Page 33 of After the Accident
I passed on the message that Mum wanted us to all to eat together that night and asked if he’d tell the others, then I walked across to the lobby myself.
Julius:Emma didn’t mention anything about dropping her phone around the pool. She said someone had stolen her phone and asked me to call it. I did that as we were still on the line together. I heard her fussing on the other end before she came back and said she couldn’t hear anything vibrating. I assumed she’d left it somewhere.
There’s a lot of mysteries from that holiday that I’d like the answer to – but one thing I will one hundred per cent guarantee you is that nobody stole Emma’s phone.
Emma:I went to the lobby and waited in line for at least half an hour. A big party had just arrived and people were trying to check in. There were suitcases everywhere and people digging around for passports to show as ID. Someone was arguing about the name on their booking, someone else was saying their luggage had been lost. There was a measured sort of chaos.
By the time I got to the front, I almost felt guilty for having to bother the woman. She was being polite – in the way service workers have to be – but I could tell all she wanted was a bit of a sit-down.
I explained about leaving my phone in the cottage and then it not being there. She typed something into her computer and said she would be right back, before disappearing into the back room.
I think I sensed what was coming. When she returned, she said the only cleaning of the room had happened early in the morning. Those cottages used real keys, not the cards – and the spare key for my cottage was still in place in their office.
It was then I remembered that I’d heard another guest saying that cash had been stolen from her room that morning. I mentioned that – and everything changed. The woman’s face hardened and she shot back very quickly to say that the phone had likely been misplaced around the premises. It sounded practised. Like a line that was written down somewhere. She said she’d send someone over to the cottage to help me look.
It was frustrating, sure. You’d be annoyed if you knew something was true but nobody wanted to believe you.
I told her not to bother…
I might have been ruder than that…
…
I started to walk away and I won’t pretend I wasn’t angry – but then I spotted Scott at the front of the hotel. They keep all the doors open to let the air flow through and I could see out to where they park the cars and the taxis wait.
He was standing there by himself, taking in the surroundings. If he’d been on the cliffs, or next to a fountain – something like that – it would have been understandable. A tourist doing touristy things. But I couldn’t understand what he was doing. This is the hotel where we’ve always stayed – he was here in the past – but Paul told me Scott had a villa. Why was he there?
Scott:I went for a walk that afternoon. It’s a beautiful island and the weather was great. Why wouldn’t I?
Emma:I think losing something is one of the worst feelings a person can have. It plays with your sense of perspective. Something like a phone can be replaced – but that’s not the problem. You try to remember when and where you last had something. It starts to play on you that a fact of which you’re certain could be a phantom memory. You gaslight yourself.
Scott didn’t see me that afternoon… but it was hard not to wonder if he’d walked through the hotel at some point. Anyone could wander in from the street, especially if they looked like a tourist and had some confidence about them.
Even as I was thinking it, I knew it was nonsensical. How would Scott know I was staying in a cottage? How would he have got in? What could he do with a locked phone?
Why bother?
It was after that when I realised I’d have to go back to the room and use the hotel phone to call the UK and get my SIM card cancelled.
More hassle, more stress – but I didn’t get a chance to do anything.
By the time I got back to the cottages, Mum was on her way out. I’d not even realised the length of time I’d spent in reception. I told her I was missing my phone, but she shrugged and said: ‘It’ll turn up.’ She continued walking past me and then stopped and turned to say: ‘It’s dinner now.’
It felt like being a child again. When your mum tells you to do something with such a tone that it doesn’t feel like there’s any alternative.
Despite everything that happened on the holiday, those dinners were the one constant. It was Mum’s way of keeping away the disorder; something she could control.
Julius:It was a quiet dinner on that third night. Claire had gone, Victor was sulking, Dad was in hospital, Mum was pining for him, Emma was buried in her conspiracies, Daniel had no one to bore with his skiing stories, though he still tried – and Amy and Chloe had tired themselves out by the pool.
Best night of the trip.
Emma:Victor was sulking because Claire had left. He ended up sitting next to his dad and Daniel was busy boring the arse off him by going on about some hunting trip they’d gone on a couple of years before. He was the only one talking at that table and was getting louder the more he drank.
His skin had gone full giant radish at this point. I felt hot just looking at him. He’s the sort of man who will walk around saying how he ‘always caught the sun’, even though what he actually means is that that he’s roasted himself for ten hours with no sun cream. The type who’ll dismiss all science and government warnings because he’s not got skin cancer.
The louder and drunker he got, the more I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from saying something. Daniel was dominating that table with Dad gone. He was finally master of the domain. He’d click his fingers towards waiters to demand more wine and his eyes would follow the women in their short dresses, even though his wife was right there.
When Dad and Alan owned the property business, it was a fifty-fifty thing. After Alan died and things changed, Dad ended up keeping fifty-one per cent, with Daniel buying the other forty-nine. I don’t know the specifics of everything – but that’s how it stood on that day.
