Chapter 2
When I’d dressed in my cream boots, I had imagined mooching between bars in the Latin Quarter under blue skies, not dashing across supermarket car parks in between breaks in the rain. It had been teeming it down all day and the suede was getting soggier by the minute.
So far, Will had stocked up on nearly every variety of flavoured vodka and some wine, and I’d stretched to a bottle of Baileys and a slab of Smirnoff ice.
We’d stored them in the bus, and were headed over to the mall entrance for some window shopping in the dry, only to find all the boutique shops and anything not hypermarket related were closed.
‘Why aren’t they open?’
Will scanned the opening hours on the door. ‘They’re shut on Sundays.’
‘All of them?’ My voice came out in a squeak. It had been the only thing keeping me going round the hypermarkets, that at least I could stay in the warm and dry and potter round the rest of the shops.
I should have known that they’d be closed. I could remember holidays in France when it seemed like whole villages and towns shuttered up on Sundays, with no signs of life.
‘Oh well,’ said Will with a shrug. ‘Might be a good time to buy some ciggies to sell.’
‘Really?’
I don’t know what grated on me more: the fact that he used the word ciggies, or that that’s what he suggested we do with our new-found free time.
‘Might as well make back some of the money for the trip.’
‘You mean the two pounds you spent on the tickets?’
‘And the lunch.’
‘Right.’ My birthday lunch: a soggy burger from an unknown chain. ‘How long have we got until the bus goes?’
He looked down at his watch. ‘About an hour and a half.’
I looked at the waiting taxis all lined up across the road. ‘Why don’t we head off into town and do a little sightseeing?’
‘In Calais?’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Babe, I think it’s just hypermarkets.’
‘It can’t be. There must be a real town with at least a little bistro that we could go to.’ I tried to put on my most seductive voice, but it was hard in the biting wind and the rain.
‘You heard what they said on the bus – if we’re not there, they’ll go without us.’
‘But look, we could get a taxi there and back. There’s plenty of them, it’s not like we’d get stranded.’
He looked between the line of cars and the big warehouse shop next to him.
‘I did promise Gareth I’d bring him some Marlboro Lights.’
I sighed. ‘I thought this was my birthday treat.’
Will took a step back and let out a deep breath. ‘I bought you a ticket to come abroad. I’m spending the whole day with you. Not to mention I bought you a burger, and that bottle of wine in the last shop.’
‘It was buy two get one free.’
‘Yeah, but I could have kept the free one.’ He folded his arms across his chest.
I looked down at my boots, now a sludgy brown colour, and thought how they, like me, deserved better than this.
‘Well, I’m going to go and see the town, even if you’re not.’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’m going to shop in here.’
‘Fine.’ I folded my arms to match his. For a split second neither of us moved, each waiting for the other to cave first. But when it became clear that neither of us was going to back down, Will swore under his breath and went inside the shop.
I cursed loudly, pulling my arms closer into my chest, unsure whether it was for comfort or to warm myself.
The taxis were there with their lights like a beacon, and yet I knew deep down that I was never going to go alone. I wished that I was brave enough to do it. If Caz was here, she’d go on her own. She was fearless.
I fiddled with the four-leaf clover charm on my bracelet, which somewhere along the line had become a talisman for when I needed courage, only it wasn’t working its usual magic.
A lone tear rolled down my cheek, followed by another, and another.
Before I knew what was happening I was full-on crying.
I don’t know whether it was that I’d got my hopes up for Paris, or that I’d ruined my favourite boots, or that I was starting to see the side of Will that my friends did.
Whatever the reason, my tears were matching the rainfall.
‘Hey, are you OK?’ I turned to see a guy that I vaguely recognised. He’d been on our bus, but I’d seen him around campus too. He had one of those faces that always seemed to be smiling, only today the smile didn’t want to stay on his face. He was doubling over in pain.
‘I feel like I should be asking you that,’ I said, wiping away my tears.
‘I’m not the one crying.’
‘And I’m not the one clearly in pain.’ I tilted my head in concern. ‘What’s wrong?’
He bent over again. ‘I had some oysters, when we first got off the bus, from the little truck in the car park.’ He shook his head; his face was practically green. ‘They did not agree with me.’
I pulled a face. Oysters were definitely not on the list of French delicacies that I’d be willing to try.
‘Do you need me to get you some help?’
‘Nope, I’ve taken some stuff to try and um—’ He paused and I worried he was going to be sick, but instead he let out a deep breath. ‘Anyway, tell me why you’re crying. It might take my mind off it.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ His voice was going a little pitchy as he spoke.
‘My boyfriend brought me here on what I thought was going to be a romantic trip, only it was really for him to stock up on booze, and cigarettes that he can sell on.’ The guy was not looking good and he was fidgeting, so I sped up in case he needed to make a sharp exit.
‘And I started to cry because I wanted to get a taxi to the port, but I’m not brave enough.
So instead, I’m probably going to just stand here looking at them for the next hour and a half, burning with bitter resentment and becoming even more like a drowned rat as if I haven’t ruined my outfit enough already. ’
‘Or you could get in the taxi and go.’
‘I know it’s pathetic, but I’m scared to go alone.’
‘It’s not pathetic, it’s probably pretty sensible.’ He looked around and then broke out into a smile. ‘You could go with my mate Noah. He’ll be up for it. He was just moaning that everything’s closed.’
‘Oh no. I’m not going to go with some stranger.’
‘He’s not a stranger. He’s Noah.’
I stared at the guy, wondering if he was for real.
‘But … ’ I said, deliberately slowly ‘ … he’s a stranger to me.’
‘Maybe, but you’ll like him. Everyone likes him.’
‘Listen, you seem really nice and I’m sure he would be too, but I’m not just going to—’
‘Noah, mate,’ he interrupted, calling to a man in a blue cap further down the car park, phone to his ear. ‘I’m Paul, by the way.’ He motioned for his friend to come over.
‘Lucy,’ I muttered, but I was distracted staring at the man who hung up his phone and jogged across to us.
‘Noah, mate, this is Lucy. Lucy, this is Noah. Her boyfriend’s a knob and she wants to go into the town,’ Paul said, his voice getting quicker and quicker as he explained, a sheen of sweat appearing on his forehead.
‘I said you’d go in a taxi with her. Got to run to the toilet again. See you on the bus later.’
Paul had barely finished the sentence before he started to sprint to the supermarket.
‘Bloody oysters. Who even eats oysters?’ said Noah. ‘Let alone ones you get by the side of the road.’
He pulled his cap off his head and stroked his hair down. It was the kind of longish hair that was almost spiky, like boyband members seemed to be fond of. He replaced his cap and looked down at me.
‘Right, Louise.’
‘Lucy.’
‘Right, Lucy,’ he corrected. ‘Sorry, I’m terrible with names. What’s this about getting a taxi?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’ I waved a hand to bat the idea away. ‘I don’t need you to do that. Your friend Paul was just trying to be nice.’
‘He does that a lot. He’s a nice guy. It’s a bit of a liability.’
‘Must be an awful characteristic.’
‘It is really. He’s nice, and polite, and he goes out of his way to help strangers.’ He pulled a face. ‘It’s a nightmare.’
‘Yes, sounds it, having such a nice friend.’
Noah laughed. ‘It is, because he’s always roping his mates in to his good deeds.’
‘Like escorting strange women to industrial French towns?’
‘That’s what it is this week, but last week it was walking our elderly neighbour’s German Shepherd. You have no idea how big the poos were I had to pick up. Three bags,’ he whispered under his breath and it made me giggle.
He smiled at me laughing, then stopped. ‘Are you OK?’
I’d forgotten that I was probably a tear-stained mess, and I wiped at the sticky trails on my face.
‘I’m fine, really. You can go about your shopping. Honestly. I’m not going to head into town; I might just wander round the shops here. Buy some stinky cheese or something.’
‘So that you can find some friends on the bus home? Who doesn’t love sitting next to someone with stinky cheese?’
‘Exactly,’ I said.
‘And who knows, it might be better smelling than the rugby team.’
‘Or at least mask their smell.’
Noah laughed harder.
‘Right, well, I’ll let you go on your important cheese-buying adventure. I’m going to continue my search to find Goldschl?ger.’
‘What’s that?’
‘What do you mean, what’s that? Only the best, most prestigious shot-drinking experience you can have.’
‘I don’t think I’ve had it.’
‘Cinnamon tasting, with real gold in it?’ He raised an eyebrow and I narrowed my eyes further.
‘You drink real gold?’
‘They’re only flakes and yes.’
‘Fancy.’
‘Exactly. I can’t usually afford it, but I was hoping it’d be cheaper here.’
There were green flecks in Noah’s hazel eyes and they seemed to dance as he spoke animatedly; watching them was almost hypnotic.
‘Well, good luck with that.’ I bowed my head, like I was a fair maiden sending him off on his quest.
He bowed back. ‘And you too, with the cheese. If I don’t smell it down the back of the coach, I’ll be disappointed.’
I smiled, looking towards the hypermarket, only my heart wasn’t really in it.
‘Thanks for being nice. It’s been such a shitty birthday so far, and you being—’
‘Hold up. It’s your birthday?’
‘Yep.’
‘Today?’ He narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down.
‘All day.’
‘Fuck, it’s mine too.’ His smile was wide now.
‘You’re the leapling?’
‘What, like the chosen one?’ he said, with a theatrical tone.
‘No, you’re the leapling the student union guy was talking about.’
‘Oh right, yeah, he made a big deal out of it when he saw my passport. Which he should as we’re so bloody rare. I mean what’s the chance of being a leapling – one in a thousand?’
‘One in one thousand four hundred and sixty-one.’
He gave a low whistle.
‘Bloody hell. That’s specific.’
‘I’m good with remembering little details.’
‘Uh-huh, right. I’ve honestly never met anyone with the same birthday as me before.’
‘Me neither.’
He looked around the grey car park.
‘This feels a bit of a momentous occasion that we need to celebrate.’
I followed his gaze to the chain restaurant where I’d had my infamous soggy burger, and another restaurant that doubled up as a bar that was bulging at the seams with most of the rugby players from our bus.
‘What’s in the town you’re so desperate to get to?’
‘Something other than a car park?’ I ventured.
He laughed. ‘Come on then, let’s go.’
‘But what about the Goldschl?ger hunt?’
‘I kind of get the impression that’s a bit like a needle in a haystack. Plus, we do only get to celebrate this birthday once every four years.’
‘That is very true.’
‘We might as well do some sightseeing. See what Calais has to offer.’
The taxi ride into town didn’t take long, and it turned out there was more to Calais than industrial estates and shopping centres. We walked through impressive public buildings in the centre only to find, like the shopping centres, everything was shut.
‘Fuck,’ said Noah, as we walked down another street without signs of life. It was like something out of the zombie apocalypse.
‘Where’s everyone gone?’ I cupped my hands, peering into a shop window.
‘There’s got to be a bar or something open, somewhere.’
The rain had eased off but my boots were well and truly beyond salvage. Water had seeped right into my tights and there was a squelch each time I took a step. I stopped to pull up my soggy tights, wishing I’d put on the jeans Will had suggested.
‘That’s quite the outfit for a booze cruise,’ he said. ‘Very chic.’
I snorted with laughter and Noah looked at me, alarmed.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh like that. It’s just what my friends were going for when they dressed me – Parisian chic.’
‘I’m not sure where to start with that.’ He rubbed at his forehead. ‘The fact that your friends dressed you or that they named your outfit Parisian chic. Although I guess with the hat … ’ He pulled a face like he was appraising it.
‘The hat that’s now doing damage control for the frizz ball underneath.’ I tugged at it, but it was soaking just like the rest of me. ‘We thought I was going on a daytrip to Paris.’
I looked down the deserted street; it was about as far from the bustling cobbled streets of the Latin Quarter that we could get.
‘Oh, Paree,’ he said, in a French accent. He wrinkled up his nose. ‘I’m getting a sense of why the birthday isn’t working out so well.’
‘Uh-huh. Great expectations.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, with a nod. ‘It’s hard not to with the big birthdays, isn’t it? I’m the same. Although this birthday had all the hallmarks of being epic, the plan was to buy booze here to use at our house party tonight. Only Paul ate that oyster.’
I shuddered again. ‘Who even eats oysters?’
‘I know, right?’
‘But a party. That’s cool.’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah. I just hope Paul’s recovered in time. But I guess it’s not all bad, this sightseeing is … ’ He didn’t finish as the rain started up again, harder and heavier than before. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
We ran to the nearest awning for shelter.
‘Should we get a taxi back? I think we’ve seen the best the town can offer us on a Sunday,’ I said, shaking my head with disappointment. ‘We should have gone on the Goldschl?ger hunt instead.’
‘Hang on.’ Noah looked over my shoulder, face lighting up. ‘Do my eyes deceive me, or is that place open?’
I snapped my head round and saw what looked to be a shop-front with lights on. At this point it wouldn’t have mattered what it was, but the word crêperie written over the door made it heaven sent. A sign from the universe that this might not turn out to be the worst birthday after all.