Dorothy Koomson, Totally Beached
Dorothy Koomson has been making up stories since she was thirteen and hasn’t stopped since. She is the author of twelve novels including The Friend, When I Was Invisible, The Chocolate Run, and The Ice Cream Girls. While writing The Beach Wedding, Dorothy spent a lot of time thinking of all the wonderful beaches she’s visited in her life.
For more info on Dorothy Koomson and her books, visit www.dorothykoomson.co.uk
Tessa Dannall is excited and happy when her daughter, Nia, arrives at their family’s tropical beach resort to get married.
Tessa is also trying to forget the last time she went to a wedding on this beach and how that day changed her life for ever.
But as the big day draws near, Tessa realises she must face the deadly ghosts from her past – or they may ruin her daughter’s future …
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Epub ISBN: 9781473538382
Version 1.0
Published by Arrow Books 2018
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Copyright © Dorothy Koomson 2018
Cover images © Getty
Dorothy Koomson has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain by Arrow Books in 2018
Arrow Books
The Penguin Random House Group Limited
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www.penguin.co.uk
Arrow Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781784756383
To all readers out there.
‘Don’t, Drew, please don’t!’ I shouted as he ripped off his tie and jacket while running across the beach. We’d heard shouting, the cries of a mother whose little boy had been swept out to sea. And Drew, my fiancé, didn’t think twice. He just ran towards the water.
‘Wait for the lifeguards,’ I called after him, but he didn’t stop. He ran out as far as he could. He was just ahead of his best friend, Jake, and two of the staff members from Bussu Bay, the beach hotel where we were staying. He was different from the others, though – that was why I told him not to go. He wasn’t as strong a swimmer. He wasn’t at ease in the water. It wouldn’t take too much for him to get into trouble out there. It wouldn’t take too much for ‘Don’t, Drew, please don’t!’ to be the last words he ever heard me say.
Nia & Marvin
Invite you to their beach wedding!
On: 2 March 2018
At: Bussu Bay Beach Resort
(Ghana)
11 am till you drop
Rooms, food, water sports, booze all included
(We don’t really expect any of you to come, so there’ll be a party in Brighton when we get home.)
(But do come if you can – Bussu Bay totally rocks!)
‘Mum, this is Marvin. Marvin, this is my mum, Tessa. You can call her Ms Dannall.’
It’s still hard for me to believe that I have a daughter who is old enough to drive a car, drink alcohol, vote – and get married. Which is what my little girl will be doing at our family beach resort in just under a week.
They’ve just arrived from Brighton and they both look jet-lagged, but happy and excited to be here.
I stare very hard at Marvin, my daughter’s fiancé. This is the first time I have met him in real life. He is often there when I video-call Nia, and he seems polite and nice. But he wants to marry my daughter, so he has to be more than polite and nice – he needs to be amazing. They met doing work experience at an IT company two years ago and have been together ever since.
I’m not sure what I make of you yet, I think to myself.
‘I am not sure what I make of you yet,’ my 70-year-old mother actually says. ‘I am not sure if you are good enough for my precious granddaughter.’
Bussu Bay Beach Resort is our family home and business in Ghana, West Africa. My parents opened it nearly thirty years ago – and ran it until about four years ago when I had to take over. My mother, who was in charge of the resort while my father took care of the watersports side of things, fell and broke her hip. Even with all the help and staff they had, they couldn’t see how to keep the business going in the way they wanted so they talked about selling it. I was living in Brighton, England, I had a great job and a great life, but I couldn’t let them sell this place when it had been all they had worked for. So I had to move here and take over.
It’d been such a difficult decision. I hated the thought of leaving Brighton, and I hated leaving Nia, but I especially hated the idea of living here after what had happened twenty-four years ago. But I had no choice – my parents needed me. Now that my mum doesn’t have to worry about the business, she enjoys bossing me around. And she enjoys embarrassing her granddaughter.
‘I suppose you are almost handsome,’ my mother says to Marvin.
Nia glares at me, trying to tell me to control her grandmother. I want to laugh in my daughter’s face and ask her: since when have I ever been able to control my mother?
‘Mother,’ I say and hook my arm through hers, ‘let’s go and show the happy couple where they’ll be sleeping.’
I whisper to Nia and Marvin, ‘It’s the Honeymoon Suite.’ Over the years, our resort has grown from ten rooms to fifty, all varying in size. For Nia and Marvin, I have chosen the biggest room that is part of the main complex, with views out over the large green palm trees and the ocean. As well as a luxury bath and shower, it has its own private patio where they can have breakfast in peace, and a little path leads down to the drop-off where the beach begins.
My mum stops and, leaning heavily on her walking stick, she turns to me. She looks at me like she is about to tell me off.
‘Honeymoon?’ she says sternly. ‘Do you see a wedding ring on my granddaughter’s finger?’
Me and my big mouth, I groan inside. ‘No,’ I say.
‘Then they will not be sleeping in the same room, let alone the room for those who are married.’ When she says the last part, my mum turns to glare at Jake, my other half.
Mum is still so put out that we’re not married, but live under her roof, that I have to keep a room free for him. Every night, if Mum is up when Jake goes to bed, he has to declare, ‘Goodnight all, I’m just off to my bedroom’. Otherwise she gives him one of her world-famous stares. Jake doesn’t complain. Just like he didn’t complain when we packed up and moved here. Mum continues to stare at poor Jake.
‘Mama,’ Jake says to my mother, raising his hands in peace, ‘every other day I ask your daughter to marry me, and every other day, she says no.’
Mum shakes her head. ‘Excuses, excuses, excuses.’
Nia says to Marvin, ‘I’m sure I told you how Grandma and me both think Mum and Jake should be married by now. They’ve been together nearly twenty years and she still won’t marry him. That’s just wrong, isn’t it?’
I smile at my daughter. I am so getting her back for that. ‘So, seeing as you agree with Grandma about people who aren’t married not sharing rooms, I think it’s best that you each get a room on either side of Grandma and Grandpa’s room?’
My grin gets even wider as Nia’s mouth drops open.
‘Sounds great,’ Marvin says.
My daughter doesn’t move. ‘I can’t believe you’ve just done that to me,’ she says.
‘Well, babe, to be fair, you did start it by mentioning her not being married,’ Marvin says. ‘And I think we’ve all learnt a valuable lesson today, don’t you?’
‘What lesson is that?’ Nia asks him.
‘Don’t annoy your mother.’
I grin at him. ‘Oh I like you, Marvin,’ I say. ‘I like you very, very much.’
Nia takes her wedding dress, hidden in a large silver cover. Marvin picks up some of their bags, and they begin to follow my mother down the hallway towards their rooms.
Before Jake and I move to gather up the rest of the luggage, we stare at each other. We haven’t talked about it since Nia said she wanted to get married here. We haven’t talked about it, but how could either of us forget the way the last wedding we went to on the beach changed our lives for ever?
When my parents opened Bussu Bay nearly thirty years ago, everyone said they were crazy. No one would think to come to West Africa to dive, surf, fish, jet-ski or simply relax on the beach for two weeks. But my parents had an idea they believed in. This place was their dream, so they kept going despite what everyone else said. All those years ago, there had only been one posh hotel in the area and that was a bit of a walk from the beach. It took a while – five years, in fact – but people began to notice Bussu Bay and tell their friends. And they told their friends, who told their friends, until it became a place where people come back to again and again.
All along the coastline there are now other hotels and resorts. My parents were the first but not the last. This week I’ve decided to keep the resort private for the wedding, so only Nia and Marvin and family and friends will stay here.
After Nia and Marvin have showered, we eat dinner on the large patio with a corrugated-iron roof, attached to the dining room. The three cooks have laid on a feast that would feed twenty people, not six, and we are all absolutely stuffed.
The night is a beautiful silky black, the kind you never truly get in England. The blackness slips itself around your senses and mingles with the taste of the delicious food, the feel of the heat on your skin, and the sound of the ocean hitting the shore. Either Kwame or Edward, the only members of staff who live here full-time, is playing highlife music somewhere and the air around us is alive with the upbeat party rhythm.
Both Nia and Marvin have shiny faces from the heat, and their eyes keep closing as though they are going to fall asleep right there at the table. I love sitting here with my daughter – we haven’t spent time together since I sent her the money to come here for Christmas two years ago. Mum and Dad have gone to bed because they have an early start.
Sitting here, I don’t look at the ocean. It is gorgeous, and at night, when there is no wind, the water is like a sheet of black glass, but I still don’t look at it. I can’t. I don’t collapse every time I see the ocean now, but it doesn’t take much to make me feel like I am reliving the worst day of my life.