‘How about you?’

  ‘Same as you. Dinner, it makes sense … with all that food –’ They both glance at Nicola’s plate, and laugh.

  ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘Couldn’t make up my mind: fish or red meat…’ Nicola thinks back to Count Karenin and blushes. She must not betray herself – she must look the other way.

  ‘You are one greedy carnivore.’

  ‘Actually … I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘Course you are. And the red meat was just a … decoy?’

  ‘I don’t know how it got to my plate.’

  ‘Old habits die hard. I still have an occasional fag, after fifteen years of abstinence.�
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  ‘I still savage an occasional lamb.’ Nicola doesn’t even like lamb.

  ‘You brute!’ Playfully, Amy punches her on the arm. Nicola’s plate tips precariously to one side and the raw fish swims out of the beef stroganoff and into the salad bowl full of celery and raisins. ‘Ouch!’ Amy finds the fish in a salad bowl hilarious. Nicola has no choice but to agree. Their heads come together and Amy’s hand is on Nicola’s arm, squeezing it in a spasm of giggles. They’re still chuckling when Sarah swoops on them like a frantic mother goose ready to fend off the wicked Mr Fox. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she tells Amy, and gapes at the runaway fish. ‘Did you drop it there?’

  ‘Fish … in a … bowl,’ Amy points, grins and staggers back. Only now does Nicola realise that Amy is drunk. Tipsy at least.

  ‘I did. I dropped the fish,’ Nicola confesses.

  ‘It was my fault,’ Amy protests Nicola’s innocence.

  ‘Let’s get back to the table,’ Sarah takes Amy by the arm like a naughty girl.

  ‘Join us, won’t you?’ Amy asks.

  Nicola doesn’t want to. She can tell Sarah is not too pleased; she hasn’t as much as looked at her. And there are all those people watching them. Amy is being loud and unsteady on her feet, making a spectacle of herself. ‘No, thank you, I’d better go back to my table –’ Nicola hesitates. Count Karenin is watching them too. She cannot walk past him. The anonymity of her table has been compromised. ‘Oh, on second thoughts – why not?’

  Sarah smiles woodenly. The waiter brings another chair to their table, and that alone causes enough commotion to make Nicola blush. Amy gets another bottle of wine. There is an empty one on the table. ‘You will celebrate with us, won’t you?’ Amy insists and fills their glasses. Some of the wine spills on the table. Sarah throws her white napkin onto the spill; the napkin absorbs the wine; a red patch forms on it. Amy rests her head on Sarah’s shoulder. ‘We got married last week.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ Nicola mutters.