My Best Friend Has Issues (12 page)

The next time Chloe’s dad called I picked it up. We were watching a movie and Chloe couldn’t be bothered to lean forward and lift her phone. It was, as usual, left to me to pick it up and hand it to her. I saw it was her dad and answered it. She jumped up quick enough then and tried to grab the phone out of my hand, both of us giggling as we scuffled. Even when I’d answered she tried to silently prise the phone out of my hand, bending my fingers painfully, but I held tight.

‘Yes, hello, Mr Taylor,’ I said, stifling my laughter as I noiselessly fought her off.

‘Hi, may I speak with Chloe, please?’

‘I’m sorry, Chloe’s indisposed at the minute. Can I take a message?’

‘Am I speaking with Alison?’

‘Yes, Mr Taylor, it’s me.’

‘Hi Alison, and please, call me Philip.’

I would have liked to have been allowed to call him Aged P, but Philip would have to do.

‘Oh, okay, thank you. Chloe’s in the bath, do you want me to…’

‘No, that’s okay,’ he said hurriedly. ‘She sure likes to soak in the tub, doesn’t she?’

Chloe was bored wrestling me. She had given up and was now listlessly picking toe jam from between her toes.

‘Oh yes,’ I agreed, ‘she’s very enthusiastic about personal hygiene.’

I had to bite my cheeks not to laugh.

‘Uh huh, it’s about the only thing.’

I chuckled. Philip chuckled too. We enjoyed a pleasant few moments before his laughter died away.

‘Er, Philip, you know the other day when Chloe said I was educationally subnormal?’

‘Oh, I knew she was kidding,’ he laughed. ‘She’s a kidder. For some reason Chloe won’t go to college like any normal kid. She wants to paint chimneys or whatever it is she does. I don’t know, maybe you can convince her.’

He didn’t say it like a request but I responded as if it was.

‘I’ll do what I can to help, Philip.’

‘Well,’ he said, sounding surprised, ‘I’d surely appreciate it, Alison. She talks about you all the time.’

When I put the phone down I knew Chloe was dying to know what he’d said, but she was never going to ask.

Philip and I understood each other. He was nice, I could talk to him. Not like my own dad, he never talked about anything. I don’t remember having conversations with my dad. What would we have talked about? One week in four we lived in the same house but otherwise we were strangers.

My dad worked on the oil rig platforms off Aberdeen: three weeks on, one week off. I’m not sure what he did there, something to do with drilling. He took the job when mum fell pregnant with me. I was a wee accident, a happy accident, my mum said. On those Friday nights when Dad came home Mum made a big effort to please him. My brothers and I came home early from Isabelle’s and had fish and chips in front of the TV, while Mum set the table in the kitchen for her and Dad.

Mum kept everything special for those Friday nights. When Mum bought something new to wear, she hung it in the wardrobe until Dad was due back. She’d get off work early and have her hair done in the hairdressers. When I was about nine or ten she went through a phase of using Boots face packs. She’d smear the green paste on her face and mine and we had to wait ten or fifteen minutes
until it dried and hardened on our faces. My brothers used to horse around in the living room trying to make us laugh.

‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Mum said through unmoving lips, like a ventriloquist. When it came time to take it off, Mum splashed cold water on her face and patted it dry. Her skin was as tight as a baby’s. I always went to the mirror, smiling and grimacing, until my face cracked into a hundred lines.

‘That’s what you’ll look like when you’re old,’ Mum said.

She painted my nails the same shade as hers so long as I
promised
to take it off before school on Monday morning. As I got older she let me do her make-up. She liked the way I did it.

One Friday night in the middle of the summer Mum had made all her preparations. Charlie and the twins were out playing football. She said that seeing as we were both looking so gorgeous and it was such a lovely night we should go and meet Dad off the bus. It would be a lovely surprise for him. We waited at stance seventeen, both of us in our pink nail polish, Mum with her new hairdo and blue dress. We stood up when the bus pulled in. All the men from the rigs got off, laughing and joking, but Dad wasn’t amongst them. Mum asked but the inspector said there wasn’t another bus in from Aberdeen till the morning.

Halfway through Saturday Morning CBBC, Dad came home. The boys were out playing football. Mum and I were still in our jammies having tea and toast in front of the telly. Mum’s hairdo was squashed in with having slept on it. She didn’t say anything to Dad. She walked into the kitchen and Dad followed her and closed the door. A while later they came back into the living room, Dad with a mug of tea.

‘We went to meet you last night at the bus station, Dad,’ I told him.

Dad drew Mum a fierce look and she looked away. He went into the kitchen and poured his tea down the sink. Mum went in after him. Dad was angry and shouted.

‘Why d’you have to involve the kids in your paranoia?’

Mum closed the door and said something quietly to Dad and then he shouted again.

‘Phone the bus company if you don’t believe me!’

I wanted to stick up for Mum. I went into the kitchen and asked Dad why didn’t he want us to come and meet him? But he pretended not to hear. I asked him again. He turned and stared at me. I got nervous and went back to the living room and watched telly. Mum and Dad stayed in the kitchen for a while and then Dad went out and Mum went back to bed. I felt bad but I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. After that I never directly asked my Dad anything again. Sometimes when I heard the way Chloe spoke to her Dad, teasing and ridiculing him, I wished my Dad was still alive.

The marijuana plants were doing great; they had grown three or four inches. It had become my job to water them every morning and I enjoyed my task: soaking the tubs till the surface became mud, then squeezing the hose nozzle and spraying the leaves with a fine mist to keep them cool during the heat of the day.

The pups were getting bigger too. It was funny watching them learn how to sit up. From a lying down position they walked their front paws back until they were sitting but sometimes they pushed back too far and would roll over. One night when we were stoned Chloe and I came up with what we thought were hilarious names for them: Squaw, Conejo, Concha, Fanny, Vulva, Pussy, Tiggy and Vagina.

The girls were sleeping a lot less now and were getting everywhere. When she was doing her art Chloe didn’t wear clothes, only a long baggy T-shirt to keep from getting sunburnt, no pants or bra. If she bent down or sat with her legs open, I’d joke, ‘I think one of the pups has got trapped between your legs.’ Once one of them did get trapped, not between Chloe’s legs, but between the wall and a cement bag. Concha had got in behind the cement and was too fat to wriggle free. I only found her by following her
high-pitched
panicked yap. I asked Chloe to help me find her but she was too busy with her chimney.

When I’d first arrived in the flat, Juegita used to carry the little sleeping bundles around in her mouth. She seemed to be separating
those she’d already fed from those she hadn’t. Then she’d carry them to the basket and lie down amongst them. Half-asleep and still
half-blind
, they would sniff out the milk and clamp on to their mother. As they got bigger their demand for milk increased and they constantly bothered her, climbing over each other to get to a teat. Poor Juegita, exhausted and with tits dragging, had little option but to let them go at her. I could see she wasn’t enjoying it, who would? But even though she was sore and tired out, she let them suckle. As they got bigger she was constantly pursued by hungry puppies and Juegita spent most of her time trying to avoid them. They ran around after her, frisky and playful, jumping over each other.

At first they were too small to climb the step on the terrace which led inside the flat. Juegita was safe to lie in the cool, air conditioned bedroom and soothe her tender nipples on the cold tiles. While Chloe worked I’d watch the pups for hours. They were so cute and determined; I couldn’t help but admire their puppy dog tenacity. They tried to climb the step but it was too steep. They fell over and fell over and fell over again, but they never gave up. It was tempting to give them a helping hand up but I also felt sorry for Juegita, she needed a break from them. Inevitably one or two of the more adventurous ones learned how to climb the step and once that happened, the game was up for Juegita The Milk Machine. They were greedy little buggers. Not content with sucking their poor mother dry, the bigger ones were now beginning to nibble at her food bowl. Every day I put out a little more of the dry biscuits as more of them caught on to the solid food option. They didn’t even give her peace to eat; as soon as she let her guard down they were on her. After a certain point she didn’t take any nonsense. If any of the pups tried to sneak up behind her and latch on to a teat, she’d growl and chase them off.

Juegita had, thank God, given up her disgusting habit of licking up after them. It had become my job. I preferred the more
traditional
cleaning method of a brush and pan but even so, it was a task that was becoming increasingly unpleasant. Every day they ate more solid food and eight little doggies’ doo doo became more like proper dog shit and difficult to keep track of.

I could hardly believe it. I went to the Internet café, more for
something
to do than to pick up messages. The only person who emailed me was Charlie and even then he only ever sent jokes that other people had sent him. But that day was different. I got an email from Lauren and Lisa.

It would have been better if they’d got my email address from my Friends Reunited space, that way they’d have seen the photos I posted but they’d got it from Charlie. Apparently they’d met him in Clancy’s. Lauren made a point of telling me this. She’d written CLANCY’S! as if this was hilariously funny. Anyone reading it would have thought she’d written it in an ironic way but I knew what she was playing at. She was boasting. Other than that, the email was really friendly. I quickly scanned through the catch-up stuff about where they were working (council offices, both of them), where they were living (the same flat), and what they were doing (just chilling or clubbing at CLANCY’S!), until I got to the important bit: what they wanted from me. There was no way they’d contact me otherwise. And I was right.

Guess what? We’re coming to Barcelona next weekend! We got a cheap deal in a hotel in Estartit and we’re going to get the bus to Barcelona for our last night and hook up with you! What do you say? Are you going to take us out and show us the town?

Getting the bus from Estartit. I was quite impressed. Lisa and Lauren were independent Euro travellers now.

I couldn’t decide what to do so I asked Chloe.

‘They were vicious bitches to me at college with all that “The Hulk” stuff, but on the other hand, I’d love them to see how I’m doing now and how much weight I’ve lost. That would totally sicken them, and they’d tell everyone in Cumbernauld.’

Chloe was fantastic.

‘Then you gotta invite them. Tell them to come and we’ll show them a night out in Barcelona they’ll never forget.’

I played it cool with my email reply, giving them my mobile number and not much else, telling them to call me when they got
here. I was tempted to attach the photo I’d sent Charlie to give my mum: me in a bikini on the terrace playing with the puppies, but I resisted. They’d see it all when they got here: my figure, my tan, my new designer clothes Chloe had given me. Then those two great haggises would be sorry. We’d see who was The Hulk then.

We were in a hotel bedroom with a naked man. It was Hotel Museo, the posh one near the beach with the goldfish sculpture. I hadn’t wanted to come here but Chloe had insisted. She’d wanted to meet older men.

‘They’re way dirtier,’ she said.

The hotel was pretty swish but I’d rather have been still sitting in Josep’s grubby wee bar in our own barrio.

Josep, the owner of the grubby wee bar, was tall and broad for a Catalan with droopy eyes and a big droopy moustache. He was always grumpy but it was just his schtick. When I took Juegita out for a walk he would always call us in and give her a little piece of ham. His bar was like the rest of the bars on the street, a
wooden-shuttered
windowless cave. The bar was furnished with only basic wooden trestle tables and stools. It hadn’t been properly cleaned in a long time. While puffing on a fat cigar he served hot chillies from huge jars, dried ham off the bone and thick chunks of cheese from an enormous wheel. If ash dropped off his cigar on to the food he took a big breath and blew it off. Fat sometimes dripped off the legs of ham suspended from the ceiling. The place stank but you got used to it.

Before we went to Hotel Museo we’d gone downstairs to Josep’s and had a bottle of the local hooch,
Leche de Pantera
: panther’s milk. It was thick and creamy and tasted great if you shook some cinnamon powder on top of it. Josep always teased us and no matter how much Chloe flirted with him and whispered in his ear he’d never tell us what it was actually made of. It looked like milk, tasted sweet and got you drunk, that was all I needed to know.

I always practised my Spanish on Josep. He was Catalan but as we were his best customers he indulged me. My Spanish was coming along nicely and the words I didn’t know I could get round by pulling faces and doing elaborate mimes. I’d rushed back to our table with good news.

‘Hey Chloe, you’ll never guess, Josep’s just offered me a job!’

‘Chuh, sure,’ laughed Chloe.

‘He has. What, you think I can’t do it? It’s only bar work.’

‘I think you can’t speak Spanish.’

‘Josep doesn’t want me to speak Spanish. You know what it’s like in here at the weekend with British tourists. He wants me to work Friday and Saturday. It’s perfect: it’s just downstairs, I get paid and my Spanish is bound to improve.

‘Honey, you don’t need a job, you have a job teaching English with Señor whatever-his-name-is.’

‘Señor Valero.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Yeah, but that’s not for ages.’

‘I’ve noticed that when we go out you never get it on with anyone. If I hadn’t seen you blow the Scottish guy, I’d say you were sexually dormant, Alison. That must be kinda frustrating.’

Chloe was smiling and that made me laugh.

‘D’you wanna get it on with the Brit customers?’ she teased me. ‘Is that why you wanna work here?’

‘I’m not sexually frustrated! Well, maybe a wee bit,’ I laughed, ‘but I want to start earning some money.’

My money was all spent. Nights out with Chloe weren’t cheap. Marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy all cost money, and Chloe often left me to do the handovers. What could I do? She was paying for everything else: the rent, the bills and food, the trips to art galleries, nightclubs and expensive restaurants. And she’d given me all those clothes. Paying for the drugs was the least I could do. Despite having taken another two hundred from Chloe’s tin, once again I was broke.

‘Why do you need to make money? We have money.’

‘Yeah but Chloe, that’s your money. I can’t keep taking…’

‘Don’t you like living with me?’ Chloe said.

Her tone had changed, now she sounded deeply hurt. I didn’t know if she was still kidding.

‘Don’t you wanna hang out with me?’

I laughed, a wee bit uncomfortable.

‘Well, don’t you?’ she said more aggressively. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

She sounded melodramatic. I couldn’t take her seriously.

‘Do what alone?’ I laughed.

‘Raise the puppies, look after the marijuana, make the chimney. And I have to decide what to do about college. Don’t you wanna be a part of that?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, tell Josep thanks, but no thanks.’

Josep’s bar was pretty smelly. Brit lads came here at the weekend to get drunk and obnoxious. I’d have to serve them and smile. Josep might try it on as well; he had that look about him as if he might try his luck with me. If I had a problem with him, then we wouldn’t be able to come in here anymore. No more panther’s milk.

Chloe heard me tell Josep, in my limited Spanish, that I’d think about it. But that wasn’t enough to settle her. We’d done the last of the coke before we’d come out and it was making her restless.

‘We’re on a mission tonight and I know just where we should go,’ said Chloe.

‘
Donde
?’ I asked, trying to bring the jovial spirit back.

‘Hotel Museo.’

‘
Por que
?’

‘
Por que
we need to get you laid, missy.’

‘Is that the mission?’ I splayed my legs. ‘Should I adopt the missionary position?’

‘Later, honey.’

‘But why d’we have to go there?’

‘Because it’s full of men on conference,’ said Chloe, stirring the cinnamon powder into her drink with her finger, ‘doctors, lawyers, grown ups who know how to fuck. Older guys who like it dirty.’

‘Ah,’ I nodded knowingly, ‘we’re talking about
you
now, aren’t we, Chloe?’

‘Shut up!’ she squealed, delighted. ‘I guess we are.’

‘I suppose I should think it’s selfish of you to put your perverted sexual needs before my frustrated ones, but I’m not that bothered.’

‘That’s why we get along so well, Alison.’

The hotel was unbelievably cool and trendy, a contrast to Josep’s hole-in-the-wall. The walls and furniture and decor, even the flower arrangements, were on a majestic scale, and made me a little uncomfortable. We had both dropped two ecstasy tablets in the taxi on the way there and I wondered if that was what made the proportions seem so distorted. It didn’t feel like Barcelona. Chloe had quickly blagged our way into some corporate function. Except for the waiting staff and us, they were all middle-aged and English, south coast, posh, English ladies and gentlemen. We could have been in Bournemouth. They all wore a buttonhole or corsage and a name badge. The tables had been cleared of plates and the dance floor prepared. After ten minutes I came up on the E’s and started to enjoy myself. Then it was great. A band played cheesy Europop covers and I danced to every one of them. Chloe danced with me for a while and then she was swept off by some handsome old silver fox. The guy was forty, at least, probably the same age as her dad, but what the hell. I had got in with a sweet old couple and was jiving with both of them, one on each arm, when Chloe came back for me.

‘What are you doing?’ she laughed.

‘I’m dancing a
ménage à trois
with these lovely people,’ I told her. ‘All these nice English ladies and gentlemen, don’t you think they’re lovely?’

‘Yes, they’re lovely. Come on,’ she said, hauling me off the floor.

We went up in the lift which had a huge mirror on one side, soft lighting and irresistible music.

‘Alison, you’re dancing to Muzak.’

‘So? It’s got a good beat.’

I caught sight of us both in the mirror under the flattering
lighting
of the lift.

‘Oh Chloe, look at you, you’re so beautiful!’

I put my arm around her neck and pulled her round to look at her reflection.

‘See?’

‘Yeah, and you’re beautiful too.’

‘But you’re more beautiful than me, much more.’

‘Oh stop it. It’s just the E talking.’

‘It’s a truth drug, Chloe.’

‘It is with you,’ she agreed. ‘Are you having a good time?’

‘Course I am, the music’s great, isn’t it? I always have a good time with you, I love you Chloe. And that’s the truth.’

I didn’t want to get out of the lift. We were having a good time.

‘We have everything here: music, a big mirror, we can go up, we can go down. What more do you want?’

‘Are you coming or not?’

The guy was completely naked. This was the silver fox she had gone off with on the dance floor. He was strolling around the room with his cock and his balls on display. 

‘Are you a nudist?’ I asked.

The Silver Fox looked at Chloe.

‘How come the hair on your head is silver but around your cock it’s dark?’

He laughed. ‘My head’s where I worry about things,’ he said, pointing, ‘I don’t have any worries down there.’

‘Alison,’ Chloe said quietly, ‘didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to stare?’

‘Sorry. Excuse me,’ I said and went to the en suite bathroom to wash my face. I felt at ease with the naked man, and he wasn’t bothered, but I wasn’t so wasted I didn’t realise how bizarre this situation was. Even if Chloe was up for it, one of us should have our wits about us.

I sluiced my face repeatedly with cold water and then spent time pushing my eyeliner and mascara back into a tidy line under my eye. I was engrossed in this for three or four minutes, maybe more.
Dear Lisa and Lauren, in the poshest hotel on the planet. Why were you so horrible to me? Are you just cruel or do I deserve it? Maybe I do. Lauren, I have to be the one to tell you that your hair is quite nice and I’m sorry, but it’s just hair and doesn’t give you the right to bully
 
people. Whoops, truth drug alert! There is a naked man in the room and the bath towels are unbelievably fluffy.

‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘Have you checked out how fluffy these towels are?’ I asked as I stuck my head round the bathroom door.

The Silver Fox was down on one bended knee, genuflecting between Chloe’s legs. Her top was pulled up and he was squeezing her right breast. Chloe was moaning. He had his back to me. I could see his brown sac hanging between his legs, dark against his white leg.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ll wait downstairs.’

I turned to leave the room and Chloe pushed the guy away.

‘No. Alison, don’t go.’

‘Oh but…’

She pulled me into the bathroom, locked the door and whispered fiercely into my face.

‘What are you doing? I’m about to get fucked and I need you here.’

‘Why? D’you think he’s dangerous?’

‘No. Yes. He might be dangerous.’

‘Well come on, let’s just leave right now.’

‘I don’t want to leave, I want fucked.’

‘Chloe, why d’you sleep with all these guys? Did your boyfriend cheat? Are you a scorned woman, is that it?’

Chloe shook her head and laughed. ‘You come out with the craziest things at the most inappropriate times. And no, he didn’t, and I’m not. I broke up with him.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He was cute. Now…’

‘So how come you broke up with him then?’

‘He was just a kid. He was only interested in partying with his stupid friends. I was bored. Now can we get back to
this
party, please? The guy’s naked, he’s gonna go off the boil. Come on, let’s have some fun. He’ll fuck you too, if you want. He knows what he’s doing.’

I shook my head. ‘Nah, you’re all right, I’ll leave it. I’m not giving my virginity away to a stranger.’

‘Your virginity?’

‘Shit,’ I giggled.

‘You’re a fucking virgin?’

‘No. A fucking virgin would be an oxymoron.’

‘Say what?’

Embarrassed, my response was a sheepish smirk. ‘I’m more of a non-fucking virgin. A virgin yet to be fucked.’

‘So that’s why you never get it on with anyone, Jeez!’ Chloe shook her head. ‘
Now
she tells me. Okay, whatever. But stay with me, please?’

‘How about if I wait here?’ I bargained. ‘Then I’d be on hand if anything kicks off but I wouldn’t be in your way.’

‘But I need someone to watch, you know it helps get me off.’

Sometimes Chloe and I just went out to dinner and a quiet stroll around the city. On those nights we weren’t interested, but other times we went out on a specific mission: to find boys, and shag them.

All those teenage years when I sat in the house watching telly and eating. All those wasted years when I was a sexless blob, a lump of a lassie no boy would look at, I was going to make up for it now, and then some. Here was the chance I’d always fantasised about, and I was going to grab it with both hands. My time had finally arrived, and I was about to get dirrrty.

I always began the evening full of bravado, up for it, gagging for it, but once Chloe and I had located and contained our prey, it was a different story. Like the night with Ewan, my nerve deserted me. I couldn’t help it, as the night wore on my mindset gradually moved away from rampant reckless sex on the beach or hot horny humping in a hotel room. Instead, slowly but surely, my mindset drifted towards some unwashed migrant worker rubbing their pungent bits against mine. I wanted to be dirrrty, I really did, but I always ended up worrying about hygiene.

It wasn’t fair to ruin Chloe’s night with my lacklustre lack of lust so every time we ended up in a group sex scenario I’d use avoidance tactics: I acted drunk and sneered aggressively, I blew thick smoke from joints to keep the poor confused boy away, once I even pretended to pass out.

But now that Chloe knew my dark secret I didn’t have to pretend any more. Now I could relax, sit back and watch the show. While I watched her get jiggy with this sweaty, silver-haired stranger, I tried to observe with a scientific eye. This would be research for my own future encounters.

There was something bestial about it. I stood over the bed watching them. The man was on top between her legs, her knees wide. He wasn’t lying on her, he was at arms length, the point of contact was where their groins met. Chloe dug her nails into his bum cheeks, he occasionally clutched her breasts in a way that looked painful. From where I was standing I couldn’t see much of the in and out, only his bum thrusting forward at her. Chloe kept her eyes closed and squealed and moaned. When the squealing increased in pitch and frequency she opened her eyes and reached her hand out for me.

‘You’re not going to put it anywhere warm and sweaty, are you?’ I asked.