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‘Not everyone’s up yet,’ she whispered with a wink. ‘We were all at Pacha last night, which was a bit crazy. You should know most people here.’
‘Where’s Christina, still sleeping?’
‘Surprisingly not,’ said Diana. ‘A friend is in town with a yacht and they’ve sailed over to Formentera for the day. She said she wanted to shag a beach bum.’
Karin tried to examine faces that were obscured by wide-brimmed hats and newspapers. She could just make out Sabrina Love, a thirty-something society jeweller, adjusting her Pucci bikini alongside her German hedge-fund banker husband Frederick. A well-known model was passing what looked suspiciously like a spliff to a notorious music producer. Notting Hill socialite Melissa Craig and her property developer husband were here; apparently the baby had been left in London with a ‘smashing’ Australian nanny. It was a real mixed-bag, thought Karin, from hip Holland Park to monied Belgravia – the only thing they all seemed to have in common was their love of a good time, which Ibiza in August could always provide in spades.
As she looked around the pool, satisfied that her body in the skimpy Karenza bikini looked better than everyone else’s, Karin decided that she was glad to be back.
‘I don’t recognize her,’ said Karin, looking over the top of her sunglasses towards the other side of the pool, where a small, slim blonde lay, in a leopard-print bikini and matching headscarf worn warrior-princess style.
‘That’s Tracey,’ said Diana.
Karin sat up. ‘Martin’s ex-wife is here?’ she hissed.
‘And the kids,’ said Diana slowly. Karin gaped at her friend, appalled. ‘For goodness’ sake, honey, you’ve got to put your foot down!’ she whispered. ‘What sort of holiday is it going to be for you with her running around …’
Diana lowered her voice and looked embarrassed. ‘You know we’ve been arguing about having a baby?’
Karin nodded cautiously, knowing she was going to disapprove of what she was about to hear. ‘Well, Martin said I should make more of an effort with his kids and with Tracey. I figured if I can show him how good I am with children, maybe he’ll reconsider about us having children together.’
‘You actually believe that?’ said Karin tersely.
‘I have to hope,’ she replied, looking sad. ‘Anyway, they are my step-children. It’s probably a good thing if we all get to know one another a little better, don’t you think?’
Karin took a sip of apple juice and looked away from her friend, knowing there was nothing she could say to make Diana change her mind. When they had married, Martin had known he was lucky to catch Diana with her breeding and grace, but now the tables had completely turned. Karin did not like to see her friend in this frightened state of submission, desperate to please her husband but secretly knowing that it was ultimately futile.
Karin settled into her sun-bed and picked up her Sidney Sheldon novel, but the sun quickly became too hot for her to read without feeling exhausted.
‘Karin. I see you’ve arrived, looking lovely as ever. Missed a great night out yesterday.’
She looked up to see Martin sitting on the end of her sun-lounger, wrapped in a white waffle robe. His eyes were bleary and he was squinting in the sun.
He leant over to Diana on the adjacent bed and tapped her thigh. ‘I’m starving. Can you go and hurry the help up with lunch? They seem a bit slack.’ He pulled off the robe to reveal a garish pair of swimming trunks and stretched his arms to the sky. ‘Think I’ll take a quick dip while I’m waiting.’
As he jumped in the pool, two little girls, around six and eight, ran towards him, shrieking and firing huge fluorescent water pistols.
‘Look how far we can spray people,’ they screamed, squirting their guns over at Tracey, who shot up like a bullet.
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bsp; ‘Gerr’over here!’ she screamed, as the other guests were beginning to look up and tut.
‘I’m, um, I’m going to check everything’s okay with lunch,’ said Diana, pulling on her kaftan. ‘A couple of Italian chefs have come over from Ibiza Town. One used to work in the River Café, you know.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Karin. ‘It’s getting a bit boisterous around here.’
‘That’s Chloe and Emma, Martin’s girls. They are very lively.’
Karin and Diana walked down to a huge wooden gazebo at one end of the pool. Beneath the shade of the wooden slats lay a long table that could comfortably seat twenty. Two waiters in white uniforms were beginning to set it with white crockery and big glass dishes of food; bowls of pasta, mountains of mozzarella, tomato and avocado, large rustic-looking tarts. Diana began to direct the waiters, while Karin sat in the shade watching Emma and Chloe running around the pool causing havoc, shaking her head at how badly behaved they were.
‘Come in the pool, sweethearts,’ shouted Martin, ‘you can do that later.’
Encouraged by their father’s refusal to tell them off, and their mother’s failure to move from her sun-lounger, Chloe and Emma were now hysterical with power, running at full speed towards the gazebo, their guns aloft.
‘This is outrageous; you’ve got to stop them,’ said Karin. Diana stepped out in front of them and put up a hand like a traffic policeman. The two girls had no intention of stopping, however, as Emma splayed out her arms like an aeroplane, clearly aiming to fly kamikaze-like into the table while Chloe charged at Diana, holding her long water pistol like a lance.
‘Stop it!’ screamed Diana, trying to grab Emma. Seeing an opening, Chloe swerved sideways and swung her water pistol along the top of the table, sending plates, glasses and bowls of food smashing to the floor.
