Chapter 4 Nina

Chapter 4

?Nina

As the plane doors open a wave of tropical heat hits me. My muscles—tight from London life, from hours in libraries and lecture halls, and more recently in funeral directors' and legal offices—fight the heat's gentle invitation to loosen.

It's autumn back in London, and those last lukewarm days of British summer have done nothing to prepare me for this environmental shift.

As we disembark out onto the tarmac only a soft sea breeze breaks the scorch of midday sun. After less than a minute in its full unfiltered gaze, I am glad to reach the cool escape of the terminal building.

Funny how something can feel so good and so bad all at once. A death, a holiday. The prospect of getting to the bottom of things, and the things we might find there.

A taxi takes me and my one small yellow piece of luggage through the lush, palm-strewn countryside that separates the airport from Road Town, the capital of Tortola, and the entire British Virgin Islands.

From the open taxi window I drink in this other world, so far from the clammy cold of London with its gray buildings and gray-brown weather. Beyond the window, the bright landscape flashes past: thick jungle vegetation that gives way to sparse, sunbaked fields lying abandoned in the still heat. Coral-pink, aquamarine-blue, and emerald-green houses. People walking in the hot roadside dust, smiling, happy, their bodies looser, more lived-in than my own. Perhaps life is different here. Perhaps my life could be different here. But then everyone who's ever been abroad thinks that, don't they?

I can't help but wonder if that is why my father came out here—a paradise thousands of miles from his staid life in West London. Perhaps he wanted a different life too?

I shake off the morbid thought as the taxi breaks out into the sunlight from beneath a forest canopy, the burst of light momentarily blinding me.

As my eyes adjust, I see we are on a ridge, the vast sweep of Road Harbor visible in the distance, the creamy beach-lined horseshoe of it meeting the sparkling jewel of the Caribbean Sea.

The driver rolls down his window too, and the warm scents of salt and my own hastily applied sunscreen create a sensory gut-punch of childhood holidays. Except we never came here, did we, Dad?

Almost as if he can hear my thoughts, the driver turns with an easy smile. "That was Road Town. Good for shopping, restaurants, sightseeing," he singsongs happily. "But you are staying in a nice hotel so maybe you won't want to look around. Your hotel is very good, very nice. Too expensive for me," he confesses, then laughs uproariously at his own joke, which I imagine in a sense is me. Because as far as he is concerned, I'm paying the price of a medium-sized monthly mortgage to stay there every night.

For some reason I find it important to correct him. "Oh no. I'm not staying there. I'm just meeting someone."

—

Halfway through lunch with a younger-than-expected James Booth, one of the only certainties I have about the house turns out to be wrong.

"Oh no, the house isn't here on Tortola, no." He places his fork carefully down into his Michelin-starred lobster salad and hastily wipes his already immaculately clean mouth.

He looks genuinely horrified at the misunderstanding. "I can only apologize. It appears I didn't make that clear in our previous correspondence—the location is stated in the beneficiary letter but I see that it might not have been immediately clear to you as a non-national. The Islands can be confusing to visitors. I should have talked you through it. You see, most business gets done here on Tortola. And while Tortola is a lovely island it is really more of a port or a business hub for the BVI than a final destination. The house, your father's house, wouldn't have been on the island here. Just our offices."

I look around the beachfront terrace of this beautiful five-star hotel he has brought me to and wonder how the hell I'm supposed to get to whichever island I am supposed to be on.

"Okay," I hear myself say, my tone vague, two flights in and jet-lagged to hell.

Looking past James to the pool, where bathers drowsily stretch out on loungers and dip into the crystal-clear waters, I find myself wondering if I should just blow the entire inheritance and book in here for the next few nights. Hell, indefinitely.

"Let me explain," he continues, sensing he has lost me. "The plan was, and remains, to accompany you across to the house on Virgin Gorda after lunch. If that still works?"

My focus snaps back to James. "Oh, I see. Sorry, so transport there has been arranged and—"

"Of course. All covered in the expenditure budget compiled in line with expediting your father's wishes." He takes me in, notes my confusion, and simplifies. "In other words: we have extracted and retained the necessary funds from estate assets to cover all necessary expenses in beneficiary handover."

"Ah, I see," I say with a nod. And then look down at my own mango-infused lobster salad, which I now see that I have indirectly paid for. Then I take a healthy gulp of my half-sipped champagne and refill it from the bottle. If I'm paying for it, then I'll have it.

"So when do we sail?" I ask him with a fresh injection of positivity.

James, his mouth full of mixed leaves, gives a shake of the head. I wait for him to chew.

"Helicopter," he says after a big swallow. "Flight's at two."