Читать книгу One Endless Summer: Heartwarming and uplifting the perfect holiday read - Laurie Ellingham, Laurie Ellingham - Страница 12

Samantha

A deep yawn spread through Samantha as she watched her blue backpack trundle along the conveyer belt towards her. The large chrome-framed clock on the wall read three-thirty. If it weren’t for the harsh brightness of the afternoon sun streaming through the glass ceiling above her, she could easily have believed that it was the early hours of the morning, which to her body at least, she supposed it was.

A few metres away Jaddi and Lizzie fell into a cascade of giggles. Their voices, high with excitement, carried through the baggage-claim area. Samantha turned her head to watch them, and just for a moment two strangers stood where her friends should be. It was an alien feeling, one that sent an unease winding through her. Why was she the only one that felt it – the foreboding? It wasn’t as if she’d expected Lizzie to lie down on her death bed and wait for the tumour to get her, but this – the documentary, the cameraman – it didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t just her loathing of cameras, but something else, just out of reach in her mind, a rotting that she could almost smell, almost taste, but couldn’t see. If only they’d been able to afford the trip without the help from Channel 6, Samantha thought, then it might have been different.

Samantha glanced at Lizzie. Her pale face, lit from the sun, shone with excitement. Samantha pushed the unease away. Lizzie deserved to see the world. If they had to have their every movement captured on film for three months to make that happen, then so be it. Lizzie and Jaddi were her family. They weren’t like her family, as Jaddi had said, however many hours ago it had been that they’d stood in the dressing room at Channel 6 together. They were Samantha’s family. The only family she had.

Did her mother even know she was travelling the world? Would someone on the estate have told her? Would she watch the documentary? Samantha doubted it.

‘Don’t expect your room to be free for holidays or visits or nothing,’ her mum had said to her on the day Samantha had wheeled her one large suitcase out of her bedroom and into the gloom of the living room. 9am in the morning, curtains drawn, the screeching voices from a talk show on the TV, the air stinking of body odour and stale cigarettes. ‘When you’re gone, you’re gone,’ her mum had said, glancing away from the screen long enough to appraise Samantha. ‘I got no money to help you. You’re on your own at university.’ Her mother had swished her head and used her mocking posh voice, but it hadn’t masked the North London lilt or the disdain she clearly had for her daughter’s desire to make something more of her life.

Samantha hadn’t expected money, she hadn’t expected her mum to be proud of her, or sad to see her leave, but the words she’d used had still cut deep. It was the last time they’d spoken. In the summers at uni she’d picked up the part-time jobs off campus that the other students had left to return home, or stayed with Jaddi and helped wash cars for Jaddi’s dad. And Christmases and Easters since she’d spent with Lizzie’s family on the Suffolk coast.

Lizzie and Jaddi were her family in every sense of the word. They told each other everything. Almost everything, Samantha corrected.

As her backpack moved into reach, Samantha scooped it up and hoisted it onto her back. The movement caused a pain to grip the top of her arms and images of David’s ‘game’ clouded her thoughts. Goosebumps raged across her skin, her breath caught in her throat. She closed her eyes and the smell of his aftershaves filled her senses. She screwed her eyes tight against the images rearing up, before shaking them away. What she needed now was a hot shower and food that hadn’t been processed, shrink-wrapped and shipped thirty thousand feet in the air.

‘All set?’ Jaddi called out to her.

‘Sure.’ Samantha said with a nod, falling into pace behind the others and fixing her gaze on her feet, avoiding Ben and his camera, taking long, backwards strides a metre in front of them.

‘This place is amazing,’ Jaddi said as they strolled along a glass atrium lined with dark-green trees in large white pots.

Lizzie laughed. ‘It’s just Bangkok airport.’

‘OK, fine, but how many airports have you been to that have things like that?’ Jaddi said, pointing across the terminal and forcing Samantha to lift her eyes from the floor and stare open-mouthed at a three-headed serpent, glistening with gold and jewels, looming over them. Its long body was coiled around a rock and being pulled in two directions by life-sized colourful men wearing pointy gold hats.

The detail of the men, their expressions, their straining muscles, the look of anguish in the eyes of the serpent, it was as exquisite as it was unexpected.

For one minute the unease cloaking Samantha lifted. She forgot about Ben and the camera, David and his game, Lizzie’s prognosis. Staring at the three heads of the creature, the gold spikes on its head shimmering in the sun’s rays, she could almost hear its harrowing screech.

‘Churning of the milk ocean,’ Samantha said, reading the English translation on the plaque below the serpent.

The three of them stared at the statue as if mesmerised by its presence. Maybe Jaddi was right, Samantha thought. If a statue in an airport could make her forget about Lizzie’s prognosis and the documentary for even a moment, then surely the sights outside the airport would do the same tenfold. Samantha turned to Jaddi and Lizzie, a smile stretching across her face. ‘Shall we go and discover Thailand then?’

‘I just need to …’ Lizzie shook her head as she spun around. ‘I’m going—’ She darted towards the toilet sign.

‘I’ll go too,’ Samantha said. ‘I could really do with brushing my teeth.’

‘Good idea.’ Jaddi fell into step beside her as Lizzie rushed ahead.

‘What is it about women and toilets?’ Ben said. ‘I’ll just wait here by myself then, shall I?’

‘Yep.’ Jaddi laughed without turning around.

‘Doesn’t the camera bother you?’ Samantha asked. She risked a glance behind her, relieved to see Ben lowering the camera to his waist and switching it off.

‘Not really.’ Jaddi shrugged.

‘But all those people who’ll be watching us. It’s a touch voyeuristic, don’t you think? People turning on their TVs to watch our every move.’

‘It is a bit weird, but you’re overthinking it. Forget about the camera, that’s what I’m planning to do. At best, Ben will be like an annoying older brother tagging along,’ Jaddi said, throwing a glance over her shoulder and smiling at Ben. ‘I know it’s not perfect, but don’t think about how much better it would be without the camera. It’s because of the camera that we’re here. I promise you, in a few days it won’t even factor in to your thoughts.’

‘I’ll try, I guess,’ she said, the doubt palpable in her voice.

‘Hey,’ Jaddi said, nudging her elbow against Samantha’s side. ‘Do you think Lizzie’s got Bangkok belly already?’

Samantha laughed as she pushed open the toilet door and stepped into the white, tiled restroom. ‘I don’t see how, we’ve only—’ Samantha stopped talking, her eyes registering Lizzie’s body, slumped on the floor by a row of sinks. ‘Lizzie!’ Samantha gasped, diving towards her. ‘Are you OK?’

Lizzie’s eyes fixed on Samantha’s. She moved her mouth, causing a gurgling noise to escape from her throat.

Terror exploded inside of Samantha, making every movement feel fumbled and out of sync as she wriggled free of her backpack and skidded onto her knees beside Lizzie.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Jaddi’s voice, loud with fear, ricocheted off the walls.

‘Lizzie, can you hear me? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ Samantha turned to look over her shoulder at Jaddi. ‘Get help!’ she half-shrieked at her as hysteria started to tighten around her vocal chords.

Before Jaddi could move, a tremor took hold of Lizzie’s body. Lizzie slumped forward onto the tiles as convulsions shuddered through her.

‘Oh God,’ Jaddi said. ‘Oh God, Oh God.’

‘Jaddi, snap out of it and get some help!’ Samantha shouted again.

Jaddi pulled her eyes away from Lizzie’s shaking body and stared at Samantha before jumping to her feet and dashing for the door.

Samantha watched her go, wanting to scream after her, I told you this would happen. I told you. This is your fault. Instead, she clenched her teeth together and turned back to Lizzie’s still-convulsing body.