Chapter 22

Emily levered the back of her lounger down flat and unhooked her bikini, to avoid tan stripes.  She thrust out her suncream bottle.  ‘Mind rubbing some of this on my back?’

‘Hey, what d’your last one die of?’

‘Shame for poor Heidi, eh,’ Emily wriggled at the lotion’s lovely coolness on her barbecuing skin, ‘running the shop while we’re here – though I’m sure she’s been everywhere at least once already.’

‘You should get to know her.  She’s a nice girl.’

‘Once you get past the plastic.  Ow!’  Emily hooted as Robyn slapped her hip in rebuke. 

‘Saucer of milk for the lady!  No, we ought to all go out once you’re home.’

‘OK, OK.  After all, I’ve got more in common with the girl than I could have ever imagined!’

‘Yes, you could swap stories about the bullshit spun by Dominic Warwick Osbourne, or whatever he’s calling himself this week.’

‘Yes, a fun evening of Warwick-trashing is definitely on the cards.’  Emily sighed, a shred of pity for her truthless ex coming easily now she was in her paradise.  ‘I’d still like to think he’ll find a girl who he can be himself with.  He must have been terribly unhappy, with both of us.  I still can’t believe the gall of the guy, though, pretending to be someone else, fabricating this tragic background for himself.  It feels like a year since I was last with him – well it was literally half a world ago.’

It was July now, three weeks since Emily’s Enville Common face-off with the man she would never be quite accustomed to calling ‘Warwick.’

Her mobile pulsed on the towel beside her.  She shifted her head the minimal extent required to read the text.

‘Our Ro?’

‘Must be costing him a fortune, all this messaging.  It’s – what – half-three here, so he must be about to set off for work.’

‘He could have come with you, you know.’

‘No, I wanted this to be my best mate and me.  You deserve this holiday.  Your brother can wait a bit longer.’

Robyn, not about to argue, clapped the lid on the suncream bottle and retired to her own lounger to relish the Indonesian sun.  She shut her eyes behind her shades.  ‘I can see why you love this so much, Em.  What’s the score between you pair, anyway?’

‘We’re mates at present,’ Emily said into her beach towel.  ‘Been for a couple of meals – and I’m developing an interest in hill walking that I never envisaged.  Taking things at a sedate pace.  I’m a tad wary of getting serious with anyone else just yet.’

‘Understandable.’

‘Think Mom and Dad are already visualising him in his top hat and tails, though.’

‘Poor Ro – don’t think I’ll tell him that!  Perhaps this’ll trip be a test, see how much you’ve missed each other by the time you get home.  You’ll have been apart eight weeks by then, eh?’

‘Yeah, after you’ve gone I fly into Sydney.  I’ll spend three weeks touring Oz, then another three in New Zealand.  Be home in plenty of time to start psyching myself up for uni.’

‘In between sharing candlelit curries and slogging across fells with my brother!’

The girls, following a week in Singapore, had flown to Indonesia, from there boarding the tiny ferry to the divine island of Bintan for a two-night mini break, which amounted to an extended sprawl by the unfathomably blue swimming pool.

Robyn was going to head home after a fortnight – the longest she was prepared to leave Jennie and Heidi in charge of the shop (she was already fearing what experiments those girls might take with her window décor during sale lulls) – at which stage Emily would be Oceana-bound for her final burst at a ‘gap year.’

Emily nuzzled into the towel, smiling with bliss as the sun massaged her.  ‘How about you, Rob – got your eye on anyone?’

A lithe waiter delivered their drinks: a pair of gaudy cocktails in coconut halves with bendy green straws jutting out like antennae.  ‘Thanking you.’  Robyn glinted at him.  The young man bowed and scurried back to the straw-roofed bar, balancing his tray on his hand.  She studied his perky bum with single-girl-on-holiday brazenness. 

Emily, fastening her bikini, had lugged herself upright to drink.  Robyn, turning back, caught her eye and they giggled. 

‘Nah!’  Robyn seized her drink gleefully.  ‘Not getting embroiled.’

‘You’re very wise.’

Emily clinked coconut shells with her friend.  ‘To gap years!’

‘To not getting involved with strangers in exotic retreats!’