The Time of Our Lives Read online

  ‘POLICIA! POLICIA!’ I bellow, as he finally pushes me off and I land on my backside on the pavement. Miraculously, two police officers appear almost instantly. But the man doesn’t get up and run away.

  ‘Officers, arrest this man,’ I chuff, as I brush myself down and step aside so they can spring into action. Except they don’t spring: they barely even twitch. On the contrary, they actually help him up and allow him to straighten his clothes while he delivers a frenzied rant in Spanish that appears to be directed at me.

  When he’s finished they turn to me. ‘Why did you assault this man?’ one asks, in a robust Spanish accent.

  ‘This man robbed me,’ I reply, open mouthed at his audacity.

  The two police officers frown simultaneously before putting my allegation to him. It prompts a series of wild gesticulations that make it a wonder he doesn’t dislocate something. I don’t precisely know what he’s saying, but when he starts whirling his hand around his head then jabbing his finger at me, it’s clear I’m not coming out overly well from the description.

  I feel I need to speak up for myself. ‘He put fake bird . . . doodoo . . . on my shoulder, and used it as a diversion to pinch my purse.’

  The officer looks at me sternly. ‘Doo-doo?’

  I squirm. ‘You know. Poo.’

  He looks at me blankly, at which point I am forced to perform an elaborate game of Charades that involves simulating how a large bird might look while excreting its lunch midflight. There’s no dignity involved, but I think I make my point.

  ‘You believe this man covered you in shit?’ the policeman asks, poetically.

  ‘Fake shit,’ I clarify.

  ‘Señora—’

  ‘Señorita.’ I correct him, indignantly.

  ‘Señorita, I do not believe you are right.’

  ‘I am right. My purse is gone! This is one of the oldest tricks in the book, according to . . . Google! This is egg white – you can instantly see that,’ I say, dipping my finger in the offending substance. ‘This is how confident I am,’ I add, poised to lick my finger.

  ‘DON’T!’ Nicola shrieks. ‘Imogen, that does not look like something you’d use to make a meringue.’

  I hesitate and sniff it instead.

  A horrible realisation occurs to me: she might be right. It smells distinctly natural, and not in a good way. The implications of this seize me as the police officer addresses me again.

  ‘Señora—ita . . . Eduardo is one of the most respected café owners in Las Ramblas. He saw what happened and stepped out to help you.’

  ‘Then where’s my purse?’

  ‘In your hotel room? In your pocket? I don’t know, and that is not my concern. Why don’t you look again?’ he suggests.

  I swallow, really hoping it isn’t in my bag. I open it up and put my hand inside. Then freeze.

  ‘Um . . . sorry about that,’ I whisper, as Eduardo shakes his head. ‘Crazy bloody Eenglish.’

  ‘You certainly know how to make an impression abroad,’ Nicola says, suppressing a smile.

  ‘Oh, please don’t,’ I reply, emerging from a chemist with a bumper pack of baby wipes. ‘I’m covered in this stuff. Meredith, don’t come near me – it’s dangerous for pregnant women.’

  ‘Huh? Is it?’

  I am midway though giving myself a walking bed-bath when my phone rings. ‘This could be Roy,’ I gasp, thrusting the wipes at Nicola. I grapple with my phone – still covered in bird poo and baby wipe slime, before pressing ‘Answer’.

  ‘So sorry to phone again . . .’

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ I sigh, grabbing at more wipes.

  ‘ . . . but I’m certain you’d want to hear about this.’

  I freeze. ‘Has something happened to Florence?’

  ‘Of course not. Good Lord!’

  ‘Sorry. Can I speak to her?’

  ‘Yes, but first . . .’ Her words trail off and I wonder if she’s attempting to instil a sense of suspense.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry, I was just getting it. The article in Woman & Home.’

  I throw my mountain of filthy baby wipes into a bin. ‘You phoned me about an article in Woman & Home?’

  ‘It’s about urinary-tract infections,’ she continues. ‘I had to give you a ring because I know how you suffer.’

  I frown. ‘I’ve had two in ten years.’

  ‘It’s more than that, Imogen.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Definitely.’

  If my hand wasn’t now covered in bird poo, I would be biting my fist. ‘Okay, Mum,’ I manage instead.

  ‘Well, I’ve got the solution. You’ve got to take an antibiotic every time you’ve had sex. Lesley Garrett swears by it.’

  I am too stunned to answer this point on so many levels, I barely know where to start. Not least of what on earth makes her think I’m having sex.

  ‘You’ve phoned me to tell me Lesley Garrett’s tips for getting rid of UTIs?’

  There is a small silence. ‘Imogen,’ she says, in her I’m-only-trying-to-help voice, ‘you’ve got a tone.’

  I close my eyes and breathe in. ‘I’m sorry. I’m very grateful. I’m just a bit tied up.’ Realising my necklace is caked in bird poo, I wedge the phone between my chin and shoulder and release the clasp. ‘Can I speak to Florence, please?’

  I examine the necklace as I wait for Florence, trying my best to expunge the offending substance. Finally, I hear a rustle at the other end, followed by her voice. ‘Hi, Mummy.’

  ‘Hello, darli—’

  The necklace is ripped from my hand before I can work out what’s happened, and in the second or two it takes to realise that it’s no longer between my fingers, all I can do is look up and witness the outline of a young, teenaged boy sprinting through the crowds.

  ‘I’ve got to go!’

  There is no strategy or logic behind my decision to race after him. Instinct, quite simply, takes over, and I find myself sprinting behind the dark, swishing hair of a boy who has significantly more natural athleticism than me.

  I push on frantically, feeling my face turn heart-attack red as the gap widens between us. I realise my prospects of catching up are getting slimmer by the moment.

  He is about to dart down a side street when he trips and stumbles to the ground. He turns and looks back at me and I realise with a jolt that he can’t be older than twelve.

  I also know this is my moment.

  ‘Give me that necklace!’ I shout, and am about to pounce when someone grabs my arm.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  One of the police officers from earlier is glaring at me in breathless disbelief, as if he’s walked in on a puppy chewing his slippers. Again.

  ‘He’s got my necklace!’ I tell him, but when I spin round to point to him, he’s gone. And so is my last remaining memory of Roberto’s love.

  Chapter 10

  It is the first full day of my five-star dream holiday and several hours of it have been spent in a police station with nothing to do except fill out forms, reason with the staff and count the blisters between my toes, which currently look as though they’re padded with bubble wrap.

  It’s not even a very nice police station – not that I was expecting Laura Ashley curtains and a chic Chesterfield sofa, of course. The only positive thing to say about this experience is that I’m not here because I’ve been arrested, although it was a close thing.

  You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to persuade a foreign police officer that you’re totally innocent when he’s personally witnessed you hunting down two separate people and attempting to grapple them to the ground. Fortunately, though, he believed my story as there have been similar reports about a boy fitting the description of the one who stole my necklace.

  Not that that prompted him to run, Jason Bourne-style, after the perpetrator. He just gave me directions to the police station, where I have to report the necklace stolen for insurance purposes. Which I can’t help thinking means they’re not like
ly to throw all available resources at this case. I pointed this out to the girls, before insisting that Nicola took Meredith back to the hotel before her ankles swelled up to the size of beach balls in the heat.

  So here I am, having waited long enough for my bum cheeks to fossilise, passing the time by making more useless phone calls to try to get to the bottom of my company’s unfolding PR disaster.

  ‘You’ve been robbed too, then?’

  At first I barely register the question, let alone the person asking it. Having abandoned all attempts to reactivate my Internet connection on my mobile – which refuses to do what it’s told – I’m now busy trying to make contact with Florence again. But my mother, while good at phoning me, is less keen to answer when it doesn’t suit her. She’s probably teaching my daughter how to pluck her eyebrows.

  ‘I have, yes,’ I reply distractedly, pressing ‘Send’ on my sixth text to Roy. Then I look up and nearly swallow my tongue in shock.

  It’s him. The guy from the plane. The one with the eyes and the smirk and the shameless lips. Only this time he’s wearing glasses, ones that should make him look geeky, but simply serve to exacerbate his sexiness.

  My cheeks flame to a colour reminiscent of Santa’s trousers, and I try to think of something clever to say.

  ‘Oh,’ is all I manage.

  He laughs. ‘I’m not stalking you, I promise.’

  He’s wearing combat shorts, with flip-flops on his tanned feet and a T-shirt that even someone in head-to-toe Per Una can recognise as cool. It’s white, with geometric shapes and ‘Calif ’ scrawled underneath. T-shirts like this intimidate me. If someone tasked me with purchasing clothing that featured geometric shapes, the best I’d manage would be a crocheted jumper covered in Christmas trees. There’s no getting away from it: this man has style. Just being around him makes me feel like a gawky 15-year-old and, when you’re twenty-nine, that’s not a good thing at all.

  ‘Oh, I never thought that,’ I reply, realising that it actually sounds like I did.

  He smiles again. I wonder how many women have dropped their knickers at that smile.

  ‘My wallet was taken in Las Ramblas,’ he explains. ‘Fortunately, I was carrying cash rather than all my cards.’

  He also has exceptionally good legs, I notice: all tanned contours and muscular knees. I wish he’d put them away, but they’re just there, right in my face. Well, not right in my face – that would be strange – but they’re close enough. I shift my chair away.

  ‘Wise move,’ I mutter, peering at my phone. My mother hasn’t phoned back. Neither has Roy, nor the PR company, nor David, to whom I hadn’t really wanted to break this news before I could assure him that the former two were on the case. Now I’m going to have to.

  That thought, and my desire to not be sitting next to someone who makes me feel like I need a bag over my head, prompts an urgent need to address at least one of those issues.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say politely, standing and moving away from him as I press ‘Call’.

  I try David first, then Roy again, then my mother. This time, she answers.

  ‘Hi, Mum. Can I speak to Florence?’ I look up and note that he’s watching me. I turn away as my mum launches into the UTI conversation again. ‘Mum, I’m a bit short of time, could you just get Florence?’ She huffs.

  I look up again and he smiles. I return it awkwardly.

  ‘Hello, Mummy!’

  ‘Hello, sweetie!’ I reply, my voice bursting with relief. ‘How are you enjoying things at Grandma’s house?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘So what have you done so far today?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Have you been out anywhere?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Um . . . are you missing me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you missing me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says unconvincingly.

  ‘Okay, well, I love you, Florence.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I really, really love you.’ I pause, waiting for her to respond. ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘I’m watching The Little Mermaid.’

  At least it’s not Sex and The City, I suppose.

  ‘And how is it?’

  ‘Good.’ Things are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in Florence’s world, there’s no in between. So the likelihood of her giving me a review worthy of Empire magazine was never high.

  ‘Right, well, I’m going to put the phone down now, so we’ll speak tomorrow. I love you.’ I wait for her response, but there’s a stony silence. ‘I love you, Florence.’

  A series of muffled noises ensue, which sound as though she’s dropped the phone in a handbag and is swinging it around the room like a shot putter.

  ‘Florence? Florence?’

  ‘Grandma wants to speak to you,’ she replies.

  ‘Oh, okay, byyeeee!’ I respond, hastily cutting off the call.

  I look up and see that Hot Guy is smiling. ‘How old is your little girl?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Not the greatest conversationalists at that age, are they?’

  ‘Not when I’m competing with Disney.’

  ‘My nephew turned five last week, and things haven’t improved much.’

  I smile, uncomfortable at the fact that he’s looking at me again. First because, although I don’t think he’s looking looking at me – you know, in an interested kind of way – he is still . . . well, looking. And if I’d walked out of the hotel room this morning knowing I was going to be looked at by a man, I’d have made a bit more effort. Or would I? I can’t remember the last time I even worried about that.

  It brings home a rather unpleasant reality: I look a bit of show.

  No, I’m overstating it. Possibly.

  The principal quality of my shorts-and-vest-top combo when I bought them was inoffensiveness. Suddenly, that’s exactly the problem. They’re not just inoffensive. They’re bland. Insipid. Prematurely middle-aged. I’m going to have to face this: I am dressed like a vicar’s wife with a Bon Marché loyalty card.

  I never used to be like this. There was a time when I liked fashion; when buying clothes was a source of pleasure, not something I didn’t bother with because there was nobody around to look nice for any longer.

  ‘I’m Harry.’ He holds out his hand, waiting for me to shake it, but my phone rings and instead I pull a weird, semi-apologetic face as I leave him hanging.

  ‘Imogen!’ David shrieks down my handset. ‘I had a message to phone you. Aren’t you supposed to be away?’

  ‘Yes, but . . . well, it’s kind of an emergency.’

  He sighs. ‘You know what I always say about emergencies.’

  I hesitate. ‘Hmm. Remind me.’

  ‘Emergencies are challenges in a more challenging form.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’

  I consider thinking of a way to sugar-coat this. But David sugar-coats everything anyway, so you have to give it to him straight – straighter than straight – for him to ever understand the significance of something.

  ‘The Daily Sun have been on to us and they’re running a story about a senior Peebles executive caught feeling-up a topless fellow executive on a first-class flight from Stuttgart.’

  He pauses momentarily, before spluttering his response with a throaty cough. ‘SON of a Belgian BUN!’

  Maybe there’s such a thing as too straight.

  ‘Whh . . . aaat?’ he continues.

  ‘Yes, it is something of a shocker,’ I concede.

  I look up and realise that Hot Guy – Harry – is at the front desk, completing his paperwork and speaking to the police officer there in what appears to be fluent Spanish.

  ‘Do they know who it was? The executive, that is?’

  ‘Apparently not. Who’s been to Stuttgart recently?’ I ask.

  ‘The whole of the senior team have been several
times in the last six months since work on the merger began.’ Not me, I note, although now probably isn’t the time to raise this. ‘You know, I bet I know who it is!’ he exclaims.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gaz Silverman. He’s rogered everything that moves. His latest was the woman who came in to clean the telephones last week.’

  ‘Really? Gareth Silverman has always struck me as fairly unassuming.’

  ‘Oh, Imogen, I don’t think there’s a single woman in the office he hasn’t tried it on with. Not one!’

  ‘He hasn’t tried it on with me,’ I point out.

  ‘Hasn’t he?’ David huffs. ‘Well, it’s never been your sort of thing that, has it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you know. Men.’

  It occurs to me what he’s implying. ‘I’m not a lesbian, David.’

  His voice softens. ‘You needn’t worry, Imogen. We are a totally inclusive company.’

  ‘David, I’ve got a daughter!’

  ‘We’re fine with it, I promise.’

  ‘David, you’re not listening to me.’

  ‘I’d never really thought about it until you brought that friend to the corporate tennis last year . . . ’

  ‘David,’ I begin calmly. ‘Let me repeat this. I am not a lesbian. I have no problem with lesbians – indeed, as you say, one of my best friends is a lesbian. But I am not. I am a red-blooded, heterosexual female and I’ve had as much of the opposite SEX in my life as the next woman!’

  The word ‘sex’ reverberates around the room at three times my usual volume.

  Someone taps me on the shoulder and I spin round. It’s Harry. I have a sudden desire to run down platform nine and three quarters and jump on a train to another world.

  He points at the desk, indicating that it’s my turn to be seen.

  ‘David, I need to go. I’ll phone you back to fill you in properly about the Daily Sun when I can.’

  ‘Don’t – I’m in meetings all day. Just tell me you’re going to get rid of this. Make it disappear.’

  I open my mouth, but it takes a second to formulate a response that isn’t, ‘Who do you think I am? David bloody Blaine?’