The Time of Our Lives

by Jane Costello

  I look despondently out of the window. ‘It did blow my mind.’ She says nothing. ‘It blew my mind, it blew my bloody everything. I didn’t know what hit me.’

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem is—’

  My phone rings and I answer it immediately. Only it isn’t David, it’s Roy – apparently back at work.

  ‘Imogen, what on earth’s happened? I got back from Euro Disney this morning to discover David’s in hiding, we’re all over the press, the office is in uproar and I’ve been promoted into your job.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry – there’s no way I’m taking it. At the moment, I can’t think of anything worse.’

  Which, sadly, isn’t much of a comfort.

  Chapter 44

  For the first time all holiday, my phone isn’t ringing. Nobody at work wants me. Nobody in the media wants me. Even my bloody mother doesn’t seem to want me.

  In a bid to distract myself from dark thoughts, I spend an hour and a half twiddling with my phone attempting to solve my 3G problem, manage (miraculously) to succeed, and only then realise how little I want to make contact with the outside world anyway.

  ‘Let’s go for a wander along Las Ramblas again,’ Nicola suggests decisively, clapping her hands. ‘You need to take your mind off things. And off that bloody phone.’

  I’m about to inform her that I’m only Googling whether orgasms really can cure hiccups (they can, according to supersexpert.com), when a text arrives on her own phone.

  I pull a pot–kettle face that she decides to ignore, scrutinising the message with a frown instead.

  ‘Everything all right?’ I ask.

  She looks up and shakes her head. ‘Fine . . . it’s nothing. Just the issue we were talking about the other night.’

  ‘Your parents and Jess?’

  She nods. ‘You got me thinking about how daft the whole situation is. So I casually mentioned Jess’s name in a text to my mum to see how she’d respond.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She totally ignored it.’ She shakes her head. ‘Not a big deal in itself, I suppose. So, how about Las Ramblas?’

  The prospect of returning to where my necklace was stolen fills me with unease. But I don’t want to stay here while Harry’s still around; lying on the beach would be too passive to take my mind off anything; and Las Ramblas at least has the benefit of proximity. So I drag on shorts and a T-shirt, trowel concealer over my black eye, and head out with my friends.

  It is a disconcerting experience on every level.

  The thought that I might bump into Harry has me in such a state of agitation I’m virtually twitching. Just thinking about last night makes me feel exposed, confused and, frankly, shocked. The pornographic flashbacks that persist in gate-crashing my head feature a woman very unlike me. And although there is no prospect of ever seeing Harry again after tomorrow, I do feel fairly awful about how upset he looked when it became clear that I wasn’t going to suggest we breakfast on scrambled eggs and another shag for dessert.

  ‘What did you get up to last night?’ I ask Meredith.

  ‘I went to a party at the other end of the beach with Salvatore. It was fab.’

  I raise an eyebrow.

  ‘Nothing happened. Although I didn’t get in until 3.30.’ She grins. ‘I’ve still got it!’

  I turn to Nicola. ‘Has your migraine gone?’

  ‘Just about. It wasn’t my worst. They sometimes last for days,’ she replies. ‘But thanks for asking, especially when you’ve clearly got other things to worry about.’ At first I think she’s talking about sleeping with Harry. ‘I don’t think your boss can fire you, just like that. And certainly not by text,’ she continues. ‘I went on a management course recently and you’ve got to jump through hoops before you can legally sack someone. Of course, if you’re determined someone needs to be given the boot, there are ways and means . . .’ She glances at me uneasily. ‘The point is, I don’t think it’s cut and dried. It’d have to be gross misconduct.’

  ‘He says it is,’ I tell her.

  ‘Oh, well, he might think so. I’m not convinced what you did was that bad. Not . . . really.’ We arrive at the mouth of the huge avenue that is Las Ramblas and she decides to quit while she’s ahead.

  It’s as busy as last time, with energy and atmosphere spilling from every corner. We meander through the crowd in the direction of a market recommended by the guidebooks and I clutch my bag tightly, a reflex action that’s ironic given that I have nothing of much value this time: a cheap travel purse containing a couple of notes, a phone that’s resolutely not ringing and no necklace.

  ‘Let’s put a photo on Facebook,’ Nicola suggests, gathering us into a tight group. She stretches out her arm, instructs us to smile and takes the photo – before examining it with the kind of expression you’d reserve for a red-wine enthusiast vomiting on your cream carpet.

  ‘I can’t put that on Facebook. Imogen, you look as if you’ve . . .’ Her voice trails off.

  ‘Lost my job?’ I offer. ‘Or been mugged? Or slept with someone I shouldn’t?’

  Nicola frowns. ‘You’ve got every right to be upset about your necklace and the job. But not the fling, Imogen. You were totally entitled to that. Overdue it, in fact.’

  ‘And he really likes you!’ Meredith pipes up. ‘That never happens with people you meet on holiday. Normally, they’re either not interested in anything beyond a one-off shag, or so ropey you want a partial lobotomy to obliterate the memory of them. Harry is gorgeous. I hope you’re going to arrange to see him back in London.’

  ‘If you must know, he’s moving to Aberdeen as soon as this trip is over,’ I mutter. ‘He’s not even flying back to London. And that’s the only good thing I can say about this – the fact that I’ll never see him again.’

  Before that sentence leaves my mouth, I actually believe it. Only as the words linger in the air, my stomach surges with disappointment. A heavy silence sits between the three of us.

  ‘Come on, let’s do your photo again,’ I suggest brightly. ‘I promise I’ll smile enough to convince all your Facebook friends we’re having a whale of a time.’

  We get into position and I’m grinning like I’m about to have several molars extracted when I hear a familiar Spanish voice. I glance up to see the beautiful, ill-fated Delfina firing instructions at her group, which includes Harry. A wave of light-headedness grips me.

  ‘Oh, Imogen, you’ve done it again!’ Nicola protests, thrusting the photo in front of me. I’d have to admit I look like a sumo wrestler has just rollerbladed over my toe.

  ‘Sorry, I—’

  ‘Hello, Imogen.’

  Harry’s luminous eyes can hardly hold my gaze. The obvious chinks in his confidence don’t suit him at all.

  ‘Hi,’ I mumble.

  He forces a smile. ‘Have you got a minute?’

  My friends slip away instantly, refusing to give me any choice. And so I find myself face to face with the man who has profoundly shaken my world in the last twenty-four hours, watching him bite his lip in a way that’s entirely disconcerting as it draws my eyes to his mouth and assaults me with a full-sensory memory of what kissing it tasted like. ‘About last night.’

  I’m torn between wanting the ground to swallow me up, and a raging desire to know what he wants to say about last night. But these thoughts are fleeting. Because as I stand, listening intently, something in the dim periphery of my line of sight grabs my attention and yanks my attention violently away from him.

  ‘Oh my God.’ The words snake out of my mouth in a whisper. ‘OH. MY. GOD.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That’s him.’ I nod as a figure cuts through the crowd, exactly as he did the last time. ‘The boy who stole my necklace.’

  Harry focuses on him. ‘The one with the dark hair and blue T-shirt?’

  I nod, fixed to the spot, incapable of removing my eyes from him as my head swells anew with thoughts about th
e possible destiny of my necklace. Has he sold it? Has he still got it? Has he—

  ‘Why don’t we go and have a chat with him?’ It’s an audacious suggestion, yet Harry looks and sounds so unfeasibly relaxed, it takes a moment to work out that he’s serious.

  As my heart lashes against my ribcage, a deluge of emotions sweeps through me – alarm, fear, foreboding. But then the clouds in my head suddenly clear and I experience something else entirely. I’m not sure if it’s quite courage – it’s closer to sheer, bloody-minded defiance.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think perhaps we should.’ With Harry by my side, as we advance towards the boy I seem to grow three inches taller.

  The youth is clearly on the lookout for his next target, subtly assessing who in the crowd has let down their guard. The irony that he has failed to notice us as we approach from behind is as terrifying as it is delicious.

  Harry and I exchange glances and, despite my chest feeling as though it might explode, I reach out and tap him on the shoulder.

  The boy turns round. Our eyes meet and I confirm instantly that it’s him. Suddenly, every ounce of fear slips away from me. ‘You stole my necklace,’ I say calmly.

  His mouth opens in feigned indignation as he glances at Harry. ‘Que?’ He shrugs innocently.

  I am about to repeat the accusation when he suddenly springs round and, before I have time to let out my breath, is darting through the crowds away from us.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘’Arry, we need to go,’ says Delfina, grabbing Harry by the arm.

  Before I can fully digest the situation, I’ve abandoned Harry and am going after the boy, as Harry is dragged away by Delfina.

  I’ve never been a natural sprinter; I don’t think anyone over a D cup ever is. Once I hit the age of thirteen, centrifugal forces put me at the same disadvantage in cross-country races as someone pushing a wheelbarrow full of builders’ rubble. But that doesn’t stop me now. With adrenalin searing through me, I race after him, pushing through the crowd. My eyes focus on my target as I dart between two elderly ladies, spring around a Vespa parked on the pavement and, as I leap over a dog tied to a bollard, feel so like I’m in a movie scene that I half expect someone to ride out of a blazing building on a motorbike and scoop me up to ride pillion.

  Considering I’m dripping with sweat and wearing espadrilles, I don’t do badly. My vigilante efforts might even be impressive if only my adversary wasn’t quite so agile.

  I’ve been on his trail for at least a minute, maybe more, when I realise that there’s someone I recognise ahead of us.

  ‘Mr Brayfield! STOP HIM!’ I shriek as my geography teacher and his wife stop talking and look in my direction. ‘HE STOLE MY NECKLACE!’

  Mr Brayfield’s mouth gapes.

  ‘GET HIM, BRYAN!’ thunders Mrs B as her husband panics, pulls himself together, then thrusts out one of his crutches in the path of my adversary. He stumbles ahead and falls to the floor. Hope surges through me as I realise something I’d started to doubt: I’ve got him. I’VE ACTUALLY GOT HIM!

  He glances back and we both know he’s within my reach.

  Then Fate intervenes.

  It’s the initial wallop on my left cheek that stops me first, followed by a series of frenzied flaps that feel like a Gremlin break-dancing on my scalp. It takes a second to work out that the creature hitting me is, in fact, a pigeon, something that becomes clear only when I’m forced to snort violently to dislodge a feather stuck up my nose. No matter how vehemently I attempt to bat it away, it persists with a whirling dervish of berserk wing slaps, until I am only finally rid of it by pulling off a convincing under-arm volley with my handbag.

  To my astonishment, this pantomime has momentarily stunned my target and everyone else into inaction. He snaps out of his daze and turns to sprint away just as I realise I need to do something drastic, magnificent. So I leap.

  With my arms outstretched, I glide through the air, confident that justice will be mine. My adversary, however, is faster than Usain Bolt on the Japanese bullet train and consequently, I can only see empty pavement approaching. I can see it and, determined not to end up with my second black eye of the holiday, I reach out to break my fall. Sadly, I do not break my fall.

  I simply break my arm.

  Chapter 45

  ‘Some VIP holiday this is,’ I mutter as I sit in a cubicle, legs dangling off the side of the bed.

  We’ve been waiting for the doctor to come and release me for four hours. I’ve signed the relevant paperwork, had the relevant X-rays and sat next to the relevant crack addicts, alcoholics and ne’er do wells, so by rights I should have been out of here, back by the pool and topping up the hotchpotch I call my tan ages ago.

  Only they’ve got a rush on. And, despite the fact that I’m paying (or, rather, my travel insurance is paying, after I spent an hour on the phone to a helpline that was about as helpful as an AA meeting in an off-license), nobody seems inclined to discharge me.

  ‘I tried to follow you,’ Meredith tells me. My friends, God bless them, have refused to leave my side. ‘It’s bloody hard running these days though.’

  ‘Meredith, your running days should be over until you’ve given birth,’ I tell her.

  ‘You said exercise was a good thing when you’re pregnant,’ she protests.

  ‘I was talking about swimming or yoga. Not a frantic sprint through more obstacles than a Royal Marines assault course.’

  ‘Well done for trying, anyway,’ Nicola says, rubbing my good arm. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t get to that boy. Although perhaps it was for the best – you don’t know how he’d have reacted. Either way, it sounds like you were close to getting him.’

  I sigh, resigning myself to one crucial matter. ‘He wouldn’t have had it with him anyway, so I have no idea what I’d have done if I’d caught him. But still . . .’ I hesitate. ‘Did you say Harry rejoined his group when I ran off?’

  Nicola nods. ‘I think so. That guide of theirs was quite insistent that they all head for the tour bus without delay. My attention was on you so I can’t say I was concentrating on them, but he did seem to put up a bit of a fight. He clearly wasn’t happy to have to leave.’

  I try to hide my disappointment.

  ‘He’d have helped if he could,’ Meredith adds. ‘He was obviously left with no choice.’

  ‘It was nothing to do with him, anyway,’ I point out. ‘It’s one thing me playing at being a vigilante – I couldn’t expect anyone else to.’

  I notice that Nicola is engrossed in her phone.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ I ask.

  She bites her lip. ‘I hate to add to your woes, Imogen, but someone’s hacked your Facebook account.’

  ‘No!’

  She nods. ‘It says here that you shared an article about orgasms on something called “supersexpert.com”.’

  ‘Oh God, that was me . . . but it was an accident,’ I groan.

  Meredith peers over Nicola’s shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much, Imogen. You’ve got a record number of Likes.’

  It is 6 p.m. by the time we get back to the hotel. The double doors glide open into the welcome, air-conditioned chill.

  As I cross the lobby, the idea that I should fill in Harry on what happened after he left bubbles up in me. It was he who’d suggested we talk to the boy, after all.

  As the others head to the bar, I make a detour to the sun deck, register his absence, then stop off at the business centre and find that he isn’t there either.

  I push thoughts of him out of my mind and head to the room instead, where I attempt to suppress an overwhelming desire to curl up in bed. Having dragged my friends to hospital, and thereby denied them another day of sightseeing, I think the least I owe them is dinner.

  I peel off my clothes and quickly shove them in a laundry bag (which makes it sound rather grander than the reality: a Tesco carrier bag filled with unwashed pants), noting that it was a good thing I didn’t see Harry after all. After an intensive
sprint in 30-degree heat, I’m not exactly fragrant, not unless the term can be expanded to incorporate the rotting contents of a wheelie bin.

  I attempt to shower. I say attempt because it quickly becomes evident that having an arm in plaster hampers even the most pedestrian of tasks. The jets of water seem magnetically attracted to my cast, despite all my efforts to undertake my ablutions with my arm raised in the air.

  Then I have an idea. Dripping wet and with limb aloft, I tiptoe out of the shower and root around one-handed in my suitcase for the laundry bag I had only minutes ago. I pull it out and rip the plastic bag down one side, holding it in my teeth and feeling a little bit like in films when someone tears up their shirt to wrap around a gunshot wound.

  I cover my plaster with the bag and tie it on both sides until it’s near enough watertight, feeling fairly smug about my handiwork. I step back into the shower and carefully start to wash the day out of my hair.

  I almost start to relax as water spills onto my forehead and I lose myself in its warmth. I’m not thinking about my necklace, or my tattered professional reputation or the implications of what I did last night. I’m thinking of nothing. Well, almost nothing. Because, slowly, gradually, before I even recognise the fact, flashbacks from last night begin to infiltrate my brain again.

  I try to force them away, but they coax me, too vivid and pleasurable to resist. So I convince myself that just thinking about last night does no harm. As Meredith said, it’s just normal, natural, what human beings were designed for.

  Warmth sweeps up my body as I look at the skin on my stomach and remember what it felt like with Harry’s lips on it. I take a long inward breath and try to pull myself together but, as I massage shampoo into my hair, I’m quickly back in the pleasure zone, feeling relaxed, sensual.

  And distinctly frisky if the truth be told.

  Which is obviously too good to last. I’m midway through reliving the bit where Harry first lifted off his shirt, when a piercing screech comparable to the onset of a sonic boom rips through the room and I nearly slip over in shock.