The Time of Our Lives Read online

  He blinks, clearly unable to think of a reply to that one. ‘Right. Well. Have a nice flight.’

  I nod and force a smile, then head back to the girls, thanking the Lord that I never have to see him again.

  Chapter 4

  He’s on the flight. Of course he is. I’m rifling through my complimentary bag of up-market toiletries when I register someone walking past and realise it’s him. He’s removed his shirt and is down to a grey marl T-shirt. I take a deep breath and pray that he doesn’t sit next to me.

  He pauses, surveying the seats as he glances at his ticket, before sailing past to sit two seats in front. I exhale with genuine relief.

  Nic and Meredith are together in two seats by the window, while I’m in the middle, adjacent. It matters not that we’re separated by an aisle – in this utopia of aviation nothing matters.

  Meredith leans over to me, wide-eyed. ‘There’s that guy!’ she hisses.

  ‘Hmm?’ I say vaguely, as if I hadn’t noticed.

  ‘The GUY! The one you threw your drink over.’ Meredith jabs her finger at him as if providing driving directions to a half-blind simpleton, and Nicola, torn between amusement and feeling my pain, nudges her and tells her to shush.

  Meredith lowers her voice – slightly. ‘Oh, come off it, Nicola Harris. Tell me you’re not thinking exactly what I’m thinking?’

  Nicola raises her eyebrows innocently, with a half-smirk. ‘What would that be?’

  ‘That we need to stop neglecting our duties and get Imogen off with a gorgeous bloke like that.’

  ‘I’m saying nothing,’ replies Nicola diplomatically, going back to her book.

  ‘That sounds like an excellent idea, Meredith,’ I hiss sarcastically, drawing a finger across my neck just as Hot Guy spins round, prompting me to slump in my seat, pretend I’ve never met this woman before in my life and do everything in my power to concentrate instead on enjoying my first ever business-class flight.

  It’s already amazing, and we’re not even off the tarmac. Oh, the luxury, the sophistication . . . the prospect of not sitting for two and a half hours with my knees in the optimum position for a triple pike. The air hostesses are smiling angels – attentive, but not overly so – offering to cater to our every whim, with the possible exception of supplying Ryan Gosling and several tubs of whipped cream (this isn’t exactly on the menu, but you get the picture). Plus, the majority of passengers are seated and ready for take-off, and it’s looking like the three seats next to me are going to be free. If I was in economy, my heart would leap at this prospect – I could stretch out! – but here, no encroaching on an area other than mine is required; my own legroom is so vast, I could probably undertake an entire Pilates session in it.

  ‘What are you reading, Imogen?’ Nic asks, leaning across Meredith as I take my book out of my bag.

  ‘The Book Thief. I’ve been trying to get this started for a while, but life’s got in the way. This time it’s going to be different.’

  I used to read constantly – everything from chick lit to classics such as Great Expectations and, my all-time favourite, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. These days, reading represents a luxury that I don’t have enough time for. Consequently, I first opened The Book Thief in 2010 and got to chapter three. I tried again that September, then in January 2011, then March this year. Those first three chapters were bloody good, so this time I am absolutely determined to get through it.

  I open the first page and re-acquaint myself with the haunting words of its opening passage. ‘Here is a small fact: You are going to die.’

  This might not be an optimal reminder just before take-off, but I persevere. I get to the third line before I am abruptly interrupted by a sound similar in volume to that of a Cape Canaveral rocket launch.

  ‘WAHHHHHHHHH!’

  The piercing screech of the small boy who has suddenly appeared in the seat next to mine is discernable only nanoseconds before his foot lands with a violent thud on my chin.

  Neither of my friends witness this; indeed, it’s only when Meredith breaks her momentary gaze at Hot Guy in front that she does a double take. ‘Have you got a nosebleed?’ she asks me.

  ‘Oh . . . bugger!’ I grab the complimentary lemon and bergamot wipe from my cosmetics bag, rip it in half and shove it up each nostril as the captain announces we’re ready for takeoff.

  ‘Anisha. Now. NOW!’ The source of these frenzied pleas is the chubby little boy’s mother. She looks like an Arabian supermodel, with perfect eyeliner, glossy hair and a figure so tiny it’s impossible to believe that belly ever contained not one but two children. Despite the cabin crew’s repeated requests for the little boy to fasten his seatbelt, it’s his older sister who is being shrieked at by their mum for refusing to hand over her iPad.

  ‘NOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!’ she adds, just to be absolutely clear.

  ‘Um . . . can I help?’ I offer, but she doesn’t even hear me and the dispute between mother and daughter escalates until it is less a familial tussle and more something you’d expect to see on WWE’s SmackDown: hair is pulled, eyes are scratched but, eventually, the iPad is ripped from the little girl’s hands and she’s thrust into her seat, a lollipop produced from somewhere and shoved in her mouth. I have no idea what’s in it – Valium, judging by its effects – but it certainly calms her down.

  ‘Madam, I’m so sorry, but you really need to take your seat,’ the air hostess pleads.

  ‘I’m attempting to!’ growls the woman, flicking hair back from her now perspiring forehead, grabbing her little boy’s legs and – as I dive out of the way – flipping him over with the skill of a Chinese gymnastics instructor. The lollipop trick is employed on him too and, finally, the woman flings herself down and clicks on her seat belt. Seconds later, we take off.

  I her offer a sympathetic smile. ‘Flights can be a bit of a challenge with kids, can’t they?’

  She responds with a flaccid look and picks up the in-flight magazine.

  Over the next two hours and twenty minutes, it’s evident that the flight would have been more peaceful seated next to a hyperactive goat. The only saving grace is that I’m not seated in front of the Demon Child – that seat is kicked, stamped and head-butted to such an extent that I’m surprised the passenger sitting there isn’t in need of emergency spinal surgery.

  Their mother, or perhaps she’s their probation officer, has the right idea: she flips on her headphones, orders two large gins and tonic, and reclines her seat, clearly hoping to shut out the last five years. It’s only when she throws a pill down her neck and pops on her eye mask that I consider getting a bit cross – particularly as it coincides with her son trampolining on his seat, launching into a rousing rendition of ‘Food, Glorious Food’ and spilling my champagne all over my copy of The Book Thief.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Meredith asks, an hour from landing. She’s been asleep and the whole episode, nosebleed apart, has passed her by.

  ‘This is fantastic, Meredith.’ I dredge up a genuine smile. ‘Honestly, it’s incredibly kind of you to have shared your prize with us.’

  At which point, a bumper bag of M&Ms spills exuberantly all over my lap and the little boy attempts to retrieve them by shoving his podgy hands under my bum.

  The children’s lunch menu has a choice of dishes, including spaghetti Bolognese: a genius addition given that no under-five ever manages to get more than about 25 per cent of it in their mouth. Sure enough, my neighbour’s sauce ends up in the seat pocket in front of him, the seat pocket in front of me, in his hair, in my hair – everywhere, in fact, except his stomach. He concludes this dining experience by picking his nose with a bright red-sauce-coated finger, wiping it on the arm rest between us, and burping voluminously. At which point, Hot Guy two seats in front turns around, clearly believing it to have been me.

  I sink even more deeply into my seat as the two children put their complimentary flight socks on both hands and proceed to have a ‘puppet show’– which may be better described as a GBH spree
.

  The air hostesses are aware of all this, of course, and make up for my misery by pushing as much champagne as possible on me, presumably to dull the pain. Other than that, there’s little they can do given that there are no spare seats to move me to. The children’s mother remains in a near coma until the very end of the flight, when she wakes up with a start, rushes to the toilet, and begins throwing up loudly, a process that continues right until we’re on terra firma, when she emerges, wiping her mouth, her eyeliner only slightly smudged.

  By that stage, I am filthy, drunk, and have read only ten words of The Book Thief. It’s fair to conclude the experience wasn’t entirely as I’d envisaged.

  Chapter 5

  At least I can look forward to our first treat on Spanish soil: the limo that Elegant Vacations promised would be picking us up. It’s not a proper limo, according to Meredith that’s the sort of thing in which a rap star snorts coke off a Page 3 Girl’s bum cheeks, it’s really just a plush taxi. At least . . . it was.

  After a fifteen-minute wait and a long phone call by Meredith, it becomes evident that the plush taxi company that was supposed to be picking us up is, in fact, the figment of someone’s fraudulent imagination.

  ‘The woman from Elegant Vacations is beside herself with apologies,’ Meredith says, shaking her head when she comes off the phone. ‘I felt a little sorry for her.’

  ‘Oh, tell her not to worry – we’re hardly in a position to complain,’ I reassure her.

  We take the metro instead, a transport system that, in common with most major cities in the world, does not showcase the best of Barcelona. Within minutes, two descriptions spring to mind: oppressively hot and grotesquely grubby. And that’s just me.

  I rest my head on the window and close my eyes, slipping into a familiar dream: a flashback to the day I met Roberto.

  It was when Peebles was about to sign a deal for its brands to become one of the official sponsors of the Commonwealth Games. I was a junior marketing executive at the time, but as my boss was off sick it was down to me to brief the PR company so they could produce a press release.

  I was slightly late after my previous meeting had overrun, and I arrived in the boardroom distracted and self-conscious. David was already introducing the members of the legal team employed to work on the contract, of which Roberto was one.

  The only available seat was next to him and, as I sank into it, I singularly failed to register how gorgeous he was – at least, at first. Maybe it was because I’d recently come out of a relationship that, although not serious, had lasted a year, so the furthest thing on my mind was another man, but, with hindsight, it wasn’t only that.

  Roberto wasn’t the sort of man who walked into a room and made everyone look twice. He was handsome but understated, with a slight build, modest smile and dark, glossy eyes framed by unfeasibly long lashes. His attractiveness was the type that started small but grew and grew on you until you could do nothing but be dazzled by his beauty. In fact, the first thing that grabbed my attention that day was his smell: a sublime combination of soap and Grigioperla. One minute I was taking notes about the deal, the next I was struggling to concentrate on anything but the heat coming from the person next to me.

  When the meeting broke for coffee, I was unable to resist any longer. And so I took my first glimpse of the man with whom I would fall irreversibly in love; the future father of my child.

  ‘I’m Roberto D’Annucio.’

  I could never resist the way Roberto spoke – his accent would make bingo-calling sound like a sonnet. In those early months of his time in the UK, he relished picking up quintessentially English phrases, everything from, ‘I’ve eaten like a horse’, to ‘Sleep tight’, the latter of which he would soon whisper to me every night, between kisses.

  That day, as we shook hands, the dry warmth from his fingers radiated through me and, though I’ve never believed in love at first sight, it stirred every inch of me.

  He sent an email the following day about the press release. I sent one back. Those first few were infuriatingly perfunctory, achingly business-like. Although I would soon become very acquainted with the fire in his belly, at the start Roberto was nothing but reserved. It was therefore to my surprise that the emails continued after the press release was sent out, appeared in the media, and the deal was well and truly completed. They become friendlier, sweeter and with a tantalising hint of flirtation. But, after eight weeks of lying in bed each night, unable to expel thoughts of him from my head, I became convinced that my growing obsession was futile.

  Then a note containing two simple, perfect sentences arrived in my inbox.

  Imogen, I’d like to take you for drink. Would you agree?

  Our first date – because it was a date, as foggy as that definition felt in the run-up to it – was at my favourite pub in Clapham, the Windmill.

  It was on the best type of winter afternoon, with a vivid blue sky dotted with storybook clouds and a marshmallow layer of snow on the rooftops. We settled by a window and hours disappeared in minutes as I lost myself in his eyes and a blanket of darkness fell upon the day.

  We didn’t just have things in common: meeting Roberto was like discovering a male version of me. He’d overplayed that Razorlight album as much as I had, laughed at the same bits in Meet the Fockers. We even worked out that he’d arrived in London for the first time in exactly the same week that I had.

  ‘Do you think Fate is telling us something?’ He smiled and I laughed and blushed. And silently prayed that he wasn’t joking.

  The Roberto I discovered that afternoon was a man I’d never realised could exist: as sweet and funny as he was clever and kind (although, admittedly, at the time the sole basis I had to conclude the latter was the £1.50 he gave to a Big Issue seller). And, despite being convinced that a man who’d taken nearly two months to ask me out surely wouldn’t kiss me at the end of the date, he proved to be deliciously bold. On that heavenly, snow-laced London afternoon, we stood beneath a blackberry sky and his lips met mine.

  What started off slowly, with that mouth-watering wait for him to ask me out, became rocket-propelled. We saw each other three times a week, then every night. He came to Liverpool to meet my family (prompting my mother to fall immediately in love with him); I flew to Florence to meet his. Before I knew it, he had moved into my flat and we were filling it with knickknacks bought together at flea markets, eating like kings – he was an incredible cook – and spending lazy weekends getting drunk on each other.

  Oh, those days. Days when we had a serious amount of sex. Hot sex. Slow sex. Frantic sex. Every type of sex you could think of, in fact, with the exception of bad sex, which I naïvely convinced myself was a chemical impossibility between us.

  I become vaguely conscious that this thought, of those longgone days when Roberto and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other, is making me squirm with pleasure . . . At which point, I am violently awoken.

  It isn’t that the accordion player’s rendition of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ is all that bad – not if you’re comparing its musical qualities to, say, fingernails screeching across a blackboard. What it is, though, is loud. Devastatingly, flatulently loud. The musician in question is clearly either completely deaf or under the impression he’s performing at a venue comparable in size to the Camp Nou football stadium, rather than the small, confined baked-bean tin that is this carriage.

  I look away and slump in my seat, trying to pretend it’s not happening, but to my alarm he reads my body language and perceives this as a challenge.

  He begins to Dad-dance towards me with an enthusiastic grin, stomping his feet in a deranged, tuneless serenade. I glare at my friends, who snigger in wide-eyed disbelief as he throws in a little jig to this display, which he clearly considers jaunty despite his generosity of body fat.

  Just as I am close to expiring from embarrassment, he spins around, pausing briefly to encourage people in the carriage to start clapping. Fortunately, the only person he succeeds in
persuading to join in is an elderly man with a Brillo-pad beard who, until now, has been sucking on an electric cigarette like he’s trying to vacuum it directly into his lungs.

  As other passengers look on, I root around in my bag and produce a couple of euros, foisting it on the guy in the hope that it will get rid of him. Sadly, as my cheeks inflame almost as much as my ears, I realise that he has interpreted this move as an indication that I’m impressed with his work and want more. So he continues. And continues. Until, finally, we reach our stop and I drag my sorry self off the train in the certainty that my ears will be throbbing until at least this time tomorrow.

  Chapter 6

  The B Hotel rises majestically out of Barceloneta’s platinum sand beach like a gargantuan, glistening spaceship. It has all the attributes of a super-cool urban hotel, but its location at the end of a boardwalk sprinkled with relaxed tapas bars and overlooking the tumbling, ultramarine waters of the Mediterranean also gives it the feel of a holiday resort.

  Inside, there is absolutely no evidence of the troubles that have hit Spain’s economy in the last few years. The decor couldn’t be more impressive if it’d been the brainchild of a design guru called Flashy McSwanky. A vast foyer leads to a pool area of knee-trembling tranquillity, an oasis of polished tiles and palm trees arranged in a swaying phalanx around an elegant infinity pool. Ambient tunes drift across the deck of rich, dark wood, accompanying the chatter of beautiful people as they sip rainbow-coloured cocktails and massage suncream into their already well-moisturised thighs.

  I cannot wait to join them, even if I’ve failed to find time to moisturise my thighs in weeks.

  Back at the reception desk, it’s the most popular time to check in, judging by the crowds in the foyer, all of whom own the sort of luggage that makes mine look as though I bought it from the seconds stall at the world’s worst jumble sale.