Wish You Were Here

Table of Contents

Praise for
Wish You Were Here

‘As you'd expect from Gayle, the laughs flow thick and fast, making this a top match for your sunny holiday spirits.'

‘An observant offering'

‘This book explores the strength of friendship, getting older and settling down with forthright honesty and humour. Wise, witty and with endearing characters, this is a feel-good read with lots of laughs.'

‘The prolific Mike Gayle knows a thing or two about the male psyche, and how not even an extended adolescence will prevent the pain from catching up in the end.'

‘If we needed more proof that men don't think like women, then Wish You Were Here delivers it in extra strength doses . . . A fun story of three 30 somethings as they come to rueful – and thankful – realisation that they are no longer 18.'

‘This book makes great beach reading . . . A heart warming and funny tale.'

Love It
!

‘A delightfully witty tale'

‘This is Mike Gayle's sixth novel and his appeal lies in his ability to give even the most banal detail a lurid resonance, and to spell out the bleeding obvious in more ways than one could have thought possible. Yet the whole thing becomes almost hypnotically relaxing.'

Brand New Friend

His 'n' Hers

My Legendary Girlfriend

Mr Commitment

Turning Thirty

Dinner for Two

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette Livre UK company

First published in paperback in 2008

Copyright © 2007 by Mike Gayle

The right of Mike Gayle to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN 978 1 84894 161 8
Book ISBN 978 0 34082 542 6

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
An Hachette Livre UK company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH

– Well known maxim attributed to holidays in Las Vegas

aka ‘The Entertainment capital of the world'

For Mr and Mrs O'Reilly (Jnr)

who met on holiday.

When you're sitting at home flicking through the bunch of holiday brochures you picked up from your local high street travel agent, you never really think to yourself: ‘This will be the holiday that will change my life', do you? Granted you might think: ‘This will be the holiday that will leave me broke for the rest of the year.' Or: ‘This will be the holiday that I finally learn to speak the local lingo.' Or even: ‘This will be the holiday where I won't snog random strangers.' But I doubt very strongly that you'll be thinking: ‘This will be the holiday that will change my life.'

But last year this was exactly what happened to me: a cheap last-minute seven-night package holiday changed my life in a way I never could have imagined. And I don't mean change like making the decision to re-decorate the hallway when you get back, or to give up smoking (again), or even changing careers. I'm talking about a big change. A life change. A change that might not seem huge if you're prime minister of England but if you're say, a thirty-five-year-old man working for Brighton and Hove city council, and you've just split up with your girlfriend after ten years together, it will seem huge.

I'm talking about a change that spins you round one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. I'm talking about a change that hits you like a bolt of lightning. I'm talking about the kind of change that lasts a lifetime. I can still barely believe it. But it's the truth: a cheap package holiday changed my life completely. So take it from me, if change isn't exactly what you're looking for in life just beware your local travel agent's.

It all started, as these things do, with the end of something big: me and Sarah. Ten years we were together. And then one day she just packed some of her stuff and left. It was difficult to work out how we'd managed to travel from the one state to the other but somehow we had. Then three weeks later on a warm and sunny August morning she called by to collect a few more things and tell me when she was going to move out the rest of her possessions.

‘This time next week,' she said as we stood in the hallway. ‘Is that okay?'

‘Fine,' I replied choosing to stare intently at the pattern on the carpet by her feet rather than at her directly. ‘Whatever you want – although I'm pretty sure that you're not going to get it all into the back of your Micra.'

I'd meant it as a joke not a dig. (Although in the time that had elapsed since she had left I had made many jokes that were actually digs, and many digs that were nowhere near to being jokes, and a few digs that were virtually indistinguishable from being verbal assaults, such was their subtlety.) Anyway, I could tell from her face that she had taken my joke about her car as a dig at her. For a few moments I thought about explaining to her that I was over her and that normal service had been resumed but I didn't of course because that would've shown that I was sensitive to her feelings. Being sensitive, at least in her presence, seemed a tad too close to being vulnerable, which was a definite no-no with a vampire like Sarah. So instead of doing the joke explanation thing, I just stood there like an idiot and carried on staring at the carpet.

‘Oliver's brother's got a van,' she explained, mentioning the ‘O' word to me for the first time that day. ‘He's agreed to help me move the rest of my stuff to the new place.'

Oliver was Sarah's work friend. I'd never liked him and I'm pretty sure he'd never liked me either. Unlike him, however, I was justified in my feelings on the grounds that he had clearly always fancied Sarah. I could tell from the moment she first dropped him into a conversation when he started working with her (Sarah was a senior case worker for Brighton Social Services) that he was bad news. When she came home from work her conversation was always ‘Oliver said this . . .' and ‘Oliver said that . . .' and then it was only a matter of time before it became, ‘Oliver was telling me over lunch . . .' I couldn't say anything, however, because it was supposedly obvious that Oliver wasn't interested in her because he had a girlfriend. She came round to ours for dinner once but I never saw her again, because soon after that they split because things weren't ‘working'.

I saw plenty more of Oliver though. Sarah became his shoulder to cry on. He'd come round for dinner at least once a week, and when friends came round to see us she'd invite him too. I once made the mistake of pointing out to her that as she spent every single second with him at work there was a strong chance that he saw more of her than I did. She didn't like that at all. ‘He's just come out of the biggest relationship of his life,' she said. ‘Can't you show even a hint of sympathy?' I couldn't of course because I didn't like Oliver. I found him insufferable, and overly conscientious and a bit too pleased with himself but I didn't say any of that. Instead I said that I would try my best and give him a second chance.

‘Nothing's going on with Oliver, you know,' said Sarah, now.

‘Even if it was,' I replied, ‘it's not exactly any of my business any more.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘I just wanted to make it clear, that's all.'

Sarah's ‘I know' comment, rather than being bitter and twisted, was, I think, meant to be comforting. She wasn't having a go at me. Rather she was stating a simple fact of life. Still, I wasn't comforted in the least.

‘What time do you want to come?' I asked.

‘Around ten?'

‘That's fine.'

‘Will you be in?'

‘Do you want me to be?'

Sarah didn't reply.

I sighed heavily. ‘Don't worry, I won't be here.'

Sarah looked visibly relieved. ‘I'll leave the keys in the hallway for you when I go.'

Another long silence signalled the end of business. This was going to be the last time we would ever see each other. Though Sarah had moved less than twenty minutes away she had managed to separate our lives so well that there was little chance of overlap. She had switched supermarkets so that we wouldn't accidentally bump into each other in the cereal aisle; she no longer took early evening walks in ‘our' local park; our local pub, The George, was now (at least for Sarah) a no-go zone; and as for mutual friends they all knew the score so there was no chance of an embarrassing encounter at a dinner party.

‘Well, that's everything then,' she said. She glanced at the front door and then back at me and pressed her lips tightly together. ‘Take care of yourself, Charlie.'

‘You too,' I replied and then I offered a half-smile to signal that I appreciated this moment of warmth. She smiled back and in that instant I took a snapshot of her in my head. Brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Pale grey/green eyes. Fresh-faced features. Small silver hoop earrings. Mint-coloured pinstriped jacket. Green vest top. Tight blue jeans with huge black belt with silver buckle. Flat black shoes that looked like ballet pumps. A summer outfit.

Sarah then reached down to the floor by her feet and picked up the H&M carrier bags crammed full with stuff plundered from what used to be our bedroom. Without saying another word she opened the door, stepped into the communal hallway and closed the door behind her. Though I hated myself for it I found myself staring at the front door long after she'd gone, hoping and praying that there might be a sudden rattle of the letterbox signalling a last-minute change of heart. But it never came. She had gone. For good. And probably for ever.

At a loss what to do next I retired to the living room, collapsed on the sofa and turned on the TV. As I randomly channel-hopped, the phone rang. I couldn't help it but once again the first thought that leapt into my head was, ‘It's her. She's changed her mind and she's standing on the front door step ringing me from her mobile.'

‘Charlie, mate,' said the male voice at the end of the phone. ‘What are you doing a week next Sunday?'