Wish You Were Here

by Mike Gayle

  Tom laughed. ‘I’m with Andy on this one. If you make it to eighty-five and all you’ve got to worry about is a tattoo you had done over fifty years ago then as far as I’m concerned, you’re doing pretty well.’

  ‘So that’s two against one,’ said Andy. ‘Are you in or out?’

  ‘I’m in,’ I replied. ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘For the record,’ said Lisa, ‘can I just say that I think this is one of the stupidest overly bloke ideas the three of you have ever had?’

  ‘Your objection is duly noted, babe,’ replied Andy. ‘But what you don’t understand is that sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And right now what these men have to do is choose a cool tattoo design.’

  Agreeing that Mr Cross’s work was of a sufficiently high standard to let him loose on our skin, we made our way into the shop and told the woman standing by the till our requirements: three reasonably straightforward tattoos, no colour, done as soon as possible. In return she took our money, booked our time slots and handed us several large portfolios of designs to look at.

  ‘I’ve found my design,’ said Andy after five minutes of flicking backwards and forwards.

  ‘Me too,’ said Tom.

  They both looked at me.

  ‘I haven’t seen anything so far that says, “Please be on my skin forever,” I replied. ‘I could be here a while.’

  ‘Not that I’m endorsing what you’re all doing in any way at all,’ said Lisa, taking the portfolio in Andy’s hand away from him and flicking back a couple of pages, ‘but I have to admit I quite liked that one.’ She pointed to a design in black ink of a Celtic-looking sun. ‘It’s quite subtle and wouldn’t look too hideous.’

  I wasn’t convinced.

  ‘How about this one then?’ said Andy turning the page to a small circular Chinese-looking design of a dragon chasing its own tail. ‘I was seriously considering having it for myself before I found the one I really wanted.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I replied, ‘but I don’t think dragons are really me either.’

  I looked at Tom. ‘Come on, mate, you must have some sort of suggestion too?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘I think you already know what you want but you’re just too scared about making the decision.’

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Tom was spot on. ‘Okay, you’re right,’ I replied. ‘I was just playing for time but my mind’s made up now. So let’s go and get ourselves a tattoo.’

  When I emerged from the back of the tattoo parlour three quarters of an hour after Andy and Tom had had theirs done, all Andy would say was that his tattoo was in the middle of his shoulder blades while Tom told me that his was on his right shoulder. Given that we were all being so secretive, I suggested that we have a grand unveiling in a few weeks’ time as a sort of post-holiday reunion. Tom thought that was a great idea but Andy just laughed and said that he would have to see.

  As good a place as any

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Andy as we emerged from the tattoo parlour. The early evening sun had long since disappeared and we were now standing right in the middle of the constant bustle of night-time Malia.

  ‘Dinner time,’ said Tom looking at his watch. ‘I’m starving and we’ve only got half an hour before the coach arrives to pick us up.’

  ‘What kind of food do you want?’ asked Andy.

  ‘The fastest food possible.’

  As we headed back to the Apollo feasting on takeaway McDonalds we were laughing and joking so much that the events of the morning seemed as though they had happened a million years ago, to someone else entirely. Were Andy and I back to being friends? It was hard to tell. The damage we’d inflicted on each other was hardly going to heal overnight. The important thing to me, though, wasn’t that we were back to normal. Rather that it seemed that we were both willing to make the effort to fake our friendship until such counterfeit feelings were no longer necessary.

  Liberating our suitcases from the Apollo’s secure room we sat on the steps outside to wait for the coach. Within five minutes the Club Fun tour coach finally reared into view and it pulled up directly in front of us.

  ‘We should have said goodbye to Steve-the-barman,’ I said as the coach driver opened up the vehicle’s storage bay and began loading up a small mountain of luggage.

  ‘No worries,’ replied Andy, ‘I’ll do it for you later.’

  ‘How are you going to do that? You’ll be—’ I stopped and looked at Andy’s face and suddenly realised what he meant. ‘You’re not coming back home are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Andy, ‘we’re not.’

  Lisa’s face confirmed that Andy wasn’t joking. Andy reached across and gently traced a small line along Lisa’s right hand. It was a small gesture. A gesture of love, I suppose. But even though I tried to fight it the gesture broke my heart.

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Tom. ‘That you’re extending your holiday?’

  ‘We’re thinking something more permanent,’ said Andy.

  I don’t know why I was surprised. If I’d learned anything from this holiday it was this: given the right degree of provocation, anyone could lose the plot. All it took was a partner leaving, a doctor diagnosing cancer, or the betrayal of a close friend and it appeared the rule book for normal behaviour could be abandoned completely.

  ‘I know it’s a lot to take in,’ began Lisa. ‘We can hardly believe it ourselves but we’ve talked about nothing else and it’s what we want.’

  ‘To stay here?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s as good a place as any,’ replied Andy.

  There was a long silence. I could feel the time slipping away.

  ‘I know it’s none of my business but are you really sure?’

  ‘There are just too many distractions at home,’ explained Lisa. ‘Too many ways to get lost. That’s what went wrong with me and Andy: we both ended up being too focused on things that didn’t matter. We need to take this time out together if we’re ever going to make things work between us again.’

  ‘We’re thinking a year to begin with,’ added Andy. ‘And if we’re still happy . . . maybe we’ll even make it permanent.’

  ‘What about your jobs?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll sort something out,’ said Lisa.

  ‘And your house?’

  ‘We were sort of hoping you’d keep an eye on it for us,’ said Lisa. ‘We’ve rented somewhere here for a few months – that’s what we were up to this afternoon – it’s not much but I can’t see us needing to do much in there apart from sleep. And as for work . . . look where we are . . . there must be hundreds of bars and restaurant jobs going. And if there aren’t, well, we’ll just have to sort something else out.’

  The more I tried to reason the whole situation out in my head, the more I came to realise that every hole I tried to find in their plan seemed to point out my own inadequacies rather than theirs. The truth was I was jealous of their spontaneity. I was envious of the fact that they had succeeded where I’d failed. For both Andy and Lisa, whether they stayed together forever or split up after a week, this would always be the holiday that changed their lives. The Andy standing in front of me right now was different from the one who had left England over a week ago. And that’s what bothered me. He had changed and I was still the same. I’d be going back to the same flat, job and life that I had left behind seven days ago.

  ‘Are these going to the airport?’ asked the coach driver pointing to our luggage.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘Just these two please.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked eyeing Andy and Lisa’s luggage. I looked at Andy and then Lisa waiting for their confirmation.

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Lisa. ‘We’re sure.’

  The driver shrugged, loaded up the last remaining suitcases on to the coach and closed the hatch. There was no going back now.

  ‘So this is it,’ said Andy thoughtfully.

  ‘I’ll say my goodbyes first,’ said Lisa. She put her arms around Tom and squeezed him tigh
tly, burying her face into his chest. ‘I hope everything goes well tomorrow. I’ll be thinking of you.’

  Initially confused, Tom looked at me and the guilt must have been written on my face. ‘I told Andy earlier in the week,’ I apologised.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Tom. ‘I’m glad in a way. It’ll be nice knowing I’ve got friends rooting for me.’

  ‘Well, count me among them,’ said Andy shaking Tom’s hand firmly.

  ‘Look after yourself, Charlie,’ said Lisa embracing me.

  ‘You too,’ I replied. ‘I really do hope everything goes well for you guys.’

  ‘It will,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Look after yourself, mate,’ said Andy stepping towards me.

  ‘I will do,’ I replied. ‘And if you need anything at all while you’re out here, just let me know and I’ll sort it out for you.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Andy paused as if he wanted to say something else but then at the last minute his face changed and he shook my hand. ‘Don’t go thinking things will change,’ he said. ‘Because they won’t. From now on you’re dead to me. Absolutely dead!’

  I’m sure you really are a nice guy

  At the sound of the electronic ding the seat-belt light over my head switched off, thereby setting off a commotion of seat-belt unclicking. Even though it had been half an hour since the plane had taken off, my mind was still very much on the ground, wondering from minute to minute what Andy and Lisa were up to and when might be the next time I would see them. Releasing my seat-belt I stretched my arms in the air, yawned and turned behind to see if I could see what Tom was up to. Due to a computer error, we’d been allocated seats in different parts of the plane and Tom was now sandwiched between a dour-looking youth wearing multiple gold chains and a smiling middle-aged woman with painted-on eyebrows and a deep orange tan. Looking at Tom’s companions, I realised I’d fared much better: a pretty but hassled-looking mother, with a sleeping baby on her lap and a napping toddler on the seat next to her.

  As people began passing by on the way to the toilet I reached under the seat in front of me and pulled out The Da Vinci Code. With all that had been happening over the past few days I’d somehow managed to neglect the book so much that I suspected I’d have little chance of getting back into it. So I pulled out the third and final choice for my holiday reading: White Teeth by Zadie Smith – a book I’d selected less because I was desperate to read ‘an epic comic tale telling the story of immigrants in England’ and more because the bespectacled authoress on the cover looked quite foxy. I only managed to get as far as the end of the first paragraph before I had to stop as I’d become aware that somebody was lurking by my side. I looked up to see a man roughly my own age, with a few days’ worth of stubble and a slightly drawn complexion, staring down at me.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you,’ he began, ‘but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind swapping seats with me? It’s just that my wife and kids are here.’ We both looked across at his wife and she gave me the same wearily apologetic smile that her husband had just given me. I smiled back, somewhat surprised to find myself feeling envious of the guy who had just spoken. He was where I was supposed to be at thirty-five. But where was my hassled wife? Where were my sleepy children? Where was my family holiday? ‘We were all supposed to be sitting together, you see,’ the husband continued, ‘but they made a cock-up at the check-in desk and said that we should wait until take-off to see about swapping seats.’

  Envious or not, I wished them happiness. ‘Of course you can have my seat,’ I replied as I bundled my things together. ‘Just show me where you were sitting.’

  Cringing from the huge amount of appreciation that the couple lavished on me, I followed the husband back to his original seat – a middle seat – some five rows in front of my own. As we approached, an austere-looking woman, who had obviously spent too much time in the Cretan sun, stood up making little effort to hide her annoyance at being disturbed for a second time. Apologising again the man quickly grabbed his things, thanked me and made his exit, leaving me to squeeze into my middle seat and re-organise my things.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ I apologised as I knocked the girl in the window seat next to me several times with my elbow. ‘They don’t actually give you very much room to do anything in these seats beyond breathing.’

  ‘That’s a good thing you’ve done,’ said the girl. ‘He’d been fretting about moving seats ever since—’ She stopped abruptly and a horrified look spread across her face. And though it took a few seconds, I suddenly realised the reason.

  ‘You’re not wearing your cowboy hat,’ I said, unable to believe my luck. It was the girl-with-the-cowboy-hat or rather the girl-formerly-known-as-the-girl-with-the-cowboy-hat.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she began. ‘I really am sorry for what happened.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise,’ I replied. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It wasn’t really me,’ she continued. ‘You see I was being egged on by my friends.’

  ‘Honestly,’ I replied. ‘It’s all fine.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry if I embarrassed you.’

  ‘I wasn’t embarrassed,’ I replied grinning. ‘I was flattered.’

  ‘But you didn’t turn up at the bar, did you?’ I shrugged and she buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, you did, didn’t you? You must think I’m a terrible person. I’m so sorry. I did sort of think about going but I lost my nerve. I feel awful now.’

  ‘And so you should. I waited all night for you to turn up.’

  ‘You didn’t, did you?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘As it happens that whole night went a bit weird so I probably wouldn’t have been much fun anyway . . . even if you had turned up.’

  There was a long silence. Fully aware that in terms of conversation etiquette a choice was being presented to us – to continue chatting or not – the girl-with-the-cowboy-hat chose to stare pointedly out of the window into the darkness. Accepting that our conversation was now officially over, I pulled out my book again and began reading. She did the same with her book. Just as it seemed that we would both spend the entire flight not talking I became convinced that I was looking a proverbial gift horse in the mouth. Here I was, sitting next to an attractive girl who had selected me to ask out on a date following a dare. Conversational openers didn’t really get much better than that.

  ‘Just in case you’ve forgotten,’ I said, closing my book, ‘I’m Charlie.’

  She turned and looked at me, embarrassed. ‘Look, Charlie,’ she began hesitantly, ‘I don’t want this to come out the wrong way . . . and I’m sure you really are a nice guy but I think I ought to tell you I met someone . . . in Malia . . . and we’re sort of together.’

  ‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘Well, that’s good to hear.’

  There was another long silence. The girl-in-the-cowboy-hat smiled at me uncomfortably. It was difficult to know which of us was more desperate to get away from the other.

  ‘I’ll be getting back to my book then,’ I said, after a few moments.

  The girl-in-the-cowboy-hat half nodded, dug into her bag and plugged a set of headphones into her ears.

  I folded back the cover of my book and read page one all over again.

  We landed at Gatwick ten minutes early because of something to do with wind speeds and early time slots. As we taxied along the runway, I tucked my book into my bag. I would never finish White Teeth. Not because it was a bad book, but rather because judging from the little I’d read I’d come to realise that, along with being quite foxy, the author was also incredibly talented and most definitely out of my league. This news depressed me: once again, by virtue of just being me, I was ruling out yet another one of the several billion women alive on planet Earth.

  As the cabin crew switched off the seat-belt sign there was once again a frenzy of activity among the passengers. The austere-looking woman next to me was out of her seat and rummaging in the overhead locker in an instant but the girl-in-the-cowboy
-hat, I suspect keen to give me a head start off the plane, remained in her seat looking out of the window.

  Along with everyone else, I shuffled into the narrow central aisle of the plane towards the exit. Welcome home. There was a chill in the air and floodlights were glistening in a dozen puddles dotted across the wet tarmac.

  Waiting for me at the bottom of the steps was a tired and drawn-looking Tom. I looked at my watch. 2.38 a.m. There was now roughly six hours until he would be making the call that could change his life forever.

  ‘How was it for you?’ I asked as we boarded the bus that would take us to arrivals.

  ‘I slept for most of it. How about you?’

  ‘It was . . . interesting.’ My eyes flitted across the tarmac to the girl-in-the-cowboy-hat who was waiting for her friends.

  ‘Is that who I think it is?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘But don’t get your hopes up.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I did and I ended up severely disappointed.’

  Tom laughed. ‘If it wasn’t to be then she probably wasn’t right for you.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ I replied, ‘but if she isn’t, who is?’

  I could tell from the look on his face that Tom wasn’t interested in discussing his feelings about making the call. So instead we walked in easy silence until we were through passport control and out the other side.

  We both turned on our mobile phones. ‘Any messages?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ replied Tom as he dialled his voicemail. Positioning himself out of the way of fellow passengers, Tom’s face lit up as he listened to voicemail messages that were obviously from his family.

  Tom grinned. ‘One from Anne, two from the kids . . . and one from Andy.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Even though he doesn’t believe in God, on the off-chance there is one, he said he’ll say a little prayer on my behalf.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like him.’

  ‘No,’ replied Tom. ‘That doesn’t sound like Andy at all.’