Page 35 of Escape to the Sun

Hannah wondered when in life the simplest solutions to problems turned themselves into insurmountable cliff climbs. Of course she should go with Millie to the bridge. She should face up to Louis – why would it be a problem? – smile and look confident, even if she didn’t feel it, and see what happened. It wasn’t as though she had anything to lose. That had already happened. That was why she was here alone in the first place, fretting about the attention, or rather the lack of it, from a man she’d known a matter of days.

She stared at her canvas, as though a way to continue to hide would suddenly present itself in the swirling colours. When nothing happened, Hannah sighed, told Millie she’d wash her brushes out and then they could go.

Just to visit the cat, though. Not for any other reason.

19

Turned out their visit to the bridge was simply to check on Portus. Louis was nowhere to be seen, apparently on a break. The team on the bridge was full of unfamiliar faces. Someone must have briefed them on who Millie was and why she might be appearing unannounced on the bridge, and one of the officers chatted to Millie as she beetled around checking there was still plenty of food and water in the bowls, before giving Portus a lengthy cuddle, which Hannah suspected Millie enjoyed rather more than the cat.

Hannah wasn’t sure why a lump seemed to be lurking at the bottom of her stomach. Wasn’t sure if it indicated her unease because Louis wasn’t there, and she hadn’t had an opportunity to clear the air with him, or because she was relieved she didn’t have to face him. Maybe it was because fate seemed to be suggesting this scenario was the best one, even if she couldn’t shift the feeling she didn’t want it to be.

Either way, she smiled and chatted with the officers on duty, waited patiently as Millie snapped loads of Portus photos on her mobile, then picked up a message that buzzed into her own permanently muted phone. Half expecting it to be from Ian, she was relieved to find it was from Ruth, suggesting they take a mug of coffee out onto the uppermost deck of the ship, blow away some cobwebs in the fresh air and have a chat.

Millie peeled off partway there, saying she wanted to have a go at a new painting, and that gallery director April was going to show her how to ‘do cats properly’. Hannah resisted the urge to tell Millie that however she chose to paint Portus would be the right way, because that was the whole beauty of art, instead suggesting they catch up later.

With their arrival into St Maarten’s capital port, Philipsburg, feeling imminent, it seemed to Hannah as though the rhythm of the holiday was about to change. Their quick pit stop in the Azores had been little more than a taste of what was to come.

Island hopping their way through some of the most beautiful parts of the southern Caribbean promised to be the holiday of a lifetime. Added to which it was almost Christmas – a fact that Hannah was struggling to place amongst everything else. As if there to aid her, clues about the season were now everywhere on board the Ballygowan, from the music playing in public areas, to the glittery snow-themed decorations.

Christmas trees were in abundance, crowded at their bases with fake presents, while festive warm white lights filled the ship with cosy vibes. The prospect of visiting a Father Christmas in his grotto, situated in one of the smallest coffee shops on the ship, had already been roundly rejected by Millie, who suggested she’d known Santa and her mother were one and the same from the age of seven, when she’d stayed awake long enough to see her stocking delivered by a remarkably familiar figure in a pink nightie.

‘I tried to cover my tracks,’ Ruth said, as they found some loungers on the open deck and settled down. ‘Told her that the big man – that’s Santa in this scenario – was so busy that he’d asked if I wouldn’t mind taking the stockings for the kids from him at the chimney so he could crack on with his deliveries.’

‘And Millie didn’t fall for it?’ Hannah said, sipping at an ‘Arctic Americano’.

Ruth laughed. ‘Have you met my daughter? No, she didn’t.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘We didn’t actually have a chimney, a fact I’d overlooked in my fabricated narrative, but which it took Millie about two seconds to work out.’

‘I think Joe still believes. Although Mum’s had it easy with the delivering of the actual stocking, because my little brother won’t let anybody other than Mum and Dad into his room – and me, sometimes – so they just stick his stocking outside the door with a handwritten note explaining what’s in the bag.’

‘A note?’ Ruth frowned her incomprehension.

‘He hates surprises. It’s part of his autism. We’ve learnt over the last few years that it works best if each present is wrapped in a different-coloured paper, and then Mum writes a list to explain what is in each corresponding parcel. Red wrapping is a book about dinosaurs; squashy blue parcel is socks – that kind of thing.’

Hannah sipped again, suddenly missing home, especially Joe, and hoping he’d like the set of charcoal pencils she’d wrapped in clear cellophane, with a label she’d made in the shape of a T. Rex taped to the outside of the parcel, wishing him a roaring Christmas.

‘Sometimes it takes him weeks to open everything – he’s not excited about presents like some kids. It’s just the way he is.’

Ruth grinned. ‘I wish my children would make their presents last for weeks. Fat chance of that happening. And this year, well I guess it’s just as well neither of them believe in the big FC any longer – I had to keep the luggage under control for the flight back, so I didn’t have loads of space for gifts. I thought we could make up for it by getting some bits and bobs on the islands.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to chat about, Hannah.’

Hannah grimaced into the rim of her mug. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

Ruth tried to deadpan, but her face failed on its way there, ending up passing through a series of frowns before settling into a thin smile. ‘I wanted to tell you a story, actually.’

‘OK?’

‘About a much younger Ruth, and the mistakes she made.’ Ruth’s expression became intense. ‘Will you listen to it? I think it might help you find some clarity – or at least, I hope it does.’

Hannah nodded, sipping at her coffee.

‘I mean, it’s not as though we can live our lives with hindsight, more’s the pity. Might be a damn sight easier if we could. Anyway, do you remember I mentioned I knew a proper gentleman, once?’ Ruth didn’t wait for an answer, sucking in a breath and ploughing on. ‘Well, I didn’t just know him, I was madly in love with him. His name was Teddy, and we were engaged.’

Ruth stopped, took a gulp of coffee to steady herself before she resumed, ‘I met Teddy when we were both very young. At school. And, even though we weren’t a couple as such until we were twenty, he was always there for me, you know?’

Hannah frowned. Had it been like that for her with Ian? To begin with, certainly. He’d promised her the world, had been there at every twist and turn of her life.