The Holiday Swap

by Zara Stoneley

  Which reminded her. She’d always wanted a dog, and he’d said no. Think about the mess, he’d said, and we’d be ‘tied down’ – yeah, she should have spotted that one for what it was.

  She could get a dog now. And read in bed, listen to heavy rock, watch weepy films. Get totally rat-arsed on cheap wine.

  He’d controlled her right up until the end. She’d been the worst kind of fool, trying to keep up a pretence of being the happiest person in the world, of living the perfect life, and she’d been so determined to succeed she’d ignored the warning signs that were hammering like a battering ram against her defences. Well Oli wasn’t going to do it for a second longer.

  She just hoped that spending a weekend with her childhood friends wasn’t going to make her even more homesick than she already was.

  ***

  ‘Are you absolutely positive this is where Flo meant, and she said seven o’clock?’ Daisy stared at the firmly closed shutters, and the crowd of people which had been steadily growing in the five minutes they’d been standing there.

  The route Flo had marked on the map had been easy to follow, but she was now beginning to wonder if Anna had sabotaged it. Despite the fact she’d even taken it to the loo with her.

  ‘You’re the map-reader.’ Anna grinned. ‘I wish they’d bloody hurry up and open the place though, I’m starving.’

  ‘Hey, you made it!’ Daisy glanced up to see the welcome sight of a smiling Flo.

  ‘Fab, you found it.’

  ‘We did, but we were just beginning to wonder if we’d come to the wrong place.’

  ‘Or you’d stood us up.’ Added Anna.

  Daisy rolled her eyes and Flo laughed. ‘Get ready for the scramble.’ She nodded at the shutter behind them, which was slowly moving upwards. The crowd of people fidgeted and edged forward. The shutter stopped three feet up. They relaxed. It lifted a bit more, people edged closer and Daisy began to wonder just what kind of place Flo had brought them to.

  ***

  The moment the shutter was lifted, Flo dived forward. She swung round to check that Anna and Daisy had followed, then put one hand out in a ta-dah gesture and waited for the reaction.

  ‘Wow.’ Daisy stared, her brown eyes opening wide, and Flo grinned in satisfaction as she spun round on the spot, taking in the blue ceramic-tiled walls, marble tables and the artefacts that fought for space on the little shelves running along each wall.

  Anna giggled, unimpressed. ‘She did that in Placa Catalunya, she’s going to go home all wound up and need spinning back the other way. Daisy, stop it and sit down. Wow, look at those tapas, can we try all of them?’

  Daisy sat. Craning her neck as she shifted on the narrow bench and tried to read the plaques on the wall above. ‘This place is incredible, it’s lovely, so cute. I want to live here.’

  Flo grinned. She’d always loved the way Daisy just came out with what was in her head. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? I love it, even though it’s always cram-packed with tourists.’ She looked apologetically at Anna and Daisy, ‘sorry, but you know what I mean. The owner won’t let anybody change it though, the local Barcelonese love the house cava and traditional tapas, and as far as he’s concerned the visitors can like it or lump it.’ She grinned. ‘Most of them like it.’

  ‘I do, it’s lovely.’ Daisy nearly slipped off her seat as she twisted round again.

  ‘You are acting the complete tourist.’ Anna shook her head disapprovingly, but was laughing.

  ‘I don’t care, I am a tourist and I’ve never, ever been anywhere like this before.’

  ‘Wait ‘til you try the cava. It’s compulsory, I won’t let you drink anything else.’

  A litre of the house speciality, bubbly, and three coupe glasses were soon on the table, along with tapas. Flo pointed. ‘Pan con tomate, obligatory round here, and anchovies.’

  ‘Anchovies?’ Anna shuddered and pulled a face.

  ‘You can’t come to Barcelona and not eat anchovies. Trust me, they’re the best with this cava.’

  ‘I trust you.’ Daisy forked one up, looking at it suspiciously. ‘I think.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘Although I do remember you trying to get me to eat a mud-and-worm sandwich once.’

  ‘You’ve got a memory like an elephant, Daisy.’ Flo grinned, ‘It’s so good to see you guys again, I know I keep saying it, but it is. I’ve got to meet somebody about work tomorrow afternoon, but how about I give you a grand tour in the morning?’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean you don’t have stuff you have to do? We can just get on one of those tour buses.’

  ‘Don’t be daft Daisy, no way are you doing that. I need the company to be honest,’ Flo took a deep breath. There was something refreshing about talking to old friends, no pretence required, ‘I’ve just had the shittiest holiday you can imagine,’ she glanced at Anna, ‘and you’d be doing me a favour, give me something to think about and stop me drinking every bottle of wine in the apartment.’

  Daisy was staring at her. ‘Oh I’m so sorry, Flo, you don’t deserve it. I’ve always wanted your life, you just look the most together person, you always did, not the type to experience shit holidays or turn to drink. That’s my job.’

  ‘No, it’s mine.’ Anna poked her own chest proudly. ‘I’m the one that has shit relationships, I hold a special certificate in it.’

  Daisy and Flo both laughed.

  ‘Well, I always look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, and haven’t got a clue.’

  It was Anna who laughed this time. ‘You usually have been dragged through a hedge, Daisy.’ She grinned at Flo. ‘She’s even worse than she used to be. She spends most of her time these days covered in dog hair or being dumped by her horse into water troughs.’

  ‘That was only once.’ Daisy objected.

  ‘Or trampled by him when he’s spotted a monster in the hedge.’

  ‘He’s easily scared.’

  ‘Scared my arse, he’s massive.’

  Daisy shifted her gaze from Anna to Flo. ‘She doesn’t get horses.’ She rifled through the picture gallery on her phone and waved the resulting picture of an out-of-focus hairy horse at Flo. ‘I miss him.’ Flo wasn’t sure she got horses either, and ordered another bottle of cava.

  Daisy, who had been staring at her horse photographs, put her phone down. ‘That’s why I decided to escape from Tippermere for a bit really, because of a man, although I did, of course, want to see you.’ She added the last bit hastily.

  ‘Oh no, not you too.’ Flo glanced at Anna. ‘You never said, you just said Daisy needed to have a change of scene, live a little. Nasty split?’ She’d sensed that Daisy was acting a bit out of character, and now it made sense.

  ‘No, Jimmy asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Jimmy?’ Flo stopped, mid-pour, and put the cava bottle down. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. ‘Jimmy as in dimples-and-dirty-boots Jimmy?’

  Daisy nodded.

  ‘I didn’t know it was that serious.’

  ‘Nor did Daisy.’ Anna grinned.

  ‘And he asked you to,’ she stumbled over the word, ‘marry him?’ The lump that had been resting just below her collarbone for the last week popped straight into her throat and made her eyes water. ‘I thought,’ she swallowed hard, and tried to ignore the burn at the back of her eyes, ‘I thought Oli was going to ask, you know, if I wanted to… and… oh, how could I ever have thought he was taking me on a lovely romantic break?’ It came out as an undignified wail.

  ‘Oh shit.’ Daisy put her hands up to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, that was so thoughtless, I thought you knew, I’m sorry.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘It’s not your problem I thought he was going to propose.’ Now she’d started she couldn’t stop. She emptied her glass and bubbles shot up her nose and choked her. She spluttered, which was far more undignified than the noise she’d made. Anna shoved a napkin at her. By the time she’d mopped up and sneezed, and snuffled a bit, and was looking back at the
two shocked faces, it didn’t seem quite as bad. They weren’t used to seeing her crumble.

  ‘It was supposed to be a romantic break for him and bloody Sarah.’ She sipped from her overflowing glass, and then took a deep, calming breath. She could do this. She could explain and just not care.

  ‘It just never occurred to me…’ She speared an anchovy slightly more brutally than it deserved. ‘He didn’t even have the decency to wait until after the weekend, or the holiday. He could have put her off, but oh no, the bastard decided to kill two birds with one stone. Why take just your girlfriend on holiday, when you can invite the other woman along as well. My dear, darling nearly-fiancé, work partner, whole life, had decided not to let me ruin his plans.’

  ‘Two for the price of one.’ Anna shook her head.

  ‘Bog off.’ Daisy nodded.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Buy one get one free, BOGOF.’ Daisy bit her lip. ‘Seems appropriate in the circumstances, that’s what you need to tell him to do.’

  ‘I know. I have.’ She sighed, looked at Daisy, then wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘So what’s the problem with Jimmy and you?’

  ‘Jimmy’s the problem.’ Anna cut in.

  Daisy swilled her glass round. ‘I feel terrible now I know what’s happened to you.’

  ‘No, tell. I need to stop thinking about it, him, he doesn’t deserve having this much of my time spent on him.’

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ she shrugged her slim shoulders, ‘Jimmy proposed.’ She looked as glum as Flo had seen her.

  ‘But?’

  ‘She doesn’t love him.’ Anna nudged Daisy in the ribs. ‘Do you?’

  Daisy screwed up her mouth. ‘It was completely out of the blue, I never expected it. His dad put him up to it.’

  ‘He’s completely boring,’ Anna continued, ‘and she’ll end up spending the rest of her life darning his socks and growing vegetables.’

  ‘I always thought he was nice, quite sexy, really, for his age, and I do remember his dimples.’ Flo took another gulp of cava, ‘but you can’t marry him if you don’t love him, can you?’ She propped her chin on her hands, and it promptly slipped off, which had to be down to too much cava and not enough tapas. She sat up, trying to look sober. ‘I thought I loved Oli, but you know what? He’s a complete control freak, as well as a selfish arse.’ She gazed at Anna. ‘I’d quite like to grow vegetables.’

  ‘Why?’ Anna frowned. ‘If God had wanted us to grow our own peas he wouldn’t have invented Tesco’s would he?’

  ‘I think he did want us to grow peas.’ Daisy said. ‘That’s why he gave us soil and stuff. But by your logic he wanted us to darn socks too, or he wouldn’t have put holes in them.’

  ‘My mum used to grow stuff when I was little, in England.’ Flo was not to be deterred.

  ‘That’s all people do in Tippermere,’ interjected Anna. ‘Grow stuff, ride horses and gossip. I am so glad I moved out and got a proper job.’

  ‘I’m not. I remember the smell of the tomatoes, all green and fresh.’ Flo waved the empty bottle of cava and waited for a refill, wondering just how many bottles they’d had. ‘And sprouts, she grew those as well, tiny ones for Christmas. Oh God, Christmas. I love Christmas and I’ll have to do all the stuff we normally do together on my own, go round the lights, shop,’ she put her head in her hands, ‘do the romantic Christmas special for our magazine. Shit, and I just know I’ll bump into him with her, doing all our stuff.’

  ‘You know what you two need to do?’ Anna leaned forward, elbows on the small marble table.

  ‘Drink more cava, by the crate.’ Flo watched as the waiter topped up their glasses.

  ‘Nope. You,’ Anna pointed at Flo, ‘need to get away from that selfish twat, and your job, for the rest of the month. That way you won’t bump into him. You need to grow stuff, do your own thing. And you,’ she swivelled on her stool to look at Daisy, and pointed with her other hand, ‘need to stay out here away from Jimmy. If you go back you’ll just end up saying yes.’

  ‘You can’t grow stuff in December.’ Daisy downed the contents of her glass. ‘This is so easy to drink; it’s just like pop. And I’m not that weak-willed thank you.’

  ‘Flo can finish off growing your sprouts,’

  ‘I don’t have sprouts.’

  ‘Oh whatever, while you do the whole going-round-the-lights thing here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can both swap.’ Anna crossed her hands over and grinned. ‘I’m amazing, go on, say it. It’s the perfect solution, and it only took three bottles of cava.’

  ‘Four. But I don’t speak Spanish. How can I stay here on my own? It’s different being here with Flo.’

  ‘Most people don’t speak Spanish here.’ Flo grinned. ‘They speak Catalan. They throw in some French words, like merci, but without the French accent.’

  ‘Really?’ That made no sense at all.

  ‘Really.’ Flo looked at her best friends. ‘I like that idea, Anna, you’re amazing, I’d even go as far as to say a genius.’ This could work. This could really work. She could escape for a couple of weeks. By the time she came back everybody would know and there wouldn’t be all that embarrassing explanation stuff that made her cry, and she’d be over him. Completely. ‘Oh wow, yes,’ she laughed, wondering if she was drunk or delirious, ‘Anna, that does sound an amazing idea. Tell me we can do it, please Daisy? I’ve always wanted to go back and do the works. You know, a cosy cottage and build a snowman, toast marshmallows. Do all the stuff we used to do.’

  ‘Er, well, I’ll have to check with Jimmy.’

  Anna rolled her eyes. ‘Jimmy’s given you until Christmas, you nitwit. Just do it.’

  ‘But he needs me there, and somebody needs to look after everything.’

  ‘Don’t you get it? Flo looks after your place, everything, and you look after hers. And stuff Jimmy, he’s perfectly capable of looking after himself. Right, while we’re on the subject of stuffing, can we have some of those stuffed pepper things?’

  Chapter 7 – Daisy. The morning after

  ‘Go away.’ Daisy rolled over and buried her head under the pillow, trying to escape Mabel’s prodding.

  ‘That’s not very nice when I’ve been out for croissants. Come on, get out of bed, you lazy bug.’ Anna grabbed the pillow and Daisy scrunched her eyes up against the sunlight that flooded the room.

  Something was wrong. It shouldn’t be this light; Anna shouldn’t be there.

  Then she remembered. She was in Barcelona. She had shared a bed with Anna (who didn’t snore and snuffle and make little growly noises in her sleep), not Mabel (who did). She had drunk a gallon of cava last night, and it was trying to explode out of her head.

  ‘Hurry up.’ Anna, sounding disgustingly bouncy, had retreated and was standing in the doorway. ‘Croissants, coffee, come on. We’ve got to plan what we’re doing today.’

  ‘I was planning on sleeping.’

  ‘We’ve only got two days, come on.’ Anna nudged her foot.

  Daisy suddenly felt wide awake (but with a thumping head) as last night flooded back (along with a hint of anchovy, which wasn’t quite as welcome). ‘You might have but,’ she smiled, it hurt her head but still felt good, ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Swap, house swap, holiday swap. You know, Flo goes to my place and I stay here.’

  ‘But that was a joke, we were drunk.’ Anna frowned and looked like she was waiting for Daisy to laugh. She didn’t.

  ‘Well I’ve been thinking about it, and it sounds brilliant.’

  ‘But you can’t…’

  ‘That’s what I thought at first.’ Daisy sat up and pulled the sheet up to her chin. ‘I’ve got things to do back home. It’s not that easy to sort, but if I can do it I’m going to.’

  ‘But you’ll be on your own. It won’t be like all of us being here.’

  ‘I know. But I’m a big girl now, Anna,’ she smiled, trying to soften the blow, ‘I can make my ow
n decisions.’ She giggled like a naughty schoolgirl – not such a big girl then.

  ‘But you can’t afford it, and what about the animals? And work? December is a really busy time for you, everybody wants their dog looking pretty for Christmas, that’s what you said before we came here.’

  ‘God knows why, they’re only going to get muddy. But, that’s the beauty of this, isn’t it? Flo looks after the animals, and the house. Though I don’t think I’ll mention that randy Dalmatian to her.’

  ‘Exactly. She can’t do your job.’

  ‘True.’ Daisy shuffled about, wondering where Anna’s positivity had gone. When they’d fallen into bed and the room had started to spin, thinking about this had been a good distraction. ‘But Tiggy can, I’ve asked her before and she’s said no problem. She can use my grooming table and scissors, or whatever stuff she wants, and it did used to be her job before she decided to paint again.’

  ‘Oh. But it isn’t exactly fair on Flo, lumbering her with Barney and Mabel, is it? And you just get this beautiful place.’

  Daisy frowned. ‘This was your idea.’

  ‘We were drunk, and I just got carried away. Thinking about it now though, it isn’t ideal, and you don’t actually have to stay here, do you? I thought you wanted to do other stuff like ride in the Canadian Rockies.’

  ‘You know I can’t afford that. Oh Anna, you might have thought of it after a few drinks, but it’s a fantastic idea, it makes sense. And she does know about the animals.’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t exactly describe Mabel.’

  ‘I said I had a big dog. Look, stop worrying, I’m sure Jimmy and,’ she paused, ‘Hugo will help her out if she needs it. What’s the matter? I thought this was what you wanted me to do?’ Daisy stared at Anna in frustration. She’d expected her to be excited about the whole thing. Supportive.

  ‘I just didn’t expect…’

  ‘Exactly. And I didn’t expect Jimmy to propose, did I? If I go home now I’ll just get stuck back in and forget all about my dreams. And I love it here.’ She hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I’ve got to do this, Anna, for Jimmy’s sake as well as my own. And like you said, I’m helping Flo out, she needs to put as many miles between her and that dickhead as she can this Christmas. I mean, can you imagine if that happened to you and you had to spend the whole holiday hoping you didn’t bump into him and his new shag?’