Lime Juice Money

PART ONE - SALTWATER

LAELIA

Waves

Caye Caulker, Belize

4th January 2023

I lied to him that day, for the first time, and it sparkled off my tongue as sweet as popping candy. He didn’t even know; didn’t catch it. And I hadn’t planned to, not really. It just fell out of my mouth, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was shame. Was it shame? Or something stronger? A pre-emptive move, because women have that kind of sixth sense, don’t they? Jacobson’s organ. I read about that once, in one of Dad’s New Scientist magazines. How females are predisposed to listen to their gut; how we can sense fear like we’re about to be fed it.

***

A heavy grit-grey appeared as if from nowhere on the horizon. Near the jetty Ella and Dylan were running in and out of the waves, embroidering footprints in the sand. The low, ebbing offbeats of reggae backdropped my tinnitus – a little, though I could still feel its pulsations. They were never not there. The audiologist had told me to ignore them, the crazed sounds in my head, but it’s impossible to hear nothing when you’re listening for silence.

Soundless breaths teased the fronds above us, their shadows dancing grey upon the sand – grittier than I remembered it – smaller too; the beach a gentle hem dotted with picnic benches, clam chairs, and slack hammocks. The kids were splashing at each other now, threading in and out of the sea, up and down the shore. The breeze kissing salty-sweet with their giggles, they seemed to just slide into this place, leave the sludge of London behind. 5,200 miles of relaxed.

A pelican crawked, eyeing up the fish below as it padded along the jetty.

Aid had been distracted since we’d got here, tense. I’d asked him over breakfast if he was nervous about meeting Dad but he insisted that he wasn’t. Got annoyed with me for asking. He barely ate any of his pancakes though. Left most of his coffee.

Lying next to me on the sand, he rested back on his elbows, his foot tapping a rhythm to the music in his ears I couldn’t hear. I knew he was going to freak out about the money. It would be best to tell him about Marianne later, over a drink or a joint, when we were all a bit more relaxed.

Aid pulled his Airpods out of his ears. ‘When are we meeting him?’ His New England accent felt stronger than usual.

‘We need to check with Chloe,’ I said. ‘She’s got it all figured out.’

‘Of course she has.’ He grinned as he started rolling a cigarette. ‘Chloe’s always got everything all figured out.’

I grabbed the suncream, started rubbing it into my arms. ‘To be fair, she has organised the whole thing.’

‘Yeah, she has. I just reckon your dad might want to meet me first, before being surprised by all and sundry.’

‘She wants to do it like that… Thinks it will be more fun.’ I threw the suncream bottle back down. ‘Are you sure you’re not nervous?’ I smiled.

‘Stop asking me that. I told you I’m not… I don’t know why you don’t stand up to your sister more.’

‘It’s easier this way,’ I said.

‘Maybe. Just let’s not stay on too long. Once we’re done with the party, let’s get back to the mainland. Hit the south. The beaches are better there.’

Aid hadn’t wanted to come to Caye Caulker again; asked why we couldn’t just have visited Dad down at his. But Chloe had her plan and I wasn’t going to try to mess with it. Besides, I liked the idea of being back here on the islands. He just wasn’t nostalgic like that.

‘D’you want a coffee?’ I asked, changing the subject. I found my wallet under the towel. I felt like a walk to shake off my jet-lagged head.

‘Sure.’

‘Anything else?’

He grabbed me by the back of the neck, pulling me closer. ‘Just a kiss.’

Under the shade of the passing clouds, we breathed each other in. He smelt of coconut and wood, a moreish musk I had to prise myself away from.

As I made my way up over the narrow strip of sand, mounds crumbling under my toes, a young couple and their toddler beat me to the kiosk. She was beautiful, the woman. She looked Scandinavian but they started speaking to each other in something else – German maybe, or Dutch. Arguing with the girl about what she wanted to order, they were gesticulating back and forth between her and the faded ice-cream board.

The sun so bright through the clouds, I had to squint to make out the scrawled chalk on the side of the hut: Coffee, Beer, Smoothies.

The girl started to whine, stomping her flip-flopped little foot. ‘Roomijs, roomijs,’ she sing-songed. I looked back towards Aid who was lying flat then, deadening his cigarette butt into the sand. Scanning towards the sea I could see the kids were splashing each other, kicking the water, not too deep.

‘Nee!’ The blonde woman in front of me shouted, side-eyeing her husband, bending down towards the girl who was stamping her other foot.

A woman in a red bikini got up from a nearby table, her chair pushed back. She took a final draining sup of coffee and tossed down her newspaper, a real paper, the pages rustling in the gathering breeze. The title caught my eye, Amandala, and then the headline, Shooting on Logwood Street. Two dead. Police hunt for Zabaneh.

Aid was on his phone again, pacing the beach near our towels. Even from the kiosk I could make out his aggressively honed biceps. I hadn’t noticed up close, but he’d been working out more. I lost sight of it sometimes but there was no doubt about it – people noticed him. And he liked to be noticed.

Ella was in deeper now, closer to the jetty. A speedboat was coming in from the distance. She looked so much taller than last time I’d seen her in a swimsuit, her limbs impossibly long. The boat whipped its way close around the tip of the dock, waves gathering and spilling from nowhere. The water picked up, cascading over the sand. Ella was up to her chest now, rising and falling up and down, defensive against the newly violent sea.

‘Roooooooom-ijs,’ the little girl screamed in front of me.

Where was Dylan? I couldn’t see him. I scanned the shoreline, thick grey clouds bruising the sky behind. A chill riptided through me, and everything in my body froze, adrift. I swept my eyes back and forth, colours blurring. I could still make out Ella, disappearing in and out of the waves. But no Dylan.

I started walking fast, gathering pace, running, back towards the sea, ‘roomijs, roomijs’ still echoing behind me. The sand felt so heavy, clumpy, beneath my feet. I couldn’t run any faster. I saw Ella clearly then. She was there, struggling, jumping up and down in-between the boat’s waves. Still no Dylan.

‘Aid!’ I screamed, throwing my purse like a missile down towards him. He was still on his phone, sat back on his towel now, gazing up at me bemused. Hurtling towards the sea, the sand kicked up behind me, thrashing back against my calves.

‘Ella,’ I shouted down towards the sea. ‘Where’s Dy-lan?’ But she couldn’t hear me. I untied my sarong and let it fall away, still running, and threw myself into the water, urgently scanning. Everything was blurring. It felt like I was the only one who knew. Ella, hair stuck to her face, looked back at me blankly, and then around. She didn’t know, she didn’t know he was under.

I screamed for Dylan whilst paddling and fighting the waves – each seeming more powerful than the one before. The boat pulled away from the dock, its engine growling like an unseen monster. New waves slapped against me in its wake. My ears pounded, the tinnitus screeching and pulsing, so alive. Grappling with Ella, I managed to grab her arm and push her back towards the shore. I saw Aid then, finally up, ambling towards the sea. He still didn’t know; he wasn’t even running. I paddled back around. The wave above me was gathering height, swelling, starting to break.

And then I saw him: Dylan, swilling in the water next to the jetty. Bobbing. Limp.

I dived down under the wave, submerging myself, feeling the weight of water crashing over me. Pushing through, up to the surface I found him again, being pulled and dragged around like seaweed. I tugged at him, flipping him over, cupping his chin like I was sure you were supposed to, but the waves were so strong, sucking us up and down, just flotsam. We were being pummelled back towards the shore, as I struggled to hold him and swim, floundering, half-kicking my legs, standing when I could. I managed to scoop him up into my arms, cradling him, holding him like I did all those nights. He was spluttering; pale but breathing.

Another push and I was into the shallows, wading. Back into the calm.

Aid was there then, standing over us, blocking out the sun. A blur of tattoos. A look of dread I’d never seen before overtook his face.

‘What happened?’ He asked.

I dropped to the sand, still holding Dyl. He spluttered up saltwater, searching for breaths. Quick gasps. The distant reggae gently thumped, the same song. The same song. People were streaming towards us like bright confetti from bars and restaurants out onto the beach. I couldn’t answer. All I could do was hold Dylan tighter, and collapse into tears; the surge of jet lag, and confusion, and panic sickening me. Seeing Dyl breathing I realised I could hardly breathe myself, my lungs convulsing, drowning in this sea of strangers, this odd commotion. Unknown hands stroking at my back, I flinched. Someone said, ‘He shouldn’t have been so close to the shore like that, not that fast’. My hearing alternated in and out, ringing waves of tinnitus flooding over everything. A cloud of sound. I had left my hearing aids in, drowned them underwater. I pulled them from my ears, wondering if they were still working. I couldn’t tell. There were too many people. Too much noise. Too much. Too much.

Too much.

I stumbled away from them, our little scene, back up the beach towards the towels. My ears screamed. The Dutch couple walked by in front of me, arm in arm, glancing down towards the sea. A few steps behind them the little blonde girl followed, carrying a strawberry ice-cream.

Crashing

I was prepared for Chloe. After breakfast, Aid had bumped into Tom by the cash machine – the only cash machine on the island – and told him about Dyl. So I knew that she knew. That didn’t stop her probing like a smear test though.

‘Lil, what on earth happened?’ No hello. She hugged me in tight to her poncho’ed breasts as we gathered by the side of their pool, and then she released me just as histrionically.

What if I hadn’t looked over from the kiosk?

We never normally hugged – really only at births, weddings, deaths. And we’d only seen them the night before, when the golf carts – laden with kids and suitcases and more kids – dropped them off at their hotel. Aid had made me promise that we wouldn’t have to stay with them in the same accommodation. We wanted space for lie-ins and meandering mornings. Our place was cheaper. Rustic. Anyway, who needed a pool when the Caribbean Sea was right there, just footprints away? When we had hit ‘book’ on the shonky Mikel’s Guest House website, one predominantly chosen – as well as for its ungrudging refund policy – for its location a good couple of hundred metres along from their hotel, Aid and I actually high-fived and opened some Prosecco. We never normally drank Prosecco.

‘How are you, Dylan? You feeling okay?’ Chloe ruffled Dyl’s hair, as he dropped his swim fins and goggles down on the tiled floor.

He shook her off and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Good thanks.’

‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘Really.’ I took a seat opposite Tom, hoping I could chat to him and redirect the conversation. Dylan and Ella mixed in with their cousins, the six of them dashing off in a collective cyclone to check out the starfish Edmund announced he’d just found on the beach. Only Mathilda remained, stuck to her highchair, smeared in lurid sweet potato mush.

‘How’s your guest house, Laelia?’ Tom asked. Thank fuck. He didn’t want to keep regurgitating the morning’s events either.

‘It’s great.’ I grinned, thinking of Mikel’s breakfast pancakes with their banana eyes and honey smiles. ‘Nothing like this place, of course.’

‘You must have been beside yourself,’ Chloe went on. ‘I can’t believe it. I mean, you can’t take your eyes off them for a second, can you?’ She passed me the drinks menu. ‘The cocktails look good. What are you having Tom?’ But she didn’t wait for his reply. ‘You need to watch them constantly. When we were in Sanibel, when the twins were about four, Scarlett went under and she almost didn’t come back up, and that was in a pool. I don’t think you can leave them alone in the sea.’ I shot Aid a look, but he was deep in the menu. Or at least, pretending to be.

What if I hadn’t noticed Dyl had gone under?

‘It could have happened to anyone,’ said Tom as he signalled across to the bar guy, who clocked him but carried on stacking glasses anyway. ‘What do you all want – beer?’

Mathilda started crying short fussy sobs as she wriggled in her chair.

‘Beer would be great, thanks,’ I replied. Chloe started searching about in her bag, one of several dumped at her flip-flopped feet.

‘What do you want, love?’ Tom asked. ‘I don’t think it’s waiter service.’

‘Daiquiri. Extra sour.’ She pulled out a plush bunny rabbit and threw it onto Mathilda’s tray.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Aid, getting up to follow Tom.

Alone now, Chloe took her real shot, half-whispering in case they weren’t totally out of range. ‘Wasn’t Aid watching the kids?’ Her lipsticked mouth overextended around every word, her eyes widening in dramatic pleasure. ‘Tom said that you were getting coffee when it happened.’

‘Of course he was watching them. He had his eyes on them the entire time.’ I pulled the aviators I’d finally located out of my beach bag and put them on. ‘It’s just the sea got rough really quickly. The speedboat shouldn’t have come in that close. He came out of nowhere. Don’t you remember, when you and me were here before, that old guy got caught in a rip by the Split, and the dive instructor had to rescue him?’

‘All the more reason to be in there swimming with them Lil. Dylan’s only eight, and he’s not a strong swimmer.’ Mathilda’s cries were disintegrating into blithering wails.

‘What’s the plan tonight? Are we just meeting Dad at the restaurant?’ I hoped she’d hook on to the change in subject.

What if I hadn’t been able to get there fast enough?

‘I’ve asked Mounia to get him there by six and told her we’ll be waiting for them with everyone else. I’ve been emailing the owner, Ervin or Erin I think he’s called, and he said they’re fine to sort candles. They’re doing a white fruit cake or something. Apparently, it’s traditional.’

‘Don’t you think Dad might want to meet us on our own first?’ I asked. ‘He might just want to hang with us for a bit and catch up at a bar before the restaurant? It might be a bit overwhe–– ’

Chloe’s face dropped. ‘Lil, this is so you. You don’t do anything and then you come around now trying to change everything. It’s all organised. And we’re here for a fortnight. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up with Dad.’

They were here for a fortnight. We could only afford ten days. I’d told them I would have to get back for work. Didn’t tell them we didn’t have the money.

I’d been really busy at the restaurant. Hadn’t had time to think about any of these birthday plans. Not that I’d really wanted to. As much as Dad loved a party, I was pretty sure Chloe’s idea of a celebration wasn’t his. Or mine.

‘I just figured he would head back down south as soon as it was over.’ I glanced over to see where our drinks had got to. ‘And aren’t you staying up here on the Cayes?’ I needed alcohol. My body was exhausted. After all the jet lag and then the adrenalin of the morning, I was seriously crashing.

‘Yes. Aren’t you? I mean, I don’t think it’s a good idea to take the kids down to the jungle. There’s all sorts down there.’ Chloe started waving the bunny in Mathilda’s face, which only served to rile her further. ‘She’s all over the place. She didn’t sleep on the flight, and barely at all last night. She just desperately needs to go to bed.’ A couple of leathery women on the table over from us started shooting Chloe pointed looks. ‘Did Tom tell you? We were supposed to bring Delphine with us but she wanted to go and see her family in Poitiers. Bloody nightmare these nannies. Who gives up coming to Belize to go to fucking France?!’ Mathilda’s wails turned back to sobs as she searched for little breaths.

‘Why don’t you go and try putting her down?’ I asked.

‘There’s no way I’d take the kids down to Dad’s…’ Chloe went on. ‘There’s snakes and scorpions, and...