The Birthday That Changed Everything: Perfect summer holiday reading!. Debbie Johnson

       Chapter 10

      ‘I’m so fucking hot!’ said Lucy, fanning herself with the Complete Works of Sylvia Plath.

      ‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’ answered Ollie as he buttered his toast. ‘Come and blow on you?’

      ‘No, I expect you to shut the fuck up and die, you stupid little shit,’ she said, throwing her knife at his head like a spear. He swatted it aside with his hand so it clattered to the floor, then gave her what I think our American cousins refer to as ‘the finger’.

      Breakfast time with the Summers family.

      At least they were sitting with me this morning – though, as the minutes ticked by, I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. It was like breakfasting on the Gaza Strip. I’d made a deal with them that they had to sit with me for at least one meal a day, so I could check they were alive and I could at least pretend I was relevant to their existence. Now, I was starting to regret it.

      We were all a bit tired and crotchety after a busy day and a late night. I thought Ollie and Lucy might come to blows, and I was downing coffee like it was the elixir of youth.

      Lucy had eaten alone at dinner, on the opposite side of the restaurant, reading something far more highbrow than the two-week-old Hello! magazine I’d scrounged.

      Afterwards she took herself off to the beach with her book. I occasionally did a sneaky check on her, hiding behind bushes like an undercover agent on a surveillance mission.

      She did nothing more extreme than strain her eyes to read by the light of the lanterns strung up on the jetty. Every now and then I’d see the flare of her lighter as she lit up one of the cigarettes she thought I didn’t know about.

      I’m sure I won’t win any mother-of-the-year awards for turning a blind eye to that, but life hadn’t exactly treated Lucy kindly recently, and I didn’t have the heart to tackle her. She seemed content, and it was the first time I’d seen her still and quiet and not surgically attached to her phone for weeks.

      She’d had the stress of doing her GCSEs, her dad leaving us, and on top of all that, the everyday horror of being a sixteen-year-old girl. Peaceful moments are few and far between. Plus, you know, she’s a Gothly creature of the night and all that – who am I to get in the way of her midnight mojo?

      Ollie, as is his nature, had found friends almost immediately, despite being the king of geekdom. He ate with a big crowd of other teenagers, then disappeared off to play pool and table football for hours on end. He reappeared now and then to check up on me, which was sweet. My big scrawny baby thought he was the man of the house now.

      True to their word, Allie and her friends had come up with a range of random clothes for me. None of them fitted properly, but I felt wonderful – even if I was wearing a pair of old running shorts and a T-shirt. Even a cotton-rich blend felt like heaven next to my skin after the day I’d had.

      After dinner I’d joined Allie and the others for a drink. There was a pretty terrace, laid out with tables and chairs and lit with candles, which seemed to be at the heart of the social scene of the Blue Bay Hotel. The entire Wardrobe Rescue Squad was there, apart from the younger couple, Jenny and Ian, who had gone on a ‘moonlight cruise’ – shorthand for a bonk-fest, I was told.

      I met Mike, Allie’s husband, who expressed his regret that I was no longer dressed as Nurse Nancy, but said the T-shirt was tight enough to make up for it. He was a stocky man in his fifties, with shaggy hair that couldn’t decide whether it was red or grey. He had a big belly laugh that rattled the glasses on the table and made his eyes disappear into his face. And, somehow, he could deliver lecherous lines without sounding lecherous, which was quite the gift.

      Rick and Marcia were there, and they both looked amazing in very different ways. Marcia, still necking down the booze like Prohibition might be round the corner, had her thick grey hair tied in a long plait down her back. She was wearing a majestic peacock-blue maxi-dress that held her boobs up on a kind of shelf. They looked like a pair of ripe melons perched on silk. Every man in the vicinity was surreptitiously sneaking a peek, while trying hard to pretend they hadn’t even noticed.

      Every man except Rick, that is. Perhaps because they were married, and Marcia’s melons lost their novelty value a long time ago. Or perhaps because he was too busy chatting to all the handsome young barmen.

      And, of course, there was James. The Probably a Bastard, and Definitely a Player. Wearing a pair of just-tight-enough Levis that showed off his arse to perfection. Bet he hadn’t spent hours in his room, dislocating his neck to see if his bum looked too big. He was one of those comfy-in-their-own-skin people who always rubbed me up the wrong way. Just like Simon, in fact – so confident they’d probably not had a moment of self-doubt since they were six.

      Still, the Levis did look excellent. A pair of well-used 501s, on the right backside, is one of the sexiest sights on earth. Perhaps it’s a generational thing. I grew up watching those TV ads with the gorgeous hunk taking his pants off in the launderette and I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered. He was probably an arrogant bastard as well.

      As if the jeans weren’t enough of a shock to my system, his short-sleeved white shirt was showing off that golden tan and those yummy biceps. You could see them flexing every time he lifted his pint. I couldn’t understand why all the other women hadn’t fainted on the spot.

      True to his word he did buy me a drink, and pulled a seat up by my side, but we didn’t get much time to talk. It was a group affair, with tables and chairs clustered together as everyone chattered away and started to catch up on what had happened in their lives over the last year. Births, deaths, marriages – a living tableau of newspaper small ads.

      James gave me a running commentary on who was who and what was what, so I’d ‘feel like one of the gang’. I replied politely, trying not to encourage him. Just because I’d been dressed like a sex nurse when we first met didn’t mean I was easy.

      Nothing about me was easy – especially not the strangely conflicting way I was feeling right then. One minute morose and wishing Simon was there with me; the next wondering what James would smell like if I leaned over and sniffed his neck. Confusing, yes. Easy? No.

      Luckily for my blood pressure, he had to leave early to pick up Jake from the kids’ club. Everyone waved him off, with a chorus of ‘see you in the mornings’ and ‘sleep wells’ and similar comments. They all seemed so comfortable together – like lifelong friends, rather than people who met each other for two weeks on holiday.

      Nobody seemed to think this was weird; the same groups of people had been coming to the Blue Bay for three – or in some cases four – holidays in a row, and were like an extended family who only saw each other once a year. I felt borderline jealous, and had to give myself a bit of a telling-off – these people shared friendship. Which was something I was capable of – even if Simon had dumped me, I could still be a friend. I just needed to try a bit harder. I was only one day in – I could do this.

      As James walked away, I noticed two things: how nice his backside was still looking in those jeans, and Miss McTavish giving me the beady eye. I prayed to God she wasn’t about to ask me if I’d glanced at the crotch of his jeans to estimate bulge size. Which of course I had. Instead, she just gave me a wee wink and a little smile.

      Maybe she was a mind-reader, or some kind of Scottish Dr Ruth-style sex guru. I should probably go to her for counselling. Lord knew, I needed it – why was I even noticing James’s backside in my current emotionally crippled state?

      Maybe it was a rebound thing. Or perhaps my ego needed boosting after its recent battering, and James’s mildly flirtatious kindness was doing the trick, despite