Paula can’t believe she’s really here. She came. She’s goingon holiday.
Audrey, Teddy and Ivy had looked so shocked to see her appearing from nowhere in the airport like that. She must’ve been a total state, all red-faced and befuddled, but they didn’t hesitate to gather her up into the biggest cuddle. For a moment, Paula forgot about all of it – about all of the horribleness – and let herself be swept away by their excitement. She let herself feel happy. Just for a moment.
Before her, Connie struggles with the passport pages, her perma-smile faltering. From her angle, Paula strains to see, wondering if Paula the Dog has a passport of her own and whether Teddy’s will finally reveal the answer of where she’s really from. The American sounds very LA today.
Instead, Paula catches a glimpse of Audrey’s passport in Connie’s hands. The steward is checking the picture and it’s funny to see her friend so straight-faced in the image, staring dead-eyed at the lens without her signature pashmina. It barely even looks like the real Audrey, who always appears to be shiny and happy. Paula’s eyes travel down the page and there is a half-second before Connie shuts the passport, where she thinks she sees something. Something jarring and confusing. Paula frowns, wondering if she imagined it. It was such a quick look, maybe she got it wrong.
They head up the steps and on board, as Paula considers what she did or didn’t see. What would it mean? She shakes her head, trying to dislodge the thought as they file inside the jet.
It is just as underwhelming there.
Paula’s not sure what she expected from a private jet but she certainly expected . . . more. So much is made of them by pop stars on Instagram and angry students on the M25 who don’t want the world to explode before they’re fifty. She expected at least a glitterball or some Abba playing. But no. The cabin is quite claustrophobic, with low ceilings and miniature windows. The lighting is dim and yet too fluorescent; it hurts Paula’s eyes.
She takes a seat towards the back as Audrey chatters away loudly to the group about the Michelin-starred food she’s pre-ordered for their ‘din-dins’. They all buckle up as Connie wades through the safety information and no one listens. Some things don’t change whatever kind of plane you’re on.
As they begin rumbling along the runway, Paula tries to persuade herself to join in with the rowdy fun. Being around these women usually lifts her out of herself, makes her feel light, but today there is too much. Too much going on and too much to fear. The noise in her head is loud and frantic as she watches the landscape of London get further away out the window. As they pass through fuzzy clouds, she mentally orders herself to let go of all the horrible feelings. She tries to picture all of the darkness as a solid, tangible thing she can throw away. She orders herself to release all the confusion, all the cruelty, all the things she doesn’t quite understand – or doesn’t want to understand. She closes hereyes and tries to imagine it. She takes the murders, the loan sharks, the accusations, Tilly’s worried face, and turns it all into a blob of blackness she can launch into the sky out of the window.
This is a holiday after all, and Paula hasn’t had a proper holiday in so long. Even that family wedding they all went to in Spain six years ago wasn’t exactly what you’d callrelaxing. They’d had a panic trying to get her passport renewed before leaving, and once there, John’s brothers spent the entire week getting very drunk and shouting angrily about Spanish people speaking Spanish.
She visualises throwing it away. All of it. She watches the blob of awfulness flying through the air and away from the plane. Paula takes a deep breath, letting it go, trying to find the zen and . . . it doesn’t work. The blob is still there. Paula’s whole mid-section feels like it’s blocked up. Like there is tar clogging all of her vital organs.
Tilly hates her. Her owndaughteraccused her of . . . well . . .
There has been so much shouting, so many accusations, never mind all the glaring and sulking Tilly’s directed at her over these last few weeks. But there is something else Paula keeps wondering. How strange it is to Paula that apparently her daughter thinks she’s happier without her husband, but hasn’t once askedwhy. Shouldn’t that be important? If she really is happier without John around, shouldn’t her children want to knowwhy? In her coat pocket she feels for the notebook. John’s notebook. Apart from her passport and the clothes on her body, it’s the only thing she has with her today. She thinks of the numbers inside. Rows and rows of numbers. Numbers that reveal the truth about her marriage.
Perhaps this was a mistake after all. She shouldn’t have come. She regards her friends with sudden fear, watching Audrey sloshing champagne into glasses as she soliloquises about the bars and restaurants she wants them to visit. She describes a particular bit of beach no one but the A-listers know about, and Paula wonders what makes it so special. Does it have magical celebrity sand that is easy to walk on and doesn’t get in all of your stuff so you’re tasting it for days?
This is no time for a holiday. This was the wrong decision. She shouldn’t have come.
‘I haven’t got any knickers!’ She shouts this too loudly and the women all turn to face her. Even Connie looks over, her smile wavering.
‘I didn’t bring anything, no luggage at all, what am I going to do?’ Paula asks with urgency. ‘I haven’t got any underwear, Teddy! Apart from what I’m wearing, I have nothing. Nothing else at all. No toothbrush. No hairspray.’ Paula glances longingly at Teddy’s hair. ‘No nothing!’ She makes eye contact with Audrey and is filled with the sudden certain knowledge that Audrey will insist on lending her some knickers. And probably her pashmina, too. Her voice starts to shake. ‘We need to go back. I need to go home. Can we turn around? Is that possible on a private jet? Can we knock on the cockpit door? Text the pilot? I hate to ask, but I really can’t go to France today. I can’t go without any knickers, what would they think? Can we go back, please? Please? We have to go BACK!’
Ivy moves quickly from her seat, coming to sit beside Paula. ‘Hey,’ she says softly, reaching for her hand. ‘Don’t worry about your underwear. We’ll work it out.’ Paula stares at her. There’s no way she’d fit into tiny Ivy’s pants, nevermind the indignity of borrowing a twenty-something’s jeans and T-shirts.
Teddy joins them, crouching at her feet and speaking in a low voice with a serious expression. ‘Listen, Paula, everything is OK. You’re OK.’ She removes her signature giant sunglasses before gesturing at Ivy and Audrey. ‘We’re here with you. We’ve got Ivy’s yacht waiting for us. It’s going to be arelaxingtime, afuntime. Or it’s meant to be. So if you don’t feel like you’ll be able to enjoy it’ – she nods her confirmation at the other two – ‘then we will turn this crappy private jet around and all head home right now, OK?’ A few feet away, Connie looks a tiny bit offended.
Paula feels tearful looking up into Teddy’s wide beautiful eyes. Her hands are trembling. This feels like too much. She feels like she’s been holding her breath since leaving the house, since the fight with Tilly, since the terrifying threats from Craig. She’s been holding her breath and holding herself together. But she’s not sure how much longer it will be possible. She can feel herself on the edge, about to fall apart. Her edges feel frail and dusty, ready to disintegrate at any moment.
How has her life come to this? Her husband is dead. There are goons threatening to hurt her family – a family who all hate her and think she’s a bad person. She’s got no job and everything she knew of her old life is gone.
‘Is there something else, Paula?’ Teddy asks kindly, her brow furrowing as she takes in Paula’s face. ‘Has something happened? Why did you change your mind about coming?’
Paula feels her eyes welling up and she stares down at their clasped hands, unable to speak. Teddy squeezes them tightly, waiting.
‘Tilly said . . . Tilly accused me of . . .’ But she can’t bring herself to say it. She can’t bring herself to eventhinkabout what her own daughter said to her. ‘Tilly and I had another big fight,’ she finishes lamely. The group says nothing, waiting patiently for her to reveal more. Paula looks down at her own lap. ‘Her and Seb both seem to have this idea of me . . . They don’tseeme. They never have. I’m just their one-dimensional mother with no life of my own. And now that I’m starting to find a life and enjoy myself . . . they don’t like it. Or maybe they just don’t understand – I don’t know. I feel like my children have no idea who I am.’ She pauses, staring out of the tiny window at the clouds below. ‘But I’m not sureIknow who I am, so why should they?’
There is silence in the cabin as they all wait. Everyone holds their breath.
Paula inhales deeply and turns to face them. ‘I’m sorry. I’m OK. Let’s keep going. We don’t have to text the pilot.’ She looks over at Connie. ‘It’s not a crappy private jet. It’s lovely.’ She swallows. ‘Let’s go to the South of France.’
Everyone smiles, relieved, as Audrey leans in. ‘Well, thank buggery for that! I’ve got us booked for dinner at Club 55 on the beach. It was a favourite of Joan Collins, don’t you know!’ She cackles, so very much like Audrey, and Paula – at last – smiles a genuine smile. And so does Connie.
28
They land at an airport that Teddy coolly reports in a lovely French accent to be the ‘aeroport du golfe de Saint-Tropez’. A limo is waiting for them outside, and they travel the fifteen kilometres to their hotel at speed. Audrey and Teddy chat over each other the whole time, wondering where to get Paula a toothbrush and knickers. Thankfully, it hasn’t yet occurred to Audrey to share.
Paula is distracted, still unable to shake the doomed feeling she’s brought with her across the Mediterranean. So she opens the window and sticks her head out, silently pleading with the French sunshine to do its job. Paula the Dog joins her, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as they both let the warm wind whip up hair around their faces. Even feeling as she does – and even with Paula the Dog’s hair flying into her mouth – Paula can acknowledge this is something like a dream. Until . . .
