“Drinks, snacks? Any magazines?” The oh-so-perky voice of one of the cabin crew grated in my ears as she pushed her trolley down the aisle of the aeroplane.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I’m not sure who it was designed for, but it certainly wasn’t an adult human. The sun squinted over the horizon, causing an instant headache, and I pulled down the blind.
At least I had the window seat. Kat was squashed into the middle with a guy who looked like he was more at home on a rugby pitch sitting on the other side. His knees were butted up against the seat in front, and he couldn’t move his arms.
“Do you want anything?” Kat asked, gesturing towards the trolley.
I shook my head no. I felt a bit sick.
Today was supposed to be my wedding day. I should have been walking down the aisle in the local church with the love of my life, before sitting down to a meal of organic roast beef and locally sourced vegetables.
Instead, I was thirty thousand feet up, somewhere over the Netherlands according to the pilot.
Kat, Mum and I had spent the last couple of days cancelling everything. By the time we’d finished, I felt like I was drowning at the bottom of a black hole. My dreams had been snatched away from me. I’d spent month after stressful month organising everything, with my wedding being the reward waiting for me. Now that light at the end of the tunnel had been firmly extinguished.
Not only that, I’d poured my life savings into my dream day, and all I had to show for it was a dress that probably didn’t even fit any more. Not after all the ice cream and cake Kat had plied me with since my world fell apart.
Now I was on my way to the small seaside town of Fidda Hilal, where Kat had spent the last six months working as a windsurfing instructor.
I’d been so busy with the wedding disaster, I hadn’t even had a chance to find out anything about the place. I had no idea whether it was a peaceful retreat or the Egyptian equivalent of Benidorm.
“Where are we going, exactly?” I asked Kat.
“We’re flying into Sharm el Sheikh, and Fidda Hilal is eighty kilometres up the desert highway. It’ll take about an hour and a half to get there.”
That didn’t sound too bad a journey. An hour and a half was bearable. I mean, it wasn’t as bad as the time Bryce had booked us a mini-break in Copenhagen and the low-cost airline we’d flown with landed us in Sweden. We’d had to take a cramped coach full of tetchy holidaymakers across the border and by the time we’d reached our hotel, we’d missed dinner.
I couldn’t wait to get to Fidda Hilal, unpack, and get settled in. That way I could go back to my moping. I was going to be staying at a local hotel, the Coral Cove Resort. Kat had offered her sofa, but she only had a one-bedroom apartment and she shared it with Mo, the wakeboard trainer she was currently in lust with. He worked at the watersports club with her.
I didn’t fancy a few of weeks tripping over them, and more so, I couldn’t stand the thought of them closing the bedroom door and getting on with what I’d be missing.
The hotel I’d booked into was rated five stars, according to their website, and just around the corner from Kat’s home. Mum had insisted on paying. A “breakup treat,” she called it. It was the best solution for everyone, I kept telling myself.
“And it’s got a nice beach, right?” I asked.
Kat laughed. “Several of them. Miles and miles of golden sand, and it only rains once a year. The rest of the time, it’s blue sky and sunshine.”
It was a good thing I’d packed that extra bottle of sunscreen, then. I also had a suitcase full of the new bikinis I’d bought to wear for Bryce, as well as a few floaty cover-ups and some sparkly flip-flops. I swallowed down the lump in my throat as I thought of the beautiful brochure pictures for the Crystal Blue Hotel in Jamaica. That was where I should have been travelling to, not Fidda Hilal.
I’d only intended to wear my new swimwear on my room’s private terrace, but when I tried to explain that to Kat, she’d said, “Nonsense. You need to show Bryce what he’s missing.”
“But he won’t be there.”
“That’s not the point. Besides, with Facebook and Twitter, he might as well be.”
Great, just what I needed—my wobbly bits being showcased for everyone to see.
“Kat, you’re not putting half naked photos of me on the internet.”
“We’ll see.”
Mental note: If Kat was in the vicinity, keep a towel round me at all times.
I’d tried to pack some more practical items, but Kat had taken most of them out. Despite my protestations, she’d also insisted I leave in the lingerie I’d bought for my wedding night.
“You never know, you might get lucky,” she’d said with a wink, pushing the pale pink lace bra and matching panties firmly back into my luggage.
Out of the question, but I was too tired to argue with her. It would be easier to toss them into the back of the wardrobe when I got to the hotel.
When we finally arrived at Sharm el Sheikh airport, I was relieved to find our luggage had too. I hefted my suitcase off the conveyor belt and set it down. Tilting it onto its wheels, I trailed Kat out of the terminal, keeping my head down and attempting to ignore the shouts of people trying to sell me everything from a minibus transfer to foam party tickets.
Then I stopped dead.
“We’re riding in that?”
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
When Kat had said it would take an hour and a half to reach Fidda Hilal, she should have added a caveat: An hour and a half if the taxi didn’t break down.
To say the vehicle had seen better days was an understatement. I looked on dubiously as the driver put our cases in the boot and tied it shut with string. He opened the door for us to sit in the back, and gave me a toothless grin as he did so.
“Welcome to Egypt. I hope you enjoy.”
I managed a weak smile in return.
The engine started on only the fourth try and we slowly sputtered out of the car park.
“Where’s the seatbelt?” I hissed at Kat.
She glanced over her shoulder, then shrugged. “Probably somebody took them out.”
Great. I hung onto the edge of my seat as we joined a dual carriageway, went the wrong way round a roundabout and finally ended up on a road out of town.
“Why does he keep tooting his horn at everybody?” I whispered. “What have they done wrong?”
“Nothing. He’s saying hello. They all do it. Just don’t drive with your headlights on, though. That’s considered rude.”
My eyes widened. “What if it’s dark?”
“People are quite good at jumping out of the way. Goats, too.”
I groaned. This break was starting to sound like the worst decision I’d ever made. And considering I said “yes” to Bryce, that was a big thing.
Despite having to stop at four separate police checkpoints, we made it to Fidda Hilal in an hour and a quarter, with the car making a pinging noise the entire way to tell the driver he was exceeding the speed limit. Probably he didn’t notice, though, as he spent most of the journey on the phone.
The sun had set by the time we arrived and I was dog-tired. Actually, I was more like dog-unconscious.
The taxi dropped us off outside the hotel in a cloud of smoke. A couple of other guests who were standing there gave us a dirty look as we stepped from the car.
I studiously looked at my feet as I wheeled my case past them, heading towards the hotel reception, which was in a separate building on the far side of a paved courtyard. My feet were hot as I crossed the tiles, and I wished I’d thought to change into a pair of flip-flops on the way.
A dark skinned man in a white uniform rushed up to us. “I take your bags.”
Kat gestured at mine. “Just that one. I’m not staying.”
She only had a small backpack. I’d always envied her ability to travel light. And no matter where we went, she still managed to look more stylish than me.
Relieved of my bag, we carried on to the front desk, and once I’d given my name, the man standing behind it gave me a big grin. “Miss Callie, we have saved one of our best rooms for you. It is right next to the sea. The lady who booked it for you said you had been abandoned by your husband. All of us here at the Coral Cove Resort are very sorry to hear this.”
Mother! I felt like banging my head on the desk. Had Mum told everyone? I’d come here to escape the pitying glances, not have people expressing their condolences wherever I went.
After entering my details into the computer, the man pressed my key into my hand and motioned for me to go with the porter, who was still standing there with my suitcase.
Kat and I followed him out of a door at the back of the building and traipsed behind him along narrow paths that wound their way through the hotel gardens. A sweet fragrance wafted up at me from some of the flowers. I made a mental note to try and find out what they were before I left.
In the distance, I could hear the gentle rush of the sea as the waves broke on the shore. But apart from that, there was peace and quiet. The resort wasn’t a traditional box-like hotel. Instead, it was made up of a series of small villas, all painted white, each of them only one or two storeys high.
As we got closer to my room, the sound of the waves got louder. Monotonous yet powerful, I found the sound soothing. A few minutes later, the porter stopped and opened up my room, which took up the whole of a single story villa. He wandered round, showing me the bathroom, the TV, and, oddly, the wardrobe, before throwing open a pair of full height doors that led to my terrace. Kat and I peered outside. It was too dark to see much, but the strong smell of the sea told me just how close to the water I was. I took a deep breath, savouring the salty tang.
“He wants a tip,” Kat whispered to me.
I spun round to see the porter hovering near the door to the room. Well, suite. Mum had gone all out.
I fished in my pocket, coming up with a chapstick, some fluff and a pound coin. That would have to do until I could find a bank and get some local currency.
I pressed the money into his hand and gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, that’s all I have at the moment.”
He gave me a little half bow. “Thank you, Miss Callie. And I am very sorry about your husband.”
The receptionist had told his friend? I wanted to sink into the floor. I was mortified.
Kat didn’t seem to notice.
“I’d better go too,” she said. “When the boss heard I was coming back early, he begged me to take a course tomorrow. One of the other instructors didn’t turn up for work today, and he can’t afford to turn away business.” She shrugged apologetically. “I could do with the cash too, so I kind of said yes.”
Great. My first day in a strange country and I’d be spending it on my own. Good thing I’d brought plenty to read with me.
I couldn’t be upset with Kat, though. She’d been so good to me over the Bryce fiasco, and she wasn’t exactly rolling in money.
“That’s okay. I can sit on the beach tomorrow. Will I see you for dinner?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. And we’ll have to arrange a time for you to meet Mo.”
Ah yes, her latest beau. She went through men at a rate of knots, and I’d been the one dishing out the tissues on a number of occasions over the years. Fortunately, she seemed to get over men as fast as she got under them, so it wasn’t too much of an ordeal.
Not like with me and Bryce.
We hugged each other goodbye, and Kat said she’d come to the hotel at six the next day to find me. Then she disappeared off down the path.
Once she was gone, I walked over to the terrace and stood in the open doorway, gazing into the inky blackness. Pictures of life with Bryce swam through my mind.
The way he pushed his floppy fringe out of his eyes when he wanted to look at me. His hand resting on the small of my back when he’d once held the door open for me as we walked into a restaurant. His habit of squinting at The Times on a Sunday morning when he’d forgotten to put his glasses on.
I stood there until the first tears ran down my cheeks. “Stop it,” I told myself, remembering Kat’s repeated instruction.
I turned back into the room. But what I saw made me cry even harder. The king sized bed. Two chairs at the dining table. A sofa made for snuggling up on. Through the open door of the bathroom, his ’n’ hers sinks, side by side, each with a pile of fluffy towels at its side.
I shouldn’t have come here. But I was stuck, at least for a few weeks. There was no way Mum would agree to me changing my flight home, which she’d also booked and paid for, and I couldn’t afford another one myself.
I’d just have to cope, somehow.
I threw myself onto the bed and hugged a pillow to me in the vain hope that it would help to dull the ache in my chest. It didn’t.
Eventually, sheer exhaustion caused me to fall into a restless sleep where Bryce’s face haunted my dreams.
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