Lost in Ibiza by Rebecca Frayn

Author:Rebecca Frayn [Frayn, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: whitefox Publishing Ltd
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

3

William was showering, when he caught the thin top note of his mobile ringtone over the thunder of water. Having slept fitfully, he had woken at dawn with a leaden apprehension, which only escalated after he hurried to Alice’s room and found her bed still neatly made, ready to receive an occupant who had never returned. No sooner had he registered the ringtone than he was scrabbling for a towel and hurrying across the bedroom in a cascade of soapy water, only to discover that he had a missed call from Alice. He rang her back at once, his heart leaping in relief when she picked up on the second ring.

‘Alice! Alice – are you . . . ? Is everything . . . ?’

But the quality of the line was so poor and Alice was talking across him with such rapidity, it took a while to make sense of what she was saying. He caught something about getting lost. Then something about having had to spend the night in an empty villa. Yet her tone was elated. Not the voice of someone in trouble but of someone on a great adventure. No, she hadn’t the foggiest idea where she was, she said in answer to the question he had attempted to pose several times before she finally heard it. Her words came with abrupt auditory clarity now he had gone out onto the balcony in search of better reception.

‘But there’s absolutely no need to worry. Now I’ve got this far, I’ve decided to just keep on going.’

‘Keep on going?’ he repeated, the soapsuds stinging his eyes like pepper. The words were shorn of meaning. ‘Going where? For God’s sake, Alice. You’ve only just got here!’

‘It’s all a bit mad, I know. But I’m going to head home. Leave you guys in peace.’

‘Woah. Alice. Send me a pin and I’ll come and find you. Let’s talk this through, face to face, in a civilised fashion.’

What on earth had he been thinking? Why had he not cleared his diary when she first appeared so miraculously like that? All that prevarication and doubt about what he could and should be telling her and now, without warning, she had seized the initiative and fled.

‘I’ll be there,’ he cried, when the pin arrived and he saw it was hovering in the middle of a densely wooded area some distance away to the north-east. He couldn’t for the life of him imagine how she had landed up there. ‘I’m coming now. Stay right where you are.’

As he talked, he was struggling to pull on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with his spare hand without taking the phone from his ear, as if she would remain attached by a virtual umbilical cord as long as he could keep this audio connection open between them. But she had already cut the line. He snatched up his watch, a wad of cash and his car keys from the side table; the barest essentials, he hoped in his blind panic, of a man on a rescue mission.

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