It had begun as careless small talk at the office Christmas party. “No, I’ve never been, Jade, but I know several people who have,” confided Alice Little, the new editorial director of features as she did her festive rounds. Her brief was to be less eurocentric and more globally ambitious in Hipster magazine’s perspective. “Mexico is a land of extremes, the gateway to Latin America,” she enthused, “the gullet that vomits up poverty stricken immigrants into the USA – desert, mountains, amazing biodiversity and of course those drug barons who have been in the news again lately.”

Jade listened politely as a passing waiter refreshed their glasses. What else could she do, cornered by authority as she had naively allowed herself to become?

“It’s probably a bit naughty of me to suggest it,” Alice continued. “I realise this is a one off family getaway for you – but if you keep a diary – and I understand you do – I’d love to take a peep when you get back and see if we can develop it into a feature article?”

“Oh, you think our readers might be interested in my Christmas vacation lounging on a beach in Mexico?” asked Jade.

“I certainly do,” beamed Alice. “Told in the right Hipster way, of course, with intrigue, verve and romance. My friend Aldo who is incredibly well-travelled reckons it is impossible not to be changed in some fundamentally visceral way by the Mexico experience. It’s a country where the technoplates of history constantly grind against each other, he says, imbued by the magic realism of Frieda Kalo and the revolutionary anarchism of Pancho Vila. And don’t forget it’s the place where Carlos Castaneda transitioned from a nerdish anthropology graduate to a best selling sorcerer’s apprentice! Surely you can bring me back a little bit of Mexico that will entertain our subscribers?”

It was hardly a question that courted a negative answer. “I shall do my best,” promised Jade with dutifully contrived enthusiasm – at which juncture Alice moved away to meet and motivate the next in her team of hacks.

On the following Tuesday after eleven hours in the air the excitement of arrival at Cancun airport became eclipsed by darkness. None of Jade’s family had been able to sleep much on the aircraft. A tedious transfer by bus along a bumpy coastal road, a gratuitous shot of fizz at the hotel reception desk and then straight to bed exhausted. The hooded occidental world remained in waiting.

So pulling open the blackout curtains on that first full day, Jade was surprised to see tall palm trees with ladders leaning against them and simian-like men hacking away at the verdant branches which every few seconds came crashing down to the ground. She sprung open the sliding window and as she stepped out on the verandah to get a better view the already clammy heat engulfed her. How different and beautiful everything looked in the clear light of day! She had been aware of trees, of course, but not quite so many. They grew in a horseshoe shape around a long swimming pool that twisted asymmetrically towards the beach and formed the centerpiece of the hotel estate. “Amiga?” she heard someone shout. “Miss, you want a coconut?”

She scanned the treetops. “Yes, you amiga!” an operative called down. “Here is a nice fresh coconut for you!” And it came bombing suddenly out of the sky, a green football thing landing with a thud on the lawn no more than four yards from where she stood. Within seconds a groundman had approached it, wielding a machete. He hacked a few bits of the shell away and presented the fruit to her. “Nice drink, lady,” he grinned and she took it and put her lips to the orifice. The juice tasted sourly sweet and just about palatable. “Better with tequila,” the machete man grinned. She thanked him, dumped the coconut back on the verandah and walked around the circumference of the pool, wondering why the three story building had a thatched roof as if the architect had been trying to ape an olde English village style.

Judging by the relative scarcity of sunbathers she concluded that either the residents were late risers or else half the rooms unoccupied. Whatever the case, the compactness of the hotel suited her. Low rise and small scale. Who needed another corporate behemoth? Her sister, Evelyn, had chosen well. A quiet, inebriated hassle-free, family Christmas in the sun is what Jade had hoped for and the early signs appeared promising. Three circular hot tubs had been situated at the bottom end of the pool with a couple of showers in the shape of sentry boxes flanking them. After that the beach itself took over. Fine white sand that swallowed her feet and undulated no more than 25 yards down to the aquamarine stretch of Atlantic ocean. Several small boats had been moored just beyond a roped off swimming zone. To her left the narrow strand extended for half a mile then bent into an arc that ended at a sharp point of rocks jutting towards the horizon. The water itself shimmered inertly, strangely drained of energy. The bay had the appearance of a lake, she thought, as if hedged in by an invisible reservoir wall beyond the horizon.

Just then Evelyn and Chris came striding towards her. “We’ve been for our walk. Now we’re going for breakfast,” they announced gaily. “Coming?” But before Jade could answer Evelyn added anxiously, “Where’s mum? You didn’t leave her alone, did you? She’ll get los!.”

“She’s in the shower,” explained Jade. “I’m just taking a reccy. Is that the main restaurant?” She pointed at a circular structure, slightly elevated above the sand. Beams of sunshine bounced off the windows and cast crazy reflections of the ocean. A queue straggled at the entrance, waiting to be seated by a receptionist. “You grab a seaview table if you can and I’ll fetch her in a few minutes. Okay?”

But once Evie and Chris had disappeared inside she continued on her stroll along the beach. Their mother would be fine. The double room they were sharing incorporated all the standard press button mod cons. Who suspected Mexico had so enthusiastically joined the rest of the developed world? If something failed to work you picked up the phone, pressed zero and the receptionist sent a flunky post haste to remedy the problem. At least that is what happened the evening before when the television screen failed to respond to the promptings of the remote. “Batteries needed changing, senorita. Channel eighteen Eurosport. Channel thirty-one CNN. Okay?”

As she sauntered beyond the scuba diving hut and miscellaneous outhouses that belonged to the hotel, the beach became virtually deserted. Tiny white birds with impish beaks too long for their heads swarmed along the tidal edge pecking at whatever tidbits the retreating water left behind. To her left a barricade of shrubbery grew in ever increasing density. Small trees and bushes entangled together in a horizontal thicket that looked physically impenetrable. Suddenly overhead a bird with a vast wingspan like a kite hovered into view. Was it a species of gull, she wondered? Certainly it had a black predatory aspect to it, circling, vigilant and bold in manner as if it owned everything under the sky. A hundred yards further on a chunk of wall and roof jutted improbably out of the thicket, an edifice in the early stages of erection. Some optimistic persons had clearly hacked their way into the jungle pulling a concrete mixer behind them in the hope of building a low rise estate of holiday apartments; but either the money had run out or the heat impoverished their ambition and the project had been abandoned, leaving nature to quickly reassert its sovereignty. Jade turned back towards the hotel.

As she reached the pool again and advanced along the southern flank of the terrace she noticed a bronze statue that had apparently sprung out of nowhere. A naked young woman standing aloft a plinth, larger than life size, her head flung back and her arms wide open in an ecstasy of happiness. Jade found herself thinking of that moment in the Barbie film where the eponymous heroine proudly informs a group of bewildered workmen that she has no vagina before turning towards Ken and remarking that he has no penis either. How much more simple life would be, Jade reflected, if that were universally true in the real world!

She had expected to find her mother dressed and reading a book, waiting to be collected for the first meal of the day but the double room now looked as if a hurricane had swept through it. Wet towels lay tangled on the floor, the contents of a suitcase strewn over one of the beds while on the other sat the matriarch of the Collins family wrapped in a bath gown, petulantly bashing a hairdryer up and down on the pillow. “Nothing bloody works!” she cursed. “The shower goes from boiling hot to freezing cold with nothing in between! The sliding window refuses to open! The hairdryer’s gone kaput in a puff of blue smoke. And my new bra and panties have been left at home!”

Jade opened a cabinet drawer beneath the wall mounted television. “Mum, I put them in here,” she said. “I told you last night, remember?” She scurried around the room rectifying the chaos, explaining as best she could all the operative facts of Mexican hotel life. The attachment that unlocked the sliding French windows. The shower temperature gauge. The hairdryer on/off switch. Fifteen minutes later they were ready to sally forth and almost collided with Evie and Chris as they rounded the corner onto the pool terrace.

Chris took the initiative in his usual hail fellow well met way that seemed to endear him to everyone he met. “Hullo Jean! Did you sleep well?” he gushed. “We missed you at breakfast.” Jean responded graciously to his hug. “We’ve got four towels and set up loungers right opposite the billiards table. Everything is waiting for you.”

While this conversation took place Jade managed to convey to her sister using facial expressions alone that a few words in private were required – at Evie’s convenience. “You’re really going to enjoy breakfast, mum,” exhorted Evie. “We’ll see you in a bit.” Thankfully breakfast went much better than the ablutions. The waiter even managed to find a china teapot and brewed a blend of Earl Grey and Darjeeling that Jean found to her taste. Of course the huge array of buffet choices perplexed her for a while but not without a thrill of anticipation. Or so Jade read it. The restaurant had been designed as a glass circle within a globe. Diners entered the inner sanctum through automatic sliding doors and browsed along the ten or so altars on which the consumables had been placed, helping themselves from stacks of plates and bowls. At one end a female chef stood in front of a row of iron stoves making pancakes, burritos and omelets to order. Jean dismissed that out of hand. She wanted granola laced with fresh fruit, yoghurt and honey followed by toast. The one slight moment of tension arose when a waitress who spotted her fumbling ineptly with the toasting contraption rashly decided to lend a helping hand, only to be advised by Jean that she wasn’t senile just yet, thank you very much!

“She’s probably just suffering from jet lag disorientation,” was Evie’s opinion about the morning’s scatty behaviour when Jade recounted it. “Eleven hours is a long time in a plane if you’re not used to it.” The sisters had taken refuge in the main reception building while Chris entertained Jean with a story about a toucan he had come across on the wharf that had a 360 degrees revolving neck. “A bit of patience is going to be needed while she gets used to the Mexican logic of things. Let’s look on the positive side. The temperature is absolutely perfect. The staff are kindness personified. And the festive optimism is in full swing. She can’t fail to have a good time.”

Jade hoped her sister was right. Evie, of course, did not have to share a room with their mother, nor had been required to suffer the nocturnal mutterings and restlessness. Did mother always talk in her sleep or was this just a temporary aberration induced by travel fatigue? Jade chose not to disclose any detail of these aberrations to her sister. It was hardly fair to gratuitously distribute such disquiet. After all, Evie had put all the leg work into selecting the best destination and hotel. She had carefully sifted websites, crosschecked prices and customer reviews. She had effectively masterminded the whole operation. All Jade had to do was make a bank transfer and turn up at the airport, luxury Christmas vacation guaranteed. It was intended to be wall to wall relaxation and fun for all of them. The frenzy of gift buying, the consumer racketeering and hysteria left far behind just for once.

However, when on the second night Jean’s somnambulant chuntering became more pronounced, Jade felt she could remain silent no longer. “Mum keeps swearing,” she confided to her sister. “You know how puritanical she’s always been about rude words? Now in her sleep it’s fuck this and bugger that. Like some evil genius has taken possession of her. And a lot of the abuse seems to be aimed at dad. ‘Jack, you shit! I should have told you to fuck off years ago, you lazy cunt!’ It’s like he’s there in the bedroom with us.”

Evie looked alarmed. “Maybe she had one too many cocktails in the sports bar and it gave her nightmares?” she guessed. “They add tequila to everything just about. Even to gin and tonics. Have you tried telling her what she’s doing/”

“Yes, at least in general terms,” replied Jade, “but she claims not to remember anything she might have been dreaming about. When I asked her if she’d had a good night’s sleep she just said, ‘Perfect, thank you. I went out like a light’.”

They left it like that and went back to the pool terrace where Chris and Jean appeared to be in merry humour sharing a joke or two. “You do exaggerate – but I like your style!” Jean laughed. Evie wanted to know the story. “I couldn’t possibly repeat what he said,” answered Jean. “It would make me blush scarlet.” So Chris picked up the narrative baton instantly and delivered an uncensored scatological speech about cranking up enormously proportioned steamers and the efforts required to dispose of them. “The thing that has impressed me most so far about this hotel,” Jean remarked, and everyone held their breath, “is the flushing power of the loos. I mean everything shoots away without so much as a stain left behind. I really hadn’t expected such sophisticated plumbing.” Everybody laughed with just a tinge of relief.

Later Chris privately commented to Evie and Jade that he wondered what their mum had been expecting to find in a four star hotel bedroom, a big black hole in the floor with a torn up copy of the Cancun Herald to wipe her bum on? He was one of those easy going, down to earth, skilled labourers who slipped into conversation with whoever perched on the adjacent barstool. He didn’t care about political attitudes, he didn’t notice snobbery or pretension. What Chris possessed was an intuition for common denominators and having found one he could create instant camaraderie out of it. At least this was the way Jade understood him. He had been with her sister several years now and proved a beneficial influence. Taught her by example to feel easier in her own skin. To discard several of her adolescent neuroses.

Having purchased earplugs from the hotel shop, Jade took to bed that night in a less anxious state of mind. She waited until she heard Jean snoring then inserted them. Right away the noise became eliminated. The wax mouldings worked. Thanks to the Coco Loco cocktail someone had persuaded her to sample as a nightcap, she too drifted off quickly. But just after 2am an outraged voice jerked her suddenly back, just in time to witness her mother hurl a pillow. It hit Jade on the head and bounced on to the floor. Nothing else happened. Jean got back under the sheets and peace descended. In the morning as she emerged wet and tingling from the shower, wrapped in a snow white robe, Jean said, “How did that pillow get on the floor, Jade?”

“If I told you that you hurled it at me in your sleep and I managed to head it into the corner, would you believe me, mum?” she replied.

“Of course not,” she chuckled. “I’d believe you’d been listening to too many of Chris’s silly stories.” As they made their way to breakfast Chris and Evie stood on the far side of the pool terrace close to where the excursions salesmen held court, engaged in earnest conversation with a young Mexican agent. Fifteen minutes later the pair came scurrying through the restaurant excitedly flapping a piece of paper.

“What do you say to this, folks,” Evie blurted out. “We each have a fifty minute massage in the spa, a reservation at the exclusive inhouse Japanese restaurant, an hour’s jet skiing and a visit to the underground grottos and lagunas of the Rios Secretos region. The total retail cost was eighteen hundred US dollars but we have it all for free!”

“There has to be a catch,” warned Jean. “No such thing as a free lunch.”

“No catch, mum. Not for you anyway,” explained Evie. “The three of us just have to attend a two hour breakfast tomorrow at which people from some company that rents premises here tries to sell us a timeshare property – tries and obviously fails, may I add.”

“So what shall I do in the absence of you three wise monkeys?” pondered Jean.

As events transpired the question became redundant. In the wee small hours of that night before the timeshare breakfast Jade found herself woken up by a burly security guard. “What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?” she exploded. Fortunately his English was a cut above pigeon level. He explained that Jean had been discovered in the main reception vestibule mutilating the hotel’s prize Christmas tree. “So where is she now?” Jade demanded. “Not under house arrest I hope?” This amused the guard who explained the lady was being ministered to with a hot chocolate drink while they waited for a medic to arrive. She did not seem to know where she was, he elaborated. The damage amounted to about fifteen glass baubles, the cost of whose replacement Jade readily agreed to meet. For what remained of the night Jean was sedated and kept in a medical room. “Any chance we can make this a permanent arrangement?” Jade remarked to the concierge when she went to collect the sleep-walking vandal the next day. It was received as a joke.

“You two go to the timeshare gig without me,” she told her sister. “I need to get to the bottom of all this pronto. No more pussy-footing around.” An utterly unapologetic Jean was wheeled back to the bedroom in an invalid chair, smiling and waving as if she had just won an oscar. “Now then, mum,” Jade began sternly, “why did you mutilate the Christmas tree?”

“I mistook it for your father,” she replied without batting an eye. Jade’s mouth dropped open. She was never usually lost for words. “You do realise if he had lived he would be sixty-two on Boxing Day,” Jean added.

A plethora of thoughts sprouted suddenly in Jade’s mind. Two weeks before they boarded the plane at Gatwick it had been the tenth anniversary of Jack’s death. Nobody in the family had recognised it, publicly at least. Jade had not forgotten the date of that tragic event but she had kept deliberately silent. If her mother wanted to broach the subject then so be it. Jade would respond and sentiments openly shared. But to take the initiative struck her as reckless. It risked opening up old wounds, causing her mother and sister undue distress when the festive season was almost upon them and the holiday in Mexico an increasingly vibrant topic of expectant conversation. God knows how much Jean had suffered for at least two years after her husband’s sudden demise. The strange sequence of events had unhinged the poor woman. Her behaviour had become so morbid and erratic the sisters had actually considered having her sectioned. Then gradually a semblance of stability returned. She got used to premature widowhood, even took to wearing the badge with a sort of sardonic distinction.

“I’ve seen two more bearded freaks,” Jean’s voice suddenly broke into her daughter’s reverie. “While they left me waiting in the lobby. Youngsters, I mean, couldn’t be older than twenty-five at the most. With great long straggly beards. What’s that all about, do you think? Why do they want to look like old men decades before their time?”

Jade chose to ignore this. “Mum, if you mistook the Christmas tree for dad, why did you start mutilating him?” she asked.

“He never grew a beard,” answered Jean. “Not even a small one. Or even a moustache, come to think of it. He hated the five o’clock shadow. Sometimes he’d shave twice a day. So why do these young whippersnappers do it?”

“Perhaps they think a beard makes them look manly,” guessed Jade. “Underneath the hair growth they’ve probably got weak little chins and pouty girlish lips. Or maybe just acne? Who knows how badly they got teased and bullied at school for looking effeminate. I’m not an expert on the numerous convolutions of male inadequacy, mum. I’m just an unwilling victim of them.”

“You do like your big words, don’t you, Jade?” observed Jean.

“Mum, please stop changing the subject,” said Jade. “I want to know why you launched an attack on an entirely innocent plant that you mistook for your late husband. Is there a simple answer or have you forgotten?”

“Me and your father never had the benefit of a university education,”observed Jean sullenly. “We took the rough with the smooth and just got on with it.”

“The bloody Christmas tree, mother!” exclaimed Jade. “Fifteen crystal baubles crushed under your uneducated feet that I have to pay for!” Jean closed her eyes and appeared to be mumbling to herself. “Please say that again,” Jade asked. “I can’t hear you.”

When Evie and Chris reappeared on the pool terrace around 12.30 Jade immediately noticed something robotic about their demeanor. Each wore a gaunt expression, especially Chris who resembled a veteran soldier she had once seen in a world war one film, suffering from chronic battle fatigue. “How was your breakfast meeting?” she asked her sister, only turning to Chris when the question elicited a huge yawn in response.

“Hard,” he managed to utter. “Very hard – but we did it.” He hesitated and turned to his partner as if needing confirmation. “At least I think we did?” Evie, whose eyes had the vacant stare of a dead fish, grunted ambiguously. “I need a swim to clear my head,” said Chris, divesting himself of surplus garments and jumping straight into the deep end. Gradually their story of torture by high pressure sales techniques emerged. Fiscal stats and its incomprehensible jargon laid on thick with a double filling of utopian dream cream. When one agent failed to get the couple to cough up sixty grand and sign on the dotted line another charged into the firing line with a brand new set of investment logistics that only a retarded idiot would turn their nose up at. This team of pros had been evidently trained by the Pep Guardiola of the global timeshare industry. They simply refused to take no for an answer. They swarmed and swarmed again into the penalty box of your consciousness. They had a rebuttal for every defensive ploy confronting them. Chris had never met a group of people so fuelled up on high octane self-belief. But somehow the pair emerged intact, bloodied but not bowed. Well, perhaps just a bit warped.

“Where is our mum?” asked Evie once she had regained the power of monosyllabic speech.

“She’s lounging on the beach, reading her Agatha Christie novel,” said Jade. “And look, I need to put you in the picture about her. Perhaps not right now. I doubt you’ll be able to take it in.”

“At least give me the gist of it,” Evie retorted.

“Later. Suffice to say your ‘narcissist trying to seek attention’ theory remains unproven,” said Jade. “And I’d appreciate it if you and Chris take over care assistant duties for daylight hours today. I’m going to avail myself of one of those free massages you just acquired.”

The spa room was tucked away in the basement next to a mini gymnasium. Absolutely blissful, considered Jade as the practised fingers of the young masseuse unravelled one subcutaneous stress knot after another. A heady smell of coconut incense pervaded the room. “Is miss here for the first time in Mexico?” asked the girl. Jade sighed in the affirmative. “You must visit the cenotes,” she remarked. “And there is a Mayan site around an hour’s drive south of here.” Jade could not imagine her mother would be up for snorkeling and archeology but when she caught up with the family group later on the beach both visits had been unanimously approved.

“I used to be a good swimmer in my day,” declared Jean. “I won a silver medal in the Lancashire schools one hundred yards butterfly race.”

“When I was walking along Fifth Avenue yesterday I saw a sign outside a liquor shop saying, ‘Don’t be a butterfly, drink a good Tequila!’,” remarked Chris. “What do you think that meant?”

“Float like a butterfly but drink like a Mexican?” guessed Evie. While Jean and Chris shared a complicit laugh she shot a quizzical look towards her sister who simply shook her head as if to imply that the time was not yet right. The truth was the acrimonious words Jean had spoken about their father had disturbed Jade more than she initially had acknowledged to herself. He had been a forceful personality, outspoken, unconventional – no question about that – but to Jade and her friends he had always been funny, kind and endearing. Jack had enjoyed speaking truth to the powerful, the pompous and the prejudiced much more than keeping the peace. “Didn’t you understand that about him, mum?” she had asked Jean. “Didn’t you admire it, even a little bit?”

“At first I did,” she had replied, “but you never had to suffer the embarrassment in the way I did as his wife. That Christmas my mum and dad stayed with us for instance. You don’t remember, do you?”

“They only came one time, didn’t they?” Jade tried to recall. “Why was that?”

“Because Jack made them feel about as welcome as a pair of rattlesnakes, that’s why,” said Jean bitterly. “He called them Daily Express reading little Englander morons.”

“What! to their faces?”

“No, obviously not to their faces,” retorted Jean. “He could be so provocative though!”

“But if memory serves, they were a bit racist,” said Jade. “The way they talked about immigrants was hardly politically correct, was it?”

“I don’t deny it,” conceded Jean. “But Jack chose the wrong moments to stick his oar into them. That Christmas dinner I’d spent ten hours slaving away in the kitchen to prepare – totally ruined because he’d had too many whisky and cokes and couldn’t control his tongue!” The story came out now, at least Jean’s version of it. Her mum and dad had gone for a Christmas Day morning stroll, leaving Jean slaving in the kitchen with everyone else in bed sleeping off hangovers. They were surprised to find a shop open, a sort of all purpose Seven Eleven type of place. They went in just to sniff around, maybe buy chocolates or confectionery, and found themselves served by a youngish Asian bloke who wished them a happy Christmas. Several hours later over the dinner this shopkeeper cropped up as a topic of conversation.

“I would have bought more milk and bread in that little Paki shop,” observed Jean’s dad, “but I noticed the date stamp on both had expired.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” replied Jean, “but we’ve got reserves in the garage freezer. Was it Sherif you saw?”

“He had buck teeth and specs,” advised Jean’s dad. “Oh, and he ponged of curry. Mind you, they all do, I suppose.”

“That’s Sherif,” affirmed Jean. “He’s become indispensable in our neighbourhood. You need it and he’ll source it.”

“Why he wished us a happy Christmas though I don’t understand,” said Jean’s dad. “I mean their lot aren’t Christians, are they?”

“Well neither are you and Betty,” interceded Jack, “unless you’ve had a road to Damascus experience since we last met?”

“You know what I mean, Jack,” grunted the other. “This is a Christian country and we don’t need – ” Discretion seemed to suddenly restrain Jean’s dad in mid sentence. He popped a couple of Brussels sprouts in his mouth instead of completing the sentence.

“We don’t need bloody Paki heathens wishing us peace and goodwill,” said Jack. “Is that what you were going to say?” Jean’s dad began to choke on his vegetables. Hostile stares flashed around the table from one face to another. “I mean just because he’s got a dark skin colour and likes a biryani or two doesn’t mean Sherif can’t be a Christian, does it?”

“No Christian would charge the exorbitant prices he does for out of date goods,” snapped back Jean’s dad. “And what sort of name is Sherif anyway? That feller needs to be reported to the sheriff for overcharging!” He dug Betty in the ribs as if inviting her to join in his impromptu guffawing.

Jack put down his napkin and stood up. “What do you think of our tree?” he asked his parents in law, as if changing the subject.

“It’s very nice,” said Jean’s mum. “Isn’t it Eddie?”

“Oh ay, I’ll give you that,” agreed Eddie. “No wilting since we’ve been here. Obviously comes from a properly good fir stock?”

“And the decorations are lovely!” said Jean’s mum. “Top of the range sparkle and colour. Aren’t they, Eddie?” Eddie was delighted to agree, obviously pleased that the conversational rocky waters had now safely been negotiated. Unfortunately he was wrong. “Where did you buy it, Jack? From Squire’s garden centre?” he stupidly asked.

“From that quote unquote little Paki shop on the corner,” answered Jack. “Half the price Squire’s wanted to charge me. And the baubles came with it free. The most amazing thing is the tree barely smells of curry.”

Jade had listened to her mother’s anecdote with incredulity. She had also been sitting at that festive dining table but somehow managed to misunderstand what had been going on. Her father had been cracking jokes, that’s all. He had gone into performance mode. “You were nine at the time so your innocence is excused,” acknowledged Jean, “but believe me I had to relive that scene every time I saw my parents ever after. They refused to let me forget their humiliation.”

“I’m not sure I understand what that’s all got to do with you mistaking the tree in the lobby for dad and mutilating it?” Jade.had said.

To this Jean had confessed that neither could she. “As you may have noticed I am not a shrink,” she said. “I am a widow who is having a second visitation of grief. Ten years he’s been gone. Maybe it’s to do with that? Plus his birthday is on Boxing Day. He used to like to go to the races at Kempton Park or else to a football match. These things have been on my mind. Of course I know you and Evelyn organised this holiday partly to distract me from morbid thoughts and I’m grateful – very grateful. But the unconscious has a mind of its own. It’s like a – a – water wheel. It churns up all sorts of refuse that got discarded yonks ago. It twists stuff together that used to be apart. It mixes up the rough and the smooth. Nothing is simple. It’s like Paul McCartney said.”

“What did Paul McCartney say?” asked Jade.

“You know. There’s a shadow hanging over me,” replied Jean. “And it seems to get a bit bigger every day the closer we get to his birthday. Haven’t you noticed those huge birds that look like black kites? Every morning more of them appear. And they’re hovering lower and lower with each day. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed when you are on the beach? Something very horrible is going to happen. Those birds are a portent.”

It may have been that the sheer act of talking about her premonitions and confused dreams had helped in some way to evacuate them but whatever the case Jade noticed her mother seemed to sleep much better that night. She was up and showered and had secured the breakfast table before anyone else showed, sipping a huge frothy cappuccino and fluttering her eyelashes at a boyish waiter. “You look in good form today, mum,” she remarked following Jean’s gaze out towards the ocean which had returned to its unperforated, glacially placid state following a late afternoon squall the previous day.

“Have you noticed when the wind is up the boats do a jig,” said Jean. “They become animated and dance together in a rhythmic pattern. It is beautiful to watch. Everything is alive, I often think. Even the rocks, the clouds and the ocean.”

Which water wheel had thrown up this philosophical insight, Jade pondered. But further speculation did not serve today’s purpose. They all had an imminent expedition to look forward to, a tour of several local cenotes and lagunas. Sure enough within the half hour a burly man arrived in the lobby and began calling out names and room numbers. A white minibus that bore the scars of bad roads and misadventures attended them outside astride a dark brown pool of rainwater. “Watch your step please,” advised the guide whose name was Gustavo. “This is a Mexican puddle. It rests on a half a metre deep bed of mud.”

The self-deprecating humour of these Yucatan Mexicans really appealed to Jade. Geographically they inhabited the sewers and basements of US patronage like impoverished third cousins. When they had boarded the transfer bus at the arrival airport she had asked how long the journey would take to the hotel. “Forty Mexican minutes,” the driver had shrugged and this turned out to mean one hour ten.

While Jean and Chris happily cosied up like accomplices in the minibus, the sisters took a rear seat that kept them within earshot while retaining their own privacy. They caught the gist of Chris’s impromptu lecture on this phenomenon known as a cenote, a word, he explained to Jean, borrowed from the Mayan language. “A cenote is basically a water table,” they heard him say, “but its arteries spread far and wide, some are mapped, some not. They form a strange subterranean world of caves and grottoes. You only see them in places where the land is composed of limestone and it has collapsed through gradual erosion.” Jean was all ears.

Once Jade had filled in her sister on the conversation with their mother, Evie said, “I used to think all dads were like our dad, you know, and I was really quite old when I realized they weren’t. Far from it in fact. Jack was a one off. He had no boundaries when it came to engineering embarrassment, did he?”

“Not many,” agreed Jade.

“The most excruciating incident I remember is that time in Barcelona, when we did a house swap,” continued Evie. “I thought I would die of shame!” It happened in the aftermath of a cancer scare their father had suffered – from which he subsequently recovered. At the time, however, the prognosis was poor and Jack suddenly became all churchy, studying the bible and many of its renowned interpreters to see if a quick conversion might possibly secure him at the eleventh hour a place in eternity. Several profound moral questions began to consume him. How could you act charitably within an inherently corrupt world, for example. How did you meaningfully help the impoverished without impoverishing yourself and your family? After all, the good Lord’s message was unequivocal. You cannot build up treasures in both heaven and earth. You have to choose one or the other. There was a central pedestrian street in Barcelona called Las Ramblas and it happened to provide a perfect location for Jack to test out his practical resolution to the ‘charity dilemma’ as he theologically dubbed it. The street was teeming with open air coffee and wine bars and therefore equally teeming with beggars who approached a table and pitifully pleaded poverty so profusely that the clients were either forced to cough up some dough or brazenly outface the mendicant or just scarper.

“Here is the dilemma we are faced with, girls,” Jack had explained to his daughters as Jean put in their brunch order. “Some of these beggars are genuinely destitute no doubt but the majority are hustlers. They probably give half what they take to some pimp. How do we distinguish between the authentic and the fake? I believe the right reverend Justin Chartwell may have come up with the answer. Here comes a beggar now. Watch this. I shall offer her the smallest coin in my purse. If she graciously accepts it then I give her the largest note in my wallet.”

Right on cue an elderly crone had arrived and began pleading in some incomprehensible dialect, wringing her hands and pulling anguished faces. Jack allowed a minute or so to pass before extracting his purse from his bum bag, dipping his fingers inside and locating a coin. Her expression relaxed instantly into one of benign gratitude as he pressed it into her palm. Then a second later as she recognised it as virtually worthless she turned purple with fury, gestured with the coin towards her backside and hurled it in the gutter before uttering a string of oaths and striding along to the next table. But although Jack had made his point, to the horror of all his family he was far from finished. He walked to the adjacent table and announced to its occupants that the old woman was an ungrateful fraud who had thrown his widow’s mite away with contempt. The beggar moved to another table closely followed by my father who delivered the same wealth warning to its bemused occupants. And so it continued table to table all along the road, the indigent and the virtuous in a duet of neediness and negation.

Jade listened with awe. “I’d completely forgotten that one,” she confessed. “The incident from that holiday I remember best is when he took us to Sitges and the beach we pitched on was for gay people only. It took three hours for any of us to twig it.”

“To be fair, I think that was a genuine mistake on dad’s part,” said Evie.

“No it was not,” objected Jade. “He told me privately later that he wanted us to witness how same sex couples courted each other in order to broaden our understanding of human nature.”

By the time they had disembarked at the first cenote the sisters had agreed on two things. Firstly, that Jack despite his moral courage and essential decency would have sorely tried the patience of any woman he had married. Secondly, they would need to keep a close eye on their mother and not dismiss her prognostications as of no significance. According to grandma Betty, a distinct psychic sensitivity ran on her side of the family. Jean had always claimed, and this had definitely contributed to her grief reaction, that she had foreseen their father’s death. It took the form of a nightmare in which a player was struck by lightning on a storm tossed golf course and she assumed it must be Jack. Who else could it be? Nobody else she knew played golf. She had checked the weather forecast before breakfast and warned Jack not to go. His match would never be completed, she predicted. But Jack, stubborn as always, had summarily dismissed her fear. He had not missed a club tournament match in twenty years and he was not going to start today.

Gustavo led them down makeshift steps to a changing area and handed out the masks and mandatory life jackets. The jagged crater contained translucent water, teeming with small fish. Its depth varied depending on the number of limestone rocks that accumulated in the basin. Jade found she had to take care in places not to graze her legs on the sharp pinnacles often disguised by seaweed. Gustavo had made it clear this was a familiarisation exercise. They were making friends with the spirits of the cenotes. Jade kept close to her mother who proved as competent in her exploration of the underwater world as anyone else. After twenty minutes of gentle swimming Gustavo herded them towards a ladder reaching upwards from the far end of the grotto. They filed carefully up its mossy struts and found themselves aloft a pur[ose built wooden tower. Thirty yards to their right he indicated a similar structure. “You have a choice now, amigos,” he said. “The water here is quite deep. You can either jump in from this ledge or you can cross to the launch pad tower and do the Tarzan ride on ropes right across the laguna. Or best of all you can try both.” Only Chris attempted the rope slide, his arms failing him halfway across much to everyone else’s amusement.

The second cenote they visited presented an altogether different set of challenges. It appeared to be a proper grotto, instantly intimidating in the geometry of its stalagmite shaped roof and turquoise darkness. Chris felt compelled to puncture their sense of apprehension as they edged down the rickety steps trying to keep balance. “I read the Mayans used to sacrifice virgins to the fertility gods in places like this,” he quipped, “ but I assume we are all safe as houses.”

Gustavo for not entirely clear reasons left them in the tender care of another man who confronted them wearing a rubber diving suit. He held a torch and shone it into several of the furthest corners of the cave system. “Hola, amigos ingleses,” he greeted them. “My name is Pedro, which is Peter in English, and for the price of a few pesos I am available to show the most daring of you the rarest beauties of this vast cavern.” A private huddle ensued and opinions exchanged on the wisdom of accompanying Pietro who could easily have been just a random hustler.

“We can always follow him and just turn back if the going gets tough?” suggested Evie.

“I’ve heard it said that Mexican Pete tends to be a bandit,” joked Chris evasively.

Jade thought the grotto looked quite small anyway while Jean turned out to be easily the most positive. “Count me in for a hundred pesos worth of adventure, Pedro,” she announced. “I haven’t travelled all this way just to paddle with the tiddlers.”

So the die was cast and off they swam quite gingerly at first, taking care as they came up for air not to crack their heads on the javelin shaped pinnacles of rock. What initially surprised Jade were the number of twists and turns in the cavern. She had the sense of being inside a gigantic slice of honeycomb whose chambers were full almost to the ceiling with water. On the occasions she peered back to calculate the distance they had travelled from their departure point, the semi-circle of daylight had increasingly shrunk until after about half an hour it disappeared altogether. This could have prompted a moment of panic if it had not been for their guide’s torch which continued to illuminate the magnificently surreal and dripping ceilings of this underground world. The water did not feel cold but certainly it took its toll on the limbs and Evie was very soon afterwards the first to express the desire to turn back. Chris understandably did not want her to swim alone. Jean, however, pointed out that if you needed to rest all you had to do was locate a shallow boulder and sit on it. After a brief consultation the parties split. Pedro used his torch to indicate the exit route and waited to ensure that Chris and Evie had properly taken it. Given Jean’s status as the most important person in her daughter’s life, there was no way Jade would be deserting her. So onwards they went.

“Look at this, please,” said Pedro pointing the halo of light upward. Something alive and wriggling clung indistinctly to the limestone roof. In order to get a proper focal purchase on it Jade had to remove her mask. “Do you recognise them?” he asked. “They will not hurt you but I must not keep the torch on them too long. They are terrified of us.”

“Bats,” replied Jean. “A whole nest of them! Who would believe it?”

Pedro shifted the direction of the beam. “There are several nests in here,” he said and picked out another in the median distance. Jade noticed that the animals instantly reacted to the artificial illumination in a frenzy of shivering. They instinctively feared the predators that might arrive with light in the same way humans feared the spooks that might arrive with darkness. “We must respect them,” added the guide. “Come along now. We are close to our final destination. I have one more experience to share with you.”

What will it be? Jade wondered as she paddled along in her mother’s slipstream. The skeletal remains of one of those Mayan maidens Chris had joked about? A giant squid that had somehow lost its way in the ocean and wriggled into the cenote labyrinth along a fracture of the tectonic plate? The answer when it came shocked her for weeks after their return to the UK and still does.

When the three of them arrived back at the launch steps Evie could not withhold a cry of elation. “You were so long!” she wailed, clutching Jean to her bosom. “We thought you’d got lost!” Beyond the locker rooms Gustavo awaited them in a canteen outbuilding where the cooks liberally applied the family with hot food including quesadillas, enchiladas and fajitas. The sisters looked on in amazement as their mother demolished every scrap of grub that came her way, washing it down with not one lager but two. “There’s a glow of contentment about mum I haven’t seen in ages,” Evie confided to her sister on the journey home. Jade had noticed it too. “Who knew that a swim in a grotto could give her such a lift?” added Evie.

Jade decided to hold her tongue. This transformation would probably be temporary. She was reluctant to risk putting the mockers on it, contenting herself only to say, “Let’s wait and see how she is tomorrow, Evie.”

When tomorrow dawned for Jade the adjacent bed in which she had last seen her mother eight hours earlier lay empty. Within a couple of minutes she had raced up to the foyer and checked the Christmas tree. It looked immaculate. Then she asked the duty concierge if he had seen her mother. He shook his head and consulted several colleagues behind the reception desk who all repeated the gesture. “It’s a beautiful morning, miss. Have you tried the beach or the restaurant?” he suggested. So as Jade approached the glass dome and instantly caught sight of Jean buttering a croissant she felt particularly stupid.

“Please don’t look now,” Jean whispered as her daughter sat down in front of her, “but behind me, two rows to the left, Elvis Presley is sitting.”

“Why didn’t you wake me if you fancied an early breakfast, mum?” asked Jade, ignoring the remark.

“Oh, you were sleeping so soundly,” said Jean. “I didn’t want to disturb you. I had this urge to get up and get going. So I took a long stroll on the beach then came in here. Have you spotted him yet?”

“Who?”

“Elvis! I know he isn’t your generation but you must recognise him, surely?” continued Jean. “So handsome, isn’t he? And those sultry eyes! Who do you think he’s sitting with?” At that moment a waiter arrived and asked jade if she wanted some hot beverage. “It’s not the real Elvis, of course,” continued Jean. “He’s – what do you call it? A dead ringer? A doppeldunger?”

“Doppelganger,” corrected Jade and asked the waiter for a cappuccino. She picked Elvis out now. A young lad listened intently to two middle-aged ladies and he caught Jade’s eye as she stared at him. “He’s totally unselfconscious,” she informed her mother. “He has no idea how charismatic he looks.”

“Neither do you,” replied Jean. “You could do much worse.” Jade decided to treat that second remark with the contemptuous silence it deserved. “It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,” Jean added after a while. “There’s a gala dinner followed by a disco and dance in the main theatre. We need to book a timeslot for the meal.” Jade promised to consult with Evie and Chris about it then went off to make her selection from the buffet. When she returned with a plate of bacon, eggs and tomatoes Jean said, “You know your father’s favourite Elvis song was A Fool Such As I. I think I might ask the DJ to play it tomorrow. And do you know what his favourite Beatles’ record was? The Fool On The Hill. Ironic when you think about it.”

“Did you dream about him again last night?” asked Jade with a growing sense of apprehension.

“If I did I don’t remember,” Jean answered, standing up. “Oh well, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be on the beach in my usual spot.”

As she tucked in Jade noticed that Elvis had his gaze fixed on her. She spontaneously returned it with a smile but he glanced away as if feeling caught out. The two women seemed to be ignoring him, yapping away to each other in Spanish. Elvis had to be at least ten years younger than her, she considered, possibly fifteen. She could almost have been his mother. Would she ever be someone’s mother, she found herself wondering? Did she want to be somebody’s mother? Jack had once confided to her that he had never wanted to have children. He did not think he had what it took to be a responsible father. He lacked the confidence and maturity. But Jack was quick to add that having children opened up a hidden part of his nature that he had forgotten existed, namely the instinct to protect. It scared him to realise how needy and irrational he could be on behalf of another person. The challenge of fatherhood completely changed him. It made him above all realise how selfish and delusional he had been for the first three decades of his life. On Jade’s eighteenth birthday he had written her what he called a special coming of age letter. It remained her most prized possession.

“Wisdom is a much misunderstood commodity,” it went. “Civilisations come and go and so do their values and sages. I do not consider myself a wise person but I have tried to be a truthful one.” He urged her to confront those awkward truths that may be buried deeply within herself and cautioned that such vigilance was the key to understanding the truth about other people. He counselled her to trust in Providence but never to take providential outcomes for granted. “Luck very rarely occurs by random means,” he wrote. ‘More usually it proceeds from patience, tenacity and hard work. As my favourite pro golfer used to say, ‘People reckon I am lucky with my shotmaking but it’s funny that the more I practice, the luckier I seem to become.’” He had something to say about the importance of travel, too, quoting from St Augustine to the effect that “The world is a book and those who do not travel only see one page.” Finally he warned her against simply following the paths of others. “If in doubt go instead where there is no path,” he wrote, “and leave a distinct trail behind you.”

At the time Jade had appreciated these sentiments without knowing exactly what to do with them. Occasionally she would run them up against her friends and watch their eyes roll. Yet she valued the letter all the same because of what it revealed about her father’s complex, often perverse character. She suspected that she was cut in the same genetic type of cloth. Like Jack she found the business of being human extremely contradictory.

Ten minutes later Evie and Chris arrived and Jade waved them over. “How is mum today?” was Evie’s opening shot. “Has she relapsed or what?”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” answered Jade. “Paul McCartney’s shadow is no longer evident. She appears to have moved into her early Elvis phase instead.”

“Oh, wildly rotating her pelvis, you mean?” laughed Chris.

“You still haven’t told me what Gustavo showed you in the cenote after we swam back,” said Evie.

“I think I’d prefer mum to tell you,” Jade prevaricated. “Get your breakfast first. We’ll ask her later.”

So within the hour they found her lounging underneath a sunshade, contentedly reading another detective story. “We’re going jet skiing in a minute,” announced Chris. “Do you want to come, Jean?”

Jean looked appalled at the idea. “Very reckless,” she frowned. “If not so much dangerous for the riders but definitely for all those innocent swimmers who might get in the way. Don’t do it. That’s my advice.”

“We promise to be careful, mum,” said Evie.

“Of course you do. Good advice is always certain to be ignored,” added Jean with a smile, “but that’s no reason not to give it.”

“I wanted to talk to you about what it was Pedro showed you in the cave,” explained Evie. “Is this a convenient moment?”

Jean put her book down. “He showed us some trident shaped stalagmites,” reflected Jean, “and a family of nesting bats.”

“Okay. Anything else?” asked Evie.

“Nothing,” replied Jean after a considered hesitation.

Evie shot her sister a quizzical look. “Nothing?” she repeated. “Are you sure there wasn’t something else?”

“No. Just nothing,” confirmed Jean with a wistful sigh. “Maybe Jade can explain better than me?”

“What mum’s getting at is that Pedro switched off his torch,” explained Jade. “It wasn’t just that we were instantly plunged into darkness, it was the sudden dreadful quality of it. The world simply disappeared.”

Evie turned to her mother. “That’s a good way of putting it,” agreed Jean. “Normally even in the darkest places there are pinpricks of light, stars or whatever. Light always finds a way of leaking even into cellars and dungeons and your eyes eventually find it. But this was different.”

“It was bloody scary to be honest,” added Jade. “I kept thinking, what if his battery has failed? We’ll never find our way out of here.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” said Jean. “I was exhilarated. It made me understand things I’d never understood before.”

“And what might that be?” asked Evie. But Jean shook her head as if further words now failed her. “Didn’t you talk to each other?” Evie said, looking from one to the other.

“We did after a while,” replied Jade hesitantly. “Whatever a while might be. You kill the lights and you kill time. Everything is frozen into the same moment.”

“Yes, that was partly it,” agreed Jean. “But I didn’t care because – because – “ They waited in vain for the sentence to be finished.

“What I think mum means,” offered Jade eventually, “is that time no longer had a meaning. There was only now and it went on forever and ever. Just one now after another.”

Evie and Chris both looked puzzled. “For me there was more to it than just that,” remarked Jean. “Call me crazy but I had the strong sense that Jack was right there in the blackness alongside me and that he had never gone away……..You see, we assume that the daylight reveals to us everything that is worth knowing while the darkness hides it. But while I was in the grotto I realised that is not true. It’s actually the other way round!” Chris tried to make a joke but it fell on deaf ears. “You’d better get along, Evie, hadn’t you?” urged Jean. “The jet skis are ready and waiting by the wharf and that lifeguard feller keeps staring over here. Are you going too, Jade?” She did not wait for an answer. “They’re coming, senor!” she shouted towards the lifeguard. “And make sure they wear life jackets!”

Jade didn’t know what to make of all this but she didn’t question it. Her mother had become happy and happiness can arrive in the strangest of ways and places. At the Christmas Eve disco Jean failed in her efforts to get the DJ to play A Fool Such As I (‘Elvis? Elvis who?’ he asked) but that did not diminish one bit her dance energy. Wild horses could not have dragged her off that floor. When they played The Macarena she fell in with every rhythmic move, much to the sisters’ astonishment. This was the biggest festive occasion. On Christmas Day Santa Claus and his retinue of elves arrived on campus and champagne corks popped all around the pool but otherwise the sun worshippers languished on their pedestals while the uncomplaining cocktail barmen frantically mixed their Coco Locos and Mango Tangoes for swim up customers. Full on Christmas hedonism Mexican style, as Chris observed. Still he had a surprise in store for them. Just before lunch he invited them to take a stroll on the beach and once they reached an uninhabited patch he bent down on one knee, held out a ring towards Evie and asked her to marry him. She burst into tears and accepted. That evening they dined in the hotel’s exclusive themed Japanese restaurant housed in the attic of the glass dome where a wisecracking performance chef cooked them the most delicious oden and donburi.

On Boxing Day a trip to the ruined Mayan city of Tulum along the coast had been provisionally scheduled but over breakfast Jade found her family less than enthusiastic. “It’s our final full day,” said Evie, “and it’s roasting. Why don’t we just chill out by the pool, play a bit of water polo or table tennis, whatever.” Nobody fancied another trek along the bumpy teeming potholed roads anyway despite the pay off at journey’s end – even Jade. But what Jade did crave was a few hours spent entirely in her own company. So off she went on the bus with everybody’s blessing. Despite a delay caused by a collision on the highway the journey took just under an hour. For part of this time the mainly American passengers were entertained by a potted narrative of the rise and fall of the Mayan civilisation. But the indigenous people had not ceased to exist, explained the guide. Seven million lived up and down the Yucatan peninsula, speaking twenty-eight native languages as well as Spanish. In colonial terms they had been assimilated rather than displaced. This process had taken almost two centuries, Jade learnt, despite the fact that European weaponry consisting of muskets and cannon was far superior to the primitive bow and spear implements of their opponents. Beyond that the Spanish also brought a few diseases along with them against which the natives had no immunity. The other thing that helped the conquest was the internecine tribal nature of Mayan society which existed, even as late as 1500 when Columbus arrived, not in the form of a unified empire but a group of politically competing kingdoms.

Once the bus had parked up, Jade found she had to troop through several arcades, crammed full of stall keepers flogging death masks, skulls and numerous other gory memorabilia, before accessing the archeological site. Tulum turned out to have been a fortified city protected by ten metres wide walls on three sides and the sea on the other. It appeared far too small to be deemed a city but then she learnt from an information board that only the royal family, the high priests and the elite civil servants actually lived within the protected compound. Everyone else had to forage for themselves in the jungle outside – long since cleared, of course. It was at that point any residual sympathy Jade may have entertained for the Mayans drained away. In each of the two surviving temples an altar was visible on which human sacrifices were routinely made to the fertility gods. If a captured enemy was not available, according to the tourist blurb, the potentates had to make do with one of their own dispensable citizens – usually female. Eating the heart of one’s enemy was believed to be spiritually fortifying, according to the scholars who had deciphered the hieroglyphic script found on stonework and ancient codices. Jade kept her scrutiny of such information to a minimum, preferring to enjoy the sea views from the top of craggy cliffs and the abundant company of sophorific iguanas.

As she wandered back towards the crowded entry mall in need of a cold drink someone shouted out her name. Had she misheard? She stopped and turned towards the direction from which the voice had spoken. Three burly men, much decorated in birds’ feathers and native costumes, stood on a verandah, their faces patterned with colourful dyes. One balanced a monkey on his shoulder, another a parrot on his wrist while the third twirled a spear. It was this ferocious warrior who took a step towards Jade’s bewildered look of inquiry. “Jade,” he said, “don’t you recognise me? It’s me Pedro! I showed you the secrets of the cenote?”

The transformation staggered Jade. “What are you doing?” she managed to ask.

“I’m trying to persuade visitors to have their photo taken, two hundred pesos a shot,” he replied. “What else?”

“But it’s Boxing Day?” she said ineptly.

“I have to work,” he shrugged. “I’m a Mexican. How is your mother?”

“She’s fine,” answered Jade with a smile. “Actually she’s better than fine. You showed her the light in the darkness. Do you have more than one job then?”

“Of course. As I just said, I’m a Mexican,” he retorted. “Do you want your photo taken with me? I won’t charge you.”

“Not right now. I need a drink,” she told him and he produced a leather bottle as if out of nowhere.

“But who or what are you supposed to be?” asked Jade as she took it curiously. “You’re a terrifying sight in all that warpaint, you know.”

“I’m a shaman,” he replied. Jade instantly withdrew the bottle from her lips. “Go on. It’ll refresh and fortify you,” he encouraged.

“What is it?” she asked with sudden suspicion.

“It’s a jungle juice cocktail. Exotic fruit laced with peyote and honey,” he explained as she sniffed at the spout. “The Mayans were great agriculturists and beekeepers. Your mother took a swig before we went snorkelling.”

She gave him the flask back. “No thanks,” she said. “I think I’d prefer a coke from the stall over there. No offence meant.”

“None taken, amiga,” he grinned and walked her towards the vendor. “I liked your mother,” he added. “Tiene huevas. A very ballsy lady.” He snapped his fingers, said something else in Spanish and a soft drink was instantly forthcoming. “She had real fun in that cenote. Please give her my best wishes.”

On the way back in the bus Jade fell into conversation with an elderly American couple who turned out to be regular winter travellers to Mexico. Ever since she had heard on the news that the president elect had roadtested his latest provocative fantasy to annex Greenland as the fifty-second state and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, she had treated any American citizens she bumped into at the hotel with circumspection in case they agreed with their populist leader. But when this man who introduced himself as Max explained that he was a retired professor of anthropology, she felt on safe territory. “We’ve noticed you and your family.” smiled his wife, “trying to work out the dynamics, as you do.”

“I think that’s Ann’s polite way of asking about the absence of a father figure,” translated Max. “Not that it’s any of our business.” Jade shrugged off this cautiousness and put them straight. “My father died prematurely as the result of a freak aneurysm,” he sympathised. “We take our health so much for granted but outcomes are just a matter of luck, I suppose.”

“My dad was a skeptic when it came to luck,” she confided. “He would have put his death down to foolishness. What other sort of person takes shelter from an electric thunderstorm under a tree?”

“You mean he was struck by lightning?” winced Ann.

Jade nodded her head and changed the subject. “Did you have your photo taken with one of those shamans?” she asked.

“They’re not real ones,” said Max. “They’re actors playing on the impulses of gullible tourists.”

“We’ve got our own shaman about to begin his second term in the White House,” observed Ann dryly, “as you may have noticed?”

This endeared Jade to the Americans instantly. They were first generation Germans, lived in Boston and offered an analysis of the rise of right wing populism in the developed world that her father would have endorsed. When the direction of conversation returned to ancient Mayan civilization she mentioned the drink Pedro had offered her from the flask. “It had a foetid medicinal pong to it,” she said. “I went for soda pop instead.”

“What was in it? Did he say?” asked Ann.

“Just mixed fruit juices and payotty – whatever that is,” she replied.

“Peyote!” repeated Ann incredulously.

“You did well to avoid that,” chuckled Max. “It’s a cactus plant they cultivate to make mescaline. It’s a hallucinogenic drug. Very potent so I’m reliably informed.”

“Have you not wondered why all the Mexicans you meet are so contented and docile?” asked Ann.

When she got back to her hotel room Jade googled the word mescaline on her laptop immediately and discovered that it increased the level of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. Users claim they can see music and hear colours. They can feel intense joy and have other dramatic emotional experiences such as being integrated into the entire mechanism of nature and the universe. She went out to look for Jean and found her stretched flat out on a lounger, gazing towards an imminent sunset. “Mum, can I have a word with you?” she asked, approaching from behind. “I was wondering if – “

“Sssshh,” hushed Jean. “Can’t you see that I’m listening?”

“Listening?” snapped Jade. “What to?”

“The music of the setting sun,” replied Jean. “Just listen!” Jade stood there pretending to listen and when the sun was eclipsed by a sliver of cloud Jean added. “I’ve heard that on classic FM. I wish I knew what it’s called. I think it’s the benedictus from something or other.”

“Mum, sorry to disturb you,” said Jade. “I ran into Pedro at Tulum and he sends you his best wishes.”

“That’s kind,” smiled Jean. “Did the ruins live up to expectations?”

“Absolutely. The site is very atmospheric,” Jade confirmed. “But I wanted to ask you something. When we were at the cenote with Pedro, did he offer you anything to drink before we got in the water? I think he had a flask with him on the wharf.”

“What a strange question!” she grinned. “I really can’t remember. Do you have some reason for asking? Shush! Don’t speak! The requiem’s started up again.”

A bit later Jade found Evie and Chris packing suitcases in their room. “We have to vacate by eleven tomorrow morning or pay for an extra day,” Evie explained. “I’ll get all stressed up if I wait til tomorrow. Where’s mum?”

“She’s okay. I left her taking a shower,” said Jade. “I need to share something with you.” The couple listened intently to Jade’s story.

“You know I took a swig of that stuff at the cenote but I didn’t like the taste and spat most of it out when nobody was looking,” confessed Evie. “If what you say is true, I’m beginning to regret it.”

“My concern is this,” said Jade. “If mum’s return to mental stability was induced by a mescaline hit, the likelihood is it will only be temporary. She might suddenly regress and go all weird and morbid again. We need to acquire a bottle of that jungle juice and take it home with us as a backup. But where from?”

“Probably not from the Seven Eleven up the road,” cackled Chris who grabbed his phone and had started a google search before Jade stopped talking. “The thing is this, if Jean can’t remember drinking the stuff it might be that her reaction to Pedro’s blackout stunt at the grotto was genuine. She’s had a sort of conversion. Is that the right word?”

“Epiphany?” suggested Evie. “People do have mystical experiences spontaneously. They don’t have to be drug induced. A sudden shock to the system can do it, Jade. It evidently bounced you in one direction and mum in the opposite. We just can’t be sure of the truth.”

“Look, Pedro was pretty sure that mum drank his juice and I certainly didn’t,” insisted Jade.

Chris remained busy scrutinising his mobile screen as the sisters debated the psycho-biology of religious experience. Evie had read the memoir of a space astronaut who had been converted from scientific scepticism to transcendental certainty the moment his ship veered out from the dark side of the moon and he saw Earth in all its miniscule diaphanous glory. Jade had been equally struck by a scholarly article written by a Jewish historian who argued that the non canonical Christian gospels indicated that the real Jesus was a shaman who used organic drugs procured from wild plants to undermine the rigid materialist view of reality held by his followers. “Obviously I never knew your dad,” remarked Chris, “but I’m sure he would have been dead proud of the way his daughters care about their mother’s welfare.”

He had come to several conclusions which he now pronounced. Firstly, it was far too late to go in search of Pedro and try to buy a bottle of jungle juice from him – he could be anywhere and they would be leaving the hotel for the airport at 1pm. Secondly, the authorities rated mescaline a class A drug in the UK and its possession was illegal – although the little cactus plant itself could be legally owned and indeed cultivated. Thirdly, he had found a picture of the cactus and identified it as growing on the hotel premises – in that part of the garden where the statue of the naked woman stood blissfully embracing the universe. “No wonder she’s in such a state of ecstasy,” said Chris, “she’s surrounded by peyote plants! The secret of Mexican well-being has all this time been hiding in plain sight! What we do is take one of them home with us and if Jean does relapse then we can manufacture our own jungle juice from its leaves. Okay?”

And so it transpired that under cover of darkness Chris clandestinely dug up a cactus, roots and all, which he then carefully soaked in water overnight. The next morning he wrapped it up in newspaper, sealing the roots in a water pouch, and locating it in the most protected section of his suitcase. None of them felt remotely guilty. So far as jade was concerned an insignificant morsel of Mexico would become forever England. An hour into the plane journey Jean complained to Chris that she had just finished her final Agatha Christie and had nothing else to read. “Plenty of films on there,” replied Chris pointing to the entertainment console.

Jean pulled a face. “Not the same,” she said.

“What is it about detective stories you like so much?” he asked her.

She mulled the question over for a few seconds before answering, “I suppose because life itself is one big detective story.”

This made no sense to Chris. “But who committed the crime?” he asked.

“Oh, we all committed a crime,” she retorted. “It’s just that some committed far bigger crimes than others.”

After landing, the bitter cold snap that had taken possession of The British Isles convinced Jade that the cactus would never reroot but she was proved wrong. Chris took charge and his green fingers and heated workshed did the trick.

On her second day back in the office Jade found herself suddenly joined in the queue for coffee by Alice Little. “So how was your holiday?” asked her boss with a predatory smile.

“I’m afraid I was too preoccupied caring for my elderly mother to keep much of a diary,” she explained. “But you’re more than welcome to read it. I’ll leave a photocopy of the relevant pages in your intray.”

Alice’s original idea became evidently downgraded because a fortnight later Jade discovered the manuscript deposited on her desk entirely devoid of editorial comment. As for the peyote plant, Chris nurtured it in a composted container for several months then transferred it to the garden once Spring had advanced beyond May Day and pink flowers had appeared. Come mid September it was returned to the warmth of the shed. So far no circumstances have arisen that necessitate the removal of any of its psychotropic fuelled buttons. In Jade’s view Jean remains extremely proactive and cheerful. She emailed a letter to Pedro, containing a pictorial record of the Christmas holiday and received a long reply that in places made her laugh out loud. “We Yucatan Indians once upon a time used to worship the strange gods of our own imagination,” he wrote, “but now like all civilised peoples everywhere, as you will no doubt have noticed, we just worship your European deity and the American dollar.”