The Birthday That Changed Everything

by Debbie Johnson

  ‘I’m all right. Well, no, actually, I’m not all right. Give me a drink.’

  He passed the glass over and I took a long, cool swig. That was better. Morning drinking could be the way forward.

  ‘I hared off to the airport. On the back of a bloody motorbike, with Marcia. I was trying to catch James before he left, so I could, you know—’

  ‘Declare your eternal love? Have a quickie in the bogs?’

  ‘Yeah. Those things. But he was gone, and he thinks I hate him, and there’s no hope, and he’ll probably forget all about me now. He’ll fall in love with one of the air hostesses on the way home and they’ll get married and have seventeen children. ’Cause that’s the way my luck seems to go.’

  ‘My my,’ he said, retrieving his drink before I drained it, ‘we are feeling sorry for ourselves, aren’t we? Chin up. Just phone him when you get home. It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said about the fucking air hostess, Mike? I’ve missed my chance.’

  Mike held his hands in front of him in surrender, knowing better than to argue with a woman in the grip of a major melodrama.

  ‘Okay Sal,’ he said, ‘I get it. Your life’s over, you’ll never be happy again. But look. Here’s Lucy. She’ll cheer you up.’

  Yeah. Like a dose of the clap.

  She spotted me sitting with Mike and ran over. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was flying.

  ‘Mum!’ she said, ‘thank fuck you’re back! We’ve got a problem – we’ve lost your passport. We were hoping you had it with you, but as you’re practically naked as usual, I suppose not. Unless we find it in the next hour, you’re screwed.’

  So what was new there?

  Chapter 59

  The passport was nowhere to be found. I’d assumed I’d see it in plain sight as soon as I entered the room – one man and two teenagers searching for it was about as much use as putting the three blind mice on the trail.

  Simon had all the drawers out and turned upside down, the clothes from the suitcases scattered over the floor, and was barking commands at Ollie, telling him to check in the toilet cistern. Of course, that’s where I usually keep my passport.

  ‘What have you done with it, Sally? We need to leave soon; this is ridiculous! Where’ve you been anyway – and what happened to your hair?’

  ‘Simon, have you looked in a mirror this morning? I don’t think a man with a fluorescent pink head is in any position to comment. And my passport was in the bottom of the wardrobe, along with everyone else’s!’

  ‘Well, ours are all there – it’s only yours that’s missing.’

  His tone made it sound as if it was all my fault. Like I’d accidentally sold my passport to a troupe of wandering gypsies with a dancing bear and forgotten to tell him.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you and the kids will have to go, and I’ll get a later flight. It’s not a disaster.’

  ‘Yes it is!’ said Lucy, skulking through the interconnecting door, ‘and if you think I’m going home with him, you must be off your medication. If you stay, I stay. Max is here anyway. Maybe I’ll stay for the whole month.’

  ‘Well, help us look then – I haven’t seen you lift a finger.’

  ‘How’s this?’ she said, lifting a finger. But not in quite the way I meant.

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten while I tried to calm down.

  When I opened my eyes she’d disappeared off with her bags, I assumed to find Max. Ollie was looking at me quizzically.

  ‘No! You’re going back with your dad,’ I said. ‘I don’t care if Tabitha’s asked you to marry her – you’ve got school next week.’

  ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I dumped her. She just wasn’t cool enough for me. And I want to go home anyway – there’s a fancy-dress triple-bill of the old Star Wars films on in town.’

  Right. Of course. Tabitha wasn’t cool enough for him.

  ‘Okay, good. Simon – you and Ollie go on ahead. You’ve got keys. Just buy a load of pizzas or something, you’ll be fine. Now come on, let’s get you sorted.’

  We repacked the scattered clothes, and I kept enough for a couple of days just in case, before heading down to reception to meet the transfer coach. Simon loaded the bags on, and we waited until everyone else was aboard.

  ‘See you soon, Mum,’ said Ollie, hugging me. ‘Don’t talk to any strange men.’

  Simon kissed me on the cheek, joined Ollie, and waved through the window as they drove off. I waved frantically back, missing them already. I wanted to go home too. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and walk the dog and watch Coronation Street and have a Chinese on my lap in the living room. Instead I was stuck here with Lucy, wondering if James would even remember my name by the time he got home. It had been a shit of a day, it truly had.

  I trudged back to reception, and noticed Tarkan hiding behind the desk. Can’t say that I blamed him.

  ‘Come out! I can see you! Don’t worry, I just need a bit of help. And Marcia’s not here.’

  He peeked his head up cautiously and smiled. I explained about the passport, and he said he’d get the staff to search for it as well. And if it didn’t turn up, he’d make me an appointment with the Consulate to get an emergency replacement.

  I got changed into more respectable clothes, and went back out to find Mike. He had three empty pint glasses lined up in front of him and was snoring gently in the midday sun.

  I sat down with my own drink and looked around. It was quite eerie here on changeover day. Most of the old guests had gone and the new ones hadn’t arrived. Everything was being cleaned and polished and scrubbed, and the staff were in their civvies. Hopefully, somewhere upstairs, one of the old Turkish ladies with faces like dried-up orange peel would be discovering a British passport lurking inside a pillowcase.

  ‘So. I see you’re still here. What’s the plan?’ said Mike, without opening his eyes. ‘Do you want to stay with Harry? He won’t mind.’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be great. As soon as I’m sorted, I’ll book us new flights. Lucy’s gone AWOL; I suspect she’ll be with your son somewhere. I might go and visit Jenny and Ian and the baby as well.’

  ‘Well, tonight you can come to the island with us. Harry’s doing a barbecue. We can get shitfaced and play strip poker. Meet us at the beach at about eight and we’ll all go over. What do you say?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said, ‘as long as you promise to wear plenty of layers.’

  Chapter 60

  ‘How was the baby?’ asked Mike, bumping around in the back of the boat. Harry was at the wheel, and we were bouncing over waves so hard that Mike’s belly was wobbling up and down like a big hairy jelly.

  ‘Oh, gorgeous,’ I said, ‘just beautiful.’

  ‘Are you sure? You look like you’re going to cry – not that ugly, is it?’

  ‘Oh shut up you pig! He’s lovely. Putting on loads of weight, feeding well. Honestly, Mike, you’ve never seen two happier people. Knackered, but over the moon.’

  I blinked the tears away. I was tired. I was lonely. I had no idea where my life was heading. And my feet were sore.

  ‘Good luck to ’em, eh? I’ll visit myself soon. Anyhow, here goes, Sal. You get off first and we’ll unload the stuff. Then we’ll go back for Max and Lucy.’

  We moored the boat, and I climbed out. I tucked my skirt into my knickers and splashed down in my flip-flops. Once I was steady, Mike passed me my bag. I waded through the shallows and up to the beach, putting the bag down and turning back to see how I could help.

  There were chiller boxes and charcoal and probably a brewery’s worth of beer to bring back up. And I was going to need it all if they seriously expected me to play strip poker with them, the old perverts. A good booze-up was probably just what I needed. It wasn’t only the baby making me cry – it was the sense that I’d let love walk out of my life, and I might never get the chance to find it again.

  As I neared the boat, Mike stood up. I held my hand out to help him over the side, but h
e waved me away.

  ‘Just stand back a bit, Sal!’ he said. I did, wondering if he was going for a splash landing.

  ‘A bit further!’

  I budged back some more.

  ‘Okay, off we go, Harry! See you later, Sal!’ he yelled, waving. Harry saluted me. He was wearing one of those giant felt hats shaped like a pint of Guinness, and he was laughing.

  He started the engine, and before I could ask what was going on, they were off. Mike was sitting in the back, still bouncing, toasting me with a can he’d just opened.

  ‘What the hell…’ I muttered, walking back up to the beach and sitting down by my bag. All men were clearly insane. I shrugged, and rooted in my bag. A Snickers bar. Well, why not?

  I unwrapped it and took a bite. Delicious. If only there were another six, I’d be set for the night. I looked out at the bay. Okay, I seemed to be stranded on a desert island with no apparent means of getting off. The sun had almost set, and it was going to get cooler soon. But, on the plus side, I had chocolate, a bag full of clothes, and…a bottle of wine. What was that doing in there? I pulled it out and looked at the label. Pretty nice wine too.

  I’d started to unpack the bag, wondering what other little gifts Mike had left me, when I heard a noise nearby. It sounded like bottles clinking together. I couldn’t see anyone, but it was coming from nearby. Had one of the others been here all along? Had Mike and Harry come back and landed at the other side for some reason? Or was I about to meet my end at the hands of a crazed island-hopping serial killer carrying a crate of milk?

  I edged back, pulling my bag with me, and plastered myself flat against the steep side of the hill. Ouch. There were prickles and shrubs and all kinds of pointy objects now poking in places that shouldn’t be poked. I saw a shady figure emerging, and knew straight away it wasn’t Mike or Harry or Max. And definitely not Lucy, unless she’d overdosed on steroids this afternoon. I gripped the wine bottle by the neck, in case I needed to clock anyone.

  I squinted my eyes to see in the fading light of the sun as he got closer. Then I squeaked. It was James. My James. And he was absolutely stark-bollock-naked.

  He whirled round at the noise, and stared at me with equal surprise.

  ‘Sally?’ he said, ‘what are you doing here? I thought your plane left ages ago?’

  ‘Well, what about you? Shouldn’t you be in Dublin snogging an air hostess by now? And why haven’t you got any clothes on?’

  ‘You’re rambling. I don’t know any air hostesses. Come away from that hill, there’s all sorts of insects on there you don’t want crawling on you.’

  I said something eloquent like ‘erk!’ and jumped away, brushing down my back and my bottom with jerky hands. I pulled my tucked-up skirt out of my knickers while I was at it. This was a situation that called for some dignity, although I did at least have the advantage over a man with his schlong hanging out.

  Shit, I thought – how do I handle this? A few hours ago I was practically streaking through the airport ready to give him a blow job on the runway. Now he was here, I felt…embarrassed. Nervous. Tongue-tied.

  ‘So why are you still here?’ he finally said, as I tried not to look at his dangly bits.

  ‘Lost my passport,’ I mumbled. It was such a bloody typical me thing to do, and I did get tired of being such a joke. ‘What about you? And where’s Jake?’

  He started pulling little twigs out of my hair, and then he started stroking my cheek, and then his hand trailed down to hold mine. I linked my fingers into his and squeezed them. Now that felt good.

  ‘My flight was cancelled until tomorrow morning. We hung round for an hour, then Mike said we could bunk down at Harry’s. Max was playing with Jake and Mike said they were having a—’

  ‘Barbecue on the island? With strip poker?’

  ‘Yes! Not the kind of thing I’d normally do with blokes, but we were betting for quite a bit of cash. They were cheating somehow, and I lost every hand for…well, ever. Then they grabbed all my clothes and legged it. You wouldn’t believe how fast those fat bastards can run when they want to. They just left me this bag, which is full of some very weird stuff.’

  I sat down on the soft sand. It was getting really dark now. In the distance I could see the twinkling lights of the towns and villages dotted around the bay. There’d be a whole new intake of Blue-Bayers there now, getting to know each other and drinking themselves stupid.

  James sat down beside me. Still naked. His thigh was pressed against mine, and I realised he was shivering. I put my hand on his leg and rubbed, trying to warm him up. His cock pinged straight up into the air, so I guess it worked. He looked a bit embarrassed and tried to cover himself up with his hands.

  ‘Here,’ I said, emptying the contents of my bag out on to the floor and picking up a nice silk wrap, ‘put this on.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, squinting at it, ‘it’s got sequins.’

  ‘Right. Sorry. Is it too gay for you? I mean, if I’d known I was going to meet you out here starkers, I’d have packed something more appropriate! For fuck’s sake, stop being such a dick – you’ll freeze.’

  He threw it round his shoulders and hunkered down. I found a long white skirt and passed it to him. He shot me a look.

  ‘No, I don’t expect you to put it on. It won’t fit over your thighs.’

  Your gorgeous, muscular, super-sexy, crushed-right-up-against-mine thighs, I thought, as I draped it over him. The penis problem had faded slightly, just a little bump in the fabric now. That was probably a good thing. I’m not sure how I’d handle it if James got turned on by wearing women’s clothes.

  ‘Who told you the flight was cancelled anyway?’ I said as I tucked him in. ‘Because it wasn’t.’

  ‘Lucy told me. Well, she brought me the notice they’d left at reception for me. It was nice of her – saved us dragging all the bags downstairs when we didn’t need to. And what makes you say it wasn’t cancelled?’

  I sighed and nodded. Everything was beginning to slip into place now. It was a great big jigsaw with a picture of my daughter in the middle of it, holding up two fingers.

  ‘I think we’ve been set up,’ I said. ‘I know your flight wasn’t cancelled because I saw it had left. Apparently without you on it, but I didn’t know that at the time. And I know for a fact that Tarkan on reception didn’t type up a notice for you about the flight being cancelled – which just leaves Lucy. She disappeared off saying she had things to do, and now I know what – I think it was Lucy who typed up that notice, printed it off, and brought it up to your room to stop you leaving. You should know by now she wouldn’t do anything from the kindness of her own heart.’

  ‘You were at the airport? Why? How?’

  ‘Because I thought you were leaving. And I wanted to, erm, have a quickie in the bogs.’

  His skirt bobbed up and down. Primitive response to the mere mention of sex.

  ‘Oh. Well. In that case I’m sorry I missed you. We could always—’

  ‘What do you have in your bag?’ I said, cutting him off before we both ended up naked.

  He emptied it out. Lighter fluid and a lighter. Presumably for a fire, as neither of us smoked.

  More chocolate. Good. More wine. Better. A corkscrew. And a packet of condoms. Right. No mixed messages in that agenda, then. I’m surprised they hadn’t drawn some stick figures having sex in an instruction manual.

  I rooted through the debris in front of me. As well as my own clothes, and the wine, there were a couple of blankets, and a white envelope with my name written on it. I tore it open, but I already had a suspicion as to what I was going to find.

  My passport tumbled out on to my lap, along with a note in Lucy’s scrawl.

  ‘See you in the morning, you old bag. Don’t fuck this up.’

  ‘This is what I think happened,’ I said. ‘She faked you into thinking your plane was cancelled. Sucker. Then Mike got you and Jake out of the way and over to Harry’s, and she stole my passport. Then we bot
h got kidnapped at different times, and dumped here. At least I managed to keep my clothes, I suppose.’

  He nodded as he thought about it, running through events in his mind.

  ‘You have to admire it, don’t you? It’s bloody clever,’ he said. ‘And it does mean we’re here. Together. For what looks like the whole night. What happens now?’

  ‘Well, I think we should talk. Then, depending on how that goes, maybe do some sex stuff. What do you think?’

  ‘I think that I love you, Sally. I never stopped. I never will stop. If your run to the airport was any sign you’re willing to try again, I’ll be the happiest man in the world. Please, Sally – give me another chance.’

  I looked at him. He might be dressed in a skirt and a sequined silk wrap, but he was still the most desirable hunk of manhood I’d ever clapped eyes on. And he loved me. It was there, in his eyes, so bright and so warm. He loved me, and I loved him, and it was time to be brave. Time to trust. I let my hand creep into his.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I love you too. And yes, I’ll give you another chance. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. I’m sorry it took almost losing you to make me realise. I’m sorry even Lucy knew more about what I needed than I did. I was just…scared.’

  ‘I know. And that’s my fault. I’ll never do anything like that again, believe me. So…have we done the talking now?’

  I nodded. The skirt was off in a flash, and the wrap got thrown to the wind. My top followed suit. He pushed me down on to the sand and rolled on top of me. He kissed me and I reached up to touch the bare skin of his shoulders. God, it had been so long. I’d almost forgotten how absolutely perfect he was.