Double Kiss

by Ronnie O'Sullivan

  He shook his head, a little annoyed. Pretty hard to do, actually, whilst treading water and trying not to get a stiffy. Talk about multitasking.

  ‘Because you’re like Adam Ant, right?’ she said, grinning and wrapping her arms around him. ‘Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?’

  There wasn’t exactly much talking after that, not much swimming either. Apart from the four or five strokes it took them both to get back to the boat. It was the first time Frankie had done it at sea, then the second time too. Funny, because he’d never been a great one for bunk-ups in cars and had never much fancied the mile-high club either, both too bloody cramped. But this on-board malarkey, well, it suited him just fine. In fact, he’d go as far as to say he was a natural at it. Probably got it from his granddad on his dad’s side, the younger of the Bloodthirsty James Boys, who’d been a plumber in the merchant navy in the war.

  ‘It’s nice that, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The rocking motion.’

  They were lying naked on the foredeck. She’d just got back from fetching them both a much needed bottle of icy water from down in the galley.

  ‘You weren’t doing too badly on your own.’

  ‘Nor you.’ He rolled over onto his side to look at her. Christ, she had beautiful green eyes. ‘So, do you mind telling me where the pissing hell we are?’ he said.

  ‘The middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Clearly.’ What would happen if it was just the two of them? No Grew, no Bob, no Jesús, no Duke or Little T. No reason for him to do anything other than just hang here with her and see where it all might lead.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re grinning.’

  ‘I am?’ He was. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About how nice you are.’

  ‘Nice?’ She pulled a face.

  ‘All right. Not nice. Sexy.’

  She pulled a pout.

  ‘Funny, smart,’ he tried.

  ‘You should see me with my glasses on.’

  ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I prefer it like this. With you wearing nothing at all.’

  He kissed her. Slowly, sensuously. It felt so good, he found himself wishing it could last for ever, but eventually she pulled away.

  ‘Halfway between Ibiza and Mallorca, to be precise,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where we are, you asked.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘What? You did say you wanted a lift.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ He did kind of remember saying yeah to her offer. Probably around the same time he’d done that bloody Valium. Because it had kind of made sense at the time. But what was Grew going to say when he found out? Another half-memory surfaced. ‘And you did say you were heading back to Ibiza later tonight?’

  ‘That’s right, after I’ve picked up the food for the party I’m running.’

  That was it. She’d been kind of vague about her job last night, but basically it sounded like she was a party planner. Tonight she had some rich dude’s bash that she needed to get some stuff for from the big foodie markets over in Palma.

  ‘And are you still up for meeting up? At that club you were telling me about? Indigo whatnot? Later tonight.’

  ‘Blue . . . yes. Only my boyfriend’s going to be there too . . .’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ He nodded. Idiot. Because that’s what this was, right? Something casual. Something that happened in places like this a thousand times a night. But somehow it hurt more than it should.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked, watching him. ‘Someone special waiting for you at home?’

  ‘There is someone special, all right. It’s just she’s not waiting for me.’ He tried picturing Sharon how he’d last seen her, but he couldn’t. She was all London skies and concrete, it seemed like a different planet.

  ‘Her loss, my gain.’

  Rolling on top of him, she kissed him hungrily again. He pulled her in close, but then a harsh ringing sound started up below.

  ‘Sorry, this might be work, but hold that thought,’ she said, squeezing him hard between the legs, ‘and I’ll be back in a mo.’

  She climbed off him and hurried back into the cockpit, and then out of sight down below. He couldn’t understand much of her conversation in Spanish: his phrase book only took him as far as his first beer in Ibiza town. He shut his eyes and must have dozed off, because next time he opened them, he could hear the engine running and she was sitting there beside him dressed in some hippy tie-dye poncho with a mug of steaming coffee for him.

  ‘Bloody hell, you really are an angel, aren’t you?’ he said, sitting up. He took a swig. ‘Nicely sugared too. How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t. Just figured you could probably use the energy after all your exertions this morning.’

  He grinned. ‘Ha ha, you’re not wrong.’

  ‘There’s some food down below too. It’s not much. Just some bread and Manchego.’

  ‘Man what?’

  ‘Cheese.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a toasted-sandwich maker, have you?’ he asked. ‘Because you’d be surprised at what I can rustle up.’ She looked confused. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Bread and cheese will do just fine.’

  ‘Come on, then, let’s get back to the cockpit. Believe me, you’re not going to want to be up here when I open this baby up. Oh, and maybe put some clothes on?’ she joked. ‘That’s a coastguard ship over there heading our way and the last thing we want is you getting done for indecent exposure. You can shower off down below.’

  This baby, as she explained twenty minutes later, over the roar of the boat’s engine, was capable of doing forty-five knots on the flat and a happy thirty-eight over choppy waves like this. He felt seasick, but kept it to himself.

  A good thing too, because Sky was clearly in her element, loving this shit, and he didn’t want to make a tit of himself by revealing what a total landlubber he was. She obviously had him pinned down for someone far more cosmopolitan and he was enjoying playing that role just fine.

  ‘So it’s full-time, is it?’ he shouted. ‘This party-planning business of yours?’

  ‘Pretty much. High season, anyway, like now. Then things quiet down in the winter when Ibiza turns into a ghost town.’

  Giving the horizon a three-sixty scan with a pair of binoculars, she pushed up the throttle another notch. They were now going so fast that he nearly asked her if they needed to wear crash helmets. But she looked totally chilled, like they were out for a walk in the park.

  Turning round, he saw the coastguard ship was just a dot in the distance now. A double-decker bus compared to a nice sporty little number like this. He grinned across at her. Blimey, she was some girl. He wondered who her boyfriend was – one lucky bastard, that was for sure.

  ‘How about you, you’re over here on business?’ she asked, putting the binoculars down again and seeming to relax.

  ‘No, not really.’ He didn’t know how to explain.

  ‘The suit,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, right. Nah, that’s just force of habit. I hardly ever dress down at home, because I run a club,’ he said. ‘No, not that kind of club,’ he laughed. ‘Not like your mate Jeremy last night, a snooker club.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, a bit like pool.’

  She smiled. ‘I do know what snooker is. Not too much call for it out here.’

  He shrugged. ‘Might be that the tables don’t travel so well in this heat,’ he said. ‘They can be pretty temperamental at times.’

  She stood up and pointed. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Mallorca. Another half-hour and we’ll be there.’

  He still couldn’t believe that he’d done one like this. But what if instead of worrying about what Grew was going to say, he just made sure he never found out? Yeah, sod it. Just give him a call and tell him he was still on Ibiza and make up some shit about
having got lucky last night and being back at some bird’s.

  He ducked down into the cabin and grabbed his jacket and took out his phone. No reception. He went back up and grabbed hold of the railing to head up front where he could be out of earshot.

  ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘That’s not going to work till you get to Palma. You can use the radio, though, if you like?’

  ‘Nah, you’re all right. It’s nothing urgent anyway.’ Grew could wait. The state he’d been in last night, he was probably still in bed. He put his phone away. Pulled out the postcard. And held it out to Sky. You never knew your luck.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Do you know it?’

  He held the card steady with the image facing her. Didn’t want to risk losing it either, or he was screwed.

  ‘Old town, it looks like. Maybe Santa Catalina,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  She handed him the binoculars. ‘North of the cathedral,’ she said.

  He focused in on the island that was growing bigger by the second now. The cathedral was impossible to miss. A massive bastard of a thing. Pretty bloody impressive for an island like this. The city of Palma stretched out in a wide arc to the right and left of it. Never Eat Shredded Wheat, he recited in his head, checking the compass on the boat’s dash. To the left of the cathedral, there was a sandstone-coloured quarter, a jungle of mismatched stone walls and balconies.

  ‘It’s the old red-light district,’ she said. ‘It used to be really run down. But now it’s full of up-and-coming bars and restaurants.’

  ‘Sounds like my kind of place.’ Just like Soho, in fact. But what about her? His mother? Could he really picture her living somewhere like that too? And again why? Why the hell would she be there? Making a new home for herself right the other side of Europe, knowing him and Jack were still there back home?

  Sky flipped over the postcard and looked at the back. ‘So who’s the mystery girl?’ She handed it to him, lipstick side up.

  ‘That’s what I’m here to find out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just someone who’s been missing a long time. Someone who I’m hoping to find.’

  ‘And that’s all you’ve got to go on? A postcard? Not even an address?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, you’re certainly a romantic. I’ll give you that.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ he said, putting the card back in his jacket. ‘Not a girlfriend. Not an ex. Just someone I need to know’s OK.’ He didn’t want to get into it now, about how he hoped it was his mum who’d written this, but he didn’t want her thinking he was some crazed stalker either.

  She gunned the engine again, bringing them swooping round into the bay, heading for shore. Showing off, she was. It was a right buzz, so much so that it nearly killed off Frankie’s nerves about coming here and what he might find. Almost, but not quite.

  ‘Maybe my dad will be able to help,’ she then said, cutting their speed suddenly right down as they approached a wide grid of jetties, lined with gin palaces and yachts.

  ‘Your dad?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s him over there. The big bugger who’s waiting for us with the boathook in his hands.’

  25

  Sky wasn’t kidding when she said her father was big. All eighteen stone and six feet of him. Alejandro was bald as a hazelnut, olive-skinned, mustachioed and wearing an oil-stained white singlet and palm-tree-patterned Bermuda shorts that showed off his weightlifter physique.

  ‘This is Frankie,’ Sky said, as Frankie stepped off the boat to join them, ‘my friend . . .’

  Alejandro nearly crushed Frankie’s hand as he shook it. So much so that it left Frankie wondering if maybe he’d somehow guessed what him and his daughter had been up to out at sea.

  But as they headed for the Club del Mar members’ bar for a coffee, he also got to wondering who exactly was really in charge here. Because, sure, Sky might be his little girl and they clearly cared for each other, but Frankie couldn’t help remembering what Sky had told him last night about the women on these islands being the real bosses, not the men.

  The three of them found themselves a nice little table with a view of the ocean, and got stuck into some of the best coffee Frankie had ever tasted in his life.

  There was plenty of footie banter already going down on the tables around them, where an assortment of wealthy-looking Spaniards, Germans and Brits – probably yacht owners or their skippers – were tucking into brunch. Hardly surprising. England were up against Spain this afternoon in the quarter-finals and it was bound to be a belter.

  With all the strife that had gone down this last twenty-four hours, Frankie had almost entirely forgotten until he’d overheard a couple of old boys talking about it just now. And already he was thinking that, bugger me, he was going to be in even more shit than he already was. Because Balearic Bob had booked that booth down at that beach bar for them, hadn’t he? And no way now was Frankie going to show.

  ‘Hey, Frankie,’ Sky said, as their waiter started clearing their coffees. ‘Let me show my father that postcard.’

  Frankie handed it over.

  ‘I cannot . . . how you say?’ Alejandro said, a few moments later. ‘Be certain? Because these bars . . . I do not recognize them exactly. And this is strange, because I know so much of this town.’ He smiled at his daughter, placing his hand on hers. ‘But yes, this street looks familiar, I think Sky is right. This is somewhere nearby here in the Santa Catalina district. Or it is maybe possible somewhere around La Seu too?’ He looked to his daughter for confirmation.

  ‘La So?’ Frankie said.

  ‘The cathedral,’ Sky explained, pointing to where its buttressed roof dominated the city skyline further along the bay.

  Alejandro handed back the postcard. ‘OK, yes, I think it is that you must start over here . . .’ He pointed at part of the city just above up Club del Mar.

  Sky had a quick word with the waiter, who then returned a few minutes later with a guidebook. They studied the map in the back. He should be able to cover the area they were suggesting he search and still have plenty of time to get back here to meet up with Sky and cadge himself a ride back to the White Island, as she liked to call it.

  ‘Er, la cuenta, por favor,’ he said, snagging their waiter once more on his way past.

  ‘Certainly, sir. Right away, sir,’ the waiter answered in flawless English with a smile.

  Sky and Alejandro were both trying not to smile.

  ‘That bad, eh?’ he said.

  ‘You’ll get better with practice,’ she said.

  Frankie banged down some cash and thanked them and said his goodbyes. Time to leave them to it. Alejandro needed to get back to the millionaire’s yacht engine he’d been fixing before Sky had radioed in and Sky was picking up a shed load of pata negra – some kind of local ham, he’d just learned – and other delicacies to take back for her exclusive party.

  Frankie set out for the main road. When he glanced back, he saw both Sky and Alejandro watching him. She’d told him he was a friend of a friend from London, but he wasn’t sure how much he’d been taken in by that. Any more than Frankie had by him. A boat engineer he might be, but that endless-hours-of-mindless-dedication physique combined with those doodly little tats on his fingers, neck and arms, they spelt out just one thing: hard time. But for what? Now there was a question Frankie would love to know the answer to, but doubted he’d ever dare to ask.

  He found Santa Catalina by following the signs to the burgeoning touristy district, just like she’d said. He walked through the beautiful indoor market just off the first street he hit – you could get anything here, fish, meat, fruit and veg, you name it. The outside edges were littered with little cafés and bars, a bit like Smithfield meets Borough Market. Surely he could take five minutes to enjoy another of those banging coffees – cortado, just like Alejandro had ordered him back at the club. With muchos muchos azúcar. Yeah, lovely. Now he was feeling wide
awake. He picked up a few slices of that pata negra from one of the deli counters on the way out. Black foot pig. Even better than Pepperami. Christ, he could get used to this life, just a shame he wasn’t really here on holiday at all.

  He put in his call to Grew. Still no answer. Shit, he must have been battered last night. He left him a message, telling him to call him back. Then he got down to it and began working the area in a grid system from a map he picked up. As he concentrated, sweat built up on his brow. He was the only mug out here in a suit and he was one knife away from turning his trousers into shorts.

  Every street he entered, he kept getting the card out and checking it against what he saw but none of them came close. He must have hit twenty or thirty businesses as well, showing the people working there her photos from the envelope in his pocket, but each time lucking out.

  Restaurants, bars, clothes boutiques, tourist tat stores, he tried them all. Even the porn shops – oh yeah, this town was feeling more and more like home the longer he was here. All those questions kept popping up inside his head again about his mum. Could she really have made a home here? Was sending him this card her way to tell him well done for looking after his brother, or because she’d wanted him to come here too?

  For the first time he started thinking about it. What the hell he might say to her if he did actually track her down. Hi, Mum. So how’ve you been keeping? Or, Thanks for the card. I thought I’d just pop by and say hello. And what would she say? Would he even bloody recognize her anyway?

  He started to feel sick at the prospect. Frightened, like. Because whatever way he tried playing out meeting her in his head, somehow he just couldn’t make it feel real.

  As he kept on pounding the pavements, he tried keeping her face in his head, but that didn’t work either. All he kept getting of her was stills, the same frozen poses from the photos he had of her at home on the mantelpiece and walls. And the same laughs and asides of the half-hour or so of video he had of her from the VHS camcorder that the Old Man had got her the year before she’d disappeared.