Come Again

by Emlyn Rees

  After I’ve cycled there and got changed, I’m more than ready for some serious R&R. I go for a quick dip in the cold plunge pool simply to get my circulation going. Then, yearning for a bit of what Susie called ‘Me Time’, and not wanting to bump into the girl from outside the apartment last night without the others being here, I sneak off to the sanctuary of the steam room.

  Once there, I sit myself down on the lowest shelf with a towel on my head to reduce some of the effect of the all-enveloping menthol vapours. I hold my hand in front of my face and then move it away. There’s such a fog of steam in here that with my arm fully stretched, I can’t see my hand at all. I’m the only person in here and I sit still, concentrating on keeping my breathing loud and regular, something I learned at a yoga class down at the gym. Listening to the tsss-tsss of the steam machine, I feel myself drifting into deep relaxation.

  H

  Saturday, 13.05

  ‘Feel better?’

  Amy nods and adjusts the strap of her swimming costume. ‘Thanks for that. It was wonderful. I feel vaguely human again.’

  Wonderful is not how I would describe our joint pummelling on the ex-hospital beds in the Health Haven. Nor human. Tracy’s non-stop banter, extolling the virtues of her workplace, was as relaxing as giving birth.

  I follow Amy through the plastic abattoir doors in to the Aqua Spa, past the sauna and steam rooms. The whole place smells of sweat and eucalyptus and I can almost feel the verruca scabs crunching beneath my feet. A piped recording of Richard Clayderman’s greatest hits seeps through the soggy atmosphere and beyond the gaudy fake-plaster fountain there are steps leading down to a pool fizzing with chlorine. Everywhere, there are sweaty fat women and tattooed men oozing body odour, along with an assortment of skidding, screeching children. Through the foggy, dripping windows, I can see Sam and Susie running out of the outside sauna and tipping buckets of icy water over each other, but Amy has her hand on my shoulder and she’s lifting up one foot to remove a soggy bit of tissue paper, so she doesn’t see them.

  ‘Shall we find the others?’ she asks, standing again.

  ‘Not just yet,’ I say, diverting her attention before she sees them and quickly opening the door to the steam room. ‘Let’s have a gossip, just you and me. I haven’t seen you all week.’

  Inside, to my relief, I can only make out one bloke, sitting hunched forward with a towel on his head. He’s snorting loudly and sounds as if he’s about to have a coronary. But just the one weirdo is a bonus, I suppose. This is about as private as Leisure Heaven’s going to get.

  Amy slides on to the plastic shelf and breathes in.

  ‘This is nice,’ she sighs, flopping backwards and stretching out.

  If this is the only chance I’m going to get to have Amy on her own, I’ve got to speak now, before the others find us.

  ‘Amy?’ I begin.

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’

  She knows me well enough to be alerted by my tone. ‘What?’ she asks. Despite the steam, I know her eyes have sprung open.

  ‘It’s about last week.’ I bite my lip. I don’t know why I’m feeling so nervous, telling her, but I am finally about to confess. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you . . .’

  Amy sits up. ‘What?’

  I nod. ‘I’ve met someone.’

  ‘Is it Matt?’ she gasps, grabbing my arm. ‘I had a feeling about that night . . .’

  ‘No!’ I snap, exasperated, shaking her off and pulling up my legs to hug my knees. ‘Just forget Matt, will you? No, this is someone real. Someone really special.’

  ‘Who? Where?’

  I grin at her. ‘Last week. In Paris. You know that guy I told you about . . . Laurent?’

  ‘The old one?’

  ‘He’s not old. He’s only thirty-nine. We sort of, got it together . . . Big time.’

  Stringer

  Saturday, 13.07

  What the hell is going on?

  What the hell are Amy and H doing here?

  And who the hell is Laurent?

  I’ve got to find Matt.

  Now!

  H

  Saturday, 13.07

  We’re interrupted by the weirdo with the towel on his head. He makes a strangled grunting sound and lurches past us as if he’s about to spew up all over the mock-Grecian tiles.

  ‘Good riddance,’ I mutter as he flings open the door and hurries away.

  ‘Nice bod, though,’ says Amy, thoughtfully.

  ‘Not a patch on Laurent’s,’ I counter. I’m glad we’re alone at last. It means I can give her all the juicy details. ‘Oh, Amy. I’m telling you, he was the sexiest man I’ve ever met. I mean, the best . . .’

  ‘Well, come off it,’ Amy interrupts. ‘No offence, H, but you must have been gagging for it. It’s been ages since you had a good seeing to. Any old sex was bound to feel amazing.’

  ‘Amy,’ I plead, wishing that she’d take me seriously. ‘This is different.’

  I sigh, wiping the sweat on my leg. ‘From the moment I arrived in Paris and I saw him, I knew something was going to happen. I’ve spent so long thinking about him and I’d convinced myself it was stupid, since we have to work together. But on the first night he took me out to supper to talk through his ideas and our eyes kept meeting. It was so romantic.’

  I gaze into the steam remembering the small, smoky restaurant with the jazz pianist, the endless carafes of red wine in the candlelight, whilst the rain softly pattered against the window of our private alcove . . .

  ‘So he wined you and dined you? What’s so special about that?’ Amy doesn’t sound convinced.

  ‘He’s . . . I don’t know . . . a real man. He’s established and successful and likes wonderful things. And he’s interesting too. He travels all over the place and he’s really passionate,’ I ponder, remembering how we stayed up in my hotel room, eating room-service picnics and talking until dawn. ‘It was just as if everything . . . I don’t know . . . we gelled.’

  ‘Well, he certainly sounds like a charmer.’

  I’m silent for a moment, then I look at Amy through the steam. ‘I think I’m in love.’

  Amy takes a deep breath and holds it as she stares at me.

  ‘Only I don’t know what to do,’ I babble on. ‘I can’t stop thinking about him and I thought he’d call, but there’s no reception in this . . .’ I’m about to slag off Leisure Heaven, but I stop myself just in time, ‘. . . place. I just want to hear his voice. To know that everything’s OK.’

  Amy breathes out suddenly. ‘Oh, H. Are you sure you know what you’re doing? I mean . . . how would it work? You’ve got a life here.’

  ‘But surely we can get round that? Surely if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be? You’re always saying that.’

  ‘I know, but a long-distance relationship? Is that really what you want?’

  ‘Nothing’s perfect.’

  ‘But how do you know he’s going to commit? I mean if he’s thirty-nine and is tripping off round the world every two seconds . . .’ She reaches out and touches my arm. ‘I know you. It’ll drive you nuts.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ I sulk, wishing she’d stop asking questions and say something positive.

  But I don’t know what it is like. That’s the problem.

  ‘I’ll know what to do when I talk to him,’ I say.

  Amy sighs again. ‘Just be careful. That’s all.’ She’s silent for a moment. ‘Still, I’m glad you’ve got Gav out of your system.’

  ‘Yes. Sod him.’

  ‘It’s such a shame about Matt, though,’ she muses.

  ‘Why do you keep banging on about Matt?’ I mutter. ‘I told you. Nothing happened. Nothing will ever happen between us. I don’t even fancy him.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ she says. ‘It just would have been so nice.’

  I thought I’d feel relieved having told Amy, but now I feel more jangled than ever, especially since I’ve carried on lying about what happened with Ma
tt. It’s just that if she knew about me and Matt, she wouldn’t understand about me and Laurent.

  But she doesn’t understand about me and Laurent anyway.

  Why does everything have to be so safe with her? Just because Laurent’s not like Jack, she can’t see the potential. But I can. I could have stayed in Paris for ever. I hug my legs tighter and shrug up my shoulders. I think Amy senses my disappointment because she slaps me on the back.

  ‘But hey. Good on you, girl! At least you’ve got your quota of sex in. Judging from all the talent I’ve seen so far here, it’d be a disaster if you’d been holding out for this weekend,’ she laughs.

  Stringer

  Saturday, 13.12

  Where are they?

  The male changing-rooms are empty apart from a couple of middle-aged, tattooed men getting dressed. There’s no Matt and there’s no Damien to be seen. I check my watch. They must be here by now . . . but where?

  ‘Who d’you think you are then, mate?’ the larger of the two tattooed men asks me in a gruff voice. ‘Lawrence of bleedin’ Arabia?’

  I stare at him vacantly for a couple of seconds, then click: the towel is still wrapped round my head. I rip it off. ‘Two men,’ I gasp.

  ‘What?’ the man asks.

  ‘Two men. About your height. I’m looking for two men. I need them. Now.’

  The man takes a step forward. ‘Now, look here, you bloody pervert,’ he warns.

  But I don’t hear what he says next, because I’m running through to the showers. They’re empty as well. I stop and try to catch my breath. I attempt to calm myself down. Don’t panic. Panicking will only make matters worse. Think matters through and everything will become apparent. A logical and sensible solution to this predicament will present itself.

  I try following my advice. Amy and H cannot be here, because Amy and H are meant to be somewhere else on Amy’s hen weekend. Clear. However, Amy and H are here, which means that Amy’s hen weekend is taking place here. This can only mean there’s been a cock-up. There’s been a gargantuan and appalling cock-up. Then I remember what the girls were talking about in the steam room, and realize that the cock-up doesn’t stop there. Oh, no, that’s merely the start. In addition to Matt and H somehow turning the law of probability on its head by booking us all in to the same location, H has fallen for a Frenchman, and couldn’t care less about Matt, and Matt does care about her, and if they see each other, then they’ll both think they’re hallucinating, and since H is seeing this French bloke then, once she realizes that this isn’t an hallucination but is stark reality, then the last person she’ll want to see is Matt, but because Matt’s thinks she’s so great, he’ll be really excited that she’s here, and if that happens, then . . .

  Forget it. Panicking was less confusing.

  I run back through the changing rooms and past the two men who shout something obscene after me. Then I dash out into the spa.

  At this juncture, I can only be certain of two matters. I must find Matt, and I must then seek psychiatric help.

  Matt

  Saturday, 13.15

  ‘Do you want the sports section?’ Damien asks.

  We’re at the complimentary newspaper and magazine stand in the Aqua Spa’s conservatory. As far as improving our personal fitness goes, not a lot’s happened so far. Since getting here about five minutes ago, all we’ve managed to achieve is bagging ourselves a couple of loungers for crashing out on whilst we read the papers – and one for Stringer as well, assuming he’s not going to spend his morning here doing press-ups or whatever it is he’s in to. Looking around, I have to admit that, if you turn a blind eye to the sweaty bellies and pasty thighs of the majority of the clientele, this isn’t a bad place to spend the morning chilling out. It’s warm and relatively peaceful. And leagues better, no doubt, than the bombsite formerly known as Apartment 327. I wonder if the other guys have surfaced yet. It seems unlikely – unless, of course, a passing team of paramedics equipped with full-on resuscitation gear happened to chance by since we left the scene.

  Chilling out, though, it has to be said, isn’t a state of mind I’m necessarily capable of getting in to right now. Freaking out, yeah, the same as I’ve been doing more or less consistently since I awoke this morning. Freaking out I can do with the best of them. On the bike ride over here, I tried thinking myself straight on this one, but it didn’t work. Short of bribing one of the entrance-gate staff into telling me where H and the girls are staying, I’m just going to have to keep my ears and eyes open and wait for opportunity to knock. They’re here somewhere, that’s for sure. And it’s only a matter of time till I find out where.

  ‘I said, do you—’ Damien repeats, waving the sports section in front of my face.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I tell him, ‘I heard you the first time.’ I prod my stomach with my finger and, picking up the food and living section, mumble, ‘The way I’m feeling right now, I think this one’s more up my street.’ I tuck my drawstring into my swim shorts and turn to walk back to the loungers, when:

  ‘Thaghullsaargheer.’

  I stare into Stringer’s face. He’s flushed and sweating like he’s just pulled his head out of an oven. ‘Excuse me?’ I say.

  He grips me by the shoulders and shoves his face up close to mine. ‘Thaghullsaargheer,’ he repeats, sending a fine spray of spittle on to my cheek.

  I push him back and glance at Damien. He looks as bemused as I feel. ‘That’s charming,’ I say to Stringer, ‘but do you mind telling me what it’s meant to mean?’

  He rolls his eyes and nods at me and takes a series of deep breaths. ‘They’re here,’ he finally pants. ‘Girls.’

  ‘Christ, Stringer,’ Damien says, ‘get a grip, mate.’ He shrugs apologetically at a sixtysomething woman leafing through a magazine next to us. ‘You’ll have to forgive him,’ he tells her. ‘He doesn’t get to see naked flesh very often.’

  The woman frowns in disapproval before walking swiftly away. I turn back to Stringer and ask, ‘Come on, mate, what is it?’ But even as I ask, I become aware of a tiny alarm bell ringing at the back of my mind. ‘What girls?’ I ask.

  But he doesn’t need to say any more, because at that exact moment, someone behind us squeals.

  Susie

  Saturday, 13.16

  ‘Oi! That’s him. That’s the Adonis. Hello! Cooey!’ Sam waves her hand furiously and I follow her gaze to a group of boys, who all turn round at once.

  My mouth drops open.

  Because that’s not her Adonis – the one she’s been harping on about in the sauna. That’s my Adonis.

  Stringer.

  I push Sam out of the way and clamber out of the jacuzzi and clutch at my towel as I race in to the conservatory. Stringer’s face is bright red. He’s standing next to Matt and some other guy, looking absolutely gobsmacked, but I’m so shocked and happy to see him, that before I know it, I’ve flung my arms around him in a big embrace. His body feels strong and muscly and I grab on so tight that my towel drops to the floor.

  ‘This is Stringer!’ I gush, as Sam arrives. She looks really confused. I pick up my towel in a fluster. ‘I can’t believe it!’ I laugh, kissing Matt. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I hear H’s strangled gasp before I turn to see her and Amy. They’re both at the door of the steam room.

  ‘Look who’s here!’ I shout. ‘Isn’t it an amazing coincidence?’

  H

  Saturday, 13.17

  I can’t move. I feel like I’m under water. I look at Amy, but she rushes away from me. I stare, aghast, because right there in front of me are Matt, Stringer and Damien, along with Sam and Susie, who is gushing for the Commonwealth.

  ‘We just saw them!’ she prattles to Amy. ‘They must all be here. All the boys. And all us girls together at the same place. Isn’t that amazing? That’s just what you wanted all along . . .’

  Stringer looks like a scared guppy fish, his mouth opening and closing. Matt shakes his head at Damien who roars with laughter, look
ing at Amy.

  ‘This can’t be serious!’ he chuckles.

  I put my hands on my hips and stare at Matt, but his eyes scoot away from mine.

  And that’s when it clicks. That’s when I know that there’s something very, very wrong here.

  This isn’t a coincidence. There’s no way.

  ‘Amy?’ says Matt, looking aghast. ‘Do you mind telling me what’s going on?’

  ‘I could ask the same of you!’ I say, marching over and glaring at Matt. ‘How dare you!’ I storm.

  ‘How dare I what?’ he counters, immediately defensive.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent. You know exactly what.’

  Matt holds up his palm and looks around the group. ‘Well, obviously I don’t. And since I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, why don’t you spell it out for me?’

  ‘Fine,’ I snap, starting to count on my fingers. ‘One: there is no way that this is a coincidence. Two: which means that you’ve deliberately set out to sabotage our weekend. Three—’

  ‘Hang on a second,’ interrupts Matt. ‘We’ve had this booked for ages.’

  ‘Bollocks you have!’

  ‘Calm down,’ says Amy. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter! Doesn’t matter! This is a girls’ weekend. I’m not having it ruined by this lot.’

  ‘You’re the ones in the wrong place,’ says Matt. ‘We were here first.’

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ I rant. ‘And I don’t believe you!’ I narrow my eyes at Matt, but this time he holds my gaze.