7

Helen was up before sunrise, tiptoeing around the room, pulling on jogging pants and T-shirt, fishing out the teabags she’d brought from home. She felt energised and excited, a wholly novel way to start the day. She’d slept like a baby and, judging by the gentle snores coming from the other twin bed, so had Caro.

Moving quietly, she made her tea and slipped through the lightweight curtains out onto the balcony. Here the air was fresh and cool and dark. She settled into a chair, pulled a blanket around her shoulders and watched as perpendicular lines grew into houses and mountains reclaimed their mass, as the ink sky paled and a rising line of light pushed heaven away from earth. The new day was revealing itself, as shy and slow as a child peeling hands from face.

Across the foothills, sunrays the colour of fresh honey transformed the church bell into a nugget of poured gold, and dusky roof tiles lightened to a fresh salmon pink. Birds swooped high, gliding back, stretching their wings. A dog barked, shutters were thrown open and the first car trundled past, heading for the coast.

Hands wrapped around her cup, bare feet tucked under the blanket, Helen sighed, and it was nothing like the way her mother used to sigh. The distance between herself and her normal life could not, in that moment, have been greater. She felt rejuvenated, as if she’d bathed in the fountain of eternal life…something like that, something tinkling and silver and light against her eyelids, which she closed now, as she turned her face to the rising sun.

She’d been there a minute – perhaps not even that – before Caro appeared, stalked across to the balcony and leaned over.

Opening her eyes, Helen felt a tremendous surge of affection, as if she would get up and hug Caro, even though Caro hated hugs. Because if Caro hadn’t insisted, she never would have come, and now she was here she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. It was all so magical.

‘It’s a bit disappointing.’

Disappointing? Helen turned and looked back across the valley. Were they seeing the same thing?

‘I thought we’d get more of a sea view.’ Wrapping her arms around herself, Caro turned to face her. ‘And it’s freezing.’

Helen didn’t answer. Instead she dipped her chin and sipped her tea. It was true the day hadn’t yet begun to warm, which for her made it all the more delicious. So ripe she wanted to leap into it. Run down to the ocean (however far away) and plunge herself in. ‘We can see it,’ she murmured.

‘The sea?’ Caro turned back to the view, hand at her eyes as she strained to look. ‘Only just.’

Just? Helen stood up. The moment had been spoiled, a moment more perfect than any she’d experienced in a long time…a very long time. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she muttered.

Back in the room, she snatched up her toilet bag and a towel. Before she closed the bathroom door she glanced out at Caro, and the idea struck her that this would have been exactly Lawrence’s reaction. That he too would have been disappointed – the sea view not being the sea view he had been expecting. Not enough of a sea view. That he and the sea could, and should, have done better.

She shut the door, took off her bathrobe and, ripping open the foil packet, took out her Novafem. If she could, she would have swallowed a week’s worth in one day. The irritation she was feeling right now, she hadn’t felt…well, for a few days, actually. She stared at herself in the mirror. Perhaps they were both going to need their space – Caro from her and she from Caro.

But any bad mood that might have lingered slipped away when she came downstairs into the dining room and saw the breakfast buffet laid out like a gift from the gods. So beautiful, so prepared, it took her breath away. Glistening black olives and virgin-white crumbling cheeses. Sliced melon, so ripe it melted into the plate. Grapes, oranges. Yogurts, cereals. Crispy bread, fluffy bread, seeded bread, dark, serious-looking bread. Eggs, scrambled and boiled. Strips of streaky fat bacon, hams, tomatoes… The sight of it all, with not a pan or a spatula or a sulky teenager taking the best bits first, paralysed her.

‘Helen.’ From behind she felt Caro’s nudge. ‘Today would be good.’

Helen took a plate and walked the length of the buffet and back again. She stopped in front of the tomatoes and became wholly distracted by the pastries, where pains au chocolat and gloopy custards competed with exquisitely fine baklava. She was a kid in a sweet shop, a dog outside a butchers.

She filled her plate, joined Caro at the table and wolfed the food down.

Caro picked at a boiled egg.

Returning to the buffet, she filled her plate and once again emptied it.

Caro ate half a tomato.

The third time she went back, she headed straight for the baklava. Exquisite. There was no other word to describe such a creation. She put two on her plate and one in her mouth, turned, and bumped into the silver-haired man who had signed them in yesterday.

‘It’s good to see such a healthy appetite,’ he said, and smiled at her plate.

As if she had a scarlet light bulb behind each cheekbone, Helen went pillar-box red. Syrup leaked from the side of her mouth. The silver-haired man turned and took a paper napkin, which he handed to her. Was there a colour of mortification deeper than red? Purple? Magenta? Whatever it was, her cheeks found it. She nodded a thank you and mopped her mouth. The amount she’d just eaten wasn’t healthy – unless you were a horse – and somehow it was a thousand times worse that it was this man who’d noticed her stuffing her face. Already the waistband of her elasticated jeggings was cutting into her belly. Back home she usually had a cup of tea and a bowl of Bran Flakes for breakfast, and she really wanted to tell him this. But with a mouthful of baklava it was impossible. And then what would she say anyway? That she’d got overexcited?

‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked.

With the back of her hand at her mouth to disguise the fact that she was swallowing huge chunks of pastry, she nodded. ‘Very well, thank you.’ Then, because she had an inexplicable need for him to see beyond her appetite, she added, ‘I was up early enough to see the sunrise.’

He nodded. ‘Me too.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Every day.’

‘Oh.’ Helen didn’t know what to say. She felt a little foolish. As if she was the last to discover something everyone else knew. ‘It was so beautiful,’ she managed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Every day is beautiful in the beginning.’

Stunned, Helen stared at him. In twenty-five years of marriage she’d never heard her husband say anything that came even close.

He lifted his arm and, in the same chivalrous manner as yesterday, indicated that she should go ahead of him.

Back at the table, Caro was now picking her way through a pot of strawberry yogurt. Helen sat herself down. Her appetite had evaporated, swept away by what could only be described as excitement. The silver-haired man had disappeared and, sipping her coffee, she found herself wondering what was making her feel like this. The man? His poetic way of speaking? She put her cup down and looked at the baklava on her plate. One thing she was sure of – it wasn’t the pastries that had got her worked up. She pushed them aside and, opposite, Caro did the same with the yogurt pot. Helen glanced at it. Barely a teaspoon’s worth had been eaten. Added to the slice of egg and half a tomato. Then there was the tiny bowl of soup Caro had had for dinner last night… Helen picked her cup up again. Something was wrong. Caro had always been whippet-thin, but she still ate. Sipping her coffee, she watched as a woman at the neighbouring table lifted her handbag and took out sunglasses. It made Helen think of the medication she’d seen in Caro’s handbag yesterday, and although Caro had always nurtured symptoms, depending on them the way grass depended on rain, Helen felt suddenly and strangely fearful. None of them was getting any younger. This was the time of life when it started. She put her cup down.

‘Caro?’

From under one stiffly arched brow, Caro looked up.

‘If I ask you something, will you be honest with me?’

Now Caro’s other eyebrow arched.

‘Are you really okay? I mean, apart from the normal stuff?’

Something passed across Caro’s eyes – Helen was sure of it. It wasn’t anything more than a shadow, a weight that seemed to tug at her lids, like a reluctant shade pulled down to block the sun—

‘Is that it?’ Caro said brightly.

—and then whipped back up again.

‘Yes,’ Helen said carefully, ‘that’s it.’

‘I’m fine. Why?’

Helen shrugged. Now she was struggling. The moment had been so brief she wasn’t sure it had happened. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘for a start, you’ve hardly eaten anything since we got here.’

Caro smiled. ‘It’s the travelling, Helen. It always takes a bit of time for my stomach to settle.’

‘Okay.’ Stalled, she picked up her cup. Something felt off. A semitone out of tune. She hadn’t been away with Caro for many years, and people change; even so, she could spot the sliver of inauthenticity in her friend’s responses. They’d known each other too long for her not to. ‘Plus,’ she started, and – glancing sideways – saw Caro flinch. ‘I couldn’t help noticing, yesterday at reception. You have a lot of medication with you…in your handbag.’

Caro didn’t answer. She took the filmy lid of the yogurt and pushed it back into place.

The action was infuriating. Was Caro sick? And if so, why the hell wouldn’t she say? Helen leaned across the table. ‘Is it anything I need to be worried about? You would tell me, wouldn’t you? You would say?’

Smiling, Caro looked up. ‘Helen,’ she soothed. ‘There isn’t anything to tell. Apart from hay fever, indigestion, HRT, allergy tablets, what’s in my handbag is just the normal essentials of a middle-aged woman. That’s all.’ She smiled again. ‘And a few supplements.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure. Now, we’re on holiday, aren’t we? Relax!’

Relax? Helen finished the last of her coffee. Caro had been a cat on a hot tin roof yesterday. And really? The normal essentials of a middle-aged woman? She was just as middle-aged as Caro, and stuff like that didn’t rattle around in her handbag. Then again, it never had. Helen stretched her arms behind her head. One way or the other, Caro had been “sick” with something all her life. Allergic to cats, allergic to candles. Stress headaches, sensitive stomach. Heartburn, PMT. Her symptoms were as real to her as the tooth fairy to a child. She’d just forgotten, that was all. It had been so long since they’d spent any real time in each other’s company, she’d forgotten. That poky bathroom cabinet in the Sydney Road flat, for example. It had been stuffed full of Night Nurse and aspirin, paracetamol, Rennies, and always a bottle of something bright pink. She yawned, hands across her very full stomach, a little bit queasy and full to the gills. Night Nurse! How silly to have even been worried. Caro was as Caro was, and the only course of action was to leave her to heal herself in whichever imagined way she believed she needed.

‘Now!’ Caro folded her napkin in half and placed it on the table. ‘What would you like to do today?’

‘What would I like to do?’

‘Yes. This is your holiday too! You can choose. Except…’

‘What?’

‘We’re not buying milk!’

Helen laughed. ‘No, no milk.’ She leaned back in her chair and looked out over the swimming pool. Her. Helen Winters. Mother of three, two living. (Never, ever would she allow herself not to include all of them.) Wife of one. Part-time health centre receptionist, avid gardener. BA in History. Former assistant marketing manager and a one-time shared recipient of a Heritage Society Enhancing Customer Experience award. What did she want to do today? She looked up. ‘Sailing,’ she said. ‘I would like to go sailing.’

And if only it had been as easy as that.

She watched as Caro digested her answer.

It was taking some time, and the moment reminded Helen of her birthday lunch – the pauses she’d allowed to mature without feeling any need to apologise or excuse or explain herself. Caro had asked her what she wanted to do and (knowing it would not be the expected response) she’d answered honestly. And yes, last night over dinner they had talked about visiting the castle, but actually what she really wanted to do was go sailing.

‘Mmm.’ Caro picked up her cup.

Still Helen didn’t speak. She stretched out her legs and stuck her hands under her waistband, relieving the pressure (she really had eaten too much). The moment wasn’t without its tension. Answering honestly felt raw, like losing a skin, the layer of herself that always put everyone else first. But it was funny, the change she felt inside. As if, waking up on her fiftieth birthday, her mind had run a quick tally of the days left, and in response had shaken itself like a wet dog to come away lighter. Far less inclined to get weighted down in niceties.

Caro put her cup down and glanced away towards the pool, and Helen couldn’t help smiling the smallest of smiles. She had answered honestly. It was radical and different and it had her wondering why she’d never felt able to do it before. Where might she be, who might she be, if sometimes, just sometimes, she’d put herself first and answered honestly?

Have you thought about what you’re going to do after university, Helen?

I’m going to take a gap year, Dad. Travel.

Where shall we go on holiday this year, Helen?

Pompeii, Lawrence. Florence. Anywhere but bloody Cornwall.

But even in her imagination, these conversations felt too far-fetched to have ever been real.

‘There were some flyers,’ she said now, because someone had to break the silence. ‘Yesterday at reception.’

‘Were there?’ Caro turned to her. ‘I didn’t see.’

‘I can pop up and ask.’

‘And you want to go today?’

Here it was. She stood up. Even if her twenty-one-year-old self had had the courage to say out loud all the things she’d wanted to say, her father would never have heard. A gap year? Along with all the other hippies and wasters? In twenty-five years, Lawrence had never heard. What’s wrong with Cornwall? The kids love it. And now – she might have known – Caro had gone deaf too.

‘I thought we could take a trip into Kyrenia,’ Caro said. ‘Take a coffee. And I was reading in The Sunday Times about a lovely restaurant there – maybe for lunch?’

Helen hitched her jeggings up. ‘Sounds great,’ she said. She was talking to her waistband. Something about the casualness of Caro’s refusal to hear her had lit a bit of a fuse. She would do what she wanted. Today. Or she would at least try to do what she wanted. ‘Let me just grab one of those flyers.’ And as she left the table she had a vague image of Caro’s face, the stamp of surprise upon it.

This was not typical Helen behaviour, but already she was halfway up the stairs and that long-ago, never-forgotten conversation with her father was replaying itself over and over. What might have happened if she had actually spoken up? Would she have gone on her gap year? Would she have had wild affairs with Australian outdoorsy types? Had a lover who whispered Spanish in her ear – Quiero hacerte el amor en la playa…? Would she have got to teach English to a room of Peruvian mountain kids? She reached the top, hands on hips, almost breathless with the headiness of rewriting the past. She was fifty! And amazingly, quite wonderfully, that meant that she seemed to have crossed into a different land with a whole different language. I want. I can. If only… Oh, if only she really could go back to her twenty-one-year-old self, tap her on the shoulder and whisper this magical secret.

The reception desk was empty, and the hotel foyer so quiet she could hear her own quick breath. She walked over to the coffee table and read again the sign in its A5 holder.

Sailing lessons. Beginners welcome. Kyrenia Harbour. Private lessons at your convenience. Ask for Kaveh.

‘Kaveh,’ she said, testing the sound out loud.

‘Your wish is my command!’

The voice, which came from behind, had Helen spinning round in surprise.

‘You called?’ It was the silver-haired man again.

On went the scarlet light bulbs! Where had he come from? She hadn’t heard a thing.

For a moment he didn’t speak. He was looking at her intently, his mouth turning up as if he was waiting for permission to laugh. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

She turned back to the safety of the table and the flyers and bit down on her lip. This was ridiculous; she felt like a schoolgirl. ‘I just came to pick up one of these,’ she said and, picking up a flyer, jiggled it to reinforce the point.

‘You would like to go sailing?’

‘Umm…’ Her head was down. She read the first line three times without making sense of it at all. ‘Umm… I’m thinking about it.’

Kaveh dropped his head to one side. ‘My advice? Don’t think too long.’ And, smiling, he turned and walked over to the reception desk.

Behind her the front door opened, her flyer wobbled in the breeze. She looked across at Kaveh. ‘Yes!’ she called.

He turned.

‘Yes… I want to try it!’

For a moment he looked surprised, or perhaps impressed. Either way, his expression pleased Helen immensely. ‘When would you like to go?’ he said.

When would she like to go? Panicked, Helen scanned the room as if she was expecting someone to jump out from behind a table and save her (from what?). But the door that had opened a moment ago, had opened to let a guest leave. So it was just the silver-haired man and her, and she felt as if she was in a time warp. As if she’d been picked up and zapped forward light years without her feet touching the ground. Back at the breakfast table it had all seemed so simple, so controllable, including Caro’s less than enthusiastic response. A walk upstairs to pick up a flyer, a navigable timescale and landscape of checking out the details, availability, costs, etc. Small steps into this new territory, safe little hurdles between her and commitment, all of which had been tossed aside by this man. This silver-haired, copper-skinned man who turned her inside out just by looking at her. So, Helen – again she bit down on her lip – when would you like to go? ‘Today?’ she managed and her whisper was so small she wasn’t even sure she’d breathed it.

Kaveh smiled. He turned to the clock on the wall behind the reception desk. ‘I am free in about an hour,’ he said. ‘Does this suit you?’

Every part of her lit up with excitement and fear and embarrassment and desire. She nodded.

‘Good.’

‘But I’ve never done it before,’ she blurted.

Kaveh smiled – such a knowing and deeply sexy look she had to dig her nails into her fists, will the light bulbs in her cheeks to dim their wattage.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I will go very gentle with you.’

Back in the room, Caro hadn’t given up. She was lying on the bed, reading out loud from her Kindle. ‘Notwithstanding the fact that the castle has been rebuilt several times, The Ottoman Influence can be seen through the many architectural modifications in the interior.’ Frowning, she let the screen drop onto her lap. ‘Helen? Helen!’

Helen popped her head out of the bathroom.

‘I really thought this was something you’d be interested in.’

‘I am,’ Helen said lightly. ‘Just not today.’ And she disappeared again.

Caro tossed the Kindle aside. ‘I’m going to do my yoga,’ she said to the ceiling, and, when the ceiling didn’t reply, got up and went out to the balcony.

And because she’d been waiting for this first sign of surrender, Helen immediately leaned around the bathroom door, saw the room was empty, and sighed. It was done. Fait accompli. Nearly.

Kaveh was to drive them to Kyrenia. Having accompanied Helen back to the breakfast table, he’d informed Caro that the restaurant she was intent upon visiting was an overpriced tourist trap. He knew a local place, he said, and would be happy to invite them both for lunch after Helen’s sailing lesson. Would Caro like to join them on the boat? No? Well, Kyrenia was full of interesting shops and historical sights – more than enough to keep Caro occupied during the short time Helen would be at sea.

At sea!

All the way back to their room, Helen had tried to ignore Caro’s stiff displeasure (the lesson was one hour!), concentrating instead on those words. At sea. She was going to be at sea. Like a sailor. At sea. At sea, at sea, at sea…

But Caro had kept trying. Listing the historical wonders of the town and mentioning at least three times that the restaurant she had had in mind had been featured in The Sunday Times. Hiding away in the bathroom, Helen had done her best not to hear. And, of course, her excitement was tempered with guilt. This was Caro’s holiday, etc, etc. But it was one hour. One tiny hour! If she thought of all the times she’d had to rearrange or postpone because of Caro’s busy schedule… Once she’d even waited seventy-three minutes while Caro took a work call. She knew exactly how long, because she’d been sitting in her own kitchen, drinking wine, trying to hide from her children, while Caro had paced and pulled faces and wittered on about healthy pullbacks and moving averages. They’d found her in the end. Her kids. (Lawrence couldn’t keep a lid on fresh air.) Consequently, she’d started a rare evening out half-drunk, with orange Wotsit stains on her jacket. Had she said anything? Had she stomped and huffed around the kitchen like a spoiled child? No, she had not.

She slipped back into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Now Caro had given up, the only thing standing between her and the open sea was…what to wear? That was, what to wear for her first sailing lesson with him? So far nothing was working. Not that casual but chic Boden thing…or that cheap, bejewelled Primark vest thing… And definitely not this! A frumpy floral blouse she couldn’t believe she’d bought in the first place. She tore it off and stared at her reflection, frustrated, panicky and damp under the armpits. Beyond, the room was still quiet. Easing back around the bathroom door, Helen looked out to the balcony. There was Caro in an impressive upside-down yoga pose, wearing a ribbed vest and clingy short shorts so Helen could see both the slenderness of her limbs and all the sinewy strength of them. Sweat pricking at her hairline, she looked down at her own body. She was as rounded and plump as a peach. She was soft, Caro was hard, and this, she considered now, might be the fundamental difference between them. Caro was strong, tough. Of course she had always had the confidence required to keep pursuing her agenda.

Subdued, Helen picked up a pair of boring but safe navy shorts. It hadn’t always been that way. That was what she was thinking as she clutched the shorts to her chest and watched Caro swoop forward into a plank, like some kind of wooden eagle.

So when had it changed? Because at university it was Caro who had been so painfully shy she could barely leave the room. And it was Helen who’d had seams and seams of unmined confidence. When had all that changed?

Caro lunged forward and stretched herself into The Warrior.

Helen went back into the bathroom.

She got the shorts up, but baklava-shaped lumps spilled out over the waistband. God, it was hopeless. Warm weather clothing was unforgiving; it just meant extra flesh squeezing out everywhere. Like the toothpaste when her kids were younger. When, last thing at night, exhausted, she’d pick it up and the paste would explode sideways. That’s what she looked like – an overused tube of toothpaste. The hem of the shorts was so tight her knees had spread to twice their width. Wet, cold British summers had advantages.

She padded back out to the bedroom and looked at the strewn contents of her suitcase. Her only safe option was a maxi dress. Those lovely swaying tents she’d bought from Matalan. But that really would be ridiculous. She must at least try to look sporty.

Sporty? The word had her sitting down so heavily the bed groaned. Out on the balcony, Caro was now in a headstand. Eyes closed, in a headstand! And the unavoidable comparison between them became painful, because once upon a time she too had been lithe and slim and strong and sporty. Very, very sporty. She’d been a devil-may-care, sporty kind of girl. She looked back out at Caro. It was as though for the last thirty years she’d allowed herself to be smoothed into such a blob she had no edges left – the slow erosion wrought by motherhood and marriage. But Caro? All this time Caro had been sculpting herself. They had both undergone a metamorphosis.

It took a great will of effort for Helen to stand up, yank her elasticated jeggings back on and settle on a floral T-shirt, with a neckline low enough to display all the goods displayed by her new balcony bra. This made her feel better, but my goodness, she’d been close! So close to calling out, Okay. Let’s do the castle.

‘What do you think?’ she said now.

Upside down, Caro opened her eyes. Her legs stretched heavenward, her arms were perfect right angles, her stomach as flat as an ironing board. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that he’s wrong. I’ve never been disappointed by the recommendations in The Sunday Times.’

Helen sagged. ‘I meant me!’

‘Oh.’ Caro let her feet drop, pushed back with her hands and slowly, vertebra by vertebra, rolled up through her spine. ‘It’s just a sailing lesson, Helen,’ she said as she wiped her palms together. ‘Why are you so bothered?’ And she swept through, grabbing a towel as she passed. ‘Bathroom free now?’

Long after the bathroom door had closed, Helen stood watching it. This morning, for a myriad of reasons, felt like no other morning she could remember. It wasn’t just a sailing lesson, it was her giant leap, and Caro didn’t understand. Then again, why would she, when she criss-crossed continents on a weekly basis, when a sailing lesson for her would signify nothing more than the smallest of steps? Eyes smarting, once again Helen felt the gulf the years had gouged between them.