The nearest supermarket was just ten minutes or so away. A twenty minute round trip - thirty at the most. She’d get some bottled water, gallons of it, and some food supplies, then cook Gordy a hearty breakfast, he’d need it after his exertions last night.
She glanced at him in the bed, a warm, cosy feeling in her stomach. Gordy Brewer was back in her life.
Maybe she’d climb in next to him when she got back and wake him up in a way he would remember. How wanton she had become in the space of just forty-eight hours.
She smiled again. At least it was with the right person this time.
Then she slipped out and closed the apartment door behind her.
***
The sound of a car horn out in the street woke Gordy up. He stretched contentedly and looked across to where Daisy had been laying, remembering last night and the marvellous time they had spent together.
He’d had an idea whilst he slept - or possibly it was a dream - but whatever it was it made sense. He could borrow some money off Alan and Barb - he was sure they’d lend him it if he promised to pay them a bit back out of his wages each month. He wouldn’t need much, just enough to pay for Daisy’s flight back to England. She could stay with them, in Izzie’s old room, now that his little sister had gone off to university - proving herself to be cleverer than any of them - much as he always suspected.
Gordy’s parents had always liked Daisy - in fact they had gone on about her for years - so he knew they wouldn’t mind. Daisy could get a job and before long she’d have enough money saved for a flat of her own - maybe even he could move in with her - although he knew he was getting ahead of himself a bit. First things first.
Anyway, he thought it was a good idea and couldn’t wait to run it passed Daisy.
But she was not there.
The bed was empty and when Gordy got up and had a look around, he found that the apartment was, too.
Where the hell had she gone?
Then he saw his clothes folded all nice and neatly on the worktop and smiled. How thoughtful she was.
As he picked them up, he glanced at the digital clock on the cooker. It was flashing 10.05am.
For a second it didn’t register and he made to turn, heading back to bed, certain that wherever Daisy had gone, it wasn’t far.
But then it hit him. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed aloud, suddenly realising that the bus taking him and the rest of The Desert Rats back to the airport was picking them up at 11am from their hotel - on the other side of Magaluf - and he hadn’t so much as packed a pair of underpants yet.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He cried, dancing around the small kitchenette, trying to wriggle his shorts on over his sunburnt legs.
Where the bloody hell was Daisy? He had to tell her about his idea - had to see her before he left - to explain - to get her address, her phone number - anything!
But there was no time. He pulled his freshly washed T-shirt on and paced the floor for a couple of minutes - sticking his head out of the door every few seconds to see if he could see Daisy anywhere - hoping he could see her somewhere.
Five minutes passed. Ten. In desperation Gordy ran along the corridor and listened at various doors, but nothing, no sight or sound of Daisy. He ran upstairs and downstairs but all to no avail.
After fifteen minutes he just couldn’t wait any longer.
He had to go.
Gordy looked around for some note paper and a pen, anything with which to write Daisy a message but the apartment was empty and he had run out of time.
With his heart breaking and his conscience in turmoil, Gordy finally, very reluctantly, left the apartment and legged it down to the street.
A moment later he was in the back of a cab heading to his hotel and away from Daisy Flynn.
As the cab sped him through the busy streets of mid-morning Magaluf, Gordy stared blankly out of the window, he felt like a deserter, as if he had abandoned Daisy - especially after all that had happened the night before last with Steve Cool and her so-called friend, Loz.
Daisy would surely think Gordy had used her, too, just like Steve clearly had, yet nothing could have been further from the truth.
But there was no way he could tell her, no way he could explain to her why he was leaving or that he had every intention of writing to her, phoning her, keeping in touch with her until he could finally see her again.
But it was impossible. His bus was leaving and there was just no way.
He felt lower than a snake’s belly, like the scum of the earth and no better than Steve bloody Cool.
It was just such a seriously shit situation.
***
Daisy returned with a bag full of groceries and large bottle of drinking water.
She dumped everything down on the worktop and immediately noticed Gordy’s clothes had gone.
The bed was empty, too.
Curious, she walked into the bathroom but he was not there either.
Then she began to worry.
An hour later she knew for certain that Gordy wasn’t coming back.
A short time after that Mandy and Tricia came to call for her as the boat back to Lloret was leaving shortly and they all had to be on it.
They found Daisy in bits, completely distraught. Floods of tears were streaming down her face and they rallied around her once more like the good friends they had already proven themselves to be.
However, this time Daisy could not be consoled.
Twice in two days her heart had been trampled all over. She felt used, betrayed and utterly devastated.
She could easily believe that Steve Cool was capable of being so cruel, but Gordy Brewer? How on earth could he do such a thing?
Chapter Twenty-One
The moment he got back to Bradley, Gordy set about searching for a way to get in touch with Daisy - so that he could explain what had happened and why he’d left in such a hurry.
He tried the travel agents, the library, Directory Inquiries - both National and International - he even rang the Spanish Embassy, but all to no avail.
The simple truth was that he hadn’t got a clue where Daisy was staying in Lloret de Mar, or where she worked. He didn’t know who her friends were and he couldn’t even remember the name of the apartment block in Magaluf where he had last seen her. But even if he could, it wouldn’t do much good, because the one thing he did know, was that Daisy would no longer be there.
It was hopeless. He was back home and Daisy was stuck somewhere on the Costa Brava, no doubt thinking that he’d run out on her, that he didn’t care - or worse, that he’d used her, just like Steve bloody Cool.
But nothing could have been further from the truth.
Gordy felt despondent. The best thing that had happened to him in years was lost without trace. If only he knew where she was.
***
For two weeks Gordy moped about. He went to work at his boring, achingly dull office job, that he’d had almost since leaving school, in the planning office of Bradley Council, then came home, had his tea, then went up to his bedroom and listened to music or watched TV on the portable telly Alan and Barb had bought him for his eighteenth birthday, four years earlier.
This was his daily routine.
Even at the weekends, whilst Bangers, Bubble, Stigger, Digger, Spud, Stingy, Squeak, Bigsy and ‘H’ were ‘getting on it’ in the pubs and clubs (all two of them) of Bradley, recounting their ‘hilarious’ drunken exploits in Magaluf to whoever would listen, Gordy stayed at home instead. He’d had quite enough of beer, quite enough of getting drunk and quite enough of being lumped together with everyone else as ‘a bit of a piss-head’.
He wished his holiday friends well, and bore them no malice - indeed, he liked them all very much - but he was done with being ‘a lad’.
Getting drunk and throwing up on Friday and Saturday nights might have
been The Desert Rats’ idea of cool but it was definitely not Gordy’s and, even though he’d convinced himself that it was for a while, he now knew that it never would be.
So he stayed in and pined for Daisy.
Alan and Barb were worried about him, “It’s not healthy for a boy of his age to be staying in all the time,” Alan would say to his wife, “He needs to be out sewing his wild oats,” not that he, himself, ever did, going straight from school into the Forces, then onto the bank and marriage. Although when Barb remarked on this he would say, knowingly, “Different times now though, luv,” whilst not really having any idea.
Gordy’s nan and grandad were concerned, too. “What’s the matter, Woggitt?” His Grandad would ask.
“Oh, hush up, Sid, leave the poor boy alone,” Nan would chime in, before then adding, “What’s wrong, Oddbod, everything alright?”
But Gordy didn’t want to talk about it, not to Alan and Barb or Nan and Grandad, because how could they possibly understand?
But he did need to talk to someone and, for the lack of anyone else, that someone happened to be Frazer.
***
Visiting Frazer, was a little bit like calling on The Adams Family as he and his new tribe certainly fitted in with the familiar, finger-clicky, They’re creepy and they’re kooky theme tune.
Frazer, now twenty-three, had lost none of his scariness with age. He now sported a jet black crown of spiked hair which made him look like an extremely angry hedgehog or a more fearsome version of Robert Smith - lead singer of The Cure. He also wore dark black mascara, had a nose ring, a lip ring and numerous other rings in various parts of his anatomy which Gordy preferred not to think about. Frazer dressed predominantly in black and was what the poor ignorant folk of Bradley commonly assumed to be ‘a Goth’, although to his mind he was, and always would be, a punk.
Frazer’s girlfriend, the Siouxsie Sioux look-a-like, Beth, was the ‘Morticia’ to his ‘Gomez’. She had long straight black hair, a pale complexion - emphasised by black lipstick, lots of black eye shadow and the obligatory black mascara. Yet no matter how terrifying she was, she also managed to be very sexy - much like Siouxsie Sioux or horror movie queen, Ingrid Pitt.
To illustrate this, she was presently wearing a tight leather ‘bondage-style’ basque and PVC thigh boots over rubber trousers (all in black, naturally).
However, she did scare the bejesus out of Gordy, even though she had never been anything but nice.
Little Spike, Frazer and Beth’s six-month-old son, was a chip off the old block, with a shock of spiky black hair and a black baby grow with a skull and crossbones pattern on it which made him look utterly adorable.
He played on the rug in the front room of their tiny terraced house as Gordy sat in an armchair drinking the coffee Beth had just made him.
Whilst she went off to carry on with her chores, Frazer sat down on the settee opposite.
“So, mate,” he said, “How was Magaluf?”
Gordy gave him the brief highlights, such as they were, of the holiday up until his projectile puking performance at Bronco Billy’s, adding how this resulted in Steve Cool getting spattered in spew.
Frazer thought this was absolutely hilarious - never one of Steve Cool’s biggest fans, he said, “Good on yer, mate - Christ I wish I’d been there to see that!”
Gordy smiled. “Yeah, he’d had that coming for a while I reckon.”
“Too right.”
Gordy then had a quick look around for Beth, hoping she wasn’t in earshot, “I er, saw Daisy, too,” he finally said.
“What - Daisy Flynn?” Frazer asked loudly.
“Ssh, yeah - keep it down - what about Beth - won’t she mind me talking about your ex?”
“Course not!” Frazer laughed. “She was hardly my ex anyway - she always had her eyes on you! Well, you and Steve Cool - but she fancied you more, believe me I could tell.”
“Yeah, well, maybe,” Gordy said, a little uneasily, uncertain about admitting his feelings about Daisy to Frazer knowing that the two of them had once been an item. “I dunno.”
“Hey, it’s no problem - honest. Look at me - I’m happy, got the woman of my dreams - a lovely little boy. Daisy and you always made much more sense than me and her.”
“You reckon?”
“Course! Anyway, how is she, what’s she been up to - is she coming back here?”
Gordy then proceeded to tell Frazer all that he knew about her, then everything that happened after running into her outside Bronco Billy’s. He admitted, openly, for the first time to anyone how he actually felt about Daisy and the dreadful way in which things had ended.
By this time, Beth was also sitting down, next to Frazer on the settee, listening intently to Gordy’s story whilst sipping a cup of coffee.
“And that’s it,” he finally said. “I’m back here, she’s out there somewhere - I haven’t got a clue where - probably hating me for leaving her, just like that idiot Steve bloody Cool.”
“Christ, mate, I’m sorry,” Frazer said.
“You’ve gotta find her,” Beth said, “I don’t know how, but somehow - you must - you’ve gotta let her know how you feel - tell her what happened!” Suddenly she was sounding much less like a scary horror queen and much more like a bondage-bedecked, black-bodiced, buccaneer-booted, banshee version of Barbara Cartland.
“But that’s just it,” Gordy said. “I’ve been trying - I’ve hunted high and low, tried everything, anything. But it’s just no good. The only thing left would be to fly back out to Lloret and go searching for her bar to bar - but I’ve got no money and used up all my holidays. It’s hopeless.
Both Frazer and Beth were quiet for a while as they thought about this, knowing that Gordy was right.
“So what you gonna do then, mate?” Frazer said eventually.
“Dunno,” Gordy replied with a shrug. “I just need a change I think - a new job - a new life. I’m in a bit of a rut I suppose and I just can’t stop thinking about Daisy.”
Frazer thought for a moment - then it was if a light bulb went off in his brain, “You ought to do something to do with music!” He said excitedly. “You and Daisy were brilliant at that, remember?”
“Yeah but that was years ago—”
“I know,” Frazer interrupted, “But you were good at it. You and her, back then - it was really cool. Really cool. You should do it - make some phone calls, write a few letters - who knows? I mean, what have you got to lose, right?”
“He’s right,” agreed Beth. “And if you and Daisy were meant to be then it’ll work out alright in the end.”
Now she really does sound like Barbara Cartland, Gordy thought. Yet he couldn’t help but think that maybe Frazer and Beth were right. Indeed, he remembered now that Daisy had said something about it, too, suggesting that he should perhaps try and get into the music industry - and it had to be better than working for Bradley Town Council. Right? Anything had to be better than that!
“Sod it!” Gordy exclaimed. “I will then - I’ll write a few letters to some record companies - they can only say ‘no’ can’t they?”
“Good on yer, mate. That’s the spirit. You gotta get out there, put yourself about - make it happen. Soon enough you’ll have forgotten about Daisy and everything will be fine again - you mark my words - a new job will work wonders for you!”
“No, don’t forget about Daisy!” Beth said, smacking Frazer lightly on the arm, appalled that he should even mention the idea. “Just try to think positive - you never know what might happen in the future. She might be out there, somewhere, pining for you, too.”
“Thanks Beth,” Gordy said with a resigned smile, “It’s nice of you to say but I really think that ship has sailed - she probably can’t even bear the thought of me now.”
“Well, I’m not so sure,” Beth muttered before Frazer cut her off.
“A new job will do you good, though, mate - who knows, this time next year you could be living in New York!”
Gordy laughed. “Yeah, I bloody wish,” he said.
***
Gordy stayed at Frazer and Beth’s for a little but his departure was hastened when Spike blew off noisily, filling his nappy with some vile smelling toxic sludge. Gordy had no wish to have his nostrils violated further by the pungent pong of poisonous poop - unhappy memories of his disastrous diarrhetic dumping in Bronco Billy’s Bar coming back to haunt him.
As Frazer stood at the door and waived him off, he said, “By the way, you ought to go round and see Trevor. I ran into him in the town the other day and he’s finished at uni now - so he’ll be glad of a visit.
‘Yes’, Gordy thought, perhaps he would go round. It would be good to see him again and re-connect - which was another suggestion of Daisy’s.
And as he remembered her mentioning it, he felt the pang of despair once more.
***
On the way home from Frazer’s, Gordy walked back up through the town, pausing for a moment outside a shop which was now a hairdresser’s but once, years ago, used to be Bailey Bandstand, the place where he and Daisy had first become friends.
Again, he thought wistfully about those days during that long, hot Summer of ‘78 when he had learned about music and dancing - pursuing his dream of being cool so that he could woo Pippa Wilson.
And eventually, miraculously, he had. Indeed, that whole Summer had been a complete turning point for Gordy.
But now Pippa was just a brief memory of the past and it was Daisy, not her, who now filled his thoughts.
Yet he had to snap out of it, move on, It was doing him no good whatsoever dwelling on what might have been.
And he had to ‘strike whilst the iron was hot’.
With that in mind, he marched down to Woolworths and bought himself an NME and a Melody Maker. When he got home, he lay on his bed and poured over the back pages of each, searching the classifieds for any job vacancies. He also made a list of potential record companies that he could write to in bid to swap his humdrum existence for a new, exciting life in the music business.
Jam Tops, the Fonz and the Pursuit of Cool Page 26
