Friends Forever!

by Grace Dent

  “The look is ‘healthy and alive,’ ” continues Fleur, “so from now on we’re focused on getting into shape!”

  “Agreed!” grins Claude. Claude loves a project.

  “Now,” says Fleur, dishing out some papers, “both of you take one of my healthful eating tip sheets.”

  I gaze forlornly at the sheet, which is filled with lots of low-fat, low-fun, windy, farty things that make you poo and wee a lot.

  “What’s up now?” chuckles Fleur.

  “Cuh,” I scoff. “It’ll take more than a few bags of Puy lentils to get rid of this,” I moan, whipping up my T-shirt and playing the opening bars of “The Ace of Spades” by Motörhead on my belly, just to illustrate.

  “Oh, shut up,” sighs Fleur. “Ronnie Ripperton, as well as being extremely pretty, you have the tiniest of nonexistent stomachs, which looks perfectly womanly to me. You’ve just got a poor self-image! Which isn’t surprising considering you wasted two years dating a lying, cheating, chromosomally challenged skateboarding baboon.”

  “Hmmm . . . but,” I begin.

  “But if you’re so keen on having washboard abs, then do some crunches!” quacks Fleur. “The closest I’ve seen you get to aerobics this year was when you pulled a groin injury doing Riverdance at my birthday sleepover.”

  “Hmmmph,” I say, wriggling in the grip of truth.

  Just that instant my phone vibrates and squeaks in my pocket. It’s a text sent from a number I don’t recognize.

  FROM: 079782 432871

  TIME: 2:33

  HEY VERONICA—IT’S YOUR LODGER. STILL WANNA RIDE THE WAVES?

  Do I wanna ride the waves? Eh?

  Oh my God! Saul Parker! My heart nearly leaps through my chest.

  “Who’s that from?” noses Claude.

  “Oooh, erm.” I’m blushing now. “Just Mum. She’s mad I’ve not called her for days.”

  “Girls, girls! Can I have your attention?” persists Fleur. “Right, who agrees that we all swim twenty lengths of the pool each morning? And do fifty crunches a day before breakfast shift? And . . .”

  But Fleur’s voice is just background static now. I’m thinking about surfing with Saul. Should I text him back right away? Or make him wait? But what if I leave it and then he thinks it’s a no, so he vanishes again?

  Does this mean he’s still kipping in the loft? Is this going to end in disaster?

  Oh God, this is hopeless. I can’t help myself. My hands are moving out of control with my mind by this point. I start tapping out an answer.

  FROM: RONNIE

  TIME: 2:36

  REPLY: AH . . . YOU’RE ALIVE, ARE YOU? WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN MIND?

  I press “send.”

  Uggghhh! That “You’re alive” bit made me sound like I was worried about him. Which I soooo wasn’t, by the way.

  Oh God. Why am I such a total loser with the opposite sex? It’s Miles Boon all over again. Yuk.

  Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Another text!

  FROM: 079782 432871

  TIME: 2:38

  REPLY: CAN YOU MEET ME AT 5AM TOMORROW BY THE GATE TO HARBINGER’S CLIFF PATH? X

  Can I meet him tomorrow? What are my shifts? Oh my God, yes, I’m off tomorrow until 2 P.M.! I begin to text a reply.

  “Ronnie!” nags Fleur. “Stop texting! That’s soooo rude!”

  “Sorry! Sorry!” I blush, with a huge grin spreading across my chops. “Okay, what were you saying again?”

  “I said,” repeats Fleur, “will you at least promise to add some fresh air and exercise to your daily routine?”

  FROM: RONNIE

  TIME: 2:42

  REPLY: YES! NO PROBLEM AT ALL. SEE YOU THERE X

  “Yes! No problem at all,” I tell Fleur with a mischievous grin.

  rendezvous

  I barely sleep a wink that night. I wake up at 2, 3 and 4 A.M., checking my watch.

  Eventually, at half past four I slide out of bed. Fleur and Claude are dead to the world; Fleur emitting dainty breathy snores, Claude letting out big breathy snores like an asthmatic elephant on a slide trombone. I pull on a bikini, some track pants and my big blue baggy hoodie, scribble the girls a note saying I’m off “to exercise” and creep out of the apartment.

  Harbinger Hall is freakishly silent. All the guests and staff are safely tucked in beddy-bye-byes, aside from an occasional cleaner polishing a marble floor or scaling a ladder to fiddle with a chandelier shard. As I pass reception, Frank the night-watchman is deeply asleep, the peak of his dark green hat pulled down over his eyes. I tiptoe past him, then run through the hotel, past the health club and through the pool area before unbolting one of the back doors leading out into the gardens.

  At the bottom of Harbinger’s gardens lies a steep cliff path leading down to a private cove. A dusty sign on the path’s gate reads

  PRIVATE COVE EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE USE OF HARBINGER CLIENTELE ONLY. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

  I loiter by the gate for about twelve minutes, feeling increasingly foolish.

  This wouldn’t be the first time I’d been stood up by a boy. I waited for Jimi outside the Warner Village Multiplex one Friday night until the usherettes took pity and sent me out some chili fries.

  I look at my watch. It’s twelve minutes past five.

  “Saaaaul!” I shout, doing that half-quiet shout you do when searching for a dog late at night. “Saaaaul!”

  To my horror, the hedge begins to rustle.

  “Ha ha! Morning!” yells Saul, his cheeky face and crazy brown hair appearing like the rising sun from behind the leaves. “You came! Sweet!”

  “Jeez! Aaaagh!” I squeal, nearly splatting face-first into the hedge. “Look, monkey-boy, could you just stop doing that? Stop . . . hiding in places! Lurky Lurkason! What’s wrong with you?”

  “Ha ha!” Saul chortles. “Look, lady, one of us is a fugitive around here, remember?”

  I pull a twig from my hair and straighten my track pants, trying to regain my dignity.

  “C’mon then,” says Saul, standing there in his black hoodie, long khaki shorts and flip-flops. He opens the gate and beckons me in. “Ready?”

  “Erm, yeah,” I smile, stepping inside.

  As we begin to descend the steep cliff path, the view ahead is awesome. As far as the eye can see is vast, calm blue ocean, with a magical amber sun shimmering as it ascends. Wow!

  Instantly Saul and I are chattering furiously about the past six days. Saul has certainly been a busy lad. A load of his old mates from Lancashire, who all have daft names like Goggy, Pickle and Doss, had been down at Destiny Bay that week, so they’d been surfing at Esperance Beach all day, then partying hard all night before crashing out in the back of their smelly camper van. Yes, all five of them in one van.

  “Yuk,” I groan. “I bet that place smelled good in the morning.”

  “Hmmm,” winces Saul. “Goggy hadn’t changed his socks since we were in Fuerteventura.”

  “Lovely,” I say. “And you’ve not been back to Harbinger Hall at all?”

  “Just the once. Thought I’d best keep a low profile,” Saul said. “Y’know, in case you’d grassed me up to Scrumble.”

  “I wouldn’t have done that,” I tell him quietly.

  Saul smiles as if that means a lot to him.

  During the rest of the walk, I make Saul laugh about what I’ve been up to this week. I tell him about Claude’s latest detox plan, which involves drinking pint after pint of a bizarre green slimy liquid (only £3 a bottle from the local health food store), and how Fleur spent the week waiting for an Argie surf god called Santiago Marre to call, after she pushed her phone number into his hand at that party at A Land Down Under.

  “Ugh! That guy’s a right nork,” groans Saul. “He’s ridiculous. He’s always on the front of Surf King magazine, flexing his muscles. What a ponce.”

  “I know,” I giggle. “But try telling Fleur that.”

  Then I tell him about my week at work and how Gene the sous chef and I have been dealing wi
th a particularly rude crowd of guests.

  “No! Not the spoons down the underpants trick! That’s rank!” howls Saul. “Oh my God, behind the cute face, you’re actually evil, aren’t you?”

  “I try my best,” I giggle proudly.

  Fifteen minutes later, slightly out of breath, we reach what to my total surprise turns out to be a perfect picture-postcard cove. Fresh, clean sand and smooth pebbles. Not a dead seagull or a spiky rock in sight!

  “But, but . . . wow!” I gasp. The tide is ebbing away, leaving fresh wet sand unmarred by human feet. “But Scrumble said this was all rocks!”

  “Yeah, well, Scrumble hates surfers,” Saul smirks. “She just doesn’t want word spreading about this little gem.”

  We wander out onto the wet sand, leaving two fresh sets of footsteps behind us. Waves are building up and crashing brutally against the cliffs on either side of the cove. It feels cool to be so isolated. There’s no one here but me, Saul and the sea.

  “You come here every day?” I ask.

  “I keep a board down here,” Saul says, pointing at a little ramshackle beach hut back by the cliffs. “But sometimes I go to Misty. Sometimes Esperance. I’m just crammin’ in as much water time as I can. If I could even take third position at Demonboards . . . y’know, win some cash? Then I’m off to Oz.”

  “Australia?” I say. “To surf?”

  “Yeah! The plan is to buy myself a little camper van,” Saul grins. “Load up the board, head toward Noosa Cove, maybe even check out Bondi . . .”

  Saul’s voice trails off. “Then what’s the plan?” I prompt.

  “Then the plan is . . . no plans,” he says. “Just to have a good time.”

  That sounds wonderful. But totally alien too. My parents have my life mapped out till I’m twenty-two years old.

  “But what about A-levels?” I ask. “Or university?”

  Saul sort of winces. “Probably not,” he says. “Got kicked out of my last school.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I ran off to the Hebrides halfway through Year Eleven for a surf contest,” he says sheepishly. “Got suspended for four weeks. How’s that a punishment? It was more like a treat! I never went back.”

  Saul stops. He picks up a small star-shaped shell from the sand, examines it, then hands it to me. “Don’t need exams for what I wanna be anyhow,” he says.

  I put the tiny shell in my hoodie pocket. “What do you want to be?” I say.

  Saul thinks about it for a little while. “Free,” he says.

  My first surf session, even if it is a lesson in extreme humiliation, is as cool as hell. Most of the morning I spend on dry land, floundering on my belly on a borrowed surfboard, wearing a wet suit that makes fart noises, learning about paddling out, duck diving and wave etiquette. Eventually Saul and I wade out into the awesomely cold ocean for some “water time,” although to my shame all I really manage is a lot of girlish flapping around swallowing mouthfuls of white water.

  For a newbie surfer, I suck big time, but it still rocks just to be there. Especially when Saul shows me how it’s really done, paddling out into the stronger breaks, jumping up onto his board, then ripping along, pulling all sorts of twists, tricks and turns like some sort of Extreme Channel surf king. Amazing.

  Later on, we wander back to the sand and lie in the sunshine just laughing and chattering. Saul is dissing all the rich-kid “shubee” boys on Misty Beach who wear £5,000 worth of Rip Curl clothes but don’t even own a board, while I tell Saul all sorts of LBD stories about Triplet Day and about when we broke into McGraw’s property and trod on his poodles. And about last summer when we went to Astlebury Festival and renewed our friendship with Spike Saunders, international Duke of Pop.

  “Wow! You’ve met Spike Saunders?” Saul gasps.

  “Two times,” I say, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “But, hey, that’s another story.”

  Saul is just dead easy to chat to. Somehow I find myself telling him about Nan and her police scanner and how she talked me out of getting that job from hell at the Wacky Warehouse and into having an adventure instead. And how she died promptly that night, before I could flake out on her and change my mind.

  “Aw, she sounds cool,” says Saul. “You must miss her loads.”

  “Well, the weird thing is,” I say, “I still feel like she’s here. Especially when I do mad stuff like this. I mean, me on a surfboard?”

  “She’d be proud of you,” Saul nods. “You were really good.”

  Later, I even confess to Saul how Claude and Fleur and I are all actually in training for the bikini contest and how we need to win the money to keep Claude from moving away.

  “You’re going to be a Miss Demonboard Babe?” says Saul. “Just to make your friend happy?”

  “Er, ’fraid so,” I say bashfully.

  “Wow, that’s true friendship,” Saul says, looking seriously impressed. “This Claude chick must mean the world to you.”

  “Yeah,” I say, feeling a bit choked.

  “Jeez!” I gasp, checking my watch. “It’s half past one! I’m working two to ten! Gotta go!”

  “I’ll walk ya,” Saul says, leaping up.

  We scramble up the cliff path together. My legs and arms are stiffening from my surf lesson, so I’m a little unsteady on my feet. Saul notices this and links my arm. Just as friends.

  His right biceps feels good and strong pressed against me.

  “Okay,” he says as we reach the top of the path where the bushes are. “Gotta leave you here. I’ll wait till it’s quieter before I risk coming out.”

  We stand looking at each other for a second.

  There’s a tiny awkward pause.

  “So, erm, thanks for the surf lesson!” I say, poking Saul’s biceps.

  “Awww, hey, no worries!” he smiles, ruffling the front of my hair. “Thanks for everything. Y’know, letting me crash in the loft and all that. You’re a star, Ronnie.”

  “No worries!” I say.

  “Hey, I meant to say,” adds Saul. “Don’t suppose you’re going to that beach barbecue at A Land Down Under tomorrow night, are you?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We’re all going. Fleur bagged us some passes through the organizer.”

  “Oh . . . right, cool! Well, maybe . . . y’know, we could, like, hang out.”

  “Er . . . yeah,” I say. “I’d, erm, like that!”

  There’s another weird pause. We stand peering at each other for an awkward moment.

  Shall I just go now?

  Just then Saul moves forward. He cups my face in his hands and kisses my lips softly. Then he lets me go.

  It feels like a major electric shock has zapped right through me. Ha! I go totally and utterly gooey! More gooey than I think I’ve ever felt before. My cheeks frazzle hot pink!

  “I’ll ring you,” he grins, turning to walk away.

  “Yeah!” I beam, somehow preventing myself from making a dorkish phone-hand gesture.

  Aggh! This summer just gets better and better!

  “Oh, hey . . . Veronica?” Saul yells as I start to walk away.

  I stop and turn around.

  “That Demonboard bikini thing,” he says. “Don’t . . . y’know, stress about it. ’Cos, I mean . . . y’know . . .”

  “Y’know what?” I ask.

  “Well, y’know . . . you,” he says, waving his hand around to gesture to the whole package of me. “I’ve seen you in a bikini. It’s sort of . . . y’know . . . wow!”

  Saul winks and disappears back down the path.

  “Oh?” I say. “Er, cheers!”

  Hee hee hee!

  I float back through the gardens feeling most irregular indeed. The corners of my mouth appear to be hooked to the lobes of my ears with invisible love string, and my brain is sloshing and frothing merrily around inside my skull, replaying Saul’s kiss again and again.

  Aaaaggghhh! Total meltdown!

  I’m either in love, or I’m having a sort of brain hemorrhage.


  I levitate through the health spa, past the dining hall into the heart of Harbinger Hall, my mind racing with images of Saul’s gorgeous face, his great hazel eyes and his impish nostrils. About how rockin’ he looks when he’s carrying his surfboard, with his dready hair blowing about in the breeze and that wicked naughty grin on his face.

  Saul Parker kissed me!

  Saul Parker thinks I’m a top Demonboard Babe!

  I feel amazing.

  I breeze along the main corridor, heading through the hectic reception lobby. At the reception desk Precious is checking in a crowd of young glamorous women. The scent of beeswax soap hangs in the air.

  Ah! Life is marvelous! I love Harbinger Hall!

  “So let me get this straight,” a new guest is sniping at Precious in a weedy yet assertive voice. “You’re actually telling me you don’t offer a macrobiotic option on breakfast?”

  “Erm,” flusters Precious, “I don’t think so. I mean . . .”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” a second rather shrill, plummy voice says. “What sort of backward little hovel is this? Let me remind you we’re VIPs! That’s Very Important Persons, if your special needs teacher can’t help you figure it out. Do you seriously expect me to eat normal old sausages like an everyday plebby civilian?”

  I stop in my tracks.

  No!

  Nooooooo!

  It can’t be. I must be having a brain seizure.

  I stare closely at the reception desk, my heart thumping. A tiny, elfin blonde girl in a floaty summer smock and bangles is waving around a gold AmEx card.

  Cressida Sleeth.

  Five-foot-nothing of pure, unfettered evil.