Jam Tops, the Fonz and the Pursuit of Cool

by Kris Lillyman

“Thanks, Mandy,” said Daisy taking the key, and feeling a little guilty for spoiling the girls romantic getaway. “As long as you don’t mind.”

  “Course not, silly. We’ll see you in the morning and then we’ll all get the boat back to Lloret together - don’t worry, we won’t leave you alone with the Tosser and the Tart,” she giggled drunkenly - the Tosser and the Tart being hers and Tricia’s nicknames for Steve and Loz.

  Daisy chuckled, too. “No, thanks for that.”

  “No problem, sweetie, now c’mon, let’s go get you a last drink!”

  Then the pair of them, together with Tricia, marched purposely into Bronco Billy’s Buckin’ Bull Bar.

  ***

  Being jostled and barged every which way by Bronco Billy’s drunken patrons, Daisy clutched her vodka and chocolate desperately trying not to spill any down her slinky low-cut white dress (borrowed from Tricia - who said it would ‘show off her tits and tan’ - which it duly did). Vodka and chocolate was a surprisingly tasty yet hideous sounding concoction of vodka and bottled chocolate milk shake, that was peculiar to Spain, mixed together in a long glass and served with loads of ice. Nice, but when spilt down a borrowed white dress, very nasty indeed - so Daisy was dicing with death as she weaved her way precariously through the crowd to see what everyone was cheering at.

  Daisy froze as she saw the mechanical bull in the centre of the ring and, more shockingly, the person who had just clambered up onto it.

  Daisy immediately tried to get away, to hide, but she was trapped in the throng of people, unable to move, locked in place by the sweaty huddle of heaving, hollering onlookers.

  She was in the third row, looking on aghast, partially concealed from the bull’s rider by two, tall, tattooed, Taffy’s, chanting along with Bronco Billy to the buxom bird on the bull - ‘Get yer tits out for the lads!’

  Loz, Daisy’s former best friend, who only last night had slept with her so-called boyfriend, was up on the bull milking the attention for all it was worth. In a flourish, Loz pulled off her top and proudly exposed her bare double Ds to the delight of the assembled hordes who let out an enormous roar of approval as her big boobs bounced out from under her tight T-shirt.

  Slowly, Bronco Billy set the bull in motion; Loz sitting astride it her arms held wide to ensure her new-found fans got a good eyeful of her ample assets. As they watched, her bountiful boobs jiggled and wobbled and bounced and swung; Bronco Billy just juddering the bull enough to titillate his pack of pissed-up patrons. But then, just as Loz was beginning to feel overly-confident, rolling her hips lewdly as the bull gently bucked and reared, lapping up the attention, Bronco Billy, sped things up.

  Suddenly Loz was clinging on for dear life and then, again to the immense pleasure of the crowd, she hit the crash mats - her little moment in the spotlight brought to an abrupt end.

  Daisy couldn’t help but smile, although she knew it was a hollow victory. Indeed, Loz was still lapping up the attention as she reluctantly slipped her T-shirt back on and walked off the crash mats aided by Bronco Billy’s Buckaroos.

  Daisy tried to make herself small, shrinking down behind the two Welsh men, wishing she was invisible, as she saw who Loz was with.

  Steve bloody Cool was right there in the front row, waiting for her, holding her drink for her, as the Buckaroos escorted her off the crash mats.

  Fortunately, neither Steve nor Loz had noticed Daisy, who had somehow lost Mandy and Tricia in the thick of the crowd.

  Unable to help herself, she watched them surreptitiously as the next rider was cheered onto the bull, accompanied by the ‘Rollin’, rollin’ rollin’ Rawhide theme tune.

  But Daisy’s attention remained with Loz and Steve who were snogging, brazenly, on the boundary of the bull ring - seemingly absorbed in each other although clearly both enjoying being the focus of things.

  The sight of them made Daisy’s stomach churn. What on earth had she been thinking to get involved with an obnoxious, arrogant pig like Steve bloody Cool - and how could she have been so wrong about a little tart like Loz?

  Yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away as the deafening roar of the crowd hammered in her ears.

  Then a miracle happened.

  Suddenly Steve and Loz, and those standing in close proximity to them, were being sprayed with what at first glance appeared to be vegetable soup but upon closer inspection was clearly a hot, shower of sick.

  Steve and Loz took the brunt of the blast. They were covered in it, from head to toe; their clothes soaked through with chunks of carrots, peas and the obligatory sweet corn (which, Daisy absently noted, seemed to be a constant in vomit whether it had previously been consumed or not).

  Everyone watching (or at least those who weren’t also covered in sick) started laughing hysterically as Steve and Loz who, appalled by what had happened, started throwing-up, too; the smell of the vomit, the feel of it on their faces, hair and clothes making them heave uncontrollably.

  Eager to be out of the spotlight, they turned into the crowd, who shouted “Uh!” and “Getaway!” and “Christ, you two stink!” whilst guffawing uncontrollably at their hideous plight.

  Nevertheless, anxious not to be contaminated by the pukey, peddle-dashed pair, the sea of people opened up as if commanded by Moses, himself, and Steve and Loz hurried away, desperate not to be the centre of attention any longer.

  Loz was crying whilst Steve Cool, utterly mortified and humiliated beyond words, looked anything but cool.

  As they ran out of the bar, the laughter rang out behind them and Daisy couldn’t help but join in. It was utterly priceless and payback of the very cruellest kind. But she loved it.

  They deserved it.

  Then the crowd focussed their attention on the long-haired, very sunburnt lad lying on the crash mats who had thrown-up all over Steve and Loz.

  Those that had been victims of his vomit were burning holes of hatred into him, whilst the untouched others were cheering appreciatively.

  Daisy turned in time to see a group of lads, all wearing matching Desert Rats T-shirts, rush to pick up their poor, hated/heroic friend (depending on whose point of view was taken into account) who had provided everyone with such a brilliant/terrible show (again, subject to perspective).

  However, what could not be denied, was that it was a truly unforgettable spectacle.

  Daisy strained to get a look at him but he was shrouded by his laughing group of compatriots - or he was until they hoisted him up onto their shoulders and carried him aloft as if he was Bobby Moore at the ‘66 World Cup.

  The lad had a long ‘mullet’ and was badly sunburnt with a white ‘glasses’ shape of unblemished pale skin around his eyes.

  Furthermore, he was clearly unwell.

  But, as he gazed down at her from on high, there could be no doubt.

  Daisy’s heart skipped a beat and her eyes filled with tears of joy.

  Her prayers had been answered and, had it not been for the two Welsh lads unwittingly keeping her upright, she might well have collapsed in shock.

  Because there, in the mad, Majorcan mayhem of Magaluf, in the midst of a most mind-blowing turn of events, Daisy was staring at the most welcome, wonderful and heart-warming sight she’d seen in years.

  Gordy Brewer in all his wonderful glory.

  ***

  Before Gordy knew what was going on, Bangers, Bubble and the rest of The Desert Rats had hoisted him up onto their shoulders and were carrying him triumphantly out of Bronco Billy’s, completely unaware that his shorts were soiled with sap from his squittery bum hole and that liquid sewage was possibly seeping out through the thin cotton material onto their custom-made shirts.

  Yet Gordy was too out-of-it to protest - and too eager to get away from a particular section of the audience who were now, rather unfortunately, modelling the contents of his stomach and clearly not too delighted about it.

&nb
sp; Nevertheless, all he could think about was Daisy and as he looked down into the faces of the (mostly) cheering onlookers, he stared directly at her, blinking in amazement, not quite able to believe what he was seeing.

  But it was not the Daisy he remembered. The one he was desperately trying to focus on now was completely different to the fifteen-year-old girl he recalled from Bailey’s Bandstand.

  She was still beautiful, of course, just as he always remembered her being - but this one was tall, tanned, long legged, superbly proportioned and wearing a skin-tight mini dress - the previously wild bush of curly ginger hair now a lustrous auburn mane.

  She was spectacular!

  For a moment Gordy thought he was tripping - as if he’d just taken LSD or eaten a shed load of magic mushrooms (not that he had any clue what either of those were actually like - but something like he was presently feeling he guessed).

  He blinked again, but then Daisy was absorbed into the crowd, the mass of bodies enveloping her. He searched the sea of people, desperately hoping to see her head bobbing up, as if she was lost overboard in a storm.

  But nothing. She was gone. Had he imagined it? Was he hallucinating? Due to the sunstroke he naturally assumed that his mind was playing tricks. How could Daisy be there?

  A few seconds later he found himself outside on the pavement, The Desert Rats patting him painfully on his sunburnt shoulders and congratulating him before heading back inside one-by one.

  Amazingly, even though Gordy felt as far from cool as he ever had in his whole life, standing there in his hideous Desert Rats T-shirt and shit-stained shorts, somehow, to Bangers and the gang, he had suddenly become the coolest bloke in Magaluf.

  Which only emphasised the gulf between him and his new bunch of friends. How on earth could shitting yourself and projectile vomiting off the back of a pneumatic bull be even slightly cool?

  That certainly never happened to The Fonz.

  It was all very confusing.

  The good news was, however, after being so violently sick, he now, rather remarkably, felt so much better.

  No longer did he feel vomitus and his stomach had stopped squirling - also he seemed to have regained control of his bottom, which was something of a relief if not just a tad too late.

  For the first time in several hours Gordy’s head cleared; the flashing lights had disappeared and the pounding beat that had been banging out a constant rhythm in his brain had, at last, been silenced.

  Drunken people were milling about, although most seemed to be giving him a wide birth - which he guessed was perhaps due to a burgeoning brown stain in the back of his shorts and the noxious niff of newly deposited caca which wafted in the breeze around him.

  Yet whilst he should have been utterly mortified by this unhappy situation, his mind was still puzzling over his vision of Daisy.

  She had seemed so real, so alive. He could almost have touched her.

  If only it had been really her.

  Then someone called his name.

  He turned, confused, was his mind playing ticks again. It sounded just like—

  “Gordy! It’s me!” She cried, as the girl came towards him.

  The striking white dress she was wearing was now soaked through from the spilt brown chocolate milkshake that had been knocked out of her hand in her haste to get out of the bar, and her beautiful blue eyes that had been so clear just a few moments before were now full of the tears that were streaming freely down her freckled face; her mascara running in rivers over her tanned cheeks.

  But it was her. It was definitely her. She was no hallucination.

  “Gordy Brewer!” She shouted, “It’s me, Daisy Flynn!”

  Gordy smiled, “Blimey, Daisy,” he exclaimed happily, “It really is you, isn’t it!”

  With a big, hugely delighted grin on his face, he held his arms out wide and she ran to him as if her whole life depended on her reaching the safety of his embrace.

  Daisy threw her arms around his neck and he wrapped his around her waist, clamping her to him as she sobbed deep tears of delight into the shoulder of his stained and smelly T-shirt, but she didn’t care, as she had never been so pleased to see anyone in her whole life before.

  They clung together tightly, for the longest time, hugging as if they never wanted to let go of each other ever again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gordy stepped out of the shower, so glad that he had not gone with his initial idea of rinsing himself off in the sea - the thought of that first terrifying scene in Jaws when the naked young girl goes skinny dipping in the ocean at night before moments later being pulled under the water by a hungry monster-sized killer shark - still haunting Gordy’s dreams.

  Even now, after all this time, he had an unreasonable fear of the sea and an unshakeable aversion to sharks.

  Steven Spielberg had an awful lot to answer for in Gordy’s book.

  Indeed, for the entire duration of the holiday he had adamantly refused to set foot in the sea and had stuck religiously to the rather less than appealing hotel pool - with it’s treacherously slippy edge, verruca infected deck and cracked blue tiles - for which a hazard warning and a hazmat suit were surely just a health inspector’s signature away.

  But, out of sheer desperation, with a T-shirt stained with sick and shorts permeated with poo, Gordy had briefly, very reluctantly, flirted with the idea of swilling himself off in the dark, night time waters of the Mediterranean - surely even Jaws would turn his over-sized pointy nose up at the sight of Gordy’s shit stained stripy shorts!

  Fortunately, Gordy never had to find out as Daisy had come to his rescue.

  She, too, needed to clean herself up. The pristine white dress she’d borrowed from Tricia was quite possibly ruined, covered as it was in a mixture of mascara, vodka and chocolate milk shake. Furthermore, with the dress now sopping wet, it had become almost transparent and was displaying her impressive set of bazumbas to all on sundry - including Gordy, who couldn’t fail to notice even though he still wasn’t completely compos mentis.

  So sheer had the material become that Daisy might well have been topless and, covered in the chocolate shake, she resembled one of those rather well-endowed African tribeswomen that Gordy had seen on the telly (or at least she did from below the shoulders and above the waist). All she needed was some large hooped earrings and a few goats to complete the picture.

  Nevertheless, with Gordy’s hotel some distance away, she suggested they go back to the apartment block that she was staying in as it was just a short walk from Bronco Billy’s.

  It would also give them the perfect excuse to catch up.

  Oblivious to the looks they received from the passing gangs of drunken lads and tipsy girls, Gordy and Daisy walked hand-in-hand back to the apartments, neither being able to quite believe that the other was actually there with them.

  It was remarkable. Magical. Wonderful.

  As they walked, they talked. Daisy briefly outlined where she had been and what she had been doing over the last few years which, to Gordy, sounded a whole lot cooler than what he’d been doing - which basically consisted of working in a dull office during the week and getting drunk at the weekends - but he tried to make it sound as exciting as he could.

  However, for both of them, the over-riding feeling was of how good it was to see each other again.

  They laughed and joked and reminisced about old times - they talked about Frazer and Trevor and Bailey’s Bandstand and then, inevitably, about Pippa Wilson and Steve Cool.

  Gordy said that he’d got Pippa out of his system a long time ago; stating he would always think of her fondly but nothing more that. Not any more.

  “I wonder what she’s doing now?” He wondered absently.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Said Daisy, a little surprised.

  “Know what?”

  “About her and Steve
?”

  “What about them? I haven’t seen either of them for years - since school probably.”

  “I only found out myself yesterday,” Daisy said, finding it difficult to believe that it was only yesterday as it seemed ages ago now. “Pippa and Steve stayed together apparently, at least for a while. They moved to Scotland, dunno where exactly but Steve’s dad’s from Glasgow - anyway, they moved somewhere up there and shacked up together.”

  “Pippa’s in Scotland? Blimey.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not all - Steve got her pregnant, too.”

  “Blimey!” Gordy said again. “Pippa and Steve with a baby - bloody hell, that’s amazing.”

  “Well that’s just it - Steve didn’t stick around. He left her in the lurch - pregnant with his baby and no support from him - she’s been trying to track him down, trying to make him go home but he won’t take her calls or answer her letters—”

  “Bloody Nora! Poor Pippa.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what I thought,” agreed Daisy.

  “Mind you,” Gordy continued, “I suppose there was a chance she’d get preggers sooner or later as she was always a bit promiscuous to say the least. But she didn’t deserve to be treated like that, no way. Bloody Steve Cool - I always knew he was a bastard - even back at school. Remember the roller-disco?”

  “Yeah. I do,” Daisy smiled wistfully.

  “I wonder what happened to him then? Steve Cool I mean. I wonder where he ran off to?”

  Suddenly Daisy felt a little ashamed and very remorseful. “He came here,” she said sheepishly. “Well, not here exactly - but Lloret de Mar, in Spain, where I’ve been working. He works there, too.”

  “You what?” Gordy couldn’t believe it. “You mean you’ve seen him?”

  “Mmm hmm,” Daisy nodded. “In fact—” unexpectedly she started to cry, she couldn’t help herself, but she felt so foolish to have been so taken in by Steve Cool’s charms. “Oh, Gordy - I’ve been so bloody stupid - so, so naive—”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “I’ve been seeing him, Gordy - going out with him, I suppose. He even came here with me, to Magaluf but—” Suddenly she was sobbing uncontrollably and Gordy put his arm around her to comfort her. He couldn’t believe it, Steve Cool was there, in Magaluf - and he had been going out with Daisy! Gordy rubbed her shoulder and pulled her to him, but the green-eyed monster was stirring in his soul. Steve Cool and Daisy Flynn, it was almost unbearable to think of.