Stranded (3 page)

My drink arrives. I smile my thanks and lean my elbow on the counter.

‘So, you are on holiday?’ he asks, after a while. ‘With friends?’

I inhale deeply. The temptation to lie is almost overwhelming. It would be the easiest thing in the world to say yes, and to invent a friend or partner. Tell the truth, I instruct myself. I do not know these people and it does not matter what they think.

‘On my own,’ I say. ‘I’m on holiday for three weeks.’

The man next to me looks confused. ‘With friends?’ he asks again. He glances around, just in case my friend might be hiding behind a chair, or on the other side of the heavy curtain.

‘No.’ I take a slug of my drink. It is sour and perfect. ‘I really am on my own.’ I carry on, before anyone can interrupt. ‘I just got divorced, and my daughter is spending the school holidays with my ex-husband. I wanted to do something interesting, so here I am.’

This is the conversation I thought I would not be able to have with anyone in Asia. I thought I would be judged and found wanton. In fact, the men barely react.

‘You’re staying in KL?’ asks the proprietor. ‘For all your holiday?’

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘No, I’m not. I am on the move. I’m on my way to an island.’

Three months ago, I was struggling. Daisy was with Chris for the weekend, and I could not bear being in the house on my own.

I was glad that Chris had gone to live in a squatty bachelor pad, but whenever Daisy went to visit him, I fell apart. The walls of my house were covered with Daisy’s old paintings, even though she considers herself far too grown up for painting these days: both Chris and I would always sellotape any new picture to the walls, and only when the edges curled and the paint flaked off would we allow one to disappear. Likewise, neither of us ever took her old school photograph off the mantelpiece when a new one arrived, so they are still lined up there, a row of Daisys, from the four-year-old on the left (so innocent and brave that she makes me cry, if I am in the right mood) through to the Daisy of today (long-haired, attempting to look moody while a harassed photographer tells her to say ‘sausages’) on the right.

I could not stand being at home on my own while Daisy was doing whatever Chris does with her at the weekends. I went out at five o’clock, because when you have a child you can never really go out at five in the afternoon. That is the time of day when you have to be starting to cook and thinking about their bedtime, even when they are ten. It is the time of day when I miss her the most, when she is not there.

I had a drink and a Valium before I went out, just because, and I strolled into the centre of town and wondered what to do. I was feeling pleasantly fuzzy, and thought vaguely about going to sit on the beach and look at the sea, even though it was winter, and dark, and also raining. On my way to the beach, though, I noticed a party in a little art gallery in the Lanes. The lights and voices called to me, and I obeyed them, picked up a free glass of wine and started looking at the abstract paintings on the walls. They were mostly white and blue, and I liked them. They were easy to look at. The windows were all misted up and the people around me were warm. I found myself wishing for a cigarette, even though I have never smoked.

‘Esther,’ said a voice, and I jumped guiltily and looked round.

‘Zoe!’ I was delighted to see her. She is one of my closest friends. She kissed me on the cheek.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ she said. ‘You should have told me you were coming.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know. You know. Daisy’s with Chris . . .’

‘Do you know Jessica?’ she said.

‘Er . . .’ Everyone knows someone called Jessica.

‘The artist. Didn’t you know she’s my niece? Over there. She’s so clever. Look, this is Ally, her sister.’ She grabbed an implausibly beautiful girl of about twenty by the arm and spun her around to face us.

Because she did that, I am catching the early bus out of Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning.

Ally was tanned and gorgeous, with long honey-coloured hair and sparkling eyes. I felt myself age by a decade, just looking at her. I glanced at myself, clutching warm wine, oozing desperation. I was wearing a thin dress and I was still cold and wet from outside.

‘Hi,’ she said, bouncing around on the balls of her feet, and holding a little bottle of water.

‘Ally’s down for Jessie’s exhibition,’ explained Zoe. ‘She’s been away in Asia for a year and apparently getting back to civilisation is something of a culture shock. Remember, I told you about her?’

‘Auntie Zoe, it’s not civilisation,’ Ally objected, with pursed lips. ‘You know where I was five days ago?
That
was civilisation.’ She looked around the room, at the loud drunk people. ‘Five days,’ she repeated.

‘Where on earth were you?’ I asked, partly because she wanted me to, and also because I wanted to know about a place that could make someone glow in the way she was glowing. I planned to adopt it as my next fantasy destination.

‘I was in the most incredible place on earth,’ she said happily, and I looked at the light in her eyes and I believed her. ‘In Malaysia. The Perhentian Islands. They’re like one of those fabled magical places. There are two of them, but the smaller one is the one to go to. Perhentian Kecil. You’ve got jungle in the middle, just thick unspoiled jungle, and then around the edges there are perfect beaches, lots of them, and huts to sleep in. The turtles lay their eggs on the beaches and they have done since millions of years ago. There’s coral with little Nemo fishes, and friendly sharks, and the sun shines all the time. The beaches are covered in bits of white dead coral like bones. It’s like, life is back to its basics. You eat fish, you drink a beer if you can find one, though you have to look quite hard because it’s a Muslim country and they don’t have the same reliance on alcohol that we do.’ I felt her look at the wine in my hand. ‘And you lie back and feel the sun on your skin. No one bothers you, everyone’s friendly.’ She smiled and looked a bit embarrassed. All the noise around us, the clinking of glasses and the loud conversations, seemed vulgar. ‘Sorry. The place has got under my skin. There’s still sand in all my stuff. I’ll adjust soon enough.’

I smiled at her. ‘It sounds wonderful. Doesn’t seem to me like you should adjust. The Perhentian Islands? Maybe I should go.’

‘Esther’s recently got divorced,’ Zoe told her, unnecessarily I felt.

Ally laughed. ‘You
so
should go. All of Asia was amazing, but those islands were like nothing on earth. I’d be back there today if I could. I was wondering if I ought to marry one of the local men so I could live there for ever.’

Zoe and I both inhaled sharply.

‘Don’t, Ally,’ said Zoe.

‘You’d end up sweeping the floor and having babies,’ I told her. ‘Do it by yourself. Don’t get married.’

‘Yeah! Joking. I’m off to London the day after tomorrow, to get a job. My real plan is to save up enough money to go back for a few weeks next year.’ She laughed. ‘Get married! I don’t think so.’

The conversation stuck with me. That girl had been happy and carefree, and I wanted some of what she had, even though I knew that it was almost entirely because of her youth, and that even the gorgeous Ally would be jaded when she was in her late thirties and burdened with responsibilities and cynicism.

The next night, I poured my usual enormous ‘one unit’ of wine, and sat down at the computer. Google corrected my spelling, and in no time my screen was filled with photographs of the Perhentian Islands.

I sat and stared at the screen, and as I looked at the photographs of sandy beaches and sun glinting off sea, my perspective shifted for the first time in over a year. Possibilities – self-indulgent ones, but all the more appealing for it – presented themselves. It occurred to me that there was nothing to stop me actually going. I had been stashing little bits of money for years, keeping a running-away fund. I could use it to go to these islands. Chris wanted Daisy for the Easter holidays. He always insisted on not taking his main holiday in the summer, because he said he loved it in the office when all the parents were away camping with their sticky children. That would give me three weeks. I tried to forget about it, but those islands presented themselves in my dreams and daydreams, day after day, week after week.

I knew with absolute certainty that if I went to this place, I would become happy and strong. Everything would be all right. It would be about the island, about the bigger picture, not the small one.

I wrote an email in the middle of the night, ten obsessed days later.

‘I’m planning to go away over Easter,’ I typed casually, ‘since you’ve asked to have Daisy for the entire break. You can have what you want. The whole school holidays. Will you confirm that’s OK?’

I sent it at 9.32 the next morning, to make it look like a piece of business. I was calling Chris’s bluff, agreeing to the extreme negotiating position he had taken purely to annoy me. He made me wait three days before replying.

‘Sure. Hanging out with Daze is always a joy. We’ll need to know where you’re going and when, of course, just in case.’

When I booked the tickets to and from Kuala Lumpur, I forwarded the email to him. That was as full as my itinerary was going to get, as far as the nosy ex was concerned.

For a second, I flash on to the way he would react if he knew I was here, in a bar, with a second margarita, somehow, in front of me, and five men mildly interested in my story. For the first time in a long time, I can imagine him smiling. This is how I was when we met. This was the way he liked me.

‘Perhentian Islands?’ asks the man with the moustache, the Aston Villa supporter.

I smile at each of them in turn.

‘Yes,’ I say, amazed that he knew. ‘Perhentian Islands,’ I repeat. The words feel like the most momentous thing I have ever said. I am going to heaven. I am going to find perspective, happiness, to remind myself of the things that actually matter in life. I am going to be all right.

‘Ah,’ they say, and they smile knowingly. The proprietor turns to me. I feel that something important is about to happen. I am wrong.

‘If you would like to eat here,’ he nods towards the dining room, ‘then please do so. The kitchen will close at nine forty-five.’

‘Yes please,’ I say. ‘And could I have another drink?’

Later, sleepless from jet lag and margaritas, I stand at my tenth-floor window and stare out at the city. I can see where the main road is, the one I crossed this morning, using locals as cover. A string of white lights moves towards me, and red ones move away. I wonder who is in those cars and where they are going. The lights on the Petronas Towers follow the curves of the huge building in tiers and make the massive structure look delicate. The footbridge is lit up. I wave at myself, earlier today, as I stood on it and looked back to this window.

I do not think I will sleep. I think I will lean on my windowsill and stare at this city all night. Yet somehow, hours later, I wake up in bed, smiling.

I am in the back of a battered yellow taxi, and the meter is running, which I know from my perusal of the guidebook is a good thing, because when they don’t use the meter is when you get ripped off, and I am looking out of the window, watching the city of Kuala Lumpur whizzing past. Next time I am here, I tell myself, I will have been to paradise. I will be, in a way I cannot stop imagining, fixed. I can picture myself: I will be wise, happy, emanating an unshakeable inner wisdom. Instead of skinny, I will be slender and elegant. My skin will have regained an approximation of a youthful glow. I will shimmer with health, and my attitude to Chris will be patronisingly benign. I will go back to Daisy and be the best mother in the world; because, God knows, she deserves that. Whatever it takes, I will do it. I will be different, serene, wise. I will be the mother she should have had all along.

I watch a woman driving in the next lane, and wonder why it seems strange to me that she can drive a car. It is, I know, because she is wearing a headscarf that covers all her hair. I suppose the headscarf looks to me like a symbol of submission to some man (or, perhaps, to The Man), and driving a car looks like someone in control of a massive machine, and the two things together are confusing.

She seems to feel my eyes on her, and glances across at me, then turns away, unsmiling. I could not drive here.

We are leaving the city, along a main road, and suddenly I am wondering where we are going. I wanted the bus station, and on my map the bus station was not at all far from the hotel. The meter is reading thirty-nine ringgit, which is approximately ten pounds, and that is a lot more than this journey ought to be costing.

Be brave, I tell myself. Whatever is happening, you need to stop it. I lean forward.

‘Er, excuse me?’ I say, sounding like a ridiculous parody of an Englishwoman abroad, and one who has not even bothered to learn a single word of the language of the host country, coasting on the familiar notion that people who deal with tourists know how to speak English. ‘The bus station? Bus to Kuala Besut?’

The man nods sharply, as if I am an annoyance, and carries on driving; and the highway just keeps going in front of me, and I know I am being taken to a place that I don’t want to go to, and not only that, but I seem to be paying through the nose for it. I try to remonstrate, but again he shakes me off, and I sit, hating myself for my timidity, and wait to see what will happen.

Eventually he pulls into what looks like a mainly deserted multi-storey car park, stops the engine and looks at me expectantly. My heart is thumping. I am terrified.

‘Bus station?’ I say weakly.

He nods. Obediently, I get out of the car and slam the door, pleased by the idea that this might, in fact, be the right place, and delighted that it seems he has not brought me to an empty car park to rob me.

He winds down his window and waits. I hand him a fifty-ringgit note. He gives me change and speeds away. Then I stand on my own, pull my backpack on to my back and wonder where the buses are.

There are concrete pillars, a few cars parked a little way away and no sign of a human being, nor of any form of public transport. I feel that someone might be watching me from a distance.