Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination

  “Let’s go back inside,” she whispered, helping him to a low sofa, where he slumped with his chin on his chest. Holding her breath, wondering if she really dared do this, she kicked off her shoes and tiptoed over to the desk and the laptop. She opened it up and pressed a key to see if it was merely sleeping like its owner. Dammit. It was shut down. If she started it up, would it make a sound: a chord or, God forbid, a quack?

  Olivia froze as Feramo gave a shuddering sigh and shifted position, rubbing the tip of his tongue against his lips like a lizard. She waited until his breathing steadied again, then decided to go for it. She pressed the start-up button and prepared to cough. There was a slight whirring, then, before she got the cough out, a female voice from the computer said, “Uh-oh.”

  Feramo opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. Olivia grabbed a bottle of water and hurried over. “Uh-oh,” she said, “uh-oh, you’re going to have a terrible hangover if you don’t drink some water.”

  She held the bottle to his lips. He shook his head and pushed it away. “Well, don’t blame me if you have a horrible headache in the morning,” she said, making her way back to the computer. “You should drink a whole liter of water at least and have an aspirin.” She kept up a steady stream of mumsy chatter as she sat down at the computer and checked out the desktop, trying to keep her cool. There was nothing there except icons and applications. She glanced over her shoulder. Feramo was sleeping soundly. She clicked on AOL, then went immediately to “Favorites.”

  She clocked the first two:

  Hydroweld: for welding in the wet.

  Cut-price nose-hair and nail clippers.

  “Olivia!” She literally jumped an inch out of the seat. “What are you doing?”

  Calm, calm. Remember, he’s had the best part of four bottles of wine.

  “I’m trying to check my e-mail,” she said without looking up, still clicking away at the computer. “Is this on a wireless network, or are you meant to plug it into the phone socket?”

  “Come away from there.”

  “Well, not if you’re just going to be asleep,” she said, trying her best to sound sulky.

  “Olivia!” He sounded scary again.

  “Oh, okay, hang on. I’ll just shut it down,” she said hurriedly, quitting AOL as she heard him get to his feet. She put on an innocent expression and turned to face him, but he was heading for the bathroom. She darted across the room, opened a cabinet and saw a bunch of videotapes, some with handwritten labels: Lawrence of Arabia, Academy Awards 2003, Miss Watson’s Academy of Passion, Scenic Glories of the Bay Area.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for the mini-bar.”

  “There is no mini-bar. This is not a hotel.”

  “I thought it was a hotel.”

  “I think it is time for you to return to your room.” He looked like a man who is just starting to realize how drunk he is. His clothes were crumpled, his eyes bloodshot.

  “You’re right. I’m very tired,” she said, smiling. “Thank you for a lovely dinner.”

  But he was crashing around the room, looking for something, and merely waved her good-night.

  He was a ruin of the dignified, mesmerizing man she had been so struck by at the hotel in Miami. Drink is the urine of Satan, she thought as she let herself back into her room. I wonder how long before they start the al-Qaeda branch of AA?

  37

  She had a hideous, sleepless night. She hadn’t eaten anything since Miss Ruthie’s slice of cake twelve hours before and, despite the luxury of the room, there was no mini-bar: no Toblerone, no jar of cashews, no giant pack of M&M’s. She turned her head this way and that against the pillowcase, which felt like it was finest Egyptian three-thousand-thread count or something, but nothing helped.

  Her thoughts began to run riot. At 5:00 A.M. she sat bolt upright and hit herself on the forehead. Caves! Al-Qaeda lived in caves in Tora Bora! Feramo was probably hiding the top tier of al-Qaeda senior management in a cave under Suakin. There was probably a Donald Rumsfeld wet dream of weapons of mass destruction in a cave underneath her right now, all neatly marked FORMER PROPERTY OF S. HUSSEIN.

  Eventually, as dawn was beginning to dilute the darkness over the sea, she drifted into confused dreams: headless bodies in wetsuits, Osama bin Laden’s head falling through the ocean in his turban while going on and on about fifteen-liter tanks, the virtues of neoprene drysuits, Danish BCDs and Australian drop-offs.

  * * *

  She woke to bright sunlight, the chirp of tropical birds and hunger pangs. There was the rich, humid smell that said “holiday.” She pulled on the cotton bathrobe and slippers and padded onto her balcony. It was a perfect, almost cloudless Sunday morning. She could smell brunch.

  The signs promising CLUBHOUSE led her to a tiki bar, where a bunch of young lovelies were laughing and joking together. She hesitated, feeling like the new girl at school, then recognized a familiar, like, Valley-girl voice?

  “I mean, I, like, get myself so much more these days than I ever have?”

  It was Kimberley with a huge stash of pancakes on her plate, playing idly with them with her fork and showing no interest in eating them at all. Olivia had to hold herself back from making a run at them.

  “Kimberley!” she said brightly, barging into the group. “Great to see you. How’s the movie going? Where did you get those pancakes?”

  It was one of the major pig-outs of her life. She consumed scrambled eggs and bacon, three banana pancakes with maple syrup, one blueberry muffin, three small slices of banana bread, two orange juices, three cappuccinos and a Bloody Mary. As she ate, she felt the exhilaration of a hunch turned good: the first pieces of a puzzle starting to fall into place. One by one, familiar faces from Miami and LA began to show themselves at the bar or around the pool. As well as Kimberley, there was Winston, the beautiful black dive instructor—who, thankfully, had escaped the carnage of the OceansApart—Michael Monteroso, the facial technician, and Travis, the wolf-eyed actor slash writer slash lifestyle coach. All were displaying their fabulously oiled and worked-out bodies around the bar and pool. It was a recruiting camp, she was sure; it was the al-Qaeda version of Butlins. Winston was lying on a sun lounger holding a loud conversation with Travis and Michael Monteroso, who were sitting at the bar.

  “Was that the vintage Valentino year, with the white stripe?” said Winston.

  “That was the Oscars,” said Michael bossily. “The Globes she was in backless navy Armani. And she made that speech about honeys—‘Everyone needs a honey to say “How was your day, honey?” Benjamin Bratt does that for me.’ ”

  “And six weeks later they split up.”

  “I was on security for the Oceans Eleven premiere and I’m thinking, I so can’t ask Julia Roberts to open her purse, and she just goes right ahead and opens her purse for me.”

  “You still doing that stuff?” said Travis the actor, schadenfreude glinting in the ice-blue wolf eyes.

  “Not any more,” snapped Winston. “Are you still driving a van for that place in south LA?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you were,” said Michael.

  “Well, only, like, part-time.”

  “What place is that?” said Olivia.

  “Oh, it’s, like, so not anything.” Travis sounded rather stoned. “It sucks, man, but you can make good bread. If you do, like, Chicago or Michigan and sleep in the van, you can clock up, like per diems and overhours, but, like, the best stuff always goes to the old guys.”

  “What’s it called?” she said, then regretted it instantly. She sounded too much like a journalist or a policeman. Fortunately, Travis the actor seemed too out of it to notice anything.

  “The security firm? Carrysure.” He yawned, got up from his perch and ambled over to a table by a palm tree, where several candles were burning in what appeared to be a giant sculpture made out of wax. He put a half-smoked joint into his mouth, lit it again and started to manipulate the wax, molding it into strange,
fanciful shapes.

  “What’s he doing?” said Olivia quietly.

  Michael Monteroso rolled his eyes. “It’s his wax cake,” he said. “It releases his creativity.”

  Olivia glanced behind him and drew a sharp breath. Morton C. was walking past the bar, wetsuit peeled down to the waist, muscles bulging. He was carrying a dive tank on each shoulder and was followed by two dark, Arabic-looking youths carrying jackets and regulators.

  “I was at the Oscars that year,” said Kimberley. “I was a seat-filler. I sat behind Jack Nicholson.”

  Olivia saw Morton C. spot her and looked away, furious. Two-faced git. He needn’t think he was going to worm his way back into her affections now. She slipped the miniature camera from her wrap and surreptitiously snapped a few pictures.

  “No kidding?” Winston was saying. “Those guys who, like, sit in the seat when Halle Berry goes to the bathroom?”

  Olivia nudged Michael, nodding at Morton’s retreating back. “Who’s that?” she whispered.

  “The blond guy? He’s some kind of, like, diving-instructor-type thing?”

  “My dad gets me the gig because he does the follow spot,” Kimberley was saying proudly. “The second time it was for Shakira Caine, but she only, like, went to the bathroom during one break. But last year I sat in the front row for the whole of the first half.”

  “Anyone seen Pierre?”

  “Alfonso said he was coming down for, like, for lunch, brunch, whatever. Hey! There’s Alfonso. Hey, man. Come and have a drink.”

  The troll-like figure of Alfonso, shirtless, was heading towards them. Olivia found herself unable to stomach the sight of his very hairy back.

  “I think I’m going to have a swim,” she said, beginning to fear, as she slid off the stool, that she’d be drowned by the weight of the pancakes.

  * * *

  She plunged into the clear water, swimming strongly, holding her breath for as long as she could and surfacing a hundred yards farther on. She had won a race at school for swimming underwater in Worksop Baths before it was banned because someone got dizzy. She surfaced, slicking back her hair so it didn’t look mad, plunged down again and powered ahead for as long as she could, rounding the headland so that she could see the concrete pier. The sea was darker and choppier here; she was approaching the windward side of the island. She started to swim at a fast crawl until she was opposite the pier. It didn’t seem to be in use. A tall fence with barbed wire along the top blocked entry from the hotel side. There were tanks and a storage shed close to the shore, and a surfboard which appeared to have been cut in half.

  Beyond the pier was a long, windswept beach lashed by white-tipped waves. There was a small boat at anchor a couple of hundred yards out, tossing up and down. A diver stood up on the ledge at the back and stepped into the water, followed by three more. She dived down again and swam towards them. When she surfaced, the last of the four divers was beginning his descent. Thinking they’d be gone for a while, she started to swim towards the pier and was surprised, when she glanced back, to see all four of them had surfaced closer to the shore. Their pose was familiar as they waited in the water, like seals. Then one of them started paddling fast towards a wave and climbed onto a board. Surfers! She watched in fascination as they followed the wave in formation, zigzagging on the inner curve. She was getting close to the heart of the story. She could sense it. They landed, laughing together, and set off towards the pier. Suddenly one of them shouted and pointed towards her.

  Olivia plunged down about five feet and headed for the concrete pier. Her lungs were bursting, but she kept going until she rounded the pier and then surfaced, gasping for breath. The surfers were nowhere in sight. She plunged down again and swam back towards the resort until the water grew calmer, warm and blue, and she was above a sandy bottom back in the shelter of the bay.

  She surfaced with relief, floating on her back, trying to get her breath back. There was a raft a little way ahead. She swam slowly towards it, pulled herself up and flopped down on the Astroturf.

  It was a cool raft. The Astroturf was blue—the same type as they had around the Standard Hotel pool in LA. She stretched out, getting her breath back, looking up at the sky where the moon was already visible. She relaxed, feeling the sun on her skin, the raft rising and falling softly with the waves, the water slapping gently against the side.

  She was woken abruptly from her daydream. A hand was clapped firmly over her mouth. Instinctively, she pulled the hatpin from her bikini and sank it deep into the arm, which jerked in shock and loosened just long enough for her to wriggle free.

  “Don’t move.” She recognized the voice.

  “Morton, what is it with you? Have you been watching too many action movies?”

  She turned and for the first time in her life found herself looking into the barrel of a gun. It was odd, really. She had wondered what it would be like, and, in the event, it was a strange, reverse-reality sensation. It made her think: This is exactly like a film, rather as when you see a beautiful view and you think it looks just like a postcard.

  “What was on that needle?”

  The gray eyes were icy, vicious. He was holding himself up on the raft with one elbow, still pointing the gun.

  “That thing will never fire,” she said. “It’s been in the water.”

  “Lie down on your stomach. That’s right. Now”—he leaned forward—“what was in that fucking syringe?”

  He was scared. She could see it in his eyes.

  “Morton,” she said firmly, “it is a hatpin. I’m traveling alone. You frightened me. You’re frightening me even more now. Put the gun away.”

  “Give me the pin.”

  “No. Give me the gun.”

  He shoved the barrel of the gun roughly into her neck and grabbed the pin with his other hand.

  “This is very rude. I could easily just stand up and scream, you know.”

  “You’d be too late and they’d never find you. What the fuck is this?” He was staring at the pin.

  “It’s a hatpin. It’s an old trick of my mother’s to ward off sexual assailants.”

  He blinked at it, then let out his short laugh. “A hatpin. Well, that’s just great.”

  “Bet you wish you hadn’t pulled the gun, now, don’t you?”

  The gray eyes told her she was right. Ha ha, she thought.

  “Shut up and talk,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wish I knew. I was kidnapped by Alfonso.”

  “I know that. But what are you doing on Popayan? Who are you working for?”

  “I told you. I’m just a freelance journalist.”

  “Come on. A freelance fashion journalist who—”

  “I am not a fashion journalist.”

  “Perfume journalist, whatever. A perfume journalist who’s a linguist?”

  “In our country,” she said, drawing herself up indignantly, “we realize the necessity of speaking other languages. We are aware of the existence of other nationalities. We like to be able to converse with them, not just to talk in a loud voice.”

  “What are the languages? Gibberish? Bollocks? Gobbledegook? The language of love?”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “Come on, Morton, stop brandishing that gun. I don’t think your boss is going to be very pleased if he finds out you’ve been shoving a gun down my throat.”

  “That’s the least of your worries.”

  “I’m not talking about me. What were you doing in that tunnel?”

  “What tunnel?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that. Why did you kill Drew? An innocent hippie like that—how could you?”

  He looked at her dangerously. “Why are you following Feramo?”

  “Why are you following me? You’re not very good at covering your tracks, are you? That fake beard and mustache you were sporting at the Standard were the worst I’ve ever seen in my life. And if you were going to stash a bag of coke in my hotel room in Tegucigalpa, it wasn’t the br
ightest thing to sit making eyes at me five minutes before, then disappear and come back again.”

  “Do you ever stop talking? I said, why are you following Feramo?”

  “Are you jealous?”

  He let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Jealous? Over you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was forgetting. I thought you might have kissed me because you fancied me. I’d forgotten you were a cynical, double-crossing, two-faced git.”

  “You need to leave. I’m here to warn you. You’re getting yourself into deep water.”

  She looked down at him in the sea. “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s like the kettle calling the frying pan ‘dirty bottom.’ ”

  He shook his head. “As I said, fluent in gibberish. Listen. You’re a nice English girl. Go home. Don’t meddle in stuff you don’t understand. Get your ass out of here.”

  “How?”

  “Oliviaaaaaaaaa!”

  She turned to look behind her. Feramo was calling from the shallows, wading towards her, the water waist high. “Wait there,” he shouted. “I will come.”

  She turned back to Morton C. but all that was left of him was bubbles.

  * * *

  Feramo approached the raft with sharklike precision in a powerful freestyle and pulled himself onto it athletically. He was toned and perfectly triangular: clear olive skin and fine features devastating against the blue water. It’s raining men, she thought. She wished Morton hadn’t disappeared so she could have one on each side of the raft—one dark, one fair, both stunning against the blue water—and pick the prettier.

  “Olivia, you look wonderful,” Feramo said earnestly. “Wonderful.” The blue water was evidently doing it for her as well.

  “Let me call for a boat and some towels,” he said, taking a waterproof bleeper from his pocket. Within minutes a speedboat drew up alongside them. A lithe youth in swimming trunks cut the engine, handed them fluffy towels and helped Olivia aboard.