Girls' Night In

by Jessica Adams

  She looks at Paolo now. ‘You’re right. At my age I should know better than to take risks, and at your age you can’t afford to.’

  There is a pause, during which the sudden screams of a child being beaten breaks the calm of the beach. Paolo tenses and Anne-Marie looks toward the food-shack next to the Casa das Pedras guesthouse. On the two previous days, she has exchanged a few words with the woman who runs the shack, an easy-smiling mother of five – four girls and a boy. The harsh sounds of the strap make her flinch.

  ‘I can’t stand it when she does that,’ Paolo says. ‘It’s her son, she’s always beating him. I’ll go talk to her.’ He walks over to the shack and after a brief argument, the beach is quiet again.

  ‘Have you seen the quarta praia?’ he asks, when he returns.

  ‘No, I’ve only walked up to the town and down to the terceira praia.’

  Her pousada is on the ‘second beach’; Morro has four different stretches of beach in all. The first one is the most developed while the fourth is supposed to be an unspoiled expanse of sand and palm trees.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says.

  ‘Can you walk that far with your toe?’

  ‘Yes. It’s much better. Obrigado. Come.’

  She wraps her canga around her, takes up her towel and leaves the book of poems on the chair for when she returns. It is a good hour’s walk to the quarta praia, past guesthouses of every hue, past restaurants offering feijoada and moqueca as well as hamburgers and pizza, and past the little airstrip at the end of the terceira praia where rich tourists can take a five-seater back to Salvador when they get bored with sand and sea.

  The fourth beach stretches empty except for a wood-and-thatch restaurant built high on logs for protection against the tide. It’s closed and they walk on, going to the far end of the beach where they have only the palm trees for company. Anne-Marie is happy there’s no one to see her do something she probably will regret later. She helps Paolo to spread her canga and towel on the sand and they both lie down. This time there is no talking. He hasn’t forgotten the camisinha, and he makes Anne-Marie come in waves.

  He wants her to stay until the following weekend and to go with him to Porto Seguro, but she feels like leaving Morro when her seven days have passed. She promises to return in a month, after the concert in Miami and a trip home. He carries her suitcase to the dock and they stand there for a long time kissing. She asks him to leave before she gets into the boat, but as he walks away, she calls out to him. ‘Paolo, do you drink cane juice for breakfast?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he says and waves, the watch she bought him yesterday glinting in the sun.

  The boat is tiny, half the size of the one that brought her to Morro. It seems full to sinking point, but the ‘captain’ keeps accepting more people: a dark-skinned man with a briefcase, three blonde Germans with souvenir bands around their wrists, a haggard woman with a stunningly beautiful little girl who carries a violin without strings. Anne-Marie moves over to make room for the woman, whose hands have no fingernails. The boat feels dangerously low in the water now, and she can already see the headline in The Gleaner. ‘Overcrowded Boat Sinks in Brazil – Old-Time Jamaican Singer Dead’.

  Just before they push off, a rich-looking woman with long black hair, high cheekbones, and firm legs enters the boat with … her son? He is a smooth honey colour, and his lean face with its full lips could be on the cover of GQ magazine. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, black shorts, white socks and expensive white Nike sneakers. The woman has on a denim jacket and matching shorts which show off the legs. They sit on the bow of the boat because there is no space anywhere else.

  The way the woman looks at the young man makes it clear that he is not her son. He pops a mint into his mouth and apparently asks her if she wants one as well. When she nods yes, he puts it lingeringly on her tongue and her eyes eat up his face. His eyes are hidden behind designer dark glasses.

  Anne-Marie tries not to stare at them but can’t help it. Are they married, she wonders. What does he see in a woman who has to be at least fifteen years older than him? She knows what the woman sees in him. She has felt the same thing with Paolo. Last night, after they made love, she knew all at once and now can even put it into words. She has no intention of marrying or even living with Paolo until she dies of old age. No, but she will come back to Morro, bring him trinkets … and sleep with him, pulling his youth into her bloodstream for as long as he lets her. She looks again at the couple in the front of the boat, and the woman’s eyes meet hers. Anne-Marie gives an almost imperceptible thumps-up sign, and the woman flicks back her hair and laughs, suddenly seeming like a young girl.

  Adele Parks

  Adele Parks worked in advertising until she published her first novel in 2000; she has since published fifteen novels, all of which have been bestsellers, and her work has been translated into twenty-six different languages. Adele spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana and London until 2005 when she moved to Guildford, where she now lives with her husband and son. Adele believes reading is a basic human right, so she works closely with The Reading Agency as an Ambassador of the Six Book Challenge, a programme designed to encourage adult literacy.

  Flung

  Adele Parks

  Whilst standing in an endless line for tickets at Victoria Station, London, it hits me that, likely as not, right now Donald and Amelia will be deciding between beach or pool. The most exciting decision I have in front of me is cheap day return, versus an open ticket. I sigh and look down at my scruffy rucksack. Life’s so unfair. I bet Amelia has a matching set of Louis Vuitton. Besides the emotional baggage I am travelling light. I’m wearing my bikini under my sun-dress and I’ve packed my toothbrush and a clean pair of knickers because I want to be wild and spontaneous (but clean).

  Hi, Bruv. How goes it? … Good, good … Me? Awful, since you ask. He’s ditched me … Yes, I know Donald Drake is a stupid name. I admit that … Very funny. Yes. I’m sure that you’ve been saving up the Disney jokes since I met him, haven’t you? My line’s bleeping. I’ll call you later.

  My mobile phone is warm in my hand and if there is any truth to the theory that it emits brain-frying waves then I suspect my brain is well and truly frazzled. It has been attached to my head, more or less constantly, for four days.

  Hi, Jenny … Oh, I’m OK. You heard. Who told you? … Michelle. Well, saves me putting an announcement in the paper … Devastated obviously. I mean single at thirty is bad … What? Yes, admittedly he has a stupid name. But he also has the cutest smile and up until ninety-six hours ago was the custodian of my heart! … Oh you were right … Yup. Amelia in Accounts. She seduced him with her dinky little embroidered slip dresses and definitely non-work-place-appropriate strappy sandals …

  The woman in the queue behind me gives me a sympathetic smile-cum-grimace. I acknowledge her sympathy with a hound-dog expression that I’ve perfected over the last few days.

  Yes I know it takes two to tango … I thought you said he was perfect for me … Oh, and now ‘you never liked him’. Thanks … Yes, he is a bastard. It is bad … The added humiliation is that the once-in-a-lifetime holiday to the Caribbean, that we’d planned together, saved for together and booked together – left with him! And can you believe he offered to buy me out of the holiday so that Amelia could go instead? … Exactly, a bastard.

  I move up the queue. The guy in front of me is Italian. He is communicating his desire for a one-way ticket on the Gatwick Express by gesticulating madly. It puts me in mind of the histrionics I displayed as Donald tried to leave. I blush as I remember clinging to his trouser legs begging him to reconsider. It was obvious that a relaxed, new-millennium, adult approach to parting was not an available option. Sharing a bedroom platonically was out of the question (although, arguably, we had managed this successfully for the last six months of our relationship). I wanted to tell him to fuck off. To keep his money and crappy holiday.

  I wanted to mean it.

  But as I am an underpaid
assistant in a small PR agency, with barely a foot on the first rung of the corporate ladder, decadent displays of passion are not practical. I’m waiting for his cheque to clear.

  I pull myself out of my self-pity and tune back into Jen, who is still chatting merrily on the mobile.

  You’re right, he was an arrogant, self-absorbed git … he’s never been that sensational in bed … I can’t concede the point on flings though. Oh, Jen, they waste time … I’m sure that couple-counselling does increase after the holiday period … Yes, it could be seen as an advantage that I have avoided that but … What is my problem? I was kidding, I don’t really want to hear … I don’t see that a string of long-term relationships, which seamlessly transition into one another, is a problem … Well, yes, Donald could be a wanker on occasion but … Yes … Yes, I suppose I would have married him if he’d suggested it … It’s not obscene. I know it’s character building but I’m pretty happy with a lightweight character … the thirties are not great years … I haven’t been freed from the insecurities that plagued my twenties …

  Then, as now, I had an overwhelming fear of dying alone, losing my battle against orange-peel thighs and under achieving at work.

  … No I haven’t tried the Clarins one. Does it really work? I’ll give it a go. Look, got to ring off; I’m near the front of the queue. Yeah, love you too. Thanks … Absolutely like a fish needs a bicycle.

  I go for it, open return. It’s the least I can do to honour my promise to my mum. After Donald did the dirty deed I dissed him to all my friends, ripped up his letters and photos and then climbed into the fridge to see if there was any comfort to be found. There wasn’t. So I called my mum. I told her about my plans to spend a week alone; detoxing, sleeping, recuperating. She talked about more pebbles on beaches. I mumbled and sniffled, explaining that I’d seen a lovely dress in Pronuptia. She snapped and switched her wise words from ‘fish in the sea’ to ‘cart before the horse’. She told me that it is a mistake to start choosing the children’s names before I’ve drunk the second round on a first date. It’s serious when your mum encourages you towards casual sex.

  I am on a life-long search for Mr Pucker and historically I have not had time for flings. My CV is as follows: age fourteen to seventeen – exclusive to Dom. Age seventeen to nineteen – devoted to Ivan. Age nineteen to twenty-three – adored Paddy. Age twenty-three to twenty-six – attached to Giles. Age twenty-six to twenty-eight – passed time with Richard. Age twenty-eight to thirty and a half (and those six months are significant) – stayed with Donald. Over half my life wasted – that is if you consider my end goal; a small Tiffany blue box and a large white dress.

  I check the timetable. If I leg it I’ll make the 10.25 a.m.

  Everyone agrees that I need a holiday, that I’ll feel better with a tan, that I should have a holiday fling. I try to explain that I don’t do ‘fling’, I do serial monogamy. All my friends have real boyfriends (i.e. not the breed that run away days before you are due on the runway) and therefore none of them are available for said holiday. Undeterred, I did visit the travel agent. I’d argued to myself that it’s a huge planet, surely there’s a destination where it’s possible – even acceptable – to be single and still get a sun tan.

  Apparently not.

  For several excruciating minutes I discussed my travel plans with the woman behind the desk. She had big boobs, big bum, big hair and a big gob. I was feeling delicate. I noted that she had a huge diamond ring on her third finger, left hand. I didn’t want to hate her because of this. So instead I hated her for making me admit, in public, that, yes, I would have to pay the supplement for a single room. Since it’s July and I needed to depart immediately, my choices were limited. My financial state quickly reduced the choices from ‘limited’ to ‘prohibitive’. I left the travel agent’s more depressed than when I’d arrived. I walked in knowing I was sad, single and on the shelf. I left knowing that I’m also flat broke and flat-chested.

  … Well you can’t just mope at home …

  I can.

  … You’ll never meet Mr Right whilst watching Neighbours omnibus …

  Good point.

  In the end I was more or less forced to promise I’d visit seedy clubs, shag anything that moves and adopt a policy never to turn down an invitation.

  The Brighton train leaves from platform 14. I’m getting quite an expert at working my way around Britain’s stations. This is because I’d thought the answer to my holiday destination dilemma lay in a series of day-trips. This week I have visited Bath, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. All trips proved to be edifying and educational. That is if your idea of company is packs of school children – squalling and shrieking, it appears, is an international language – and if your idea of education is six-thousand-year histories potted into nine minutes of audiotape. My opportunities to buy souvenir tea-towels and key-rings have run into hundreds. My opportunities to flirt, fling or score, nil. Determined, I’m now trying Brighton.

  I find an emptyish carriage and stare down a middle-aged woman and her son, who were keen to bag the last couple of seats facing the direction of travel. The seat’s mine, it’s a small victory but it cheers me. I pass the journey staring out of the window watching the houses and fields rush by. I think this is symbolic.

  Jen, I said symbolic not ‘some bollocks’. Anyway what are you up to? … A survey of the worlds’s hundred sexiest men. Really? Who wins?… Well, that’s stupid. OK, I admit there is something interesting about Robbie Williams, Brad Pitt and George Clooney. But they are all too ‘bad boy’ to seriously be considered for matrimony … Yes, Tom Cruise is marriage material but Nicole Kidman beat me to it by a hair’s breath … River Phoenix and James Dean are dead … I don’t think including ‘a young Sean Connery’ is fair … Prince William is jailbait … Why are you laughing? If it’s not meant to be taken seriously then what’s the point of it? … Well, it doesn’t make me feel sexy. I’m too old to be doing it sur la plage… To be honest, I’ve never watched the sun set on any part of a humping anatomy … I just can’t imagine it in Brighton. Jen, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with Brighton per se. But it’s not the Caribbean, is it? It’s not even Ibiza … Yes, I’m sure it’s very trendy now and a great place for a holiday fling. Yes, I know I’ve promised. Yes, I’ll keep a look out. I’ll try. Jen got to go.

  The train has just pulled up in East Croydon and my attention is caught by a group of blokes larking around on the platform. They are all in their mid-twenties therefore generally pretty spotty but their overall impression is buoyed up by an overwhelming aura of self-confidence. There are five of them, one’s ugly and happy looking, two are average looking but clean and trendy enough to push their score up to a six or seven out of ten. One is a clear eight, with all-American good looks. He might be interesting. The fifth has his back to me. My carriage pulls up parallel to where they are standing. I am stuck between willing them into my carriage – which is empty except for an old couple with a flask and egg sandwiches and the disgruntled mother and son – and desperately wishing them to sit elsewhere. The motivation for these opposing wishes is the same. If they sit near the opportunities are ripe; this is ‘fling alert’. They choose my carriage. I bury my head in my book.

  ‘Is this seat taken?’

  I look up. Eleven out of ten. The most sensational looking man ever, is smiling at me. He is literally breath-taking. He is tall with broad shoulders and slim hips. I wish he’d turn round so I can check out his bum. He has scruffy, long, dark, gypsy hair. It falls over his cobalt blue eyes. He smiles. The smile ignites his entire face and many other parts of my body. Too stunned to speak, it takes all my presence of mind to shake my head. He sits down next to me. His knee brushes mine and my knickers jump into my throat.

  ‘Going far?’

  It’s a simple enough question. I do know the answer but my tongue is temporarily paralysed.

  He stares at me strangely and then nods as if understanding something. He says slowly,
‘Are. You. Going. All. The. Way?’

  Now I am confused.

  ‘To Brighton?’

  I nod slowly.

  ‘Where. Are. You. From?’

  It’s obvious from this that my stupid inability to answer his initial question has left him with the false impression that I am either deaf or foreign. Oh my God, how embarrassing. How do I put him straight? I think fast.

  ‘Er Paris.’ I volunteer, but I pronounce it, ‘Oh Pari’!

  ‘J’ai parles Français.’ He smiles.

  Bugger, I don’t. I failed my GCSE. Quick U-turn.

  ‘But I em Swedeesh, not Paris.’ I smile my newly acquired Swedish smile. He beams. And why wouldn’t he? Show me a man who doesn’t want to meet a Swede with a French education.

  I soon discover flirting is fun. Flirting in Swedish is doubly so. During the course of the journey I leave behind my British reserve and throw myself into my new persona. Unaccountably my hair is blonder, my breasts bigger and my thighs thinner. Or at least they must be because Mick from Croydon obviously finds me a super-babe. Then again that could be because he is twenty-three.

  A toy boy.

  The idea is at once absurd and … attractive. I allow myself a few moments of respite from the particular breed of agony which is, ‘I am no longer Donald’s woman’ as I drift away into a fantasy of something other than a few quick thrusts. If I remember correctly, younger men do go long enough to guarantee a freight train shudder, other than their own. My mum, my brother, Jen, Michelle and all my other friends are going to be so proud of me. Not only is this guy sex on legs, he’s a toy boy and since I have spent the last forty-five minutes making up a fictional persona for myself, including a new nationality, even I concede this is not a relationship with a future. This is fling.

  I consider that for the last three months I have beaten the living daylights out of my Boots loyalty card in an attempt to de-fuzz, de-scale, retone and tan every inch of my body, which, thinking about it, is a not-so-bad-in-the-right-light-all-things-considered body. I have treated my credit cards with the same lack of respect as I assembled a beautiful wardrobe of tiny, flirty, pretty dresses and shoes. And assuming that his entire cultural correspondence with Swedes is the same as mine – pornographic stereotypes – he won’t be able to resist. I know I’m right when two just-past-adolescent girls climb on to the train. His mates swoop but Mick doesn’t seem to notice. He’s made the right choice. They may have concave stomachs and bodies so pierced they have more holes than my tea strainer but I bet neither of them knows the prank with the fingers and anus, nor the one where you put both balls in the mouth at once. I sit back, shocked at my own thoughts. But then it’s not my fault I have such thoughts, it’s my Swedish genes.