by Mike Gayle
Donna nodded carefully. If she was offended by my sullen mood she did a good job of hiding it. ‘Okay, well I think I’ll still pop in anyhow.’ This was it. This was goodbye. ‘Well, it was nice to meet you anyway.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied, willing myself to say something that would make her stay. ‘It was nice to meet you too. Hope everything goes well for you and Sadie back in north London.’
‘Look after yourself, Charlie.’ She reached up and kissed me on the cheek. ‘And make sure you have a great life.’ With that she turned and walked away in the direction of Bar Go-Go and for a few moments I stood rooted to the spot, unsure of what I should do next. That was the moment I realised that I couldn’t let her walk away without at the very least explaining my behaviour. I ran after her, calling out her name until she stopped and turned around.
‘Listen, Donna,’ I said unable to take my eyes off her. ‘I’m sorry for what just happened. I know it’s no excuse but the thing is I’ve just had a bit of bad news that’s sort of turned my whole world upside down.’
‘Was it about your ex?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
Donna smiled and shook her head. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Do you want to listen?’
‘How about we take it in turns to do both?’ said Donna smiling.
‘Now that,’ I began as she took my hand in her own, ‘sounds like a good idea.’
Heads or tails?
At Donna’s suggestion, we made our way back up to the strip in the direction of all the main bars and clubs, but as we passed the Camelot club we turned right up a street with a slight incline that I’d failed to notice on my previous visits. The early part of the street consisted mainly of fast-food outlets and amusement arcades but those died out the further we walked along and were gradually replaced by small grocery shops and bakeries. Near the end of the street, opposite a taxi rank, was a small bar called Mythos. As we walked in it was obvious that Mythos didn’t cater for the tourist crowd: the décor was that of a traditional taverna, the music on in the background was Greek and with the exception of a couple of middle-aged locals the entire bar was empty.
Donna and I sat down at a table near the door and when a waiter came over to us we ordered two beers which he brought to us straight away.
‘So how did you find this place?’ I asked.
‘On my travels,’ replied Donna. ‘One afternoon when the girls were all down at the beach I took myself off for a walk. I spotted the bakery next door first and bought a few pastries and then saw this place. It just seemed really nice and quiet so whenever I could get away during the day for a little while I’d nip up here and have a drink and write a postcard to Sadie.’
‘You wrote more than one?’
‘Two a day for every day that we’ve been here,’ she laughed. ‘I told you I was missing her.’
There was a long silence.
‘Heads or tails?’ said Donna after a few moments.
‘What do you mean?’
Donna laughed. ‘I thought it might make it easier to work out which one of us would be talking first.’
‘Heads you go first,’ I replied.
‘Okay,’ said Donna handing me a one-Euro coin. ‘But you’ll have to be the one to flip it because I’m rubbish at that kind of thing.’
I flipped the coin and caught it moments later in midair, wrapping my fingers around it tightly. Donna and I stared expectantly at my clenched fist. I opened my hand and Donna laughed, clearly delighted with the result.
‘Over to you then.’
‘Fine,’ I replied, ‘but I’ll keep the coin.’
With that I took a long sip of my beer and told Donna everything about my break-up with Sarah, beginning with the day she left and finishing with Lisa’s phone call less than a couple of hours ago.
‘No wonder you looked so shell-shocked when I bumped into you,’ said Donna. ‘I’m surprised you’re still standing at all after what you’ve been through.’
‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘I think the real killer is that I didn’t even see it coming.’
‘There’s no reason you should have done, Charlie. I think it’s just one of those things. The important thing is what you do next.’
‘There is no next,’ I replied. ‘That’s it. It’s all over.’
‘But what about the baby?’
‘It’s not mine. It’s his. Oliver’s.’ I caught Donna’s eye and could see that she was curious how I could be so sure. ‘We hadn’t touched each other in months,’ I explained. ‘I assumed it was just a phase, but we never seemed to come out the other side.’
A million years
‘For a long time after Sadie’s dad left I thought about taking an overdose,’ said Donna.
‘You’re joking?’
Donna shook her head. ‘I wish I was.’
‘But you didn’t do anything did you?’
She shook her head, scanning my face for a reaction. ‘I think it was just me not thinking straight, that’s all. My GP had prescribed me antidepressants and I wasn’t coping very well.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘You don’t think I’m weird do you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I don’t think I was serious about it,’ she continued. ‘I know I’d never willingly leave Sadie in a million years. But there were times after he’d gone when I didn’t know how I’d make it through the next minute, let alone the next day. I missed Ed so much I didn’t know how to cope. In the end my mum and dad had to come and stay with me to help out with Sadie. Ed walked out because he said he couldn’t cope with being tied down. He said that I wanted more from him than he had to give and that he needed his own space.’ She paused and laughed. ‘He said a lot of things actually. But none of them ever made sense.’ She took a sip of her lager. ‘It’s been two years since it happened and I get on with him now for Sadie’s sake rather than my own. If I didn’t think that she would hold it against me, I’d never have anything to do with him again. He’s okay now that he’s managed to get over his mini-life crisis, find himself a new girlfriend, and finally get his head around the idea of being a parent. But I just can’t find it in my heart to forgive him for what he did. He broke my heart, Charlie. Smashed it in two and I never thought that I’d recover.’
My way of coping
‘What’s the single thing you miss most about Sarah?’ asked Donna.
‘Just one thing? Her not being around,’ I answered. ‘Until she left I don’t think I was ever quite aware just how much space she filled in my life.’
Donna nodded. ‘No one ever tells you what a lonely place the world can be when you go from being two to one, do they? I think the only reason I managed to cope with the situation was because I had Sadie to look after.’
‘I suppose Andy and Tom are my way of coping,’ I said, avoiding Donna’s gaze. ‘It’s not so much that they’ve said or done anything special since I split up with Sarah – I didn’t even tell Tom that Sarah had gone until he arrived at my flat the day before we flew here.’
‘So what is it they give you?’ asked Donna. ‘How did they help you to cope when Sarah left?’
I paused and thought for a moment. ‘They gave me somewhere to belong,’ I replied eventually. ‘And I think that’s pretty much all I needed.’
The middle of it
‘Where do you think you’ll be this time next year?’ asked Donna.
‘What kind of a question is that?’
‘The kind of question I ask all the time,’ smiled Donna. ‘I think about the future all the time. Probably even more than the present. I never used to be like this. I think it must be something to do with having a kid because you always have to plan ahead – meal times, clothes to wear, everything. Now I love thinking about the future because it’s a place where, until you arrive there, anything can happen.’
‘I used to think about the future quite a bit when I was at college,’ I replied. ‘But you do when you’re that sort of age don’t
you? You constantly feel like your whole life is ahead of you.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I’m in the middle of it. This, right now, this is life and most of the time I’ve got enough problems dealing with the now to think about anything else.’ I paused and laughed. ‘I sound like the king of doom.’
‘That’s because you’re too bogged down in the daily struggle.’
‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘So with all your thinking about the future, where do you think you’ll be this time next year?’
‘Somewhere out of London,’ said Donna. ‘I don’t know where exactly. Maybe somewhere in the country, or near the sea. A few years ago my parents moved to Aberdovey in Wales. Where they live is only five minutes from the sea and it is absolutely amazing there. Sadie and I try to see them at least every other month and any time we go it’s just like being on holiday. That’s where I’d like to be if we could afford it.’
‘And what about next year’s holiday?’ I asked mischievously. ‘Any chance of you coming back here with Sadie?’
‘You may laugh but she’d love it here,’ said Donna. ‘She’d be telling all of her friends how sophisticated she is.’
‘So where then?’
‘Do you know what? I haven’t actually thought that much ahead. But if you pushed me for an answer I think I’d be happy going on holiday anywhere. Anywhere at all.’
Let’s go
‘It’s late,’ said Donna, looking at her watch. ‘Let’s go but not home.’
‘Another bar?’
Donna shook her head. ‘I’m done with bars.’
‘How about the beach?’
Donna’s face lit up immediately. ‘Definitely. I think it’s the one thing I’ll miss about this place when I’ve gone.’ She stood up, finished off the remains of her drink and then took me by the hand.
‘Let’s go.’
The two of us
It was just after two in the morning as Donna and I headed along the crowded strip in the direction of the beach while everyone else was heading in the opposite direction. It felt good swimming against the tide like this. As if it was the two of us against the world. Every step we took towards our destination seemed to bond us closer together just as every step the crowd took seemed to push them further away.
‘Do these guys really think girls who look like that actually fancy them?’ asked Donna as we watched with some amusement as a girl in a tight white vest and red sparkly hot-pants waylaid a group of lads who looked as if they had only just this second turned eighteen.
‘They’re not completely stupid,’ I explained. ‘They’re just willing participants in the fantasy.’
‘You sound like you’re talking from experience.’
‘Lurking inside most men is a spotty prepubescent teenager who thinks he’ll never get a girlfriend.’
‘Even you?’
‘Especially me.’
A gang of girls carrying glow-in-the-dark batons passed by, closely followed by a similar-sized gang of lads chanting (rather than singing) ‘Happy Birthday’.
‘So was that ever you?’ I asked as one of the girls carrying the glow-in-the-dark batons suddenly turned around and lifted up her skirt to flash the boys behind her.
‘I wouldn’t like to say.’
‘So you’ve been on holidays like this before?’
‘Full-on, all-girls-on-the-razz type resort holidays?’
I nodded.
‘A few,’ replied Donna coyly. ‘The last one was about seven years ago. Some girls from nursing college and I went to Fuerteventura. We partied so much we inevitably all came back suffering with the symptoms of Fuerteventura ’flu: extreme exhaustion brought on by burning the candle at both ends for fourteen nights on the trot. It took me a good six months before I felt anything near back to normal and a year before I could look a Mai-Tai in the eye without feeling like I was going to throw up. My friends all went back the following year. I would’ve gone with them too but by then I’d got together with Ed, and the two of us went to Sardinia instead.’
‘Was that a good holiday?’
Donna shrugged. ‘It was okay, I suppose. We were young and in love and this was the first time that either of us had ever been away on a couple’s holiday. When my friends came back from Fuerteventura and I heard about everything they’d got up to I remember feeling for a while like I’d missed out on something special. But when they all went back the year after I didn’t have any regrets at all. It was definitely a case of been there, done that.’
‘I met Sarah ten years ago here in Malia on an all-boys holiday with Andy and Tom,’ I confessed.
‘A holiday romance? I’d never have guessed that in a million years. I suppose because I’ve never done the holiday-romance thing myself.’
I was surprised. ‘Not even when you went to Fuerteventura?’
‘Not even when I went to Newquay with my parents when I was fifteen,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know . . . I think I always thought they were a bit of a waste of time. My friends all had them and they never worked out. They’d fall massively in lust with some guy and a few weeks later when they were back at home and he hadn’t phoned or called they’d be heartbroken.’ Donna paused and smiled. ‘Still, it worked for you. You must have been one of the good ones that kept the dream alive.’
Donna paused as we returned to the crossroads near McDonalds. There were quite a few cars on the road and no sign of a break in the traffic. As we waited, Donna squeezed my hand and smiled. A closeness was growing between us. And it didn’t seem forced or even flirtatious. It seemed natural. As if the only logical place in the world for her hand to be was in my own.
Typical Libran
As we passed by a late-night grocery shop a few hundred yards from the top of the beach Donna suggested that we stop and get a bottle of wine. Without waiting to hear my reaction she led me into the brightly lit store where a middle-aged woman with a sad face sat at the till, staring into space.
I followed Donna to the wine section where she asked my opinion about what kind of wine to get.
‘Let’s go for a mid-priced red and a cheap one for afters,’ I suggested reaching for a Merlot and a cheaper bottle of Rioja. I offered both bottles up for her approval.
‘They’ll do fine,’ said Donna. ‘I hate choosing which wine. If you’d left it up to me we would’ve been here for ages and then I would’ve spent all night thinking that you secretly hated my choices.’
‘Ah,’ I joked, ‘so instead I’m the one who’s got to spend all night worrying?’
‘No,’ said Donna squeezing my hand. ‘Right now, my friend, I don’t think you could do a single thing wrong if you tried.’
Along with the wine we bought some chocolate and Pringles in case we became hungry and then left the grocery store with the bottles clanging together in a blue plastic carrier bag. Within minutes we had left the road behind and were on the path down to the beach.
It was odd being at the beach so late at night. The moon was quite bright and in its light I could see the shadowy outlines of the sun-loungers and umbrellas packed away behind a fenced-off area. The rest of the beach was completely empty.
‘Do you think I should call Nina and tell her where I am?’ asked Donna.
‘Definitely.’
Donna took off her sandals and walked barefoot across the sand until she was out of earshot but just about visible.
I don’t know why but I suddenly felt like talking to someone too. I pulled out my phone and dialled Andy’s number.
‘Charlie?’ he said, answering the phone after six or seven rings. ‘What happened to you? One minute you’ve gone outside to talk to Lisa and the next you’ve vanished into thin air.’
‘It’s a long story,’ I replied.
‘To do with Lisa?’
‘No, to do with Sarah.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Andy solemnly. ‘Bad news?’
‘You could say that.’
There was a long pause.
‘S
o where are you now?’
‘I’m with Donna down at the beach.’
‘Donna who?’
‘Nina’s sister, Donna.’
Andy burst out laughing. ‘You’re a sly one. How did that happen?’
‘I bumped into her. We got talking.’ I paused basking in the glow of being momentarily enigmatic. ‘That’s pretty much it.’
‘Never mind all that,’ said Andy. ‘Have you and her—?’
‘No.’
‘But you are going to—?’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean no? This is it, Charlie. This is your moment. Don’t screw it up by being Mr Nice Guy okay?’
I sighed. Andy was draining my batteries down to nothing. ‘Look,’ I replied, ‘I only called to say sorry for running out on you like that.’ I looked across the sand in Donna’s direction and she waved at me. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’
‘Yeah,’ replied Andy chuckling. ‘I will see you later. And you’d better be prepared to tell me everything.’
I pressed the end call button and slipped my phone into the back of my jeans just as Donna beckoned me towards her.
‘I think I’ve just completely freaked my sister out,’ said Donna gaily, as she grasped my hand. ‘She can’t believe that I’ve gone off with you like this. It’s so funny. Normally I’m the one trying to stop her doing crazy stuff.’
‘I was on the phone to Andy and I think I freaked him out too. Which is probably a good thing.’
‘Well I’ve got some good news for you,’ said Donna. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that my sister’s friend Beth apparently fancies you something rotten.’
‘I’ll make a note of that for later,’ I said laughing.
Hand in hand we walked across the beach until we were about twenty yards from the edge of the sea.
‘How about here?’ suggested Donna. ‘We’ll be able to see the water but won’t be under threat from getting soaked by the waves.’
We sat down cross-legged on the sand and I proceeded to open the more expensive bottle of wine by pushing the cork back into the bottle using the keys to the apartment.