The Stag and Hen Weekend

by Mike Gayle

  Phil rubbed his eyes. He didn’t want to live in a dream world where beautiful women he barely knew fell in love with him over the course of a manic weekend. He belonged in the real world, the one in which his mates drank pints, his mum cooked Sunday roasts and he fell asleep on the sofa in the arms of the woman that he loved after a long day at work. A momentary fantasy versus a lifetime’s reality? It wasn’t even a fair fight. Helen was the girl he wanted, he was sure of that. She would always be the one for him.

  Phil filled the rest of the journey imagining in great detail the punch he would throw in Aiden Reid’s direction the moment he laid eyes on him. One fist jabbed through the air at lightning speed and making such a perfect connection with his nose that Reid would know he’d messed with the wrong man.

  Phil didn’t care whether it ended with the police being called or pictures of him across every tabloid in the country, all he cared about was kicking seven bells out of Aiden Reid.

  Reaching the airport Phil gently roused Sanne and paid the driver before climbing out of the car. He felt oddly calm. Everything was going to be okay. Everything was going to turn out for the best.

  The first sign that his initial feelings of well-being might be premature came when he looked at the departure board and saw that that there were no flights in or out of the airport until 5.05 a.m. The second sign came when he realised that there was no one manning any of the low budget airline desks and the KLM desk said the first available flight to the UK that wasn’t already fully booked wasn’t leaving until seven in the evening, a whole hour after he would have been flying home with the boys anyway.

  ‘And there’s no way you can get me there any earlier?’

  ‘Without taking a transfer somewhere else? No, and even then I couldn’t guarantee you’d get there any earlier. It’s the middle of summer, Mr . . .’ she glanced down at his passport that he had handed over during the course of the conversation, . . . Hudson . . . the height of the holiday season, many airports are already at maximum capacity. I’m afraid it’s just one of those things.’

  Phil barely spoke a word in the cab on the way back into Amsterdam. There wasn’t a great deal to be said. If even half of Sanne’s claims about Aiden were true, the chances were he would have been too late anyway.

  ‘Do you think she always loved him?’

  The question was as much a surprise to Phil as it was to Sanne. She looped her arm through Phil’s pulling him closer to her.

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Phil. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘I’m not sure she did,’ continued Phil quietly. ‘I think . . . I think she really did try her hardest to get over him. You would, wouldn’t you, if someone had hurt you like that? You’d make all kinds of promises to yourself not to let them do something like that again. But wouldn’t a small part of you always be wondering “what if?” Wouldn’t some part of you – a part that you might not want to exist – still be holding out for that happy ending? It’s how we’re built isn’t it? No matter how many times you get slapped in the face you have to believe that next time will be different. And then in comes the guy who hurt you all those years ago, and he wants to make things better and to prove he’s not all talk – this time it will be different.’ Phil looked out of the window at the bright lights of the passing buildings. ‘How could she not fall for that? How could she not think that if she chose him it would finally lift the shadow that he’d cast over her life? All that hurt, all that suffering wouldn’t have been for nothing then, would it?’ He looked at Sanne. ‘If he’d have come back to you like that, would you have taken him back?’

  Sanne couldn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, reaching across to take her hand, ‘it really is, I wouldn’t have expected you to answer any other way. Everybody’s got an Aiden in their life and I’m pretty sure that in time Helen will become mine.’

  The traffic on Herenstraat had been stationary for the best part of twenty minutes. Tired of watching the blue lights of police cars and an ambulance, Sanne paid the driver and climbed out of the car. Unsure of his exact plans Phil climbed out of the car too and joined her on the pavement.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Sanne yawned. ‘I’ll walk home from here. My place is the other side of town but it shouldn’t take too long.’

  ‘You can’t walk on your own at this time of night. Let me take you home. I’m pretty sure that I’ve got the hang of this place so I won’t get lost when I head back to the hotel.’

  ‘Have you forgotten?’ grinned Sanne. ‘You’ve already checked out.’

  ‘Then I’ll check back in again, or if the worst comes to the worst I’ll wake up one of the boys and kip in his room.’

  They turned left along Herenstraat heading in the direction of Prisengracht. Apart from the odd cyclist and occasional car, these streets were empty, making it seem like he and Sanne were the last two people on earth.

  They were too exhausted to talk and as if to counter the silence at some point their hands reached out for one another in the darkness and formed a union of fingers.

  Skilled as he was at avoiding such issues, Phil couldn’t manage more than a few moments without wondering exactly where the end of this evening might take him.

  They took a left into Egelantiersgracht, a pretty tree-lined street with houses on either side overlooking the central canal, stopping a little way before the first bridge.

  ‘This is my place,’ said Sanne, and she reached into her bag for keys.

  Phil looked up at the five-storey house, wondering which of the flats belonged to her.

  ‘I’m guessing your place is the top one.’

  Sanne shook her head.

  ‘Okay, the next one down.’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘The next one?’

  She shook her head one last time.

  ‘You own the whole bloody lot?’

  Sanne shrugged. ‘What can I say? I had a good divorce lawyer.’ She pointed to the top of the house. ‘The top floor is a sound-proofed studio and I use the bottom floor for my yoga classes or the odd dance class, and I’m always having friends and their kids over to stay but yeah, basically, it’s just me and a big old house.’

  ‘I should go,’ said Phil quickly. Now that the moment he had been trying not to think about was here it was disconcertingly unreal. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way back.’

  Sanne held his gaze.

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he replied, and looked down at his hands that were still entwined with Sanne’s, ‘but can you think of any way this might be a good idea?’

  Sanne shook her head, and still holding his hand she opened up the heavy front door and they stepped inside.

  Sunday

  16.

  Something as simple as a person entering a room can be enough to break the spell between two potential lovers; a new dawn can have a similar effect.

  With his arms still wrapped tightly around Sanne’s waist Phil had been thinking about this phenomenon as he watched the tiny shards of light breaking through the wooden shutters across Sanne’s bedroom illuminating the dust particles in the air and making them appear to dance.

  Sanne gently squeezed the hand that had been resting on her belly.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  Phil yawned. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Okay. You?’

  ‘Not bad, though I can’t imagine I’ll be good for much today.’

  There was a silence. Phil wondered what might be going through Sanne’s head. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he began. ‘Maybe I will go and pick up my dad. Make sure he’s okay and everything.’

  ‘Yeah sure, of course, you should do that.’

  ‘But once I’ve got him, maybe the three of us could go out for breakfast.’

  ‘That would be great. There are a couple of nice places in Waterlooplein overlooking the Amstel, they aren’t too far from
where your dad’s being held.’

  ‘Sounds great. How long do you think it should take me?’

  Sanne shrugged. ‘Not long. If I meet you in an hour by the Spinoza statue you should have more than enough time.’ Phil swallowed as Sanne wearing nothing but a T-shirt and her underwear, crossed the room and disappeared into the hallway. She really was stunning.

  Returning a few moments later with a towel and a toothbrush still in its packet Sanne handed them to him and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘You can use the en-suite to take a shower or there’s another bathroom down the hallway.’

  Phil picked up the towel. ‘I’ll use the bathroom down the hallway and leave you in peace for a while.’ He looked guiltily at his suit trousers lying on the floor.

  ‘I’m going to make myself a coffee, do you want one?’ said Sanne.

  Phil interpreted this as code for ‘I’m going to give you five minutes to put your trousers on,’ and said yes in relief.

  Sanne left and he slipped them on. Feeling a sudden heaviness in his heart, Phil lay back on the bed and began to wonder if he wasn’t in danger of making the biggest mistake of his life.

  Nothing had happened.

  Although if he was being totally honest it wasn’t for want of trying on his part. It had been Sanne who had saved him from himself. Ready to abandon nine years of loyalty Phil had made every effort to let her know how he felt. After all, he wasn’t cheating when he’d already been cheated on was he? But Sanne would have none of it. She wanted to be close to him, but she made it clear that she didn’t want to be anyone’s cause for regret. And so while certain lines had been crossed, others hadn’t even come close to being traversed and, while not even a single kiss had passed between them, the fact that they had awoken partially dressed and wrapped in each other’s arms spoke volumes about what they had felt.

  Had Phil fallen for Sanne? He considered the question carefully on his way to the bathroom and felt sure that the correct answer must lie somewhere in his head. What he did know for sure was that he had never met anyone like Sanne. She was different, and that difference spoke to Phil in a way that he had never thought possible. Last night had taught him that he could be a completely different person living a completely different life. Did a person exist who had never been tempted by that prospect? He thought about his childhood and the embarrassment he’d felt at having free school dinner tickets, he thought about the tiny house that he had grown up in and the graffiti and the litter that had plagued his estate, he thought about his education and exams he had failed and the opportunities he had missed. With a single action all the worries of his past could belong to another life and another time, and he could concentrate on being someone new somewhere new. It was a pipe dream of course, a holiday state of mind brought on by being free of the day-to-day routine, but what a pipe dream and what a state of mind.

  He appeared fully dressed at the kitchen door. The room was modern, tasteful and obviously expensive. Sanne was sitting at a dining table underneath a window looking down at the canal beneath. A mug of coffee was by her hands, a second sat on the table beside her.

  ‘I think I’d better get off.’

  ‘What about the coffee?’

  ‘I’ll have to leave it. So, I’ll see you later?’

  ‘Eleven, by the Spinoza statue, Waterlooplein.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  They hugged goodbye but the embrace felt different, awkward. Phil thought about the shards of light that he had watched coming through the bedroom shutters. Everything looks different in the daytime, her embrace seemed to say, even love.

  Beursstraat politiebureau in the daytime was a considerably more hospitable place than it had been in the early hours of Sunday morning. There were two officers manning the duty desk and a much shorter queue, which resulted in Phil’s dad arriving more quickly than he had expected.

  Patrick still looked old and weary, just as on their last visit but there was a brightness about his eyes that had been missing before. ‘Son, what are you doing here? I thought you had a work emergency?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Phil. ‘It’s sorted. You all right, Dad?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ he turned to the officer who had escorted him into the waiting room. ‘Son, this is Peter, he’s been looking after me this morning.’

  The officer was a tall blond man who couldn’t have looked more Dutch if he had been wearing clogs and a PSV Eindhoven top. Phil gave him a nod and raised an eyebrow in sympathy.

  ‘Your father, he’s a bit of a character, isn’t he?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘He’s been regaling us all with stories of his past touring with bands. Did you know, back in 1972 he fell asleep in a hotel room in Amsterdam and woke up in a tree in Vondelpark?’

  ‘I may have heard that story once or twice.’

  ‘Right then, Pat,’ said the officer holding out his hand, ‘it has been nice meeting you but let’s hope that we don’t meet again, at least not under these particular circumstances.’

  Patrick raised his hands in surrender. ‘On that, young Peter, you have my word! My days in the drug trade are over for good.’

  The two men shook hands while Phil looked on with a look of bewilderment.

  ‘So where to now?’

  Phil looked at his dad. ‘This hasn’t even slowed you down has it?’

  ‘Not for a second. They haven’t built a jail that can keep hold of Patrick Hudson.’

  ‘What were you even doing bringing hash cakes into the country?’

  ‘So you know?’

  ‘Well I couldn’t think of any other reason why you’d insist on carrying that stupid rucksack wherever you went. Are you mad? One: if the border police had picked you up with that lot in the UK I can guarantee that they would have been a lot less friendly than Peter here, and two: why would you bring hash cakes into Amsterdam of all places? There’s a shop on virtually every street corner selling the stuff!’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s the commercial stuff, no one likes that, it’s far too strong. My stuff was guaranteed all organic and pesticide free.’

  The penny dropped.

  ‘You’re growing it?’

  Patrick let out a schoolboyish chuckle that managed to be at once charming and annoying. ‘I got the basics from the internet in the local library and then filled in the gaps from some books I borrowed off Little Stevie from the pub. I’ve turned over part of the greenhouse on my allotment to full-time cultivation.’

  ‘You’re growing it on the allotment?’

  Patrick nodded sheepishly. ‘And a bit on the windowsill at home. But I promise you it was for a good cause.’

  ‘And what cause would that be, Dad, the keep Patrick Hudson in beer, fags and horses fund?’

  ‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘It was for a wedding present for you and Helen. I know you don’t think much of me, and it’s not like I’ve been the greatest dad in the world, but I did want to do something to show that I wished you both all the luck in the world.’

  ‘What were you going to get?’

  ‘I don’t know, son, do I? A tea set . . . some cutlery . . . something or other from John Lewis in the Victoria Centre if I could scrape together enough cash.’

  Phil and never felt guiltier.

  ‘You know you don’t have to do any of that. Helen and I have got everything we need.’

  ‘I just wanted to give you something nice, something that might make you think that you old man’s not a total dead loss.’

  Phil laughed, ‘You would’ve had to sell a lot of hash cakes to get the cash together for a private jet, Dad.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean that I couldn’t try though, does it?’

  Had they been any other father and son, this might have resulted in a man-hug, but as it was they simply exchanged grins, shoved their hands deep into their pockets and kept their eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  It was five to eleven by the time Phil reached the
Spinoza statue on Waterlooplein, and as he had suspected there was no sign of Sanne. She wouldn’t come, he knew that. Last night had been last night and this morning was a whole different story.

  Patrick sat down at the base of the statue. ‘Who is it we’re meeting again?’

  ‘Sanne,’ replied Phil, ‘you know, the woman you met last night. The one that used to be married to Aidan Reid.’

  Patrick considered this. ‘So did you get your answer? You know, find out what it was you wanted to know? You were worried about her ex-husband or something.’

  Phil shrugged. ‘It’s hard to say. We talked but I’m not sure I’m any the wiser.’

  ‘But you’re not worried about Helen any more, are you? This Aiden Reid guy, he’s out of the picture?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad,’ said Phil, ‘I really don’t.’

  They waited by the statue for the best part of twenty minutes, talking about the past, making comments about the people they saw and the buildings around them, and it was only when Patrick began to moan that he could murder a cup of tea, that Phil finally accepted that Sanne wasn’t going to turn up.

  There was a café opposite the statue and although it seemed busy, they headed towards the entrance.

  They had barely taken more than a few steps when Phil heard someone calling out his name and turned around to see Sanne, cycling furiously and waving at him as she crossed the bridge. Leaving his father outside the café he ran over to the bridge to meet her.