Short Story: 'Sun-dried'

SUN-DRIED

A strange thing happened on holidays once. Well, perhaps it’s not strange - I thought maybe it was but my husband Paul said it definitely wasn’t. 


We’d booked two weeks in Torremolinos, on the Costa del Sol. Very nice in the brochure. My friend Joan, whose dog humps your leg while she’s doing your hair, she recommended it. Now this must have been in ’91 or ’92 because my eldest Glenn had his front teeth and he didn’t knock them out until he was starting fifth class. He was in the park around the back ‘playing’. I say playing they were throwing a rock straight up in the air and watching it fall. He’s never been the brightest, our Glenn, but I blamed that Steven with the sticky-out ears. He came to a sad end as it happens. Though his mother is a terrible person so I have mixed feelings about it. 


Anyway, enough about sting operations and family disgrace. It’s not nice to dwell on. This hotel was right on the beach but had its own pool too so you didn’t have to go to the actual beach - which to be honest I’ve never been a fan of. Oh it looks nice on a postcard but the sand would scorch the feet off you on the way down to the water, you paddle about for a minute in cold salty slop, then it’s back up the beach with sand sticking to your legs so you look like a honey-roast ham rolled in sawdust. Not for me. 

I spent my days by the pool reading my books and getting a touch of a tan - just a touch mind, you wouldn’t want to overdo it like Debbie with the neck like an old chicken. Anyway, sitting by the pool, that’s where I saw it all begin. 


My two were off doing something with the kids club and I had my book out on my lap. I was taking a break from the plot because I wanted to size up the new arrivals. There was a family who had a look of Germans to me - three tanned kids with that kind of white blonde hair I always envied. I tried sun-in when I was a teenager but it came out a very angry ginger. “They’ll have their towels down on the sun-beds first thing in the morning,” I said, nudging our Paul. He grunted. He was resting his eyes for a minute but he knew I was right. 

Then there was this big fella who came in. Now I don’t know what the thing is you’re meant to say these days - big-boned or ‘curvy'. Well, he was very big-boned now if you follow me. Fat. Though I wouldn’t say that word to anyone else. Anyway, I was just looking at him, not to be rude, but I wondered how he’d get down on that sun-bed without breaking it. He was breathing terrible heavy. He looked up at me, squinting. I looked away. As I say to the kids, it’s rude to stare and anyway that’s when I saw her. 

I swear to God I thought it was a ghost at first. Up in the apartments, three stories up - right beside our one - was a little pale figure on the balcony. Sun-hat with a big wide brim, white dress, and sunglasses on a very pale face. I shaded my eyes with my arm. She was wearing white gloves too. White gloves in Torremolinos on the third week of July. The more I looked the more I felt she was staring back at me from behind those glasses. Like an insect’s stare. I turned back to my book and flicked a few pages to look busy. Paul was snoring. The big fella opposite had lowered himself onto the sun-bed somehow. The woman in white had gone from the balcony. 

I told Paul when he woke up and he said she’s probably allergic to the sun or something and went off to get himself a drink. “Sure what’s the point in coming to Torremolinos if you’re allergic to the sun?” I said when he came back. “Maybe she likes the heat," he says. I nodded but it didn’t sit with me at all. 


The next day Paul tried to take us to do something cultural. I don’t know how he got it in his head or why, I said the kids want to go to the water-park, but anyway we ended up driving up red dirt-tracks into these hills in the back-arse of beyond. Paul was lost of course but wouldn’t admit it and Sarah was punching Glenn in the backseat but I just had to ignore it at this point. We wound up at a dead-end where there was nothing but a tin-roof shack and a sad donkey with xylophone ribs. An old farmer started shouting and jabbing at the window. Paul locked the doors and churned up the stones doing a u-turn. He didn’t speak all the way back because he never does when I’m right. 

Back at the hotel I saw the Scottish family with the ugly daughter was monopolising the pool and the big fella who arrived yesterday was lying out again. He must have been there since the early morning because he was turning a hot shade of pink. He had sunglasses on and was perfectly still. After watching him for a while, I thought he must be asleep. Either that or dead. The thought of having to get the manager and an ambulance and all that raced through me for a moment. And Paul had only gotten me a fresh Malibu and coke. But then his belly rose, thank God. 

And there she was again. The woman in white on the balcony. I went to nudge Paul but he’d gone off to play badminton with the dutch fella who won the knobbly-knee competition. I put on my sunglasses and hat and laid back to get a proper sneaky look at her. She was standing there perfectly still, hands gripped on the rail on the balcony - but she wasn’t idly gazing, she was watching. She was looking right at the big fella, his red belly rising and falling. 

We went to the water-park the next day and Paul, our man of culture, had a great time of course - until he flew off one of the slides into the pool and came up with his shorts around his you-know-what. All these young blondes all howled with laughter and the kids were mortified. Serves him right for showing off. I can’t be doing with those slides. To be honest with you, I’d be afraid my arse would stage a no-go protest half-way down and I’d cause a blockage. But I told Paul I was happier minding the bags and camera.  

That evening was another cabaret night in the bar. They had different themes every-night for the families you know - kids talent show (our Glenn made a holy show of us with some jokes his uncle Keith told him), a tropical-theme night with a few coconuts thrown about the place and a grass-skirt on the DJ booth, a tune and joy free karaoke night, you get the idea. No matter the name on the posters, each one featured the kids dancing to ‘Agadoo’ in the early stages and later a slow-set where one or two dead marriages took to the floor for ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’. 


The big fella was there sitting at a table on his own. White short-sleeve shirt open right down to his belly. Don’t ask me why. Some people are too casual on holidays I think. I mean if you have the body, by all means go for it, but you have to be realistic with yourself. He looked shocking red now, purple even. I said to our Paul, ‘He’d want to get after-sun on’. Paul grunted and said to stop pointing. 

Then, you won’t guess who comes in. The woman in white. She didn’t have her hat or sun-glasses on but I knew her alright. Long white dress, arms that were thin right to the top, pale skin you could see the blue of her veins through. She looked to me to be in her forties but it’s hard to tell with single women. They don’t have all the other factors that wear you down. She didn’t have roots as far as I could see. 

She got herself a drink and looked nervous doing it. Now it could have been a gin and tonic but I’d say more like a vodka and 7up as it was in a tall thin glass. She gazed around the bar and so not to be caught looking, I stroked Paul’s arm and smiled at him. He went in for a kiss - but got my cheek because she was now walking over to the big fella. I smacked at Paul’s leg to watch but I was subtle about it. She said something to the big fella and he nodded and then she sat down to join him. 


“Oh Jesus!” I said to our Paul, “I told you know, it was a romance on the cards. Her allergic to the sun and him an addict.” Paul grunted and got up to get us another drink. I was just shooing him out of my eye-line when our Sarah trotted over with sick all down her front. It was that banana-flavour drink she’d begged me for. I knew it was trouble. Never trust anything banana-flavoured. I said to Paul, I’d run up and get her clean but to keep an eye on the lovebirds for me. He nodded but was looking at the telly over the bar.  

It took ages even getting Sarah into the shower because she threw an almighty tantrum about how Glenn made her get sick by spinning her around and it wasn’t the banana drink’s fault. Glenn was my favourite and I was a terrible mum. The usual. I had just got her into something decent when Paul arrives in with Glenn behind him. I said to him that he’s supposed to be keeping an eye at the bar - on ‘the lovebirds’ I whispered. Actually I said to him ‘on our sun-crossed lovebirds’ which I was very proud of and Paul agreed was very clever. But anyway, he whispered to me that he’d just passed them - going into her room. Well now. 


He asked did we want to go back down to the bar, and I assumed he was joking because I was straight up against that wall, listening with a glass like you see on the telly, not to be nosey but you know just to get a measure of the neighbours. It was silent. Paul nearly talked me into giving up when I heard a long groan. I grabbed Paul’s arm. There was a definite pounding noise. Now I thought that was a bit much in front of the kids so I allowed Paul to convince me to leave them to it. By the time we were back in the bar it was Lionel Ritchie and the slow-shuffling divorce set. Paul didn’t ask me to dance but sure he never does. 


The next morning I smelled her out on the balcony. What I mean is I was picking up the bikinis and shorts I’d left drying on the railing when I got a waft of something delicious cooking. I leaned over a bit just to see if everything was okay and there she was with one of those mini barbecue sets you’d see in a park. It can’t come as standard but I think we should at least be offered. As she was lifting off a slab of meat she turned and saw me. Not to worry. 


‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘That looks like a good breakfast’. 

Her cheeks were fuller, brighter than before. ‘And well-earned,’ she said. Big cheeky smile on her. No shame. Well. 


I didn’t say anything. I just smiled and nodded as I took her in. She looked healthier. Firmer. Like she had some bounce in her. God I thought, Paul hasn’t put some bounce in me in years. 

‘Goodbye then,’ she said and went off inside with two full breakfast plates. I thought of Paul and how we used to be before the kids. Before the moustache. His, not mine obviously. I have Joan with the randy dog do a discreet job on any upper-lip issues. 

I didn’t see the big fella by the pool the rest of the week or the white lady on the balcony. They were locked up inside. I felt happy for them. But in the way you’d take a big happy sigh at a sunset and there’d be a bit of sadness in it too. I suppose it's premature nostalgia. Sadness mixed in because you know how brief the happiness will be. They’re at it like rabbits I thought. He’ll be red-raw all over. I didn’t want to dwell on what positions they could get up to. The poor fella could barely get himself onto a sun-bed. 


But then a funny thing happened towards the end of that week. I was in the reception and stopped to fix the back of my sandal because the little strap kept falling down - I sat on one of the chairs beside that big waxy plant and I heard her voice. I could see her feet, in neat white kitten-heels coming to join the shiny black shoes of the manager. 


“Checking out today madam?” he said. 

“Yes thank you,” she said faintly, “The usual arrangement with the room. Will need a deep clean this time. It got messy I’m afraid.”

“Of course madam,” said the manager in a hushed voice, “I hope everything was to your satisfaction.”


“Oh yes, delicious - I mean, delightful!” she said with the tinkle of a laugh. 


I watched her leave with her bags outside. She looked so strong, so vibrant - her eyes dancing brightly, her hair falling around her shoulders with a robust sheen. A new woman. I envied her. 


But I couldn't help thinking about her choice of words. And that we never saw that man again. 


Anyway Paul said it was nothing worth thinking about. He’s probably right.

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I’m on Twitter @TheRoryJohn