‘A couple of people I met at the beach yesterday. They’ve invited me to a party.’
‘A party?’ Stuart said, appearing from the shadows. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’
Niamh’s face fell.
‘Oh, come on, Stu, she’s eighteen,’ I said. ‘It can’t have been much fun hanging around with us lot all week. Let her have some good old Irish craic with kids her own age.’
‘They seemed really nice,’ Niamh said.
‘I agree with Cleo,’ Bill said. ‘She should let that beautiful red hair down. I’ll give her some money for a taxi home.’
Stuart wavered, then sighed. ‘All right, go to the party. But make sure you keep your phone with you and don’t do anything stupid,’ he told Niamh.
‘You sound like her dad. She won’t. She’s a good Catholic girl, aren’t you, Niamh?’ I mocked.
Niamh flushed. Stuart glared at me and swiped my glass from under my nose again.
‘Hey, I was drinking that!’
‘Too bad.’ He turned to Niamh. ‘Where’s the party?’
‘On the beach.’
‘I’ll walk you down. But make sure you get a taxi back.’
Bill produced his wallet, peeled off a couple of ten euro notes and gave them to Niamh. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he smirked.
As they disappeared down the drive I said, ‘Buggerations. Looks like I’m on the naughty chair again.’ I pushed myself to my feet, holding onto the table for a moment as a wave of dizziness made the world spin. ‘But I can think of a way to get back in his good books. I’m off to bed. Night Bill.’
He picked up the Bacardi bottle, poured a liberal measure in his empty wineglass and tilted it in my direction. ‘Night Cleo.’
I hummed to myself as I staggered towards the villa. The sound of plates clattering in the kitchen made me stop in my tracks. If I went through the main patio doors Melanie would assume I’d come to help her clear up, and I didn’t want dirty plates, smeary glasses and Melanie’s moue of disapproval dampening my ardour. Instead, I lurched to the left and headed for the doors to our ground floor bedroom, which I was pretty sure I’d left unlocked.
I let myself in and stepped out of my dress, smiling as the fabric pooled around my feet like a berry-red puddle. I cannoned into the en suite, peed again, cleaned my teeth and sprayed myself liberally with perfume. Back in the bedroom, I turned on a bedside lamp and arranged myself as provocatively as I could on the bed and waited for my husband to return.
Five minutes passed, then ten. My eyelids fluttered, and I stifled a yawn. I sat up, rubbed my eyes and drank deeply from the small bottle of water on my bedside table. Twenty minutes had now passed since Stuart and Niamh left for the beach. He should be back any minute. I lay back down, wriggling my toes in anticipation.
But I’d seriously underestimated the sedative effects of all that booze. Within a few minutes of my head hitting the pillow, sleep staked its claim on my consciousness and I drifted off, dead to the world.
Chapter Twenty-Five
CORFU
FOUR YEARS EARLIER
It was light when I woke, gritty-eyed and furry-tongued. My head was pounding ferociously, and my heart was racing like I’d run a 100m sprint, yet my limbs felt leaden. I raised my head an inch off the pillow and prised my eyes open. Stuart’s side of the bed was empty, and the sheets looked unruffled, as if they hadn’t been slept in. I flopped back on the pillow, closed my eyes and groaned. I hadn’t had a hangover this hideous for years. I must have been completely wasted.
As I waited for the room to stop spinning, I tried to piece together the events of the previous night, but everything was indistinct, as if I was looking at the evening through the wrong end of a telescope. Snapshots came back to me. Charred meat. Chilled white wine. Shards of broken glass sparkling like ice. Niamh’s beach party invitation. My designs to seduce Stuart, to work some magic back into our marriage. Too much of that chilled white wine and Stuart’s blatant disapproval. I peered under the single sheet draped over me. I was still wearing my red lacy Myla underwear. Surprise, surprise, my seduction plans had been in vain.
Gingerly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pulled myself to a sitting position. Outside, I could hear Nate’s shrieks of delight as he splashed in the pool. I fastened a robe around me, ran my fingers through my hair and went to investigate.
Stuart was in the pool with Nate, and they were throwing a yellow Frisbee back and forth. I crept over, trying to keep my head as still as possible, and carefully sat on the side of the pool and dangled my legs in the water.
Nate waved, and I blew him a kiss. He grinned, and said, ‘Watch me swimming, Mummy!’ I shielded my eyes from the sun and watched as he doggy-paddled over to his inflatable shark.
‘Fantastic!’ I called, giving him the thumbs up. Stuart broke into a powerful front crawl for four strokes and joined me by the side of the pool. Droplets of water glistened on his shoulders. I dragged my eyes away and said, ‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’ he said back. His voice was more guarded than tender.
‘Where did you sleep last night?’
‘I crashed on the spare bed in Nate’s room. You were out for the count and I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘Oh.’ I flexed my feet back and forth in the pool, whipping up the already choppy water. The analogy wasn’t lost on me.
‘How’s your head?’ he said finally.
‘Sore,’ I admitted. ‘Bloody awful, in fact. You’d think by now I’d have more sense than to get totally hammered.’
‘You would,’ he agreed.
I looked around, but the veranda was empty. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Mel’s popped down to the supermarket. Bill’s nursing his hangover inside, and Niamh hasn’t surfaced
