Chapter 10
10
Later that afternoon, we get a taxi to Puerto Pollensa, ten minutes back along the coast road, and order paella and sangria at a beachside restaurant on the Pine Walk.
Liam doesn’t come with us, saying he’s ‘on a promise’ with a woman he met on an earlier charter.
‘That man is relentless,’ Nico says, as we watch Liam walk away.
The warm air smells of pine needles and sun lotion, of seafood, garlic and jasmine.
Berry’s wearing a pink string dress over a white vest and boy shorts, her arms lined with bead bracelets.
She’s got her pink-tinted sunglasses pushed up into her hair, curled into spirals from the salt water.
I didn’t even think to bring a change of clothes for the evening, so I’m wearing the same sundress and flip-flops from this morning.
The dress feels soft and greasy from the sunscreen.
‘Look at us,’ Nico says, gesturing at the four of us.
‘Double date.’
‘We’re not .
. .’ I start to say, just as Adam says, ‘Bagsy Berry.’
I gasp.
‘You can’t bagsy a person!
’
Adam shrugs. ‘Sorry, bagsy can’t be argued with.
’
‘What’s “bagsy”?
’ Berry says.
‘Oh my god.’ I shake my head.
‘Like . . . he’s claimed you.
’
‘Wow,’ Berry says, slowly, her eyebrows shooting up.
‘Feminism not reached Liverpool yet then?’
‘Hey!’ Adam says in pretend outrage.
‘I once emailed Nintendo to say Princess Peach shouldn’t be a prize in Mario .
’
‘Oh, Mario!’ Nico mimics in a high-pitched voice, clutching his hands to his chest.
‘Exactly,’ Adam says.
‘My mum was dead proud.’
‘Typical male feminist,’ Berry says lightly.
‘Does the bare minimum and thinks he deserves a cookie.’
‘Nah, I was only joking,’ Adam says.
‘Hope, tell her!’
I shake my head.
‘You’re on your own here.
You and your bagsy.’
‘I think you’ve done yourself out of both the girls there,’ Nico says.
‘We’re all gonna have to go gay.
’
‘You do know I am gay, right?’ Berry says, pouring more sangria for herself.
‘I didn’t!’ Nico says.
‘Fair play.’
I didn’t know Berry was gay either.
‘Thanks,’ Berry says to Nico.
‘Good to have your approval.’
‘Oh, I definitely approve.’ Nico waggles his eyebrows.
‘Adam, you’re in the clear,’ Berry says.
‘Nico has just out-grossed you.’
The waiter unfolds a small table next to us and then brings out an enormous pan piled high with paella.
He dishes it out for each of us, finishing it with mussels and prawns in the shell.
It’s so good we have seconds, and Adam has thirds, the waiter scraping the last of the pan directly onto his plate.
We get a second jug of sangria and the boys get increasingly raucous, while Berry and I people-watch and stare out at the moon reflected in the rippling water.
I feel full and happy, sleepy from the sun and the sangria.
A shirtless man, barefoot in cut-offs and carrying a bag from the nearby Spar, passes us before hopping off the jetty into a small boat.
We watch him repeatedly try and fail to start the boat.
‘I should go and help,’ Nico says, but he’s leaning back in his seat, looking about sixty per cent asleep, and makes no move to get up.
‘I’m not helping someone with a boat on my day off from a boat,’ Adam says, leaning forward to pour himself more sangria.
The man clambers out of the boat, looks around for a bit and gets back in again, sitting down and taking out his phone.
‘He’s going to have to sleep there now,’ I say.
‘I wonder where he lives.’
‘He’s probably just going out to one of the moored ones,’ Berry says, waving towards the dozens of small yachts anchored out in the bay.
‘Maybe he lives over there.’ I gesture at the hills on the other side of the bay.
A road snakes down towards the water, bright headlights tumbling like marbles.
‘Be quicker by boat.’
A man and a woman approach – he’s balding in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and she looks cool and somehow Swedish in a flowing white shirt dress and rope sandals, blonde hair tied in a low ponytail.
They stop and talk to the man in the boat, who looks up at them, smiling brightly.
‘They’re asking him directions,’ I say.
‘And he’s telling them he can take them there if they can get his boat started,’ Berry adds.
‘She’s probably got a little boat back home,’ I say.
‘She summers on one of those tiny Swedish islands and has to sail everywhere.’
‘How do you know she’s Swedish?
’ Nico asks, tipping his head back to blow a cloud of Coke-scented vape in the air.
‘She looks Swedish,’ I tell him.
‘Blonde and . . . serene.’
‘Ooh!’ Berry leans forward in her seat.
‘He’s getting out!’
The Hawaiian shirt guy reaches a hand out to help him and, once he’s back up on the jetty, the three of them stand for a minute, talking and laughing.
‘They’re going to a party,’ I say.
‘They asked him to take them, but he can’t, so now they’ve invited him along.
’
‘Or now they’re skipping the party,’ Berry says.
‘And they’ve invited him back to their villa.
’
We all watch as the three of them head off together.
‘He’s left his Spar bag!
’ I realise.
‘Doesn’t need it now,’ Berry says.
‘It was provisions for a lonely night and a sad wank, but now it’s all oysters, champagne and a threesome.
’
‘I might go and grab the bag,’ Nico says.
‘Microwave burger, bottle of Yazoo and a box of tissues? Can’t go wrong.
’
‘Are you two writing a novel together or what?’ Adam asks me and Berry.
‘It’s just more interesting to make up a story.
’
‘Don’t you ever do it?
’ Berry asks Adam. ‘What about that guy?’ She gestures vaguely at a middle-aged man in yellow shorts and a white shirt, sitting on a bench and looking distracted.
‘He’s waiting for his wife?
’ Adam says.
‘She’s late because .
. . ?’ I prompt.
‘She . . . er . . . I dunno. She couldn’t find her bag.
’ He downs his drink.
‘He came here once as a young man,’ Berry says.
‘And met a woman. They had a holiday fling and agreed never to meet again. They both married other people, but then –’
‘She found him on Facebook,’ I say.
‘After her husband died. His wife had died too. So they agreed to meet here.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Nico says.
‘You’ve got me wanting to stay to see if she turns up.
’
We all laugh as a waiter comes over to see if we want more drinks.
‘So who wants to play a game?’ Nico asks, once we’ve all got a round of beers.
‘First time, last time, strangest place?’
I glance at Adam before I can stop myself and widen my eyes at him.
I wasn’t his first, but what will he say about the last time?
He looks directly back, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘I’ll go first,’ Adam says.
‘First time was when I was sixteen. On holiday with my family at this caravan park we always went to. Loads of people had caravans there and went back every holidays, so a bunch of us had been hanging around together for years. This girl, Grace, I’m pretty sure she’d decided in advance that she was just going to find someone to do it with and she found me.
’ He shrugs.
‘Was it just that once?’ Nico asks.
‘Couple more times,’ Adam says, which is news to me.
‘But only that year. Her family sold the caravan after that.’
‘Not surprised, mate,’ Nico says.
‘What about you then?’ Adam asks him.
Nico says he was sixteen too and it was with one of his sister’s friends, who made him promise never to tell his sister.
‘Made me feel great, that,’ he says now.
‘Did you tell her?’ I ask.
‘Never did. I keep my promises.’
‘That would be more admirable if you hadn’t banged your sister’s best friend,’ Berry says, smiling.
‘So, what’s your story?
’ Nico asks Berry.
‘It was actually with my best friend,’ Berry says.
‘Well, she was my best friend then. She’s not now.
’
I pick up my drink and twist the neck of the bottle between my fingers.
‘We used to sleep over at each other’s places all the time,’ Berry says.
‘And this time we bought beer. And got a bit of a buzz. Watched a film. Started kissing and, you know . . .’
‘Bish, bash, bosh,’ Nico says.
‘Yeah, it’s not really like that with girls,’ Berry says, smiling.
‘Neither of us knew what we were doing, but it was nice. Bit awkward the following morning though.’
‘Hope!’ Nico says.
‘What about you?’
I shake my head.
‘Nothing too exciting. He was my first boyfriend. Went back to his place after school. No one was home, so . . .’ I shrug.
‘Did you do it in his childhood bed?’ Nico asks.
I have to try really hard not to look at Adam.
‘We did. Everton wallpaper and all.’
I do look at Adam then and catch the look of Liverpool fan outrage on his face.
‘That is cold,’ Nico says, gesturing at Adam with his beer.
‘I can’t believe she disrespected you like that.
’
Adam smiles. ‘We’re just friends.
’
‘Keep telling yourself that, mate,’ Nico says.
‘Last time?’
‘A girl I was seeing back home,’ Adam says and I wonder what story he’s going to tell.
‘Nothing serious. Went back to her place after a night out and . . .’ He holds his hands out.
‘You know.’
‘What?’ Nico says.
‘We had sex,’ Adam enunciates and everyone laughs.
‘Cool story, bro.’ Nico rolls his eyes.
‘Berry, I know you can do better than that.’
Berry takes a long pull of her beer and then says, ‘You know I was a tour guide in Barcelona? Often it would be stag or hen parties.’ She says both in an English accent.
‘But this one was a writing group. Four women on a sort of creative inspiration tour of Barcelona. There was this one woman who I was pretty sure was flirting with me right from the start. She asked me a lot of questions, hung back to walk with me, touched my arm when we were talking.’ She reaches out and brushes her finger over my wrist and goosebumps thrill up my forearm.
‘You know,’ she says.
‘Classic stuff.’
I nod.
I do know.
‘The tour usually ended in this tapas bar but the women wanted to go dancing, so I took them to this place I love in the Gothic Quarter – tiny, dark, jazz and cocktails.’
She pauses to drink some of her beer and we’re all just staring at her.
‘We danced together – the other women were there and dancing too, but me and this woman were dancing together. It was hot and sweaty and busy, so we were dancing pretty close. We had our cocktails, out on the dance floor – everyone did. Some of mine splashed out over my hand and she reached over, took my hand and licked it.’
‘Fuck off,’ Nico says.
Berry laughs. ‘I know.’
‘That? Is a baller move.’
‘Right?’ Berry drinks some more of her beer.
‘And it totally worked. We left the other women there and went straight back to my place.’
Ignoring the fluttering in my chest, I drink the last of my beer.
In the car back to the marina, Nico’s in the front, chatting to the driver and Adam falls asleep, his head bumping gently against the window.
Between me and Adam, Berry is looking down at her phone, texting.
I stare out through the glass, over the water, and all I can think about is the story Berry told.
The woman licking her hand.
Berry sliding her fingers between the woman’s and leading her out of the club and back to her place.
Maybe they stopped to kiss in doorways on the way or maybe they were in too much of a hurry and didn’t kiss until the door of Berry’s apartment had closed behind them, by then so desperate that they didn’t even take the time to get undressed, instead just pulling clothes out of the way –
‘You okay?’ Berry asks me.
‘Did you have a good night?
‘I did,’ I tell her.
‘It was great. I’m just tired.
’
‘Work hard, play hard,’ she says, smiling.
Then she goes back to looking at her phone and I go back to thinking about her, even as I try to stop myself.