The Holiday of Lies

I am soaked to the skin. Not mildly damp. Not “caught in a shower” wet. I mean absolutely saturated. Rain lashes sideways across the pavement as I stand there waving my arms frantically like a woman trying to flag down the last helicopter out of a war zone. Water runs down my face, pours from my sleeves, squelches inside my socks. Even my bra is hoarding water. Cars hiss past in silver sprays, headlights smearing through the downpour like ghosts. Nobody slows. Nobody even hesitates. To passing motorists, I probably look completely deranged. Some waterlogged lunatic summoning traffic in the rain like a sewer-dredged witch. My phone buzzes violently in my hand. It’s my husband. “Where are you?” he asks. “Currently dissolving,” I snap, shivering. “Why?” “Well,” he says, in the suspiciously cheerful tone he only uses before chaos unfolds, “funny story. We’re going on holiday.” I blink rainwater from my eyelashes. “What?” “Abroad. Immediately. Flight’s soon.” Immediately. Normal couples discuss holidays before the airport stage, but apparently not us. I can’t even remember the last time we actually went abroad together. At least a decade ago. Somewhere along the line, life quietly unpacked itself across everything. Work. Bills. Family dramas. Exhaustion. One day you’re young and spontaneous, and the next you’re arguing over whether there’s enough milk for morning tea. “Where are we going?” I ask. “Mexico,” he says proudly. And honestly? Even standing here drenched on a miserable British pavement, Mexico sounds glorious. Eventually, somebody finally takes pity on me. A car slows beside the kerb and the passenger window rolls down. “Bloody hell,” the driver says. “You look like you’ve escaped a shipwreck.” I recognise him instantly. A chap who works at Timpson. He’s cut replacement keys for me so many times over the years we’re practically family. A man known universally as “Nobby,” which is admittedly an unfortunate nickname, but who am I to judge? “Hop in,” he says. I practically fall into the passenger seat. “Don’t get my interior wet,” he mutters. I stare at him. Water is literally dripping off my elbows. “A bit late for that, Nobby.” The car smells faintly of shoe polish and sausage rolls. Comforting somehow. He drives with the grim concentration of a man transporting dangerous chemicals rather than a frantic woman slowly marinating in rainwater. “You off somewhere nice then?” he asks. “Mexico.” “Ooh.” He whistles. “Get you.” By the time he drops me home, my hair resembles drowned seaweed and my jeans are making obscene squelching noises every time I move. I stumble through the front door, only to stop dead in horror. Mat is already packed. Suitcases lined neatly by the door. Passport ready. Shoes on. Ready. This is deeply concerning. Because my husband is not a prepared man. He’s the kind of man who loses things while actively holding them. A man capable of forgetting his own birthday unless Facebook reminds him first. “But—” “I’ve sorted it, Mandy.” Oh Lord. When my husband says he’s sorted it, it’s never a good sign. This is a man who once packed for a weekend away and brought six T-shirts, one sock, a novelty bottle opener, and a decorative scarf he thought was a towel. I eye the suitcases suspiciously. One of them appears to be bulging oddly. “But I haven’t checked anything—” “No time,” he says brightly. “Taxi’s coming.” And then the front door opens. Ah. There it is. The hidden clause in the contract. My mother-in-law arrives dragging a suitcase large enough to survive nuclear fallout. Behind her trots Maisy, her dog, scratching so aggressively she looks like she’s trying to unzip herself from the inside out. So much for our relaxing romantic holiday on a Mexican beach. My mother-in-law is the human embodiment of killjoy. A woman capable of finding fault with sunsets. A woman capable of witnessing the Northern Lights and complaining they’re “a bit showy.” Maisy, meanwhile, is absolutely covered in fleas. Not tiny discreet fleas either. These things are enormous. The dog keeps scratching violently, flicking them onto the carpet like tiny cursed popcorn kernels escaping a saucepan. “I think your dog has fleas,” I say carefully. “I’ve spotted at least three.” “Absolute nonsense,” my mother-in-law snaps immediately. “Maisy has never had a flea in her life.” At that exact moment, a flea the size of a raisin launches itself off the dog and lands on the carpet between us. Neither of us mentions it. Hmm. Well. That settles it then. The flight passes in a dreamy haze, the way dreams always do. One moment I’m staring out of the tiny plane window watching clouds pile up like mountains of whipped cream while my mother-in-law complains that the pasta tastes “too continental,” and the next— —we’ve landed. Mexico. The heat wraps around me the second I step off the plane. Thick, golden warmth sinking into my bones like medicine. Honestly, I could cry with relief. No rain. No puddles. No damp socks. Just sunshine and possibility. Of course, we head straight towards the pool. Only “pool” hardly covers it. This place is an indoor paradise. A full-blown aquatic hallucination. Tiny islands connected by stepping stones. Whirlpools bubbling beneath neon lights. Palm trees arching over turquoise water while soft music drifts through the humid air like I’ve died and gone to a deeply tacky but strangely comforting heaven. And then I spot it. A cocktail bar in the middle of the pool. I actually gasp. I swim towards it immediately, practically dolphin-kicking through pensioners and inflatable flamingos. I’m already imagining the first sip of an ice-cold mojito. Sharp lime. Crushed mint. Ice clinking softly against the glass. The slow glorious sensation of stress dissolving from my shoulders for the first time in years. Not surviving. Not coping. Not managing. Just… existing. Happily. Then my phone rings. Mum. I answer immediately, but the second I hear her voice, something inside me tightens. Fear. “What’s going on?” I ask, straining to hear over the splashing water and squeals of children nearby. “It’s Phoebe,” she says solemnly. My daughter. “She’s turned up here out of the blue. Drugged to the eyeballs, demanding money.” The words hit me like cold water. Instantly, that old maternal alarm begins screaming somewhere deep inside me. Because once you’ve had children, fear never fully leaves your body again. It just changes shape. Waits quietly in different rooms. “Oh,” I say quietly. I should tell her the truth. I should simply say: Mum, I’m in Mexico. But suddenly I can’t bring myself to do it. Because she sounds exhausted. Fragile. Alone. And I’m standing waist-deep in turquoise water about to spend fourteen euros on a cocktail served inside a hollowed-out pineapple. “I’m kinda…” I begin, but the truth catches somewhere in my throat. Instead, I hear myself say, “I’ll be there shortly to pick her up.” “She’s currently passed out on one of the spare beds,” Mum says. “Please hurry.” “Yeah,” I reply weakly, now sipping a mojito through a curly straw. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there in five.” In five? Like I can magically teleport myself back onto rainy British soil. Why didn’t I just tell her the truth? Why did Mexico suddenly feel like something shameful? Life and happiness was somehow vulgar in the face of somebody else’s struggle? But the moment the thought enters my head, everything shifts. I blink— —and the heat vanishes instantly. Suddenly I’m back in England beneath a flat grey sky that looks personally offended by joy. The mojito is gone from my hand. Mum is standing beside me looking deeply suspicious. “You smell of… foreign,” she says slowly. “Oh really?” I laugh nervously. “Must be the new perfume. Little bit musty.” Another lie. And disturbingly, it barely even scratches on the way out. That’s the worrying part. The trouble is, Mum can detect dishonesty from three postcodes away. She prides herself on being truthful. Respectable. The sort of woman who returns extra change if a cashier accidentally gives her too much. “How’s Phoebe?” I ask cautiously. “Has she sobered up yet?” “Phoebe?” Mum says blankly. “Yes?” “I haven’t heard from her in months.” Silence. Oh. So I abandoned a luxury holiday, violated several laws of physics, and emotionally traumatised myself… for absolutely nothing. Still, I’m here now. We’re wandering around one of those enormous shops that sells absolutely everything imaginable except the one thing you actually came in for. Artificial plants. Discount kettles. Garden ornaments with unsettlingly human teeth. Beanbags large enough to swallow grown men. My phone starts ringing again. It’s Mat. Location: Mexico. “One sec,” I mutter quickly. “I’d better take this.” For some reason, I suddenly feel ridiculously secretive, so I disappear down a beanbag aisle and collapse onto one dramatically. It sighs beneath me with a long defeated wheeze, like even the beanbag has had enough of my lies at this point. “How’s the holiday?” I ask, trying and failing to sound casual. “So good,” he says breezily. I can practically hear the sunshine in his voice. “Honestly, you should’ve stayed.” Stayed. That word punches straight through me. “We met this group of ex-pats,” he continues. “Been invited to a party tonight.” A party. Without me. Behind him I can hear music, laughter, glasses clinking together. Life continuing perfectly well in my absence. Instantly, something ugly twists in my stomach. Jealousy. Regret. FOMO in its purest, most middle-aged form. “Where did you go anyway?” he asks. “Mum needed rescuing,” I mutter. “Well… I thought she did. Turns out she just wanted help choosing paint.” “Paint?” he repeats. “Yes.” Another pause. Honestly, when you say things out loud, your own life starts to sound suspicious. I hear more laughter behind him. “Oh,” he says lightly. “Well. See you in a fortnight.” A fortnight. He says it so casually, as though I haven’t voluntarily removed myself from an all-inclusive resort to wander around British retail parks discussing eggshell magnolia. “Enjoy Mexico,” I say quietly, but the line is already dead. “Mexico?” Mum’s voice behind me nearly causes my soul to exit my body. I turn slowly. Oh no. The cat is fully out of the bag now. Honestly, that woman could hear a lie forming in another country. “Why on earth is Mat in Mexico?” she asks. “Not Mexico,” I say instantly. “Texaco.” The lie falls out before I can stop it. “The garage,” I continue desperately. “Car’s playing up.” Even as I say it, I realise Texaco doesn’t even exist anymore. I’m building lies out of obsolete petrol stations. Mum stares at me with genuine despair. “Do you think I was born yesterday?” I sigh heavily. “I lied,” I admit quietly. “We were holidaying in Mexico.” “Why didn’t you say?” she asks softly. Not angry. Which somehow makes it worse. And suddenly I realise I’ve known the answer all along. Because happiness can feel almost obscene when somebody you love is struggling. Because joy has a strange way of curdling into guilt the moment you realise somebody else is sitting alone in the dark. “I just…” I swallow hard, “didn’t want you to feel abandoned,” I admit softly. The words hang there between us. Because that’s the real thing underneath it all, isn’t it? Not Mexico. Not Phoebe. Not even lies. The quiet terror of somebody you love realising they’ve become an afterthought. “I didn’t want you thinking we were having the time of our lives while you were here dealing with everything alone.” Mum goes quiet then. The sort of quiet that makes the world suddenly feel hollowed out. And when she finally speaks, her voice sounds strangely small. “I might have lied about Phoebe.” The words genuinely stun me. My mother never lies. Ever. This is the woman who once marched back into ASDA because she’d accidentally failed to scan a bag for life and said she “couldn’t sleep knowing she’d technically entered her shoplifting era.” “But why?” I whisper. Her eyes glisten slightly. “Because I was lonely,” she says quietly, staring down at the floor tiles like the answer has embarrassed her. And somehow, that hurts more than everything else combined. More than the panic. More than the guilt. More than losing Mexico. Because suddenly I understand. None of these lies were really about deception. Mine. Hers. They were about love wearing the wrong clothes. People twisting the truth because they think it will spare someone pain. Because they think honesty feels too sharp-edged. Too selfish. Too human. And because love, unfortunately, does not always make people brave. Sometimes it just makes them careful. Mum looks at me then, tentatively. “I didn’t want you feeling guilty for being happy.” And Christ. That nearly breaks me in half. Because there it is at last — the sad ridiculous heart of the whole dream. Two women lying to each other out of love. Both trying so hard to protect the other from pain that we accidentally create more of it instead. Which, now I think about it, might be the most human thing imaginable.