THE HUSBAND HUNTERS

by LUCY LAING

  The grey motorway rolled by, mile after mile.

  ‘Great scenery,’ Tash sniggered, poking me in the ribs.

  ‘It will get better,’ I protested. ‘Wait until we cross into Europe.’

  After a long six hours, the coach arrived at the Eurotunnel.

  ‘Ooh this is exciting, ‘ said Soph, who had never been on the tunnel before. It was meant to be a 20 minute journey, but after 30 minutes we still hadn’t arrived in France at the other side. That’s strange, I thought, looking at my watch. An announcement came over the tannoy. There was a power cut in the tunnel. We were stuck halfway through. I had visions of the sea swirling above us and felt slightly sick. We weren’t even at the bottom of the ocean, we were actually below it. Panic started to rise in my throat. I looked at the other girls. Tash was reading a magazine and pointing out bits of gossip out to Kazza. But Rach and Soph caught my eye and looked a bit green too.

  ‘I don't like it,’ Soph said to me, looking anxiously above her.

  ‘I don’t either,’ said Rach. ‘What happens if we can’t get out, and we have to leave the coach and walk back along the tunnel? Do you think anyone will come and rescue us?’

  An official in an orange jacket came up the coach steps.

  ‘We are very sorry,’ he said in broken English. ‘But we have a power cut. We will get you out as soon as we can.’

  ‘Great,’ said Kaz, gloomily, getting out her nail file. ‘Whose idea was it to come on a coach?’ she added, glaring at me. ‘So much for the scenery. All we can see is the inside of the tunnel.‘

  I looked down at my trousers and rubbed at an imaginary mark, avoiding four hostile glares. Still, being sat in a tunnel was better than being in a plane crash and lying at the bottom of the ocean with fish picking at your bones.

  We sat and waited...and waited. The minutes ticked by, and it started to get hotter and hotter in the tunnel. There was no air conditioning due to the power failure.

  ‘It’s cooking in here,’ Rach grumbled, fanning herself with Heat magazine. We had all stripped down to vest tops, but the sweat was starting to form in beads on our foreheads.

  ‘OK, let’s try and take our minds off this situation,’ I said, firmly, taking charge. ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to embarrass yourself with a bloke?’

  ‘Well, that’s easy,’ said Rach, confidently. ‘Do you remember when I fancied that bloke who lived next door to my mum, Bee?’ she said. I started to laugh sympathetically. Rach had fancied this bloke called Steve who moved in next door to her mum.

  ‘He’s just my type,’ she had told me excitedly. ‘And he’s a fireman too, so he’s really hunky. I’m going to really try hard with this one.’

  Rach had always had the word Desperate tattooed on her forehead, I had groaned inwardly.

  ‘Steve was a keen gardener,’ Rach was telling the girls, now. ‘I asked him if he would like some horse manure for his garden from the stables. He said yes so I took a few sacks and shovelled them full of manure from the muck heap.’

  ‘I remember you doing that,’ said Tash, excitedly. ‘So that’s what it was for. How on earth did you manage to get all those sacks back home?’

  ‘Well that’s the embarrassing thing,’ said Rach. ‘Do you remember I’d just got my new car a few weeks before? I lowered the back seats and squeezed in four huge sacks of manure.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ marvelled Tash. ‘I can’t believe you were stupid enough to put four huge sackfuls of manure into your new car - all to impress a bloke!’

  I cringed for Rach at the memory. She complained for ages afterwards that she couldn’t get the stink of horse dung out of her car. We had tried everything to try and get rid of the smell. Air fresheners, disinfectant, then we’d even gone to the chippy and brought back fish and chips in the hope that it would mask the smell, but nothing ever did.

  Some bright spark at the garage had suggested she snort some cocaine to try and burn her septum out so she couldn’t smell anything, but that had seemed like a rather drastic and expensive solution. Besides Rach had never touched any drugs.

  ‘Had he seen the size of your nose?’ enquired Kaz. ‘It would take a cocaine mountain to burn out your septum.’

  ‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ said Rach, huffily, defensively touching her nose.

  Rach eventually had to sell the car two years later – it had been the only way to finally get rid of the smell.

  ‘What happened with Steve?’ asked Tash. ‘Was it worth smearing the entire inside of your car with horse dung?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Rach. ‘A few weeks afterwards his roses took a turn for the worse and most of them died. He always used to win prizes at the local county shows so he had nothing to enter for the rest of the year. He always held me responsible for it, so he never spoke to me again.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ agreed Tash. ‘I’ve never done anything embarrassing, but I did cook a dog food curry once for an ex-boyfriend whom I found out had been cheating behind my back.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ gasped Soph. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘It was easy,’ said Tash. ‘Even Bee couldn’t bodge this one up in the kitchen. This boyfriend Freddie really loved a hot curry, so I bought a jar of the hottest curry sauce I could find to disguise it, and a tin of cheap dog food, and tipped it in. I served it with some rice and poppadoms, and watched him as he ate it.’

  ‘Did you manage to keep a straight face?’ I asked laughing. ‘And how on earth did he not taste it?

  ‘He was a bit thick anyway,’ confessed Tash. ‘He was sitting in front of the telly watching a football match and shovelling it down. I was trying to stuff my fist into my mouth trying not to laugh as I watched him eating it. He turned to me halfway through and said how tasty it was, and I had to pretend to fiddle with a book on the shelf so he couldn’t see me laughing. He mopped up every last bit with the naan bread.’

  ‘Stop, I don’t want any more details,’ I said, starting to feel slightly sick.

  ‘I dumped him straight after that,’ added Tash. ‘Then I sent him the empty dog food tin and curry jar through the post. I had a missed call on my mobile from him the next day, so I think he probably worked out what had happened.’

  Suddenly the train jerked into action. We were off again.

  ‘Only you could possibly do anything like that,’ Soph said, looking at Tash admiringly. ‘I wouldn’t have had the nerve.’

  A long 24 hours later, the coach finally pulled up at the holiday apartment complex. By now the girls were so hot, sweaty and fed up that they were barely speaking to me. We were shown to our apartments. Kaz and Tash were in one, and Soph, Rach and me were in the one opposite.

  ‘Let’s go for a swim,’ suggested Tash, rooting in her rucksack for a towel. We went down the sandy track at the side of the apartment block which led to the beach and there were the clear green waters of the Mediterranean sparkling in front of us.

  All the traumas of the last 36 hours were forgotten as we ran down the sand to the water and plunged in. Kaz jumped on my back and ducked me under water.

  ‘That’s for putting us through the coach hell,’ she yelled, as I came up, spluttering with a mouth full of sea water.

  But the girls quickly forgave me. As we got ready that night to hit the local town, there was an air of excitement. Four girls from Cardiff who were in the opposite apartment block had told us there was a red bus who would pick us up every night from the cafe across the road and take us to the town centre where the night-clubs were.

  ‘Don’t you have to pay?’ Tash had asked. ‘No, the bus is free,’ said one of the girls, turning to look at her mate and they both laughed.

  That night we sat at the cafe after having had a pizza for dinner, waiting for the bus to take us clubbing. A group of lads at the next table asked us if we were going into town.

  ‘Yes, we’re getting the red bus. Are you?’ Soph asked politely. The lads had looked at each other.

  ‘No. We’re gettin
g a taxi,’ one said.

  The bus pulled up and we all piled on it. ‘This is great. Fancy getting a free ride into town,’ Tash whooped, plonking herself down on the back seat and putting her feet up.

  15 minutes later we pulled up at a small square where the club signs were blinking neon red, pink and blue in the darkness. The thumping noise of disco music poured out of every one.

  We went down the steps and I nearly bumped into a lad who was desperately trying to peer in through the bus doors. He was with a group of men all talking loudly in Italian and gesturing to us.

  ‘What do you think they are saying?’ whispered Kaz.

  ‘I don’t know, but I don’t feel comfortable,’ I whispered back, as I caught one man looking me up and down. He turned to his friend and shook his head and they both walked off.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned round and a man who looked old enough to be my dad was smiling at me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. He had several teeth missing and the rest were an unattractive grey colour. His hair was straggly and yellowy white, and he’d combed a few greasy strands over his bald patch in an attempt to cover it up. I could see the sweat patches forming on his creased white linen shirt.

  He didn’t say anything, just leered at me, and I couldn’t stop looking at his grey teeth in fascination.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked him, after a few seconds. He shrugged at me and I walked off with Kaz. But then I felt an arm around me.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I screeched, whipping round. The man had me tightly gripped around the waist. I slapped at his arm to get him off me.

  ‘You are bit old - but you are on red bus,’ he said in broken English, leering at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I hissed. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can put your arm around me and push your grey teeth in my face. Leave us alone.’ Kaz and I almost ran into the nearest nightclub, and to our relief , saw the other three at the bar.

  ‘That was awful,’ I said, telling Tash what had happened, and ordering a double gin and tonic to steady my nerves.

  ‘The cheek of him,’ Tash said, paying the barman. ‘Who did he think he was? I know we are all seeking husbands, but none of us are that desperate.’

  ‘I can’t believe he said I was old,’ I fumed, more angry about that than the fact that he had tried to slobber all over me. ‘I’m young enough to be his daughter, the cheeky old bugger.’

  It was the same, night after night. We would get the red bus into town and it would be there waiting to pick us up in the early hours of the morning. It’s really strange, I thought on the third night. I’ve not seen a single lad aboard this bus, only ever groups of girls. And it was always the same. Different groups of men would be waiting at the square when the bus arrived, but they never got on the bus.

  The driver was a fat Italian man called Nico, who couldn’t speak a word of English, except ‘Pleeeze’. He would throw open the side doors for us, and with a sweeping little bow he would motion for us to get on board. ‘Pleeeze,’ he would say, gesturing with his arm for us to sit down.

  However late we stumbled out of the clubs, Nico would always be waiting for us.

  On the sixth night, Nico had dropped us off at the main square, where the clubs were pulsating with holidaymakers. I hadn’t seen any girls over the age of 40 since we’d arrived at the beginning of the week. In fact I actually felt like we were some of the oldest there. Perhaps the old letch with the grey teeth had a point.

  It was a bit depressing. Here we were at aged 29, still hitting the same nightclubs as 18 year olds who had just finished their exams. I suddenly felt as though reality had punched me in the face.

  Rach and I were sat on the wall outside one of the nightclubs, getting some fresh air. A group of drunken lads were swaying down the opposite side of the road, all dressed in the same white t-shirts, with their names printed on the back. Two girls passed them, and the lads let out a collective roar of appreciation. One tried to grab one of the girls as she went past. Then she stopped and pulled up the back of her skirt, flashing her g-string at him before laughing and walking off.

  ‘Most girls our age are about to get married, or have got married and they don’t go on girly holidays anymore. I feel a bit past it,’ I admitted gloomily to Rach, looking into my gin and tonic, which the barman had filled up with half a glass of gin. I’d definitely had a few too many of those.

  I watched some young thing bounce past in a silver bikini top and little white shorts.

  ‘I mean, can you imagine any of us wearing that,’ I slurred, drunkenly. ‘Soph would probably get away with it, but not us. We are all destined to be Miss Havishams at this rate. Mind you I suppose we could come here when we are 80 in our cobwebbed wedding dresses. It may make a nice change from the nursing home.’

  I could feel the drunken tears start to well up as I contemplated our fates. Rach put her arm round me.

  ‘You wait and see,’ she said reassuringly. ‘The club will come up trumps in the end.’

  It was all right for Rach. She had her first appointment at the private fertility clinic when we got back. She had her life back on track, and knew what she wanted. Here I was, sat outside some tacky nightclub in the middle of Italy with not a decent man within a hundred mile radius. Even an old letch with grey teeth had passed me off as too old.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ I said turning to Rach. ‘Do I give off disaster vibes from every pore? Can men sniff a burnt duck testicle at a hundred paces? I should give it all up and become a lesbian nun, and hole myself up in some remote hillside nunnery,’ I added mournfully. Rach squeezed my hand sympathetically.

  Kaz ran out the nightclub and interrupted us.

  ‘Have you seen Tash anywhere?’ she asked, breathlessly. ‘Has she come past you?’

  ‘No, we thought she was with you and Soph,’ I said.

  ‘She was talking to this dodgy looking Italian guy, who was draped in strange looking chains. And then they disappeared,’ said Kaz. ‘That was half an hour ago.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be back in a minute,’ I said, sitting back down on the low wall.

  Two hours later Tash still hadn’t turned up. Nico’s red wagon was parked at the bottom of the road, so we all walked towards it.

  ‘She’s probably back at the apartments,’ I said, reassuringly, settling myself into the front seat. We couldn’t even ask Nico whether he’d seen Tash, as he didn’t understand a word we said.

  When we got back to the apartments, they were in darkness and there was no sign of Tash.

  ‘Who was this guy she was talking to?’ I demanded to Kaz, who was looking pale and worried beneath her makeup.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I went with Soph to get a drink from the bar and Tash had started talking to him. He was strange. He was wearing jeans with no top on, and had some chains draped over his bare shoulders which were clipped onto the side of his jeans. We went to the bar and it took ages to get a drink. When we came back Tash had disappeared, and so had the bloke. That’s when we came out and saw you,’ she finished.

  ‘Well she’s definitely not here,’ I said, looking around the apartment, lamely. ‘Perhaps she’ll come back on Nico’s wagon later on.’

  We went to bed, feeling sure that when we woke up in the morning Tash would be back.

  But six hours later, when I groggily realized there was not just banging in my head, but on the apartment door too, I knew something was wrong. I stumbled out of bed and opened the door. Kaz stood there.

  ‘She’s still not back,’ she said. ‘It’s 10am and there’s no sign of her.’ Kaz followed me inside and we sat down on the balcony.

  ‘What do we do now?’ I asked worriedly. ‘Do we call the police?’

  ‘What if she strolls up at lunchtime and we’ve got the police here telling them she is a missing person. We are going to look like a bunch of prize prats,’ said Kaz.

  We decided to leave a note for Tash, and headed off to the beach. But visions of her body being wrapped up
in a carpet and stuffed in the boot of a car kept filling my mind. It was the second time that I’d imagined such a fate for her - the first was when she’d run off with Mr Beale. But at least he’d been a respectable teacher, not some Italian Stallion who looked like he starred in hard-core porn movies. Who knows what he’d do to Tash if she resisted his perverted desires.

  When daylight faded, we sat on the balcony, gloomily sipping orange juice, when Kaz’s phone suddenly bleeped with a text message. We all grabbed for it at once, but Kaz got there first.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,’ she read. ‘It’s from Tash.’

  ‘Where is she, what’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘It doesn’t say anything else,’ said Kaz. ‘Just that she’s fine.’ Kaz texted back ‘where r u?’ but the phone remained stubbornly silent.

  None of us felt like going out that night.

  ‘What if that text isn’t from Tash,’ I said, dramatically. ‘And he’s got her tied up somewhere, and has stolen her phone?’ None of the others had thought of that.

  Soph started to cry at the thought of Tash trussed up like a chicken, bound and gagged in some filthy room whilst some Italian oik decided where to dispose of her body.

  At midnight, as we had decided to go to reception and phone the police, there was a knock at the apartment door. I went to open it and there stood Tash.

  I pulled her inside, frantically inspecting her wrists for the sign of rope burns. But there was none, and for someone who had supposedly been tied up and tortured for hours on end, Tash seemed remarkably cheery.

  ‘What happened to you, has it been really awful?’ cried Soph, flinging her arms around Tash. ‘How did you escape? We were about to call the police.’

  ‘What on earth for?’ asked Tash, staring at her in astonishment. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it has escaped your notice that you’ve been missing for nearly 24 hours,’ I said coldly. I could barely believe the cheek of her, waltzing in as cool as a cucumber when we had all been eating our own fists with worry all day.