My Best Friend Has Issues

by Laura Marney

  My dad worked on the oil rig platforms off Aberdeen: three weeks on, one week off. I’m not sure what he did there, something to do with drilling. He took the job when mum fell pregnant with me. I was a wee accident, a happy accident, my mum said. On those Friday nights when Dad came home Mum made a big effort to please him. My brothers and I came home early from Isabelle’s and had fish and chips in front of the TV, while Mum set the table in the kitchen for her and Dad.

  Mum kept everything special for those Friday nights. When Mum bought something new to wear, she hung it in the wardrobe until Dad was due back. She’d get off work early and have her hair done in the hairdressers. When I was about nine or ten she went through a phase of using Boots face packs. She’d smear the green paste on her face and mine and we had to wait ten or fifteen minutes until it dried and hardened on our faces. My brothers used to horse around in the living room trying to make us laugh.

  ‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Mum said through unmoving lips, like a ventriloquist. When it came time to take it off, Mum splashed cold water on her face and patted it dry. Her skin was as tight as a baby’s. I always went to the mirror, smiling and grimacing, until my face cracked into a hundred lines.

  ‘That’s what you’ll look like when you’re old,’ Mum said.

  She painted my nails the same shade as hers so long as I promised to take it off before school on Monday morning. As I got older she let me do her make-up. She liked the way I did it.

  One Friday night in the middle of the summer Mum had made all her preparations. Charlie and the twins were out playing football. She said that seeing as we were both looking so gorgeous and it was such a lovely night we should go and meet Dad off the bus. It would be a lovely surprise for him. We waited at stance seventeen, both of us in our pink nail polish, Mum with her new hairdo and blue dress. We stood up when the bus pulled in. All the men from the rigs got off, laughing and joking, but Dad wasn’t amongst them. Mum asked but the inspector said there wasn’t another bus in from Aberdeen till the morning.

  Halfway through Saturday Morning CBBC, Dad came home. The boys were out playing football. Mum and I were still in our jammies having tea and toast in front of the telly. Mum’s hairdo was squashed in with having slept on it. She didn’t say anything to Dad. She walked into the kitchen and Dad followed her and closed the door. A while later they came back into the living room, Dad with a mug of tea.

  ‘We went to meet you last night at the bus station, Dad,’ I told him.

  Dad drew Mum a fierce look and she looked away. He went into the kitchen and poured his tea down the sink. Mum went in after him. Dad was angry and shouted.

  ‘Why d’you have to involve the kids in your paranoia?’

  Mum closed the door and said something quietly to Dad and then he shouted again.

  ‘Phone the bus company if you don’t believe me!’

  I wanted to stick up for Mum. I went into the kitchen and asked Dad why didn’t he want us to come and meet him? But he pretended not to hear. I asked him again. He turned and stared at me. I got nervous and went back to the living room and watched telly. Mum and Dad stayed in the kitchen for a while and then Dad went out and Mum went back to bed. I felt bad but I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. After that I never directly asked my Dad anything again. Sometimes when I heard the way Chloe spoke to her Dad, teasing and ridiculing him, I wished my Dad was still alive.

  *

  The marijuana plants were doing great; they had grown three or four inches. It had become my job to water them every morning and I enjoyed my task: soaking the tubs till the surface became mud, then squeezing the hose nozzle and spraying the leaves with a fine mist to keep them cool during the heat of the day.

  The pups were getting bigger too. It was funny watching them learn how to sit up. From a lying down position they walked their front paws back until they were sitting but sometimes they pushed back too far and would roll over. One night when we were stoned Chloe and I came up with what we thought were hilarious names for them: Squaw, Conejo, Concha, Fanny, Vulva, Pussy, Tiggy and Vagina.

  The girls were sleeping a lot less now and were getting everywhere. When she was doing her art Chloe didn’t wear clothes, only a long baggy T-shirt to keep from getting sunburnt, no pants or bra. If she bent down or sat with her legs open, I’d joke, ‘I think one of the pups has got trapped between your legs.’ Once one of them did get trapped, not between Chloe’s legs, but between the wall and a cement bag. Concha had got in behind the cement and was too fat to wriggle free. I only found her by following her high-pitched panicked yap. I asked Chloe to help me find her but she was too busy with her chimney.

  When I’d first arrived in the flat, Juegita used to carry the little sleeping bundles around in her mouth. She seemed to be separating those she’d already fed from those she hadn’t. Then she’d carry them to the basket and lie down amongst them. Half-asleep and still half-blind, they would sniff out the milk and clamp on to their mother. As they got bigger their demand for milk increased and they constantly bothered her, climbing over each other to get to a teat. Poor Juegita, exhausted and with tits dragging, had little option but to let them go at her. I could see she wasn’t enjoying it, who would? But even though she was sore and tired out, she let them suckle. As they got bigger she was constantly pursued by hungry puppies and Juegita spent most of her time trying to avoid them. They ran around after her, frisky and playful, jumping over each other.

  At first they were too small to climb the step on the terrace which led inside the flat. Juegita was safe to lie in the cool, air conditioned bedroom and soothe her tender nipples on the cold tiles. While Chloe worked I’d watch the pups for hours. They were so cute and determined; I couldn’t help but admire their puppy dog tenacity. They tried to climb the step but it was too steep. They fell over and fell over and fell over again, but they never gave up. It was tempting to give them a helping hand up but I also felt sorry for Juegita, she needed a break from them. Inevitably one or two of the more adventurous ones learned how to climb the step and once that happened, the game was up for Juegita The Milk Machine. They were greedy little buggers. Not content with sucking their poor mother dry, the bigger ones were now beginning to nibble at her food bowl. Every day I put out a little more of the dry biscuits as more of them caught on to the solid food option. They didn’t even give her peace to eat; as soon as she let her guard down they were on her. After a certain point she didn’t take any nonsense. If any of the pups tried to sneak up behind her and latch on to a teat, she’d growl and chase them off.

  Juegita had, thank God, given up her disgusting habit of licking up after them. It had become my job. I preferred the more traditional cleaning method of a brush and pan but even so, it was a task that was becoming increasingly unpleasant. Every day they ate more solid food and eight little doggies’ doo doo became more like proper dog shit and difficult to keep track of.

  *

  I could hardly believe it. I went to the Internet café, more for something to do than to pick up messages. The only person who emailed me was Charlie and even then he only ever sent jokes that other people had sent him. But that day was different. I got an email from Lauren and Lisa.

  It would have been better if they’d got my email address from my Friends Reunited space, that way they’d have seen the photos I posted but they’d got it from Charlie. Apparently they’d met him in Clancy’s. Lauren made a point of telling me this. She’d written CLANCY’S! as if this was hilariously funny. Anyone reading it would have thought she’d written it in an ironic way but I knew what she was playing at. She was boasting. Other than that, the email was really friendly. I quickly scanned through the catch-up stuff about where they were working (council offices, both of them), where they were living (the same flat), and what they were doing (just chilling or clubbing at CLANCY’S!), until I got to the important bit: what they wanted from me. There was no way they’d contact me otherwise. And I was right.

  Guess what? We’re coming to Barcel
ona next weekend! We got a cheap deal in a hotel in Estartit and we’re going to get the bus to Barcelona for our last night and hook up with you! What do you say? Are you going to take us out and show us the town?

  Getting the bus from Estartit. I was quite impressed. Lisa and Lauren were independent Euro travellers now.

  I couldn’t decide what to do so I asked Chloe.

  ‘They were vicious bitches to me at college with all that “The Hulk” stuff, but on the other hand, I’d love them to see how I’m doing now and how much weight I’ve lost. That would totally sicken them, and they’d tell everyone in Cumbernauld.’

  Chloe was fantastic.

  ‘Then you gotta invite them. Tell them to come and we’ll show them a night out in Barcelona they’ll never forget.’

  I played it cool with my email reply, giving them my mobile number and not much else, telling them to call me when they got here. I was tempted to attach the photo I’d sent Charlie to give my mum: me in a bikini on the terrace playing with the puppies, but I resisted. They’d see it all when they got here: my figure, my tan, my new designer clothes Chloe had given me. Then those two great haggises would be sorry. We’d see who was The Hulk then.

  Chapter 25

  We were in a hotel bedroom with a naked man. It was Hotel Museo, the posh one near the beach with the goldfish sculpture. I hadn’t wanted to come here but Chloe had insisted. She’d wanted to meet older men.

  ‘They’re way dirtier,’ she said.

  The hotel was pretty swish but I’d rather have been still sitting in Josep’s grubby wee bar in our own barrio.

  Josep, the owner of the grubby wee bar, was tall and broad for a Catalan with droopy eyes and a big droopy moustache. He was always grumpy but it was just his schtick. When I took Juegita out for a walk he would always call us in and give her a little piece of ham. His bar was like the rest of the bars on the street, a wooden-shuttered windowless cave. The bar was furnished with only basic wooden trestle tables and stools. It hadn’t been properly cleaned in a long time. While puffing on a fat cigar he served hot chillies from huge jars, dried ham off the bone and thick chunks of cheese from an enormous wheel. If ash dropped off his cigar on to the food he took a big breath and blew it off. Fat sometimes dripped off the legs of ham suspended from the ceiling. The place stank but you got used to it.

  Before we went to Hotel Museo we’d gone downstairs to Josep’s and had a bottle of the local hooch, Leche de Pantera: panther’s milk. It was thick and creamy and tasted great if you shook some cinnamon powder on top of it. Josep always teased us and no matter how much Chloe flirted with him and whispered in his ear he’d never tell us what it was actually made of. It looked like milk, tasted sweet and got you drunk, that was all I needed to know.

  I always practised my Spanish on Josep. He was Catalan but as we were his best customers he indulged me. My Spanish was coming along nicely and the words I didn’t know I could get round by pulling faces and doing elaborate mimes. I’d rushed back to our table with good news.

  ‘Hey Chloe, you’ll never guess, Josep’s just offered me a job!’

  ‘Chuh, sure,’ laughed Chloe.

  ‘He has. What, you think I can’t do it? It’s only bar work.’

  ‘I think you can’t speak Spanish.’

  ‘Josep doesn’t want me to speak Spanish. You know what it’s like in here at the weekend with British tourists. He wants me to work Friday and Saturday. It’s perfect: it’s just downstairs, I get paid and my Spanish is bound to improve.

  ‘Honey, you don’t need a job, you have a job teaching English with Señor whatever-his-name-is.’

  ‘Señor Valero.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not for ages.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that when we go out you never get it on with anyone. If I hadn’t seen you blow the Scottish guy, I’d say you were sexually dormant, Alison. That must be kinda frustrating.’

  Chloe was smiling and that made me laugh.

  ‘D’you wanna get it on with the Brit customers?’ she teased me. ‘Is that why you wanna work here?’

  ‘I’m not sexually frustrated! Well, maybe a wee bit,’ I laughed, ‘but I want to start earning some money.’

  My money was all spent. Nights out with Chloe weren’t cheap. Marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy all cost money, and Chloe often left me to do the handovers. What could I do? She was paying for everything else: the rent, the bills and food, the trips to art galleries, nightclubs and expensive restaurants. And she’d given me all those clothes. Paying for the drugs was the least I could do. Despite having taken another two hundred from Chloe’s tin, once again I was broke.

  ‘Why do you need to make money? We have money.’

  ‘Yeah but Chloe, that’s your money. I can’t keep taking…’

  ‘Don’t you like living with me?’ Chloe said.

  Her tone had changed, now she sounded deeply hurt. I didn’t know if she was still kidding.

  ‘Don’t you wanna hang out with me?’

  I laughed, a wee bit uncomfortable.

  ‘Well, don’t you?’ she said more aggressively. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

  She sounded melodramatic. I couldn’t take her seriously.

  ‘Do what alone?’ I laughed.

  ‘Raise the puppies, look after the marijuana, make the chimney. And I have to decide what to do about college. Don’t you wanna be a part of that?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Well, tell Josep thanks, but no thanks.’

  Josep’s bar was pretty smelly. Brit lads came here at the weekend to get drunk and obnoxious. I’d have to serve them and smile. Josep might try it on as well; he had that look about him as if he might try his luck with me. If I had a problem with him, then we wouldn’t be able to come in here anymore. No more panther’s milk.

  Chloe heard me tell Josep, in my limited Spanish, that I’d think about it. But that wasn’t enough to settle her. We’d done the last of the coke before we’d come out and it was making her restless.

  ‘We’re on a mission tonight and I know just where we should go,’ said Chloe.

  ‘Donde?’ I asked, trying to bring the jovial spirit back.

  ‘Hotel Museo.’

  ‘Por que?’

  ‘Por que we need to get you laid, missy.’

  ‘Is that the mission?’ I splayed my legs. ‘Should I adopt the missionary position?’

  ‘Later, honey.’

  ‘But why d’we have to go there?’

  ‘Because it’s full of men on conference,’ said Chloe, stirring the cinnamon powder into her drink with her finger, ‘doctors, lawyers, grown ups who know how to fuck. Older guys who like it dirty.’

  ‘Ah,’ I nodded knowingly, ‘we’re talking about you now, aren’t we, Chloe?’

  ‘Shut up!’ she squealed, delighted. ‘I guess we are.’

  ‘I suppose I should think it’s selfish of you to put your perverted sexual needs before my frustrated ones, but I’m not that bothered.’

  ‘That’s why we get along so well, Alison.’

  The hotel was unbelievably cool and trendy, a contrast to Josep’s hole-in-the-wall. The walls and furniture and decor, even the flower arrangements, were on a majestic scale, and made me a little uncomfortable. We had both dropped two ecstasy tablets in the taxi on the way there and I wondered if that was what made the proportions seem so distorted. It didn’t feel like Barcelona. Chloe had quickly blagged our way into some corporate function. Except for the waiting staff and us, they were all middle-aged and English, south coast, posh, English ladies and gentlemen. We could have been in Bournemouth. They all wore a buttonhole or corsage and a name badge. The tables had been cleared of plates and the dance floor prepared. After ten minutes I came up on the E’s and started to enjoy myself. Then it was great. A band played cheesy Europop covers and I danced to every one of them. Chloe danced with me for a while and then she was swept off by some handsome old silver fox. The guy was forty, at least, pro
bably the same age as her dad, but what the hell. I had got in with a sweet old couple and was jiving with both of them, one on each arm, when Chloe came back for me.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she laughed.

  ‘I’m dancing a ménage à trois with these lovely people,’ I told her. ‘All these nice English ladies and gentlemen, don’t you think they’re lovely?’

  ‘Yes, they’re lovely. Come on,’ she said, hauling me off the floor.

  We went up in the lift which had a huge mirror on one side, soft lighting and irresistible music.

  ‘Alison, you’re dancing to Muzak.’

  ‘So? It’s got a good beat.’

  I caught sight of us both in the mirror under the flattering lighting of the lift.

  ‘Oh Chloe, look at you, you’re so beautiful!’

  I put my arm around her neck and pulled her round to look at her reflection.

  ‘See?’

  ‘Yeah, and you’re beautiful too.’

  ‘But you’re more beautiful than me, much more.’

  ‘Oh stop it. It’s just the E talking.’

  ‘It’s a truth drug, Chloe.’

  ‘It is with you,’ she agreed. ‘Are you having a good time?’

  ‘Course I am, the music’s great, isn’t it? I always have a good time with you, I love you Chloe. And that’s the truth.’

  I didn’t want to get out of the lift. We were having a good time.

  ‘We have everything here: music, a big mirror, we can go up, we can go down. What more do you want?’

  ‘Are you coming or not?’

  The guy was completely naked. This was the silver fox she had gone off with on the dance floor. He was strolling around the room with his cock and his balls on display.

  ‘Are you a nudist?’ I asked.

  The Silver Fox looked at Chloe.

  ‘How come the hair on your head is silver but around your cock it’s dark?’

  He laughed. ‘My head’s where I worry about things,’ he said, pointing, ‘I don’t have any worries down there.’