‘There’s not much to tell. His name is Gabriel, he’s got an English accent but seemed reluctant to tell me why, and he has very nice hands. He’s a bit of a mystery, actually.’
‘Hm. You don’t have good history with mysterious men,’ Priya observes.
‘Or any men,’ Rosie adds with a laugh.
‘He may have beautiful hands,’ Priya continues, ‘but the rest of him sounds like a red flag. Shame, because you could do with someone to keep your mind off Flipper. We don’t want a repeat of New Year’s.’
‘There is zero chance of that,’ I tell her firmly. ‘Even if he were the last man on earth, I’d still say no.’
‘Here’s a fun question,’ Rosie remarks. ‘There’s a massive global calamity and all of humankind is wiped out apart from you, Flipper and Throbbert. It’s your responsibility to start to repopulate the world with one of them. Who do you choose?’
‘I think humanity would be doomed in that scenario,’ I tell her.
‘OK, add in the mysterious pianist,’ Priya says, entering into the game.
I smile. ‘That might give us a fighting chance.’
‘Holiday romance?’ Rosie suggests.
‘No. Even if I were in the mood for something like that, my luck on this holiday so far would mean he’s got a wife and several adorable children.’
‘And I repeat my observations about Tori’s track record with mysterious men,’ Priya states. ‘This one has “Avoid” written all over him, if you ask me.’
‘Stuart isn’t mysterious,’ I tell her. ‘He’s just a bare-faced liar.’
‘Maybe you could somehow engineer a way for both Flipper and Throbbert to die in a freak accident,’ she observes after a moment’s thought. ‘Flipper is driving a speedboat, but you’ve fiddled with the steering, so he loses control and runs over Throbbert before hitting some rocks and perishing in a massive fireball.’
‘I did have a daydream about running Throbbert over with a jet-ski,’ I admit.
‘I worry about the way your minds work sometimes,’ Rosie says.
‘Martin’s making his way through the James Bond films again,’ Priya replies. ‘There’s a lot of that kind of thing. Anyway, assuming you don’t act on your daydream, how do you plan to survive this man-pocalypse, Tori?’
I sigh. ‘Well, my original plan to spend the entire ten days soaking up rum at the pool bar has obviously gone up in flames, but I haven’t had time to come up with an alternative yet. I can assure you both, however, that the alternative will not involve Stuart, Throbbert or any form of holiday romance. Oh, and hosepipes up the bum are out too.’
‘Look on the bright side,’ Rosie tells me. ‘The fact that it’s alcohol free significantly lessens the likelihood of you falling off your stool in a drunken stupor and drowning.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ I reply sarcastically.
‘Another way of looking at it is that it can’t get any worse,’ Priya offers. ‘I mean, what else could possibly go wrong?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. A volcanic eruption perhaps? Or maybe a typhoon. I wouldn’t put anything past this holiday.’
‘I can guarantee you won’t get a typhoon, at least,’ Rosie says with a smile.
‘How?’
‘Because typhoons only happen much further north. Round you, they’re called hurricanes and, if you were in the Indian ocean, it would be a cyclone.’
‘How on earth do you know that?’
‘It came up in a quiz once. Anyway, the point is that you’re safe from typhoons, and I think hurricane season in the Caribbean is around September time, so you’re probably safe from them too. You could have an earthquake, I suppose, and drown in a massive tsunami.’
‘I feel so much better now,’ I tell her. ‘You should take up motivational speaking with a repertoire like that.’
‘Well, it’s getting late,’ Priya tells me. ‘Keep us posted, won’t you?’
I’ve barely hung up before my two nemeses, Throbbert and Stuart, appear at the bar. I can’t hear the conversation over the music from the piano, but their facial expressions are enough to tell me that neither of them knew that this was an alcohol-free hotel either, and the news hasn’t gone down well. I’m sitting very still in the hope that they won’t notice me, but fate really isn’t on my side today, as Stuart turns his head my way and starts to lead Robert over.
