Second honeymoon
Returning to paradise, a couple are forced to remember what matters in this tale from thriller writer Lucy Clarke
Eve lay in the hammock, her book open. The wavering shadow of palm fronds provided little respite from the mid-afternoon heat. The air was heavy with humidity, scented by hibiscus. She reread the same paragraph for the fourth time, before snapping the book shut with a sigh.
It was a mistake, she realised, returning to Fiji. To this island. To this resort.
She and Luke had flown here 15 years earlier for their honeymoon. They were 25 then, setting off with just their backpacks and a dream. They’d spent the honeymoon snorkelling over shimmering reefs, drinking cocktails they couldn’t afford and slipping back early from dinner to make love. It should have heralded the start of a beautiful marriage.
Should have.
“Ready?” Luke was beside her, their snorkelling gear in hand. He was 40 now. Still handsome, grey peppering the dark stubble at his jawline, the broad frame of his shoulders softening only a little.
“Yes,” she said, hooking her beach bag over her shoulder. Together, they wandered barefoot along the shoreline, the hem of her sundress lifting in the breeze.
The small wooden boat idled in the shallows. There was no sun canopy, just a bench seat and outboard motor spluttering fumes into the blue sky. Tevita, the local dive guide, was taking them beyond the island to an area of pristine reef. Fifteen years ago, Eve wouldn’t have hesitated; she’d have bounded on board, eager, brave. But now, fear lodged in her stomach, her mind whirring with thoughts of sharks, strong currents or the threat of seasickness.
Steeling herself, she climbed in. She sat beside Luke at the bow, the humid air spiked by petrol as they roared towards open ocean. Wind moved through her hair and she shivered, wishing she’d thought to pack more than a towel and bottle of water.
Returning to Fiji had been Luke’s idea. “We’re 40 this year. Let’s treat ourselves. It’ll be like a second honeymoon,” he’d said one winter evening, when it was dark by four o’clock and they were sitting in the lonely silence of their home.
The intervening years had been tough on them both. They’d hoped to have a family – imagining their house filled with tiny pairs of boots, picture books, laughter and chaos. But after almost a decade of consultations, tests and fertility treatment, their longed-for family was a dream they’d been forced to let go.
Eve eyed the darkening water. “Will there be sharks where we snorkel?”
“Some, maybe, in channel,” Tevita answered, his sun-faded T-shirt flattened to his chest by the wind. “But no problem. They not interested in you.”
“We’ll be fine,” Luke said, easily. “I’ll be right next to you.”
She tried to smile. Luke had fallen in love with a plucky, brave girl, who’d once dived 30ft from a cliff edge, her body tanned and lithe, yet now she felt diminished. How do you explain: My body’s already let me down. If I can’t trust myself, how can I trust anything else?
At the back of the boat, the engine made a fierce, grinding sound. A plume of black smoke began to funnel into the sky. Tevita’s brow furrowed as the engine cut out. The boat glided forward, the wake settling around them like blue silk.
Tevita cursed, yanking at the outboard pull cord. Nothing happened. She and Luke glanced at one another. Tevita tugged again and again – but there was no roar of a motor, no smell of petrol spiking the air. Not even a whisper of noise, except her own shallowed breath.
Ahead of them was nothing but endless ocean and behind lay the faint, distant shadow of the island they’d come from. What if they couldn’t get the boat started? Eve felt a spike of fear lodge deep in her chest.
Luke clambered to the back and helped Tevita remove the casing of the outboard. Their brows furrowed as they examined the inner workings, while the boat was rocked by the swell. Needing to do something, Eve looked beneath the empty bench seats, searching for anything that may help: oars, life-jackets, flares – but the boat was bare, save for a jerry can of fuel, a saltcrusted anchor and a tarpaulin. The boat turned into the wind, the low waves slapping against the side, spray misting her face. Despite the heat, Eve shivered.
Tevita tried the pull cord again. Still nothing. Luke met her eye, shook his head.
She took out her phone – but as she expected, there was no signal this far from land. “What now?”
“I swim back to the island, get help,” Tevita said, picking up Luke’s dive fins. “You two stay on boat. Safe, yes?”
She peered again towards the shadow of the island. “It’s too far!”
“No choice,” he said, removing his T-shirt, then snapping the snorkel mask in place. He dropped over the side, the boat rocking and shuddering. They clung to the sides, watching Tevita’s powerful kicks as he swam away.
Time stretched and contracted, Tevita’s form becoming no more than a speck beneath the golden blaze of sunset. They were alone, adrift on the ocean.
“It’s been hours,” she said later, her voice shaken as the final glow of light bled from the sky. They’d finished the last of the water. She was growing cold, the damp air leaving her skin studded with goosebumps.
“Here, lie down out of the breeze,” Luke said. They huddled on the boat floor, covered by a beach towel and tarpaulin. The air was heavy with the salted scent of the ocean. She pressed her face into Luke’s shoulder, afraid.
“Eve,” he whispered in the dark. “Open your eyes. Look up. Look at the stars.”
She turned her head to face the inky, glittering sky.
Luke asked: “Do you remember that first night on our honeymoon, when we lay under the stars?”
Despite everything, she found herself smiling. They’d had too many cocktails and, as they’d stumbled back along the beach, she’d tripped, falling into the sand, pulling Luke down with her. Laughing, they’d stayed there, lit by moonlight. “I do. We were so young. So happy.”
She felt him nod. “We said we’d start trying for a family. Four children, that’s what we wanted.”
The boat rocked beneath them, small waves slapping at the hull. She remembered. “It seemed like the simplest dream in the world back then: a family.” She swallowed. “Would you do it again? Marry me, even though I can’t give you…”
“Eve,” he said, turning towards her, his hand finding hers in the darkness. “You are my family.”
They lay together, fingers interlaced, looking up at the night sky. If everything was stripped away – the sadness of the past, her fears for the future – then it was just them, in this moment, two people drifting on an ocean of stars.
In the distance, they heard it – the rumble of an engine. As they pushed themselves upright, she saw the searchlight beaming out across the water. Suddenly she was blinking into the blinding white light, hearing their names being called.
Their hands remained gripped together as the rescue boat motored towards them. This trip, she realised, wasn’t a second honeymoon. It was a returning, a remembering
– deep in her soul
– of who she was.
Of who they were together.
“We’re here!” she called.
Luke had fallen in love with a plucky, brave girl, who’d once dived 30ft from a cliff edge, yet now she felt diminished
‘Eve,’ he whispered in the dark. ‘Open your eyes. Look at the stars.’ She turned her head to the glittering sky
West Dorset, February 2018 Holly flipped through the crumpled and stained pages of her mother’s old recipe book and there it was, peeking from inside a yellowing envelope. As if somebody (her mother?) had half wanted the recipe to be a secret one, half wanted it to be seen. Carefully, she extracted the fragile sheet of paper from the envelope and smoothed out the folds with her fingertips. The original recipe was written in Spanish; she recognised a few of the words. Under this, the ingredients and instructions had been written much more clearly and in English, all of it in handwriting she did not recognise.
Seville orange and almond cake, she read.
For an occasion.
Well, she thought, if this wasn’t an occasion – the day she made her big announcement, the day she told her parents what she’d been planning, what she’d been working towards these past 18 months without them having the slightest idea what was going on – then she didn’t know what was.
Holly consulted the English version of the recipe. First, scrub and roughly chop the Seville oranges. She glanced over at them. They were sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter, glowing like orange lanterns in the dim February afternoon light. The oranges weren’t the prettiest; they were misshapen, rough and knobbly. But the colour… it was so vibrant, so bright. The first time she’d seen a box of Seville bitter oranges in the farm shop just outside Bridport, she’d been smitten.
Holly selected one now and sniffed the thick skin. Ah. The Seville orange was too bitter to be eaten fresh – it was as sharp and sour as a lemon. But the scent of this orange… It transported her to the possibility of an intoxicating summertime. Here’s hoping… Holly began to scrub.
She had first discovered her mother’s old Spanish recipe as a teenager. Other girls spent Saturday afternoons in town having coffee with their friends, buying make-up, chatting about which boy they fancied or what film was showing at the local cinema… Holly baked – fruitcakes, crumbles, batches of brownies. There was nothing quite as satisfying, she’d always thought, as a tray of pastries fresh from the oven.
Okay, so she had been an unusual teenager. She smiled to herself. Sifting through her mother’s recipe books had been her idea of a wild time.
Almost reluctantly, Holly placed the scrubbed oranges down on the chopping board. She sliced firmly into the first one. The bitter juice squirted, releasing more of its citrussy-fresh scent.
Holly had found the recipe, studied it, been fascinated by it, but she had never baked the cake – never dared, after the way her mother had reacted to the suggestion.
She gathered the aromatic and thick-skinned orange pieces together and pushed them to one side of the board with the back of her hand. The juice felt like an astringent on her skin. She could understand why Seville oranges had numerous uses, many of them medicinal – their scent, their flavour when cooked was both complex and intense.
And then there was marmalade. Holly had been using them to make marmalade for years. Seville oranges were considered the best in the world for it because the high natural pectin content helped the marmalade to set correctly. And Holly had certainly never had any complaints. Making and baking were activities she turned to when she was tired or anxious. Far from sapping her energy still further, marmalade-making invigorated her – it always had.
She vividly remembered her 14-year-old self, waving the Seville orange and almond cake recipe in front of her mother, already excited about the prospect. “Can I make this, Mum?” she’d begged.
“What?” Her mother stared at the piece of paper, almost snatched it from Holly’s grasp. “No,” she said.
She’d never said no to a cake before. Holly had frowned. “Why not?”
Her mother hesitated. “Your father doesn’t like it. It’s not a great recipe.” “But –”
“And we don’t have any Seville oranges.”
“I could –”
“No, Holly.”
Even at 14, Holly had known her mother was protesting too much. What was it then about this old recipe? What was the big deal? Her mother’s refusal only increased its allure. Where had it come from exactly? Why had her mother kept it? And why was it out of bounds?
As far as she was aware, her mother had no Spanish friends. So who had written it out for her, first in Spanish and then English? Holly was determined to find out more.
She wasn’t stupid, though – she waited a few days before asking her mother about Spain.
“Of course I’ve been to Spain,” her mother said breezily. Too breezily? Holly wondered. “I went with your father.”
Even at 14, Holly had known her mother was protesting too much. What was it then about this old recipe?
Was that when someone had given her the recipe for the Spanish orange and almond cake? Holly decided it was wiser not to ask.
“When did you go?” she asked her mother instead.
Her mother’s expression changed. “Oh, I don’t know exactly, Holly. Does it matter? Back in the 1980s. I can’t remember the exact year.”
Was that suspicious? Holly supposed not. No one ever remembered the exact year they went away anywhere. “Whereabouts in Spain did you go?”
There was a pause. “Seville.”
Was it Holly’s imagination, or did her mother glance over towards the kitchen shelf, to where her old recipe book sat in the corner? “So…?”
But her mother didn’t give her a chance to ask any more. “Come on now, Holly,” she said. “Enough. Dinner’s almost ready and the table won’t lay itself, you know.” She’d swept into full chivvying mode. Not only was she frowning, but Holly thought she could detect a tear in her mother’s eye. That was it then. Her mother had never been a strict parent exactly, but she was a teacher and she’d always maintained boundaries. Enough said. The subject was very definitely closed.
That was 15 years ago. At the moment, Holly lived in Brighton, but she was back here in Dorset on one of her regular weekend visits because, apart from wanting to see her family, she missed the landscape of her childhood, too. Fortunately, she still had baking rights in this kitchen.
Holly put the vibrant orange pieces in a small pan, picking out the pips with a wooden spoon. She added water, covered the pan and switched on the gas.
The recipe promised that after 30 minutes, the oranges would be soft and the liquid would have evaporated. Holly felt the small hum of excitement she always felt when baking. It was the process of creation, she guessed. Alchemy. It was something she never felt in the office in Brighton.
She glanced at the recipe. Maybe this old, crumpled piece of paper had been the start of her dream all those years ago. So, she’d decided to make the Seville orange and almond cake this afternoon while her parents were out. It seemed appropriate somehow.
She still felt bad about not telling them what she’d been planning, what she’d been doing. But her grandmother had advised against it, and with her parents living here where Holly had grown up and Holly in Brighton, it hadn’t been too hard to keep things quiet.
But now, everything was about to change. Holly cracked the eggs, carefully separating them into white and yolk. She put the whites into a bowl and whisked them into stiff peaks. Gradually, she added the caster sugar, beat the remaining sugar with the egg yolks until the mixture thickened and then added her fragrant chopped orange mixture and the ground almonds. Already it smelt heavenly.
She folded the egg whites into the mix, carefully transferred it to the greased and lined baking tin and sprinkled the top with flaked almonds. She checked her watch. It would be ready by the time her parents came back with her grandmother for tea.
And instead of tea… Holly took the bottle of champagne she’d brought with her from Brighton from her tote bag and put it in the fridge. She was sure her grandmother would approve.
Seville orange and almond cake – for an occasion. She fancied she could already smell the almonds toasting, already sense the sugar combining with the oranges to make the cake perfectly bitter-sweet.
And when they came back? When they came back, she would try to explain to them why she was so dramatically turning her life around. She would tell them – finally – what had happened to her in Brighton and what she had decided to do.
Was that suspicious? Holly supposed not. No one ever remembered the exact year they went away anywhere