Wish You Were Here (29 page)

It was early morning and I'd been sitting on a towel in the middle of an empty Laguna beach watching the tide come in for well over an hour. Sensing that I was no longer alone, I turned to see an elderly Greek guy standing less than five feet away from me. He was wearing a white sun-hat, sunglasses and pale blue swimming trunks and was carrying a towel and a bundle of clothes underneath his arm.

‘You like early swim too?' he asked in heavily accented English.

‘Yeah,' I replied, even though I was startled at the sight of a genuine old person. I didn't know that Malia had any genuine old people and this guy with his leathery sun-beaten skin and silvery body hair looked to be at least in his seventies. ‘I do like swimming early in the morning,' I continued, ‘it's good for the soul.'

‘I swim every morning,' said the old man, carefully laying out his towel on the sand by his feet and placing his clothes on top of it. ‘It makes me feel good about the day ahead.' He took off his hat and sunglasses and laid them on his towel. ‘Enjoy the water when you get there,' he said, giving me a gentle wave of his hand, ‘the Mediterranean is the best sea in the world.' With a sudden burst of energy – particularly for a man verging on his seventies – he gently jogged towards the sea. Within a few moments he was chest deep in the blue-green waves and soon all I could make out was the shape of his head bobbing in the water.

Seeing the old guy enjoying the water like that was like a challenge to me. If he could get into the water then so could I. As I'd arrived at the beach already wearing my trunks, all I needed to do was kick off my sandals and slip my T-shirt over my head. Feeling the warmth of the early morning sun against my skin made my whole body feel alive again and now I was back from the dead I was more than ready to begin my journey to the water. Walking across the warm sand I came to a halt once the sea was lapping at my feet and watched, momentarily hypnotised by the rise and fall of the water. A few yards in front of me a large wave crashed on the shore sending a huge surge of water over my ankles. As the sand underneath my feet began to give way, and I felt myself sinking, without further encouragement I took my first steps into the water.

The sea felt cool but not cold and with the sun overhead getting warmer with each passing minute, the water gradually became more inviting. The deeper into the water I walked the more quickly I became acclimatised to its temperature and within moments I too was nothing but a head bobbing above the water. So there I was, treading water, facing out towards the open sea, while being gently buffeted from side to side by the swirling currents around me, grateful for the opportunity, if only for a few moments, to feel weightless.

It had been a long night. Tom and I had waited at Pandemonium in the hope that Andy and Lisa might come back. We must have made a ridiculous sight for the bar's usual ‘up for it' clientele: two miserable-looking guys in their mid-thirties not talking or drinking while everyone else in the bar partied at their very hardest.

When it became clear after an hour and a half that Andy and Lisa weren't going to return Tom and I headed back to the apartment, hoping to find them there. They weren't of course. The empty apartment was shrouded in darkness. Tom suggested that we go out and look for them, in case anything had happened. In retrospect I can see that this idea was more about making me feel like I was actually doing something than it was about finding our friends. Malia was a big resort and Andy and Lisa could have been anywhere in it. A search party of two stood no chance at all. In the end we both agreed that the best thing we could do would be to get some sleep but once Tom had retired to his sofa-bed I dropped all pretence of getting ready for bed and instead opened up the doors to the balcony, positioned myself in front of the horizon and tried my best to work out how once again I had managed to get things so completely and utterly and spectacularly wrong.

By organising the holiday, Andy had given me the one thing I needed most in my life: hope. His holiday plans had set me in a completely new context, one where I could forget about the past and could allow myself to be more optimistic about the future. Because of this newfound positivity, I'd seen opportunity at every turn and regardless of the consequences had pursued it to the end. The girl-in-the-cowboy-hat had got things going but it had been Lisa's phone calls and text messages where I'd really begun to hit my stride towards lunacy. So by the time Donna had arrived in my life I'd been so ready for action that not even the setback of Sarah's pregnancy could stop me from my mission. But when all my efforts with Donna came to a halt, all I did was refocus on Lisa. That's the only way I could find to explain what had happened. Sleeping with friends' girlfriends wasn't the kind of thing I did normally. It wasn't me at all. I had succumbed to the ever-present holiday temptation to take leave of my senses.

I sat out on the balcony for most of the night and as each hour passed without heralding Lisa and Andy's return I felt increasingly worse about my role in the night's events until somewhere around seven in the morning I could take no more. From my vantage point on the balcony, I looked around for something to do and found a huge blue-green expanse of inspiration right in front of me. ‘That's it,' I thought, as the sun continued its rise over the horizon, ‘for the first time this holiday I'm going to go in the water.'

In total I spent just under an hour in the sea – far longer than I'd expected – but every time I contemplated leaving the comforting buoyancy of my surroundings I kept imagining how every step towards the shore would bring me closer to the burden of carrying my own weight. When I eventually came out of the water I felt ungainly. Beached almost. And it took a few moments to get used to the sensation of supporting my own weight on dry land. Returning to my towel and clothes I found myself wondering about whichever one of my evolutionary ancestors it had been who had first come up with the idea of leaving the safety of the ocean. I was convinced that if I had been in their shoes (or flippers) at the time, as soon as I'd experienced the unbearable strain of life on land I would've turned my salamander-like tail right around and headed straight back into the ocean.

The beach was already beginning to fill up. The guys who ran the sun-lounger business were setting out their wares and a few early-bird sunbathers had already laid claim to the best spots on the beach. Not wanting to get changed in front of even the smallest audience I used my beach towel to soak up as much of the water as possible, pulled on my T-shirt, shoved my feet back in my sandals and left.

There were few people on the streets although Stars and Bars, as usual, was home to a number of young clubbers determined to deliver a two-finger salute to the supposedly moribund concept of sleep. A few of them waved at me as I passed by and I waved back, even though it may have been a joke at my expense. It was a good sign, however. I was feeling positive again. The night before had represented rock bottom but now I was definitely on my way up.

I was beginning to flag by the time I reached the front door to the apartment. As I put my key in the lock I was yawning and barely able to keep my eyes open, so as I opened the door and slipped past Tom on his sofa-bed my intention was to throw myself into my bed even though I was in desperate need of a shower. Once in the bedroom I realised that I wasn't going to be getting any sleep any time soon. Standing in front of me, packing their suitcases, were Andy and Lisa.

‘You're back,' I said inanely.

‘Not for long,' replied Andy. ‘We'll be out of your way in a bit.'

‘Look, Andy,' I began, ‘I just want you to know that I'm completely aware how much I've messed up. What I did was . . . well . . . it was unforgivable. I've let you down in the worst possible way. And I completely understand if you want nothing more to do with me. I just want you to know that it was nothing to do with Lisa. It was all me. I'm the one to blame.'

Andy stopped packing. ‘Have you finished?'

‘Yeah,' I replied. ‘That's all I wanted to say.'

‘Good,' said Andy, ‘I can carry on with my packing.'

‘Look,' I said. ‘Can't we at least go somewhere else and talk this through?'

‘I'm not interested in hearing anything you've got to say,' said Andy. ‘So I suggest that you leave me alone before I show you just how unimpressed with you I really am.'

‘Please, Charlie,' said Lisa stepping in between us. ‘Just do what he says.'

‘Come on, Andy,' I pleaded, ‘this is me and you we're talking about here. Surely there has to be a way that we can work this all out?'

‘Are you joking? Tell me, Charlie, how do you think we're going to work this all out? You slept with my girlfriend. How are we going to resolve something like that?' He then struggled past Lisa and pushed me in the chest with such force that I staggered backwards into the side of his bed.

‘Calm down, Andy,' I yelled, struggling to my feet.

‘I'll calm down when you answer the question,' said Andy through gritted teeth.

Tom entered the room. ‘What's going on?' he shouted as Andy made another lunge for me and connected with my chest, sending me flying on to the bed again.

‘Just stay out of it, Tom,' spat Andy as he drew back a fist ready to thump anyone who got in his way.

‘If you think I'm going to let the two of you batter each other senseless, you've got another think coming,' barked Tom.

‘Stop it all of you!' yelled Lisa grabbing on to Andy. ‘Just stop it.'

Lisa's intervention seemed to have the effect of bringing us to our senses.

‘I understand that you're angry, Andy,' began Tom in his role as peacemaker, ‘and from where I'm standing you have every right to be. What Charlie did was . . . well, you know what it was. But fighting each other won't change a single thing, you know that.'

‘So why don't you help us out here?' suggested Andy. ‘Come on, Tom, you're the Christian. Tell me what would you do if you were standing in my shoes? What would you do if our friend here had slept with your wife? Would you turn the other cheek? That's what you're supposed to do isn't it? Come on. I really want to know the answer. Would you forgive him?'

‘No,' replied Tom, his eyes filling with disappointment. ‘I don't think I could forgive him—'

‘See that, Charlie?' replied Andy. ‘Even Tom thinks you're scum.'

‘That's not true,' said Tom. ‘You didn't let me finish. What I wanted to say was that if I was in your shoes I didn't think I could forgive Charlie . . .
on my own
. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible. It just means that I'd need help to do it. We all need help sometimes – even you.'

No one spoke for a while. We all stood staring at each other, wondering how this was going to end.

‘You're probably right when you say there's no way back from this.' I finally found my voice. ‘I should know that better than most. When I found out Sarah was cheating on me, it really did feel like my life was over and to have done the same to you was the lowest thing I could've done to anyone. So you don't need to tell me how hard it is to forgive, because I already know. But do you know what though? That doesn't mean I can't ask.'

‘You can ask all you want but the answer will always be no,' said Andy.

‘Will it?' Lisa turned to Andy. ‘Is that really the way it is? You know it's not that straightforward, Andy. We're all as bad as each other. And to make out Charlie is somehow worse than anyone else makes me think that you didn't mean a single thing we talked about last night. They weren't just words, were they?'

There was a long silence.

‘No,' said Andy eventually, as he avoided Lisa's gaze. ‘Of course they weren't.'

Lisa reached out and held his hand. ‘Well then, if you really did mean it when you told me you wanted for us to start over, if you meant it when you said that you wanted to give us another go, then for our sake I think that you have to find some way to forgive Charlie, because otherwise you'll always be holding on to the past.

‘I know you, Andy. You won't be able to move on if you don't deal with this now. You'll just end up hating Charlie, and hating me and hating yourself at the same time and I don't want that for you or me.' Lisa paused and looked from Andy to me and back again and then, leaving Andy's side, she walked over to Tom. ‘It's up to you,' she said. ‘If you want us to work this will be the only way it will happen.'

The balcony was a tip. Our solitary week of occupation had taken its toll. There were beach towels draped over the chairs, ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, abandoned crisp packets and beer bottles littering various surfaces and right in the centre of the table, gently warming in the mid-morning sun, lay the dregs of Andy's second bottle of raki from two nights earlier.

‘Looks like someone had a bit of a party out here,' said Andy moving a towel from one of the chairs and hanging it over the railings.

‘A party?' I replied. ‘More like a wake.'

We sat down and slipped on our sunglasses but neither of us spoke. It had been my idea to come out here while Tom and Lisa went for a walk. I felt I'd done some of my best thinking during this holiday while looking out across our perfect sea view and hoped that the power of the balcony would assist Andy and me in the seemingly impossible task ahead.

Lowering my sunglasses on to the bridge of my nose I stared down at the swimming pool. A new batch of twenty-something girls had taken up residency on the prime spot of sun-loungers opposite our balcony and were gently grilling themselves in the sun.