Wish You Were Here Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Wish You Were Here

  Also by Mike Gayle

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Beware your local travel agent’s

  In the beginning

  1. Saturday

  2. Sunday

  3. Day One: Monday

  4. Day Two: Tuesday

  5. Day Three: Wednesday

  6. Day Four: Thursday

  7. Day Five: Friday

  8. Day Six: Saturday

  9. Day Seven: Sunday/Monday

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  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.’

  Glamour

  ‘An observant offering’

  Heat

  ‘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.’

  Woman

  ‘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.’

  Herald

  ‘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.’

  Candis

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

  Love It !

  ‘A delightfully witty tale’

  Star

  ‘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.’

  Sunday Telegraph

  Also by Mike Gayle

  Brand New Friend

  His ’n’ Hers

  My Legendary Girlfriend

  Mr Commitment

  Turning Thirty

  Dinner for Two

  WISH YOU WERE HERE

  Mike Gayle

  www.hodder.co.uk

  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

  www.hodder.co.uk

  ‘Whatever happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.’

  – 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.

  Beware your local travel agent’s

  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.

  In the beginning

  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 lunc
h . . .’ 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?’

  ‘What?’ I stammered, battling with my disappointment. ‘What are you on about now, Andy?’

  ‘I’m asking you what you’re doing a week from Sunday. That’s what I’m on about.’

  I projected myself into the future. All I could see was a lot of moping around the flat trying to make myself feel even worse than I already felt.

  ‘Nothing much,’ I replied eventually. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you . . .’ he paused to give himself a silent drum roll ‘. . . are coming on holiday with me.’

  ‘Holiday?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I went completely silent. This was typical of Andy. And I knew that if I was going to prevent him from talking me into something I didn’t want to be talked into I was going to have to be firm.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because . . . because I can’t.’

  Andy wasn’t fazed for a second by my sub-standard debating skills. ‘You do know that I’m doing this for you, don’t you?’ he began. ‘I was sitting here at home thinking about you and . . . everything that’s going on and it just came to me – what Charlie needs is a holiday. Think about it. You, me and a nice beach somewhere hot. We can chill out for a week, sink a few beers and have a laugh – it’ll be great. And you won’t have to do any of the legwork either, mate. I went to a travel agent this afternoon and checked it all out for you. All you need to do is write me a cheque for roughly four hundred quid and in exchange I’ll give you the holiday of a lifetime.’ He paused as if waiting for a round of applause. ‘So what do you say?’

  I had many reservations about my old college friend’s suggestion, but they had less to do with the idea of going on holiday than with the idea of going on holiday with him. Despite his long preamble, I knew Andy well enough to know that this holiday wasn’t about him wanting to help me out at all. It was about him wanting to go on holiday without his fiancée and using me as an excuse. He’d probably told Lisa that he wanted to take me away to help me ‘get over Sarah’ and while there might be a modicum of truth in that statement I strongly suspected a far more self-interested motive. I could just feel in my bones that Andy was going to use this holiday as a week-long practice run for his eventual stag-night, meaning he would inevitably end up dragging me to a lot of places that I wouldn’t want to go to, persuade me to do things that I wouldn’t want to do and generally force me to act in a way that wasn’t really me at all.

  And yet he was right. I did need a holiday. I did need a break from my usual routine. Sarah’s leaving had completely kicked the stuffing out of me. And other than the option of going solo (which given my state of mind wasn’t really an option at all) Andy’s was the only firm holiday offer on the table. Fortunately for me I had one last trick up my sleeve – the perfect way to ensure that should he persuade me to go with him the balance of power wouldn’t always be in his favour.

  ‘What about Tom?’ I asked.

  There was a brief but telling silence.

  ‘What about Tom?’ he replied, faking indifference.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask him too?’

  ‘Of course not. Why would I conceivably invite a born-again Christian on holiday? It’s not like they’re particularly renowned for being the life and soul of the party.’

  ‘But he’s our mate.’

  Andy sighed. ‘To be fair to Tom, mate, even at university he was always more your mate than mine.’

  ‘Well I’m not going without him,’ I replied. ‘So if you want me to go you’d better get dialling now because you’re really going to have your work cut out for you.’

  After that I didn’t expect to hear from Andy on the subject of holidays again because I was absolutely confident that Tom would turn him down before he even managed to finish his first sentence. As I was getting into bed, however, just before midnight, the phone rang.

  ‘You’d better start packing,’ said Andy, ‘because Bible-bashing Tom is coming on holiday with us.’

&nbs
p; ‘Yeah right,’ I replied laughing. ‘Do you think I’m going to hand over a cheque just like that so by the time I realise Tom’s not coming you’ll have cashed it and it’ll be too late to back out? Give me a little bit of credit, Andy, I’m not that stupid. There’s no way that Tom’s agreed to come on holiday with us. In fact given the sort of thing I suspect you’ve got in mind for this holiday I’d say that you’d have more chance of persuading the pope to come with us.’

  ‘Oh-two-four—’ began Andy.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Encouraging you to call him.’

  ‘Do you think I won’t do it?’

  ‘I’m telling you to be my guest. But just so that you know, Tom was actually much less work than you. All I said was: “Do you fancy coming on holiday next week?” And straight away he replied that August is always pretty quiet in his office and that chances are it should be no problem for him to get the time off.’

  ‘You’re telling me he said, “Yes,” just like that?’

  ‘My powers of persuasion must work well on the God fearing.’

  I paused and mulled over the situation. This didn’t sound like Tom at all. There had to be something else going on. ‘You know I will phone him, don’t you?’ I warned Andy. ‘And I’ll well and truly kick your arse if you’re winding me up.’

  ‘Like I said,’ replied Andy boldly. ‘Be my guest. And when you do, just remind him that we’re going on holiday to have . . . fun.’

  The following Monday, Andy called me at work to tell me he had booked the holiday. When I asked where we were going he refused to say, on the grounds that he wanted it to be a ‘surprise’. The idea of being surprised by Andy made me feel very uncomfortable indeed: he was the sort of person whose surprises tended to be genuinely surprising. For example, once when we were at college Andy announced that he was nipping out to get a paper. Seventeen hours later, he called me from Belgium to ask if I could electronically wire him enough money to fly home. He’s that sort of bloke.