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‘You’ll love this, Millie,’ said Carla, washing her hands and retrieving her camera to take a few snaps of the fish-shaped cake pop she had made for Greg that looked more like a melancholic manatee than a ferocious shark.
Imogen laughed, her eyes alight with happiness at being given the opportunity to talk about her fiancé. ‘We met on the London Eye, would you believe?’
‘Ask her to tell you the details,’ said Harriet, popping a huge chunk of white chocolate in her mouth and rolling her eyes in ecstasy.
‘Okay, ladies. I think we’re finished baking for the day. Why don’t you grab one of Denise’s cocktails and take your gossip out onto the veranda to enjoy the view,’ suggested Ella in her sing-song Caribbean accent, its cadence more pronounced after a long day spent on her feet. Despite Millie’s cajoling, Ella had refused to shelve her addiction to heels and had steadfastly continued throughout the day in a pair of scarlet heels that clashed winningly with her voluminous orange and yellow kaftan.
Ella shooed the four women out of the kitchen to give her the chance to make adjustments to the six huge chocolate cakes that were cooling on wire racks on the demonstration workbench. She and Denise had decided to double-up the recipe so they could choose the best one of each size to decorate.
With a sigh of relief, Millie selected a Paradise Daiquiri made from local rum, freshly squeezed lime juice and sugar syrup, and sunk into a deckchair overlooking the pool. It was five o’clock and she had been concentrating so hard on that day’s bakes that she hadn’t noticed the arrival of the daily deluge. The wooden boards on the veranda were dotted with puddles and the air held a distinct aroma of damp earth with a floral top note from the garland of roses that grew around the French doors. The parrots had resumed their cacophony of early evening chatter and Millie sent up a quick missive of gratitude to her personal director of fate that she was in such amazing place surrounded by a group of wonderful people.
‘So, how come you met on the London Eye?’
Imogen took a sip of her Pina Colada and ran the tip of her tongue along her lower lip before launching into her story. ‘Well, one of my customers loved the wedding jewellery she’d commissioned so much that she gave me tickets for an VIP experience in one of the pods. I have to confess, I’m not keen on heights, but I’m even less keen on enclosed spaces. I thanked her, of course, but I had no intention of going.’
‘But I persuaded her,’ said Carla, zooming in on a pot of pink and white geraniums on the steps leading to the swimming pool.
‘It was fate,’ added Harriet.
‘When we arrived at the wheel to check in, we were informed that our pod had been double-booked…’
‘Or Carla had got the time wrong…’
‘It turned out that Alex’s company had also reserved the pod to entertain a couple of clients, but the clients hadn’t showed up, so they suggested we joined them.’
‘Immie was going to refuse, but I leapt at the chance,’ said Carla, taking up the story. ‘One of the guys washot, hot, hot. I made a bet with Harriet that I could wangle a date with Mister Blue Eyes by the time the wheel had completed its rotation.’
‘It was before Greg came on the scene,’ Harriet explained to Millie.
‘Yes. Harriet is to blame for introducing me to Greg,’ said Carla, her eyes narrowed in fake irritation.
‘Carla!’
‘Anyway,’ interrupted Imogen, rolling her eyes at her friends. ‘We all piled into the pod. There were the three of us and Josie – one of my friends from Pilates – and Alex and four of his colleagues. It was a bit awkward at first and I was getting more and more uncomfortable as the pod travelled higher and higher. But we got chatting and it turned out Alex had studied architecture at uni so he took pity on me and started to point out all the landmarks on the London skyline – which was great until we reached the highest point and my knees just crumpled.’
Imogen’s face took on a dreamy expression as she recalled what had clearly been, for her, the most momentous day of her life.
‘Alex caught me and talked me through how safe we were. By the time I looked out of the window again we were on our way back down and I started to relax. He told me about the four years he’d spent in the army before joining his uncle’s architects’ practice in the City. You know how sometimes you feel as though you’ve known someone for years, when something just sort of clicks? Well, that’s what happened with Alex. Carla thinks it’s ridiculous, but I knew straightaway that I’d met my soulmate. When we got back to terra firma, Alex asked for my number. He called the next day to ask me to go to the Women’s quarter finals at Wimbledon with him. We’ve been together ever since.’
‘And I met Owen through Alex,’ said Harriet, sipping her Mango Mojito and staring out at the Pitons. ‘He was still undergoing rehab after he’d been medically discharged from the army. I’m a sports physio so I was interested in what kind of therapy the army physios had planned to help him get back to peak fitness.’
‘Did I hear you say Owen was a doctor?’ asked Ella when she and Denise joined them on the veranda with a huge glass jug of freshly squeezed lemon-and-lime juice crammed with crushed ice and a handful of fragrant mint leaves.
‘Yes, he was an army medic before he was injured when the vehicle he was travelling in was hit by a roadside bomb while he was stationed in Afghanistan. He almost lost his leg. Apparently, he now has more metal in his ankle than bone.’
‘Ergh,’ cringed Carla, turning her lips downwards in a grimace as she rubbed her palms along her forearms to erase the goosepimples. ‘I could never be a medic!’
‘He was one of the lucky ones, though,’ murmured Harriet, a shadow of sadness flitting across her expression. ‘Ever since the accident Owen’s hated driving any kind of vehicle. It’s just the way the trauma of what happened affects him. He’s got a great little scarlet-red MG, but he prefers to use public transport whenever he can. I usually do all the driving at home, but I’m terrified of driving abroad so Owen agreed to drive the hire car from the airport to the hotel. He hated it and he’s made me promise that we’ll get a taxi back when it’s time to leave.’
‘Don’t worry, Harri, you can come with me and Greg in the Jeep. However, I feel it’s my duty to warn you in advance – he drives like he lives – without fear or favour. I think he might have been Guy Martin’s cousin in a former life.’
‘How did you and Greg get together?’ asked Millie, finishing her cocktail and refilling her glass with the home-made lemonade, relishing the sharp citrussy taste as the liquid trickled across her tongue and down her throat.
‘Greg met Owen when he was stationed in Helmand Province. Harriet very kindly set us up on a blind date. I loved his zest for life, his willingness to try anything and give it his best shot. It’s as though he’s squeezing every last morsel out of the time he has to honour all those friends who didn’t make it home. It’s just that sometimes he can go a bit too far.’
‘Who can blame him?’ said Denise, her dark brown eyes filled with compassion.
‘Alex and Owen know what he’s like. It’s just that when I introduce him to my friends and their partners he’s so full-on he tends to terrify them,’ Carla laughed, but her expression had softened.
