by Liam Livings
I followed the trail of footprints to a small door in the opposite corner, which I’d not noticed before. We walked down three flights of stairs to some back part of the club and were deposited in an alley full of coughing, wet, dirty clubbers and large wheelie bins overflowing with rotting, sweet-smelling rubbish.
A bouncer pointed to the crowd of others and clicked something in his hand twice as we passed. He asked me in Spanish where we’d been and why hadn’t we come out until then.
I explained about the balcony, and he shook his head. I asked what was happening, and he said there had been a fire in a toilet next to one of the smaller dance floors. I asked what had caused it; he mimed a cigarette and crossed his eyes.
I leant against the wall and turned to check Paul was OK. He was dancing to some unheard beat, a wide grin on his face as he talked to other wet, disorientated clubbers.
I pulled him nearer to me. “I don’t want to be dramatic or anything, but we just nearly died.”
“’S fine. Never been in a fire before. Shall we see if we can find the fire brigade? Wonder what they wear out here? Bet it’s not the same as back home.” He started to walk away, towards the flashing blue lights coming from round the front of the club.
I pulled him back. “Aren’t you worried? We could have died and all you can think about is checking out if the firemen are cute.”
He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Do you take anything seriously anymore? Or is it all a joke to you?”
“Good job we weren’t working tonight.” He ran off towards the flashing lights.
Following him, I shouted his name and told him to wait for me.
Who is this person I’m running after? is what I would think to myself later in a quieter moment of reflection. Why does he not take anything seriously? What will it take for him to realise life isn’t all fun and debauchery and feeling the music and partying with strangers?
At that point, I had no idea, and it took another few final straws before I reached the real proper, ultimate, final, final straw when I knew what I had to do to get him to pay attention to me. But then, as I ran after him in search of the hunky firemen, I was still pretty far away from that place.
The firemen turned out to be mostly middle-aged, dark-haired and nothing to write home about, except the last one who ran past us carrying a water-gun contraption. He was pretty easy on the eye, we both agreed on that. We stood watching them put out the fire, carrying people from the smoky building as flames filled the windows of the floor we’d been dancing on not half an hour before. Without anything else to say—I didn’t know where to go, what to do, what I should say to Paul, the man I loved so much, but knew I was losing—we walked up a hill and sat under a tree to watch the sun rise over the town.
Paul turned to me as the sun came up. “Wicked, eh? The beauty. The sun. Nature. The redness. Everything, really.”
And because I didn’t know what else to say, because I couldn’t deny that beauty in front of us but couldn’t quite get my head around how he was ignoring all the chaos and ugliness and destruction and danger we’d seen earlier that evening, I simply said, “Shall we get a cab and go home?”
“That’s a wicked idea—the best idea ever. I love you so much. I’m so happy with our life together.” He kissed me.
The next day, I came home from the beach—Paul hadn’t wanted to be in the sun—and found he’d made dinner and tidied up our very messy apartment.
“What’s this in aid of?” I asked, surveying the clean room and smelling the chorizo and meat casserole with beans he’d made.
“Thought you’d be tired after an afternoon in the sun. I didn’t have anything to do. Remembered how you liked this. We had all the stuff, anyway. Just sort of threw it in. That Spanish cookery book your mum got is…very handy.”
We ate dinner with the balcony windows open, listening to the sea as the sun set, and I thought life could have been much worse; in fact, I thought how lucky I was.
As we finished eating, I stood to collect the crockery and Paul told me to leave it.
“Later. Let’s snuggle,” he said, leading me to the sofa where we watched one of my favourite films, me sitting in between his open legs and leaning back on his chest.
***
The next final straw happened when we were in the hotel room of some men and women we’d met in the club after we’d finished our set. We’d danced with them; we’d drunk with them; we’d taken more drugs with them. It was all going to be wicked, sorted, brill, safe.
We’d shared a cab with Matt? Mike? Melvin?—the leader of their pack—and had chatted about the UK and how wicked living in Ibiza must be, and he’d said he was going to move there too, that was definitely his plan. We’d ended up in their hotel, and there had been much talk of them coming back and staying at ours. We were going to visit them in Birmingham, Burnley, Blackpool, wherever it was they came from, next time we flew back. They were going to be our new friends.
As the sun came up, streaming into the window of their two-star hotel room, I looked round at the heaps of sleeping bodies on the floor, on the beds, people I’d talked myself hoarse with, sharing cigarettes and drugs and opinions about very important things, none of which I could remember now. And now they rested.
“Anyone fancy a tea or coffee?” I asked.
A few hands went in the air, and some people mumbled, “Yes.”
With the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner, I walked to the kitchen and started arranging mugs and things for the drinks, then was suddenly struck with a feeling of wanting to be anywhere else but there. Of realising everything with these people would inevitably come to nothing and wondering why I was wasting any more of my time on them, when essentially the party had been over a few hours ago and all we were doing now was eking out the final hours before the real world took over, with its light streaming through the blinds, once again.
I walked back to the kitchen, grabbed Paul’s hand. “No sugar. I’ll go to the shop.”
“Yeah,” came one lone voice from under a duvet on the sofa.
We ran downstairs, out onto the street, closing the door behind us, and I held my hand out for a taxi.
Paul pointed over my shoulder. “Shop’s there. Where we going?”
“Home. Bed. I’m done.”
We got in the taxi together and sat in silence, went to bed in silence, until, after four hours of sleep, we woke and I told him, “I just couldn’t be there any longer. I don’t need a whole new set of friends for a week, never to see them again.”
Paul said nothing.
“I want to try and make more friends—friendships with people who do things other than partying all the time.” I stared at him.
“But we don’t know anyone like that,” Paul replied.
“Exactly.”
***
Despite denying it would ever happen, the day finally arrived. The day Marilyn and Roger, Paul’s parents, flew to stay with us for a week. I knew intellectually that it was coming. I had it marked on the calendar in the kitchen for weeks and weeks, but even though, day by day, we crept closer to the actual day they would arrive, I still denied it, like those people who deny the holocaust or the moon landing happened.
I had been denying Saturday.
We met them at the airport, a bright sunny day in the low thirties; I wore a vest and shorts, and Paul wore a T-shirt and tailored shorts.
At first, I couldn’t see them, only their trolley of seven Louise Vuitton dark-brown suitcases hiding Marilyn as she glided across the floor in her white cotton trouser suit, blue blouse and chunky gold necklace and earrings. Her eyes were obscured by square gold-framed Gucci sunglasses the size of small portable TV screens that covered most of her face.
I knew she was disapproving of me, my clothes, my hair—everything really. I felt it beaming at me from her eyes through the sunglasses. It was a shame they didn’t diffuse her disapproval, I thought to myself as I briefly kissed her cheeks.
“Roger, I told you, get someone from the airport to do that. I don’t understand why you insisted on pushing it yourself. It’s so—” she waved her hands “—undignified, unnecessary, inappropriate, working-class.” She turned to Paul, brought him close into a tight hug and whispered something in his ear.
Paul pulled back. “It will all be fine. Trust me. Ready to see Casa Tom and Paul?”
Marilyn flicked her stiff wavy blonde hair, threw her shoulders back, pointed her nose to the sky and said, “If you insist.”
“I insist, Mother. I’m not having you staying in a hotel when this is where we live. It’s just not right.”
Roger leant on the luggage trolley and lit a large cigar, allowing the plume of smoke to fan over his head, his eyes shut while grinning subtly.
“Glad to be here, Father?”
“Glad not to be on that bloody plane. They say it’s business class, but in those tiny planes, it’s not much different from cattle class. Precious little extra elbow room. One lukewarm glass of not-champagne and a decidedly mediocre meal does not business class make.”
Marilyn strode ahead. “Where do we get a driver? Where’s the queue for those services?”
I kept well back, feeling my car keys in my pocket.
Paul leapt in with, “A taxi? No need. I said we’d drive you to ours.” He pointed towards the car park sign. “Follow me.”
She turned to face her son. “Yes, but I wasn’t sure you really meant it, like the offer of us staying at your apartment. I thought you’d gone native, taken on some of the local customs somewhat too much. There really is no need to do any of this. We’re perfectly capable of staying in a hotel.”
We were approaching the car park ticket machine. Paul fiddled with the ticket and some change. “You came here to see us, didn’t you?”
She nodded, looking either side at the other people waiting to pay for parking.
“Then you’ll stay with us, travel with us, holiday with us.” Paul held the ticket aloft and led us towards the car.
It was a bit of a squeeze with their luggage filling the boot and resting on Roger’s and my laps in the back, while Marilyn clutched tightly her LV handbag on her lap and complained about how small the car was, and why couldn’t we have bought something larger, and why were we still insisting on driving her ourselves?
I sat quietly in the back, squashed under too many suitcases while making small talk with Roger about the wonderful weather and how the flight had been.
Eventually, after three trips up and down the stairs, his parents sat in our living room while I made them drinks and Paul pointed out the open balcony to the sites: the beach, the town centre, one of the clubs we worked in.
Marilyn held on to the door frame of the spare room Paul had shown her would be theirs for the stay. She tutted and shook her head. “Is this really the best you could do housing-wise? I imagined you in a large villa with sweeping grounds, a gardener, little shaded spots, a pool round the back, a sun terrace. Shame.”
Paul said, “Where were we living in this fantasy? A special part of Ibiza called your imagination?”
“Don’t be rude. It’s so unbecoming.”
We ate a lunch of cold meats, cheeses, olives and bread with a bottle of local wine.
Roger asked how the party planning and the DJing were going. I explained we were too busy, we’d been turning work down, and with Paul’s party work taking off since the successful launch night, he was even busier.
Marilyn wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “No cotton ones, I see.” She didn’t wait for a response and ploughed on instead asking what Paul was actually doing at these party nights. “I’ve read your letters, and I do so look forward to them coming every month. Although I wouldn’t mind them being a little more frequent. But we won’t dwell on that, will we, Roger?”
Roger shook his head, stared at the plate and filled his mouth with a piece of ham.
“It was all so much more romantic, so much more glamorous in my imagination. I know you sent us some pictures, but I really wasn’t convinced they were the actual place you were living in, was I, Roger?”
“She thought you’d played it down so we wouldn’t get jealous of what you have, didn’t you, Marilyn?”
She helped herself to another glass of wine. “I wouldn’t quite go that far. I’m very happy in our place, and with the holiday homes in Biarritz and Monaco, I’m in no fear of you outdoing us, darling, but I would have thought, with Tom’s money, you’d have been living…well, rather better.”
There was a bang and then a child screaming from the flat above, followed by another bang and two voices shouting loudly in Spanish as footsteps thumped on our ceiling.
Since I’d been mentioned by name, and so had my money, I decided to break my keep well out of it rule and said, “It’s set us up here. Without Luella’s money, we’d still be in Catford.”
“Yes, I heard about that little episode. Mercifully, I managed to avoid visiting in person since you were there so briefly, it seemed.”
“Six months. We’re being prudent. We’re using it for things we need. Paul’s promotion work needed some setup money, and now look how well he’s doing. The flights, the deposit for this place. At first, when we didn’t have much work, we used it to live, but now, we don’t need it.”
“The car,” Paul added optimistically.
“Useful. Practical.”
“Utilitarian and sparse is how I’d describe it.” Marilyn turned to Paul. “And will we be able to see one of these so-called parties you put on?” She looked at me, her eyebrows raised. “And the DJing—is that what it’s called? Will we hear some of that? Assuming it’s something one hears, rather than sees.”
“Of course you can.” I cleared the plates and handed round bowls of fresh figs with goat’s cheese and honey. “All from the market. All from the island.”
Everyone ate in silence for a few moments until Paul said, “I could take you to the club during the day. Less crowded, you’ll get to see the decorations and the stuff I do to make the party really memorable.” He collected some flyers from our bedroom and handed them round the table. “I design them, work with the club, work out which sort of clubbers they’re aiming it at.”
Roger and Marilyn looked at the flyers with a combination of interest and bemusement.
Marilyn dropped the flyer on the table as if it were a bag of dog poo. “There are different types of clubber, are there?”
Paul took the flyer back. “Oh, yes. All the different types of music, various scenes, a variety of clothes, all sorts of other stuff, yeah.” He opened the leaflet and showed her pictures.
“Foam party? Wearing swimming costumes? To a club? What on earth is that about?”
Paul explained how the warmth of the island suited water and foam parties, which, for many of the holidaymakers, was exactly why they’d come to Ibiza in the first place. “Among other things.”
“Yes, my neighbour said it’s all sand, see and sex here. Her daughter went on holiday with a group of friends and came back with the most terrible itching and a rash downstairs. She’d gone on a diet beforehand to squeeze into the bikini. Now I understand why that’s so important if you’re expected to go out in a bikini too. She was on some special diet to lose the weight and said she’d come back on the F-plan diet, whatever that means.”
I suppressed a laugh.
Paul shot me a look that said don’t even think about telling her more about the seedier side of the island.
Roger clapped his hands. “Sounds great. When do you want to take us? What do you have planned for today?”
“I thought you’d want to take it easy after the flight, have a walk along the beach, check out the town with us.”
“And go to one of these clubs, see you in action.” Marilyn glanced around the room, gently shaking her head in disapproval.
“You sure you want to go to the club at night when it’s full of people? Sweaty, dancing, drinking, jumping-up-and-down people?”
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br /> “I’m sure I’ve got something I can wear that’s suitable. You may not believe this to look at me now, but when I was younger, I was rather racy.”
Roger nodded. “And me. We grew up in the seventies, and I don’t remember much of it, If you know what I mean.”
***
We took them around the town, to a supermarket, where I offered to buy them anything they had particular requests for, to which they responded they thought we’d be eating out mostly, so not to worry. We walked together along the longest beach on the island; Paul pointed to our apartment building a few hundred yards from the beach.
“Yes, I can see the appeal,” Marilyn replied airily.
As we reached a bar, Paul said he had to go in to talk to a man about some business and he’d catch us up at our place on the beach.
I walked close to Paul, out of his parents’ earshot, and said, “Please don’t be long. It’s like wading through treacle. Why’s she such hard work?”
He hugged me. “She can’t help it. She wants everything to be the best for me, for us, and anything that’s not up to that standard she feels she has to comment on.”
“Yeah, everything. Every fucking thing. Right down to our crockery being too plain and the bed in her room being a bit small and offering to talk to the landlord on our behalf.”
“She’s well-meaning.” He waved. “Half an hour, tops.” And he was gone, disappeared into the darkness of the club’s interior.
Then there were three. I was on full-time parents-in-law entertaining duty. “Let’s go to the beach, that’s where we’re meeting him. We have a special place we always go there. You’ll love it.” Keeping a positive note in my voice, I led them away from the bar.
***
We sat on the rocks under our tree, enjoying its dappled shade, the water a few yards away while people played volleyball and read or chatted all around us. A speedboat pulled waterskiers, and another boat pulled groups of tourists on a yellow inflatable banana skimming through the water. There was an I Love Ibiza air balloon floating across the sky, full of waving tourists.