The Time of Our Lives (16 page)

Meredith has clearly seen
Pretty Woman
one too many times, a fact that becomes apparent when she strides along Passeig de Gràcia, a boulevard whose sole
raison
d’etre
appears to be sucking up unspeakable amounts of people’s salaries. This is haute couture heaven: row upon row of understatedly poncy designer shops, with prices capable of
melting your brain.

‘I can’t afford any of these shops, Meredith,’ I say, even if being here underlines how serious an overhaul my wardrobe requires.

‘I’m paying,’ she insists, pushing open a heavy, glass door to lead me to my fate.

‘No, Meredith, you’re not,’ I begin, but before I can finish my sentence, the shop assistants are all over her like an acne flare-up. She might be wearing Mamas and
Papas’ finest, and have a penchant for junk food, but the Prada piranhas have a sixth sense that Meredith knows how to spend money when she wants to.

I can’t deny the clothes are beautiful: there’s everything from Alexander McQueen to Vivienne Westwood, Givenchy to Sonia Rykiel. But I won’t be moved: as Meredith whips out
her credit card, I snatch it away. ‘Meredith, thank you for offering, but let’s just go to H&M. Please?’

She frowns, takes back the card and reluctantly slips it back in her purse. ‘Have it your way.’

We leave the shop, turning our backs on the three assistants, who look like they may just cry.

Outside, the city’s beautiful crowd strut along in Versace dresses and sunglasses that cost more than my car as we head for somewhere more suited to my budget: the Plaça de
Catalunya.

There’s an eclectic mix of styles here: Grecian-haired beauties in high heels rub shoulders with tattooed counterculture hipsters in baggy pants. All of whom look good, in their own unique
way. By which I mean cool, chic, effortless. Harry would look at home here, I know it. I’m starting to think Harry would look at home anywhere.

I look down at my own ensemble – another ubiquitous pastel vest top, khaki shorts and flip-flops – and sigh. ‘Where am I going to start?’

Meredith leads us into a shop that’s eye-wateringly on trend. Obviously, I
want
to look fashionable – why wouldn’t you? – but I’ve never felt more
old-fartish than now, surrounded by shoppers with that elusive Catalan ability to wear
anything
and look cool.

Nicola homes in on a black top that is revealing to a stupefying degree, the sort of thing Rihanna might throw on when in a particularly fruity mood. ‘That’s nice, don’t you
think?’

Meredith contemplates it. ‘Ooh, yes. But a little safe, maybe.’ Nicola, to my astonishment, agrees.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I protest. ‘
That
’s safe? What sort of evening of debauched Bacchanalia do you think I’m about to have if
that
’s
safe?’

Nicola laughs, clearly under the mistaken impression that I’m joking as they head for another rack.

Over the next half hour, my two best friends, commandeered largely by Meredith, stride around gathering up armfuls of garments and thrusting them in the direction of the assistants, while I
scuttle around in an increasing state of disquiet. I am eventually led to a spacious changing room and confronted by an array of clothing as vast as it is, in all cases, disturbing.

Despite Meredith’s vehement reassurances, they’re
really
not me. She tries negotiating gently with me on this subject, arguing that I need to try something new and keep an
open mind. I make the mistake of arguing back, to which she responds. ‘So, what IS really you, Imogen?
This?
’ She gestures to my outfit, without apology, and I’m forced to
concede the point.

‘Just humour her,’ Nicola whispers, grinning.

‘I don’t appear to have much choice.’

She links my arm reassuringly as Meredith strides ahead. ‘If it means anything, I think she knows what she’s talking about. Fashion-wise, I mean.’

‘There’s no doubt she always looks amazing, no matter what she wears,’ I agree. ‘The same does not apply to me.’

Nicola shakes her head. ‘Stop doing yourself down, for God’s sake. Besides, you don’t know anybody here apart from us. Why not do as she suggests and wear something a bit more
daring?’

I end up agreeing to buy more of the items than I’d have predicted. And while I take Nicola’s comments about being daring to heart, it’s the pink camisole Meredith is intent on
teaming with skinny jeans that causes the most controversy. The trousers are so tight around the backside you couldn’t risk breaking wind in them without doing yourself an injury. And as for
the top . . .

‘That looks like underwear,’ I say. I can’t deny it’s beautiful, but there’s simply no way I’d wear it outside the privacy of my own bedroom.

‘It’s not underwear, it’s a top,’ she replies.

‘Meredith, I’m not wearing that. Not by itself.’

She frowns. ‘Just try it.’

‘I’ll look like a slut.’

‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing.’ She sees my expression. ‘Oh, I’m joking. Come on, give it a go. If it doesn’t work, I’ll find you something
else.’

The top is designed for one thing only: displaying a cleavage. Which is fine for most women. Unfortunately, in my case,
everything
shows off my cleavage – I’ve got Arran
jumpers that manage the job. So when I pull on a top that’s deliberately designed to look
sexy
, it has an alarmingly magnifying effect.

I look in the mirror and tell myself that it takes a certain type of woman to pull off this look; a woman I’m not and never will be. And yet, something makes me take it to the till and pay
for it, even if the likelihood of me actually wearing it tonight, or indeed ever, is negligible.

Despite the shopping trip leaving me undeniably exhilarated, I return to the hotel full of trepidation about Meredith and the sinister toolbox of beautifying products she
can’t wait to unleash on me.

I hate the idea of makeovers. The last one I undertook was in 1988 on a Girls’ World styling head whose bonce I painted blue, then styled with my dad’s Remington nasal hair trimmer.
So when the tables are turned on
me
, it’s not an experience I enjoy. I am waxed. I am plucked. I am manicured. I am concealed (at least, my black eye is). I am fake-tanned (required,
because all today’s hour in the sun achieved was to puff up my ankles). My hair is blow dried, then curled, then sprayed with so much Elnett I’m tempted to don a gas mask and commando
crawl to the loo under the cover of its toxic clouds to escape. Meredith has a travel version of
everything
: miniature beauty gadgets that, despite the candy colours and glossy images on
their boxes, have but one objective: attack, attack, attack.

Just when I think my hair follicles might be about to shrivel up and beg for mercy, Nicola knocks on the door.

‘Wow, you look amazing,’ she says almost convincingly.

She’s been investigating the event Harry was talking about at breakfast and it turns out it’s some big VIP night on the sun deck to celebrate the hotel’s first birthday.

‘That’s that, then – we’re not VIPs,’ I say.

‘Of course we are, we’re residents,’ Meredith tells me.

‘Everyone looks extremely glammed up,’ Nicola adds, uneasily. ‘And there’s a rumour that James Franco’s going to be there.’

Meredith’s eyes light up like the headlights on a 1985 Audi Quattro. ‘This gets better and better.’

‘But we won’t be allowed in!’ I argue.

‘Oh, Imogen, we just need to look the part,’ Meredith says. ‘Believe me, I’ve done this loads of times, it won’t be a problem. Especially in that pink
top.’

She picks it up and throws it to me.

As it flies through the air, I’m overcome by a quasi-superstitious notion and it’s this: if I catch it, I
have
to wear it. I have absolutely no choice in the matter.

The next thing I know, I’m clutching the top.

‘Why do you look so worried?’ Nicola asks.

‘No reason,’ I reply, heading to the bathroom to pull it on.

A minute of so later, I take several deep breaths as I check my appearance, turning side on and running my hands down my jeans.

The top isn’t
really
slutty. Just a little sassier, more revealing than I’d usually go for.

Who am I kidding? I am completely out of my comfort zone. Which brings me to one conclusion: Meredith could be right, it’s probably perfect.

When we arrive downstairs in the lobby, my stomach is swirling with nervous energy and Harry is at the front of my thoughts.

The whole of Barcelona – at least anyone who’s anyone – appears to have turned up here tonight.

‘You look
gorgeous
,’ Meredith enthuses, taking my hand and tugging me on.

I’m not entirely sure I believe her, but the reassurance is welcome given how uneasy I feel about every single item on my body. There are the jeans, giving me that classic finishing-school
walk, a bit like I have osteoarthritis. Then there are the shoes – borrowed from Meredith – so high they virtually qualify as gymnastics apparatus. And that’s before we get onto
the top. Which is definitely, unquestionably, a mistake.

‘I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,’ Nicola says. ‘That top might not be what you’re used to, but you look really elegant and sexy.’

‘I would tell you if you looked tarty,’ adds Meredith, with her usual sledgehammer candour. ‘And you don’t. Just do as Anastasia Steele in
Fifty Shades
would, and
unleash your inner goddess.’

I only got forty pages into that book, and wanted to spank her inner goddess myself, for entirely different reasons than the hero.

We approach the glass doors as Meredith releases my hand and flicks back her hair. My heart clenches.

It’s the start of the evening, but this already represents the hottest ticket in town. Endless-legged girls in glittering dresses flirt and laugh as expensively dressed men with dark eyes
sip martinis like twenty-first-century Gatsbys. Music throbs in the dying heat of the day as fairy lights begin to shimmer on the infinity pool, and the deck fizzes with potential.

Meredith’s eyes are glinting with mischief. ‘Let’s go and have an amazing night,’ she announces, placing a firm hand on the glass door to step out.

At least that’s the theory. A theory brought to an abrupt halt as an arm falls across her path. It belongs to a bouncer who could have a Saturday job as a double-decker bus.

Meredith responds with a saccharine pout. ‘Excuse me,’ she says politely, at which point, his arm grows rigid.

‘
Recepción privada
,’ he announces, granite-faced.

Nicola and I slink into the background.

‘No, no, no.’ Meredith smiles patiently. ‘We are
hotel residents
.’ Her tone is a blend of benevolence and threat, implying that if he doesn’t drop this
matter, she’ll personally see to it that his balls appear on the hotel menu served deep-fried with a complementary coulis.

‘It is not important that you are residents,’ says a female voice behind us. ‘Zis is a private party.’

Clipboard Barbie hasn’t lost her clipboard, but that’s the only hint that she’s still on duty, judging by the fact that she appears to have been dressed by whomever looks after
Beyoncé. Her hair cascades over her shoulders in silken waves and her bronzed legs spill out of hot pants so small and tight they almost qualify as a sex toy.

She smiles smoulderingly at the bouncer and says something in rapid-fire Spanish before turning and beckoning over the same group that Harry was with yesterday.

The girl with the wonky red lipstick is first, followed by the other two. Then, trailing behind them, with them but not, is Harry.

My heart reacts instantly to the sight of him, swishing between fear and excitement as he approaches. He’s on his phone, distracted, but pauses when he sees me. His mouth turns up into a
smile that reminds me that I should be far too sensible to be attracted to this clear breaker of hearts. ‘One minute, Ken,’ he mutters into his handset. Then he asks me,

‘Are you coming here tonight?’

The question leaves me flustered. ‘Not sure yet,’ I reply, just as he is swept away in a flurry of hot pants and dark glossy hair, onto the sun deck, where he disappears from
view.

Meredith puts her hands on her hips. ‘That’s settled it. We’ve
got
to go in.’

The bouncer has other ideas. He starts telling Meredith something in Spanish as she gazes at him blankly, pretending not to notice it doesn’t sound at all like, ‘Come on in and make
yourself at home.’ When she doesn’t move, he begins gesturing for her to move back, in a manner that’s one step short of physically throwing her onto the street.

‘Wait,’ Meredith says, wrestling him away. ‘Let me speak.’ She grabs him by the arm and walks him to a corner, before quickly scanning our surroundings. ‘Would you
accept . . . this?’ she says, removing a note from her back pocket and handing it over seductively.

He looks at it and starts shooing her away again.

‘WAIT!’ she says again. He frowns. ‘How about . . .
this
?’ she murmurs, lowering the zip on her top.

‘Get out, crazy English,’ he says, and this time Meredith is forced to accept that her charms are lost.

‘That’s never failed before,’ she huffs, as we move off.

‘You
are
more than seven months pregnant,’ Nicola points out.

‘So?’ Meredith shrugs. ‘I can’t believe he didn’t accept the money either,’ she says, pulling out the note.

Nicola and I narrow our eyes.

‘You do realise you’ve just tried to bribe the bouncer with a prescription for thrush cream?’ Nic points out.

‘Oh,’ Meredith replies flatly. ‘I was wondering where that went.’

‘Meredith, this is a bad idea. A terrible idea. You have never had a worse idea in your entire life.’ And this is a woman who once tried to perm her own
eyelashes.

I glance at Nicola, who appears even more uncertain than I am. Meredith is poised by the kitchen door, waiting to pounce. She fixes her cleavage and checks her strappy platforms are secure,
before scanning the immediate area with
Bravo Two Zero
eyes.