‘A girlfriend?’ she snorted.
Watching Loaded perform their lively finale from the side of the stage, Nick and Lucy were enjoying the VIP privileges; evidently taking their toll as they merrily tapped their beers and put their arms round each other’s shoulders. Misty-eyed, they gazed from behind the curtain at the energetic band members and crowd’s front rows. As the closing snare roll faded on the wind and the half-full stadium erupted with cheer, the band took a moment to absorb the appreciation of a charged performance inside a sun-drenched stadium.
‘Excellent! Excellent!’ beamed their manager as the group ran past Nick and Lucy to where cold beers and young girls were waiting. ‘Great gig, boys. Great gig!’ he encouraged as they ignored him and keenly wrapped their lips around a cold can and hot female.
‘Where did Konrad go?’ Lucy asked Nick, distracted by an attractive brunette cavorting with the band’s lead singer.
‘Out by the statue to meet that girl.’ he replied, reluctant to meet Lucy’s eyes.
‘So what’s that about?’
‘Dunno. He met her last night.’
‘How?’
‘Dunno.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Dunno.’ he replied. Lucy promptly felt there was no more to offer the conversation and fell silent; Nick had already passed that stage and was ogling the dark-haired groupie again. ‘Although…’ he interjected after a while, ‘I think we’re about to find out!’ He pointed to the far end of the VIP area where Konrad and his companion were making their way up a staircase. As they approached, Nick and Lucy curiously assessed the attractive girl; Lucy was pleasantly surprised but Nick was gobsmacked – he instantly noticed her incredible similarity to Penny. Konrad grew anxious and looked at his shoes while the girl grabbed a complimentary drink and started to down it one.
‘Hi. This is Anna.’ he said nervously while she messily glugged the beer and crumpled the plastic cup in her fist. She rinsed her dripping chin with the back of her hand, tossed the cup on the floor and extended a dripping palm to Lucy.
‘Hi.’ she said numbly. Lucy realised no social norms existed where she could refuse the wet handshake on offer – this was a rock festival, sticky fingers and dubious characters were the norm.
‘I’m Lucy.’ she said through a grimace as the lager seeped between her fingers.
Anna turned to Nick, blatantly sizing him up, ‘And who are you?’
‘I’m Nick. Nice to meet you, Penny… sorry, Anna!’ he said casting Konrad a dirty look; he knew Nick made the connection – his downwards gaze bore through his shoes into the ground, finally resting between a rock and a hard place. ‘You look familiar!’ Nick continued, more than happy to expose the elephant in the room, ‘Didn’t you once leave him for a yoga instructor?’
‘Nick…’ Konrad interrupted with a tender tone, ‘Please don’t.’
‘Oh, I think I just might!’ he said relishing his moment atop the moral high ground.
‘What’s going on?’ Lucy asked.
‘Tell you later.’ he turned to Konrad and held his gaze, ‘You bloody hypocrite!’ he pronounced slowly, savouring every syllable.
Anna turned away, bored of the bickering, ‘My god, what is this jungle rubbish?’ she gestured to the Jamaican reggae act.
‘Excuse me?’ Lucy said surprised by the comment.
‘Nothing!’ Konrad interrupted, turning Anna by the shoulders, ‘I think I’m just going to show her around a bit, we’ll catch up later.’
Lucy watched him manhandle Anna through the assembling backstage area, stopping to allow her to collect another free beer from the table.
‘What the hell was that about?’ she said.
‘Anna doesn’t possess a very liberal mind, shall we say.’
‘So what’s Konrad doing with her? I never thought he could be with someone like that!’
‘Apparently he can if they look exactly like his ex!’
Lucy gasped, ‘No! Anna’s a Penny-lookalike?’ Nick answered with an emphatic nod. ‘No way!’
‘I know!’
‘What a hypocrite!’
‘I know!’
‘Wait till I see him next…’ she said shaking her head and enjoying a long swig of beer.
‘Hey, how much longer you around for?’
‘Dunno. Sacred Simplicity are on next so I have to stay for that, but once they’ve finished I’m pretty much free.’ she said, ‘Why?’
‘I doubt I’m going to hang around till the end. I’m a bit tired and nervous about seeing my dad tomorrow. I fancy getting back soon.’
‘Sure. Want some company?’ she asked nervously. Nick pondered a moment.
‘Seeing as Konrad’s out of action, yeh. That’d be nice.’
‘So I’m just a suitable fill-in, am I?’
‘Oi, I didn’t mean that.’
‘Can you hang on till nine?’
‘Okay.’ he answered. ‘And you’re coming back with me?’
‘Nick, it’s your birthday at midnight, I want to be with you.’
‘Don’t you have a glitzy party to go to after?’ he said eyeing her from behind the rim of his cup.
‘This isn’t The Oscars, Nick!’ she joked, reaching for his hand. ‘There’ll be drinks and stuff happening at the hotel, which we’re all welcome to, but if you prefer to do something quieter then let’s do that.’
‘Okay.’
‘So where are we going?’
‘El Médano, por favor!’ Nick shouted to the taxi driver as it sped from the stadium as fast as their excited hearts and into the summer sunset shrouding the townscape of Playa de las Américas. They looked at each other in the back of the cab, their faces painted with the sky’s vivid golden glow, and smiled. In that moment they were utterly beautiful to one another. Konrad waved them off from the pavement as Anna yapped incessantly in his ear; when the taxi faded from view he met her eyes with a dark look.
‘Look, will you please just shut up! No, I will not get you cocaine!’ he growled through his teeth, eyeing the security guards to make sure they were out of earshot.
‘Come on, Mr. Boring! This is a festival, let’s get wild!’ she said grabbing her boobs and poking her tongue out. Konrad was both repulsed and aroused – he’d never seen his ex behave so loosely, it felt momentarily liberating – but then he remembered that he thoroughly disliked everything else about the Penny-a-like in front of him now and his internal water sprinklers doused the fire.
‘Look, I don’t do it and I wouldn’t know where to get some anyway so stop going on about it!’ he said as she finally ceased rubbing herself. He looked along the stadium exterior and noticed a furore happening around a limo trying to get through photographers and busybodies blocking a side-entrance, ‘I think Corsica Coleman’s just arrived.’ he offered as a conversation-switcher, ‘Quite a fuss going on down there.’
‘Oh, I don’t care about her. I’m here for the real bands!’ she said waving her arms in the air and strumming an air-guitar; she grabbed his face in her hands and lowered it to eye-level, ‘Konrad… go ask those security guards where we can get some coke!’
His eyes rolled to the back of his head, ‘Oh, for f…’
‘Fine! I’ll ask them!’ and she trotted off to the nearest guard and bluntly asked the man. He wasn’t taken aback; he simply cast a look over both shoulders and pointed in a vague direction, giving a set of instructions before turning away. Anna smiled and skipped back to Konrad, ‘He says we can go to the main strip but it’ll be poor quality and expensive, our best option is to go to a dealer just behind that hotel.’
‘Why do you keep saying we?’
‘It’s someone the guard knows who’s rented a room for the night to cash-in. Clever move, he probably gets a cut for sending people their way, they’ll make a fortune tonight!’
‘Yes, brilliant business ethics!’ he replied dryly. ‘Look, for the last time, I’m not getting you drugs!’
‘Why not?’ Konrad’s shoulders slumped.
‘Mr. Boring feeling grumpy? Mr. Boring need a boost?’ she said in a tone that clamped Konrad’s gut to the inside of his testicles. He was so drained of strength that he looked to the heavens and begged for help, something he hadn’t done since Penny left him.
In the night air, illuminated by floodlights and stage effects, Konrad and Anna stood at the back of the bustling crowd, vibrating to the metal band performing. Every so often Anna would shout something in Konrad’s ear but his expression remained stony with eyes fixed onstage. Eventually he snapped and somehow, despite the music filling the arena, a large section of crowd clearly heard Konrad scream, ‘ALRIGHT! I’LL BLOODY GO!’
‘What do you want to do then?’ Lucy said trying Nick’s bed for bounce factor but finding impact dull rather than springy; she massaged her whiplashed neck. Nick flopped on Konrad’s bed with more success, gliding onto the surface instead of blindly freefalling. He kicked off his shoes.
‘Dunno. Stay here? Get a pizza?’
‘Nick, it’s your birthday!’
‘Yeh.’ he answered brashly, ‘And that’s what I wanna do!’
Lucy crossed her arms as Nick turned on the TV. A vaguely familiar romantic comedy was showing and they soon found themselves arguing over the ending when Lucy refused to be sucked in further.
‘No, we’re not doing this!’ She grabbed the remote from Nick’s hand and tossed it on the bed – it smashed on impact. ‘It’s only 9.30 and we’re going out for a drink!’ She bent down to gather his shoes, quickly wishing she hadn’t as her neck cricked and the stench of Nick’s trainers caught her unaware. She slowly straightened and tossed the offending footwear at its host, ‘Get those on. We’re going for a cocktail!’
‘What the hell am I doing?’ Konrad moaned to himself as he crossed the deserted street a few blocks from the stadium, ‘I’ve never scored drugs before, I don’t know what to do!’ He reached the dark corner at the far end and arrived outside a rundown apartment block, ‘You go, it may be dangerous!’ he mimicked, ‘My god, that woman is vile!’ He straightened outside the ominous-looking building, the last in a line of pristine apartment fronts and modern offices. In contrast, the dirty stonework and dark lifeless interior sent a shudder down his spine; the only sign of activity came from the well-lit upper floor, everything else seemed dead. There was a dank stench in the air, it could have been rotting bodies and toxic rising-damp emanating from the building’s bowels but was more likely to be the bins piled outside the entrance. Even the streetlamp was blinking, adding further eeriness to a nervy excursion he wished he hadn’t undertaken; he acknowledged the cliché with a sigh – he wouldn’t have been surprised if a thunderclap suddenly split the night and hard rain began to fall. He cowered when he thought he heard a wolf cry beyond the moonlight then realised it was just a dog freaked out by concert noise. ‘Relax!’ he told himself, breathing in deep, ‘Get this done, buy the drugs and let her snort to her heart’s content – at least she’ll be quiet for a bit!’ He rolled his head to relax his shoulders, emitting a neck-crack so loud it stopped the dog barking. A spark of confidence shot up his spine, ‘Then kiss her so she doesn’t say another word till morning!’ He straightened his sweat-soaked clothing with steely determination, ‘I wanna know what this lookalike-fix feels like!’
Chapter 9
Cocktails & Trees
Holding aloft a frosted beer while unwinding at a beachfront bar facing Montaña Roja and El Médano bay, a popular venue with the crowds from sunset till late, Nick and Lucy toasted their happiness with sun-kissed faces.
‘Maybe coming out wasn’t a bad idea after all.’ he said enjoying the scene in front of him, ‘Just look at the moonlight reflecting off the wispy clouds, illuminating the brooding sky and glittering ocean.’ he added as he took a messy glug of beer, ‘Wicked innit?’ and he patted the dribble marks on his shirt. He relaxed his shoulders, leaned back and put his hands behind his head like a fat CEO admiring his own self-importance, ‘I could get used to this!’
‘Nick, you feeling alright?’ she asked slightly concerned.
‘Yeh, Luce. Wonderful! I feel…’
‘I sit here?’ interrupted a Spanish man standing over the table looking damp and holding a towel. Nick and Lucy were surprised, unaccustomed to making room for intrusive strangers; they looked around the busy bar and noticed everywhere was occupied. They sized up their ample space and reluctantly obliged, huffing as they huddled their chairs and making it known it wasn’t in the least bit appreciated. ‘Nice night swim.’ the man said explaining his damp disposition and fresh-as-a-daisy expression. He sat down, sighing from the invigorating dip, and doused the table with wet belongings; he turned to two friends hanging around the bar, ‘Aquí.’ he called and they shimmied to the table wearing irritating grins and clammy clothing.
‘Hola.’ they chirped with energised-eyes.
‘Hello.’ Nick and Lucy answered and returned to their conversation, refusing to be drawn into any Anglo-Iberian niceties.
‘Soy Miguel, son Nayra y Juan.’ the first stranger said putting relevant name to appropriate smiling face. Nick and Lucy nodded politely and turned again. ‘Como te llamas? Erm, what is your names?’
‘Nick and Lucy.’ he fired back.
‘Nick and Lucy.’ Miguel repeated with a friendly sparkle, ‘Nice to meet you.’ and the group rose to their feet and leaned across the table offering both cheeks for customary kissing. Nick and Lucy clumsily obliged and clashed multiple facial parts; they sat down somewhat out of breath from the exertive introductions.
‘We have nice night swim.’ said Nayra, a pretty 30-something with attractive wet, black hair. Nick used to adore Sofia’s fresh-out-the-shower look but failed to see the sexy resemblance in his annoyance at the table invasion. Another wet trio arrived at the entrance.
‘Hola!’ they said waving at Miguel with sodden towels.
‘Hola! Aquí!’ he shouted back and the new members joined the table, forcing everyone to cram together. ‘Nick and Lucy.’ Miguel introduced.
‘Hola! Somos Pablo, María y Silvia.’ and they leaned across for Nick and Lucy to repeat the same uncomfortable greeting. Once seated in their tight spaces the six friends began to converse in Spanish at an incredible rate, projected with a voice-volume only heard in the U.K. when people stub their toe.
‘For god’s sake!’ Nick said to Lucy amid the piercing chatter, ‘Not sure I can handle this!’
‘You want to go somewhere else?’ she asked as Miguel lifted his bag onto the table and thumped Nick’s bicep, giving him a nasty dead-arm.
‘Lo siento, Nick.’ he apologised. Nick smiled grimly and contorted his body to politely disguise that any pain was caused; he leaned to Lucy.
‘Yes, please.’ he whimpered, ‘Let’s do one…’
As Konrad entered the dimly-lit foyer he nervously looked around and edged towards the elevator. He pressed the button and heard it crank into life, noisily descending from the eleventh floor and clattering abruptly at the bottom. The knots in Konrad’s stomach squeezed and he decided whether to go up in the cumbersome contraption or take the stairwell; he considered the eleven flights for two full seconds before carefully getting in the lift. Conveniently tucked inside his arm-cast, he removed his phone and tried to call Nick but the phone flashed a low-battery warning and went dead, ‘Bugger!’ he muttered as the lift doors opened and he stepped uneasily into the hallway, sliding his phone back inside his cast. The apartment to his left was ajar with the security chain on; light and noise pouring onto the landing from inside. Konrad rang the bell, checking over both shoulders as he waited. The front door shut and the chain unlocked; it reopened and a large brooding man with arms folded stood like a summoned genie. He looked Konrad up and down.
‘How much you want?’ said the chiselled man in his mid-forties. An excited young couple barged past to get to the elevator; the doors opened and they turned to each other, beaming brightly.
‘That was amazing! Can’t believe we met her!’ said the g
irl.
‘I know! Gutted we couldn’t get a photo.’ the man said as the doors crashed and the lift descended the building’s shaky spine. Konrad was surprised that purchasing illegal narcotics could be such an uplifting experience and wondered who she was. He snapped from his daydream as he sensed the dealer staring at him and tensed like a kitten being lifted by its scruff; he imagined drug dealers to be red-eyed adolescents wearing precariously-sagging jeans, not like the intimidating grey warrior in front of him now.
‘Oh, I dunno… 50 euros worth?’ he stammered.
‘30 or 60?’ the man replied with a strong Spanish accent.
‘Sorry?’
‘30 or 60?’
‘That’s a strange haggle.’
‘Not haggle, that price for half or gram, what you want?’ he growled impatiently.
‘Oh. Suppose 60 then.’ The man closed the door and came back with a small ball wrapped in polythene, Konrad passed him a 100 euro note, ‘Do you have change?’ The man gave a look that made his heart sink to his sandals; he snatched the note and closed the door again. Konrad scanned the dank hallway as he waited, disliking the experience by the second. The door reopened and the man’s hand reached round and stuffed two 20 euro bills into Konrad’s sweaty palm; he looked down at the money and small package uncertain what to do next. ‘Guess I’m done!’ he realised and breathed a sigh of relief. A naughty sensation washed over his body and he suddenly felt alive – a dark, natural feeling more potent than the contents in his hand. He skipped to the lift, giddy from his rush, and hummed a bright melody as it noisily ascended to return him to earthy ground.
‘Much nicer.’ Nick said from behind his decorative mojito glass. They’d found a quiet Cuban bar and positioned themselves on the first floor terrace overlooking the moon-sprinkled ocean.
‘Wow, these are strong!’ Lucy said, blinking furiously and releasing a forced cough to emphasise the point. Oddly enough it didn’t deter her from catching her breath and placing the straw in her mouth for another tear-inducing slurp. A brisk sea breeze filled the pair, reminding them they were out of the city bustle and feeling a different air. They chatted for ages, relaxed in each other’s company, and enjoyed the tall minty cocktails sliding down regrettably well. Their heads lightened, their eyes caught the light in leading ways, and time passed as quickly as a turning page. They opened and spoke of everything, stopping only to pick at tapas or giggle at the stirring effects of the mojitos.
Double Ex: A Romantic Comedy about Lost Love & Lookalikes Page 8