The Time of Our Lives Read online

  ‘Have you seen the limo that’s just pulled up outside?’ Nicola says, craning her neck to see past me. ‘I’ve seen shorter National Express coaches.’

  ‘I wonder if it’s someone famous?’ hoots Meredith as she shamelessly heads off to get a good look. Nic and I coolly hang back, attempting to generate the illusion that we encounter this sort of thing every day.

  I don’t recognise the woman who steps out of the car, followed by a troupe of hangers-on and a stack of luggage the size of a modest Hebridean island. But, from the proportions of her bouncers, height of her heels and the obligatory aviator glasses, she must be famous.

  ‘She does look vaguely familiar,’ says Nicola. ‘Although she wasn’t in the Heat I read on the plane.’

  The hotel staff have acquired the air of a team of Victorian domestic servants, scurrying around her before she’s whisked away, no doubt to a room of palatial dimensions.

  ‘That was Spain’s hottest new movie star, Calandria Benevente,’ Meredith informs us triumphantly, having quizzed the doorman. ‘She’s tipped to be the next Penelope Cruz.’

  While we’re waiting to check in, Meredith nips off to the loo – again – and I take the opportunity to have a brief conversation with Florence for no other reason than to hear her voice.

  When we eventually reach the front desk, we’re greeted by a young concierge who’s as groomed as a championship dressage horse.

  ‘Hello, ladies. May I take your passports?’ He’s Spanish, but with perfect English pronunciation and a manner clearly honed at a succession of customer-service tutorials in grovelling.

  Nicola hands over her passport, while I give him mine and Meredith’s.

  He taps at a keyboard, pausing as his smile disintegrates. ‘I’m terribly sorry about this . . . it seems that your rooms aren’t quite ready yet.’

  ‘But it’s 2 p.m.,’ I wail. I’m coated in a putrid concoction of Bolognese sauce and small child’s snot, and I am desperate for a shower. ‘I thought we could check in now?’

  He looks profoundly disturbed, as if this is the stuff of nightmares from which you awake in a tepid sweat screaming for your mother. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s extremely unusual, but we’ve experienced a staffing shortage among our cleaning team that we’re trying to resolve as soon as possible. It’s the first time it’s ever happened. We can hold your bags while you take a walk on the beach, or perhaps a cocktail at the bar? On us, of course.’

  The truth is, I’m quietly rat-arsed from the flight and the novelty of free drinks has worn off.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ I reply, not wanting to make a fuss. ‘Will someone come and let me know when it’s ready?’

  ‘Of course! Leave your mobile number with us and I’ll phone you when it’s done.’

  Meredith returns from the toilet and I break the news to her about the rooms. Meredith and I will be sharing the one that was part of the prize. It felt a bit Mallory Towers at first, but she said she’d prefer it that way, adding ominously that it would be ‘just like a girlie sleepover!’

  The three of us head through the gleaming granite lobby, towards two enormous glass doors that lead to the hotel’s private beach. It is so perfect even the sand looks as if it’s been sieved.

  In the light of the fact that I look as though I have waded through a swamp to get here and really don’t feel ready to take on the glamorous clientele around the pool just yet, I persuade the girls to head a little further afield so that we can stretch our legs.

  The main beach is in every way what you’d expect from Spain on a sunny day – hot, packed and full of people in various stages of undress. Having been to Spain before, it’s no surprise that plenty of people are sunbathing in the Continental (i.e. topless) fashion; what I hadn’t expected, as we slowly make our way along the boardwalk looking for a suitable spot, was that some people are not just topless. In fact, some people are significantly more than topless.

  ‘HAS HE GOT HIS CROWN JEWELS OUT?’ Meredith whoops, at the sort of volume Amazonian Indians might employ to communicate with people in neighbouring villages.

  ‘Sshhhhh!’ I hiss.

  Nicola suppresses a laugh. ‘It was mentioned in the guidebook I bought at the airport. Apparently, for years before our hotel was built, this was one of Barcelona’s nudist beaches. The powers-that-be assumed that would stop when the hotel opened, and it largely has. But some of the older generation keep the tradition alive.’

  This history lesson explains another curious phenomenon: the only people brave enough to have whipped off everything are those who clearly got here on a free bus pass. Part of me admires these game over-sixties: their lack of inhibition, their joie de vivre, the fact that they’re sticking two fingers up at society’s obsession with youth. That’s the part of me that doesn’t get an eyeful of drooping, leathery buttock every way I turn.

  Anyone our age is significantly more prudish, with the exception of a smattering of topless girls. Oh, and one other exception:

  ‘Come on!’ Meredith’s top and maternity bra are off faster than you can say ‘tandem Space Hoppers’, followed by her shorts.

  Nicola raises her eyebrows in despair.

  ‘When in Rome!’ Meredith grins, casting off her Mamas and Papas knickers and skipping towards the water. She plunges in like a newborn hippo enthusiastically attempting to learn the breaststroke.

  ‘My pants are staying where they are,’ Nicola tells me.

  ‘Don’t worry – mine, too.’

  Nic and I find a spot in which to sit and I remove a pair of shades from my bag and put them on, only to discover that my hurried packing has left me with the 3D glasses I bought at the Odeon when I took Florence to Ice Age 4 last weekend.

  ‘Cool.’ Nicola smirks.

  ‘Oh God! Still’ – I gesture to four old gents with bellies bigger than Meredith’s playing a lively game of naked boules – ‘their saving grace is they make everything look nice and blurry.’

  I lie on my side, attempting to look entirely relaxed about the fact that I’m surrounded by gentlemen’s unmentionables, and take out my book. It might have been an eventful journey, but this is when it starts: my peace and quiet. My opportunity to relax. My first proper holiday in years . . .

  ‘Here is a small fact . . .’

  ‘IMOGEN COPELAND!’

  I don’t recognise the voice, but it’s very clearly British with a hint of Scouse. ‘Imogen Copeland and Nicola Harris. Well. I. Never!’

  We gaze up at the figure addressing us, squinting as the sun streams into our eyes. Nicola scrambles to a standing position and I follow suit . . . immediately wishing I hadn’t.

  ‘Mr Brayfield! What a . . . surprise,’ Nic manages, in the same way you’d greet a severe bout of cystitis. ‘My mum mentioned she’d seen you in Sainsbury’s the other week.’

  Mr Brayfield was our geography teacher at school; our onelegged geography teacher, to be precise. He was very good at his job – I got an A in my GCSE – and was known for his boundless energy. The precise nature of how he lost his leg was the subject of endless speculation and theories abounded, ranging from a shark attack, to getting it stuck in the lift in John Lewis. He deliberately refused to tell us the real story, preferring to retain a sense of mystery – an approach I sincerely wish he’d extended into all other areas in his life. For, the notable thing about Mr Brayfield right now is not his singular leg, nor his crutches – famously carved with the initials of every sixth former he’s ever taught. It’s that he’s not wearing anything. He’s as devoid of strides as the day he was born.

  Of all the views I expected on holiday, I can think of none for which I could have wished less.

  ‘Yes, your mum and I had a good old natter,’ he says with a grin. Nicola’s eyes are darting to the sky, then the sand, then at the rollerbladers zigzagging past on the boardwalk. Anywhere, in fact, that isn’t Mr Brayfield’s nethers. ‘She mentioned you’d found yourself a new man, Nicola. Well done you!’

  ‘A new . . . man?’
I ask, to check I’ve heard right.

  ‘Don’t tell me she hasn’t told you about her new fellow!’ Mr Brayfield guffaws. ‘Your mum seemed to approve of him, anyway.’

  I glance at Nicola, who squirms uncomfortably.

  ‘So, what are you two doing here?’ he continues.

  ‘Oh . . . erm, we won a competition. We’re only here for a few days,’ I mumble.

  ‘Lucky old you two. Barcelona’s got everything!’ he declares, swinging out his arms triumphantly. We take a step back. ‘Dot and I have been coming for years, haven’t we?’

  He spins round and registers his wife coming up twenty feet behind, clearly unable to keep up with his considerable pace.

  Mrs Brayfield is a large, glistening woman, her pale pink flesh flushed to a violent russet from the neck up, who wheezes her way to us wearing only (and I mean, only) a large camping rucksack.

  ‘Keep up, old girl,’ chuckles Mr Brayfield. ‘I was telling Nicola and Imogen here that we come to Barcelona all the time, don’t we?’

  She’s puffing and panting like a steam train under threat of decommission as she joins us. ‘Hello, yes, we . . . love it. It’s a splendid place. I’m Dot.’ She holds out a hand, which we tentatively shake while maintaining firm eye contact. ‘So!’ she hoots, as I pretend to be distracted by an enthralling game of Frisbee. ‘Are you ex-pupils?’

  We nod awkwardly and she bursts into laughter. ‘Bry-an! You shouldn’t be giving these two an eyeful of your ding-along! They’ll be embarrassed, won’t you?’

  Nicola and I shift from one foot to another, trying to think of an answer.

  ‘Not that you should be – once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,’ philosophises Mrs B, pulling the rucksack off her back with a hearty huff. ‘And there’s nothing offensive about Bryan’s, is there?’

  We stand mute as the horrifying possibility dawns on us that she’s inviting us to examine, and possibly compliment, the genitalia of the man who taught us the difference between erosional and depositional landforms.

  I glance at Nicola, who is green. ‘I’m sorry,’ she announces suddenly. ‘We need to go and check in now.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ I reinforce. ‘We very much do. We need to go and get our friend, then go.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ asks Mr Brayfield.

  ‘Madrid,’ Nicola replies.

  But, having made themselves comfortable on a tartan blanket, they’re now too busy rummaging around in the backpack to hear.

  ‘Sure you don’t want to stay and have a picnic?’ offers Mrs Brayfield, as she picks damp pieces of paper napkin off some soggy breakfast buns clearly appropriated from a hotel buffet.

  ‘Ah, we could have a chat about old times!’ Mr Brayfield adds, but Nicola is now backing away as though she is being threatened with a pump-action shotgun.

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ she says. ‘Enjoy the rest of your day.’

  ‘Oh, we will,’ Mr Brayfield assures us. ‘And be careful with the suncream. Muggins here missed a few bits last time – ouch!’ He grins, pointing downwards.

  At which point Nicola looks like she might faint.

  Chapter 7

  We finally get to our room around 5 p.m. I’m not sure why but, judging by the anxiety etched into the concierge’s forehead, it isn’t something that happens often.

  The room is a miracle of modern hospitality: an ambiently lit, orgasmically appointed homage to interior design. Silk curtains fall heavily on a carpet of intense depth and softness, while state-of-the-art gadgets sit in subtle juxtaposition to a view of amaranthine loveliness across the sea.

  I am running my fingers over the crisp white sheets of one of the two enormous twin beds, imagining how it will feel to sink into the whispering softness of its pillows, when Meredith bursts out of the toilet.

  ‘There’s a LOO-ROLL LIGHT! Isn’t that awesome?’

  ‘What’s a loo-roll light?’

  ‘Well . . . it lights up your loo roll,’ she replies, an ask-a-sillyquestion response if ever I’ve heard one.

  There’s no doubt about it – it couldn’t be more perfect. All I need now is to clean myself up and enjoy this properly.

  As Meredith settles down with Spanish Vogue, I go to take a shower, a prospect I’ve never relished more as I peel off my Bolognese-coated T-shirt.

  I reach out to turn the chrome tap, closing my eyes as I anticipate warm suds sweeping down my body. Instead, I am assaulted by water colder than the deep end of Tooting Bec Lido in January. Shrieking, I leap out, and spend the next five minutes hopping about, turning blue and wrestling with the temperature knob as Meredith provides what she clearly believes to be helpful instructions, formed solely on the basis of watching one episode of DIY SOS.

  I reluctantly reach the conclusion that nothing I do is going to work, a fact I struggle to compute – that my five-star hotel, the likes of which I’m never likely to see the inside of again, has failed to provide me with hot, running water.

  I grab a dressing gown and tiptoe into the bedroom to discover cards next to the phone advertising the hotel’s ‘Whatever your whim’ service, which apparently caters for every tiny request imaginable. I phone the number and explain that my only whim is for a shower. A simple, straightforward shower.

  After apologising profusely, they send up a man. He proceeds to fiddle with the shower until, to the soundtrack of his frenzied cries, it sends water spewing all over him, our room and our carpet of intense depth and softness.

  So another man comes along and – apologising profusely – tells us we need to move rooms. At which point a woman appears and – apologising profusely – marches us to another room on the floor above. She reassures me that I can keep hold of the dressing gown until I get there, as if I’d considered the alternative.

  Meredith can’t resist a bit of a grumble, however, although that’s partly because she’s received a text from Nathan telling her he loves her and enquiring if she’s massaging her perineum regularly.

  But, all in all, I think we’re remarkably stoic – something that can partly be attributed to the profuse apologies, which are so relentless I’m not sure how many more I can take.

  We finally settle in our new room with a working shower, and it is every bit as exquisite as I’d hoped. The result is that I am now bathed, relaxed, swaddled in a robe so fluffy you could wear it while husky-sledging across an Alaskan glacier, and intending to spend a few blissful minutes on the balcony reading before I get ready for dinner.

  ‘Here is a small fact . . .’

  My phone rings. I pick it up and glance at its screen, noting the words ‘Private number’.

  If I were a better woman, I’d leave it, confident in the knowledge that 99 per cent of calls from an anonymous number are from somebody to whom you don’t want to speak. But it rings and rings until I do what I always do – huff demonstratively, then answer.

  ‘Hello, Imogen Copeland.’

  ‘Hello, Ms Copeland. I’m SO sorry to bother you. It’s Laura Greenwood here.’

  Laura, our new office administrator, is a sweet but smart Geordie in her early twenties who is so vastly overqualified for the job I literally blush when I ask her to order new pencils.

  ‘You really don’t have to call me “Ms Copeland”, you know.’ I think of Laura as the sort of woman who, a few years ago, I’d have been drinking with in a student union bar, yet she addresses me like I’m about to send her to sit outside the head teacher’s office.

  ‘Sorry,’ she replies.

  ‘It’s fine! Look, Laura, I’m actually away on holiday at the moment,’ I tell her.

  ‘I know. I’m so, so sorry. But Diana told me that there was no alternative to phoning you.’

  Diana, David’s secretary, is a strikingly attractive divorcée in her mid-forties with an MA in Business Studies, and a PhD in calling the management wankers. She despises her job and is incapable of engaging in conversation with David, our esteemed leader, without rolling her eyes theatrically. I su
spect he’s secretly terrified of her, which is probably why she’s still there – I don’t think Stalin would have had the balls to sack her.

  ‘Did she not tell you that Roy’s deputising for me?’

  ‘She did. Well, I already knew. The problem is, he’s nowhere to be found.’

  It’s been brilliant having Roy as a deputy, partly because I’ve known him for ever. Despite the fact that his gentle personality means he has a tendency to blend into the background, he’s actually good fun. Unlike me, he seems to have the balance of work–family life exactly right, judging by the fact that he’s been happily married since the age of twenty-one and has more pictures of his three kids around his desk than I have Post-it notes (and that’s A LOT).

  I worried when I first got this job – given that he’s six years older than I am and has worked at Peebles for longer than I have – that he had every right to resent my luck. But he’s been great to work with and, although I fretted about leaving him in charge while I was away, I know that is about my inability to let go rather than his competence.

  ‘Is he in a meeting?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ve no idea where he is, but this is urgent. So he said anyway.’

  ‘So who said?’

  ‘The journalist from the Daily Sun.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . . they’re working on a front-page story about us.’

  My heart skips a beat. The last thing I did before I left was to authorise a press release from our PR agency about a new breakfast cereal we’re launching, aimed at the teenage market. I hadn’t thought it overly newsworthy, so the idea that they might be considering it for the front is unbelievable.

  ‘The Daily Sun? As in, one of the UK’s biggest newspapers? Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s what the journalist said. I sent him to Ace Communications, obviously,’ she says eagerly.

  ‘Oh, that should be that then,’ I reply. ‘Julia, our account manager, will be on the case already. She’s very good. All you need to do now is fill Roy in when he gets back from his meeting.’