Was it hard travelling alone? Yes and no. There were difficult moments, not least because I was a young woman, which inevitably attracted some unwanted male attention. However, my years in the care system had taught me how to stand on my own two feet and to look after myself. I was street savvy and knew the kind of risks to avoid. I didn’t take grief or inappropriate comments off anyone. Mainly, I enjoyed the new-found freedom of being able to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted.
If I liked a spot on a certain island, I stayed for a while, maybe even looking for a job. If not, I moved on. Took a ferry and started again. This was exactly why I chose island hopping to kick off my travels. I thought of it like a microcosm of the world at large, with nice manageable distances between destinations. I travelled all over, from the bigger, well-known islands like Crete and Rhodes, to the various islands of the Cyclades, including tiny places like Kimolos and Antiparos. They were each wonderful in their own unique way. Some were commercialised, others pure and pristine, like magical gateways into a serene bygone era before the onslaught of mass tourism.
It was a great place to find my feet as a traveller. My next stop, decided on a whim at the end of summer, was the very different setting of Berlin, where I spent a bitterly cold few months working in a series of bars and restaurants, doing my best to get by on the very basic German I remembered from studying it for a year at school. The fact is you can get by almost anywhere with English as your first language, but the locals embrace you much more readily if you at least make an effort to speak in the native tongue. Luckily, I’ve always been good at picking up the basics of other languages. It’s been a major help over the years, particularly since people in other countries are so used to meeting Brits who can’t or won’t speak anything other than English. It helped me to stand out from the crowd and definitely led to more work opportunities than I might have expected to find otherwise.
The temperatures may have been cold, but the German locals were lovely and so welcoming. I don’t think I’ve ever spent time in a capital city that’s felt safer or more relaxing. It’s not the most beautiful or elegant place, but it more than makes up for that with its vibrant culture and hip, artistic vibe. Thanks to the kinds of jobs I was doing, I did dabble in the nightlife there and even made some friends. But by the following spring, I was ready to move on again. First I took the train to Paris, another of the great European cities I’d always wanted to visit, where I loved absolutely everything apart from how much it all cost. And then, a month or two later, thanks to a chance encounter with another young British woman in a busy Parisian café, I found myself on a long train journey down to the South of France.
Angela, having overheard me speaking French to the waiter in Paris, had struck up a conversation, as we were both alone on small separate tables that were pushed so close together, we were basically sitting on top of each other.
‘British, right?’ she said in a warm Brummie accent, after catching my eye.
‘Is my pronunciation that bad?’ I replied. ‘I must be getting rusty.’
French had been one of my strongest subjects at school.
She flashed me an infectious smile. ‘Not at all. You speak French very well, but there aren’t many foreign language speakers who can truly hide their natural accent. I know I can’t.’
We hit it off and talked for hours, first there in the café and then in a succession of bars. It turned out Angela, who was a few years older than me – stunning looking, with mesmerising deep-brown eyes and long braided hair – had recently landed a job running a team of holiday reps over a couple of campsites near Fréjus on the French Riviera, in between Cannes and Saint-Tropez. She said they were in the process of hiring staff and someone around my age, fluent in French and English, would be a perfect candidate.
‘I’ll be honest,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t pay well, but there’s free accommodation and plenty of time off to enjoy the gorgeous surroundings. You get to sample lots of the excursions on offer – visits to Cannes and Monaco, diving trips, etc. – to help you flog them to the holidaymakers, plus a decent staff discount at the campsite bar and shop.
‘Part of the job involves entertaining, holding drinks receptions and so on; we encourage reps to let their hair down and have fun, within reason. There’s also a fantastic social scene, as the reps from the various firms all know each other and tend to go out together most nights. It’s very much a work hard, play hard kind of thing.’
‘What’s the catch?’ I asked. ‘Other than the low pay, it sounds too good to be true. Is the free accommodation a tent or something?’
She threw her head back and laughed. ‘It actually is a tent, but not like you’re thinking. It’s a roomy one you can walk around in, with a kitchen and a proper bed. It’s the same kind that a lot of our guests stay in, although we do offer static caravans too.’
‘Not for the reps, though?’
She winked. ‘Not unless you’re in a management role, like me. A mobile home is one of the perks.’
‘Any other catches?’
‘There’s cleaning to do once a week. Saturday is changeover day, so that’s usually busy, tidying one lot’s mess up before the next arrives. That’s probably the worst part of the job, especially in the full heat of summer, but you get used to it. Most of the holidaymakers we get are families, not wild singles. There’s not usually too much mess.’
I nodded.
‘So, what do you think. Interested? I’d need to run the usual checks, get references and so on, to keep head office happy, but I wouldn’t need to interview you any more than I already have.’
‘What?’ I replied with exaggerated indignation. ‘You never told me this was a job interview. I’d have worn something smarter if I knew that and I’d have stuck to sparkling water.’ I paused for a long moment as those entrancing eyes of hers scrutinised me. With a grin, I caved. ‘Fine, I’m interested.’
It was a great decision. I had one of the best summers of my life that year. Other than the aforementioned cleaning, which was a weekly drag, it rarely felt like work. I met some fantastic people; did loads of sunbathing, swimming and sightseeing. I socialised a lot with the other reps and, sometimes, the guests. I had a few flings. It was hard not to when permanently surrounded by people letting their hair down on holiday.
The one thing I occasionally found hard was seeing all the happy families who came to stay with us. It’s not that I begrudged them their happiness. But every now and again, certain kids – particularly the shy, quiet only children who sometimes came along – would remind me of myself growing up. And seeing loving parents doting on them, pride in their offspring written all over their smiling faces, would, for various reasons, make my heart ache. I don’t remember being taken on holiday anywhere as a kid, not even in the UK. I suppose that’s one of the key things that drove me to travel far and wide once I was an adult. It’s human nature to want what you’ve never had, right? The grass is always greener and so on.
I’d never wanted a family of my own. It was something I’d decided after my mum died and I found myself as an orphan. Is that a strange reaction? Would it have been more normal for me to try to fill the void by settling down at the earliest opportunity and trying for children? Maybe, maybe not. I think everyone has the right to deal with traumatic events in their own way. That was how I responded to my difficult childhood. A part of me was afraid that I’d turn out to be a no-good parent. I feared it was written in my DNA to fail as a mother. Plus the last thing I wanted to do was drag another child into the miserable world I had to grow up in. It felt like a responsible decision.
Focusing on myself, as I’ll freely admit I did, probably sounds egotistical. But I didn’t see it that way. It was all I’d known for a long time. It was my shield.
CHAPTER 22
I made friendships on my travels before becoming a holiday rep, but not deep or lasting ones. I didn’t open myself up enough for that to happen. This changed during my time on the Côte d’Azur in France.
I bonded with a lot of the other reps, several of whom were British, like me, while others came from countries including Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. It was hard not to bond when we spent most of our days and nights together. We were like one big family, which was a new experience for me. Still, I knew we’d eventually all go our different ways; I kept my cards close to my chest when it came to talking about the past, our families and so on. I stayed silent or made an excuse to leave when the others discussed things like making phone calls home to chat to their parents or siblings. I bit my tongue if I ever heard them grumbling about their upbringings, which always sounded far nicer than anything I’d experienced.
One night, about halfway through the season, I ended up alone with Angela at a small bar a mile or so from the campsite at about three or four in the morning. I say alone – there were other people in there, mainly French locals – but we were the only two reps. Everyone else who’d been out with us had disappeared by that point, off to bed to sleep or fornicate, after a typical boozy night. It had started hours earlier with drinking games around a sangria-filled cool box. Somehow, Angela and I still had a couple of nightcaps left in us.
The stout, middle-aged bartender, who we knew fairly well by that point, having been in there many times previously, was called Hector. He was one of those guys who wears a grumpy face for show but has a heart of gold. We nicknamed him Tache, due to his bushy salt and pepper moustache. I only ever called him this to his face when I was tipsy, so most nights. Since tâche is a French word meaning task, and he spoke barely a word of English, I’d decided on this occasion, while ordering us two Manhattan cocktails, to try to explain why we called him that. He nodded and smiled politely at my drunken French, but whether I made any sense or not is another matter.
As he moved to the other side of the bar to serve someone else, I looked at Angela, on a bar stool next to me sipping her drink. ‘Do you think he got any of that?’
‘Who knows? It was fun to watch, that’s for sure.’
She wasn’t always around, Angela. Sometimes she spent a few days at the other campsite she covered, mainly if there were problems or staffing issues. But ours was her primary base, where her official mobile home was located, and where she spent most of her time. She wasn’t a standoffish boss, not in the least. She came out with us most nights and I felt like I’d already got to know her well.
‘Thanks for the drink, Cassie.’
‘You’re welcome. You’ve bought me plenty. Do you know what? You might be the best boss I’ve ever had.’ I pressed one finger to my lips. ‘But don’t tell anyone I said so.’
‘Glad you took me up on the offer I made in Paris, then?’ she asked, a twinkle in her eye.
‘Absolutely.’
‘You looked a bit lost. Like you needed someone to give you a break. Is that fair?’
‘Possibly,’ I said, a little taken aback by the comment.
‘You don’t talk much about your personal life back home, do you? Which is fine. Totally your prerogative. But if you did ever want to chat about anything like that, in confidence, I’d be happy to listen.’
‘There isn’t really a back home,’ I said, the alcohol and my affection for Angela making me unusually loose-lipped. ‘There’s where I grew up, in Lancashire, mainly around the Fylde coast. Blackpool, among other places. I moved around.’
I paused, trying to remember whether any of the paperwork I’d filled out, when I formally applied for this job, had contained details of my growing up in the care system and so on. Stuff it. Whatever. I’m just going to tell her, I thought. I found I wanted to offload it, not least because Angela was someone I’d grown to trust.
‘I spent much of my childhood in care. My parents are both dead.’ I found my voice wavering as I said this last bit. Tears pricked my eyes.
Next thing I knew, Angela was pulling me into a warm, soothing hug and I pretty much told her the lot – up to when I left secondary school, anyway. I skipped over the next bit about meeting someone and … yeah, the, er, tricky stuff I’ll come on to later. It was still too fresh a wound to talk about with anyone. I barely even allowed myself to think about it. Not because I didn’t want to. The thoughts jostled to enter my mind numerous times every day. However, I did my utmost to push them aside. Mainly because I didn’t dare to dwell on them, fearing what they might do to me and my mental state.
‘You poor thing,’ she said afterwards, squeezing my hand with such genuine affection, I almost started sobbing. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like, having to grow up through such pain and trauma. It’s remarkable what a wonderful, intelligent, talented person you are, in spite of everything. You should be proud of yourself, Cassie. I know I’m proud to work with you and to call you my friend.’
Angela and I had always got on well before that point, but we became very close afterwards. She tucked me further under her wing than I was already. We’re still friends to this day. I’m sad to say it’s been a good while since we’ve seen each other in person, but that’s purely down to the logistics of us settling in different countries.
Angela played a key role in that stage of my life. She really helped me to find my feet as a person: to know who I was, how to make the best of myself, and how to be happy in my own skin. And to think it was all down to that one chance encounter in Paris. Was it chance, though? That’s something I’ve often wondered over the years. I used to call her my guardian Angela. She always brushed this off, but the more I think about it – especially now I’m older and more sentimental – it’s a rather accurate description of our relationship at the time.
We continued to work together after the season ended in Fréjus. I was starting to wonder what to do with myself next, as things were winding down at the campsite, when she announced that she would be spending the winter working a ski season in the French resort of Alpe d’Huez. She invited me to join her.
‘Um. Wow,’ I said, pulling up a seat at the plastic white table outside her mobile home. ‘This is unexpected. I don’t know anything about skiing or ski seasons. The one time I’ve ever skied was when a girl from my form at secondary school had a birthday party at a dry ski slope. I made an idiot of myself, falling over left, right and centre. I wasn’t a natural.’
‘Everyone falls over a lot at the start,’ she said. ‘I didn’t feel like a natural when I first went, but I soon got the hang of it. I think you’d be great with a little practice – and there would be plenty of time for that. Besides, being a good skier isn’t a requirement. Some reps are required to accompany guests while out on the slopes, but that’s not the role I have in mind for you.
‘You’d be hosting, organising, advising, assisting and so on. You’d still have to get your hands dirty, like here, with things like cleaning and snow-clearing. There would be airport coach pickups to deal with too, but nothing you couldn’t handle. It’s cold there, obviously. But you’re a hardy northerner, right? What do you say?’
I agreed. I’d have been crazy not to, considering I had nothing else lined up to do next, other than pick another place to head to and take my chances.
There was a break between the two jobs, during which Angela headed home to the UK to spend some time with her parents in Solihull. She’d invited me to join her, which was a lovely gesture. However, not wanting to impose, I chose instead to continue on my solo travels, embarking on a budget whistle-stop tour of Italy, taking in Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples. Finally, I caught the cheapest flight I could find to Geneva, then the train to Grenoble, where I was met by a far more wrapped-up version of Angela than I was used to seeing, who drove us to our new workplace and got me settled in.
For the second time, Angela’s job offer proved a good one. I had a great winter. I met another fantastic crew of fellow reps. I also enjoyed the après ski very much, had a couple of pleasant but forgettable ‘holiday romances’ with tourists from other travel companies, and I learned to ski almost passably. If I’m honest, though, as muc
h as I enjoyed the experience, I didn’t really catch the winter sports bug. It was the one and only time I worked a ski season. I think it’s hard to adore the experience if you’re not mad keen on the actual throwing yourself down a slope side of things. And I wasn’t. It scared me. With the odd nerve-racking exception, I rarely trusted my newly learned skills enough to attempt more than green and blue runs.
Plus, I couldn’t help but notice that quite a few of the people who went skiing were from fairly wealthy backgrounds. Not all, but a significant proportion. It’s an expensive hobby. This made me uncomfortable at times, due to my own background being so different. It’s not that anyone ever specifically said something to me to suggest I didn’t belong. My role as a rep and pre-existing friendship with Angela allowed me to hide my lack of skiing and social credentials in plain sight for the most part. It was more something I felt from time to time, like when money was being splashed about on excessive, showy drinks orders in bars and so on. Or when talk turned to posh boarding schools that folk had attended or fancy university courses and high-flying jobs. Usually I’d fall quiet or make an excuse to leave at such moments.
It was the casual sense of entitlement I found hardest when I encountered it, especially among young wealthy tourists, in their late teens and early twenties. They often appeared to think nothing of how lucky they were in life, taking their luxurious lot for granted.
It wasn’t only the youngsters. I experienced two unrelated incidents when older men – both married and on holiday with their ‘lucky’ spouses – mistakenly assumed I’d be interested in having a quickie with them when their wives were looking the other way. Clearly not used to hearing the word no, each seemed genuinely surprised when I sent them packing with the threat of telling their families if they tried it on again.
I remember recounting the second of these incidents, which took place near the end of the season, to Angela. The first had happened near the start of my season in Alpe d’Huez and I hadn’t even mentioned it to her. I’d been a bit drunk, making my memory of what he’d said sketchy. Plus I’d slapped him hard around the face, which I’d worried could land me in trouble.
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