Silver

Chapter 40 - then

'I saw that other girl who was sick,' Alistair said, having just returned from the port to buy our boat ticket back to Kota Kinabalu. 'I ran into her and her husband. I thanked him for looking after you the other day.'

If only you knew, I thought to myself, brushing my teeth.

'We're taking them out to dinner tonight,' he said. 'As a thank you.'

'What? But it's our last night here.'

'I thought it would be a nice thing to do. You said he was nice.'

'I know. But it's our last night ...'

'I can't ever do the right thing,' he said, dropping the tickets on the table. 'It's too bad. I've already asked them. You can suck it up.' He walked over and switched the kettle on and grabbed a teabag from the cupboard. 'You can stop being so moody. Why don't you try putting a smile on your face?' he said. I decided to hold my tongue. I didn't want to spend the whole day by myself fuming and finding ways to entertain myself without bumping into Mr Nice Guy. So I sucked it up. I was extra nice to Alistair, I put on a smile and coerced him into coming to the outdoor swimming pool rather than turning on his stupid virtual game.

We played in the pool together for an hour. We raced each other to the edge of the pool and had contests holding our breath under water, like a brother and sister engaging in pre-adolescent antics on a family holiday. He even managed to eat lunch with me. His diet was strictly vegetarian now, no seafood, no meat and even no ice in his drinks. But after two and a half hours, he said he needed to go back and 'rest', which I knew was code for 'play', and he strolled back to our hut, playing his sick card for as long as he possibly could.

It sure was lonely being on a honeymoon with a husband who needed to 'rest' so much. I had hours until dinner and I didn't know how I was going to fill that time in, when I also needed to hide from that very person I was supposed to have dinner with that night.