husband and daughter were still alive? Or, occasionally, Beryl asking Olive if she’d seen her tennis racquet. She hadn’t played since she was twenty.
Olive wondered what it must be like to think your daughter was still alive, then suddenly, about three times a day, be told that she wasn’t. How unfair it was to outlive your children. At least she had Maddie. She hoped Maddie was grabbing hold of her life in Bournemouth – or wherever it was she went – on holiday. Began with a ‘B’. Olive sighed, took another sip of her Earl Grey and winced. Awful tea. Who puts milk in Earl Grey?
13
Maddie
There was a knock at Maddie’s door. She’d negotiated her own room with a lot of sign language – and it was across the hall from Ed’s. She jumped. It was the day after Ed had been released from hospital. He was safely tucked up in his room with magazines, an exorbitant bottle of Lucozade, his phone and laptop, and instructions to text her if he needed anything. What he really needed was rest. She’d almost cancelled her trip today. But what was she going to do? Sit in that dingy room?
She ran to the bathroom and peered at her face. She quickly applied some more mascara. There was something in the air that made her feel like she was young again, that she could do anything. Her heart did a little flip thinking about visiting Bali’s Tirta Empul temple. She didn’t really want to analyse why she was applying make-up to places she normally didn’t, she just shoved that little niggle to one side.
She opened the door to see Johnny standing there in cut-off denim shorts and a pink T-shirt, which had a picture of a woman in green bikini bottoms surfing topless on the front. The words ‘Babes who surf’ were scrawled across it in white writing.
‘G’day!’ He grinned at her.
‘Nice T-shirt!’ She raised her eyebrows and smiled up at him as he rubbed the stubble on his face. Only someone like Johnny could get away with a T-shirt like that.
‘Glad you like it! Right, it’s good you’re wearing long shorts – we’re going by motorbike. C’mon.’
Motorbike? She’d assumed it would be a cultural trip, a bus tour maybe with some loud Americans.
She was becoming intoxicated with Bali’s simple beauty and the little surprises on every street corner: a tiny Hindu shrine under the shade of a banana tree, the tangerine sunsets flooding the skyline or the toothy grin of the woman at the kiosk selling coconut water.
Tim had texted last night.
When you coming back? Surely Ed can survive on his own?
It was true, but something stopped her.
Ed’s fine. But staying another week – or so – to keep an eye on him.
‘Hop on.’ The chrome of the bike gleamed in the sunshine. Johnny revved it up.
‘Going to take you to the Holy Water temple near Ubud then on to Ginger for satay – it’s the best joint for satay in Bali, well, in Ubud, anyway.’ He grinned. ‘Got your cozzie?’
She swung her leg over the bike and nodded.
*
Maddie was trying to ignore how her thighs were clamped firmly next to Johnny’s and that her arms were squeezing him tight around his waist. She could smell him through his T-shirt, the sea coupled with the sweet smell of cocoa butter.
‘All right?’ he yelled over the traffic, as he reached a hand back and squeezed her thigh.
‘Yes,’ she lied as cars, pushbikes and scooters whizzed past, sending fumes into her face, and endlessly beeping their horns. The smell of petrol filled the air, and she leant her face into Johnny’s back. At one point, Johnny took a corner very sharply and she swore they’d come off the bike; she clung on even tighter, her nails digging into his chest, as she felt him tense up too. But once they’d turned the corner and straightened up, she found herself laughing. Maybe it was relief.
Maybe it was because she felt alive.
After a while the crazy-busy roads of Kuta thinned out and they travelled along a slightly rougher road with potholes. She laid her head on Johnny’s back and took a deep breath. Banana trees flashed past, changing the shadows on the road to zebra stripes as the sun flickered off and on her face. The scenery slowly opened out and rice paddy fields flanked them on either side, the lush wide greenery making a welcome change from the busy beach scene. There were some domes of