Chapter 6

We cannot choose where to start and stop.

Chris Cleave

The wedding takes place at four o'clock in the afternoon, when the heat of the sun has abated enough for everyone in the wedding party not to melt. The men are in proper suits and have been waiting for a good twenty minutes in the gazebo before the bride arrives. She's wearing a traditional white dress and a long veil that's fixed to a garland in her hair and is lifted gently into the air by the warm breeze. The music of the reggae band wafts towards the beach, where everyone has turned to look at the bridal couple, because you do, don't you, when there's a wedding? You can't help yourself. I imagine what it would have been like for me, walking along the flagged path to the gazebo, standing among the tropical flowers and making my vows with Steve, knowing that we were the centre of attention, and although I don't want to cry, the tears flood my eyes all the same.

I didn't go for a blingtastic dress in the end, despite Celeste's encouragement. I chose mid-length white silk, with spaghetti straps and pearl buttons down the back. I thought it was very sophisticated but also casual enough for a beach wedding. The bling was on my wedge sandals, which had diamanté straps and silver heels.

There's a burst of laughter from the gazebo, then the sound of clapping and the pop of a champagne cork. And then the guests walk back to the hotel while the bride and groom have their photos taken. I wipe my eyes, take out my phone and check Steve's location.

He's on the M50 again.

I lie on my sunbed and take a picture of my legs stretched out, the beach and the sea in the background, and immediately post it: #HolidayBliss #CaribbeanMagic #LuckiestGirlInTheWorld.

It's nearly an hour later and I'm four chapters through Charles Miller's bestselling book when the catamaran floats in to shore and I see Celeste jump down and walk along the beach. I put the book to one side and wave at her. When she reaches me, she flops down on the vacant lounger nearby.

‘Good day?' I ask.

‘Fun,' she replies. ‘How about you? Did you see the wedding?'

‘Hard to miss it.' I don't want to talk about someone else's wedding. ‘Tell me about the trip. Did you stop off anywhere interesting?'

She says that the most interesting part was the snorkelling, which she loved, and that the views of the shore from the catamaran were stunning. She hands me her phone and I flick through various shots of the green island rising from the aquamarine sea and the pristine beaches in secluded coves, as well as the people on the boat enjoying the sun, sea and cocktails. I pause at one of the photos. The cove it shows looks very like the one where I met Charles Miller earlier, although there's no sign of either of us in the photos. I tell her about it, and about having lunch with him at his reserved table.

‘Look at you.' Her eyes widen. ‘I leave you alone for a few hours and you're hobnobbing with the celebs.'

‘Hardly a celeb,' I say. ‘A bit up his own arse, to be honest.'

‘I should have recognised him but he looks different in real life.' She glances at the book on my lounger. I've left it open at the page I was reading. ‘He gave you a copy of his book?'

I explain about swapping it for my Janice Jermyn and she laughs.

‘I read Winter's Heartbreak when it first came out,' she says. ‘It was lovely. The second one wasn't bad either. I don't think I've read the others, though.'

‘He said they didn't sell as well,' I tell her. ‘All the same, he doesn't really have to worry if this one sold five million copies. Only thing is, I want to shake the male character. He's completely self-obsessed.'

‘Sounds realistic.' Celeste grins.

We gather up our things and head back to our room, where Celeste takes a shower and I sit on the balcony with a cup of mint tea. I'm tempted to check on Steve again, but I restrain myself. I'm aware my cyber-stalking is unhealthy. I'll stop after today. I will. But in the meantime, it fills the unfillable hole in my heart.

We're later than usual to dinner, and even as we're led to our table, I can't help glancing towards Charles Miller's usual spot. There's no sign of him. I wonder if he's too engrossed in The Mystery of the Missing Mallet to eat. I bet he's enjoying it, even though it's so completely unlike his own book. It's a great holiday read. I suppose the only problem for Charles is that he's not on holiday. Honestly, though, what kind of world does he live in where he can afford to come to a luxury resort to write? The last payment I made for the White Sands took me to within ten euros of my credit card limit.

‘Earth to Iseult.' Celeste clicks her fingers in front of my face. ‘You're miles away.'

‘Sorry. Just daydreaming.'

‘What about?'

‘Random things. Not Steve,' I add.

‘That's progress.'

‘I guess so.'

The reggae band is playing in the bar after dinner – maybe it's a double gig, the wedding earlier, the bar now – and quite a lot of people are dancing to the music, which, in fairness, makes me want to dance too. I don't, because I have all the natural elegance of a herd of drunken hippos on the dance floor. Celeste and I sit at a table on the outside terrace, where we can see the moonlit sea as the waves break gently on the shore. It's indescribably beautiful and I feel as though I'm on a movie set – perhaps one of those Agatha Christie mysteries where everyone is in evening dress and drinking cocktails and having a lovely time until someone is murdered.

‘Meeting Charles Miller has sent your imagination into overdrive.' Celeste looks at me in amusement when I say this. ‘However, I do like the sound of cocktails. I'm going to the bathroom, so I'll order on my way. What would you like?'

‘Strawberry daiquiri,' I say, and she nods.

Sitting alone at the round table, I feel even more like someone in a movie set, although this time the lone female in the slinky dress who's found face-down in the pool. I'm actually wearing a slinky dress tonight; it's one of the outfits I bought in a swirl of wedding preparations, and it's a gorgeous emerald green with silver sequins around the simple scoop neckline. It fits perfectly, thanks to my current slimline figure, and falls in a gentle swish of silk to just above my ankles. It was my night-after-the-wedding dress. The rest of my clothes are far more casual.

My hair is too short to style elegantly, but I've gelled it, and it shows off my lovely Pandora drop earrings, my ‘something new' wedding gift to myself. Funnily enough, though lots of things make me emotional about my cancelled wedding, wearing the earrings doesn't.

I sit and wait for Celeste to return, trying to look as though I'm thinking profound thoughts and not at all conscious of actually being on my own. Then I see Charles Miller walk through the dining room to the bar, where they already have a drink waiting for him, even though this is the first time I've seen him here since we arrived.

He takes the drink and walks past me. And not that I'm expecting him to join me for some more literary conversation or anything, but it's as though he's never seen me before. The words of greeting that had formed on my lips remain unsaid. I'm shocked by his rudeness.

Then, in one of those series of connected events that end in disaster, a couple who have been dancing slowly together to the reggae version of ‘Lady in Red' decide to do a dramatic spin. The woman's outstretched arm bangs into Charles's drink, it sloshes onto my table and I leap out of my chair like a startled gazelle to avoid getting gin and tonic or whatever he's ordered all over my beautiful dress.

‘I'm so sorry!' the woman apologises to Charles, absolutely ignoring me. ‘I should've looked where I was going.'

‘My fault,' says her partner. ‘We were trying a Strictly move and made a mess of it.'

‘It's fine.' Charles's tone can't quite disguise his irritation. ‘I'm fine.'

‘We'd better go,' the woman says with a giggle. ‘I've clearly had too much already.'

She and her partner disappear into the night, leaving me watching the drink pool on the table. Which is when Celeste comes back with two strawberry daiquiris.

‘What happened?' she asks.

‘Some idiot barged into me,' says Charles, at the same time as I say that he's spilled his drink on the table. He turns to look at me for the first time, and squints.

‘Oh,' he says. ‘Sorry. I didn't recognise you.' He takes his glasses out of the pocket of the jacket he's wearing and puts them on, just as a waiter appears and begins to mop up the drink from the table.

‘Lucky it didn't get you, Izzy,' says Celeste.

‘My cat-like reflexes,' I tell her.

‘May I get you another drink, Mr Miller?' asks the waiter. ‘A martini with an olive, yes?'

‘Yes, please,' says Charles.

‘Are you going to join us?' asks Celeste, when he stays standing beside the table.

‘He's just waiting for his drink.' I'm the one being rude now.

‘Do you mind if I sit here?' he says.

‘Not at all,' Celeste tells him.

She sits down, and Charles takes an empty chair from another table and sits beside me.

‘So,' says Celeste. ‘You're the famous author. Izzy's told me all about you.'

‘Have you read my books?'

I wonder if he asks that of everyone he meets.

‘A couple,' replies Celeste, and he looks pleased though also a little disappointed. I suppose he wanted her to say she was his number one fan.

‘Are you enjoying it?' He turns to me, and I tell him that he writes really well before asking him how it's going with The Mystery of the Missing Mallet.

‘It's . . . intriguing.'

‘Have you worked out who the murderer is yet?'

‘It's either the carpenter or the husband,' replies Charles.

‘Why?' I ask.

‘Because the victim has been having an affair with the carpenter,' he says.

‘That's a red herring. It's definitely not the husband.'

‘But the affair—'

‘The affair is irrelevant.'

‘Affairs are never irrelevant.' His words are heartfelt, and I wonder if that's what happened with the agent-slash-ex.

‘In this case, I'm betting it is.'

‘So you think . . . one of her colleagues?'

‘I haven't read far enough to be sure yet, but I'll write my guess down and you can check later.'

‘You're on,' he says, as the waiter reappears with a fresh martini.

‘Cheers, ladies,' Charles says.

We clink glasses.

Celeste looks at me over the rim of her cocktail glass and winks.

Charles starts talking about books again, but it's Celeste who replies this time, because the genre has switched from cosy crime – my specialist subject – to far more literary novels. Celeste holds her own in the conversation, most of which is going over my head because I haven't read any of them. I listen to them debate the merits of one of the books Celeste has brought with her, and I'm amused to hear Charles's rather acerbic take on the author, Cosmo Penhaligon.

‘He thinks he's better than he is,' he tells Celeste. ‘Believes all the good reviews, ignores the bad ones.'

‘Don't you think you're quite good yourself?' I join in again. ‘You do seem to expect everyone to know you're a prizewinning author.'

‘God knows why. Nobody really cares but me.' His sudden vulnerability is disarming.

‘I'm sure you'll write something great,' I tell him. ‘Especially if you follow my advice and turn to crime.'

‘I couldn't write anything like the woman you gave me,' he says.

‘Because it's too difficult?' I ask.

‘No.' He shakes his head. ‘Because . . . because it's not me.'

‘Why don't you write literary crime?' suggests Celeste. ‘After all, John Banville did and they're bestsellers.'

‘I haven't read his crime output,' says Charles.

‘It's not as fast and twisty as Janice Jermyn,' I tell him.

‘You've read them?'

‘A couple.'

‘But they're not as good as Janice?' Charles's face lights up.

‘Not for me,' I say. ‘But then I've never read any of his other books, so maybe I'm just a hopeless what-d'you-call-it, who hasn't a clue about art or culture.'

‘Philistine,' supplies Celeste.

‘Those Philistines get a bad press,' I say.

Charles smiles.

The band, which had briefly stopped playing, starts up again, and we have a short debate on reggae music and culture in which we all agree that the music is great, although Charles insists you can't compare it to Mozart or Wagner or even (and he grimaces as he says this) Strauss.

‘I like Strauss,' I say. ‘He was easier to play on the piano.'

‘You can play the piano?' He looks surprised.

‘Badly,' I admit. ‘I stopped after the Grade 4 exam.'

He looks impressed all the same.

‘So not a total philistine after all,' I add.

‘I never thought you were.'

But he did. He does. I can tell. And although Celeste is more knowledgeable than me about the literary world, he probably thinks she's a philistine too. He's definitely up his own arse. And yet he can suddenly look quite lost. Mostly, it has to be said, when we start talking about popular culture and streaming services, stuff that he appears to know very little about.

That's the thing about holidays, isn't it? You get to meet people you'd never normally meet. They distract you from your day-to-day life. And then, thankfully, you never see them again.