The Time of Our Lives (6 page)

What started off slowly, with that mouth-watering wait for him to ask me out, became rocket-propelled. We saw each other three times a week, then every night. He came to Liverpool to meet my
family (prompting my mother to fall immediately in love with him); I flew to Florence to meet his. Before I knew it, he had moved into my flat and we were filling it with knickknacks bought
together at flea markets, eating like kings – he was an incredible cook – and spending lazy weekends getting drunk on each other.

Oh, those days. Days when we had a
serious
amount of sex. Hot sex. Slow sex. Frantic sex. Every type of sex you could think of, in fact, with the exception of bad sex, which I
naïvely convinced myself was a chemical impossibility between us.

I become vaguely conscious that this thought, of those longgone days when Roberto and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other, is making me squirm with pleasure . . . At which point, I am
violently awoken.

It isn’t that the accordion player’s rendition of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ is all that bad – not if you’re comparing its musical qualities to, say, fingernails
screeching across a blackboard. What it is, though, is loud. Devastatingly, flatulently loud. The musician in question is clearly either completely deaf or under the impression he’s
performing at a venue comparable in size to the Camp Nou football stadium, rather than the small, confined baked-bean tin that is this carriage.

I look away and slump in my seat, trying to pretend it’s not happening, but to my alarm he reads my body language and perceives this as a challenge.

He begins to Dad-dance towards me with an enthusiastic grin, stomping his feet in a deranged, tuneless serenade. I glare at my friends, who snigger in wide-eyed disbelief as he throws in a
little jig to this display, which he clearly considers jaunty despite his generosity of body fat.

Just as I am close to expiring from embarrassment, he spins around, pausing briefly to encourage people in the carriage to start clapping. Fortunately, the only person he succeeds in persuading
to join in is an elderly man with a Brillo-pad beard who, until now, has been sucking on an electric cigarette like he’s trying to vacuum it directly into his lungs.

As other passengers look on, I root around in my bag and produce a couple of euros, foisting it on the guy in the hope that it will get rid of him. Sadly, as my cheeks inflame almost as much as
my ears, I realise that he has interpreted this move as an indication that I’m impressed with his work and want more. So he continues. And continues. Until, finally, we reach our stop and I
drag my sorry self off the train in the certainty that my ears will be throbbing until at least this time tomorrow.

The B Hotel rises majestically out of Barceloneta’s platinum sand beach like a gargantuan, glistening spaceship. It has all the attributes of a super-cool urban hotel,
but its location at the end of a boardwalk sprinkled with relaxed tapas bars and overlooking the tumbling, ultramarine waters of the Mediterranean also gives it the feel of a holiday resort.

Inside, there is absolutely no evidence of the troubles that have hit Spain’s economy in the last few years. The decor couldn’t be more impressive if it’d been the brainchild
of a design guru called Flashy McSwanky. A vast foyer leads to a pool area of knee-trembling tranquillity, an oasis of polished tiles and palm trees arranged in a swaying phalanx around an elegant
infinity pool. Ambient tunes drift across the deck of rich, dark wood, accompanying the chatter of beautiful people as they sip rainbow-coloured cocktails and massage suncream into their already
well-moisturised thighs.

I cannot
wait
to join them, even if I’ve failed to find time to moisturise my thighs in weeks.

Back at the reception desk, it’s the most popular time to check in, judging by the crowds in the foyer, all of whom own the sort of luggage that makes mine look as though I bought it from
the seconds stall at the world’s worst jumble sale.

‘Have you seen the limo that’s just pulled up outside?’ Nicola says, craning her neck to see past me. ‘I’ve seen shorter National Express coaches.’

‘I wonder if it’s someone famous?’ hoots Meredith as she shamelessly heads off to get a good look. Nic and I coolly hang back, attempting to generate the illusion that we
encounter this sort of thing every day.

I don’t recognise the woman who steps out of the car, followed by a troupe of hangers-on and a stack of luggage the size of a modest Hebridean island. But, from the proportions of her
bouncers, height of her heels and the obligatory aviator glasses, she must be famous.

‘She does look vaguely familiar,’ says Nicola. ‘Although she wasn’t in the
Heat
I read on the plane.’

The hotel staff have acquired the air of a team of Victorian domestic servants, scurrying around her before she’s whisked away, no doubt to a room of palatial dimensions.

‘That was Spain’s hottest new movie star, Calandria Benevente,’ Meredith informs us triumphantly, having quizzed the doorman. ‘She’s tipped to be the next Penelope
Cruz.’

While we’re waiting to check in, Meredith nips off to the loo – again – and I take the opportunity to have a brief conversation with Florence for no other reason than to hear
her voice.

When we eventually reach the front desk, we’re greeted by a young concierge who’s as groomed as a championship dressage horse.

‘Hello, ladies. May I take your passports?’ He’s Spanish, but with perfect English pronunciation and a manner clearly honed at a succession of customer-service tutorials in
grovelling.

Nicola hands over her passport, while I give him mine and Meredith’s.

He taps at a keyboard, pausing as his smile disintegrates. ‘I’m terribly sorry about this . . . it seems that your rooms aren’t quite ready yet.’

‘But it’s 2 p.m.,’ I wail. I’m coated in a putrid concoction of Bolognese sauce and small child’s snot, and I am desperate for a shower. ‘I thought we could
check in now?’

He looks profoundly disturbed, as if this is the stuff of nightmares from which you awake in a tepid sweat screaming for your mother. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s extremely unusual, but
we’ve experienced a staffing shortage among our cleaning team that we’re trying to resolve as soon as possible. It’s the first time it’s ever happened. We can hold your bags
while you take a walk on the beach, or perhaps a cocktail at the bar? On us, of course.’

The truth is, I’m quietly rat-arsed from the flight and the novelty of free drinks has worn off.

‘It’s no problem,’ I reply, not wanting to make a fuss. ‘Will someone come and let me know when it’s ready?’

‘Of course! Leave your mobile number with us and I’ll phone you when it’s done.’

Meredith returns from the toilet and I break the news to her about the rooms. Meredith and I will be sharing the one that was part of the prize. It felt a bit
Mallory Towers
at first, but
she said she’d prefer it that way, adding ominously that it would be ‘just like a girlie sleepover!’

The three of us head through the gleaming granite lobby, towards two enormous glass doors that lead to the hotel’s private beach. It is so perfect even the sand looks as if it’s been
sieved.

In the light of the fact that I look as though I have waded through a swamp to get here and really don’t feel ready to take on the glamorous clientele around the pool just yet, I persuade
the girls to head a little further afield so that we can stretch our legs.

The main beach is in every way what you’d expect from Spain on a sunny day – hot, packed and full of people in various stages of undress. Having been to Spain before, it’s no
surprise that plenty of people are sunbathing in the Continental (i.e. topless) fashion; what I hadn’t expected, as we slowly make our way along the boardwalk looking for a suitable spot, was
that some people are not just topless. In fact, some people are significantly more than topless.

‘HAS HE GOT HIS CROWN JEWELS OUT?’
Meredith whoops, at the sort of volume Amazonian Indians might employ to communicate with people in neighbouring villages.

‘
Sshhhhh!
’ I hiss.

Nicola suppresses a laugh. ‘It was mentioned in the guidebook I bought at the airport. Apparently, for years before our hotel was built, this was one of Barcelona’s nudist beaches.
The powers-that-be assumed that would stop when the hotel opened, and it largely has. But some of the older generation keep the tradition alive.’

This history lesson explains another curious phenomenon: the only people brave enough to have whipped off everything are those who clearly got here on a free bus pass. Part of me admires these
game over-sixties: their lack of inhibition, their
joie de vivre
, the fact that they’re sticking two fingers up at society’s obsession with youth. That’s the part of me
that doesn’t get an eyeful of drooping, leathery buttock every way I turn.

Anyone our age is significantly more prudish, with the exception of a smattering of topless girls. Oh, and one other exception:

‘Come on!’ Meredith’s top and maternity bra are off faster than you can say ‘tandem Space Hoppers’, followed by her shorts.

Nicola raises her eyebrows in despair.

‘When in Rome!’ Meredith grins, casting off her Mamas and Papas knickers and skipping towards the water. She plunges in like a newborn hippo enthusiastically attempting to learn the
breaststroke.

‘My pants are staying where they are,’ Nicola tells me.

‘Don’t worry – mine, too.’

Nic and I find a spot in which to sit and I remove a pair of shades from my bag and put them on, only to discover that my hurried packing has left me with the 3D glasses I bought at the Odeon
when I took Florence to
Ice Age 4
last weekend
.

‘Cool.’ Nicola smirks.

‘Oh God! Still’ – I gesture to four old gents with bellies bigger than Meredith’s playing a lively game of naked
boules
– ‘their saving grace is they
make everything look nice and blurry.’

I lie on my side, attempting to look entirely relaxed about the fact that I’m surrounded by gentlemen’s unmentionables, and take out my book. It might have been an eventful journey,
but
this
is when it starts: my peace and quiet. My opportunity to relax. My first proper holiday in years . . .

‘
Here is a small fact
. . .’

‘IMOGEN COPELAND!’

I don’t recognise the voice, but it’s very clearly British with a hint of Scouse. ‘Imogen Copeland and Nicola Harris. Well. I.
Never!
’

We gaze up at the figure addressing us, squinting as the sun streams into our eyes. Nicola scrambles to a standing position and I follow suit . . . immediately wishing I hadn’t.

‘Mr Brayfield! What a . . .
surprise
,’ Nic manages, in the same way you’d greet a severe bout of cystitis. ‘My mum mentioned she’d seen you in
Sainsbury’s the other week.’

Mr Brayfield was our geography teacher at school; our onelegged geography teacher, to be precise. He was very good at his job – I got an A in my GCSE – and was known for his
boundless energy. The precise nature of how he lost his leg was the subject of endless speculation and theories abounded, ranging from a shark attack, to getting it stuck in the lift in John Lewis.
He deliberately refused to tell us the real story, preferring to retain a sense of mystery – an approach I sincerely wish he’d extended into all other areas in his life. For, the
notable thing about Mr Brayfield right now is not his singular leg, nor his crutches – famously carved with the initials of every sixth former he’s ever taught. It’s that
he’s not wearing anything. He’s as devoid of strides as the day he was born.

Of all the views I expected on holiday, I can think of none for which I could have wished less.

‘Yes, your mum and I had a good old natter,’ he says with a grin. Nicola’s eyes are darting to the sky, then the sand, then at the rollerbladers zigzagging past on the
boardwalk. Anywhere, in fact, that isn’t Mr Brayfield’s nethers. ‘She mentioned you’d found yourself a new man, Nicola. Well done you!’

‘A new . . . man?’ I ask, to check I’ve heard right.

‘Don’t tell me she hasn’t told you about her new fellow!’ Mr Brayfield guffaws. ‘Your mum seemed to approve of him, anyway.’

I glance at Nicola, who squirms uncomfortably.

‘So, what are you two doing here?’ he continues.

‘Oh . . . erm, we won a competition. We’re only here for a few days,’ I mumble.

‘Lucky old you two. Barcelona’s got everything!’ he declares, swinging out his arms triumphantly. We take a step back. ‘Dot and I have been coming for years,
haven’t we?’

He spins round and registers his wife coming up twenty feet behind, clearly unable to keep up with his considerable pace.

Mrs Brayfield is a large, glistening woman, her pale pink flesh flushed to a violent russet from the neck up, who wheezes her way to us wearing only (and I mean, only) a large camping
rucksack.

‘Keep up, old girl,’ chuckles Mr Brayfield. ‘I was telling Nicola and Imogen here that we come to Barcelona all the time, don’t we?’

She’s puffing and panting like a steam train under threat of decommission as she joins us. ‘Hello, yes, we . . . love it. It’s a splendid place. I’m Dot.’ She holds
out a hand, which we tentatively shake while maintaining firm eye contact. ‘So!’ she hoots, as I pretend to be distracted by an enthralling game of Frisbee. ‘Are you
ex-pupils?’

We nod awkwardly and she bursts into laughter. ‘Bry-
an
! You shouldn’t be giving these two an eyeful of your ding-along! They’ll be embarrassed, won’t
you?’

Nicola and I shift from one foot to another, trying to think of an answer.

‘Not that you should be – once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,’ philosophises Mrs B, pulling the rucksack off her back with a hearty huff. ‘And
there’s nothing offensive about Bryan’s, is there?’

We stand mute as the horrifying possibility dawns on us that she’s inviting us to examine, and possibly compliment, the genitalia of the man who taught us the difference between erosional
and depositional landforms.