A Lizard In My Luggage (3 page)

  'No. Is no bathroom. They used garden.'

  We crept uncertainly behind him up the back garden to a wooden shelter covered with a dirty, rain-ravaged, pinstriped cotton curtain partially ripped off its wooden rod. It was hiding something grim within, I knew that much. A hole gaped at us from the ground. We had plumbed new lavatorial depths. And the shower?

  'Is green hose over back door. Goes from drain above so when rain falls you have shower.' Nice touch.

  'All mod cons,' Alan intoned dryly.

  'Well, we still want it,' I persisted.

  Alan fixed me with one of his cool gazes. 'Exactly which bank were you planning to raid?'

  'But it's so cheap, and think what you could do with all that land!'

  As a keen horticulturist, he had already sussed out the landscaping possibilities for himself so wasn't going to be seduced by the insincere sales spiel of an inexpert gardener like me who couldn't tell a hibiscus from a hydrangea.

  'Look, we're not buying a mule here! This is a house and we don't have the money.'

  'So you like it?' I beamed victoriously.

  'It's not a question of what I like. We came to Mallorca for a holiday, not a house.'

  'And ended up doing the reverse. That's the thrill.'

  'Anyway, what would we do with it?'

  'We'll think of something.'

  Toni shuffled outside the front door, too polite to interrupt a potential marital dispute. I followed him out moments later and told him that we were going to buy it. He raised his eyebrows slightly and stole a glance at my husband.

  'What would you do with her?' Alan said to Toni with an exasperated grin, offering his hands out wide in a gesture of defeat. 'There's only one thing for it.'

  And with that he drew a large cigar from his pocket and popped it defiantly in between his teeth, certain for once that I wouldn't dare say a word.

I'm slammed out of my reverie and back into reality with the sound of a deep rumbling far up the track. A procession of tipsy lorries are weaving their way unsteadily over pot holes, large gashes in the road and pools of muddy water left from the previous night's storm. Ollie has somehow inveigled his way into the passenger seat of the front truck and leans out of the open window quietly surveying the scene before him. Alan toots enthusiastically at me from the hire car, his eyes bright with anticipation and a wide beam on his face. Surreptitiously, head slightly lowered, he draws deeply on a cigar butt before ejecting it adroitly from the car window on nearing the house. He doesn't seem to think I've noticed. He parks the car under a carob tree, leaps out from his seat and saunters over to me across the gravel. It looks like we've arrived.

Ed has bought me The
Fearless Flier's Handbook
. I laugh loudly. It's the sort of puerile joke that appeals to us both. This time he remonstrates earnestly.

  'No, Scatters,' he yelps in between bouts of guffaws, using his nickname for me from university days. 'I really think it might help. If you've got to commute from Mallorca to London each month, you've got to conquer your fear of flying.'

  Ed is a nervous traveller and uses tranquillisers and various potions from his mobile emergency kit, otherwise known as MEK, to assist him in times of high stress; but then Ed's problems are a tad more severe than mine. I mean Ed can't get on a train without a respirator and a dozen pills from the various pouches in his survival bag, which he carries everywhere with him. As for the London Underground, forget it. Ed works as a producer at the BBC and is always in a state of high anxiety when he needs to make business trips. On these fearful occasions he plans his route meticulously, packing his MEK with loving care, or he doesn't go at all. Once or twice I have peeked inside this voluminous bag and registered:

Two packs of Nurofen
Inhaler x 4
Portable electric fan
Two-litre bottle of Evian water
Family size box of Kleenex
Tweezers and scissors
Plasters and bandages
Eight bottles of different coloured pills
Two small bottles of dubious liquid
Eight chocolate muffins
Packet of Jaffa Cakes
Two family size bars of Cadbury's chocolate
Tuna sandwich
Flask of coffee
Imperial mints
Copy of
Private Eye
Book with obscure title
Portable CD player and multiple classical CDs

The MEK is no ordinary bag. It's a vortex. In the footsteps of Gladstone, Ed seems to be able to pack endless amounts of medicinal items inside his bag without ever filling the thing. Perhaps the day he tries to flat pack a mobile doctor, nurse and man of the cloth he may come unstuck.

  I look out of the window at the rain tumbling down on Oxford Street. Shoppers are fleeing for the tube stations, umbrellas to the wind. Most look beyond misery. We are sitting in Starbucks, two cappuccinos in paper cups between us. Proper china is off the menu, which really irks me.

  'Do you think you'll ever visit me in Mallorca?' I ask quietly.

  'God. No!' he splutters into his coffee. 'You wouldn't catch me on a plane.'

  I regard him with some alarm.

  He quickly changes tack. 'Well, no, I mean, flying is really safe now. I'm just a bit paranoid. Hopeless really. Not brave like you.'

  I open the book at a random sentence and read to him out loud: '"My fundamental goal in the Fearless Fliers course is to help people realize that they have no control over the aircraft or the pilot…" That's just great, Ed. I feel such immense relief just reading that.'

  'Oh, come on! You can't just pick out a line. You've got to give it a chance. You're so impetuous.'

  I read on, '"Most people who develop a fear of flying are what we call worriers." You don't say?!'

  'Look, if you're going to be sarcastic, I'll take it back.'

  He grabs at it but I evade him. 'I think it's going to be an inspiration. I'm serious, really. Thanks, Ed.' I throw him one of my indulgent smiles which I know he hates.

  How long have Ed and I known each other? It seems like a trillion years. I think I know him better than he does, and he thinks the same about me. We're both wrong, though. Ed is what others less endowed with brains would call a boffin. He's an academic with a first in English, a PhD and a swag bag of secret neuroses that the most fervent Freud couldn't unravel, though many have tried. But then that's part of his magic, his lure. Ed is naturally a dedicated hypochondriac and also has a weight problem. He starts a diet one day and eats the book the next with a generous dollop of mayonnaise. Exercise seems a complete waste of time to him when he could compose a brilliant piece of jazz on the piano, immerse himself on the Internet or consume a segment of a novel in the same time. Can I blame him? No. Ed's other problem is money. He never has any because he fritters his salary away on endless phone calls to fantasy women he encounters on the web who invariably hail from the States and have names like Laurel, Roxanne, Ivy-League and Cup Cake. But at the end of the day – and God, don't I hate that phrase – Ed is the best friend you could have, with or without his foibles.

  'What is it that kills, I mean, concerns you most about flying?' he stutters over a ton of chocolate cake which he tries to cram into his mouth all at once.

  'Oh, everything really. First there's the random BING BING sound at the beginning of the flight when little lights start twitching up and down the cabin…'

  His hazel eyes widen in horror.

  '… then the surge of power as the plane takes off, wings shaking like beaten whippets, followed by a weird sound of scraping metal and a grinding noise that deepens into a violent juddering like an unstoppable pneumatic drill. Then comes a loud DONG DONG over the intercom and the air hostesses' nostrils are flared and a look of terror creeps into their eyes as they unclip their belts and…'

  Ed loosens his collar. 'Stop, stop, for crying out loud! You'll give me palpitations. That's it, I'm never getting on a plane again.'

I'm alone in my basement flat with the
Today
programme pontificating from the kitchen radio and breakfast television simpering from the bedroom. I'm already late but I can't blame it on this, my first monthly commute from Mallorca, since I arrived here yesterday afternoon. I just didn't set the alarm properly. Careering from room to room, cup of black tea in hand, I scoop up files, pens, mobile phone, diary, make-up, keys and wallet like a possessed vacuum cleaner with my free hand tipping these items messily into my handbag. I've got to get to a meeting in fifteen minutes. Should I catch a cab, or is the Tube quicker? A hurried snoop under the living room blind reveals a heavy downpour outside. Ye gods! What's wrong with this country? It's always raining. This is still August, isn't it? I sift through stuff in the walk-in cupboard. No umbrella. Damn it. I rush out into the dark and windowless rectangular corridor, once described by a zealous estate agent as a dining hall. What a joke.

  Swinging the bag over my shoulder, I pick up my briefcase and treble lock the front door. Our communal block has an archaic lift with creaky wrought-iron inner gates that, like a concertina, have to be pulled back to open. Although it reaches the basement and stops just outside my door and that of my neighbour, I'm not lazy enough to use it in place of the stairs. I pass the dark and creepy boiler room and bolt up the narrow steps to the main landing. It is sombre and covered with the kind of dreary, pea-green wool carpet that adorns so many of these sort of respectable central London blocks. The arched ceiling and elegant coving lend a rather faded grandeur to the place, but the paintwork is slapdash and hardened dribbles of magnolia paint hang precipitously from the corners of dado rails, and the skirting board is scuffed and grimy.

  I just manage to reach the brightly lit communal front entrance when the lift door opens behind me and out puffs our resident Lord.

  'Ah, what ho? Back from Milan, are you?' He squints at me through his half-moon spectacles, a large girth and froth of navel hair peeping out from the frayed waistband of his stripy, cotton Jermyn Street pyjamas. I have never seen him wear anything else. Presumably he stops short of wearing them in the House of Lords.

  'Mallorca, William.' It still feels strange calling my neighbourly Lord by his first name but he always insists.

  'Marvellous place, Italy. Here for a holiday?'

  'Hardly, I'm working. I'll be back and forth from Spain every month now. I'm living there but working here. A double life, William.'

  He gives me a wink and bellows cheerfully, 'Good girl! Send my love to Fraser.'

  I don't know who Fraser is but imagine he thinks he's my husband. Is the name Alan so hard to remember? Over the years, Lord Jim Jam, as we affectionately call him, has called him everything from Stuart to Macduff. Lord Jim Jam shuffles over to the mail tray and scrutinises each letter, holding the individual envelopes of our neighbours up to the light. I wonder if he's searching for postal orders but he catches my eye and mumbles about precautionary security measures. I fly into the weepy street, dash in front of a moving cab and brace myself when it screeches to a halt. The young cabbie clicks his teeth at me. 'You must have a good guardian angel. Roads are like glass today. Where you going then?'

  'Piccadilly, and don't spare the petrol.'

  He looks back at me through the mirror as we speed along with a curious look on his face. 'In a hurry, are we?'

  'Always.'

  'Gotta take it easy or you'll do your head in.'

  'Oh, I let others do that for me throughout the day.' I smile crisply at him.

  My bag starts shivering at my side and I wonder if it's coming down with flu. Then I hear the familiar bawling of Judas from within. Oh, here we go. 'Hello?'