Page 39 of Deep Blue Lies
April 4th
Wow, I’d forgotten how hard pre-season is. The new people are useless, but eventually we get the hotel looking OK, and then Jason said he’d take everyone out again, like last year. But then he cancelled it, on account of Mandy feeling “unwell”. So that was…kind of shit.
Imogen says her winter was boring too, and she’s way nervous about seeing Kostas. I asked her if she spoke to him over the winter, and she didn’t have his number, so she couldn’t. It’s like, come on girl.
April 19th
Big night out last night. We started off at the staff house, then went into town, and honestly I kind of blacked out a bit, because I must have drunk too much. It was alright, but something feels different this year? Maybe it’s just the mix of people isn’t quite right? I don’t know. It’s also Imogen. Even though she’s still really nice, she’s back with Kostas (that took all of one week) and she spends most of her time with him. And even when she’s not with him, she’s always saying she feels ill or tired. I think she just doesn’t want to go out. Not now she’s back with Kostas, the love of her bloody life.
May 20th
Mandy’s gone into hospital. It means Imogen’s doing all her work, and Mandy’s work too. Plus she’s moaning about not feeling wellagain – Imogen, I mean. I think it’s the kids’ club. It finishes at five, when the kids get served their meal. And we started this thing where we dared the kids to steal platefuls of pizza and chicken nuggets and bring it over to Imogen at reception. And now it’s like a thing, because all the guests overlap, all the new kids learn about it from the old kids. So Imogen keeps eating it. I keep telling her not too. Like, does she think Kostas is going to hang around if she really bloats out? I don’t think so.
At least I still look good in a bikini.
FORTY
I put the book down. My heart is thudding in my chest. I don’t know what to think. I just don’t know. I re-read the entry for May 20, 2001. The day I was born. Or apparently, the day I wasn’t born.
May 20, 2001. My mother reports how good she still looks in a bikini. Not that she’s given birth. Not that this is – unexpected perhaps – but the happiest day of her life.
What the fuck? What the actual fuck?
My eyes suddenly start running with tears. I wipe them away, slip my sunglasses on, and turn around to the wall, so that no one can see my face. I can hardly breathe. There’s no air.
But I have to keep reading. And things are about to go from weird, to fully surreal.
FORTY-ONE
May 24th
So I didn’t mention, but Mandy had her baby. Did I say she was preggers? Well she is/was, because now she’s had the kid. Honestly, I do not know how that woman is going to survive looking after a child. She is soooo useless. And it’s not like Jason’s going to help. First he now has to do all her work, because he’s too much of a control freak to let anyone else have any responsibility. Like, I could do soooo much more than run the pool bar. I already am really, but he won’t let me do it properly. It’s soooo annoying.
Talking of…guess who I saw in town doing a little transaction with our friendly local drug dealer? You guessed it. Our ever-hypocritical manager. I couldn’t see exactly what it was he was buying, but Simon said Jason’s been hitting the speed really hard this summer, and you can see it in his eyes. Simon said he got some really good coke though, from the same guy, he’s this Russian who’s been hanging around. Simon said we should go out on his boat sometime for a party. I think I will, if he asks me again.
May 27th
Fucked Simon in his yacht last night. I was talking to him in the bar, and we were both pretty wasted, and I just said to him straight, we’ve known each other ages and we ought to fuck. He looked a bit shocked, but then he grinned and said alright. So we went down to the harbour, because he’s still staying on the yacht. We did a bit of coke, but not much because he was nearly out. But he says he can get some more. It’s funny. It’s a very small boat, I kept banging my head on the roof while we did it.
FORTY-TWO
June 4th
Mandy is being a total nutcase – more than usual – now she has the baby. First of all she won’t let anyone touch it, or even look at it, except me and Imogen. It’s like she thinks the three of us are best friends just because we’ve known each other for two summers. Or maybe because Imogen works with her up in reception, and Imogen’s my best friend. Anyway, she lets us look at it, and hold it, even though neither of us even wants to.
But that’s not the thing. Mandy apparently decided her room was too dirty, and she told the cleaners to come in and give it a proper deep clean. I only heard this from Imogen, via Kostas, because obviously all the cleaners only speak Greek, but they came in, and it was really hard to clean, on account of all Mandy and Jason’s stuff being everywhere, and all the baby stuff too, but when they were doing it they lifted the mattress and they found a gun there! Kostas reckons it’s because of all the drugs Jason’s been buying from that Russian dude. It’s made him even more paranoid than usual. Or maybe he bought the gun from the Russian dude – I don’t know. Anyway, theydidn’t know what to do with it, so they just put it back, cleaned the room as best they could, then left.
June 12th
It should be my day off tomorrow, but Jason came past the bar as I was closing, and told me I couldn’t take tomorrow off, because he didn’t have anyone else to cover the bar. I was so mad. I told Jason it wasn’t fair, but he got super pissed and told me he hasn’t had a day off in over a month. But that’s not my fault. He shouldn’t have knocked up his girlfriend. Anyway. I was supposed to be going out with Simon, on the yacht, for a bit of you-know-what with our friend Charlie, but now that’s not going to happen.
June 23rd
Day off tomorrow, and it’s actually happening this time. God, I so need it! I don’t remember last year being so tiring. Anyway, me and Simon have been making this plan, the last few days. He managed to score again, and he switched his day off with Dan and he’s finally fixed the rigging on the Sigma 27 – so we’re going to sail over to the mainland, and have lunch there, and have a look in the shops, and we might even stay over in the marina overnight, before coming back early the next day. It’ll just be soooo nice to get away from this fucking place. I soooo need a break.
Or rather (I’m writing this later). It would have been nice. Here’s the problem: stupid Mandy just grabbed me at the bar and said she really needed my help, because she has to go to Athens tomorrow, for some sort of paperwork for the baby. I told her to take it with her, but she won’t because it’s four hours on the bus each way. So I told her to dump it in the crèche, but she went mental and said she didn’t trust them. She only trusts me. I asked why Imogen couldn’t lookafter it, but Mandy said she’d gone back to her room feeling ill. Which is fricking typical of Imogen too.
So I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Tomorrow is my first day off in fricking ages, and the last thing I want to do is spend it looking after Mandy’s fricking sprog.
