My Best Friend Has Issues (15 page)

I found the suitcases outside the Barceloneta market hall, led there by an enticing trail of what Lauren had been wearing: skirt, top, outsize bra and less-than-fresh panties. The suitcases were dumped between two big metal bins the market traders used for their rubbish. The cases were intact but the handbags and what was left of their contents were strewn around the street. There was no sign of passports or tickets.

‘Why would those guys take the plane tickets?’ I said, more to myself than as a direct question to Chloe. ‘They’re hardly likely to fly to Glasgow.’

‘Because, dumbass, I told them to.’

She had never spoken to me like that before.

‘Chloe, I can’t believe… You really have no… Not only have you left them
naked
, but they’ve no money, no way of getting home and…’ I said, floundering around for something that would
adequately
express my disbelief and outrage, ‘they’re fucking
naked
!’

‘And your point is?’

‘My point is…’

‘They’re naked, yeah, you said.’

I was back to being dumb again.

Chloe struggled to pull a case out from between the bins, they were wedged in tight.

‘I told them the stuff was to disappear. What if Miss Hulk and Miss Hump had come this way, huh?’

‘Chloe, we can’t leave them like this, it’s not right.’

‘Oh yes, sweetheart, we can.’

‘We have to give them their clothes back.’

‘No, we don’t. Look at you, all concerned for them. It’s sweet that you Scottish girls stick together.’

I turned away, trying to pretend I wasn’t part of this vicious trick.

I watched the traders unload their vans and receive their
deliveries
. People came in and out of the modern market building with trolleys loaded with boxes of fruit and veg, crates of fish and meat. An old lady carried a big sack of onions into the hall. The sack looked heavier than she was. I half-expected her to fall over but she continued past slowly and stoically. I wanted to look at anything other than Chloe or the suitcases.

Even while she was wining and dining Lisa and Lauren, laughing at their pathetic jokes, praising their pitiful fashion sense, I’d probably known all along that Chloe was planning something. Maybe I hadn’t realised that she’d be quite this heartless but still and all, I’d led my fat, gormless ex-friends into the trap and let it happen. I was still letting it happen.

A trader passed with a huge tray of whole fish, tails flapping over the edge, the fresh sea smell filling my nostrils. From the corner of my eye I heard and saw Chloe unzip the suitcase and toss the contents: a mixture of neatly folded, unworn clothes and rumpled, worn clothes on the ground. Wrapped in a pair of jeans, a toiletries bag fell and tinkled as its contents smashed. A strong chemical smell of perfume leaked out, obliterating the natural fish whiff from the market. Chloe picked up the bag and opened it.

‘Hey, check this out,’ she said.

Despite myself, I turned and looked. She was wiping off a bundle of foil packets of pills.

‘Eca Stack Xtreme! Man, you can’t get these in the States anymore!’

‘What are they?’ I asked, worried. ‘Medication?’

‘What are they? They’re slimming pills. The best. Ephedrine, caffeine and aspirin. High dose, you can drop ten pounds in a few days with these bad boys.’

‘I wonder which of them is taking slimming pills?’

‘Maybe both of them,’ reasoned Chloe. ‘Jesus! How fat were they before they took ‘em?’

When we’d met them at the station Lisa and Lauren had acknowledged how much weight I’d lost, and all the while one of them was taking diet pills.

‘Hey,’ said Chloe, animated, ‘maybe there’s more in the other suitcase.’

She now hauled the other case out and dug through the clothes until she found the toilet bag.

‘Oh yeah,’ she confirmed, ‘that’s what I’m talking about!’

Chloe handed me another foil packet. I could just make out the small writing:
Sildenafil Citrate 100mg
.

‘So now we know,’ she said soberly.

‘More slimming pills? I asked. I’d never heard of Sildenafil.

‘It’s Viagra!’

‘Shut up!’ I said, borrowing Chloe’s usual expression of disbelief.

‘I’m telling you, Alison. Those two probably slip it in guys’ drinks.’

‘You think?’

‘Well how else are those munsters gonna get laid?’

Chloe was laughing her head off.

‘No wonder she was bouncing so hard on his balls,’ I laughed.

It was funny. When I stopped laughing I realised I hardly knew these two girls. Lisa and Lauren had probably spent a lot of money on these pills, a lot of hope. And yet they were still enormous. And unattractive. And currently naked. I suddenly felt a bittersweet tenderness for their poor vulnerable Scottish flesh.

While Chloe was still counting the foils of pills, I gathered up clothes and stuffed them back in the suitcase.

‘What are you doing?’

‘You know what I’m doing. I’m going to find them and give them back their clothes.’

As I turned to pick up some more Chloe threw out what I’d just packed. We began what might have looked to anyone else like a ridiculous game: me picking up clothes and Chloe
throwing
them out again, a petulant child throwing her toys out of her pram. This was silly. But although we were both laughing I was serious.

I was knackered but determined: I’d last longer than her. I couldn’t stop her throwing the stuff out but I could keep picking it up until she lost interest. She had to eventually. Chloe had a short attention span. She didn’t care about Lisa and Lauren. She made out like she had exacted this terrible revenge because they had insulted me, but the whole thing had really only been a bit of sport for her, an evening’s entertainment. I guarded the stuff I’d lifted and we began to elbow each other out of the way to get at the suitcase.

Things were escalating, we weren’t laughing any more. I had secured the stuff that lay around our feet but to get to the more widely scattered clothes I had to leave my post for a second. This was a mistake. Chloe took her opportunity and heaved the case right into the big market bin. As I reached to recover it she hoisted the other case up and into the bin.

I’d been temporarily outflanked but I wasn’t giving up. What I lacked in speed I could make up for in bloody-minded
commitment
. I was prepared, if necessary, to climb into the bin to get the cases, a step I was sure Chloe would be unwilling to take. As I prepared to clamber into the bin, the fish trader came past again, this time with his tray filled with offal from the fish he’d just gutted. Blood dripped off the tray and flies buzzed around it, the smell from it like a punch on the nose. The fish man completely ignored us, behaving as though we were invisible; as though two girls tussling over a ragbag of dirty clothes at 5am was normal. He pushed past us and tipped the lot into the bin then walked back to the market hall shaking his head. I stood on my tiptoes to see inside the high-sided bin. Chloe poked her head over too. The fish skeletons and blood, the foul-smelling eyeballs and innards had spread in a slimy mess over Lisa’s and Lauren’s clothes.

We walked back to the flat without a word between us. As soon as we got in Chloe called her mum. She’d been trying to reach her for a few days to make arrangements for us to go down to Madrid.

‘Aw, well, when are you coming?’ I heard Chloe moan, disappointed.

I went straight into the bathroom, locked the door and ran the bath. I’d only just got in and begun to sink sleepily under the water when Juegita came scratching at the door. Oh shit, I thought, the dogs hadn’t been fed or watered. Chloe wasn’t likely to do it. She wouldn’t even think of it, no matter how much Juegita pestered her, she’d chat on the phone then she’d probably go to bed and cry herself to sleep. That was why I’d locked myself in the bathroom. I had no sympathy to offer Chloe tonight, or rather, this morning. But I had to feed the dogs.

I got out the bath and unlocked the terrace door to let them out. The puppies gambolled around me, not least because both their water bowls, the one in the kitchen and the one on the terrace, were completely empty. It was going to be another scorching day. I took the bowl to the kitchen and filled it before sorting out their food. They were all on the solid food now although they still chased poor old Juegita for milk. She needed water more than any of the pups but this morning she seemed quiet and a bit depressed, probably dehydrated.

They all dived in at it as soon as I put the bowl down. Except Juegita, she kept whining and wandering off across the terrace and coming back again.

‘Are you okay, Gita darling? What’s wrong?’

Though the pups were supping it up like there was no tomorrow, Juegita didn’t touch the water.

Not all the girls were here. I couldn’t see Fanny, I called her and had a rummage in the yurt but she wasn’t there. She was probably inside the flat snoozing in her favourite place, under the bed, the coolest place when the AC was on. She had been the first, the most daring and determined to work out how to get inside the flat.

Something was definitely wrong with Juegita. She walked off again and this time looked back as though she wanted me to come with her. I followed as she skulked across the terrace. Before we even got there, before I saw, I knew. I could hear Chloe giggling at something her mother had said. Gita stood with her shoulders hunched forward and her head hung low.

‘I’m so sorry, Gita,’ I said, putting my arms around her neck, crying for us poor things.

Fanny was in the paddling pool, her soft puppy dog fur wafting in the water, her sweet little paws splayed and relaxed, her head immersed in the nine-inch puddle and her cute little bum and tail sticking up out the water. Poor drowned little Fanny.

I cried. Not just for Fanny. I cried for Juegita’s terrible loss, and for Chloe, who clung so desperately to her mother, and for those other sad puppies, Lisa and Lauren, we had treated so shamefully. And for myself. I cried hardest when I thought of poor me.

I lifted Fanny out the water and laid her beside Juegita. She was such a tiny wee thing. Yesterday I’d yelled at her for sniffing my sandwich. If I hadn’t caught her when I did she would have dragged it off to some corner, fought off the rest of them, and eaten it all by herself. Now she lay curled and still on the ground, a bedraggled brown lump, like nothing more than a squeezed out tea bag.

We had caused this, or I had. As I’d gradually become responsible for their feeding, Chloe had less and less to do with the pups. She hardly even gave Juegita the time of day any more. I was the one who’d shut the terrace door. Last night I was so busy primping myself for Lisa and Lauren’s benefit, I’d left Fanny on the terrace all
night and half the morning without water. I’d never considered the paddling pool to be a hazard. The pups were far too small to scale its smooth rigid sides. She must have been dying of thirst. How she managed to get in was a complete mystery. And having got in, there was no way she could have got out. I’d heard that dogs were natural swimmers. How long had she paddled round and round? If we’d come back at a reasonable hour, 3am like we usually did, Fanny would probably still be alive.

It was me. I was cursed. Death followed me, and no one, not even an innocent little puppy, was safe.

The other pups came and nosed around but Juegita nipped at them, trying to corral them, to keep them away from Fanny’s body.

‘Come on, girls,’ I called with my enthusiastic voice, still wiping away tears, ‘come and get your breakfast!’

I went into the flat to fill the food bowl, the only thing I could do to help. Thankfully they all followed, all except Juegita who stood guard over Fanny’s body. Once I’d fed the pups I closed the terrace door and came back with a polythene bag.

We wanted to bury her in Ciutadella Park, under a tree near the lake, but we couldn’t leave the flat yet. Lisa and Lauren might still be lurking somewhere in the city. Wrapped inside four poly bags and a heavy blanket, Fanny’s body lay at the furthest edge of the terrace. I wanted to keep her in the fridge but Chloe wouldn’t let me.

‘Eeuuw,’ she shuddered.

Chloe shed no tears, all cried out after speaking with her mum, but she seemed depressed by the news. She even stopped working on the chimney for a while.

Juegita was off her food. She rarely spent time in the same room as me and when she did, she looked at me with sad reproachful eyes.

I felt awful. Too many late nights, drugs and alcohol. I had dark shadows under my eyes and my skin was a sickly yellow colour. I only wanted to sleep or watch films; I didn’t have the energy for anything else.

Chloe dug out a DVD of
Trainspotting
and put it on, trying to cheer me up. She shook her head, ‘They’re just a bunch of loser junkies.’

But it wasn’t the sad Edinburgh drug addicts I pined for, it was the Scottish accents, the Scottish scenery, the Scottish food they were eating, the Scottish drinks they were drinking, the Scottish jokes they were making. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t even understand what they were saying until she switched the Spanish subtitles on. We slobbed around on the couch watching movies for three days. It wasn’t relaxing. Too paranoid to touch the maria, we didn’t even smoke. For those three days we were too nervous to leave the flat. And then Charlie phoned.

‘What the fuck d’you think you’re playing at?’ he bawled at me.

It was a relief. The fact that my brother was shouting meant that Lisa and Lauren had made it back to Cumbernauld. It was nice to hear his voice; it reminded me of mum and our house and everything I was missing. While my big brother harangued me I signalled a thumbs-up to Chloe but Charlie was so loud she could hear him anyway.

I feigned innocence and disbelief. The official line was that we’d gone to get beer and when we’d returned Lisa and Lauren had disappeared. But Charlie knew better.

‘They were picked up by the police, found wandering the streets bollock naked.’

‘
Bollock
naked?’

‘You know what I mean. They were left without a stitch. They said the guys you set them up with stole their stuff. They suffered traumatic stress and they’re seeing a counsellor. They’re blaming you. It’s all over
The Cumbernauld News
.’

‘Really?’

I’d had my name in the paper before, when I was thirteen, but this time was different. This time I wasn’t the injured party.

‘The British Consulate bailed them out. They got them clothes and shit and repatriated them but they had to agree to pay back two grand.’

‘Wow!’

‘Each. They’re just daft wee lassies, Alison. Why did you do that to them?’

‘Charlie, I didn’t do anything. We took them out in town, we left them to get a beer and when we…’

‘Ewan says you’re taking drugs.’

I exploded, ‘What the hell has Ewan got to do with anything?’

‘I phoned him five minutes ago to find out what he knows. He says that weirdo American girl you’re staying with is getting you into drugs. I told him the Lisa and Lauren story. He’s worried.’

Chloe heard every word Charlie said and made a face when she heard the bit about the weirdo American girl.

‘You had no right to discuss this with him, you don’t know…’

‘Listen, I’ve got every right! You’ve got us worried sick. Mum’s upset at the things they’ve said about you in the paper.’

‘Tell Mum it’s not true. We lost them, that’s all that happened. Make sure and tell her that Charlie, please.’

‘Tell her yourself,’ he shouted. ‘And come back home before you get yourself into any more trouble. Alison, you’re recovering from a major illness. Taking drugs is the worse thing you can do, your vital organs’ll pack up and then where will you be, eh? Now listen to me, I’ve looked up the Internet. There’s a Globespan flight tomorrow afternoon, three hundred euros. Just get yourself on it. Mum’s right, you should be here, with your family, before something worse happens.’

Chloe squeezed my hand and in reply I squeezed back. It was strange to find our roles reversed. Normally she was the one fighting or pleading with her family, I was usually the one comforting and supporting her.

‘Alison, I mean it, you’re to get a flight home tomorrow, d’you understand me?’