Let me read it for you! Skip introduction: 3:00
It was a rainy Monday night in Tottenham Hale when Roman and I decided that we should take a holiday.
“But where could we go?” I asked
“We could go to a….resort?” Roman suggested.
It surprised us both when he said it. We didn’t like resorts; that was one of the things we bonded over when we were messaging on Hinge. We were city-breakers. We liked perusing galleries and drinking good wine, with views of ancient buildings. A resort? Eurgh. There was nothing to do, apart from lie around all day under the sun…
The wind howled and rain banged on my window.
“I could… do… a resort,” I confessed.
Four weeks later, we were on our first long-haul flight to the Maldives.
A ten-hour flight can expose things about your partner that you didn’t know about before. It turned out that Roman was a very nervous flyer. Even the smallest jig of the plane had him clutching onto his armrests for dear life.
He, meanwhile, learned that I was a high-maintenance flyer…
I was in the middle seat. I hated the middle seat (I’ve quacked about it once). After a lot of moaning, Roman had offered to give me the aisle seat that he had, but I knew that would be a dick move on my part, considering my legs are half the length. So, I remained bitterly sandwiched. I gave myself a pamper session to make me feel better;I sprayed mint spray into my mouth… Pshh… Pshh… and turned to Roman.
“Want some?”
Roman shook his head.
He didn’t want my eye drops, lip balm, mints, or hand cream. He didn’t want a donut pillow or compression socks either. I wondered if he was beginning to worry that I was going to be hard work on this trip. Oh well. Too late now.
We landed the next morning and took a boat to the resort, where we were greeted by a line of waving hotel staff. It was just like White Lotus (hopefully without the murders). We were given a cold flannel and a purple drink. I gulped mine in one and let out a dramatic gasp. They offered me another.
“Oh gosh, go on then!”
Roman was still inspecting his first drink like it was a test tube.
We were given a tour in a golf buggy. This was when we learned that ‘all-inclusive’ actually meant ‘mostly-inclusive’.
“And over there we have The Club… the breakfast is very good… but it’s not included in your package, unfortunately. And here you have Sunset Social, where you can have nibbles and drinks… but only drinks are included with your package. At the far corner is the Italian restaurant. Sublime… but it’s not included in your package.”
I didn’t care about pizza or The Club; I felt like I had just jumped into a postcard. After walking by the Thames for so long, I had forgotten that water could be so clear and the sky could be so blue. I could feel the Vitamin D sinking into my skin, making me happier by the second.
“Your sea is so clear!” I said to the hotel man.
“HA! This is nothing. You’re on a fake island. On the real islands, it’s crystal.”
…So it wasn’t all-inclusive and we were not really on an Maldives island, but it was glorious nevertheless.
What was in our package was the all-you-can-eat buffet. On the first night, I wandered around with my plate, excited about all the possible meals I could make. I returned to the table with a pick-and-mix of cuisines: sushi, focaccia, sweetcorn, and Mexican potatoes.
Hmm. I needed to get better at the buffet thing.
Every day, the guests would gather around the pool like animals at a watering hole. We had no interest in making friends, but we did start naming the guests from afar.
There was the ‘Honeymoon Couple.’ A very hot pair. One day, we watched in awe as the husband emerged from the sea with his new wife on his shoulders. It was like a scene out of an erotic beach novel.
And then there was Blade Runner – a seven-year-old who ran across the wall of the pool with robotic arms. She later pulled the deck chair into the water and challenged her terrified siblings to surf on it.
“Where are her parents?” said everyone at the poolside.
Next was ‘The Girl Group,’ a group of 12 women who would turn up at the pool in matching outfits to do a daily photo shoot. One day they were in polka dot dresses, the next in blue and white striped trousers. They jumped in sync, posed on the loungers, and waved their legs in the air. And just when we thought they had done every possible photo, a drone appeared. They put my girl group to shame.
Other notable guests were: Redhead Roman, White Lotus Man, Bartender Roman, the Cheating Couple, the father and son who did not talk, and the 95 women from China – they turned up all at once in the same red dress. We still don’t know why.
I could only imagine what we were known as by other guests; smothered from head to toe in factor 50+, lying on the same lounger every day, drinking cava at exactly 5 p.m. No sooner, no later. (We would have preferred to drink champagne, but it wasn’t included in the package.)
We were happy with our resort routine, more than happy in fact. Roman didn’t (to my relief) want to do pool Zumba, and we were on the same page about not doing anything risky like deep-sea diving or banana boating. We did get some snorkels, but that ended in a drama…
After breakfast, I went to the gym to burn off my morning banana bread, while Roman opted to snorkel. When we met up again, he was a frazzled man.
“I went to say hi to the fish, but the water filled up my mask. So I panicked and got a nose bleed. And I thought the blood would attract the sharks, so went to swim back to land, but cut myself on the coral and now I may get vibrio. Look.”
I squinted at pen dot sized mark on his foot.
“Ro, You know Google is bad for you”
“If I go pale -.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fi-”
“And if I get a rash, we have to seek immediate help! ”
I sighed. “Ok.”
So, there was no more snorkelling after that. We kept safe on the shaded loungers, with our factor 50, reading books. Our adventures were saved for the buffet.
Before I knew it, the week was over and it was time to go. I looked out to sea from my sea hut, and began to cry. Roman had no idea why I was crying, which was pretty usual.
“I don’t want to leave!” I explained through sobs. I was going to miss the colour of the sea, despite it being a fake island, the watermelon slices and banana bread breakfasts. I was even going to miss Blade Runner a little.
“At least we have the memories,” Roman said postivetly.
“Memories won’t keep me tanned, Roman!” I sobbed.
….Maybe I liked resorts after all.
THE QUACK 