‘It’s the thighs, isn’t it?’
She smiled. It was a nice smile that warmed her entire face. ‘Like I get an eyeful of Lineker’s legs over the World Service.’
‘Touché.’ Alex laughed.
‘At least Oscar’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Nelson, our caretaker, has got his wife to fuss round him. His foot. It’s just a sprain. Not a break.’
‘So he’ll live?’ He grinned at her.
‘He’ll live.’
‘More’s the pity.’
‘Stop it,’ she giggled.
‘Come on, an arsehole with a sprained ankle is still an arsehole.’
‘Point taken. Miles’ friends have always been on the exasperating side. Present company excluded, of course.’
He followed Grace through the Great Room and out of the house. Outside, he took a deep breath. The salty air, muddled with smoke from the bonfire and the sweetness of coconut from the sun-tan oil on his skin, was a real taste of the tropics.
‘You know, without Oscar on the island, I could stay here for ever,’ he said wistfully.
Grace nodded. ‘Me too. Except I graduate on Friday so I have to get back, even if my dad wasn’t kicking us all off.’
‘I thought you were a graduate. You’ve finished uni, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve done my finals but not had, you know, the black cape and mortarboard ceremony with the parents clapping proudly thing, thankful that their child achieved something other than cirrhosis of the liver after three years at university.’
‘You got a first.’ Alex smiled. ‘People who get first-class degrees do not drink their way through uni.’
‘I do drink,’ she said defensively. ‘I’m drunk now. Well, drunkish. I’m pacing myself because it’s my twenty-first on Sunday.’
‘Wow, it’s going to be one massive long party.’
‘Not really. I’m just going out for dinner with a few friends. That’s my kind of celebration really.’
‘No party?’
‘What, you think it’s better to have a three-ring circus like Miles’ eighteenth, with six hundred people too drunk to sing happy birthday?’
Alex laughed; she did have a point. His friend had boasted that it was going to be the party to end all parties
and it had been quite a spectacle. Held at the Café de Paris, it was rumoured to have cost Robert Ashford £300,000, which worked out at as £60,000 an hour, or £1,000 a minute. Still, at least Miles had enjoyed every single second of it. Unlike Grace, he thrived on being the centre of attention and had swaggered around in a pink suit like Don Johnson’s younger brother. The wild rumour was that he’d ended the night in a suite at Brown’s Hotel with two high-class hookers, although Alex had never heard Miles himself mention it, which suggested it wasn’t true. Miles would never miss an opportunity to boast about something like that.
They were by the pool now, next to the path back down to the ocean. Even from this distance Alex could hear the noise of the ghetto-blaster from the beach, and the braying sounds of Sasha and Grace’s friends singing an off-kilter version of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ drifted up to the house. Suddenly he wanted to stay exactly where he was, talking to Grace.
‘Do you want to hang around here for a bit?’
‘Let’s go and sit in the tiki swing.’
As she touched his arm, an unwelcome memory popped into his head and he regretted his invitation. The letter. Six months earlier, he and Miles had gone to see The Cure in Bristol, meeting up with Grace and her friends. He’d had a fantastic time and it wasn’t just the concert. When Miles had disappeared afterwards they’d all ended up in a dodgy club in St Pauls and he’d gone back to Grace’s, where they had stayed up till five in the morning, drinking and laughing. Back at Danehurst Alex hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He’d spent the evening listening to his Cure album over and over just because it reminded him of her. Seized by the romance of the moment, he’d written her a soppy, overemotional letter, adding as a postscript the words ‘Just Like Heaven’, his favourite track, whose lyrics described the way he felt, like some secret message he hoped she’d understand, and had run down to the postbox.
Three days later she’d replied. It was a great letter, smart and funny, inviting him back to Bristol, and she’d signed off with five kisses. Alex instantly lost his nerve. Yes, she was smart and funny, a bit too smart if the truth be told. Most importantly she was also off-limits. All it would take was one drunken fumble and his golden ticket into the Ashfords’ idyllic inner circle might be immediately revoked. It just wasn’t worth it.
So he had defused the situation by leaving it another month to respond, telling Grace quite breezily, as part of his one-page missive, how he’d copped off with Petra Williams, the fox of the lower sixth, and how things with his fledging romance were going ‘quite well’. She hadn’t written back. It had been for the best.
Grace pulled her legs up on to the swing and tucked them under her as she arranged herself on the cushions. A hummingbird hovered over the swimming pool and the scent from the blue hibiscus bush was so strong it made Alex quite heady.