My Best Friend Has Issues (3 page)

Having friends had not been something I’d excelled at so far. I blamed my family. If it wasn’t for their overprotectiveness I would’ve had the normal healthy relationships I was supposed to have. Instead of which I’d hung around with my mum and my brothers. Or, not so much hung around
with
, just hung around and watched while they got on with their normal healthy relationships.

Their relationship with me was not so normal: Charlie babied me, Joe and Jim resentfully gave in to me and Mum quietly ignored me. It had been like that since Dad died. But of course it was Dad who started all the unhealthy relationship stuff. I blamed him, even if he was dead. Especially as he was dead.

By meeting Chloe I’d increased my circle of friends by one hundred per cent. Alone in this big city it felt good to have a pal. The last time I’d had friends was at college.

Cumbernauld College didn’t offer me much of a challenge
academically
. Within the first month I’d read the course books cover to cover and started wading my way through the library stock. I only went to classes so I’d qualify for the study grant but they were boring. The most interesting thing about college was the social life. For the first time since primary school I was socially sought after and quickly acquired two friends. Both were marginally less fat than me.

The first, Lisa, a girl in my economics class, was obviously in the market for a best friend. Those who had arrived at college knowing no one had circled each other warily, checking for signs of best friend material or at least compatibility. I didn’t. Too shy to actively participate, I let them circle. Unfortunately for her,
Lisa didn’t shop around sufficiently, panicked, and settled too quickly on me. We had a lot in common: we were both the same age, on the same course and on the same high-carb, low-veg diet. We were similarly unattractive but while I was fully aware of my lack of allure, Lisa was blissfully ignorant. She drew attention to herself with a high pitched laugh and a nervous habit of touching her chin when she spoke as though she was afraid that, with the movement of her jaw, her chin might drop off.

Another chubby girl in our class, Lauren, at least to begin with, had loftier ambitions. She wanted to move amongst the Beautiful People. Having fumbled a few overtures: keeping seats, sandwich bribes at lunch, overeager giggling at weak jokes, the Beautiful People rejected her and quickly froze her out. Adrift and
friendless
, by the end of the second week Lauren had attached herself to Lisa and me.

Lauren was almost as fat as me but she had beautiful thick black hair and ownership of such glossy tresses made her eligible for an attitude. This amounted to her widening her eyes, tilting her head and prefacing everything she said with ‘I’m sorry, but’ even when what she was about to say was in no way controversial and no apology was required. For instance she’d say, ‘I’m sorry, but X Factor was the best programme on telly. And I mean
ever
.’ Or ‘I’m sorry, but I use hot oil on my hair. I
only
use hot oil.’ Her delivery was challenging, she was anything but sorry.

It was my own fault. Courted by Lisa, unused to this kind of attention, or any attention, I overplayed my hand and made the extravagant gesture of inviting Lauren into my gang. For a brief three-week period I was Queen Bee, both of them jockeying to become my best friend. At the time I thought my mistake had been to hesitate too long in choosing one over the other, but with hindsight I realised that it would’ve happened anyway.

Lisa began to talk about us all getting a flat together. Lauren was the keenest, phoning the agents, arranging viewings. Once, between classes, I was in the ladies toilets and Lisa and Lauren came in. I was already in the cubicle and they didn’t know I was there. I overheard them talking, I could have announced my presence
but I was interested to know what went on between my acolytes when I wasn’t around.

‘I’m sorry, but it’s a brilliant flat,’ said Lauren, ‘but how are we going to afford it?’

‘We can afford it,’ said Lisa.

‘And more to the point,’ continued Lauren, ‘what the hell are we going to tell The Hump?’

They both giggled.

‘It’s not The Hump, you idiot, it’s The Hulk,’ sniggered Lisa. ‘We’ll tell her it’s to do with fire regulations, that only two people can live there and she can’t come.’

The Hulk.

I was only marginally more obese than those two great fucking fatties.

Holding the moral high ground, I bowed out gracefully. I told them I’d thought about it and preferred to stay at home with my mum and my brothers. Lisa and Lauren never bothered to disguise their relief. They gushed and showered me with invitations to their new flat that I never took up. A new order was established. It was okay. I was glad I’d overheard them. It was more
comfortable
returning to the hanger-on zone than being centre stage on a wobbly throne. At least I still had lunch with them.

That was the important thing, to be seen to be part of a group. Hanging around the edges of their bestfriendship was a
humiliating
reminder of my lower status but it was better than being a friendless freak. By the time we got to third year, Lisa and Lauren could barely conceal their embarrassment at being seen with me. We were all relieved when graduation came. Of course they made effusive promises to stay in touch.

When I suddenly became gorgeously thin the first thing I did was join Friends Reunited. I posted photos of me in tight jeans and a gypsy top and mailed them to every name I recognised. I was disappointed that Lisa and Lauren weren’t registered but I looked on the bright side. Perhaps they were still lard-arsed losers and were too ashamed to join. Friends Reunited did hold one surprise.

Sarah Anderson, the mousiest girl in my primary class, was now a seasoned world traveller. She casually listed Morocco, Western Samoa and Vladivostok as places she had worked teaching
English.
She even boasted that she didn’t have any proper teaching qualifications. All she had was a degree, and not even an English degree, hers was an even more Mickey Mouse degree than mine: hers was media studies.

‘It’s just an accident of birth that I’m an expert in English, the language that is, luckily for me, the world’s most important business language,’ said her profile. ‘It’s such a great gift and I love passing it on with my teaching.’

I’d been blessed with the gift of English too, and more
abundantly
than her I seemed to remember. I was the best reader in the class, way ahead of Sarah Anderson; she was in the remedial group. I could use my gift and teach English abroad.

Perhaps Western Samoa was taking things a bit far. What I needed was somewhere they didn’t speak English – the poor
unfortunates
– but near enough that I could come home if it didn’t work out. Sarah had been generous enough to attach links to English language schools and agencies all over the world.

Within two days I had received notice of my interview with a business school in Barcelona. Booking a flight took about twenty minutes. It was that simple. Rather than have another pointless argument with them all again I copied an email to Charlie, Jim, Joe and Mum. Mum was downstairs watching
Coronation Street
but she’d read it later.

I was on the point of booking a hostel when Charlie, my oldest brother, phoned.

‘Good stuff,’ Charlie conceded graciously when I told him, ‘Barcelona’s a brilliant place.’

He went on to explain, in his long-winded way, that so long as I promised to look after my health, he’d resigned himself to my going. I was then treated to Charlie’s glory days backpacking through Europe. Anyone would think Spain and France were on some dark as yet undiscovered continent the way he went on. My
other brothers Joe and Jim had also been to Europe. Even my nan, who was seventy-three and had a colostomy bag, had been to Spain.

‘I wonder if Ewan’s still in Barcelona,’ Charlie mused. ‘Last I heard he was running a hostel out there. You could look him up. I used to hang about with him at school, Ewan Moffat, d’you remember him?’

‘Eh, not really.’

‘Well, I suppose you were only wee at the time.’

‘But Charlie, how weird is that? I’m looking at hostels right now.’

‘Weird,’ he agreed. ‘Anyway, I can’t remember the name of the place. I think it was something to do with music. Is there one called Music hostel, or Hostel de Music, something like that?’

I quickly scanned the webpage.

‘No, but I’m only seeing the ones that have websites. Wait, there’s one here called Blues Hostel, is that it?

‘Could be.’

‘Here’s another one, Jazz Hostel.’

‘Jazz Hostel! That’s it. We called it jizz hostel because Gary and this wee Irish burd…’ said Charlie, tailing off. ‘Eh, no, sorry, inappropriate. Jazz Hostel, that’s the one.’

‘It’s cheap, seventeen euros a night, that’s the cheapest I’ve seen.’

‘Aye well, Ewan might give you a discount if you mention my name. If he’s still there.’

‘When did you last speak to him?

‘Eh, three, four years? He’s never come back to Cumbernauld, I would have seen him. Maybe he’s still in Barcelona.’

I booked for three nights. Charlie seemed relieved. He didn’t say so but I knew he was worried that I wasn’t recovered enough yet, that I might have a relapse. At least this way he’d have his old friend Ewan keeping an eye on me. Without Charlie’s dubious recommendation I’d probably have booked Jazz Hostel anyway, it was the cheapest, but maybe it was a good omen.

When the taxi pulled up outside the hostel I saw why it was only seventeen euros a night. And when I lugged my rucksack inside there were more disappointments to come.

‘You’re booked for three nights, aye?’ asked the receptionist from inside his reception box.

He was Scottish but there was no way this guy was Ewan. This guy looked at least five years older than my big brother Charlie. He was older, but he wasn’t bad looking. The bare bulb in his wee reception booth shone down on his long, red, dreadlocked hair. He had good face bones, his cheeks tapering nicely to his jaw. When I came in he was looking down, consulting the register. I put on the new smile I’d recently been practising and waited for him to look up.

He wasn’t quite so attractive when he looked up. His face was pink, his bright eyes suspicious and his mouth as tight as a cat’s arse.

‘Sixty eight euros,’ he said, ‘three night’s accommodation and one night’s deposit returnable on day of check out. And I’ll need your passport.’

He spoke with a pronounced west of Scotland accent, for
instance
saying ‘out’ as ‘oot’, as if he was trying to emphasise his Scottishness. He must have recognised my Scottish accent but he didn’t mention it. He probably had Scots coming through here all the time.

‘There you are,’ I said, handing over the money, ‘thanks very much.’

I turned towards the dormitory but it was too much of a coincidence that this guy was Scottish.

‘Excuse me,’ I asked, ‘what’s your name?’

‘The name’s Ewan.’

‘I know someone who knows you.’

‘Really,’ he said flatly, looking down again at his register. ‘A lot of people know me. They
think
they know me. Check out on day of departure before 10am or you lose your deposit, okay?’

‘Okay.’

Since that rather sour introduction I’d spent two nights in his sweaty low rent hostel. Now as I got out of another taxi, this time to move out of Jazz Hostel into Chloe’s luxury penthouse, I couldn’t wait to tell Ewan exactly where he could stick his manky hostel.

Charlie had been baffled.

‘Well if it
is
him, he’s a changed man,’ he said sadly when I phoned home.

‘It’s him.’

I’d seen his full name on the registration sheet when I picked up my passport the next morning. Ewan Moffat, it was him all right. Ewan Moffat had been working here for all these years. It had made him a bitter man, and no wonder.

The first night I arrived at the hostel I had been unprepared for the squalor. Once I’d got my head round the cramped conditions of the dorm, I lay down carefully on the bunk I’d been allocated. There was nothing I could do about it; I’d paid up front. I kept my clothes on. Since there seemed to be no private space I wasn’t about to change into my nightie in front of a lot of strangers, boys as well as girls.

My room-mates had no such anxieties. People were whipping their kit off right and left. An inhibition-free zone. Naked and nearly naked bodies of both sexes were strewn around like the aftermath of a particularly exhausting porn movie. And the smell.

Before my nostrils became thankfully immune to the rank stench I could make out urine, garlic breath and smoke-singed clothes, but these were way outranked by the whiff from unwashed body parts: pits, groins and worst of all, cheesy feet.

It was an orgy of exhibitionism. Hot as it was in the overstuffed, low ceilinged, bunk-crammed dorm, I wouldn’t be getting naked.

An argument was taking place in two languages. A girl speaking what sounded like some kind of Eastern European, was going at it
with a French woman. The dispute was over whether the window should be open or closed. It wasn’t until they began to tussle: the Balkan girl opening the window and pulling the French woman’s pigtails and the French woman closing it and smacking the Balkan’s face, that it became clear who wanted what. It escalated to the point where the French woman poked the other girl’s eye and nobody intervened. After that, the window stayed closed.

Half asleep and almost unconscious, instinct took over, I had to cool down. I peeled my damp dress off my clammy skin and over my sweat soaked head. The relief was instantaneous. I wafted the dress above me a few times before laying it lightly on top of my body and going to sleep.

The next morning I awoke to find my dress on the floor and my limbs spread north, south, east and west. My mouth was dry and wide from snoring, my top lip stuck to my teeth. One breast had spilled out my bra. Luckily there was no one there to see it. Apart from a few still sleeping at other end of the dorm, everyone had gone.

‘Right,’ said Ewan, bounding into the room, ‘it’s five to ten. Check out in five minutes or you lose your deposits.’

By the time he’d made it along to my row of bunks I’d managed to pop the rogue breast back in my bra and was working my mouth, trying to regain the use of my top lip.

‘Check out in five minutes,’ he repeated.

‘Ewan,’ I said, pulling my dress in front of me, pinning it under my arms to hold it in place, ‘I’m booked in for three nights.’

Panic had crept into my voice. ‘I’ve another two nights to go, I’ve already paid.’

‘Aye,
cálmate
, calm down, I’m not talking to you.’

He was a charmer, all right. It was hard to believe that only two days ago I’d been so scared of him. Now that I was preparing to leave the hostel Ewan could no longer wield such power over me.

As I entered the hostel he was enclosed in his little reception box as usual, arguing with someone.

‘Haw you!’ he bawled at the bemused hosteller who was attempting to bring a bike into the building.

‘You cannae bring that in here!’

‘But only to bring ze bicycle here?’ suggested the guy, indicating the lobby area.

The hosteller/cyclist was wearing only a few key garments: army shorts with grease-bordered pockets, dust-coated open-toed sandals, thick socks and a long, straggling Taliban beard.

‘Ze bicycle vill be stole if it stay outside.’

He was a perfect example of the unwashed types who stayed here.

‘Not my problem, pal, get it out!’ shouted Ewan, pointing to the door with his pen.

There was an embarrassing kerfuffle as the cyclist awkwardly heaved himself, his huge rucksack, his bike and his beard through the narrow doorway. As he exited he shouted something foreign and, by its tone, offensive.

‘And you!’ retorted Ewan cheerfully.

I would have slinked upstairs and picked up my stuff but as I passed his booth Ewan cried, ‘Alison, it’s wee Alison Donaldson!’

Charlie. He must have emailed Jazz Hostel.

‘How are you doing, Alison, have you had a nice day?’

‘Splendid, thank you,’ I said without a smile.

When I came back down a few minutes later with my rucksack, ready to do battle with the front door, he seemed alarmed.

‘Hey, where are you going?’

‘I’m checking out.’

‘No, but Alison, you’re booked in for another night, plus deposit.’

‘Goodbye,’ I said as I strode past.

The impact of this parting shot was lessened by me having to stop at the door. A large group of students was now blocking the exit as they came in. A cloud of communal body odour engulfed me as they passed. They would have been my room-mates tonight, my scratching, snoring, farting
compañeros
.

‘Ho!’ Ewan bawled, and then emerged from the reception box and followed me to the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘None of your business.’

‘D’you not remember me? I’m Charlie’s pal, I used to give you money for a cone when the ice cream van came round, d’you not remember?’

‘Nope.’

I kept my back to him and he tried to sneak around me.

‘Aye, you do. Me and Charlie, up in the room playing music.’

I shook my head.

I did remember, I remembered all too well Charlie’s porno mags and his ruses to get rid of his kid sister but I was anxious to get out of Raval before anyone recognised me as The Girl with the Blood-Stained Flip-Flops. The taxi was waiting.

‘Well I remember you, wee Alison, course I do. How could I forget those beautiful green eyes?’

My beautiful green eyes flicked him a dirty look.

‘You can’t go, I told Charlie I’d look out for you, show you round town and that. Anyway, what’s the rush? You’ve still got two nights to go, and you can stay an extra four nights, no charge. I’m doing a buy-one-get-one-free, just for you. Fancy it?’

‘Sorry Ewan, I’ve sorted out something else.’

‘Where? You’ll not get a cheaper deal than I’m offering.’

‘An apartment,’ I said vaguely; I didn’t want anyone in Raval to know where I was going.

‘Well, okay.’ He sounded crushed. ‘But I’ll need a forwarding address before I can let you have your passport, or at least a contact number. Sorry Alison, it’s the law.’

I thought about this while the straps of my rucksack bit into my shoulder and the taxi waited outside. A taxi idling so long was conspicuous and the meter was still running.

‘D’you promise you won’t give it to anyone else?’

I was cold. He lay between my legs. The parts of me that he wasn’t lying on, my face, my left arm and foot, were cold. The other parts were numb.

Stuff was on my face. I tried to reach my face with my free hand to wipe it away but he was too big, too wide, I couldn’t get round him. It dripped on my face. First it was warm then cold, then it dried hard. Like the cucumber face mask Mum used on a Friday when I was wee. Not every Friday, just special Fridays when we prepared a special dinner and waited for the Aberdeen bus to get in. After she’d smeared it on herself, her face a stern and ghostly pale green, Mum put what was left on me.

‘Don’t laugh, and don’t dare cry or your face’ll crack,’ she told me. ‘I won’t,’ I said, my face set like rigor mortis, ‘I promise.’