My Best Friend Has Issues Read online

  ‘You stay up till three every night?’

  ‘Sure. Me and my mom love to chat, we talk for hours sometimes.’

  Chloe dialled the number again and let it ring out for ages before she hung up.

  ‘She’s probably in the shower right now. She gets home and goes out straight out again to dinner most nights. She’s a popular lady. But come on, tell me, what happened with you and Juan Ca? Did you guys get it on right there in the club?’

  ‘Nearly. I just managed to stop myself when I saw those people staring at me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have let that stop me. I like people watching me.’

  ‘Really?’

  I had never had this kind of conversation before. I was discovering that talking about it was almost as exciting as doing it.

  ‘Yeah, it makes me extra horny when someone else is there, d’you know what I mean?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said.

  I didn’t want to lie.

  ‘He would have been your first, huh?’

  ‘Huh?’ I felt the blood rush to my face. How could she tell I was still a virgin?

  ‘I remember my first Latino, wow! Can’t remember his name but he was a hot guy.’

  I relaxed, my secret was safe.

  ‘You should do it on the beach, when the sun’s coming up. That’s a Barcelona Must Do. That’s one box that’s gotta be ticked. Girl,’ she said redialling her mother’s number, ‘we gotta get you laid.’

  I took the glasses into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey Mom!’ I heard her say.

  While I was in there, tidying up and trying to earn my keep, I thought about sex on the beach. It would have been exciting. Maybe I should have gone to the beach with Wanca. I’d messed up this time but I wouldn’t miss my next chance. I could hear Chloe making enthusiastic noises and giggling.

  ‘Mom! You’re crazy! No! That’s fantastic!’

  I wasn’t gone long but by the time I came back Chloe’s mother was ringing off.

  ‘Well sure, Mom, okay. No, it’s fine, don’t keep him waiting, I was just going to bed anyway. Okay, I love you, Mom, love you. Bye, bye, bye, bye,’ she whispered.

  ‘Guess what?’ said Chloe, excited.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mom is coming to Europe! Here, to Spain!’

  ‘Excellent!’ I said and then immediately began worrying. ‘When is she coming?’

  ‘We don’t know yet exactly, but pretty soon. Mom is so relaxed about all that stuff, she’s always scooting around, never in one place very long. We are so similar.’

  With a heavy heart I asked the question.

  ‘So d’you need me to move out?’

  ‘Huh? No, she’s not coming to Barcelona. It’s Madrid, she’s set up an exhibition for an artist friend of hers down in Madrid.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, trying to hide my relief. ‘Is that her job?’

  ‘Are you kidding? My mom’s too busy for a job. She has projects. She knows everyone. She has more influence than Michelle Obama. Believe me, when it comes to her projects, anything she wants to happen, happens.’

  ‘She sounds amazing,’ I said.

  ‘She is, although, she probably got him the Madrid gig just so she can come check up on me,’ Chloe giggled. ‘We have to go down there, you have to meet her, you’ll love her. She’s gonna love you, I know it.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I said.

  ‘What’s your mom like?’

  I sensed this question coming and was embarrassed.

  ‘Aye, she’s nice.’

  I would never be able to even fake that kind of adulation for my mum.

  ‘She works in a bakery,’ I shrugged. ‘She’s always worked there, since before I was born.’

  ‘So did you have a nanny too?’

  ‘Not really, my brothers and I had a childminder, Isabelle, our next-door neighbour.’

  ‘Did you actually like your nanny?’

  ‘Yeah, she was really nice.’

  ‘That’s sweet. Does she still live there?’

  ‘She moved. One day I came home from school and she’d gone. Her house was empty; all her furniture had been taken away.’

  ‘Wow, just like that? Where did she go? Didn’t you see her again?

  ‘I did see her once more, but it wasn’t the same.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I hated my nannies. None of them lasted more than a few months. I used to do things to ‘em.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like glue their ass to the toilet. Once I stabbed one of ‘em in the foot with an ornamental sword,’ Chloe giggled. ‘Yeah, mom had to pay a lot of compensation on that one!’

  ‘Was your dad not around?’

  ‘Oh, him,’ Chloe rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, he’s always around. What about yours?’

  ‘My dad’s dead. Heart attack. It was years ago.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. D’you miss him?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘That must be tough.’

  ‘Not really. He wasn’t as great as he made himself out to be.’

  ‘I totally know what you mean,’ Chloe sympathised. ‘I hate my dad. Aged P, ol’ golf club Phil, is just the worst,’ she told me as I nodded compassionately. ‘He cheated me out of my inheritance. I’ll never forgive him for that. I was supposed to get the money my grandfather left me when I was 21. Aged P is the executor and when it was in probate he told the court I had ‘mental health issues’. Bastard. I was a bad girl at school a coupla times, so what? He showed them my school reports and shit and they put all kinds of conditions on giving me my own money.’

  ‘What were the conditions?’

  ‘That I go to college.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘But Chloe, you’re American, that must be brilliant. I grew up watching Dawson’s Creek, The OC, and Buffy. In those programmes the kids always have their own cars, they drive to college with the top down. It’s always sunny. And the girls live in really cool sorority houses and go to frat parties. If I was a student, I’d join one of those weird clubs and major in something.’

  ‘Alison, hello? It’s not like that. Have you never heard of Columbine or Virginia Tech? A college campus is probably the most dangerous place to be in the States. And anyway, my dad can’t tell me what to do. I do what I want, I’m not his bitch. He can’t make me go to college. The money comes to me when I’m twenty-five anyway.’

  ‘That must be soon.’

  ‘Yeah, a year and three months and counting. After that he can’t stop me. Until then all I get is a stinking allowance, and I don’t even get that unless I jump through his goddamn hoops.’

  ‘Hoops?’

  ‘Dentists, gynaecologists, shrinks, whatever. He’s always making appointments for me,’ Chloe moaned.

  ‘I suppose he’s just trying to look after you.’

  ‘He wants my money; it’s as sad and as simple as that. He wants to control the money, how I spend it, he wants to control me. He doesn’t believe anything I say, he has no faith in anything I do. I don’t know why he doesn’t have my fingerprints and my mugshot taken. I’m his obsession. He’s the one who has mental health issues.’

  She was crying now.

  I came over and sat beside her. I put my arm around her. After a while she quietened down. I led her to the bedroom and she didn’t resist. She lay down on the bed and I pulled off her sandals. She still had her clothes on but she didn’t seem to want to take them off. She fell asleep weeping into her pillow.

  It was, for me, a surprising way to end the evening. After all, we’d had such a fun night. But the late night crying turned out to be a regular pattern. Chloe sometimes fell asleep crying. It didn’t keep me awake. I grew used to the tearful sniffling, fond of it even. It reminded me of how alike we were: both fucked up, both scared. Her quiet sobs soothed me. I liked to watch Chloe’s tear-stained face relax into sleep: curled on her side with her knees pulled in tight and her arms tucked under her chin, her
thin shoulder gently rising and falling, her blonde hair spread out on the pillow, her lips set in a childish pout. She didn’t know how beautiful and how vulnerable she was, and that’s when I liked her best. It was then that she reminded me most of an angel.

  Chapter 21

  The next morning I sat in the yurt on the terrace. I felt rough as hell. I must have caught a cold from kissing Wanca. I was blowing my nose every few minutes, but it had been a great night out. Dear Lisa and Lauren, went to Barcelona’s coolest club last night and got coked out of my head. Snogged a gorgeous Ecuadorian guy and then dumped him! Are they still running dominoes tournaments in the Cumbernauld Arms? Ha ha, I’m chapping!

  I smiled, thinking through everything that had happened last night. So different from Cumbernauld. Okay, it hadn’t been perfect. With hindsight my flamenco dancer outfit was a bit embarrassing. Allowing Wanca to grope me in public was borderline shameful, but compared to my nightclubbing experience in Cumbernauld it had been a triumph.

  In first year at college, during my brief but glorious reign as queen bee, it was decided that, like all the other first years, we should go clubbing. Everyone else at college was doing it.

  My new girlfriends came to my house to get ready. This was the first time I’d hosted a social gathering since my tenth birthday party when Mum was forced to invite my brothers’ pals to make up the numbers. This would be different. When Lisa and Lauren arrived I ushered them straight up to my bedroom where we spent hours playing music, drinking vodka and getting dressed. It was brilliant.

  The previous day we had discussed what we would wear. I was forced to admit that I didn’t have anything suitable. Lisa and Lauren fell over themselves offering to lend me an outfit and, to increase their chances of becoming my Best Friend, both turned up with armloads of clothes for me to try.

  I took the stuff to the bathroom to try on. Nothing fitted, some things I couldn’t get past my thighs. Lisa and Lauren were like me: big girls, just not quite as big as me. But there was one nice pink skirt of Lauren’s that, if I pulled it on over my head and didn’t do up the top buttons, I could just about get away with. I returned to the bedroom to their squawks of approval.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lauren, ‘but you look fantastic.’

  I looked in the mirror and felt good. This prompted me to stop pigging on the giant bag of Doritos Lisa had brought. The more we drank, the more slap we applied. The more I saw myself in the flattering pink skirt, the thinner and more confident I began to feel.

  When we arrived at the club we stood in a long queue waiting to get in. A crowd of boys we recognised from college came and stood behind us. Though we didn’t know them well enough to speak to, we were pleased; we were beginning to move in the right circles. This was a great idea to come here, Lisa and Lauren agreed. Even the drizzling rain couldn’t dampen our expectation.

  There were signs and notices outside the club, mostly prohibitive:

  No Underage drinking.

  Proof of age and ID required.

  No alcohol to Be brought into the Premise’s.

  No football Colour’s.

  But some were playful:

  Shirts and shoe’s required, bras and Pantie’s optional.

  The sign above the door said:

  Clancys Nite Spot.

  Music. Dancing. Cavorting.

  ‘When d’you think the cavorting starts?’ said Lauren.

  ‘Just as soon as we get in there,’ Lisa quipped.

  As the crowd moved and we neared the entrance we could hear the sounds of cavorting from within. Two burly, meat-headed bouncers stood at the door. We smiled as we approached.

  ‘Not tonight, girls,’ one of them said.

  He held his clipboard wide as though to bar our entry. As if to prevent us ram-raiding our way in.

  ‘Regulars only tonight. Sorry.’

  The two bouncers formed a protective semicircle, herding us out of the queue and off to the side. It was only then I grasped what he meant. They weren’t letting us in.

  Lauren tossed her shiny black hair and argued: we had ID proving our age. We had no alcohol with us; they could search our bags if they wanted. We weren’t wearing football scarves or tops. We were appropriately shirted and shod; brad and pantied to capacity. What was the problem? The bouncer gave us a weak smile, shrugged and turned back to the queue.

  Lisa tugged Lauren’s jacket and she finally crumpled, the three of us moving off silently, discreetly. As we walked I tried to tune out the laughter of the boys behind us. My skirt was tight and with every step it rode up and gathered in the small of my back making it shorter at the back than at the front. Perhaps the boys were laughing at a joke. Perhaps they were too busy laughing at the joke to even notice the three fat girls in front being turned away. I walked away, the damp pink skirt slapped the back of my thighs - punishment for my hubris. Why did I imagine I could ever be part of this?

  We didn’t care. That was the official line.

  The other two went back to Lisa’s house and wore themselves out with frenzied who-gives-a-fuck-anyway dancing in her bedroom. That would show them.

  I never found out what Lisa and Lauren really thought; we never talked about it, ever. But they blamed me, I know they did. I was the one wearing a skirt too short for a fat girl. I was the one who skulked home to wriggle out of the wet skirt and finish off the Doritos.

  Chloe was in a funny mood all that morning. I tried to cheer her up. While she was in the shower I popped down to the shops and bought nice hot bread and orange juice. I boiled eggs while she dressed; I set the breakfast table on the terrace under the shade of the yurt. She ate in silence. She ignored the pups, even Juegita. Maybe Chloe was just one of those people who took her time waking up. She was an heiress, after all.

  And then it happened again.

  As I was munching the hot crusty bread another coughing fit crept up on me. I immediately stood up and tried to clear my throat, banging my chest a few times. The coughing got worse. I could feel my face getting red with the effort. As vigorous as the coughing was, it wasn’t clearing my throat. My windpipe was getting narrower. Coughing led to dry retching, leaving little room for actual breathing. I felt my lips become numb. I staggered to the edge of the terrace, leaning over and sucking in hard, as if the space between the buildings might give me more air. I felt like I was about to pass out. I turned to look for Chloe, my mouth working like a fish.

  She ignored me, chewing her breakfast and looking off into the shimmering heat. She had no idea. This one was bad, this time I was a goner, surely.

  ‘For Chrissakes get a hold of yourself, Alison,’ she said.

  Chapter 22

  I continued to cough and retch and struggle for breath, but it was no use. I wasn’t getting any air in before I was spluttering it out again. I fell to my knees and clawed at my throat. Without oxygen I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. So many times I’d cheated death but I couldn’t this time.

  Chloe sighed.

  As I lay bucking and heaving she daintily wiped the sides of her mouth with her napkin and then approached me. She squinted into my face and stuck two fingers against my windpipe, constricting what little breathing space I had left. She forcefully hooked her fingers in behind my collar bone and pressed down hard. She was going finish me off like a wounded animal she was putting out of its misery. I flapped my hands and tried to push her away.

  ‘Now breathe in. Slowly,’ she said in a bored voice. With her hands pushed so far into my neck I didn’t think I could breathe, in or out, but although my throat felt tighter, I found I could actually let air in without coughing.

  ‘Slowly,’ she said as if correcting a naughty child, ‘slowly.’

  I had little choice but to do as I was told.

  ‘And out. Slowly.’

  I exhaled, a long slow careful exhalation.

  ‘And in.’

  I inhaled.

  ‘And out.’

  I could breathe again. I gulped at the air.


  Chloe held my eye.

  ‘Slowly.’

  I found that if I followed her instructions exactly I could breathe. After a few minutes she released the pressure and removed her fingers from my neck. Panicking, I grabbed her hand. I could breathe without her but I wanted to keep a tight hold of her hand.

  ‘I thought I was going to die,’ I whispered carefully.

  ‘You were never gonna to die,’ she said, unimpressed. ‘Don’t be such a drama queen.’

  ‘No, honestly,’ I said, gaining confidence in my ability to breathe and speak at the same time, ‘this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I have a problem with choking.’

  ‘You have rebellious chee, is all,’ she said.

  ‘But what was that thing you did?’

  ‘It’s a neat trick I learned from my acupuncturist.’

  ‘Rebellious what?’

  ‘Chee, spelt ‘q’-‘’’. It’s energy, spirit.’

  ‘So that’s what it is, I’ve got a rebellious spirit?’

  ‘Yeah, well, you could say.’

  ‘Cool.’

  Dear Lisa and Lauren, nearly choked to death again. Apparently I have rebellious qi! What am I like? Luckily my heiress friend is an expert in acupuncture and saved my life so I live to fight another day. Did the doctor ever get to the bottom of your candida infection?

  *

  Two weeks later Ewan phoned me again.

  ‘Alison!’ he exclaimed, delighted. ‘How the hell are you?’

  I was surprised, but it was good to hear a Scottish voice. We chatted, he asked me how I was settling in with Chloe; I told him things were great. He asked about our Club Cubana night out.

  ‘Yeah, it was good,’ I said.

  ‘I spoke to your big brother again last night.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  I hadn’t spoken to my family since my mum was so grumpy on the phone that night.

  ‘Charlie says I should take you out, show you the sights. What d’you think?’

  I had been here nearly three weeks and I hadn’t seen anything. I needed to conserve money and it was cheaper to stay in the flat while Chloe did her art work.