Two Years After ; Friends Who Lie ; No More Secrets

by Paul J. Teague

  She’d immediately warmed to this woman but didn’t want to come over as her needy fat friend. In fact, Caitlen was in excellent shape for someone who was almost ten years Gina’s senior, but the sight of the younger woman dressed for a night out, fresh-faced and exuberant, made her only too aware that time was slipping away.

  ‘Mind if I listen?’ Gina said. ‘It sounds fantastic!’

  ‘Come in, come in!’ Caitlen encouraged her. ‘We’re heading out for some food and drink in a while. We’ve all recovered from the flight now and we’re ready to take a look around. You’re welcome to join us ... if you’re not doing anything else?’

  Caitlen hoped she didn’t sound too desperate.

  ‘I’d love to,’ Gina replied. ‘If you don’t mind me tagging along?’

  ‘Of course not, the more the merrier!’ Rhett chipped in.

  ‘Excellent, thank you. I was heading out on my own this evening, it’ll be lovely to have some company.’

  Caitlen envied her independence. She’d sung along with the Spice Girls, but whatever had become of her own girl power? There was a time, probably around Gina’s age, when she would have despised herself for staying with Terry a moment longer than she should have. But age had taught her that life is more complicated than that. Choices and life options have a habit of contracting as you get older. And sometimes, through no fault of your own, you get stuck with a Terry.

  Emmy and Porter arrived.

  ‘Jeez, are you vaping?’ Terry asked, before he’d even said hello.

  ‘Yes, I’m trying to give up the ciggies,’ Porter replied. He looked like he was sucking on a children’s toy. The earnest way in which he used the device made it look like he was dependent on it for his life.

  ‘What a prat!’ Emmy whispered conspiratorially to Terry, her words concealed by Wes’s passionate portrayal of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’.

  ‘Who, Wes or Porter?’ Terry replied.

  ‘Both!’ Emmy smiled. ‘Oh, and James bloody Blunt too. I heard that racket from our apartment. How long do we have to put up with this caterwauling?’

  ‘John Smiths anybody?’ Terry asked, interrupting the song’s finale. There were no replies, so he headed over to the fridge and took out two tins.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing one to Emmy.

  There was a round of applause as Wes’s enchanted audience waited for the final guitar note to fade into nothingness.

  ‘That’s amazing, Wes!’

  ‘Incredible. I love it!’

  ‘Wow, thanks guys. Let’s hope they like it as much in town. I could do with a gig in one of the bars, I’m running a bit low on funds.’

  ‘You should call in at Erin’s Bar,’ Gina suggested. ‘You do covers, right? Anybody in particular?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I do lots of stuff, but James Blunt, Ed Sheeran ... I do that guy-with-guitar stuff. What do they want at Erin’s Bar?’

  ‘They do cover bands. They’d love you, I’m sure of it. It’s been on the telly, you might even know it. They actually film some of the scenes from that TV series in there, the one that’s set in Benidorm.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen that!’ Becky said. ‘I didn’t even realise it was a real bar.’ It turned out that most of them had seen the TV programme. Within three minutes, Erin’s Bar had become the most sought-after location in the town.

  Terry was pleased that the focus had changed and that it finally looked like they were on their way.

  ‘I didn’t know you drank John Smiths?’ Caitlen said, observing the can in Emmy’s hand.

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s just a recent thing,’ Emmy blustered. ‘A girl can have too much Prosecco. And it rots your teeth if you drink too much of it, you know.’

  It was a long answer for an off-the-cuff observation. If she hadn’t been quite so detailed in her reply, Caitlen might not have clocked it. She put it to the back of her mind and diverted her attention to encouraging everybody out into the hallway.

  ‘What are we going for, Indian or Chinese?’ Rhett asked, taking the lead. By the time they’d all made their way down in the lifts, they’d decided that they were eating Italian. Pizza to be precise. They’d eat together on the first night, but be a bit more flexible in the days ahead to accommodate everybody’s food tastes.

  Terry was still carrying his tin of beer when they walked out into the street. It was early evening, still light and sunny and the street was alive with holiday-makers. It was a sea of cheap sunglasses, baseball caps, sandals, cargo shorts and garish T-shirts. Terry became immediately invisible, the others less so.

  Gina guided them to an Italian restaurant and they enjoyed an early evening meal, fuelled by familiar wines and beers which had been stocked to please a predominantly British clientele. The serving staff spoke impressive English and if it hadn’t been for the stunning blue sky outside and the invigorating warmth of the sun, they could just have easily been in Blackpool. Only there, as Terry observed, the sea would have looked like shit and the sky would have been as grey as Porter’s hair.

  In response, Porter took a crafty suck on his vaper, checking that he hadn’t been spotted by the staff. He’d got away with it.

  ‘After all, it’s not really smoking, is it?’ he said to Naomi, who was sitting next to him at the table.

  ‘Well, actually, Porter it is really, isn’t it?’

  He looked stunned by that.

  ‘I see people all the time in the ... when I’m out. I see people in restaurants ignoring the No Smoking signs and when you challenge them about it, they say it’s not smoking. Well it is. Only we don’t know yet how much shit they put in those things and what harm it can do to you.’

  Porter decided against a debate on the issue. Instead, he placed the device in his back pocket and resolved to try a little harder to try to give up the habit. Being a smoker was like being a plague carrier in the twenty-first century. Terry and Emmy exchanged a smirk. Both had given up smoking some years previously, in spite of it being so prevalent in their professions. They could now gloat at those still struggling to quit. Besides, any time Porter got called out for being a pillock, it was something to be celebrated. He and Caitlen were their only obstacles to being together, out in the open. And soon both of them would be out of the way.

  Chapter Eleven

  Benidorm: June

  ‘Now that sounds good. Much better than that shit Wes was playing.’

  Terry had already drunk a little more than he should have and his mouth was starting to run away with the excitement of it all. They’d gone along the seafront to walk off their pizza and had been drawn to a bar from which the sound of heavy rock tunes was emanating.

  Wes ignored the comment, he was used to arseholes in the audience.

  It might sound better if you stop trying to strangle it mate!

  Do you know any decent songs?

  Will somebody please put that cat out of its misery!

  Men like Terry were par for the course in his line of work. It was the women it brought into his orbit who made it all worthwhile.

  There’s something about a man who can make music. It worked like a charm for Wes. He’d travel the bars, playing covers of hit tunes, making a bit of money and getting laid along the way. He was a young bloke with no ties, what else would he do? Besides, he’d had to leave Thailand in a rush. He’d overstayed his welcome there.

  For Wes, Benidorm had everything that he needed: British holiday-makers, hundreds of bars which catered to their every need, and gullible women like Caitlen who’d take him on face value without a second thought about who he might be. She’d been standing right next to him in the passport queue and if she’d taken the trouble to glance at his passport, she’d have seen that the first thing he told her was a lie. His name was not Wesley Nolasco. He’d chosen that name on a whim. Now that he’d all but seduced them with his music, he had them hook, line and sinker. He was already a part of the group – it was as if he’d always been around.

  ‘You’re incredibly talented,’
Gina said, moving up closer to him as Rhett and Terry played air guitar behind them on the pavement.

  ‘Thank you, I appreciate it!’ he said, giving his best charming smile. ‘Thanks for the tip-off about Erin’s Bar, too. That sounds like just my kind of place. Once the heavy metal festival ends, I hope we can go there so I can check it out.’

  ‘It’s fun, they have all sorts of acts on. I don’t know if they have any open slots, but it’ll be a good start if nothing else.’

  ‘How long have you been out here?’ Wes asked.

  Gina was attractive, he was younger than the other guys in their group, and he reckoned that would put him at the front of the queue. Besides, they were all paired off or gay – except for Harriet, who he’d also make time to speak to as soon as possible. All he needed to do was to find out their favourite song, play it on stage, dedicate the tune to them in front of an audience, and you’d hear the ping of their knicker elastic before the final chord had been played.

  ‘I’m a traveller,’ Gina said, sensing their commonality. ‘I don’t live anywhere in particular, I don’t have a bloke or a woman in tow, so I please myself.’

  Wes clocked the clues. So she was probably bi. Either that, or very PC. Either way, at least fifty per cent of her was into men, that was all he needed to work with.

  ‘What’s your preferred type of music? I take it a lady like you isn’t into this stuff?’

  AC/DC’s ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ was now blaring out of the speakers. Terry and Rhett were back to back on a beachfront bench playing air guitar. Anybody passing might have mistaken them for Angus and Malcolm Young. On second look, they’d have realised it was just a couple of British idiots.

  ‘Oh, I love a bit of rock and roll at times. I like this stuff. But when I’m working I like it quieter. David Gray, Dido, Coldplay. That sort of thing. Do you play David Gray?’

  If I don’t now, I soon will, Wes thought to himself.

  ‘Yeah, I reckon I could still manage “Babylon”, although it’s a while since I’ve played it. I’ll do it tonight if they let me on stage.’

  ‘Wow, really? Thank you, what a treat.’

  ‘One to go,’ was the thought running through Wes’s head as he looked around for Harriet. The others had begun to gather away from the bar and were looking out towards the sea over to Benidorm. Harriet was there, not really taking part in the conversation. The loners were always the easiest for Wes. Nobody to get in the way and make life difficult.

  ‘We should join the others,’ Wes said to Gina. ‘I think those two will have burned themselves out soon.’

  As ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ came to an end and Terry and Rhett came to the realisation that they were not in fact on stage at Wembley, the consensus was that it was time to move on.

  Terry was dripping with sweat. Rhett, the fitter of the two, regained his composure swiftly.

  ‘Okay, we need to regroup!’ Caitlen said.

  She was not the leader, but as she was bankrolling the entire holiday, she felt duty-bound to keep things on track. So far it had felt like herding cats.

  ‘I propose a gentle walk along the beach before Terry dies from a heart attack, then we head for Erin’s Bar. Everybody okay with that?’

  ‘It’s quite a walk along the beach,’ Gina said. ‘If you follow me, I’ll lead the way.’

  They split off into their groups. Terry, Emmy and Rhett moved off towards the sea away from the walkway. Matt tried to resist Becky pulling away as a couple. He made a vain attempt to include Naomi in the conversation, but Becky was having none of it. She took Matt’s hand and fell back from the main group.

  ‘I’m going to run ahead,’ Wes said.

  He’d brought his guitar with him, ready to put on a show at the drop of a hat if he got a bite in one of the bars.

  He put his hand up as a parting gesture, smiled at Gina and moved into the crowd of holiday-makers who were enjoying the last of the day’s sunshine.

  Kasey and Harriet, who might have been a couple had their gender preferences been different, walked on with Naomi and Porter. The debate about vaping had flared up again, and as a former smoker himself Kasey was now siding with Porter and his right to choose. It was more friendly now, there was a lot more laughter, Naomi realised that she’d been too quick off the mark in condemning her friend. She’d almost bitten his head off. She’d have to watch that temper.

  Caitlen was ecstatic that she was left alone with Gina. She hung back a little, making sure that they stayed ahead of Matt and Becky but didn’t catch up with the vaping debating society. She didn’t care about the argument and couldn’t care less what Porter did. He never smoked in their house, that was all she cared about.

  ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ said Gina. ‘People call this place Blackpool with sun but it’s much better than that. I love it here. You’ve got the trains and the tram, you’re ten minutes from the most incredible countryside. And the weather’s amazing.’

  ‘You know, I’m really quite envious of you, Gina. How do you do it, living on your own, with no job or house to worry about? I’d love to do what you do.’

  ‘Aren’t you and Terry married – do you have kids?’

  With one short sentence, Gina had got to the heart of it.

  ‘No, we don’t have kids and we’re not married.’

  Gina said nothing.

  ‘Truth be told, we’re like chalk and cheese. As you can probably tell from his heavy rock performance back there.’

  Gina laughed.

  ‘It was quite something, wasn’t it? How do you know Wes? He’s not one of your group, is he?’

  ‘No, I picked him up at the airport. Not like that, of course. I don’t really know how we picked him up actually. He just tagged along. But what a performer!’

  ‘I don’t want to piss on your parade, but just be wary of Wes. I meet a lot of guys like him on the road. They’re chancers. Wherever I lay my hat and all that. He’s tried his luck with me already. If he plays a David Gray song on stage during this holiday, believe me, he’s a freeloader. I just don’t want you to be taken advantage of.’

  ‘This beach is fantastic,’ Caitlen changed the subject, she hadn’t even thought to question Wes’s motives. Naomi’s group had stopped walking and were waiting for Gina to catch up so they could check how far they had to walk.

  ‘It’s a little way to go yet. You’re not going flaky on me, are you? If you think this is a long way, you should try the walk up to the Benidorm Cross up there!’

  Gina pointed ahead of her into the distance. On a hill, overlooking the resort and behind the high-rise buildings was a large cross.

  ‘Can you walk up there?’ Naomi asked. ‘It looks really high up.’

  ‘It’s quite a hike if you’re not used to walking long distances, but it’s not that difficult. Just pace yourself and bring some water to cool yourself down, you don’t need to be an athlete to get up there.’

  Terry, Rhett and Emmy joined the group, half hearing the conversation.

  ‘Are you talking about walking all the way up to that cross?’ Rhett asked.

  ‘We are,’ Naomi answered. ‘If you think you could manage it after your heavy metal escapades.’

  ‘Walk all the way up there?’ Emmy said, her eyes searching for the cross. ‘Over my dead body!’

  Chapter Twelve

  Matt and Becky: April

  ‘Well, I think she was a right cow upstaging us like that. It’s our engagement – news doesn’t come any bigger than that!’

  Becky had been fractious since they’d returned from Caitlen’s dinner party. Matt was preoccupied with his earlier encounter with Harriet in the kitchen. They’d almost been caught, but it felt delicious – dangerous, daring and exhilarating. And now he was back in his prison cell, like a dog on a lead, itching to run off into the distance but constrained by his owner.

  How had he got himself into this state? It was a classic rebound scenario, only he’d been stupid enough to take refuge with Becky. Now, Beck
y was hot, she was a great looking woman and any man would be proud to be seen out with her at a physical level. But she was unstable. It’s the only way Matt knew how to describe it. He knew that mental illness could be a sensitive issue, he had every sympathy with anybody experiencing it. But Becky was dangerous. He didn’t know how it would be described in medical terms. He’d looked it up online. It was psychosis, as far as he could tell, doing his amateur doctor research. She appeared to be delusional, perhaps even bipolar at times. She was up and down a lot, but you only got a real sense of that when you spent every day with her. And now he’d signed up for that, he felt completely trapped.

  He’d always fancied Becky physically and she’d made it very clear from the first day that they’d met – at another one of Caitlen’s get-togethers, ironically enough – that she wanted him. It had been a cause of tension between him and Harriet at the time.

  ‘She wants to jump your bones, that’s really bloody rude of her to make it so obvious while I’m around.’

  ‘She’s only messing around and you know I’m not interested. She’s attractive, sure, but she’s not marriage material. She can be pretty tempestuous at times.’

  That would make Harriet prickly, the talk of marriage and the implied suggestion of babies. She wasn’t ready for that yet, and any mention of it pressed the wrong buttons for her. It was a discussion just like that which had caused Matt to flee to Becky in the first place.

  ‘Do you think she’ll share the money out? I mean, maybe chip in and help with the wedding. She could pay for the honeymoon as a present.’

  Becky broke Matt’s train of thought. The truth was, since being with her he’d recognised a little bit of himself in her. That neediness. He’d pressured Harriet too much. He loved Harriet and wanted to marry her. He desired nothing more than to think about a life of marital bliss and babies. But he’d come on too strong, Harriet needed more time. And in his impetuousness, he’d blown the best relationship he’d ever had. And exchanged it for this one with Becky.