Page 17 of The Honeymoon Affair

‘Oh, right. Pleased to meet you.’

‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ He puts the question after a moment’s pause.

I tell him that I saw him on TV.

‘Have you read my books?’

This is awkward. I think about faking it, and then shake my head.

‘I’m more of a crime and thriller reader,’ I admit.

‘I see.’ He says this as though I’ve just admitted to murdering kittens. ‘I suppose in your line of work it shouldn’t come as a surprise.’

‘I like crime,’ I tell him. ‘It’s satisfying. Mostly the bad guys get what’s coming to them, which isn’t always the case in real life.’

‘You have a point,’ he concedes.

‘I’ll go and leave you to your muse,’ I say eventually, standing up and wiping sand from my shorts. I’m still hobbling a little, but my ankle is much better now, something I tell Charles Miller when he asks if I’m all right.

‘Nice talking to you,’ I say, even though it wasn’t.

He’s concentrating on his notes and doesn’t reply.

I limp back the way I came.

When I get back to the room, I change into a swimsuit and do what I told Celeste I’d be doing: lying on the beach with my Janice Jermyn, where there’s a satisfyingly high body count and the murderer is always revealed at the end.

But after a while, I take out my phone and google Charles Miller. It seems his rise was pretty meteoric after his debut won the Booker and was made into a movie; his second novel is ‘in development’, whatever that means. His most recent books don’t seem to have been as popular, because they’ve neither won prizes nor appear to be in development, but he’s clearly done pretty well nonetheless. There’s very little under personal information in Wikipedia, just that he was born in Waterford, graduated from UCD and is forty-nine. I do a little more digging and see some photos of him accepting his Booker Prize, and others at the movie premiere over ten years ago. There’s a good-looking brunette by his side in these, and I wonder if she’s a girlfriend or partner or wife. A further search brings up a piece headlined ‘An Agency Romance’, which says that Charles and Ariel Barrett, the agent who discovered him, have become engaged. It goes on to say that they’re the hottest couple in London right now. I wonder where she is while he’s alone on Paradise Island. If I was his fiancée or wife, I wouldn’t be too keen on being left behind in London while he pretended to work beneath tropical skies.

I abandon Google and open Find My Friends instead. Steve is currently travelling along the M50 motorway that circles Dublin. I take a photo of the view in front of me and post it to my Instagram #PeacefulParadise.

I pick up the Janice Jermyn again, and next thing I know, the smell of meat on the barbecue wakes me up. I’ve been asleep for almost an hour, which is unheard of for me on a sunlounger. But I feel surprisingly rested, and surprisingly hungry too, even though I had an enormous breakfast earlier. I remind myself that it was six hours ago and so I’m entitled to be ravenous. If nothing else, this holiday has seen me regain my appetite, and probably a few of the kilos I lost after Steve and I split.

I haul myself off the lounger, pull on my patterned sundress, and make my way towards the main building, where a queue has already formed at the barbecue. I check in at the restaurant and am allocated a table, then I order a glass of wine and join the BBQ line, where I opt for grilled fish, chicken wings and a selection of salads. Yes, those kilos are most definitely on the way back.

I’m about to tuck in when I see Charles Miller making his way to his usual table. He’s wearing a maroon polo shirt and shorts, along with deck shoes and a panama hat. I quite like the hat. It makes a statement that the baseball caps more usually worn by the male guests don’t.

I don’t want him to see me staring, so I open my book and start to read, though it’s actually very difficult what with the sauce from the chicken wings making my fingers sticky as well as rolling inelegantly down my chin. When it comes to BBQs, I’m a messy eater. I’m aware of him walking through the restaurant with an empty plate, but then I get to an engrossing part of the novel (an unexpected additional murder in Chapter Fifteen) and am startled when I realise he’s standing beside my table. This time his plate is loaded with food.

‘Are you eating alone?’ he asks.

I swallow some potato salad before I can answer.

‘Yes. My cousin’s on a trip.’

‘Your cousin?’

‘The girl I’m on holiday with.’

‘Oh yes. The pretty one.’

Never let it be said that Charles Miller is tactful. Perhaps my expression gives me away, because his look is apologetic. ‘I’m not making comparisons,’ he says hastily. ‘Just that she’s stereotypically pretty.’

But he should. I do all the time. Celeste is the glossier version of me. Her hair, dark brown like mine, although with lovely russet undertones, is long and curly, while mine is short and spiky, and her skin is flawless, whereas I’m prone to breakouts. She’s taller, better proportioned and was always the heartbreaker.

‘You’ve more character.’ Charles Miller digs the hole a bit deeper.

‘For someone who’s supposed to be good with words, you’re doing a terrible job,’ I say.

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