The Travel Auction

by Mark Green

  The Travel Auction

  by

  Mark Green

  -

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Mark Green

  License Statement: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover page illustration by Lloyd Randall

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Acknowledgements

  One

  I felt my throat tighten and instantly knew that I’d made a terrible mistake. I glanced around the blurring party faces, difficult to recognise through my alcohol-induced haze. I gasped, fighting to breathe and instinctively patted myself down, frantically searching my pockets. I tried desperately to suck in more oxygen before I started to choke, my legs collapsed and I hit the floor hard, convulsing. Someone shouted, muffled and distant as panic set in around me.

  “Shit! Where is it? Quick, find his...”

  And that’s the last thing I remember. Next thing I knew I was waking up in hospital with the hangover from hell.

  “You look like crap, mate,” said a voice I vaguely recognised.

  “Kate?”

  “Don’t be daft. You’re a free man now, remember?”

  I groaned and tried to sit up as a shockwave of nausea washed over me. I managed to lean over the side of the bed, then threw up all over Justin’s shoes.

  * *

  I was still feeling rough on Monday morning, which made my telephone call to the travel company particularly difficult. I swore under my breath as I replaced the receiver and slumped over my desk. What do I now?

  “I guess I’ll have to advertise,” I said to Justin.

  “So you’ll put an advert on eBay for what? Lady wanted: occasional nursemaid to needle-phobic thirty-something, for all expenses paid trip to South America. Oh, and must have the name Kate Thornly.”

  Justin sniggered. I gave him the finger and took a bite from my sandwich. His sarcasm annoyed me but I was also acutely aware of how much truth there was in it. I’d been dreaming of a trip like this for years, working up the courage to throw caution to the wind, give notice at work and just go.

  “Actually…” I said between mouthfuls of sandwich, “…that’s not a bad idea.”

  * *

  Advert on eBay. 24th September

  Adventure of a Lifetime for KATE THORNLY!

  Time Left 6 days 7 hours 32s

  Bid History 0 bids

  Starting bid £0.01

  Reserve Not Met

  * *

  Enter Maximum bid £

  Description

  Three-month trip around South America with thirty-something male. The seller will meet all expenses. This is a genuine sale. Bidders MUST be able to meet all of the following conditions:

  1. Must be able to leave on 2nd October for three complete months.

  2. Must have all jabs up-to-date for South America. i.e. Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. (Injections - polio, typhoid etc. but in particular yellow fever.)

  3. Must be physically fit enough to complete 4-day Inca Trail.

  4. Mustn’t be squeamish and should be able to administer emergency first aid and must be comfortable handling needles.

  5. MUST have a full 10 year passport and MUST, MUST, MUST have a passport in the name of KATE THORNLY — this is essential — all bidders must e-mail a scanned copy of their passport for verification prior to bidding.

  6. Spanish speaker preferred.

  7. Any bid must include a profile of you.

  8. Please e-mail any questions before the deadline.

  * *

  THIS IS AN UNUSUAL, BUT I GUARANTEE COMPLETELY GENUINE OFFER. I HAVE AN ALLERGY TO NUTS AND NEED A TRAVEL COMPANION WHO’S ABLE TO ADMINISTER EMERGENCY ADRENALIN SHOULD THE NEED ARISE.

  * *

  Justin peered over my shoulder as I finished typing.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Why not? Has to be worth a try. Kate and I had an agreement. I got a zero interest credit card to pay for the trip up front and she was supposed to pay me back in monthly instalments. Instead, she cancelled her standing order when she gave me the elbow. I rang the travel company; they can’t refund me and won’t change the name on her ticket. So, I either find another Kate Thornly to go with me, or I ditch the entire trip and lose all that money.”

  “All you need now is a guardian angel armed with adrenaline,” said Justin, somewhat sarcastically.

  I shrugged.

  “She’ll have a fantastic holiday out of it,” I said, unsure whom I was trying to convince.

  “What about a photo?” said Justin.

  I considered this for a moment; it wasn’t something I’d thought of.

  “To be honest, looks aren’t important. I just need a travel companion who can keep an eye on what I eat and to be there if I have another episode…”

  Justin rolled his eyes.

  “What?”

  “A photo of you, dopey. These Kate Thornlys should know what they’re getting into — you could be the elephant man!”

  * *

  Kate Thornly (the 2nd)

  Of course I’d heard about the eBay auction, who hadn’t.

  But luckily I’d avoided all the early attention from my mates because none of them knows me as Kate Thornly, to them I’m Angel.

  I hate being called Kate. Have done all the way back to school. Kids can be so spiteful. Katy the Cake they’d taunted me, because I was a bit overweight back then.

  So I decided to use my middle name, the one my dad had apparently insisted on shortly after I was born and he’d buggered off.

  At the age of nine, I started telling mum I wanted to be called Angela. She didn’t take the news well. It took several weeks for her to wheedle the reason out of me. I eventually told her one tearful afternoon at a friend’s birthday party, where I’d insisted everyone call me by my new name. I think mum felt guilty, unaware I was being bullied. So we made a pact and from that day I was no longer Katy the
Cake. Mum didn’t like calling me Angela, so over time I became Angel. From then on without any ‘Deed Poll’ amateur dramatics and aside from occasionally having to use my real name for form filling or booking holidays, I more or less forgot that Kate Thornly had ever existed. Until that bloody eBay advertisement.

  * *

  Me

  Somehow, the advert on eBay got noticed, but a few of the replies weren’t quite what I was expecting…

  * *

  E-Mail From: Kate Thornly

  To: Jonathan Cork

  Sent: 26 September 08:26

  Subject: South America

  Surely you should be paying me to come with you to a continent where they eat guinea pigs and hate the English for reclaiming the Falkland Islands? My fee is one thousand pounds per month, plus all additional expenses.

  (Mrs) Kate Thornly

  * *

  E-Mail From: Kate Thornly

  To: Jonathan Cork

  Sent: 26 September 17:18

  Subject: Holiday Travel

  Dear Jonathan,

  I would dearly love to accompany you on your Latin American adventure. I just have one query: can you send an itinerary of the trip advising when we’ll be in a major city as I need to draw my pension every Thursday? I look forward to hearing from you.

  Yours sincerely

  Kate Thornly (divorced 1985)

  PS. You look rather dashing in your photograph

  * *

  E-Mail From: Mathew Tope

  To: Jonathan Cork

  Sent: 27 September 01:44

  Subject: Holiday Travel

  Hi Jonathan,

  I’m not Kate Thornly yet, but I’m in the final stages of my gender re-alignment surgery. I’ve still to officially change my name (my new friends call me Mildred — unfortunately I’ve had to leave many of the old ones behind for reasons of acceptance of my new self) and Kate Thornly seems like a nice feminine name. I’m not sure how long it takes to change a name by Deed Poll, or how quickly I can get a new passport, but would you consider waiting for me? You seem like a decent man who might be broadminded enough to accept a new woman such as myself. Can’t wait to hear from you, I’ll write again after my surgery this weekend.

  Best wishes and new horizons

  Mildred (soon to be Kate Thornly…?)

  * *

  I wasn’t prepared for the responses I got from the advertisement. I heard a rumour that a web link to the advert was e-mailed from company to company in most cities. I don’t know if that’s true, but the ‘hits’ counter on my eBay page was up to 80,000 after day two, nearly 300,000 by day three and as I sit here now it’s over 750,000. Surely there can’t be that many Kate Thornlys in the country?

  * *

  Kate Thornly the 1st was not amused.

  “I’ve been made a laughing stock,” she moaned to me over the phone.

  “That wasn’t my intention,” I said, but I couldn’t help a private smile.

  “But now someone else will get to go on my trip. I helped you plan it, I’ve nurse-maided you all these years, and now another me gets the benefit…”

  “I’d stop there if I were you Kate. Aside from leaving me for someone else, you’ve also left me with your debt. So I’m afraid if you’re looking for sympathy from me, you are…”

  Click.

  * *

  I lifted my head from my hands and glanced over at Justin.

  “This is bonkers. Where the hell do I start?”

  “How many have you got? We’ll whittle them all down to a short list, like they do for job interviews.

  “Five hundred and twelve,” I replied, in a daze from sitting in front of the computer screen all day. Justin shook his head and grinned.

  “What?” I said, from behind fingers still clasped across my face.

  “You’re an analyst, right? At most times as we have often speculated, a perfectly useless skill. But here’s an opportunity to put that knowledge to some use.”

  I lifted my head from my hands.

  “We set parameters, strip down the numbers according to your criteria…”

  “Except that I don’t really have any — I’m not looking for a girlfriend,” I interrupted.

  “Maybe not, but we have to be brutal with the raw data to crunch the numbers down. That’s what we do, remember.”

  “Did,” I corrected him, smiling for the first time that day. Handing in my notice to go off travelling had been a huge deal and I’d dithered for months before finally biting the bullet. But now, despite the small problem of recruiting a new travel companion, it was a huge relief to be leaving the office job I’d always hated.

  “Okay, did. But let’s use those skills before you leave them somewhere in darkest Peru, never to be seen again…”

  I shrugged, glad someone else was huddled over my computer to help take some of the responsibility.

  “Let’s make a list. Top of the agenda — age. I assume you don’t want to travel with a pensioner?”

  “Nor a teenager,” I said, remembering one of the e-mails.

  “Er, no. Although…”

  I rolled my eyes, tapping my keyboard, setting up a search programme. Justin winked at me then dropped his eyes to the pad.

  “Twenty to thirty five?” he said, jotting down some notes.

  “Twenty five to forty.”

  “Marital status. I’m assuming single?”

  We spent several hours building our database and inputting information, applying parameters and arguing over my apparently ‘conservative’ choices.

  “And finally, but most importantly, breast size?”

  I closed my eyes in despair.

  “Just kidding. Go for it.”

  I glanced up, attempted a half-hearted smile and then hit ‘enter’. Justin pulled his chair nearer.

  “How many?”

  I stared at the big zero on the screen.

  * *

  Kate Thornly (the 2nd)

  I thought I’d just keep quiet, let it pass, but my friend Maria had other ideas. She’d booked a holiday for us last year and had been surprised at the name on my passport, so I’d had to explain. Maria has a good memory, so once the penny dropped that my name matched the ad, she started on at me and didn’t let up.

  “Think about it, three months all expenses paid. This is once-in-a- lifetime stuff, especially with your, well, you know…”

  “Which is exactly why no one in their right mind would ever pick me to go with them…”

  “Stop right there,” Maria’s stern voice interrupted.

  I sighed, knowing I was in for one of her lectures.

  “You are an intelligent, attractive woman. What have you got to lose?”

  And that’s how it started.

  Two

  Me

  The auction deadline was looming and I was no closer to getting on a plane with a travel companion. Actually that sounds a bit defeatist. There were options, by that I mean a shortlist of three possible Kate Thornlys, but none of them filled me with much enthusiasm.

  The first Kate (let’s call her Kate ‘A’ for now, to save any confusion later) was twenty-five, just scrapping into my lower age range, not that age mattered anymore, I was getting desperate. The only problem was her looks. I don’t mean she was unattractive, far from it. But she was the spitting image of Kate Thornly the 1st — not something I wanted to be reminded of every day for the next three months. Justin couldn’t see the similarity, but I could.

  Strike one.

  Kate ‘B’ was at the higher end of the age range at forty-eight.

  I fleetingly considered her, but was put off by her gothic appearance. In her letter she seemed a little too interested in the Inca sacrificial sites and their whole ‘offerings to the gods’ philosophy. A pity, she would have been an interesting prospect, if I were in any way interested in the occult.

  Strike two.

  Talk about extremes. Kate ‘C’ was off the scale, but in a completely different way. I can’t remembe
r which church she was a member of, possibly one of those trendy Christian youth groups. But what really put me off were the references in her e-mail about how much charity work we could do in each country. That didn’t fit into my agenda at all. I hadn’t worked my arse off in the city, and slaved away for all those long hours to waste time working for other people, what was the point in that? Call me selfish and arrogant, but that’s just the way it was.

  Strike three.

  Which left me with nothing. Zero. Diddlysquat.

  Kate Thornly (the 2nd)

  I no longer have a friend called Maria. No, never met her. Who? What a cow!

  We’d had a good laugh speculating about what sort of person he’d end up with; it really was potluck wasn’t it? I mean, he was tied to a Kate Thornly but had no say in what type of person she was. It was all just down to a name. Of course I didn’t write in, despite Maria’s insistence, I wasn’t that stupid or easy to persuade. We Scots are stubborn to the last.

  Do you know how far I went to avoid getting involved with that stupid advert? Knowing how conniving my friend can be, okay, her heart is in the right place and she always thinks she’s doing things ‘for my own good,’ but knowing how mischievous she is, I actually hid my passport. As soon as she started to try and persuade me, I recognised the tremor of excitement in her voice and the alarm bells went off. I excused myself to go for a wee, nipped into the bathroom and tucked my passport behind the basin pedestal.

  I thought I was one step ahead of her. Unfortunately, when we’d gone away on holiday last year we’d taken photocopies of our passports as a precaution against having them stolen. A very fine and sensible idea at the time, but Maria still had those photocopies tucked away in a drawer somewhere, gathering dust. Until now.

  Picture me shaking my head at Maria as I write this. Thanks a bunch amigo.

  * *

  Me

  A rabbit appeared out of a very empty hat. Kate Thornly the 2nd dropped into my inbox just in the nick of time. And she seemed so, normal.

  “Thirty two years old… trained nurse… up for a challenge… Bloody perfect,” said Justin as he speed-read through her introduction letter.

  “And the passport matches?”

  I nodded, still a little shocked that I might actually have found someone.

  “What about the photo?”

  I double clicked on the attachment, which still managed to raise a smile even after several viewings. It had been Justin’s idea to request all photos be taken with a newspaper. This was so that, in his words, I “wouldn’t end up with someone who may have looked okay in a photo taken fifty years ago…” I had to hand it to him, it was a good idea, despite being a bit tacky.