I, along with my wife Kate and our daughters Karen and Susan, was on holiday in Benidorm, on Spain's Costa Blanca. Benidorm was the just about last destination that I would've selected myself, but Kate had insisted that 'as it's likely to be the last holiday that we'll all share, we ought to let the girls choose where we go.'
Karen's almost twenty, while Susan has just turned eighteen and in a few weeks time, she too would be starting university. So, I could see where Kate was coming from with that, but I suspected that provided the Bank of Mum and Dad were prepared to pick up the tab, the girls would continue to join us for holidays.
I did at least get to select our hotel, so I went for an upmarket place, close to the Old Town and well to the west of the bars and nightclubs of Calle Gerona. Our arrival in the early afternoon had required an early morning departure for our drive to the airport, so once we'd checked-in, Kate and I had retired to our room for a siesta.
The girls meanwhile elected to 'Go out and explore... Get the lie of the land.' So it was agreed that we'd reconvene at seven for dinner in the hotel's restaurant. It was a little after five when I woke to discover a note which had been pushed under our door; the handwriting was Karen's: 'Had to change rooms -- Now on 12th Floor -- Will see you at 7:00.'
No explanation and no details as to their new room number, so we had to wait until dinner to hear the reason why. We found Karen and Susan in the hotel bar at 6:40, where their story was related: 'Having met a disabled lady in the elevator, who had been allocated a room on the twelfth floor, we couldn't bear to see her struggle, so volunteered to exchange rooms with she and her husband.'
Though one couldn't fault the girls' public spiritedness, my first thought was that it was perhaps more likely that our daughters didn't want a room adjoining their parents? The expression in Kate's eyes suggested similar and the fact that we never once either saw or heard anyone, disabled or otherwise, in the room adjoining ours, perhaps confirmed those suspicions.
Kate's expression also indicated that this was not the moment -- when would it be? - to question the veracity of our daughters' story, so I let it slide and we headed into the restaurant for dinner. The girls joined us for a drink in the bar afterwards too, but as the hotel's entertainment began -- a fairly decent Elvis tribute act -- the girls headed out in search of something more to their taste.
Their departure in itself didn't surprise me, but two things about it did: The dresses that they were wearing were far more conservative -- bordering on demure -- than I might've expected them to wear for night out on the town. More intriguing still, when they went out of the hotel's door, they turned to the right; the pubs and clubs of Calle Gerona were to the left?
Kate and I breakfasted alone the following morning -- no surprise, the girls had told us not to expect them -- whereafter we went for a walk to the Mirador del Castell and on down into the older/Spanish area of town. A very pleasant morning, getting the stiffness of yesterdays travels out of our bones and enjoying a cup of coffee and later on an aperitif along the way.
The girls had surfaced by the time we returned for a late lunch, after which they headed out to the hotel pool. The heat was by then too much for Kate and I, so we went to our room for another siesta, only going down to join them at five o'clock. I did see the girls from our balcony though; their skimpy bikinis looked a far cry from last night's dresses and both were garnering plenty of attention.
It was still uncomfortably hot when we arrived at five, which perhaps answered why the girls both put on cotton kaftans as we approached... Surely it wasn't to disguise just how revealing those bikinis were? The four of us spent another hour beside the pool, before returning to our rooms to shower and change for dinner.
This evening I was even more intrigued: The girl's dresses were not only demure, but exactly the same ones that they'd worn the night before; Kate -- any woman? - would not have been seen dead wearing the same dress two nights in succession! And once again, when the girls left the hotel, they turned to the right as they went out of the door.
Since last night I'd done a little exploring of my own; immediately the girls went out of sight, I strode briskly across the hotel lobby to position myself behind a well located column. Our hotel had a second entrance and pair of elevators at the farther end of the lobby; as anticipated, my two giggling daughters re-entered through that, not ten seconds later.
I watched the elevator's progress -- it did at least go to level twelve, though the girls still hadn't divulged their room number -- before returning to Kate in the bar. Fifteen minutes later both Kate and I were hidden behind that same column in the lobby, as we watched our daughters depart for a second time; those conservative dresses were nowhere in sight.
Kate perhaps summed it up best, as the doors swung closed behind Karen and Susan's re-departing backs: "Dear God; they look like a pair of hookers in search of a street corner."
I wasn't about to disagree, the strapless dresses they now wore might've been painted on, with hems so high that a wisp of breeze as she exited the door was sufficient to reveal Karen's panties; there wasn't much material in those either! Their make-up was garish to say the least and how either managed to walk in their strappy high heels was beyond my comprehension.
Kate and I returned to the bar; several stiff drinks being called for as the discussion about our daughters' attire and likely behaviour took up most of the evening. Much of that conversation was along the lines of 'Where did we go wrong?' Though we both agreed (reluctantly) that as adults we must now allow the girls to make their own decisions on such matters.
We retired to our bed at eleven and three hours later, with Kate sound asleep, I was sat on the balcony in my pyjamas. It wasn't thoughts of our daughters that had disturbed my sleep -- well, not entirely -- I've always woken for an hour or two in the early hours of the morning; something that's proved beneficial business-wise, as I often do my best thinking then.
I wasn't disturbing Kate out there and the temperature was very pleasant; the most comfortable it'd been since we arrived in this damned place! To be fair, Benidorm itself was looking much better now too; there was a glow of lights and the distant rumble of music coming from the Calle Gerona direction, but around our hotel, all was silent and pitch black.