Kiss My Name (35 page)

JOEY – May 2012

              I was half cut by the time the coach left the car park at The Talbot. We’d met there at eleven and I was keen to get as many pints down me as I could before we left Euxton. Me and a few of the lads had been to a cash and carry place and bought a dozen packs of twenty four cans of lager. Most of them had been stored safely in the luggage racks on the coach too, but there’s nothing beats drinking in a pub with your mates, especially when you are about to go away for a weekend with them.

             
I wanted Simon there late, because the surprise that had cost me and the lads a grand between us, was coming on the coach too. I know some people probably think that if we’d have arranged a stripper to turn up in Blackpool, dressed as a policewoman, that would have been funny, but we’re all getting on a bit and most of us have been on plenty of stag do’s that have involved an hour or two of big tits and shaven front bottoms, so I just thought this was much better. Anyway, how do I benefit from some stripper dripping water into Simon’s mouth from the ice cubes she’s stuffed into her bits and getting him to lick whipped cream off her kahunas? I don’t. What had I planned, benefitted us all, with the possible exception of Simon, anyway!

             
I arranged for Terry, the coach driver, to get there for twelve fifteen and my little surprise to get there for half past. I told the surprise that he needed to sit on the back seat in the corner, next to a few big, beer bellied blokes. Simon was never going to sit near the back, it’d be too raucous for him and given nearly every guest, with the exception of the odd cricketer and Simon’s family, had been arranged by me, Simon was not going to spot a stranger anyway.

             
By ten past one, we were on our way. Nothing ever works out perfectly and there was a minor incident when Simon spotted Luke Booth was coming along. They have history going way back, well over twenty years, so I can understand why Simon kicked off. It was probably a blessing anyway, as it distracted from our surprise visitor on the back row. Anyway, once we set off, we ducked the visitor down between big Steven Matterson’s legs and the singing began. There were a couple of crates being passed around, so I grabbed one, took a can and then passed it around the boys at the back. They must have been shaken around a bit on their journey there, as their frothy heads spilled out all over the place. I took a big lug from mine, I just knew this was going to be the dog’s bollocks The trick on Simon was hilarious, all the lads were well up for getting smashed and if I could use the legendary Neill charms to pull a couple of dolly birds out on ‘Hen Do’s’ then that would just be my crowning glory.

Before we even hit the M6, I managed to kick off an epic singlalong from the lads at the back,

“There once was a Mrs. Morgan,

With tits like a barrel organ,

And the hairs on her dicky-dai-dar,

Came down to her knees!

And the hairs.....on her dicky-dai-dar,

And the hairs.......on her dicky-dai-dar

And the hairs........on her dicky-dai-dar

Came down to her knees!”

It was going to be mental, I couldn’t wait.

SIMON – May 2012

             
Our Bed & Breakfast was on a one way street that was just full of Bed & Breakfasts. There were probably over one hundred large, four storey, terraced houses on either side of the road and every single one was a B&B. Joey had sorted the accommodation out and had booked us into six different B&Bs, all on this road. Joey gave us instructions to say to the landlord or landlady that we were on a golfing trip, as apparently hoteliers frowned upon Stag parties. As none of us had a set of golf clubs with us, we were to say that we had left them in the boot of the car.

             
Our B&B was called ‘The Cheshire’ which seemed a strange name for a B&B in Lancashire, but it transpired the owners were Bill and Glynnis Cheshire, a friendly couple from Exeter, who had swopped Devon for Blackpool thirty years earlier. They both now looked well into their sixties, but buzzed around their Guest House with a speed and enthusiasm that put me to shame. I was unsure whether they would be quite as friendly when we stumbled in at four o’clock in the morning, but after thirty years of owning the place, I’m sure they had witnessed just about everything it was possible to witness.

             
Glynnis went through the standard greeting and House rules. Full breakfast was seven to nine, which I ruled out as an impossibility and everyone would be given a key to the front door. Prior to 11.00.pm, the door could be pushed open, but after the key would be needed. Joey had allocated ten people to each B&B, other than ‘The Cheshire’ where there was only four of us. My Dad and Arthur were sharing one twin, whilst I was in another with Will.

             
The trip over to Blackpool had taken us less than an hour, but it was an old coach with no air conditioning, so the time dragged. Joey and some of his drinking mates had kickstarted a singalong, but it was purely made up of foul mouthed rugby songs and having never played rugby, I was not able to join in. I think they sang the Mrs.Morgan song enough times for me to learn the words and potentially join in on the way home, but as I was likely to be sitting near Dad and Arthur again, I assumed they would frown upon me singing about tits and pubic hair. At thirty eight, I still felt the need to behave in front of my Dad and my future father-in-law.

“It’s a bloody dump this,” Arthur moaned as Glynnis disappeared to get our keys.

“Not to worry,” Dad said in a much more positive tone, “it’s only for a night.”

             
Arthur was wrong to call it a dump. It was actually a clean, well maintained Guest House. The decor was old fashioned, but Arthur was old fashioned, so that should not have been a gripe for him. I think, unless he was with Nicky or at his allotment, Arthur just moaned every time he opened his mouth.

             
Once Glynnis gave us our keys, Will and I went through to our room. It was tidy and cosy, with the bonus of having an ensuite. We slumped on our beds for a quick doze. After about fifteen minutes, I decided I best drag myself up.

“When are we meeting on the pub at the corner, Will?”

“Half past three, Dad,” Will said as he sat up on his bed, “do you have the remote control Dad? I want to put the TV on.”

“There is no remote control, Will, you just have to press the buttons on the front.”

“Bloody hell,” Will moaned, “how Victorian! I guess there’s not much chance they’ll have Sky Sports News then.”

I looked at the TV. It was a small, portable 1980s Hitachi.

“I’m guessing not, Will. They should have BBC1 though. If not, just get the footy scores up on your Blackberry.”

“They won’t have started yet. I just wanted to check out the Everton team. They mentioned this morning that James McFadden may be playing.”

One of the things I was proud of, was that I had managed to pass on my passion for Everton Football Club on to my son. He may not have been from my bloodline, but at least Everton was in his blood as well as mine.

             
One of the many disadvantages of being overweight is that you sweat more than a skinny person. I could smell the body odour rising up from my armpits, caused by the lack of air conditioning on the coach.

“I’m sweating buckets, Will. I might jump in the shower for five minutes.”

“Did you not have a shower this morning, Dad?” Will asked this with a hint of disdain.

“No, Chloe went in, then you, then your Mum. I stepped in, turned it on and it was stone cold, surprise, suprise.”

“Why didn’t you just put the hot water on?” Will asked as he stood up and moved towards the television.

“Because I pay the bill, son. I’m presuming hot water comes as part of the package here, so I’m going to jump in.”

I headed through to the ensuite. I could hear Will flicking through the TV channels. It was only quarter to three, too early for the football, so I could hear that he had settled for Channel4 horse racing.

             
The shower was just fitted to the taps in the bath. I stripped off, looking with disgust, as I always did, at my gut, telling myself I must do something about it after this weekend. It was a familiar pep talk. I also questioned in my head how I could be losing more and more hair on my head, whilst gaining more and more on my stomach. I had a feel of my man boobs too, which were still far too big. Shaking me head, I ran the water, stepped into the shower, then pulled the shower curtain over. Thankfully I hit the bullseye on water temperature straight away, so did not have to go through a procedure of tinkering with the taps.

             
I was shampooing what was left of my hair, when I heard someone talking to Will. At first, I presumed it was just the horse racing commentary, but could then hear Will raising his voice a little. I assumed he could be cheering on a certain horse, but seconds later, the bathroom door opened. I still had shampoo in my hair, so I left the shower running.

“What do you want, Will?” I shouted.

There was a shout back, but I couldn’t make it out.

“What? I can’t hear you, I’m washing my hair.”

Joey Neill’s face suddenly appeared around the shower curtain, with a devilish smile on his face. As I wasn’t expecting it, I nearly jumped out of my skin. He was only there for a couple of seconds, then he disappeared again. I switched the water off.

“For Christ’s sake, Joey,” I shouted through the shower curtain, “that was like a scene out of Psycho. What are you doing?”

“Believe me,” Joey answered, “having just seen your naked body, I can assure you it looks nothing like Janet Leigh’s.”

“Why are you in here?” I asked again.

“”I’ve come to tell you we’re going out in five minutes, so you need to get a move on.”

“Five minutes. Why?”

“The lads have decided we want to go to the Pleasure Beach for a few hours before we go back out on the beer. Are you up for it?”

“I don’t see why not, I just need to rinse this shampoo off and then I’ll get ready.”

“OK,” Joey said, “I’ll wait here and pass you a towel in a minute. By the way, how come you don’t lock your bathroom door, Simon?”

“I wasn’t expecting a visitor.”

“Hurry up and rinse it off,” Joey commanded, “the lads will be waiting.”

I quickly put the shower back on for sixty seconds, washed the shampoo off and then turned the taps off.

“Joey, pass me my towel please and then can you bugger off, so I can get ready.”

“OK, Simon, put your hand out and I’ll pass you the towel.”

“Just pass it through.”

“No, stick your hand around the shower curtain and I’ll put the towel in it.”

              I must admit, I did it without thinking and without a sense of suspicion. As I stuck my right arm out, I felt something go around it and then a click. A second later, my shower curtain was unceremoniously pulled open and, instinctively, I used my left hand to cover my privates. There were about twenty pairs of male eyes crowded into my bathroom, all looking at me and smiling.  I looked at my right wrist, it had a silver handcuff on it and my eyes followed the chain along to the other end, to the other handcuff, which was circled around a small blue hand. The blue hand belonged to someone who had blue body paint on them from head to toe, naked apart from a pair of dark blue trousers that matched the colour of his upper torso. He had blue hair, a blue face and huge triangular shaped blue ears. It appeared to be a child or a dwarf. He smiled at me with bright, white teeth.

“Hello, Simon,” said the small, blue person, “I have a feeling we are going to be very attached to each other for the next twenty four hours.”

Part Ten

Altogether Now

ZARA – May 2012

              I’ve been on a few Hen Do’s in my time, not loads but a few. One or two of the girls from Penny Pinchers got married in the time I worked there and a couple of schoolfriends have tied the knot too. The Hen Do’s have been all over the place. I’ve been up to Newcastle and Glasgow, over to Dublin, plus there’s been a few fairly locally in Manchester and Liverpool. Every time I go on one, if it is a weekend away, I always tell myself that I should pace myself on the first night so I don’t feel like crap on the second. I have yet to follow my own advice and Friday in Blackpool was no different.

             
Candice’s mini bus arrived at Charnock Richard service station pretty much on time. The girls came in to meet us and they were all wearing Army camouflage vests. Emblazoned on the vests, above the breasts, in a pink section with black lettering, it simply said, ‘On A Mission’. They also all wore camouflaged caps which each had ‘Sexy Squaddie’ written on in pink lettering. Lucy knows them all, so after excitedly kissing and hugging everyone, she introduced me to Candice.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got Army camouflage outfits for you and Lucy on the minibus,” Candice announced after our initial greeting, “we’ve all got two more outfits for tomorrow too, one for the day, one for the night! Wait until you see them, they’re brilliant!” I looked at my massive suitcase and wished someone had told me this in advance.

              It didn’t take long to get to Blackpool, probably only three quarters of an hour. We had a good singalong on the way, a Grease CD was on, so we sang and danced along to that. We all checked into our Guest House, ‘The Cheshire’, which was only a pretty small place. I think the landlady, Glynnis said there were eight rooms in total and we had six of them. Most of us had to share double beds but that’s OK for girls, it’s the blokes that tend to hate sharing. After checking in, dropping our suitcases off and Lucy and I quickly changing into our Army outfits, we headed out. Someone suggested we should have done something like Burlesque classes, but we were daft and decided to head straight out on the drink. Drinking early afternoon onwards in a twelve hour session is always going to lead to one or two calamities and Friday night didn’t buck that trend.

             
After a quick drink in town, we all headed up to St.Anne’s in taxis. One of the girls had been up there with her ex-boyfriend for some golf tournament and said it was lovely, so we all agreed to go and check it out. We tried to get a tram there from Blackpool Promenade, but they only seemed to go the other way up to Fleetwood. St.Anne’s was lovely, we probably stayed there until early evening, but we started playing drinking games and buying bottles of Desperados tequila beer, so the rest of the evening has only come back into my memory banks in bite sized portions. I don’t really remember getting the taxis back to Blackpool, nor do I remember what pubs we went to, I just remember the camouflaged outfits getting a lot of attention from the lads.

             
We must have slowed the pace of our drinking in Blackpool, as I remember sobering up a little when it came to discussing what club to go to. One of the girls, Emma I think, mentioned that we had free entry to a club called Sanuk and a free bottle of bubbly, as long as we were in there by midnight, so we headed across there about eleven, I think. It was a massive place, with loads of different rooms, some playing ‘RnB’ and Hip Hop, the bigger ones just playing dance anthems. I think I was mainly in the Arena, although I remember Lucy and I blagged our way into the VIP area at one point and some older blokes were letting us share their champagne. It was bouncing in the main Arena though, as far as I remember the DJ was great and I danced my butt off. At four o’clock, the music stopped and I started to panic a little as I was drunk, on my own and had no idea what the Guest House was called.

             
I was the first one from Candice’s Hen party to leave the club or at least I thought I was, I was certainly the first to be waiting outside. I remember marching up and down the pavement because I needed a wee but I didn’t want to go back in the toilets in the club, as when I had last been, someone had thrown up in there and given the state I was in, I was worried if I went again, the smell might make me gag. Hanging around outside a nightclub, on my own, at four o’clock in the morning, left me vulnerable to the advances of horny, drunk men. One such man, if you can call him a man, approached.

“Got a light love?”

The lad was young looking, I’d be doubtful if he was even eighteen, but he was smashed off his head. If someone as battered as I was, remembers someone else being really drunk, they must have been bad. I can’t remember what he looked like other than beer goggles weren’t enough.

“No, sorry, I don’t smoke,” I replied, in a friendly way, but hoping he’d move on to someone else.

“Do they not let you smoke?”

“Who?”

“He pointed at my camouflaged vest and cap.

“The Army.”

“Why’s that then? Does it make you less fit because you look really fit to me, love.”

“No, if you light up at night, it gives away your hiding spot to the enemy, so if you were about to shoot some terrorist baddy, they might get you first, if you smoked.”

I’m pretty sure no-one in the Army actually referred to the enemy as ‘baddies’, but then they don’t go out in caps saying ‘Sexy Squaddie’ either.

“Oh, right. Are you working tonight then?”

I was too tired and drunk to work out whether the lad was genuinely this stupid so just kept on talking complete bollocks.

“Yes, we were on duty in the club. Did you not see me and my mates dancing around with glow lights? We were looking for landmines.”

“Wow. I didn’t know we had landmines in Blackpool.”

“We haven’t found any yet.”

“Do you fancy coming back to mine for a party? My Mum and Dad are on holiday.”

“You’re going to tell me it’s just a party for two next, aren’t you?”

“Have we already had this conversation?”

“I have. Just not with you.”

“So are you coming?”

“No, I’m off back to my Army home soon.”

“The barracks.”

“That’s it. I’d forgotten what it was called. Thanks for reminding me. The barracks.”

“”Definitely not coming with me?” said the drunken kid, giving it one last shot.

“I can’t. The Sergeant Major won’t let me. You could be in the Taliban.”

“I’m not. I’m actually out of work at the moment.”

“Hope you get something sorted, but I think you best get off home.”

“Alright then,” he said a little dejectedly, “thanks for helping the heroes.”

             
I watched the lad stagger along the road, zig zagging unsteadily. He only made it about twenty metres along before having to sit down and prop himself up against a wall. He tried to get back up a couple of times, but couldn’t manage it. He reminded me of a fly in its last moments after being sprayed with fly spray.

             
I turned around to see if any familiar faces were leaving Sanuk and as I did so, I was relieved to see one of the other girls in Army uniform coming out the club appearing scarily sober.

“It’s Zara, isn’t it?” she said.

I had to get an apology in straight away.

“I’m really sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“It’s OK, I’m Sam.”

“Where are they all, Sam?”

“I think we’re the last ones, Zara. I’ve just spent the last ten minutes trying to persuade Candice not to go back to a place called Poulton with Ziggy, but she still went.”

“Who’s Ziggy?”

“A lad she met in the Club.”

“Bloody hell! She’s getting married in three weeks!”

“I know. She says she’ll change when she’s married.”

“She best had or she won’t be married long.”

“What about Lucy?” Sam asked,” Where’s she?”

“She’ll have tapped off too. She told me she was going to the loo and I lost her, but I know what she’s like. She’ll have spotted someone she took a shine to.”

“What about everyone else?” I asked.

“A few of them went back earlier with Sara as she said
she was going to be sick. Emma and Vicky didn’t make it back out of St.Anne’s because they were getting chatted by a pair of fellas and didn’t want to leave when we did.”

“Do you have any idea where we are staying, Sam?”

“Follow me,” said Sam, “I’ve got a good sense of direction.”

             
Sam did have a good sense of direction too. We were back at ‘The Cheshire’ (Sam reminded me of the name), within five minutes. I clumsily walked straight in on Lucy, switching the light on to find her stood at the bottom of her bed, bent over it, with a man directly behind her, helping her do it. They were only partially clothed.

“Sorry!” I said switching the light back out and hurrying out the room.

Thankfully, Sam was sharing a room with Candice, so I caught her up on the landing and slept in their room.

             
As the room swayed gently, I remember reflecting that there had been a lot of high jinks but I had not been a part of it. I would have to text Flo in the morning and tell her how well I had been behaving. She would be pleased with me. Perhaps I was finally growing up.