Free This Way to Paradise by Cathy Hopkins Page B

seemed overly cheerful and at home. I wasn’t in the right mood for meeting a whole crowd of new people just yet. I looked around for Joe and spotted him on a table with his mum and he gave me a brief smile but no indication that he was going to come over to me or would like me to go over to him and why should he? I asked myself. He probably thought I was OK with Aunt Sarah and her lot. Plus, I still felt a little embarrassed about the mega snog fantasy I’d had about him on the plane. I decided to bereally cool with him for the rest of the stay and, after dinner, went straight back to my room and had an early night. I fell asleep in an instant and was only vaguely aware of Kate coming in at some time past midnight.
    At breakfast, after we’d got our food from the buffet (muesli for me, croissants and raspberry jam for Kate), we found a table in the corner of the terrace from where we could see all the ‘inmates’ as Kate called them. The sun was beaming down and there was a gentle breeze and it did feel good to be there. Kate began a running commentary about who everyone was and why they were there. It was totally made up, at least I
think
it was.
    â€˜Over there are the lesbian librarians from Clipping Horton: Mavis and Maureen,’ said Kate, giving a wave to two elderly women in matching lilac kaftans.‘Sisters. They only came out as gay in their fifties to the amazement of their husbands, seventeen children, forty grandchildren and twenty cats. The cats were the most shocked of all. I don’t know if you know this or not, but some cats can be quite narrow minded about sexuality . . .’
    â€˜I know,’ I said with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s very hard being a gay cat, in fact a lot of them choose not to tell at all. Our big black cat Boris, in Ireland, was gay and had to have cat counselling before he came out.’
    Kate gave me a big smile. ‘Good for Boris,’ she said. ‘Andgood for you. You’re quite clearly as barmy as I am! Anyway, M and M come to the island each year to make erotic sculptures of fertility goddesses to sell in the café of their local library when they go back. Next to them, is oh . . . Liam Payne.’ She did a mock shudder. ‘He gives me the creeps.’
    She was looking at the boy who had been friendly last night when he was serving supper. I had intended to go and talk to him today and explain why I didn’t take up his offer to join his group. ‘Why?’
    Kate shrugged. ‘Um . . . too touchy feely. He was here the first time I came. He’s into the whole spiritual trip, but . . . I don’t know, there’s just something that I don’t like about him. He’s so intense, like he doesn’t just hug, like, you know, a friendly hug – you hug, you let go. He
hugs
like it’s some healing emotionallycharged moment that’s loaded with meaning. Like he holds on too long until I want to push him off with great force.’
    I laughed and glanced back at Liam. He looked OK to me and he was the only person last night who had seemed to have picked up on the fact that I felt left out. He was talking to Anisha and another girl dressed in white with a long plait down her back and a white dot in-between her eyebrows. He saw me looking and smiled. I smiled back but decided not to go and talk to him, at least not while Kate was looking on. I was about to ask more about Liam, but she launched back into her commentary and I didn’t want to interrupt when she was so clearly on a roll.
    â€˜Now . . . the bald man with the paunch, in the long shorts and socks and sandals, in the far corner? Hhmm, what an attractive look. Not. Now he used to be a playboy porn star until, one morning, he had a vision. Not unlike that what-hisname St Paul on the road to Damascus. Well, our chap, he saw the light on the North Circular, just behind the World of Leather, and hasn’t been the same since. Actually, the light