That Was Then Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

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  Contents

  Sarah Harrison

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  That Was Then

  Sarah Harrison is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five books. She is best known for her adult fiction, which has included commercial blockbusters such as The Flowers of the Field and A Flower That’s Free (both now re-released, along with the third part of the trilogy, The Wildflower Path). She has also written children’s books and the successful writer’s guide How to Write a Blockbuster, as well as numerous short stories and articles.

  Sarah is an experienced speaker and broadcaster, who has taught creative writing both here in the UK and on residential courses in Italy. She has been a judge for literary and public-speaking competitions, and is also an entertainer – her three-woman cabaret group, Pulsatillas!, has an enthusiastic and ever-growing following.

  Dedication

  for the Adam and Eve Muse

  Chapter One

  It was a tough decision.

  Should I expend vital energy raising a hand to summon the waiter? Make the super-human effort to walk across the white-hot concrete to the bar? Or plunge into the tepid, sapphire water and perch on one of the submerged stools on the far side of the pool? Each had its pros and cons. The Arab waiter – whose sensitivity to minute movements was as finely tuned as any Sotheby’s auctioneer – would be at my side in seconds, but the drink he brought would be warm by the time I’d raised it to my lips. If I braved – and survived – the fifty-metre endurance test to fetch it myself, the ice would remain intact for a minute or so, and I could sip it in the steamy shade of the palm thatch with the fans turning gently above my head.

  But if I lolloped like a seal into that cool, crystalline, chemically enhanced water it would be no trouble whatever to glide to the bar-rail and wallow in comfort as I sipped a cocktail that was all the more luxurious for being taboo beyond the five-star confines of the Miramar Hotel.

  Now that would be very heaven … if it wasn’t for the sharks.

  For it went without saying that the moment the seat of my chainstore one-piece hit the stool they would slide from their lounger-lairs and cut smoothly through the water towards me. And that no matter what I did in the way of studying the menu, staring reflectively at the overhead video, or tilting my face, eyes closed, to the sun, they would be there, waiting to ruin my day with their bland yet insinuating conversation, their well-kept smiles and speculative eyes.

  No. I felt on the ground for my sunglasses, rested them on the oil-slick that was the bridge of my nose and caught the eye of the barman.

  I don’t know why the sharks bothered me so much. They weren’t all that predatory – basking rather than great whites – international businessmen passing through this man-made oasis, on short contracts or en route to somewhere else. And why, I continually asked myself, would they be in the least interested in me anyway? Even twelve days of doing dignified lengths, and walking miles on the treadmill in the hotel’s air-conditioned gym hadn’t turned me into Jane Fonda. I still looked exactly what I was: a nice, unthreatening, not unattractive middle-aged Englishwoman with a touch of cellulite and the foreshadowing of the odd varicose vein – the sort of woman who, while looking fine au naturelle looks immeasurably better with eyeliner, and fully dressed. Common sense dictated that I had little to fear from the sharks. Nonetheless, I couldn’t be doing with them. For one thing I no longer had the social tools to deal with the situation they presented. I wasn’t part of their free-ranging, high-spending, big-talking world of work. My job at home, in a provincial English auction house, was scarcely at the cutting edge of international commerce. And my comfortable small town social life, seen from here, was like the dark side of the moon. I had nothing to say to them. I lacked confidence and conversation.

  I also lacked the inclination. It was too much like work. All I wanted was to be left alone with my postcards, my factor fifteen and my freshly-squeezed lemon juice. In my newly-single, separate state, still partially protected by my obsolete wedding ring, I was content.

  I was visiting our daughter, on my own, something that would have been unthinkable two years ago, and it was turning out to be more fun than I could possibly have imagined. I wandered the hotel like a child in a toyshop, trying this and that, ducking back to my room to watch films and make a mess of the bathroom, using the gym, braving the soukh, strolling on the corniche … Even on one occasion, when Mel had an evening meeting, booking supper on a dhow in the harbour – alone. The very last thing I wanted was the attention of some expense-account lothario from an oil company who was missing his wife. I’d got the T-shirt, and the long-service award. All that was behind me. Jo, my colleague at Bouviers, had attended assertiveness counselling during a post-man slump, and learned the injunction: ‘Celibate? Celebrate.’ I’d decided it was going to be my motto.

  The waiter’s shadow fell across my face. ‘Your usual, madam?’

  ‘Yes – no,’ I said. I’d like a Pimms, please.’

  ‘Pimms? Certainly madam.’

  ‘Plenty of ice.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And some deep-fried potato skins.’

  ‘Potato skins, yes madam. Salsa or sour cream?’

  ‘Sour cream, please.’

  He drifted away, dark, dry and cool in the glaring white heat. It was one o’clock, the build-up had begun. In an hour’s time only the diehards would be left around the pool, and most of them would be treading water, or lying tranced beneath a carefully husbanded spinney of parasols. It was August, low season, when the fabulously wealthy locals kept to the air-conditioned shade of their houses, and the dirt poor stood like ragged storks on the corniche wielding the hosepipes which made the desert blossom as the rose. There were few holidaymakers here at this time, it was simply too hot. The temperature for the next several hours would be forty-five degrees, the pool surround unbearable to tender English feet, the effort of putting on sunblock only possible because the alternative was to roast alive.

  Mind you, one thing I could always do was tan. From a child I’d had the kind of skin in which the natural pigmentation simply bloomed into a golden brown as all around me more delicate skins reddened angrily. I was more careful here, naturally, but I was still determined to return home a colour that would proclaim unequivocally: Holiday Abroad. A clear understanding of the carcinogenic properties of sunlight did not deter me. I was of a generation that grew up believing – no, knowing – that any age, type or quantity of flesh looked better with a tan. And as to wrinkles, well, one might wind up looking like a prune at ninety, but sunbathing produced an unbeatable appearance of
health and vitality along the way.

  So I would not be retiring. And neither, unfortunately, would most of the sharks. These were men accustomed to seize the day – between meetings, on stopovers, during flight delays – they weren’t going to be driven from their natural hunting grounds by a bit of old global warming.

  My Pimms arrived, and with it a basket of potato skins, gleaming gold on a bed of frosty iceberg lettuce, and a glass dish of sour cream sprinkled with fresh green … Riches.

  I yanked across another parasol to give me complete shade, and winched up the back of my lounger. Before so much as lifting my glass I put on dark glasses, the better to keep the sharks under observation.

  I identified them by their reading matter. To my right, at a distance of some ten towel-widths there was a John Grisham and his chum, an FT. On the left, a Japanese motor magazine. Further round on the corner, near the bar, was a Bill Bryson and a Bridges of Madison County, who I suspected were an item. In the other direction, beyond the first two were a sprinkling of singles – a Ken Follett, a Newsweek, an Alan Clarke’s Diaries and a couple of laptops. On the far side of the bar were a handful of non-readers: immaculately suited Arabs, drinking iced coffee and talking in rich, guttural tones like the bubbling-up of oil.

  The music from the pool bar changed from international easy listening to the strident wailing of indigenous pop – the bar staff’s happy hour.

  I drank and nibbled. The half-melted lozenges of ice in my glass tinkled feebly as the burning breath of thousands of miles of desert stirred the fringes of the parasols.

  Uh-oh. One of the laptops – bulging, brown and hairy – got up, slipped his feet into thongs and began the sweltering trek to the bar. He paused at the end of my lounger.

  ‘Hello again.’

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  ‘That looks nice.’

  ‘It is.’ Why was it that to have one’s food commented on when eating alone was so embarrassing? I wished he would go away. ‘Hot enough for you?’ he asked, gazing up at the sky.

  ‘I like the heat.’

  ‘I can see that.’ I couldn’t tell whether he was commenting on my stamina or my stupidity. ‘On holiday?’

  This was my cue to tell him it was none of his business, but of course I didn’t. Instead: ‘Yes,’ I said meekly. ‘I’m visiting my daughter.’

  ‘She’s working over here?’

  ‘She’s with Ankatex.’

  He shook his head. ‘I hate to sound corny, but you don’t look old enough to have a daughter working in an oil company.’

  ‘You’re right, that is corny,’ I said, but spoilt it as ever by smiling.

  He chuckled, his self-esteem intact. I’m off to get some of what you’ve got.’

  I watched as he sashayed away, arms held away from sides, his already broad, spatulate feet like flippers in their spongey black thongs. Why did men of his age and build feel the need to wear the smallest of cozzies, barely more than a posing pouch …?

  I ate most of the potato skins, and reclined the lounger again. Boldly, I pushed aside one of the parasols with my foot and felt the heavy smack of the early afternoon on my face. At home the only comparable sensation would have been bending too close to the open oven door when checking the joint. I felt for my glass and rested it on my chest, just above the swimsuit line. Condensation mixed with sweat and cut a trickling path through the suntan oil. Ten minutes and I’d take the plunge.

  ‘You’re barmy, you know that?’

  I shielded my eyes against the glare. ‘Hello darling.’

  ‘How can you stand it?’

  ‘Very easily. It’ll be over all too soon.’

  ‘Christ …’ Mel sat in a semi-circle of shade on the lounger next to me. Talk about mad dogs and Englishmen.’

  ‘I’m happy,’ I assured her. ‘What are you doing here? Time off for good behaviour?’

  ‘More or less. We’re not that pushed and Gerry thought I should spend time with you.’

  ‘Did he?’ Gerry was Mel’s boss, a cold-eyed Cockney taskmaster. ‘That was good of him.’

  ‘He must be softening me up for something.’

  He’d have his work cut out, I thought, looking fondly at my daughter. At twenty-six she was a more commanding presence than I would ever be. Even here, in this heat, she looked exactly as she had done in the Ankatex head office off Piccadilly, as she always did: cool, pale and smart. She was one of those women who are completely at ease in their good clothes, who don’t suffer from the overwhelming need to remove their tights and high heels the minute they get behind closed doors. She didn’t get this from me.

  In spite of her observations on the heat, her pale aquamarine cap-sleeved shift with mandarin collar was uncreased, and she wore sheer tights with her low-heeled pumps. Her hair, which she wore in one of those sleek, side-parted Twiggy bobs, looked as if she’d just come out of the hairdressers, though she only went once a month. With her rather sharp features and strong jaw she was no beauty, but she knew all about presentation.

  ‘What would you like to do this afternoon?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’d planned on just loafing around here, but now you’re free … What do you suggest?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a swim myself. We could go to the beach club.’

  I said: ‘Darling, you don’t want to go yomping all the way to the beach club in this heat …’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to. And who mentioned yomping, we’d take a taxi.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know what you mean.’ She gazed round restlessly. ‘But I don’t want you to feel bored and neglected when you’ve only got a couple of days left.’

  ‘I couldn’t, possibly.’

  ‘OK. Look—’ she got up, jingling her room key in one hand – ‘If you’re happy I’m going to go to the gym for half an hour. Then I’ll come down for a swim.’

  ‘Fine. Couldn’t be happier.’

  She dropped a kiss and walked away in the direction of the hotel: every inch the young executive, to which the key dangling from one finger added a touch of unintentional sauciness.

  I picked up the Queen of the Bonkbusters. Vicarious thrills were just about my drop these days – good clean smut, safely embalmed in print. Glancing covertly through my shades I saw the laptop taking delivery of an heroic club sandwich and fries. He chatted animatedly to the waiter – I knew the trick, it made a person alone look less of a saddo – but when the waiter had gone he shook salt, sprinkled dressing, tucked his napkin into his posing pouch and ate wth gusto. In between mouthfuls he stared unashamedly at the pool and everyone round it. When he looked my way, though he couldn’t possibly have caught my eye, I could have sworn he lifted his fork in a cheery salute.

  I read, then dozed – it must have been the Pimms. I awoke to find Mel next to me again, dropping her towel and other bits and pieces on the lounger next door.

  ‘Didn’t mean to disturb you. I just thought I’d leave these here in case there was an afternoon rush.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ I mumbled groggily. ‘In these temperatures.’

  ‘Well quite. But some eligible hunk might come and stake his claim, you never know your luck.’

  ‘Get away …’

  Strangely, in view of her own fiercely independent single state, Mel persisted in the view that I needed a man. I couldn’t believe I seemed such a sad and lonely creature when that certainly wasn’t how I saw myself. I was quite shockingly content. I had moved into a state of placid busyness, revolving round home, work, family (well, Ben) and an enjoyably undemanding social round. I was untroubled by my lack of any sort of involvement with the opposite sex, in fact I positively welcomed it. My life felt choc-a-bloc with happy possibilities, I was like a schoolgirl once more but without the hormonal uproar.

  It wasn’t that there were no men in my life, but that they had their place, and it wasn’t the same as mine. The jovial husbands of friends, big servers in mixed doubles, buyers and
sellers at auctions – all were safely compartmentalised. I had become an expert in turning any nascent flirtation into a generally accepted joke. I’d learned that when it came to people you knew, the best way to draw seduction’s sting was to seem to respond with such boisterous enthusiasm that dishonourable intentions – if there had genuinely been any in the first place – were nipped in the bud by anxiety. Not that it happened often, and scarcely at all these days, now that the message had got across.

  I was grateful for that. I had a born-again dread of upheaval, of strong emotion, of all the sticky inconvenience of sex, of the disturbance of my easy-going, easy-listening existence. After the attrition of marital breakdown, even a relatively amicable one like ours, I had just about succeeded in eliminating stress from my life. I had recreated a mid-life boarding school for myself complete with chums, naughty boys, staff both kindly and curmudgeonly, outings, clubs, prep, and a bedroom as chaste and cosy as any junior dorm. As my son would have said: excellent.

  Mel was fiddling about tying a bandanna round her head and putting some sort of elastic support on her knee. She wore grey cycling shorts, and an outsize blue T-shirt which could not quite conceal the fact that she was also wearing one of those crotch-slicing leotards over the shorts. She looked dismayingly fit – every bit of her seemed braced and tensile. Nothing sagged, or even trembled. For a session in the gym she had of course removed her make-up: she was far too confident to be vain.

  ‘Back in a mo,’ she said.

  ‘Have fun.’

  The gym was on the first floor of the fitness centre, its floor-to-ceiling smoked-glass windows overlooking the pool. I watched Mel’s taut backview as she went in search of quite unnecessary self-improvement.

  Lazily, I thought: in the days when my legs didn’t rub together at the top I didn’t appreciate it. Absence of flab, like youth itself, was wasted on the young. Forget job satisfaction, fulfilling relationships, the wisdom of experience – nothing, I decided happily, did so much for a woman’s sense of self-worth as that precious sliver of daylight between the thighs.