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A division of HarperCollins Publishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperImpulse
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Copyright © Janice Horton 2018
Cover images© Shutterstock.com
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Janice Horton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008302696
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008302689
Version: 2020-01-23
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: Bangkok
Chapter 2: Chiang Mai
Chapter 3: Return to Bangkok
Chapter 4: Railay
Chapter 5: Koh Lanta
Chapter 6: Koh Lanta (II)
Chapter 7: Koh Ngai
Chapter 8: Koh Phi Tao
Chapter 9: Koh Phi Tao (II)
Chapter 10: Koh Phi Tao (III)
Chapter 11: Koh Phi Tao (IV)
Chapter 12: Koh Lipe
Chapter 13: Langkawi, Malaysia
Chapter 14: Kuala Lumpur
Chapter 15: Kuala Lumpur (II)
Chapter 16: Kota Kinabalu
Chapter 17: Sandakan Borneo
Chapter 18: Reef Island
Chapter 19: Reef Island (II)
Chapter 20: Destination Unknown
A Q&A with the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About HarperImpulse
About the Publisher
To my own real-life hero: Trav
I’ve arrived in Bangkok feeling jettisoned and adrift, exhausted, jetlagged, and asking myself – what the hell am I doing here all on my own? In the long line for customs, I stand with everyone else who was on my flight from London. My eyes are fixed on those around me who look so happy and purposeful, so clearly excited to be in the most popular city in the world, while I’m sweltering in my jeans and long-sleeved, far-too-heavy cotton shirt. I’ve never suffered from a fear of crowds before, but now I do, and I can hardly breathe.
When it’s my turn, my passport is scanned, my fingerprints are taken, and I’m given a passing glance together with a thirty-day entry stamp into Thailand. I follow the masses pouring through luggage collection and into the arrivals hall, where behind a barrier, taxi touts push and shove and yell and uniformed chauffeurs wave and shout and people are holding up cards with stranger’s names on them. I’m overwhelmed.
Once outside the terminal, it feels like I’ve walked into a wall of incredible heat and oppressive humidity and an onslaught of noise and voices at fever pitch. Tuk-tuk and taxi drivers beep their horns and jostle aggressively for position at the kerbside. The racket is deafening and the fumes are nauseating. Chatter fills my head – thousands of voices in so many different languages. Odours in the air assault my nose – the unwashed and the over-perfumed smells are so strong that I can taste them on my tongue. Everyone seems so preoccupied with pushing suitcases and gathering children and moving on quickly to wherever they are going that they knock into me without apology or care, as if I’m invisible.
I look around at beggars in rags on pavements with their arms outstretched to well-dressed tourists. I see beautiful and very young Thai girls with long black silky hair and tight dresses, laughing and hanging onto the arms of far older, overweight Western men.
Why couldn’t I have run away to somewhere quieter, less smelly, much less scary?
‘Lady! Lady! Taxi! Taxi!’
I allow myself to be led to a taxi by an enthusiastic and smiling Thai man and I give him the address of a hotel. I have no idea where it is, or how far, but I’m suddenly too tearful and weary to care. As it is, the smiling taxi driver is a gentleman. He whisks me through the hustle and bustle of the city with the speed and dexterity of a knight in shining armour and delivers me to the safety of my hotel. I drag myself across the sticky vinyl car seat into the hot and humid space that now exists between me and the revolving polished glass doors of the hotel’s lobby.
A uniformed doorman immediately rushes to my assistance. I see him hesitate, looking for luggage before realising there is none, then with a smile he ushers me inside. I look round at the opulence – the polished marble, the shiny surfaces, the huge crystal chandeliers, the sparkly water features – which under any other circumstances would have thrilled and impressed me but right now just add to the surreality of my situation.
I walk over to reception feeling completely out of sorts. A very tall, slim, pretty receptionist wearing a body-hugging, green silk dress smiles at me.
I try to smile back, but my lips have so long been set to stoic they don’t want to obey me.
‘Sawatdee ka,’ she says, bowing her head graciously.
I repeat the salutation, noting from her name badge that she is called Lola.
‘Welcome to Bangkok, madam. Are you checking in?’
I can’t help but admire Lola’s curiously strong angular features and her beautiful waist-length long black hair. She is tall and broad-shouldered.
I feel my face softening. ‘Yes please. My name is Lorraine Anderson.’
‘Ah, yes. I see you have booked one of our Executive Suites, Miss Anderson.’
I would normally have insisted on being addressed as Mrs Anderson, but I didn’t bother this time.
I just nod, feeling embarrassed at how red-faced and dishevelled I must look, a fact confirmed to me when I catch sight of myself in a mirrored column.
But why should I even care when nobody knows me here?
And sod the expense of the Executive Suite. It might have been the only room available to me at the time I booked, but right now it’s exactly what I need. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a damn sight easier for me to cry myself to sleep in a luxury hotel suite than in a crowded backpacker hostel.
‘Just the one night, madam?’
‘Yes.’ I hand over my credit card and then have a bit of a panic.
I mean, what the hell happens tomorrow?
While fighting tears at check-in at Gatwick, all I’d managed to think about was the here and now. But what happens next? Where I will go? What I will do?
I have absolutely no idea. My life has been turned upside down and I’m in freefall.
It’s as if Lola can read my mind. ‘I can offer you a complimentary late checkout?’
‘Yes, please,’ I stammer gratefully.
And Lola’s lovely long nails tap tap tap on her computer keyboard.
I start shaking and my teeth begin chattering in the chill of the air-conditioned lobby.
She passes me a key card. ‘Enjoy your stay Miss Anderson. Your room is on the fifteenth floor. Suite 1507. Do you need any help with your bags?’
The suite is as decadent as I’d hoped. It has a womb-like ambiance and sumptuous carpets and soft lighting across several interconnecting rooms, all with luxurious furniture and fittings. The bathroom is a dream in marble and glass, with soft white fluffy towels, and there is a vast selection of very nice toiletries. I score a bottle of wine from the not-so-mini mini-bar and take it and a goblet-sized wine glass into the bathroom with me while I take a long soak in a deep bubble bath. In the warm water I lie back and close my eyes, feeling safe at last.
A while later, feeling cleaner and calmer and cosseted in a white fluffy robe, I stand at the bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the bright twinkling lights of the busy city below me. I take a long gulp of my wine and then a long and steady deep breath.
On slowly breathing out, I let the feeling of surrealism and distance soothe me.
I tell myself that everything is going to be okay. Here I am, in a city of my dreams, in a country that has always been number one on our travel hitlist. My aching shoulders stiffen when I realise I’ve used the word ‘our’ in my thoughts again. Have I been married for so long that it is impossible to think of myself as one single individual person anymore?
Charles and I had always said we’d explore South East Asia together in our retirement, which we intended to take early, while we were still young and healthy and able-bodied.
It was a retirement for which we had saved meticulously and planned relentlessly.
Suddenly, I find it amusing that I’m in Bangkok with no prior planning whatsoever.
I slug back what’s left in my glass and start to laugh. Hysterically.
Then I crawl into bed, pull the sheet over my head, and cry long shuddering sobs.
How could he do it? How long had it been going on?
What a fool I’d been, thinking we were happily married.
Thinking people actually admired our long successful marriage.
When in fact, it had all been a lie. A joke. A joke on me.
Not only had I been betrayed, I’d been totally humiliated.
I’m suddenly convinced that everyone except stupid, gullible and trusting me had known that my marriage was a sham – that my husband was an adulterous cheat and my best friend was a lying whore. I hadn’t had a freaking clue.
My mind is in a loop replaying the events of yesterday over and over again, in slow motion.
Was it only yesterday?
In hindsight, I realise now that her silver BMW had been parked outside my house.
For heaven’s sake – that was a freaking big clue!
I felt so angry, so betrayed. I’d wanted to kill them both violently. But rather than a knife, for some reason I’d grabbed my passport from the kitchen drawer and saved myself all the hacking and bloodshed by calling an Uber to take me straight to the airport.
And at the airport, a strangely calm and rational part of me had stepped up to take control, logged into our savings account via the banking app on my phone and transferred half the money into my account. Then I’d bought a ticket to the furthest away destination listed on the flight departures board. Normally, in planning for such a trip, I’d have certainly travelled economy and I’d have packed meticulously, choosing at leisure which lightweight stylish outfits to pack in my shiny hard-shell suitcase, that came with TSA approved locks and a lifetime guarantee.
But the little voice of calm and rational thought in my head told me I had no choice but to pay for a business class seat because economy was already full, and that buying a rucksack, a couple of sundresses and a sarong in the duty-free while waiting for my gate to be announced would easily suffice on this occasion.
It’s November and, just like me, London was cold and dark and miserable. Yet at the other side of the airport, in the departures terminal building at Gatwick, it was like being in a parallel universe of blindingly hot tropical colours and ultra-light fabrics and high-factor sunscreen and designer sunglasses. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the champagne and oyster bar was pulling in the revellers. Wine and cocktails and beers were being knocked back in the faux oldie English pub and people were partying in the premium lounges like they were already at their destinations. I felt like a gate-crasher to the party.
I bought a few items of clothing and a squishy travel pillow and a small carry-on size backpack, as I’d come through check-in and security with nothing other than my phone and my handbag.
Then, seeing my gate had already been announced and my plane was boarding, I ran for what must have been half a mile to the gate in such a panic that I hadn’t time for reticent thoughts or last-minute misgivings.
On boarding the plane, I’d planned to have just one glass of wine and then, in my extra-large, extra-comfortable, extra-reclining, extra-expensive seat, to sleep for the whole journey. Then I wouldn’t have to think about what I was doing, where I was going, and what on earth I would do when I got there. But instead, I drank my welcome glass of champagne with gusto and then continued drinking wine while watching back-to-back movies for twelve hours instead, until it felt like my eyes were falling out my head and we were descending into Bangkok.
Early this morning, I was woken by the light of a brand-new day scorching through a gap in the floor-to-ceiling curtains and across the king-sized bed towards me like a hot laser beam.
I was covered in sweat from a nightmare. It was every married woman’s worst nightmare.
In it, I was standing in my bedroom doorway at home with my mouth open but mute and with open eyes that couldn’t blink, watching my husband thrusting himself ecstatically into the naked, voluptuous and pendulous flesh of someone I’d previously called my best friend.
It was horrifying. It was disgusting. It was sickening.
On waking, realising where I was and that it had been real and not just a nightmare, I leapt from the bed to rush to the bathroom to throw up. But I could only dry-retch, as I’d eaten nothing since I could remember. Reeling back into the bedroom, I checked my mobile phone and saw that I had lots of ‘call me back’ messages from my two worried sons.
I also saw my phone was almost out of charge, but I didn’t have a two-pin charger.
Instead of calling my sons back, I texted instead.
I’m fine. I’m at the Holiday Inn in Bangkok. Don’t worry.
I’d already spoken to my mum and my sons from Gatwick. I’d been in a bit of a state.
Well, that’s an understatement, I’d been in a hell of a state.
My mum had been just as distraught and as angry as I was when I told her what Charles had done to me. Josh and Lucas aren’t children anymore, they’re grown men in their twenties – so although they, too, were upset, they’d also understood my reasons for leaving their father.
‘Mum, stay right where you are. I’m coming to get you!’ Josh, my eldest, had insisted.
‘No. darling, please, I need to get away. I’ll call you when I get there.’
‘Where is there? Where are you going, Mum?’
‘As far away from your father and his whore as I can possibly get!’ I’d yelled into my phone.
Now, feeling faint with hunger, I brush my teeth and shower, before slipping into one of the lightweight dresses I’d bought at Gatwick and deciding I’ll be brave and go down for breakfast.
I seem to be operating on autopilot. Not so much thinking but functioning. My head hurts from crying, jetlag and dehydration. Downstairs, I manage to buy painkillers, a two-pin plug adapter in the hotel shop, and order coffee and a chocolate chip muffin at the lobby café. It’s 1 p.m. local time and so breakfast has apparently been over for quite some time.
The café is busy. I sit at a table next to a couple of middle-aged American ladies who are chatting to each other enthusiastically over a tourist map and planning their afternoon sightseeing. ‘I say we go to the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha,’ says the blonde one.
‘Or, we could head over to the temple on the river and save the palace and the Buddha for tomorrow?’ suggests the redheaded one.
I listen. These are all places I’ve dreamed of seeing myself for as long as I can remember.
But now, in such stressful, horrible and lonely circumstances, I doubt I’ve the confidence or the courage to go out amongst the heaving crowds of strangers to explore alone.
Which makes me question what I’m doing here, if I’m too scared to even leave the hotel?
I could have stayed in London and done the same thing, after all.
The two women suddenly stop talking to each other and look directly at me.
I’m tearing my muffin apart into bite sized pieces.
‘Which would you recommend, honey? Have you done the palace yet?’ asked the blonde.
I falter at being spoken to so unexpectedly. I guess I’m still feeling invisible.
‘Oh, erm, I’m sure you must go and see them all.’
‘Oh, you’re English,’ they both say in unison, sounding delighted. ‘I love your accent!’
I nod. ‘Yes. But I just arrived here last night, so I’m not really the best person to ask.’
‘There is so much to see. If you’re wondering what to do first, then our advice would be to go to the floating market. It’s wonderful. We went last night, didn’t we, Marcie?’
Redheaded Marcie nods eagerly. ‘Oh, yes, you must. There’s wooden boats on the river all piled up with things for sale and local food being cooked right from the boat. It’s amazing!’
I smile and nod my head again as if I’m agreeing, but I don’t want to go to a floating market. I don’t want to go to the palace. I just want to go back up to my room and close the curtains and cry. But I only have another couple of hours or so to decide to either book another night at this hotel or to move on. But to where? I really don’t know yet. I don’t know what to do. What an odd feeling it is to be so disconnected from normal life.
Here I am; a stranger in a strange land full of strangers.
Yet this feeling of total anonymity has ignited something within me too.
It’s a weird feeling. What is it? Excitement? Freedom?
I realise I could start my life anew. I could be someone else entirely, if I wanted.
Because no one knows me here. No one knows anything about me.
Marcie and Joanie continue chattering. They tell me how they’ve been friends for years but they both now live in different countries. Marcie lives in Australia on the Gold Coast. Joanie lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both their husbands, they tell me, are in banking.
‘Boring men who’d rather stay at home than travel!’ they chorus gleefully.
‘Sounds like my husband,’ I agree, wondering why I’d even mentioned him.
‘So, we meet up in a different place every year and tick something else off our bucket list,’ Joanie tells me. ‘Last year, we met up in Hong Kong.’
Marcie roars with laughter. ‘Oh, yeah, we had a ball in Hong Kong!’
When we part, the ladies go off laughing and chatting and I go back up to my room.
I sit on my bed and plug my phone into its charger, thinking about my own bucket list.
I do have one. I’ve had one for a long time. Only, until now, it’s been more of a wish list.
My phone suddenly comes back to life and I see I have two new messages.
One is from Sally, the traitorous whore, and one is from my lying husband.
I can hardly believe their nerve in texting me.
Especially as it’s so obviously coordinated.
I open Sally’s first. In it, she says she’s sorry for the way I’d found out about her and Charles, but apparently, she’s not sorry about their affair (which she calls a ‘relationship’) that has been going on for over a year. I want you to know Charles and I are in love and that he was planning to leave you. I feel like her hand has just come right through the phone and slapped my face.
My anger flares up again. Tears of betrayal fill my eyes and pour down my cheeks.
How can this be true? For over a year? How could I not have known about this?
Have there been any tell-tale clues, that I’ve missed?
Receipts for things I hadn’t known about? Meals, hotels, gifts?
Has Charles’ behaviour over the past year been an indication?
He’d been a little distant. Uncaring on occasions. Indifferent, certainly.
Should I have been going through his pockets and secretly checking his phone records?
We hadn’t been having sex. Was that a factor?
I’d just assumed we were typical of all couples who’d been married a long time.
Charles works long hours for seven days a week, running our business. He often complained of being tired. I understood when he fell asleep in front of the TV at the end of the day. But what kind of wife doesn’t have a clue that her husband is fucking another woman?
A busy one? A preoccupied one? A trusting one?
An incredibly stupid one?
I open Charles’s message next. It’s written in short, sharp sentences, exactly the way he speaks in real life. Lorraine, I’m divorcing you. We haven’t been happy in a long time. Let’s keep things amicable. Best of luck. Charles.
Divorce! Amicable? Luck?!
His reason for having an affair is that we haven’t been happy in a long time?
On the contrary, it sounds to me like Charles has been very happy indeed.
Going balls deep in Sally behind my back while planning to leave me!
But he’s right about one thing. I haven’t been happy. I’m not happy.
I’ve been bloody miserable for as long as I can remember!
It seems clear to me now that I’ve spent my whole life waiting to be happy on his terms.
Charles is eight years older than me. I was only twenty-two when we met and started dating. We both worked at a travel agency office in town back then. He was the branch manager and I was on the sales desk. It was my dream job and he was my dream boyfriend. He seemed so worldly. Charles and I fell in love over our passionate plans to explore the world together.
During our working day, our job was to plan detailed travel itineraries for our adventurous clients. But in the evenings, sitting in our local pub over two half pints of beer, we would talk endlessly about all the faraway countries that we wanted to visit one day, the interesting places we wanted to see and the incredible experiences we wanted to have when we got there.
We’d plan routes across India, taking in the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. We’d look at flights to exotic destinations like South East Asia, Japan, Korea and China. We’d investigate travelling by train all the way from Beijing to Hong Kong. We’d even fully researched and planned a three-thousand-mile road trip all the way from the Canadian Rockies to the Mexican Border. Charles used to say to me: ‘Don’t call it a dream, call it a plan.’