Wish You Were Here (32 page)

As people began passing by on the way to the toilet I reached under the seat in front of me and pulled out
The Da Vinci Code
. With all that had been happening over the past few days I'd somehow managed to neglect the book so much that I suspected I'd have little chance of getting back into it. So I pulled out the third and final choice for my holiday reading:
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith – a book I'd selected less because I was desperate to read ‘an epic comic tale telling the story of immigrants in England' and more because the bespectacled authoress on the cover looked quite foxy. I only managed to get as far as the end of the first paragraph before I had to stop as I'd become aware that somebody was lurking by my side. I looked up to see a man roughly my own age, with a few days' worth of stubble and a slightly drawn complexion, staring down at me.

‘Sorry to trouble you,' he began, ‘but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind swapping seats with me? It's just that my wife and kids are here.' We both looked across at his wife and she gave me the same wearily apologetic smile that her husband had just given me. I smiled back, somewhat surprised to find myself feeling envious of the guy who had just spoken. He was where I was supposed to be at thirty-five. But where was my hassled wife? Where were my sleepy children? Where was my family holiday? ‘We were all supposed to be sitting together, you see,' the husband continued, ‘but they made a cock-up at the check-in desk and said that we should wait until take-off to see about swapping seats.'

Envious or not, I wished them happiness. ‘Of course you can have my seat,' I replied as I bundled my things together. ‘Just show me where you were sitting.'

Cringing from the huge amount of appreciation that the couple lavished on me, I followed the husband back to his original seat – a middle seat – some five rows in front of my own. As we approached, an austere-looking woman, who had obviously spent too much time in the Cretan sun, stood up making little effort to hide her annoyance at being disturbed for a second time. Apologising again the man quickly grabbed his things, thanked me and made his exit, leaving me to squeeze into my middle seat and re-organise my things.

‘Sorry about this,' I apologised as I knocked the girl in the window seat next to me several times with my elbow. ‘They don't actually give you very much room to do anything in these seats beyond breathing.'

‘That's a good thing you've done,' said the girl. ‘He'd been fretting about moving seats ever since—' She stopped abruptly and a horrified look spread across her face. And though it took a few seconds, I suddenly realised the reason.

‘You're not wearing your cowboy hat,' I said, unable to believe my luck. It was the girl-with-the-cowboy-hat or rather the girl-formerly-known-as-the-girl-with-the-cowboy-hat.

‘Oh, it's you,' she began. ‘I really am sorry for what happened.'

‘There's no need to apologise,' I replied. ‘It's fine.'

‘It wasn't really me,' she continued. ‘You see I was being egged on by my friends.'

‘Honestly,' I replied. ‘It's all fine.'

‘Look, I'm really sorry if I embarrassed you.'

‘I wasn't embarrassed,' I replied grinning. ‘I was flattered.'

‘But you didn't turn up at the bar, did you?' I shrugged and she buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, you did, didn't you? You must think I'm a terrible person. I'm so sorry. I did sort of think about going but I lost my nerve. I feel awful now.'

‘And so you should. I waited all night for you to turn up.'

‘You didn't, did you?'

‘No,' I replied. ‘As it happens that whole night went a bit weird so I probably wouldn't have been much fun anyway . . .
even if you had turned up
.'

There was a long silence. Fully aware that in terms of conversation etiquette a choice was being presented to us – to continue chatting or not – the girl-with-the-cowboy-hat chose to stare pointedly out of the window into the darkness. Accepting that our conversation was now officially over, I pulled out my book again and began reading. She did the same with her book. Just as it seemed that we would both spend the entire flight not talking I became convinced that I was looking a proverbial gift horse in the mouth. Here I was, sitting next to an attractive girl who had selected me to ask out on a date following a dare. Conversational openers didn't really get much better than that.

‘Just in case you've forgotten,' I said, closing my book, ‘I'm Charlie.'

She turned and looked at me, embarrassed. ‘Look, Charlie,' she began hesitantly, ‘I don't want this to come out the wrong way . . . and I'm sure you really are a nice guy but I think I ought to tell you I met someone . . . in Malia . . . and we're sort of together.'

‘Oh,' I replied. ‘Well, that's good to hear.'

There was another long silence. The girl-in-the-cowboy-hat smiled at me uncomfortably. It was difficult to know which of us was more desperate to get away from the other.

‘I'll be getting back to my book then,' I said, after a few moments.

The girl-in-the-cowboy-hat half nodded, dug into her bag and plugged a set of headphones into her ears.

I folded back the cover of my book and read page one all over again.

We landed at Gatwick ten minutes early because of something to do with wind speeds and early time slots. As we taxied along the runway, I tucked my book into my bag. I would never finish
White Teeth
. Not because it was a bad book, but rather because judging from the little I'd read I'd come to realise that, along with being quite foxy, the author was also incredibly talented and most definitely out of my league. This news depressed me: once again, by virtue of just being me, I was ruling out yet another one of the several billion women alive on planet Earth.

As the cabin crew switched off the seat-belt sign there was once again a frenzy of activity among the passengers. The austere-looking woman next to me was out of her seat and rummaging in the overhead locker in an instant but the girl-in-the-cowboy-hat, I suspect keen to give me a head start off the plane, remained in her seat looking out of the window.

Along with everyone else, I shuffled into the narrow central aisle of the plane towards the exit. Welcome home. There was a chill in the air and floodlights were glistening in a dozen puddles dotted across the wet tarmac.

Waiting for me at the bottom of the steps was a tired and drawn-looking Tom. I looked at my watch. 2.38 a.m. There was now roughly six hours until he would be making the call that could change his life forever.

‘How was it for you?' I asked as we boarded the bus that would take us to arrivals.

‘I slept for most of it. How about you?'

‘It was . . . interesting.' My eyes flitted across the tarmac to the girl-in-the-cowboy-hat who was waiting for her friends.

‘Is that who I think it is?' asked Tom.

‘Yeah,' I replied. ‘But don't get your hopes up.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I did and I ended up severely disappointed.'

Tom laughed. ‘If it wasn't to be then she probably wasn't right for you.'

‘Maybe not,' I replied, ‘but if she isn't, who is?'

I could tell from the look on his face that Tom wasn't interested in discussing his feelings about making the call. So instead we walked in easy silence until we were through passport control and out the other side.

We both turned on our mobile phones. ‘Any messages?'

‘Looks like it,' replied Tom as he dialled his voicemail. Positioning himself out of the way of fellow passengers, Tom's face lit up as he listened to voicemail messages that were obviously from his family.

Tom grinned. ‘One from Anne, two from the kids . . . and one from Andy.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Even though he doesn't believe in God, on the off-chance there is one, he said he'll say a little prayer on my behalf.'

‘That doesn't sound like him.'

‘No,' replied Tom. ‘That doesn't sound like Andy at all.'

We made our way through to the luggage carousels and waited patiently for our bags to arrive. Once again I spotted the girl-in-the-cowboy-hat pushing a trolley with her equally attractive friends but on seeing me she steered them to the opposite end of the carousel.

It took over half an hour for our luggage finally to emerge, by which time most of the passengers (including the girl-in-the-cowboy-hat) had claimed their bags and disappeared through customs. I could feel all the good work that my seven days of relaxation had achieved slowly beginning to unravel. And as we finally pushed our luggage through the brightly lit ‘Nothing to Declare' channel at customs, I was gloomily convinced that by the time we reached the long-stay car park, I would be back to my usual hassled and severely stressed state of mind.

Stepping through the large doors from customs into the arrivals lounge, Tom and I were forced to walk the gauntlet of waiting husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents and minicab drivers all scanning constantly for a glimpse of the people who mattered to them most. We had no one waiting for us. Or so I thought. But right at the end of the crowd queuing behind the security barrier was Donna.

It was odd seeing her in the flesh, here. As I walked towards her, I was forced to readjust the picture of her in my head that had grown somewhat blurred these past few days. She was prettier than I remembered, and her hair was different. And while I was still wearing shorts and a T-shirt appropriate to summer in Crete she was wearing jeans and a coat more appropriate to autumn in England. The oddest thing of all was that she was wearing glasses.

‘You hate them, don't you?' said Donna, as I came to a halt in front of her.

‘What?' I replied.

‘My glasses,' said Donna. ‘All day I've been agonising over whether to wear them or my contacts. Nina said contacts because she's pretty vain, so that immediately made me want to go for my glasses.'

I didn't know how to respond to her glasses, the know ledge that she had been preparing all day to meet me from the plane or the fact that she was here at all.

‘What are you're doing here?' I said, eventually.

Donna opened her mouth to reply but paused and looked expectantly over my shoulder where a clearly embarrassed Tom was lingering with our luggage trolley.

‘I just wanted to say that I'm going to get a coffee,' said Tom.

‘Cheers, mate,' I replied. ‘I'll see you in a bit.'

As Tom headed off in search of a café, Donna and I stood watching the people around us: an elderly man pushing a trolley piled high with suitcases; a young couple kissing next to a newsagent's; and a group of young lads taking photos of each other with their mobile phones.

‘I'm sorry about leaving like that,' said Donna quietly. ‘There was no excuse for it. I should have been more honest with you.'

‘So why did you do it?'

‘Do you want the truth? Because you seemed more sure of me than I was.'

‘So it was my fault?'

Donna shook her head. ‘I got scared, Charlie. Really scared. I was beginning to feel things for you that I haven't felt for anyone in a long while. I just wasn't sure that I was ready for anything this big this soon. Sadie's dad and I were together a long time. And we had a child together. And even though everyone thinks I should be moving on and looking for something new I couldn't do it. I felt like I was stuck in the past and I just couldn't find a way of moving forward.'

‘So what changed your mind?'

‘You did,' said Donna, looking into my eyes. ‘You changed my mind. I don't know how you did it but you did. You've been in my head every second since I left you. I've replayed the time we spent together a million times and that's when I realised that the feelings I have for you weren't going to go away just because you weren't there. So last night I called my sister to get Andy's number and called him to find out what time you guys were landing at Gatwick. And now here I am. That is, if I'm not too late?'

It was a good question. Was she too late? Did what had happened between Lisa and me make a difference? Had my feelings for Donna just been a holiday thing? All I had was questions and not enough answers that I could be sure of.

‘You met someone else, didn't you?' whispered Donna, observing my indecision.

‘It's complicated,' I replied. ‘But yes, I was with someone else after you left. It was a real mess and it's over now.'

‘So why do I feel like there's something you're not saying?'

‘Because there is . . . being here with you . . . having you here right now . . . hearing you say these things. It's like having my dreams come true in an instant. But the thing is, Donna, we're not on holiday any more. We're back in reality. And when I left seven days ago the one thing I wanted most of all was to come back different . . . to come back changed. And I've done it. I'm not the person who went on holiday any more.'

‘I don't understand,' said Donna. ‘So what's the problem?'

‘The problem's this.' I let go of her hands and pulled off the top I was wearing. I rolled up the right sleeve of my T-shirt to reveal the cottonwool dressing fixed over my tattoo. I pulled it away gently and showed Donna what was underneath.

‘It's a question mark,' said Donna. ‘I still don't understand.'

‘I'm not sure I do either.' I shrugged. ‘I've never tried to reduce myself down to a symbol before . . .' I paused and peered down at the black ink of my bold 18pt Helvetica question mark ‘. . . and looking at this I don't think I'll ever do it again.' I taped the dressing back in place, rolled down the sleeve of my T-shirt, then looked at Donna. ‘The thing I need you to understand is that once upon a time I used to think I was an okay boyfriend . . . but then Sarah left and I realised I was wrong about that. I used to think I was a pretty good friend, too, but things have happened this holiday that have made me rethink that too. The truth is: I actually have no idea who I really am any more. Not in a real sense. I can't guarantee that the guy you met on holiday really is me and not just some faker. I can't guarantee that you won't wake up one day and hate my guts. And what hurts most is that I can't even guarantee that I won't do something that might hurt you one day. I can't offer you any guarantee of any kind at all, Donna. So why would you want to get involved with someone like that?'