It was almost eight thirty and the music, by now, had ceased. The sound stage was empty and only a few hundred people were left, milling around in a sea of Coke cans, plastic goblets and discarded water bottles.
‘I need to find Abby,’ I said quietly.
‘Uh?’ Conor asked, propping himself up on one elbow and rubbing his eyes.
‘I need to find my friends. They’re my lift home.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Where do you live again?’
‘Hornchurch,’ I told him.
‘London?’
‘Yeah. East. Out by Upminster.’
‘Well, I can take you to central London, if that helps. I’ve got to get to Harrow by lunchtime anyway, so . . .’
We wandered around for a while, but though the Transit van was still parked behind the sound stage, there was no sign of Abby, nor Winston, nor Carl, so I found someone with a pen and left a note on the windscreen saying I’d got a lift home.
Conor’s car was in a nearby car park. It was a big, rather flashy, white BMW. It looked a bit like a drug dealer’s car. But the leather seats felt heavenly to my tired body, and I slipped into a sort of trance as Conor sped away and the world began to flash by.
‘I want to see you again,’ Conor said out of nowhere, as we were hurtling down the M1. He was holding my hand. Other than to change gear, I don’t think he had let go of it since we’d left.
‘Me too,’ I said genuinely.
‘Great. Well, I’ve a job in Wales starting tomorrow. Till the twenty-seventh. And after that I’ve promised myself a break in the sunshine somewhere – maybe a week, ten days – but we could meet up after that if you want.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That’s a long way off.’ I was struggling to even imagine letting go of Conor’s hand at that moment, let alone a one-month break. I told him I was on holiday too. ‘The last week of August, first week and a bit of September.’
‘Interesting,’ Conor said. ‘Plans?’
I shrugged. ‘I thought I might go to Ibiza,’ I said. ‘But I haven’t decided yet.’
‘Ibiza . . .’ Conor repeated. ‘Sounds like good craic.’
I sighed. ‘Abby – my friend – and her boyfriend are going. They’ve invited me to tag along, but I’m not sure.’ I wasn’t that keen on the idea of playing gooseberry for two weeks, if the truth be told. Plus, Abby and Winston would be out dancing every night and I feared I’d come home more tired than before I left.
‘Oh,’ Conor said. ‘Well, Ibiza’s pretty cool, so they tell me. If you like to party.’
‘It wouldn’t have been my choice,’ I said. ‘But that’s where they’re going, so . . .’
‘And where would your choice be?’ Conor asked.
‘Oh, Greece!’ I said definitively. ‘Santorini.’
‘Because?’
I smiled at the fact that I’d spotted Conor’s trait of asking one-word questions. It seemed somehow to be the first thing I actually knew about him. This is how it starts, I thought.
‘I don’t know, really,’ I answered. And it was the truth. Other than the fact that I’d had a poster of Santorini on my bedroom wall for so long I couldn’t even remember where it came from, and I’d woken up for twenty years looking at those blue-domed rooftops, at that rippling, sparkling sea, I knew nothing whatsoever about the place. ‘It’s just a sort of obsession, I suppose. A dream of mine.’
‘Ibiza’s gotta be more fun,’ Conor said. ‘Would you fancy it? With me?’
‘Ibiza?’ I said. ‘Um, maybe . . . yes . . . Perhaps.’ Though the ecstasy was still playing with my brain, still making everything sound wonderful, making the unlikely seem entirely possible, my normal, logical self was starting to wake up somewhere, deep within. And that tiny anaesthetised part of me was aware that planning to go on holiday with someone I had only just met wasn’t necessarily a reasonable course of action, even if I was, perhaps, in love with him.
‘We could go with Abby and Winston, I suppose,’ I said, thinking I’d feel safer with them around. Was my subconscious already tuning in to unspoken clues Conor was sending out into the ether?
Conor frowned. ‘I could take you to your Santa place,’ he said. ‘Realise that dream of yours. That’d be a great way for us to get to know each other, don’t you think?’
I sat up straight and turned to look at him. ‘Santorini?’ I said. ‘Are you serious?’
Conor shrugged. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You only live once, right? It’s hot, is it? They have beaches and shit, do they?’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ I said. ‘And you’re on holiday the same dates as me?’ My excitement had provoked a fresh rush of drug-enhanced optimism. ‘Last week of August, first week of September?’
‘That’s it,’ Conor replied. ‘Well, from the twenty-eighth to be precise.’
‘Me too!’ I laughed. ‘The exact same dates. Well, I’m off from the Saturday before, but . . .’
‘It’s destiny,’ Conor said, squeezing my hand. ‘I’m your destiny.’
And I’m yours, I thought. But unlike Conor, I couldn’t say such things.
‘What do you do?’ I asked, that little voice now reminding me I didn’t know this man at all.
‘Roofer,’ Conor said.
I took in the drug-dealer opulence of the car again, of Conor’s expensive shirt and waistcoat, his brogue shoes . . . ‘You must be a very successful roofer,’ I said.
Conor released my hand from his and returned it to the steering wheel. ‘What the feck is that supposed to mean?’ he asked, turning a little red in the face.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean . . .’ I stumbled, realising I’d upset him by sounding suspicious. ‘I was . . . It was supposed to be a compliment.’
‘If a roofer’s not good enough for you then maybe you should find yourself someone else to go to Santa-fecking-wherever,’ Conor said, sounding almost as if he was joking, but not quite.
‘I just meant that you look very successful,’ I explained, tears unexpectedly threatening. I was so used to Mum flying off the handle at things I said that I still assumed, back then, that it must automatically be my fault.
Conor’s nostrils flared as if he was going to explode but then, for a minute or so, he said nothing, visibly calming himself down. ‘I do all right,’ he finally mumbled, ‘thank you very much.’
‘I can see that,’ I said. ‘You have a lovely car. Lovely clothes . . .’ I looked out of the side window and grimaced at the service station we were passing.
‘And you?’ Conor asked after a few minutes. ‘What do you do?’
‘Oh, nothing exciting,’ I said, feeling like the cat who rolls over in submission before a dominant male. ‘I’m just a secretary. In an accountant’s office. Just a typist really.’
‘Right,’ Conor said, sounding reassured. ‘Well, then.’
About a minute later, he squeezed my hand and added, ‘It’s good you have a job, though. I mean, you meet so many wasters at these things. I could tell you were a clever lass when I met you.’
He dropped me off on Edgware Road so I could get the District Line back home, but though he’d jotted my phone number down in his little diary, I honestly never thought I’d hear from him again.
As I trundled along on the Tube, my mood plummeted. The drug was wearing off and my absurd optimism was being replaced by a sense of inner emptiness and self-doubt. I’d said the wrong thing again. I’d upset him. I’d blown my chances. He was good-looking and well-dressed and funny, and I’d blown it. And now I had to go home alone and face Mum’s anger. And even without her having any inkling of where I’d been and what I’d been up to, just the fact of my late arrival made that terrifying.
I’d slept at Abby’s, I decided, trying to get my story straight. I glanced down at myself and noticed, for the first time, the grass burns down the side of my pink trousers and the mud on my white trainers. Hopefully Mum would be asleep when I got in so I could slip them into the wash without her realising.
Yes, I’d slept
at Abby’s because . . . because we’d been to the cinema and . . . the film had been much longer than I expected. And I’d missed the last Tube home!
She’d still be furious, of course, but I’d make her lunch when she got up. I’d do the laundry (including my pink trousers) and even hoover. Mum hated hoovering. If I was lucky, I might get away with a mere telling-off and a few days of sulking.
And then, once she headed off to work, I’d sleep. Because I was suddenly feeling very, very tired.
Conor phoned me twice that week and, thank God, Mum was out at work both times.
He called once at eleven in the evening to (drunkenly) tell me he was in love with me – which was enough to set my heart beating all over again – and once in the morning, just as I was leaving for work, to ask me if I really wanted to go to ‘Santa-whatever-the-fuck-it’s-called’ with him.
The drugs, of course, were a long-forgotten memory by then. If anything, the after-effects had left me feeling insecure and rather depressed about everything. Not so much about Conor, who I still remembered as being quite lovely, but about my own ability to seduce him. About my worthiness, perhaps, for his love. To convince me, Conor persuaded me to meet him in central London the following Saturday. The fact he was prepared to drive all the way in from Cardiff just to talk to me struck me as mad, but in a romantic kind of way. Maybe he really liked me!
We met up in Oxford Street at two o’clock in the afternoon. He was wearing a suit, an elegant blue-checked number, and a pink, rather dandy tie. He looked pretty damned gorgeous in it. We kissed and it seemed to me that his breath smelled vaguely of beer, which seemed unlikely for someone who had just driven from Wales, so I discounted it.
I nearly asked him how a roofer came to be so impeccably dressed, but remembered at the last minute how badly my remarks on this subject had backfired previously. So instead, I simply said, ‘Wow! Look at you!’
Conor fiddled with his tie, straightened himself proudly and said, ‘Yes. That is the general idea.’
We ducked into a coffee shop. I was feeling shy and uncertain of myself, so I let him do all the talking. He certainly had the gift of the gab.
He told me about the village near Cork where he came from, and a few anecdotes about the job he was working on, roofing an old church in Wales for a posh couple who were converting it. He told a few unsavoury jokes about the Welsh, too. They all involved the misuse and abuse of sheep. And then he ushered me outside and took my hand again.
It felt wonderful to be walking together, holding hands. I felt proud, if the truth be told, to be striding down the street with such a good-looking man. But it felt strange, too – incongruous, as if we were children dressed up as adults, merely playing at being a couple. But then, doesn’t adulthood often feel like role play? Even these days, I sometimes feel like an imposter. Even now, I struggle to convince myself that I’m a fully grown adult, doing fully adult things. I’m not sure the ageing, wrinkled exterior ever quite convinces the innocent inner child that this is the real deal, that this is what’s really happening.
‘Here,’ Conor said, as we walked in front of a travel agent. ‘Let’s pop in here.’
‘Oh, no . . .’ I said, pulling back.
‘No?’
‘I mean, I’m not sure. About the whole holiday thing.’
‘It’s just to see,’ Conor told me. ‘It’s just to have a look. Where’s the harm in that?’
The woman – her name tag said ‘Tracey’ – was nice. She smiled at us the way people smile at babies, and I felt reassured. If we looked like a couple then that was a good sign, wasn’t it?
She showed us various brochures of the Greek islands and of Santorini in particular, and in response to Conor’s quite specific questions, consulted timetables and calculated costs. Eight days’ holiday came to over four hundred pounds each, which was way beyond my budget.
‘I can’t afford it, sweetheart,’ I said, surprised by my own use of that word. I asked myself why I, too, was now playing the role of a newly-wed. ‘I’m sorry, but I really can’t.’
‘You won’t find a cheaper deal than this one,’ Tracey informed us. ‘Not at such a late stage.’
‘But you’d like to go, would you not?’ Conor asked.
‘What I’d like is neither here nor there,’ I told him, avoiding the question. ‘Because I really can’t afford it.’
‘So you don’t want to go with me, after all?’ Conor said, his face reddening.
‘It’s not that. No, it’s not that at all. Honestly, look . . . I’d love to,’ I spluttered. ‘But that’s way too much money. There’s no reason why we can’t go away for a weekend or something though.’ A weekend trip away would feel less of a commitment, I reckoned. A weekend trip where a simple train ticket would bring me home if Conor changed his mind about me was a far more reassuring option. My mother was also less likely to find out I was lying to her.
Conor suddenly sat up very straight in his chair. He tugged at his cuffs and rolled his shoulders. ‘Ah, feck it,’ he said. ‘We’ll take ’em.’
‘That’s great,’ Tracey said, smiling at us again. ‘And I’m sure you won’t regret it.’
‘But Conor,’ I protested. ‘I can’t. It’s too expensive.’
‘I can,’ Conor said, tipping his head from side to side to stretch his neck. ‘Where do I sign?’
I felt physically sick as he signed the paperwork and handed over his Amex card to pay for it all. But I didn’t say a word. There was something about his will that had simply overwritten my own surprisingly flaky sense of self-determination.
Outside the travel agent he pushed the pouch of tickets into my reluctant hands. ‘You take care of those,’ he said. ‘I need to get back now. There’s rain forecast and I’ve got a whole shitload of flashing to finish.’
‘You’re really going straight back?’ I asked, flabbergasted. ‘To Wales? But that’s madness.’
Conor shrugged. ‘Sorry, honey. But work calls. I’ll see you on the twenty-eighth,’ he said. ‘Gatwick South. I’ll call you so we can arrange it all.’ And then he kissed me, straightened his tie again and strutted off, the leather soles of his shoes resounding along the pavement.
I spent two weeks worrying about what to do, changing my mind the entire time. I spent hours on the phone with Abby discussing it, having the same conversation over and over again. But Abby was no help at all.
‘He does sound a bit mad,’ she agreed. ‘A bit too sure of himself.’
‘That’s exactly it,’ I said. ‘But he hardly knows me. What if he changes his mind, mid-holiday?’
‘He seems pretty certain. I mean, he must really like you if he’s taking you to Greece.’
‘I suppose. But what if he’s a serial killer?’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘He does have that kind of profile.’
‘I cancel then? But how do I get his ticket back to him without having my throat slit?’
‘But you’d be mad not to go,’ Abby said. ‘You’ve been banging on about Santorini as long as I’ve known you.’
‘I know, but . . .’
‘It’s eight days. Eight sexy nights in Santorini with a hot Irishman.’
‘I know.’
‘He is hot, right? I mean, you do fancy him, yeah?’ she asked me on one occasion.
‘I do. He’s gorgeous. It’s just . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s something a bit mad about him. It’s his eyes, I think . . . But, yes. He’s incredibly sexy, too.’
‘So, it’s a week with a sexy guy in Santorini. Where’s the problem with that?’
‘With a sexy guy who may be a serial killer.’
‘Well, yes. There is that potential downside.’
‘I think I should go,’ I told her. An image of Conor in swimming trunks had sprung into my mind’s eye. ‘No, I think I should cancel,’ I added. ‘Definitely.’
‘What’s the alternative?’ Abby asked. ‘I mean, you’re way too late to come with us now
.’
‘I know.’
‘So what will you do if you don’t go?’
‘Stay here, I suppose,’ I said.
‘With your mum?’
‘Yes, with Mum.’
‘So you’re going to stay at home and get locked in your room for something or other, and stare at your Santorini poster?’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
Abby laughed. ‘Look, I know you’re going and you know you’re going. So you can stop pretending to be all Virgin Valerie about it.’
‘I’m really not being Virgin Valerie about anything,’ I protested.
‘No,’ Abby said. ‘But you are pretending you might not go, because that makes you less of a slut than if you just abandoned yourself straight off to the whole eight-days-of-sex-in-the-sun-with-a-stranger thing, aren’t you?’
‘Perhaps . . .’ I admitted. ‘Yes, maybe that’s it. And it’s not just . . . you know . . . the sex thing. I think I might be a bit in love with him.’
‘Hmm,’ Abby said doubtfully. ‘That sounds premature. But you’ll soon find out. If you go you will, at any rate. But more importantly, are you on the pill?’
‘You know I’m not.’
‘Then buy some condoms,’ she said. ‘Buy lots of condoms, and you’ll be fine.’
I arrived late at Gatwick. I’d had a bit of a panic attack at the exact moment I was supposed to leave the house and had lost first my keys, then my flimsy one-year passport (which I’d had to hide so Mum wouldn’t find it), then the tickets, and then my keys again. By the time I left the house my forehead was pearling with sweat.
Conor was at the arranged meeting place, the pub at Gatwick South. He was nursing the remains of what clearly wasn’t his first pint of beer.
‘Jaysus!’ he exclaimed on seeing me. ‘D’you want to give a man a heart attack? I thought you’d left me standing at the bleedin’ altar here.’
He was wearing chinos and a tight, light-blue polo shirt. He had muscles and ugly tattoos, neither of which I had ever noticed before.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I lost my keys just as I was leaving. But we’re still in time, aren’t we? The take-off’s not for another hour.’
You Then, Me Now Page 3
