The Perfect Holiday

Tricia’s husband, Pat, was like Anthony in that he liked to read in the sun. Between them, they read book after book. They both loved American thrillers and spent ages talking about them. But at lunchtime, Pat liked a beer with his lunch. So Anthony stayed on the beach to read.

‘If you get any browner, they won’t let you leave the country: they’ll think you’re Greek,’ Pat joked one day, when he’d had a few beers and his pleasant face was tinged with red. ‘Are you sure you won’t come up and have a bottle of beer with me?’

Claire held her breath.

‘Ah no, Pat,’ Anthony said, ‘beer in the sun doesn’t agree with me.’

‘You see, Pat, somebody’s sensible about not drinking too much in the sun,’ Tricia said to her husband, patting his beer belly.

Claire breathed again. The moment had passed.

At night, Tricia, Pat and the children ate early. This gave Anthony and Claire the perfect excuse not to go to dinner with them. Without ever speaking about it, Claire knew how hard it would be for her husband to watch Pat drink lots of wine with his meal.

One morning, Pat had a terrible hangover after the night before.

‘There’s a brass band in my head,’ he groaned, sinking on to the sun lounger and shading his eyes from the sun. ‘That sun’s very bright, isn’t it?’

‘The sun’s normal. You’ve got a headache because of the five Long Island Iced Tea cocktails you had,’ said Tricia crossly. ‘I told you not to drink them. You’re lucky you’re not married to a big idiot,’ she added to Claire.

They both looked down to the water where Anthony was playing in the sea with Millie and Fiona. He was pretending to be a shark chasing them out of the shallow waves. Every time he chased them, the two little girls squealed with delight.

He was slim and handsome, with no sign of a beer belly. He’d been going to the gym at home and his stomach was flat and muscled. In his denim-blue swimming shorts, with his dark hair windswept, he could have stepped out of a film.

Claire felt her heart ache watching him play with the girls. Anthony had never played with children much before. At family gatherings, he hadn’t wanted to play with her nieces and nephews. Instead, he’d sat with the men and the drinks, talking and smoking. Now she watched his face alight with happiness as he pretended to be a shark for two small girls.

‘I’m very lucky,’ she said, and it was the truth.

Chapter Two (#ulink_36249800-2a23-5e80-98f7-6716f1dfd5c1)

On the last morning of her holiday, Jessica made herself her cup of coffee with the special little filter-coffee containers she’d brought from home. It was strange how something so small could give a person so much pleasure. She usually didn’t buy them because they were expensive. No, she corrected herself. It wasn’t the expense. She usually didn’t buy them because they were a treat.

The grief counsellor, Diana, had said it was important to be honest. Diana was the one who’d pointed out that the reason Jessica didn’t do nice things for herself had nothing to do with money. She had enough money to survive. Jack’s life insurance meant she’d never go hungry. She didn’t buy magazines or perfume, or go for a facial in the beautician’s because they were treats. It was as if Jessica wasn’t allowed to do anything nice for herself ever again.

Jack was dead and so was all the happiness in Jessica’s life.

‘You can live your life like that,’ Diana had said bluntly during their third session. Blunt speaking seemed to be Diana’s speciality. There had been no mention of such bluntness in her advert. The very name ‘grief counsellor’ had implied a kind person who somehow magically made you feel better. Not someone who forced you to think painful thoughts. ‘But there’s no need to live like that,’ Diana said. ‘There’s no need to keep on punishing yourself because you’re alive and Jack’s dead. You can have nice meals, buy yourself a magazine every now and then, and enjoy yourself with friends. You’re not betraying him. You’re simply punishing yourself by not doing those things. You must ask yourself why.’

Jessica was shocked. In the two years since Jack had died a painful death from pancreatic cancer, nobody had spoken to her like that. The death of your beloved husband changed all your relationships. People spoke to you as if you were the person who was ill. They spoke in gentle voices and asked if you were ‘all right’. They said things like ‘under the circumstances…’

Under the circumstances, it was perfectly normal not to go to parties or weddings. It was normal not to want to get your hair done, normal not to buy new clothes. It was normal to buy the cheapest instant coffee in the supermarket because it was only for Jessica herself. Not for anyone else. So why bother?

Diana had changed all that. She spoke to Jessica with kindness but with fierce honesty too.

‘Live your life,’ she’d said on their last session, the one before Jessica had flown out to Corfu.

In her pretty room in Hotel Athena, Jessica took the filter-coffee container from her cup and threw it in the bin. Then she smelled the rich, strong coffee it had left behind in the cup. This coffee, like the whole holiday, was her way of trying to live again. It was an experiment. Every day for the past ten days, she’d had a cup of lovely filter coffee when she woke up. She’d packed enough for the whole holiday.

When Jack was alive, they had both loved decent coffee. She enjoyed finding new brands for them to try. She’d bought coffee on the internet for him and had beamed with delight to see him open the package from the postman.

After twenty-seven years of marriage, it was easy to fall out of love with your spouse. But that had never happened to Jessica and Jack.

Three years ago, they’d been thinking fondly of what they might do for their summer holidays, but then Jack began to feel unwell.

‘A cruise,’ Jack had said bravely, the day when he went into hospital for the tests.

‘A cruise is for old people,’ Jessica had joked back, trying to be just as brave. She laid clean pyjamas on his narrow hospital bed. She’d packed another pair, just in case. ‘We’re not old. Perhaps we should try one of those 18–30 holidays,’ she’d added jokily.

Jack’s laugh had been loud and genuine. ‘And have you in the wet T-shirt contest? Not likely. I’m too old to fight off all the lads who’d want you.’

Jessica loved the idea that Jack still believed anyone would fight over the sight of her in a wet T-shirt contest. With two grown-up sons and the full-figured body of a fifty-three-year-old woman, she was no longer wet T-shirt material. But darling Jack still thought she was. That was love.

There had been no more holidays for them. Jack had died three months later. When Jessica found advertisements for cruises in newspapers now, she felt the nausea rise up in her.

The trip to the Hotel Athena in Corfu was the first time she’d been away since Jack had died. It was another experiment, like the coffee and having a nice glass of wine with dinner. It was an experiment in living. She’d come up with the idea to show Diana that she could live life, really she could. And it was proving lovely.

She took her coffee out on to the balcony and sat on the white cast-iron chair that faced the sea. There were four balconies on that side of the small hotel. On the furthest one, Jessica could see Claire, the quiet fair-haired woman who was married to that tall, handsome man.

Jessica had spoken to Claire and her husband, Anthony, but not much. She hadn’t wanted to appear stand-offish, but she didn’t really want to talk to people. It was too painful. Seeing Claire and her husband, always holding hands and looking at each other, hurt. It was a reminder of all Jessica had lost.

She’d heard the hotel landlady, Sarah, discussing giving them the honeymoon suite when everyone had arrived. Instantly, Jessica had thought of her own honeymoon with Jack. They’d been totally broke and she’d been pregnant with Marty. Her mother had been tight-lipped at the small wedding ceremony. She’d overheard one of her aunts talking about how awful it was that they ‘had to get married’.

Jessica had felt furious. There was no ‘had to’ about it. She and Jack had been in love. Her being pregnant was icing on the cake.

It had been a great relief to leave the reception and drive at high speed to the small hotel in Wicklow where they were to spend the weekend. Honeymoons weren’t so grand then. Not like the big holidays brides had now.

Sometimes, people who’d skimped on their honeymoon made up for it with big holidays for important anniversaries. Like a thirtieth anniversary. Jessica and Jack’s thirtieth anniversary would have been in September, two months away.

Jessica took another sip of her coffee and focused on the glittering water of the ocean. She didn’t cry much any more. Perhaps human beings were born with so many tears and, once they were all gone, there were no more. She’d finished her supply long ago. Now, she might feel a certain wetness on her lashes, but that was all. She had no crying left in her.

There were so many anniversaries, after Jack had died. The first Christmas, the first birthday, the first anniversary of their wedding…that was all supposed to be horrendous, but everyone said it would get better afterwards. Except that it hadn’t. The second Christmas had been even worse.

Liam and Marty had been there for the first Christmas after their father died. Liam had come home from Australia and had brought Kathleen, a beautiful Australian girlfriend with a sweet smile, who’d been an angel. Having a non-family member around had helped so much. Marty had come from Cork with his two deranged rescue dogs, and they’d helped too. One dog was a bit like a wolf and liked to make dens with stolen cushions under couches and tables. The other dog was a Labrador type who was hungry all the time and stole food off plates when people weren’t looking.

The dogs made people laugh a lot. And when Jessica, Liam and Marty got sad, Kathleen was wise enough to know how to cheer them up. It had been a very different type of Christmas to the ones they were used to, but somehow, they’d got over it.

But last Christmas, the second one without Jack, had been horrible. Liam couldn’t afford to fly home from Australia, and Marty, who had just qualified as a vet, had to work over the holidays. Jessica’s neat four-bedroomed house felt like a giant empty mansion. The television served up a diet of happy people, merry films and wonderful Christmas routines. So Jessica switched the TV off and tried to read a book about a serial killer in a small American town. The suffering in the novel was a relief after all the enforced Christmas happiness. But she couldn’t even concentrate on reading.

She wished there was a naughty dog to steal food from her plate. She almost wished a burglar might try to break in, just so she would have someone to talk to.

She found herself daydreaming about it. The burglar would be young and Jessica would talk him out of his life of crime. And then she realised she couldn’t talk anyone out of anything. She was nothing but a crazy widow-woman, she decided. Fifty-five-years-old and going slowly mad. Any sensible burglar would take one look at her and leave. She hadn’t been to the hairdresser’s in months. When Jack had been alive, she had a shiny brown rinse put in her hair. Now, she had nothing put in. Her hair was shoulder length and mousy grey. She never wore make-up any more and without mascara, her eyelashes were pale.

On her last birthday, the second one since Jack had died, she stayed in bed all day. Her sons had phoned and she’d lied to them.

‘Yes, I’m going out to lunch with Lizzie,’ she’d said. Lizzie was her best friend and had asked her out to lunch. But Jessica had said no, and Lizzie had given up. She’d asked Jessica out to so many things and Jessica always said no. There was only so much a friend could do, short of dragging her out.

Jessica didn’t feel guilty about lying to her sons. It was better to lie and make the boys think she was fine. Would it help if Liam and Marty knew she was wrapped in her duvet, crying? No. They’d worry. They didn’t deserve to worry. They were young men with their lives ahead of them. It would be wrong to let them know that their mother’s life was over.

On the second wedding anniversary without Jack – it would have been their twenty-ninth wedding anniversary – Jessica got out of bed and went to the shops on her own. She even had a cup of coffee in the cafe beside the supermarket. This was progress, she felt. She didn’t have any cake, though. Cake would have felt like celebrating, and Jessica had nothing to celebrate.