by Mike Gayle
It wasn’t just that he only ever called Helen’s mobile from his own, it was also that Helen had lost her phone or changed providers so many times that he couldn’t even begin to guess what it might be. Was there a double seven in there somewhere? He felt sure there was, and of course it would start with a zero, but other than that, he just kept drawing a blank.
Returning the receiver to its cradle, Phil scooped the coins out of the tray and headed back outside into the sunshine. One of the silver-painted mime artists, waved at him robotically, and Phil dug into his trouser pockets for the very same coins he had hoped to use talking to his fiancée, and dropped them into the silver hat at their feet.
Phil stepped through the revolving doors of the hotel into the air-conditioned cool of the lobby. He was boiling in his suit, and his head still ached and all he wanted was to go to bed for a couple of hours but as he came around the corner he walked straight into the boys and his father coming in the opposite direction.
‘Big man!’ bellowed Deano. ‘Where you been?’
‘I . . . er . . . I,’ Phil’s voice trailed off as he noticed that the boys were no longer in their suits but dressed in tracksuits and trainers. ‘What’s with the gear? Are we playing footie or something?’
‘Better than footie mate!’ chipped in Spencer. ‘Paintball.’
‘Paintball?’
Phil looked at Simon. He was lurking at the back next to Patrick and Reuben looking down at the floor but clearly paying attention to what was being said. ‘Is that really what we’re doing, Si?’
Obviously still smarting from their earlier encounter Simon nodded once but didn’t utter a syllable.
‘Mate,’ said Spencer excitedly. ‘We looked up the place at an internet café after we finished breakfast and it looks ace!’
‘He’s not wrong either!’ added Reuben. ‘This place is the business. Loads of different scenarios, a big full-on battle at the end and one hundred paintballs included in the price. It’s like everything you ever wanted back when you were a kid.’
Spencer did a little dance. ‘It’s true, fella,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I can’t wait! It’ll be like Black Hawk Down mashed with Saving Private Ryan. But don’t worry bro’ I’ve got your back! No man left behind!’
Phil thought hard even though Spencer hadn’t actually asked a question. Did he really want to spend a sweltering afternoon in a tracksuit running around some abandoned farm in some unknown location in Amsterdam with the mother of all hangovers? Phil had been paintballing many times and had always hated it on the grounds that, for reasons he could never quite fathom, he somehow managed to get shot in the first five minutes of the game. The thought of adding an unspecified number of assailants (many of whom would be suffering from raging hangovers), to what was already a pretty dangerous game, made him feel ill.
He looked at his dad. ‘You’re not doing it too, are you?’
His father let out an emphysemic chuckle. ‘I’d like to see the man who would be able to stop me!’
‘Fine,’ said Phil, ‘give me five and I’ll be right with you.’
The BattleZone Paintball Centre was everything Phil feared and more. Located on the outskirts of Amsterdam on several acres of wood and farmland, it was staffed by needlessly muscular English-speaking Dutch guys dressed like extras from a Chuck Norris film. There were life-sized posters of soldiers from every major Special Forces unit in the world on the walls in the main reception and painted on its front door were the words: ‘No guts, no glory.’ It was a solitary beacon in what passed for the Dutch countryside to British stag parties city wide to come, shoot and be merry, and could only have been more successful with this demographic had it actually been situated in Leidesplein or in De Wallen.
Once they had registered Phil, the boys and his dad were ushered into a large, empty hanger with about fifteen stag parties, all of them British. The instructors explained the dos and don’ts of paintball but Phil was distracted by the fact that a number of his fellow combatants were paying the instructors no attention at all, grinning inanely at the cache of weapons about to be distributed. This, thought Phil, did not bode well for the afternoon ahead.
Because of the numbers involved (and presumably to cut down on the risk of anyone actually being killed) all the individual stag parties were divided in two, to form two new teams, Delta Black and Cobra Red, and given their first mission ‘Operation Relic’ in which they had to rescue an ancient statue from a recently crashed plane on an abandoned airfield. It was, Phil noted wearily, essentially a ‘grab the flag and get it back to your own base without getting killed’ type scenario that he had played dozens of times before.
With orders in place all the men were handed overalls, kneepads, facemasks, coloured armbands and fully loaded paintball guns. They were instructed to meet at their respective command centres at opposite ends of the playing field (which for the purposes of authenticity had been made to look like an abandoned airfield).
Phil watched as members of Delta Black including Simon, Deano and Spencer exited the hanger with the rest of their team leaving Phil with his dad, Reuben, Degsy and a bunch of blokes he had never met before to make their way to their own base camp.
On the way a man in his mid-twenties with a crew cut and a partially visible neck tattoo struck up conversation with Phil.
‘You done this before, mate?’ he asked with a Bristol accent so strong Phil thought for a moment that he might be putting it on.
‘Nah, mate,’ said Phil. It occurred to him that he ought to return the question if only out of politeness. ‘You?’
‘Me and my mates back home do it every weekend.’
‘Really?’ replied Phil, relieved at not having to face this tattooed weekend warrior on the battlefield. ‘So, how would you advise me to stay alive as long as possible then?’
The young man grinned, lowered the mask that had been sitting on his head and with a muffled voice said: ‘Kick arse, mate, it always seems to work for me!’
With the profundity of his comrade’s advice still echoing around his head Phil reached base camp where a Scouser called Jason appeared to have elected himself commanding officer.
‘You lot over there take the right side,’ he said pointing at one group, ‘you lot over there take the left side,’ he said pointing to another, ‘and me and these guys,’ he said gesturing to Phil’s party and the few who remained, ‘will cover you both and advance at the same time.’
It seemed no one had either the will or the desire to argue with Jason, so once the whistle was blown for the commencement of the battle his orders were followed to the letter.
For a while Phil couldn’t tell what was happening. He could hear a lot of shouting and the sound of paintball pellets whistling overhead but as for how many people had been shot and who was closest to getting to the statue from the aeroplane he had no idea.
Phil would have been content to remain hidden in their sandbag dugout firing the odd paintball bullet in the air for the rest of the game but after about five minutes in Jason nudged Phil sharply in the ribs and whispered hoarsely, ‘Let’s go for it!’ and before he knew what was happening he was being dragged over the top through the middle of the battlefield in the direction of the plane.
It seemed as though every last member of Delta Black was firing in their direction and Phil was convinced that it was only a miracle that neither of them had been hit before they reached a sandbag dug-out a few metres from the tail of the plane. Relieved, they stopped to take a breather but then the shots stopped and through a gap in the sandbags Phil made out a figure that was unmistakably Simon making a break for the door of the plane.
For reasons that Phil didn’t want to analyse the thought that Simon might be about to win the game for his team filled him with rage. Who was this guy who felt that everything was his for the taking? Who was this guy who thought that it was okay to take up with his best mate’s sister when there was a world full of unrelated women? Whoever this guy was he needed taking d
own, and he needed taking down now. Without a second thought Phil leapt over the sandbags screaming, ‘Not on my watch!!!’ at the top of his voice and ran full pelt across the open space to the plane without getting hit.
Spying Simon about to make a grab for the statue Phil released an extensive volley of paintballs in his friend’s direction so that in mere moments his face and body were splattered with bright luminous yellow paint.
‘I’m dead!’ screamed Simon thrusting his hands in the air in defeat. ‘You’ve got me! I’m dead!’
‘I don’t care!’ screamed Phil, as he continued to unload paintball after paintball into Simon’s head far closer than the regulation five-metre minimum distance they had been advised, ‘I just want you to grow a pair, go back to your wife and stop poking my sodding sister!’
11.
The conversation in the minibus on the way back into central Amsterdam was muted to say the least. Simon sat up front with the driver glowering at any passerby who had the misfortune to catch his eye, while Phil was at the back doing pretty much the same. Between them sat the boys and Phil’s dad, who while not being fully conversant with everything that had brought ‘Operation Relic’ to its abrupt conclusion were aware that something had gone on and that there was a very good chance that the ‘something’ in question was connected with Phil’s earlier disappearance.
Phil was busy examining his own behaviour. The news that Simon had left Yaz for Caitlin had obviously upset him more than he had initially thought and the unacknowledged aggression that he felt towards his friend had manifested itself during the paintball game. As a result, his best man had not only suffered severe bruising around the chest area but also the beginnings of a black eye.
But was that all there was to it? Yes, Simon had felt the force of Phil’s anger, but had he been the only source? Wasn’t at least some of the anger directed at Aiden Reid, who, despite Phil’s attempt to keep him under lock and key, had somehow managed to escape and was now wreaking havoc in the darker reaches of his mind? Phil just wanted to live in a world free of stress. A place where his best mate hadn’t left his wife in order to sleep with his sister and his fiancée’s ex wasn’t so in love with her that he had allowed his marriage to fall apart because of it. None of this would have come to light if they had stuck to his original plan and gone go-karting followed by a pint and curry in Beeston.
The tension between Phil and Simon showed no sign of waning as the boys alighted from the minibus. Because it was clear that Simon (who usually acted as leader/tour organiser) wouldn’t be doing a great deal of leading/tour organising any time soon Deano stepped into the power vacuum that had been created and as they all hovered in the lobby, set out his plan for the evening.
‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he announced. ‘We’re going to take an hour to clean up, wash, get a bit of kip and get ready, then it’s back down here at seven on the dot to grab a tram to Leidesplein. Agreed?’
Although the closest Deano got to a verbal agreement was a grunt from Simon it was implicit from the absence of any alternative that his plan had been passed unanimously and so one by one the boys dispersed leaving Phil standing alone.
Keen to avoid further confrontation with his best man, Phil took the stairs to his room and quickly stepped inside. Leaning against the door he gradually allowed his feet to slip from underneath him until he’d completely collapsed on the carpet.
Phil had no idea how long he sat scrunched up at the base of the door but it was certainly long enough for his legs to become so numb that that he had to crawl to the bathroom for his second shower of the day.
He threw on some underwear and lay down on the bed, going over events in increasing amounts of detail. He felt his eyelids become heavier and his breathing shallower until he was just a few breaths away from unconsciousness when, completely unbidden, a partial mobile phone number popped up in his mind’s eye and even though parts of it were indistinct he knew it was Helen’s.
Bolt upright now Phil grabbed the phone by the side of the bed and tapped in the few numbers he could recall before they faded from memory. The first six numbers came as easily as if he had been reading them but the next three felt glued to the inside of his skull and needing to be forcibly ripped out with his fingertips. The last two remained complete mysteries. He stared at the keypad hoping the digits might leap out at him. He eventually pressed a four and then a two and waited.
‘Hello?’
A man’s voice, a Midlands accent, yet even so he didn’t want to give up hope.
‘Is Helen there?’
‘Don’t know any Helen mate,’ said the man. ‘You must have the wrong number.’
The line went dead. With a heavy heart Phil put down the receiver and manoeuvred himself under the bed covers. It had been a long day, and a lot had happened, maybe everything would look better after a good sleep. As he closed his eyes and waited for sleep there was a sharp knock at the door.
Phil ignored the knock and put a pillow over his head but then a second knock came, this time even louder. Rubbing his eyes, and feeling heavy of limb Phil crawled out of bed, grabbed the door handle and twisted it open. The door was barely more than a fraction ajar when there was a loud grunt from the other side and the door burst open, sending Phil flying to the floor.
Bewildered, Phil saw Simon’s huge form descending on him as if they were in the opening bout of a WWE wrestling tournament. There was no time to move out of the way so he braced himself for the impact and hoped that his friend wouldn’t do too much damage.
Phil didn’t waste valuable energy trying to work out why his best man had kicked opened his door and was trying to pummel him into submission. Simon was wrestling with him for one reason and one reason only: he had grown tired of the energy required to sulk and had made up his mind that they should sort out the situation man to man.
It was, to be truthful, far from the most gainly of altercations by anybody’s standards and had more in common with a documentary Phil had once seen on the mating rituals of otters than it did with Hollywood style punch-ups with their over the top sound effects and dynamic kung-fu poses. This was simply two men, in their late thirties, who knew that they had work on Monday, pretending to fight when all they were really doing was minimising each other’s attempts to deliver a blow that might actually cause lasting damage.
It didn’t take long for them to realise that now Simon had lost the element of surprise, they were so equally matched that it was pointless for them to continue wrestling. Both were regulars at the gym and while Simon was taller, Phil was more muscular so, much like two equally matched tug o’ war teams, they cancelled each other out.
‘Truce?’ called Simon from inside Phil’s headlock.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ replied Phil as Simon released his crushing grip from around Phil’s waist.
The two men lay on their backs panting as if they had both run a marathon. Simon grinned at his friend. ‘That was pathetic wasn’t it?’
‘Too embarrassing for words,’ said Phil rubbing his rib cage. ‘We should keep this just between the two of us.’
‘I’ve already locked it in the vault,’ said Simon. He held out his hand. ‘Mates?’
Phil knocked Simon’s hand away and stood up. ‘Don’t think for a second that this makes things right between us. You’ve been banging my sister you tosspot. I’ll never forgive you for that.’
‘And you shot me in the head with a paintball at point blank range!’ defended Simon. ‘Have you seen my face? I look like I’ve gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson!’
Phil looked at the bruising on Simon’s face and smiled. ‘I did get you good and proper, didn’t I?’
‘You think that’s bad you should see my back. It’s like I’ve been trampled by a rhino.’
Phil sat down on the bed. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to stay annoyed with Simon for the whole weekend. ‘If it’s any consolation,’ he conceded, ‘I’d say a good seventy-five per cent of the aggression
I unleashed at you was actually meant for someone else.’
Simon closed the bedroom door and sat down on the bed. ‘Who? Your dad? What’s he done now?’
Phil shook his head. ‘Not dad, though that’s not to say he couldn’t do with shooting. I’m talking about Aiden Reid.’
‘What about him? He’s a twat, let it go, move on.’
‘I would do,’ began Phil, ‘but . . . well . . . after I left you and the guys this morning I met up with that Sanne girl from last night.’
‘And did what?’
‘Walked around the Van Gogh Museum for the most part. Did you know he shot himself in the chest because he was depressed but it still took two days for him to die?’
‘Do you fancy her?’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think? She’s bloody gorgeous!’
‘Honest mate,’ replied Phil. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘So enlighten me.’
‘I needed to get away – from you mainly – and so like I said we went to the museum and then afterwards to a café and talked.’
‘And what did she say that got you riled up enough to want to shoot me in the head?’
‘She told me the reason that she and Aiden Reid split up,’ said Phil looking down at the floor, ‘was because he was in still love with someone from his past. I asked her this woman’s name and she told me there on the spot: Helen.’
‘So what did she say when you told her who you were? She must have been well freaked out.’
‘I didn’t. Like you said it would be too weird. I mean what are the chances of me chatting to some random woman in a queue outside a bar only to discover that she’s my fiancée’s ex’s ex-wife.’
‘But that’s what actually happened!’
‘I know,’ replied Phil, ‘but she’d never believe it would she? Anyway, she’s playing a gig tonight and I’m thinking about seeing her again. I need to know the full story. I need to know if he’s been in contact with Helen or even if he’s capable of doing something reckless like turning up at the wedding next week. He’s a proper full-on celebrity, Si, he drives Ferraris and interviews Hollywood stars and hangs out with footballers and to top it all he’s Helen’s first love. How am I going to compete with all that unless I arm myself with as much info as I can?’