The Stag and Hen Weekend

by Mike Gayle

  ‘Which one if you is getting married?’ asked Phil, addressing the Essex stag boys.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ barked Tall Guy.

  ‘Listen,’ said Phil, ‘before this kicks off I just want to speak to him, man to man.’

  ‘It’s me,’ piped up a young guy at the back of the group, ‘what is it you want to say?’

  Phil held up his hands in peace and walked over to the young guy, holding out his hand. ‘My name’s Phil. What’s yours?’

  ‘Jim,’ replied the young guy, reluctantly shaking Phil’s hand.

  ‘Nice to met you, Jim. Where you from?’

  ‘Chelmsford.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Phil. ‘I hear it’s nice down there, is it?’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Well, Jim,’ said Phil, ‘I’m from Nottingham. I don’t know if you’ve ever been but if you haven’t you should go some time. You’ll love it.’

  Jim looked confused.

  ‘Listen, Jim,’ continued Phil, ‘when are you getting married? Next Saturday?’

  Jim nodded.

  ‘Well that’s great news,’ said Phil, ‘because, guess what, so am I.’

  Jim said nothing.

  ‘Now listen, Jim,’ said Phil, ‘I’m going to ask you a question, man to man, like, and I want you to think about it really carefully before you reply: What is your missus going to say when you come home tonight with a black eye and split lip? If she’s anything like mine she is going to do her nut, isn’t she? It’ll be all: you’ve ruined what’s supposed to be the best day of my life! How am I supposed to show my photos to Aunt Fanny in Australia when you look like you’ve just stepped out of a boxing ring! She is going to be livid isn’t she?’

  Jim smiled reluctantly. ‘She’ll blow her top, mate. My life won’t be worth living.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Phil, ‘and neither will mine and given that once she gets wind of half the stuff that’s happened over the weekend she’ll already be borderline nuclear, winding her up any more than necessary isn’t something that I’m keen to do. So why don’t you tell your mate or brother or whoever it is who’s got the mouth to back down and I’ll back down too and we’ll go our separate ways, and neither of our missuses need give us a hard time. But you if don’t, I promise you as one groom to another no matter what happens to me in the process, I will make sure that come next Saturday, there won’t be a single photo of your wedding day that won’t remind your missus of just how much she hates you.’ Phil paused. ‘So what do you say? Truce?’

  ‘Sod it,’ said the young guy, holding out his hand, ‘I never wanted to fight you guys in the first place.’

  He called out to Tall Guy. ‘Gav, yeah? Let’s just leave it, okay? Straight up, the guy’s cool, okay?’

  Phil could barely breathe as the tall guy nodded to his friends and they left without incident. Once they were gone the boys rushed over to Phil’s side.

  ‘I thought we were goners there,’ gasped Degsy. ‘My whole life flashed before my eyes! What did you say to make him back down like that?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ replied Phil, ‘I just appealed to his better half.’ Phil fingered the gaping hole at the shoulder of his jacket, ‘I’m just glad it’s all over and done with because I’ve got a phone to buy.’

  The GSM shop was pretty much like every mobile phone shop that Phil had ever been in: needlessly oversupplied with choices. A young sales assistant, with bad skin and a ridiculous haircut, sensing Phil’s urgency approached him and said something in Dutch.

  ‘Do you speak English?’

  The man nodded as if Phil was an idiot. ‘Yes, yes of course. My name is Mart, how can I help you today?’

  ‘I need a phone.’

  ‘Well that’s good because we have many phones here. What sort of features were you hoping for?’

  ‘I don’t care! I really don’t care. I just need a phone, any phone, that can be up and ready as soon as possible, by which I pretty much mean now.’ Phil pulled out his wallet and handed the young man his credit card. ‘Any pay as you go phone, I don’t care which or how much as long as you can make it happen now.’

  The young man walked over to his boss and began talking to him, occasionally pointing in Phil’s direction. Phil worried that having quite clearly shown himself to be a nutter in a dishevelled black suit and tie on a ludicrously hot day there was every chance he might not get a phone at all but then the young man disappeared into a back office only to reappear five minutes later with a phone in his hand.

  ‘We had this pay-as-you-go-phone up and ready in the back office with nearly ten Euros on it and can do you a deal on it if you like?’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ said Phil. ‘Don’t bother wrapping it because I’m going to use it right now.’

  Phil paid for the phone and joined the boys outside the shop. It was clear from their faces that Simon had filled in the salient information for them.

  ‘So what are you going to say to her?’ asked Deano. ‘Are you going to give her what for?’

  ‘He doesn’t need to give her what for,’ said Reuben. ‘She hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘Yeah but, you know,’ said Spencer. ‘He’s Aiden Reid, isn’t he?’

  ‘And Phil,’ said Simon, ‘is Phil Hudson, the one and only if you don’t mind, and he’s got something up his sleeve haven’t you mate? What are you going to say to her?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Phil. ‘I’m not going to say a single word.’ Phil then switched on the phone, eventually worked out how to set up text messaging, typed in Helen’s number and stared at the blank screen waiting for inspiration to strike. He thought about what Simon had said earlier, he thought about the advice Sanne had given him and finally he thought about all the years he and Helen had had together. In that instant the message seemed to write itself. He pressed send and looked up at the boys with the widest of grins.

  Simon spoke first.

  ‘You done?’

  Phil nodded.

  ‘And now?’

  Phil tucked the phone away in his pocket. ‘Now, we go home.’

  18.

  The boys entered the hotel lobby for the last time. Pooling their ticket stubs together they handed them to the concierge then sat down in the reception area joking and larking about while waiting for their bags to arrive.

  With all the seats taken Phil stood leaning against the wall content to watch his friends enjoying themselves. Putting the big question of everything that had happened to him personally aside for a moment, for the boys at least the past two days had been exactly what they had all needed: a break from the norm, combined with laughter on tap and plenty of opportunities to seek out trouble. It had been like the old days, back before they had wives, mortgages and kids, when every weekend had the potential to be the best weekend of their lives. And while there was no way that Phil wanted to revert to his old lifestyle, their escapades in Amsterdam had proved that the occasional relapse was no bad thing. Regardless of whether or not he would be married this time next week, he resolved that he and the boys would get another weekend together, and always take the time to remember why exactly they were all friends.

  With their bags safely retrieved, there was nothing for the boys to do but leave the hotel. Phil looked up the street in the direction of the station at various groups of young men, much like themselves, who were now making their way back home to their wives and girlfriends and to the lives they had left. For a few days the city that had briefly been their home would return to normal and its citizens would go back to work. Then come the weekend, when the first budget flights of the day hit the tarmac at Schipol Airport, the international occupation of Amsterdam would begin all over again.

  The journey to the airport was uneventful. A general lack of sleep over the weekend had rendered not just the boys but pretty much the entire carriage silent, and most occupants seemed content to rest back in their seats, close their eyes and doze for the twenty-minute journey out of the city centre.

  Groggy fro
m their naps, the boys followed their fellow passengers up the escalator to the main station concourse. Reuben took charge and, once he had discovered the check-in desk, corralled the boys to the appropriate location. Much to their collective disappointment, it wasn’t a case of simply handing over passports and printed e-tickets to an overly made up check-in clerk; the airline had switched to a self-service check-in area that would require the boys to use their brains.

  Spencer stepped forward to the machine and began following the onscreen instructions for the inputting of his ticket number and the scanning of his passport details and while it took him two attempts to get it right, in the end he agreed it was a great deal less frustrating than he had initially thought. As a self-appointed expert he assisted each of the boys to input their details until only Phil was left.

  ‘Right then,’ said Spencer, adopting a comedy female voice straight out of Monty Python, ‘would sir like to hand me his e-ticket print-out and passport?’

  Amused Phil reached into his pocket and pulled out his e-ticket but his passport wasn’t there.

  Determined not to make a scene Phil quickly checked the pockets of his bag but when that search too proved fruitless he began to panic.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Reuben. ‘You’ve not lost it have you?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. It’s in here somewhere I just can’t lay my hands on it.’

  The rest of the boys gathered around and began searching through Phil’s case in a bid to help him, but it quickly became clear that the passport wasn’t in the case at all.

  ‘When did you last have it?’ asked Patrick. ‘Just think back to when you last saw it and work backwards from there.’

  ‘The last time I saw it was last night wasn’t it? After seeing you at the station I came here to try and get an early flight home and I definitely had it because I remember showing it to the girl on the desk.’

  ‘So where did you go after that?’

  ‘I took a taxi back to Amsterdam and when we reached the city centre there was some sort of traffic jam so we got out and I remember checking the back of the cab like I always do since I left my phone in a cab one time and then I’m pretty sure that I double-checked that I had the passport because I was worried about losing it and then I—’ Phil stopped. He’d slept at Sanne’s hadn’t he? The passport could’ve slipped out of his jacket pocket when he’d taken it off to sleep, when he’d picked it up off the floor in the morning or even when he’d undressed to take a shower in Sanne’s bathroom.

  He looked at his watch. There was no way he could go all the way back to Sanne’s, pick up his passport and still make the flight and he had to make the flight. He just had to. There was too much to lose if he didn’t.

  ‘I’m screwed,’ said Phil. ‘I’m really screwed.’ Deciding that this was neither the time nor the place for a mental meltdown, Phil forced himself to consider his options and concluded that there really only was one. He pulled out his new phone hoping that he could find the piece of paper with Sanne’s number, but then Simon jabbed him in the ribs. Sanne was standing straight ahead of him holding his passport in the air.

  ‘You have no idea how glad I am to see you.’

  ‘I think I can guess,’ said Sanne and they hugged tightly. ‘After I left you I cycled to Rembrandtpark to clear my head a little so by the time I got home I was so exhausted all I wanted to do was sleep the afternoon away. I was getting into bed when my foot hit something on the floor and there was your passport. I knew there was no way I’d find you unless I came to the airport.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Phil. ‘I’m completely in your debt. I should give you something in return . . . I don’t suppose you’re in the market for some hi-fi equipment?’

  Sanne laughed. ‘Look, just book yourself on to your flight before they close! Once you’ve done that maybe I’ll let you buy me a coffee.’

  Phil rushed back to the check-in area, logged on to one of the terminals, booked on to the flight and, job complete, walked over to the boys.

  ‘So?’ said Deano, his voice oozing suggestively, ‘the hottie from Holland had your passport? How did that happen then? Slip out somewhere did it?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Phil, ‘I’ve got it now, that’s the main thing. Listen, you guys, I need to say a proper thank you so rather than having you lot hanging around watching my every move like a bunch of overgrown school kids why don’t you check in my bag for me, go through security and I’ll see you on the other side.’

  ‘If that’s what you want,’ said Simon, ‘that’s what we’ll do.’ He grabbed Deano by the arm. ‘Come on you, show over.’

  As the boys began walking away, Phil called out to his father.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Patrick.

  ‘You haven’t got any more on you have you? Like I said, if they catch you again it won’t just be a fine.’

  Patrick sighed, pulled out a joint from his pocket and handed it to his son. ‘I bought some when you disappeared earlier today to say goodbye to your friend. I had to really, fella told me it was a strain he’d come up with himself.’

  Phil dropped the joint in a nearby bin and then looked over at Simon. ‘Just give him the once over before you hit security will you, otherwise they really will lock him up and throw away the key.’

  Once they were out of sight he walked over to Sanne.

  ‘So how about that coffee then?’

  Sanne shook her head. ‘I don’t think we should, do you?’

  Phil grinned. ‘It’s just coffee.’

  ‘No,’ said Sanne, ‘it’s not, when it’s the middle of the afternoon in a busy international airport.’ They both sat down. ‘Have you decided what you’re going to do?’

  Phil shrugged and looked over at a couple pushing a trolley piled high with suitcases. ‘I know I still love her, and that’s about all I know for sure. I suppose at the end of the day the rest – whether we stay together, whether we get married or not, it’s up to her – I’m not the one who’s changed my mind. I’m still the guy who wants to spend the rest of my life with her.’

  ‘That’s good, that’s exactly the kind of thing she’ll need to hear.’

  ‘If it’s so good then why do I feel so bad? I know something happened between them. I can feel it right at the centre of my gut. And part of me wants to punish her and part of me wants to beg her to stay and I just don’t get what the right thing is to do here.’ He stopped and looked directly at Sanne. ‘I mean last night . . . I could have ruined everything.’

  ‘But you didn’t and that’s the important thing, if I’d thought, even for a moment that you didn’t really love her . . .’

  Phil grinned. ‘You mean I could have been in with a shot with Sanne from Misty Mondays? How cool would that have been?’

  Sanne threw her arms around him for what he was sure would be their final embrace. ‘I don’t get it,’ said Phil. ‘I’m not a singer, or a DJ or even an actor, I’m just an ordinary bloke from Nottingham who runs a hi-fi shop and you’re . . . well you’re you. How could I have ever stood a chance with you?’

  ‘What can I say?’ replied Sanne, with a grin, ‘I’m just a sucker for a man in a suit.’

  Phil looked into her eyes. In a few moments he would never see her again and Sanne must have had the same thought because she tilted her head up and placed her lips firmly against Phil’s. It was all over in a matter of seconds, and although the line that Phil had fought so hard not to cross had been transgressed, this time he felt no guilt at all.

  Sanne tapped Phil lightly on the chest with the palm of her hands. ‘You should go,’ she said quietly, ‘or you’ll miss the plane.’

  He didn’t move.

  THE HEN WEEKEND

  For C.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Sue Fletcher, Swati Gamble, and all at Hodder, Phil Gayle, the Sunday Night Pub Club, Jackie Behan, the Board and above all, to C, for pretty much everything.

  Friday

  1.
r />   It had been three hours since Phil had left for Amsterdam, an hour since she had dropped Samson off at the kennels and Helen Richards was now staring, in a bewildered fashion, down at her open weekend suitcase. In one hand she held a Braun hairdryer and in the other a brand new pair of GHD hair-straighteners. Her ability to get maximum enjoyment from the coming weekend was contingent on both items making the journey to Ashbourne with her, but as the case was already full of belongings deemed so essential that she had opted to pack them before her hairdryer and straighteners it was clear that the only options open to her were upgrading to a larger case (something which Yaz, who had agreed to drive half of the party to their weekend destination, had specifically forbidden) or to spend the last weekend of her unmarried existence in a state of abject frizzy-haired misery.

  Paralysed by indecision, she was saved by the ringing of her mobile. She dropped the items in her hands on top of the case, picked up her phone from the bed and glanced at the screen, convinced it would be Phil calling to update her on his journey. It wasn’t Phil, however, it was Yaz.

  Helen and the forthright Turkish-born, Cleethorpes-raised Yaz had been friends for many years. Starting out their careers in radio as broadcast assistants at the same local station in Nottingham, they had bonded over a shared sense of humour and love of red wine. Over the weeks that followed, their friendship continued to grow, and driven by a desperate need to find an affordable place to live so that they could stop sleeping on friends’ sofas, they had scoured the lower end of the accommodation food chain until they came across 111 Jevonbrook Road, a large, dilapidated terraced house without any form of central heating situated in the Lenton area of the city. Despite the cold, the mould and the guy no one seemed to know who took up residence in their kitchen, Helen loved those days, reminiscing fondly about how they would party until dawn, crawl into bed for a few hours, work a full day and then start the partying all over again. With Yaz even the dullest day ended up with them having a giggle or some weird encounter which would entertain them for months.