What I Did On My Holidays

by Chrissie Manby

  The carrier bag fell out of the wardrobe as Clare pulled the shoebox down. She merely kicked it to one side. Oh! Then she sat down on the bed, heavily, as she opened the shoebox itself. I could visualise exactly what she would find in there. I had taken so long to choose those shoes. I’d saved so hard. Once I’d decided that I deserved a birthday splurge, I had spent weeks researching the perfect party sandals. I had pored over Louboutins and lusted after several pairs from Gina before I found those perfect water-snake sandals on the Jimmy Choo website. They were a delicate confection of gossamer-fine straps that wound all over the foot and up round the ankle. They were classy and sexy at the same time. They were the sort of shoes that an Oscar-winning actress would wear to walk the red carpet. They were the kind of shoes you might get married in, if you were marrying somewhere chic and metropolitan. That had definitely been in my mind when I bought them at the shop on Sloane Street rather than via the Internet, because if I was shelling out that much money, I wanted the experience of having the snooty sales assistants pay attention to me, even if only for five minutes.

  When I got the Choos home, I took them out of their box and just looked at them for a while. I didn’t even put them on. They were shoes that demanded freshly scrubbed feet and glossy nail polish. I never felt quite groomed enough. Instead, I arranged them on top of their lilac box and dust bag as if for a shop display and just admired their perfection. Since that day I hadn’t actually worn them at all.

  I had been saving their first outing for a really special occasion. I had toyed with taking them to Majorca and wearing them on my thirtieth birthday, but even that hadn’t seemed quite an occasion enough. Besides, the pictures I had seen of Majorca suggested that there were cobbled streets all over the place and the last thing I wanted was to scuff or even break a heel by getting it stuck between two stones. So I was saving them for a ball or for dinner in a seriously fancy restaurant. I was saving them for a wedding. Preferably my own. Heaven only knew when any of those opportunities might arrive, but it seemed like a good idea to wait.

  And now my sister was trying them on! She struggled to get her fat toes through the loop of leather that fitted easily round my own. When it came to doing up the ankle strap, Clare had no chance, but that didn’t stop her from huffing and puffing and tugging and pulling as she tried to get buckle and holes to meet. She would not give up. She was stretching them all out of shape. I wanted to reach out and grab her by the foot and tell her to stop it at once.

  When she finally managed to close the buckle and got to her feet as unsteadily as a drunk, I could stand it not a moment longer. The creamy leather soles, still clean and unblemished, creaked under her awkward stance. The heels buckled inwards, putting strain on the outside edge where they joined the soles. Why didn’t she try to stand up properly? She was going to break my new shoes before I even had a chance to wear the things outdoors.

  ‘That’s it!’ I yelled from beneath the bed. ‘Take my bloody shoes off.’

  Chapter Twelve

  How I wish I could have seen Clare’s face when she heard me bellow from beneath the bed. She was so startled she fell onto the mattress, pressing the springs against my back so that I howled in pain as well as rage. I scrabbled out from under there, mad as a rattlesnake. I couldn’t get from beneath that bed quickly enough, both to escape the dead mouse and to rescue my shoes. Mostly to rescue my shoes.

  ‘Go away, go away.’ Clare kicked at me with my own best sandals. ‘Get away from me.’

  I made a grab for her ankle before she could get me in the eye with my own ten-centimetre heel.

  ‘Oh Lord, our father . . .’

  I couldn’t believe it. Clare had gone nuts. Was she praying? She shut her eyes tightly and started saying the Lord’s Prayer. She made the sign of the cross at me.

  ‘Hallowed be Thy name . . .’

  Using all my strength to pull her by the legs, I dragged her off the bed. She continued to kick at me from her new place on the floor.

  ‘Clare,’ I shouted at her, ‘stop kicking me.’

  ‘What are you?’ she wailed.

  ‘It’s Sophie. It’s your sister.’

  ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ she swore.

  ‘For heaven’s sake.’

  I had her on her back now and was struggling with the buckle on the sandal she’d crammed onto her left foot. Clare was still muttering a prayer.

  ‘What are you?’ she said again, feeling for my face. ‘You must be a vision.’

  ‘Will you just open your bloody eyes?’ I asked, as she poked me in the nostril. I grabbed her wrist.

  ‘I’ll do anything,’ she said. ‘Just don’t hurt me.’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ I promised her. ‘Much. Just take my shoes off, you silly tart.’

  Clare opened her eyes at last.

  ‘Sophie? Sophie, is that really you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me. Who on earth did you think it was?’

  Clare just stared at me with her jaw hanging slack in surprise.

  Giving up on the buckle for the time being, I got to my feet and brushed off the dust. As I had suspected, my pyjamas would need to go straight into the wash. I didn’t even want to think about the mouse I would have to deal with later. Instead, I picked up my purple Kurt Geigers from the floor and waved them in front of Clare’s face.

  ‘What are you doing trying all my best shoes on?’ I asked.

  ‘What are you doing,’ she countered, ‘hiding under your bed? Aren’t you in Majorca?’

  ‘Evidently,’ I said, ‘I’m not in Majorca. Take my shoes off.’

  ‘All right, all right, I’m doing it.’ Obediently – she was probably in shock – Clare sat back down on the bed and started to unbuckle them. ‘I think this one is stuck,’ she said, a note of rising panic in her voice.

  ‘If it is, I’ll cut you out of it and you’ll have to buy me a new pair. These are water snake. They’re Jimmy Choos. They cost me a bloody fortune.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d bought them,’ she said.

  Clare and I generally shared notes about our shopping triumphs, though hers were much less frequent since she’d met Evan.

  ‘That’s because I didn’t want you to ask if you could try them on,’ I replied. ‘I can’t believe you were going through my wardrobe like that, and dropping all my clothes on the floor while you were at it. What are you like?’ I shook out my chiffon skirt and hung it back up. ‘“A bit too Strictly” . . . Have you got no respect? My bedroom is my private place.’

  ‘Well, you were the one who asked me to look after your flat while you were on holiday.’

  ‘I asked you to look after my plants. You only had to water the plants and leave. You didn’t have to do anything other than that. You certainly didn’t have to ransack my bedroom like some kind of thief.’

  ‘But I thought there might be someone in here,’ she said. ‘I thought I heard a noise and there might have been a burglar in the wardrobe. See, as it happens, I was nearly right. There was someone in here after all.’

  ‘I still don’t get how that justifies you rifling through my clothes like it was the first day of a Brora sample sale. You could have checked for a burglar and left.’

  ‘What can I say? I’m sorry.’

  She handed me back my Choos. I snatched them from her and examined them carefully before I tucked them up lovingly in their tissue paper and slotted them into the box.

  ‘Dropping all my stuff on the floor . . .’ I muttered.

  ‘I would have put everything back.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Breaking my shoes . . .’

  ‘They’re not broken,’ Clare pointed out. ‘There’s no harm done. They didn’t suit me anyway . . . But what are you doing here?’ she asked, getting back to the really important question. ‘Why aren’t you in Puerto Bona? Where’s Callum?’

  ‘Callum’s at his flat, I should imagine. He decided not to go on holiday after all.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Havi
ng made sure that my statement Choos really were still in almost-never-worn condition, I decided that my sister was temporarily forgiven. I let her make me a cup of tea in the kitchen while I poured out the whole story. I was relieved to be out from that dustbowl beneath the bed, but of course it meant I had to tell her exactly what was going on and, in all probability, receive a lecture on how deluded I’d been ever to think that Callum took our relationship as seriously as I did.

  I didn’t have to tell Clare how excited I’d been about the fortnight in Majorca. She already knew. I started the story from the special effort I’d made for our last supper in England. A small piece of the Manchego cheese was still on the table, looking unappetisingly slick. Clare popped it into her mouth as I talked.

  ‘That’s not bad,’ she said.

  Then I told her about the text from Callum and all the horror that followed. I’d been doing pretty well since then, keeping the tears in check as I tried to formulate a strategy to get him back, but telling Clare the story brought with it a whole new tsunami of tears. Though her reassuring nods and the weight of her arm round my shoulder were the first physical comfort I had been offered since Callum broke the news of his changed feelings, her sweetness somehow made the whole thing seem so much worse.

  ‘But I thought you were so happy,’ Clare pointed out.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Well, you said you were,’ she clarified.

  ‘I was the happiest girl in the world. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel the same way.’

  ‘It all seems very sudden. Are you sure he was serious about breaking up?’

  ‘Serious enough to miss out on a holiday.’

  Clare had to admit that it didn’t sound good. To miss a holiday was one hell of a gesture if he was merely feeling a little bit bored. Especially when it was a holiday that had cost him well over a grand.

  ‘He must have been feeling really desperate . . . and it’s your birthday in a few days! I can’t believe he would be so cruel. What an arse! I went out with Hugh Barnsley a whole month longer than I wanted to so as not to ruin his eighteenth.’

  I remembered Hugh Barnsley. In the end he got an extra three months out of Clare by coming up with more and more special dates he wouldn’t survive alone.

  ‘Did he tell you why he changed his mind?’ Clare asked.

  ‘He told me that it was getting hard going out and working together, but he actually told Alison at work that it was like I couldn’t do anything without him and it’s been driving him nuts. He said he’s been feeling that way for weeks and he didn’t want to come to Majorca and break up with me afterwards because that way I might feel he’d been dishonest. Likewise, he said he thought it would be deceitful for him to celebrate my birthday with me knowing we were going to split up.’

  ‘He thought he’d save some money on your birthday present, more like. What a git. I would like to stick a birthday candle right up his . . .’

  I waved the image away.

  ‘But why didn’t you call me when all this happened?’ Clare asked. ‘I’d have come straight over to look after you.’

  I didn’t tell her that I didn’t think I could stand her smug nearly-marriedness.

  ‘Were you here when I came over yesterday?’ she asked.

  ‘I was behind the bedroom door,’ I confirmed, ‘all the time.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Clare, thumping the table in triumph. ‘I knew there was something . . . I felt a presence. I’m never wrong.’

  I rolled my eyes. Clare was always feeling ‘presences’. She liked to think she was quite psychic. She had a bookshelf full of astrological tables and never went a day without checking at least six horoscope sites online. Generally she kept on checking until she got a good one. ‘But I still don’t understand why you said you’d gone on holiday.’

  ‘I didn’t actually say I’d gone away. I didn’t say anything to anyone. But when Callum and I last spoke, he told me I should give up trying to change his mind and enjoy the trip I’d booked. He even said it might help me get over him.’

  ‘What a great idea,’ Clare sneered. ‘Spending your thirtieth birthday on your own in Majorca. You’d have jumped off a balcony.’

  ‘I don’t think I would have done that, but what he said made me so angry I said I might go on my own after all and he obviously took that as my intention and thinks, because he hasn’t heard otherwise, that I must have followed through.’

  ‘I bet he loved that,’ said Clare. ‘I bet that was the last thing he expected.’

  I blew my nose and carried on.

  ‘Apparently, he’s really impressed. He decided not to bother taking holiday since he wasn’t going to come away with me. He went into work and Hannah has been keeping me filled in on all the gossip since. According to Alison, now that I’ve gone away on my own . . .’

  ‘You’ve shown him that you’re a proper independent woman who doesn’t need a man to have a good time,’ Clare chipped in. ‘Excellent. I hope he is impressed. I hope he has had second thoughts about how independent and fantastic you really are. You’ll probably have him crawling back to you in no time.’ Clare clapped her hands together as if the matter was closed.

  ‘Except that when he finds out the truth, he’ll know that I’m no more independent and fantastic than I ever was. Because I’m not on holiday, am I? I’ve been hiding in my bedroom for two days. I’m going to look a real idiot.’

  Clare put on a serious face. We both looked at the teapot on the table between us as the reality of my situation sank in. At last, Clare spoke.

  ‘But why should he find out?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Who’s going to tell him you didn’t go away if you don’t? I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘But I . . .’

  ‘I can keep a secret. Why on earth does anyone but me have to know you’re here?’

  ‘Because I can’t stay here in my flat all fortnight, can I?’

  ‘Why not?’

  It was not what I had expected to hear. I had expected Clare to agree with me that I was going to look a complete idiot if I didn’t confess I hadn’t gone away soon. Instead, she said she thought maybe I had inadvertently done the right thing by not putting my colleagues straight when it became clear they thought I had gone away without Callum. I hadn’t told any lies. They had come to their own conclusions. I was just licking my wounds. I needed space. The last thing I needed was tea and sympathy from the likes of Hannah and Alison. Clare had met both of them at my birthday drinks last year and had very little time for either, pronouncing them to be the type of people who are only kind to other women if there’s a chance of social or political gain.

  ‘I bet they are both loving this whole saga. I would not want to be around either of them if I was feeling weak in any way,’ Clare concluded. ‘Especially Alison. She’s always fancied Callum.’

  That wasn’t much comfort, but Clare continued in an effort to cheer me up.

  If I wanted to be on my own in the light of such bad news as this break-up, she told me, then frankly I was entitled to be on my own. I had two weeks’ paid holiday to use after all. I wasn’t going to be inconveniencing anyone by staying out of the office since they were already prepared for my absence. @liftlady’s followers on Twitter could manage for a few days without my exciting updates on the daily pudding menu from the Stockwell Lifts canteen. And if the best way to win myself some time and space was by pretending that I had gone to Majorca, then Clare was right behind me.

  ‘You’re suggesting I hide in my flat for a fortnight?’

  ‘You don’t have to do it for the whole fortnight. Just the rest of the first week. You get to have some peace and save face.’

  ‘Seriously? Because I think that sounds a bit mad.’

  ‘I think there’s a touch of genius to it, actually. Not because it might win Callum back, but because it gives you a chance to get yourself together before you face the world.’

  Only Clare could put a sensible spi
n on it. I chanced a smile.

  ‘But another five days on my own? In the flat? How would I pull that off? Someone might see I’m at home.’

  ‘Sophie, I didn’t guess you were in this flat until you grabbed me by the ankle from beneath the bed and I can usually feel a human presence, as you know. How’s anyone who isn’t as sensitive as me – and most people aren’t – going to guess by walking past? People don’t really take that much notice. Really they don’t. You didn’t feel that Callum was in London, did you, when he said he was in Newcastle?’

  It was true. I hadn’t the faintest idea that he was lying to me. So much for being soul mates.

  ‘If I’m pretending to be in Majorca,’ I protested, ‘I can’t even go out to get groceries.’

  ‘I can get groceries for you,’ said Clare at once. ‘You can have this lot for a start.’

  She indicated the two bags on the table.

  ‘There’s enough bread, milk and cheese in there to last you for a few days. I’ll get some more for me and Evan on the way home. And if you need anything else, I’ll go to the supermarket and bring whatever you want with me when I come to water the plants. Easy?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I agreed. ‘But what will I do all day, in here on my own in the dark?’

  ‘What will you do all day? Oh, Sophie,’ Clare exclaimed, ‘have you no imagination? What I wouldn’t give for a single day all to myself! You can do whatever you like as long as it’s indoors. Heaven knows you’re not missing out on the weather. It’s going to be terrible at least until the weekend. I’ve even asked Evan if we can have the heating back on.’

  ‘Can you?’ I asked. ‘Have the heating back on, that is.’

  ‘You’re kidding. No heating from April to October. Them’s the rules. We’re saving for our retirement,’ she added with a roll of her eyes. ‘But you can have the heating on whenever you want. You could have it at thirty degrees in here and nobody would argue. And you could read. You could watch a DVD. You could knit. You could even write your Christmas cards! I have got so many books on my bedside table just waiting for me to find a spare minute to pick them up. Sophie, a whole week on your own in this flat sounds like a luxury to me.’