Chapter 18
Three pints and a pie-and-mash later, Adam starts to pester me for information about the guys from my blog.
‘Charlie doesn’t want to hear this.’ I frown in his general direction.
‘Sure I do,’ Charlie replies. ‘I’ll start you off. Elliot.’
‘Okay, well, he was my first proper boyfriend,’ I find myself saying, before adding in a slightly dreamy voice, ‘Utterly gorgeous, totally devastated me when he moved to Australia.’
‘How old were you?’ Adam asks.
‘Sixteen.’
‘Same as me,’ Charlie reveals, and I presume he means he was sixteen when he had his first proper girlfriend.
‘Too Perfect Tisha?’ I ask, giggling when he looks perturbed. ‘Nicki’s diaries,’ I remind him.
He blanches. ‘I forgot you’ve been reading those.’ He doesn’t look too happy about it.
‘What’s this? You’ve been reading Nicki’s diaries?’ Adam looks back and forth at us in disbelief.
‘Yeah.’ I shrug. ‘You did give me access to them,’ I point out to Charlie, defensively.
‘Yeah, I know, I know.’ He brushes me off.
‘Ooh, that’s freaky,’ Adam interjects, still shaking his head.
‘Shut up,’ Charlie and I both say at the same time, but Charlie’s the one to continue. ‘She needs to understand Nicki if she’s going to do her characters justice. Nicki would’ve wanted that. And there’s stuff in there that relates to the new book.’
‘Have you really never read them?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘No, but she was pretty open about what they contained.’
I wonder how open.
‘Anyway.’ I move on.
‘Who’s Number Two?’ Adam asks.
‘Jorge. I used to go and stay with my mum when she was working on various cruise liners around the world. When I was seventeen, she was doing Europe and it was the first summer I’d been aboard on my own – before that my dad and aunt used to take me. Jorge worked in the casino. He was from Barcelona – a twenty-one-year-old, hot-blooded son of a matador,’ I add with a grin.
I loved that cruise. I’d been gutted about Elliot’s letters drying up, so, when Mum asked me to come and join her, I agreed. As the daughter of a staff member and a paying customer, I had exactly the same perks as the rich kids, while also being allowed to hang out in the staff areas. I was caught between two worlds – above and below deck – but this wasn’t purgatory: it was heaven.
Most of the staff were crazy, young and fun and seemed to come from every country under the sun. Mum was busy hostessing, so I had to occupy myself, and, as she’d told her boss that I was over eighteen, I went wherever I wanted, from the casino to the pool, with nobody batting an eyelid. It was all very civilised.
Below deck was a different matter.
The staff were at it like rabbits. It was a place of rampant sex and late-night drinking games – Aunt Wendy had been right to keep me well away from it.
But Aunt Wendy wasn’t there. Aunt Wendy was in Wembley.
At first I was scandalized by what went on behind the scenes – I was only seventeen, after all – but I was a pretty fearless seventeen, and was capable of fending for myself.
I fancied Jorge the moment I saw him, but it was forbidden for staff to hook up with passengers, and I was a hybrid of the two, so he was wary of me.
My breakthrough came one night during a pool tournament when we both found ourselves playing each other in the semi-final. Dad had pool tables at the pub where he worked, so I’d already wiped the floor with several of the kitchen boys.
I shared the rest of my beer with Jorge, and, when he later won the tournament, he took me to the staff bar, claiming to owe me a drink. We ended up kissing on the deck under the stars as he walked me to my room. We were in each other’s pockets for the rest of the summer.
‘Three?’ Charlie prompts.
‘Gabriel. Another cruise-ship romance. I was nineteen,’ I explain. ‘His dad was a wealthy property developer in Brazil who’d recently remarried. Gabe was pissed off at having to spend the summer on a boat when he could have been home with his mum and his friends. I was actually at university studying journalism, but Mum had swung a job for me, working with the cruise coordinating team that summer. I helped to organise the various tours for passengers to take at the different ports. Anyway, staff members weren’t meant to have flings with passengers, so Gabe and I did a lot of sneaking around. I think he felt like he was getting back at his dad by slumming it with me.’
Charlie pulls a face.
‘I met up with him a couple of months ago. He was even more of a spoiled brat than he was when he was twenty-one.’
‘Four?’ Adam prompts.
‘David, my university boyfriend. He was lovely,’ I say with a smile. ‘He had a girlfriend in his first year, but they split up after the summer and we were already friends. We were together for about a year and a half. But. . . I don’t know. I just stopped fancying him. I’ve never really been able to work out why because he had so much going for him. He’s now living in South Africa with his wife and three kids. I caught up with him recently and he seemed very settled and happy.’
‘Five?’ Adam asks.
‘I’d better speed this up or we’ll be here all night,’ I say. ‘Am I boring you yet?’
They both deny it, so I carry on.
‘Five was Freddie. I’d decided to go travelling around America for a bit, and I met him on the road. He was a Norwegian wildlife photographer.’ As wild and free as the animals and landscape he photographed. He snapped off a piece of my heart as easily as breaking off a KitKat finger. ‘He encouraged me to buy a camera and taught me how to take photographs so I could submit pictures along with my articles.’
He had loads of contacts, too, which he generously shared. I’d been writing for years about the places I’d been visiting, working from the ship’s internet café during my downtime, but I hadn’t had much published. Freddie changed all that.
‘He really helped kick-start my career. He was a bit older than me.’
‘How much older?’ Charlie asks with interest.
‘I was twenty-one and he was twenty-eight. I loved him desperately. I was heartbroken when things fell apart and he went back to Norway.’ I smile sadly and shrug.
‘Six!’ Adam chirps.
I groan. ‘Vince. When I came back from America I decided to try to get a job at a travel magazine, but knew that would probably involve doing unpaid work experience, so I helped behind the bar at my dad’s pub to get by. Vince was a regular.’
Or, at least, he became a regular while I was working there. He was a landscape gardener doing a big job on a house nearby. He’d come in every day after work for a pint of beer, and I liked that he always looked a bit grubby from a day’s hard labour.
‘He had a certain arrogance about him that initially wound me up. Freddie and I had only recently separated, so I wasn’t looking for anyone else, but I soon warmed to Vince. He was funny and confident, and, even though I’d sometimes call him a twat to his face, he never gave up.’
Charlie and Adam grin. You can tell a mile away that they’re brothers when they’re side by side and smiling like this.
Eventually, my dislike of Vince was only pretence. I used to inwardly smile when he walked through the door, while outwardly rolling my eyes. When he asked me out on a date on the eve of his job finishing, I agreed. It had been a month since he’d first sat down at the bar.
He was twenty-seven, stable, settled and not about to fly off to a far-flung country and desert me.
Looking back, I see I’ve bounced between settled, stable boyfriends and wild, free, untamed men all my life.
‘Dad had started seeing someone while I’d been away, and, even though she was always nice enough to me, she wasn’t thrilled that her partner’s grown-up daughter had invaded their love nest. I stayed more and more at Vince’s, and, before I knew it, I was living with him. He turned out to be a proper arse, though. Very controlling.’
Charlie looks concerned. Adam looks bored.
‘Right, that’s it,’ I say, taking the hint. ‘My round, and then we’ll talk about something else.’
‘No!’ Charlie protests.
‘Yep. Six is halfway. That’s a good end point.’ I get up and go to the bar.
When I come back, Charlie is sitting alone.
‘Where’s Adam?’
‘Over there.’ He nods at the two o’clock table. Adam is surrounded by four girls, including the pretty blonde. He looks like he’s in his element.
‘Good work,’ I say, impressed, climbing onto the bench seat properly and facing Charlie.
‘Come on, then, tell me about the others.’
‘No, no.’ I shake my head. ‘I’ve talked enough.’
‘I’m curious. Seven.’
‘Are you sure? Okay, then. I met Olli on a press trip to an Icelandic Ice Hotel. He worked in hospitality.’ And he looked after me very well. ‘My boss, who’d gone off on maternity leave, had come back around this time and it felt like I’d been given a whopping great demotion, so, after meeting Olli, I resigned and went freelance. Mum was now an assistant cruise director and touring the British Isles, and, as Iceland was one of their stops, I decided to go back to cruise coordinating so I could drop in on Olli every few weeks. I blogged in the staff Internet café in my spare time and sold off my articles to magazines and newspapers.’
‘I think I read your Olli account,’ Charlie says.
I remember him saying that he agreed with Fay about Nicki and me having a similar tone of voice. ‘Olli was the one who couldn’t remember me,’ I remind him.
‘That’s right. He sounded like a total dick.’
I laugh. ‘Yeah, he was. I think he’s got a whole jar of hearts somewhere, like the Christina Perri song.’
He gives me a blank look.
‘ “Jar of Hearts”? By Christina Perri? Never mind. Anyway, after Olli dumped me, Mum and I went and joined the Caribbean cruise set. I played the field a bit during those twelve months. It was hard not to, working on that ship. I didn’t fall in love again for another year.’
‘How old were you?’ he asks.
‘Twenty-five. That was Dillon.’ I’m hit by a wave of anxiety. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to Ireland tomorrow to meet up with him. Ooh!’ I put my hand on my belly.
‘You all right?’
‘Yeah, fine. I’m just nervous.’
He looks surprised. ‘I thought you took it all in your stride.’
‘God, no! It stresses me out massively.’
‘Why do you do it, then?’
‘You’ve got to step out of your comfort zone sometimes.’ I take a gulp of my beer. ‘Anyway, I started feeling homesick after so long away so I went back to do the British Isles to be a bit closer to Dad. Dillon was part of the ship’s entertainment crew – a musician. I fell so hard for him that I ended up handing in my notice and going on tour with him and his band of merry Irishmen.’
On board he’d played jolly folk music for our passengers. Off board, the band’s music had more of a rock edge. Dillon played the guitar and the banjo and was one of three singers.
‘He was very sexy, a bit of a bad boy. The girls used to go mad for him. I walked away after a few months before he cheated on me – I was certain he would. He was not happy,’ I state, remembering how he refused to accept that we were over. He said that I’d live to regret it.
I thought twice about contacting him prior to my visit, just in case he told me to go jump, but in the end I risked it and got a surprisingly warm email in return. We’re meeting at a pub tomorrow night – he’s got a gig a few doors down.
‘What am I on now? You still want to hear this?’
Charlie nods. ‘I think you’re up to nine. . .’
‘Okay, super quickly. After I left Ireland, I went to work for another travel magazine in London. That’s where I met Liam. He was a picture editor. Very sweet, very sexy. We tried to keep our relationship under wraps for a while, which was fun, but we were together for a good eighteen months.’
‘You like the whole forbidden-love thing, don’t you?’ Charlie comments drily.
I grin. ‘Yeah, I do, actually. At least, I did. I’ve grown up a bit now.’
He smirks at me.
‘After Liam came Seth. I was twenty-seven and I wanted to get away from London for a bit, so I joined Mum on the Japan route. It all went a bit pear-shaped. I won’t bore you with the details. Eleven was—’
‘Wait,’ Charlie interrupts. ‘How did it go pear-shaped?’
‘Urgh, seriously, I’ll tell you another time if you really want to know.’
‘Okay.’ He seems intrigued.
‘Eleven was. . . Beau!’ I say brightly. I cast a quick look at Adam over my shoulder. ‘I wonder if he’s seen Michelle to ask about him.’ I turn back to Charlie. ‘Beau was fun-loving and gorgeous. The perfect antidote to Seth the Wanker. I’d be so happy if I could track him down while I’m here,’ I say. ‘And, finally, there was Felix. I was twenty-nine and had agreed to do a freelance lifestyle piece on unusual forms of exercise. Felix was a free runner. He was also a dental hygienist.’ I laugh. ‘He was always looking at my teeth, which could be really annoying. We broke up about three times, but kept getting back together. I think I just wanted to settle down at that point, but it was a couple more years before I found Elliot.’
Charlie raises his eyebrows. ‘So that’s your twelve?’
‘That’s my twelve,’ I confirm. There were others, but no one I loved enough to give a piece of my heart to.
‘How many have you met up with?’ he asks.
‘Five: David, Olli, Jorge, Gabe and, of course, Elliot. Seven more to go, and another ticked off after tomorrow. Ooh.’ I clutch my belly again and then reach for my beer, downing another nice, big mouthful.
‘Could’ve brought mine over,’ Adam says suddenly, placing his hands on my shoulders and making me jump so violently that I spill my drink. He slides onto the bench seat next to me and reaches for his pint glass.
‘No luck?’ Charlie enquires derisively.
‘Nup. Night’s still young.’ He slides a little closer to me on the bench seat. I place my hands on his biceps and waist and push firmly until he starts to slither back in the opposite direction. The look on his face is priceless.
‘Did you ever ask Michelle about Beau?’ Charlie asks Adam when he’s stopped chuckling.
‘No, I haven’t see her. I know where she works, though, so I’ll pop in this week. What number guy are you on?’ He glances at me.
‘I’m finished,’ I say. ‘That’s my talking done for the rest of the evening.’
‘It better not be,’ Adam replies. ‘We’re going to another pub to do some karaoke after these drinks.’
‘Are we really?’ I ask with glee, ignoring Charlie’s objections. ‘Singing is not talking. . .’