Page 1 of You Lied First

T he holiday to Oman is not my idea. Call me unadventurous, but no part of the Middle East has ever been on my holiday bucket list. New York, Rome, Barcelona, Sydney, or even a week on the Costa del Sol, absolutely, but now I’m in a taxi speeding along a highway through Muscat city centre behind the Forrests’ hired Land Cruiser – which is being piloted by Margot since Guy apparently drank a skinful of champagne on the flight – and Liv and I are sitting in exhausted silence.

She fiddles with her phone while I stare out of the window at palm trees and the exotic architecture of the city, taking in the Arabic road signs, the surprising amount of greenery, and the unfamiliar stretch of minarets towards a deep blue sky.

It’s not how I imagined Oman would look, even though I pored over internet guides until my head spun, terrified that one of us would unwittingly break the law.

‘Just remember you can’t hug or kiss Flynn in public,’ I remind my daughter, even though I’ve already spelled it out to her multiple times. ‘It’s not like back home.’

‘Yeah.’ She doesn’t look up.

‘Please remember that when we’re out in public.’

‘Mum!’

‘Liv! It’s important. I don’t want either of us to end up in jail, okay? And you can’t take pictures of any locals without asking permission.’ I’m treated to teenage side-eye for that.

My biggest worry, though, is about the cost of the holiday. Guy and Margot are not known for their thrifty tastes.

‘By the way, I thought that if the Forrests want to eat out every night, maybe we could do our own thing sometimes,’ I suggest. ‘With Flynn, of course,’ I add quickly, but I realise as I say it that inviting myself to be a gooseberry between her and her boyfriend won’t be any more welcome to her than the thought of she and I staying in while Flynn goes out with his parents.

Liv turns to look at me and lowers her sunglasses with a small sigh. ‘Let’s see.’

‘Okay,’ I say mildly, but I really hope we manage to carve out some time just for us.

She’s the one who pushed for me to join the holiday and the point in me being here is for us to spend some time together – all going well, she’ll be off to university in less than a year – and we have so much lost ground to catch up on.

Liv turns away and I remind myself to look on the bright side.

I’m here with Liv. We’re going to have a great holiday.

Together. Experiencing new things. Getting to know her boyfriend’s family.

And, with the sun now high in a cloudless sky, the weather bodes well, too.

I picture myself tanning by a swimming pool and feel the beginnings of pleasant anticipation.

The taxi exits the highway and the streets become more residential, fringed with villas.

We turn into ever-narrower residential streets until the Forrests’ car slows to a crawl before pulling left into a carport.

Behind it, our taxi comes to a halt outside a white wall over which glorious bougainvillea tumbles.

Guy appears on the pavement, nodding and indicating with two thumbs up that this is the right place.

His trousers and linen shirt are creased from the journey but the sunshine suits him, as do his Aviator sunglasses – he looks alive in a way I’d not noticed in our few interactions back home.

‘Livvie? I think we’re here,’ I say.

‘Finally.’ She shoves her phone into the Longchamp bag Michael bought her just for this trip and yawns. ‘That took forever.’

‘Maybe we should have gone to Munich, after all!’ I laugh to show I’m joking but Liv rolls her eyes. Once she’d been offered the chance to join Flynn in Oman, my planned trip for the two of us to the Christmas markets hadn’t stood a chance.

‘How much?’ I ask the driver. There’s a meter, but I want to check.

He turns and holds up eight fingers but, as I poke around in my wallet trying to understand the unfamiliar notes, my car door opens and Guy hands the driver a note.

Liv and I climb out of the cab, blinking in the harsh light as Guy opens the boot and hauls out our bags.

Liv grabs hers and goes straight to Flynn.

My eyes sting with lack of sleep. I’m more than ready to fling off my travel clothes and stretch out on a proper bed.

‘Here,’ I say, offering Guy the ten-riyal note I finally located, but he waves it away.

‘It’s nothing. Right. Let’s go.’

I smile at Margot. ‘I’m impressed you found this place! Those last streets were like a maze.’

‘Google Maps is a wonderful thing,’ she says and turns to follow Guy through the gate towards the front door. Wearing a casual two-piece set with trainers and a baseball cap, she looks as immaculate here as she had when we’d met yesterday at Birmingham Airport.

‘We used to live here,’ Flynn says. ‘Same compound.’

‘Ah.’ I pick up my bag and follow, closing the gate behind me. Guy finds the key box and retrieves the front door key.

‘Welcome, welcome!’ he says as he swings open the huge double doors to the villa.

He throws out his arm expansively as if welcoming us to his own home, which I suppose in a way, he is.

The air in the hallway is warm and stagnant, and the smell is musty, undisturbed; the scent of an unlived-in residence in a hot country.

I let my bag drop and take in the sprawling entrance hall and the balustraded staircase as Liv and Flynn rush through to the open-plan living area, their footsteps echoing on the marble tiles.

Through the sliding glass doors that Flynn’s scrabbling to unlock, I can make out a pretty garden with an outdoor dining table and, beyond that, a flash of glittering blue: the promised and much yearned-for swimming pool.

The living area is bright and airy. I follow Margot through it from the sofas to the dining area to a white-panelled kitchen with jazzy blue tiles. Margot’s head cranes forward as it swivels left and right, taking in her new quarters.

‘It’s lovely!’ I say.

‘Mmm.’ She nods, her lips a tight line and throws a small smile my way.

Too tired to decipher her mood, I turn back to the hall and ask Guy, ‘So … what do we all want to do now? Unpack? Sleep? Eat something?’ but, as the words come out, I kick myself.

Am I going to dance around the Forrests the whole week just because they invited me to join their holiday?

Because they paid for the villa? Now that we’re all here, how is this actually going to work?

Margot, always cool, always aloof, is a mystery to me. I barely know these people.

‘Let’s get the bags upstairs so we can freshen up,’ Guy says.

He picks up two of the Forrests’ gleaming hard-shell suitcases, one in each hand, so I grab my own bag and follow him and Margot up to a landing so big it has its own sofa and television.

The first bedroom we enter is enormous, with a bed that looks eight feet wide, an en suite bathroom, and sliding doors to a balcony that overlooks the pool.

A cream leather sofa, two armchairs, an oriental rug and a low table create a gorgeous sitting area at the far end of the room.

‘Wow,’ I say, thinking that a whole family could live in this room. ‘It’s stunning.’

‘Isn’t it just.’ Guy throws his bag onto the bed. Margot’s already opening the built-in, mirror-fronted wardrobes, assessing where to put her things.

‘You can pick your room,’ Guy says. ‘There are three more. Come, let me show you.’

I follow him to another pool-facing room which, although smaller, is still larger than my living room at home, and is decorated in tonal shades of blue.

‘This is probably the next best,’ Guy says. ‘It has a good balcony with a pool view and the main bathroom is literally outside your door.’

‘It’s lovely,’ I say. ‘Perfect. Thank you.’

‘Great,’ he says, rubbing his hands together. ‘And I thought the kids could have the front principal. It’s got an en suite but it faces the street. I doubt it will bother them if there’s a bit of noise outside. They’ll probably be making half of it!’

‘Oh! Er …’ I’d naively assumed that Liv and I would be sharing, or we’d be in single rooms. Liv had said nothing to the contrary.

Guy peers at me.

‘Oh. Oh, my bad,’ he says, placing his hand on his heart.

‘I’m sorry if I assumed … It’s just that, well, I think that horse has long bolted.

’ He pulls a cringing expression. ‘I mean, we always let them stay together when she sleeps at ours …’ He pauses, and takes a step towards me, his voice now sounding more serious, more responsible. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.’

I turn away, pretending to look at the view.

Although I probably should have guessed, I didn’t know Liv was sleeping with Flynn.

She hasn’t lived with me full time since she was fourteen, yet the realisation that if she’d confided in anyone about the status of her first serious relationship, it will have been in Michael and/or his new wife, Nancy, knocks the breath out of me.

I assumed Michael would tell me if he had that conversation with Liv but clearly he hasn’t.

I hate the way father and daughter still lock me out; still punish me via a thousand paper cuts.

But I try to look on the bright side. I’m here.

She wanted me to come on this holiday. She wants to build bridges with me.

I breathe in d eeply and try to smile as I turn back to Guy, even though I can feel tears welling.

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Ignore me. I’m just tired.’

Guy slides his arm around my shoulders and gives me a reassuring squeeze, as if he understands the subtext.

‘We all are,’ he says. ‘Let’s get unpacked and then let’s get this holiday started.’