Wish You Were Here (16 page)

‘She'd always been this woman who wasn't scared of anything or anyone. I remember this one time her house got burgled – they nicked a video recorder and some cash that had been sitting on the fireplace – and she had a pretty good idea which one of the kids in our close had done it, because my nan had lived there all her life and knew everyone's business. She must have been pushing seventy at the time but that didn't stop her from walking round to this kid's house and banging on his front door until his parents opened up. Right there on the door step she threatened to batter the mum, the dad
and
the kid black and blue unless the video and the money were returned to her by the end of the day, along with a bit extra to cover the cost of a pane of glass that had been smashed. And do you know what? She got it too. That was my nan, a force of nature.' Andy paused to flick the long stem of ash from his cigarette and then took a long drag. ‘But you wouldn't have recognised her in hospital. You really wouldn't. And every time she had a treatment she looked worse not better. And then one day a few months in, I'd been to visit her and it just dawned on me that despite all the talk she was never actually going to get better. And after that I never went back. My brother did. He was with her at the very end. But me?' Andy shook his head. ‘I just couldn't stand to watch her go like that.'

I didn't know what to say. I'd known bits about Andy's background. The stuff about being raised by his gran (although he'd never mentioned anything at all about his parents before) and just how much his gran had meant to him, although that was mainly through the way he reacted after her death. It knocked him sideways. It really did. He stopped eating. He drank to excess. And was so obnoxious to pretty much everyone in his life that along with losing his job, he lost nearly every friend that he had made in the last decade with the exception of me and Lisa. It was nearly a year before he was able to get himself together, and only because Lisa threatened to leave him. And while it had long since occurred to me that there had to be a reason why Andy was so anti-religion, and anti-Tom especially, now that I knew, or at least could guess his reasoning, I couldn't say that I felt any wiser. He had his reasons and I'm sure they felt justified to him but that didn't make him right.

‘Do you think he'll be all right?' said Andy, stubbing out his cigarette on the balcony railing.

‘Yeah, of course,' I replied. ‘He'll be fine.'

‘How old are his kids again?'

‘I think one's four and the other is three.'

‘And he still believes in God?' said Andy shaking his head in disgust. His response was posed as a question but also as a statement of fact. But whatever it was I chose not to respond.

‘You think I'm being an idiot cheating on Lisa, don't you?' he asked.

I left a gap of a few moments before replying in the hope of convincing Andy that I was wavering between two options. ‘Yeah,' I replied eventually. ‘I think you are.'

‘You think she deserves better.'

‘I think if you don't want to be with her, fine, end the relationship and move on. But if you have any respect for her at all then you'll stop this thing with Nina now.'

‘Or . . . ?'

I looked at him, puzzled.

‘You make it sound like you're going to do something about it if I don't,' he said.

‘What could I possibly do?' I replied. ‘It's not like I'm in any position to force anyone to do anything.'

‘Lisa is what I want,' said Andy calmly. ‘And I know that we'll have kids and all the rest of it.'

‘But?'

Andy smiled ruefully. ‘There's always a but isn't there? And for me it's the routine. I can't stand it. Mondays: work and the gym. Tuesdays: work and then TV in the evenings. Wednesdays: work and one of her mates will come over for dinner. Thursdays: work and she goes out with her mates and I'll go for a drink with you. Fridays: work and then a takeaway in front of the TV; Saturdays: gym, shopping, and if we can be bothered we might go out in the evening; Sundays . . . who knows what happens to Sundays? Every day just melts away into nothingness because before you know what's happened it's Monday again and you're right back where you started. Who wouldn't want a holiday after that?'

‘Is that what Nina is? A holiday?'

‘It's as good a word as any,' replied Andy. ‘She is a holiday . . . from real life . . . from routine and yeah, even from Lisa. Everybody needs a holiday, mate. Even you.' He paused, picked up his cigarettes and stood up. ‘I'll see you, later, maybe?'

‘Are you going to bed?'

‘No,' he sighed. ‘I'm going back to Nina's.'

It was ten o'clock and I was back on the balcony, lying in the sun, with my nose stuck between the pages of the
The Da Vinci Code
. Tom had long since set out on his trip to the Samaria Gorge leaving me alone for the day.

Things had been awkward between the two of us to say the least. I didn't know how to behave around someone who'd just told me they might have cancer. I was so confused by the situation that I ended up alternating between being overly concerned about his well-being and acting like his personal court jester in order to lift his spirits. By the time he left the apartment (having turned down a constant barrage of offers from me to come to keep him company) he must have been over the moon to see the back of me.

With a full day alone ahead of me and no one to distract me from indulging in thoughts of Sarah, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before she took up her usual residency in my thoughts. So, resting my book on the table at my side, I decided that if thinking about Sarah was inevitable then the best thing I could do would be to get it out of the way. Without any further ado I settled back in my chair and commenced thinking.

I never told this to anyone but on the day Sarah left me I actually went out to book a holiday. It had been a day full of arguing and shouting and crying (on both our parts) and then she had delivered the final blow with the words: ‘I don't think I love you any more.' I knew straight away she wasn't bluffing. It was just like when I was a kid and I'd been up to no good, deliberately doing something that I knew would get me in trouble. My dad would catch me in the act and he'd say something like, ‘Right, that's it,' and from the tone of his voice I'd know straight away that this wasn't an empty threat. Within seconds I'd feel the effect of my dad's open palm connecting with the bare flesh of my upper legs long before I'd hear the sonic boom of the slap. And that's exactly what it was like hearing Sarah tell me she no longer loved me. It was a blow to the heart followed by a sonic boom. A slap so hard that I thought it would never stop stinging. My head was reeling, my heart was racing and my life was lying shattered in tiny shards at my feet.

As Sarah slammed the door at her exit I remember feeling strangely calm. People who have nearly died on operating tables in hospitals sometimes say, as they're lying there with doctors and nurses screaming all around them trying to bring them back to life, that they can feel themselves leaving their bodies and floating up above the scene of what they think are their last moments. Well that was me. I was floating out of my own body watching myself slumped lifeless on a chair at the dining-room table only there was no one trying to bring me back to life. There was just me, an empty flat, and too many memories. And in that state I heard myself saying the words, ‘You've got to do something,' over and over again and I couldn't work out whether I meant I'd got to do something to get Sarah back or that I should just stop sitting there and take some action. And while I sat there trying to work out exactly what I meant, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a holiday brochure in a magazine rack by the TV. It was called something like
Luxury Holidays Plus
, and was filled with expensive five-star breaks to places like Barbados, the Seychelles and the Maldives – holidays that we could never have considered under normal circumstances. That was when I realised that Sarah hadn't picked up the brochure with the two of us in mind at all. Within seconds of this bombshell dropping, I'd put on my shoes, grabbed my coat and was heading into town.

The travel agent's I went to were called Holidays Now. Above the door to the shop was a sign that said: ‘The home of holidays', and stuck to the windows with Blu-Tack were dozens of marker-pen-inscribed cards featuring late-booking offers. My eyes lit up as I reviewed the offers in the window: fourteen nights in Costa Rica, ten nights in Ibiza, seven nights in Gran Canaria, a fortnight in Portugal and eight days in Malta but there was a problem with every single one of them. All the discount prices were offered on the basis of two people sharing. And yet here I was, just one person, looking for a way to escape.

The moment I entered the travel agent's I felt as if all eyes were on me. It was as if I'd tripped some sort of infrared alarm. The three of the female sales agents had looked up and flashed me their whitest, toothiest, shiniest smiles. For a few moments I genuinely felt loved, and then I realised that they were not so much smiling as responding to some sort of Pavlovian trigger they had been taught on one of those long-distant training schemes at the beginning of their careers. They reminded me of the androids in
Blade Runner
. Human, but not quite human enough.

A deftly manicured finger pointed me in the direction of their waiting area – a space in the centre of the store somewhat bizarrely made up to look like a beach-style café bar. There were three aluminium café-style tables with chairs and sunshades and in the middle of them was a pile of sand, a bucket and spade, a beach towel and a Jackie Collins novel.

Unsure whether this was an art installation or a genuine waiting area, I looked enquiringly back at the saleswoman and she gave me a hearty smile and a wink. Taking a deep breath I crossed the floor and sat down at one of the tables, feeling peculiarly self-conscious. Here I was, a now single, thirty-five-year-old man, sitting alone at a fake outdoor café, next to a fake beach, in a travel agency in the middle of a busy Brighton shopping centre on a wet July afternoon.

As I poured myself a cup of water from a dispenser I tried to work out which one of the sales girls would serve me first. My guess was the one nearest the entrance, as there was something ridiculously efficient about her manner that told me she was probably the store's top sales person. But as I looked around the room I noticed that the assistant sitting at the desk at the rear of the shop was actually quite pretty. She had dark brown hair, caramel-coloured skin and a killer smile. Even in her work uniform of purple polyester skirt and red checked blouse she looked amazing.

The pretty sales assistant must have sensed she was being watched because for no reason at all she looked up and caught my eye. Our eyes met for a few moments and then instinctively I looked away, which only served to make me look guilty. To balance things out I looked at her again but then incorporated this look into a whole batch of long stares around the room to make me look less suspect. I stared at the large banner above her head, featuring soft focus families walking across an idyllic palm-tree-strewn beach; I stared at three men in the queue at the Bureau de Change (one of whom was carrying a large carrier bag emblazoned with the slogan: I
♥
Malaysia); and I stared at the Jackie Collins novel in the display.

Having sufficiently distanced myself from any deviant-seeming behaviour, I hedged a glance back at the pretty saleswoman. She was still deep in conversation with a young couple she was serving and didn't look in my direction once in the three seconds I spent imagining what it might be like to kiss her. And so with the heat off I took a long sip of my water and studied the rows of brochures on the rack behind me. Just as I was about to pluck out one about skiing holidays (even though I didn't ski and hated the idea of skiing) I stopped. A young couple, laden with fashionable shopping bags and dressed as if they were going out on a Saturday night, sat down at the table next to mine. Our eyes met, and I was temporarily frozen in embarrassment until a female voice entered my consciousness.

‘Hello there.'

The pretty sales assistant was talking to me. She was barely into her twenties and was even prettier up close.

‘I'm Denise,' she said cheerfully. ‘How can I help you today?'

There was a long pause as the cogs in my brain began to rotate, reminding me of several key factors I'd neglected to consider that would considerably hinder any attempt to book a holiday: first, it was three weeks until pay day, second, I hadn't checked with work when I could get the time off, and third, I didn't want to go on holiday alone.

I smiled. ‘I'm afraid I've wasted your time. I've just realised that I'm in completely the wrong place to book a holiday.'

Then I stood up and left.

Around midday I came to the conclusion that if I was going to enjoy this holiday at all then I was going to have to stop thinking about Sarah. I briefly contemplated going down to the beach with
The Da Vinci Code
but I was getting tired of reading about religious conspiracies and wanted to do something that required physical exertion of some description. Looking around the room for inspiration, I spotted Tom's beloved
Rough Guide
that he'd inadvertently left on the table on the balcony and began flicking through it. There was a whole host of ‘must see' cultural suggestions from museums and ruins right through to hills and famous birthplaces. Though Tom had circled a number of his favourites in blue Biro, most held no interest for me whatsoever.

The only place I was even vaguely interested in visiting was Heraklion, the capital of the island. And that was because I thought it might have proper shops and things to buy that weren't just the usual old tourist tat. In essence what I wanted from Heraklion was a small glimpse of England – a homogenised city centre that despite its architecture, culture and customs would have the same chain stores, brands and regular ‘old tat' shops of any high street back home. Why? Because what I wanted more than anything was a little retail therapy. And with several hundred pounds' worth of holiday Euros doing very little other than securing me access to alcohol, ice cream and local cuisine, I was now desperate to exercise my real buying power.