Five Go Glamping (6 page)

‘We’re here. See you in a sec. Take deep breaths.’ I made faces to the others and they rolled their eyes.

‘He says Gav isn’t coming and he wants us to meet someone gorgeous called Brian’ I said.

None of us really liked Gav, and we were all glad he wasn’t coming. Since Kirk had met Gav, he hardly ever came out with us and we blamed Gav for making Kirk boring.

‘Oh.’ Sinead’s eyes actually filled up with tears. Brian was indeed gorgeous and so cute that Sinead stopped dead in her tracks.

‘I want him,’ Steph cried.

Steph went to pick him up, but he wriggled towards me so I stretched out my arms and sat down with him at the table. He was so beautiful. He nuzzled into my neck and licked my cheek. He was without a doubt the most beautiful pup I had ever seen in my life.

‘I told you he was gorgeous, didn’t I?’ Kirk beamed like a proud parent. ‘Shall I officially introduce you? Fiona, this is Brian Harvey. Brian Harvey, this is Fiona.’

‘Brian Harvey? As in Brian Harvey out of East 17? As in ran over by his own car Brian Harvey?’

Steph looked disgusted for a split second until she looked at Brian and fell in love with him again. ‘Give! My turn!’

I passed Brian Harvey to her and she cooed for a minute until he licked her face which she didn’t like and she passed him to Sinead.

‘He does look a lot like Brian Harvey,’ said Sinead.

It was weird, because he sort of did. But he was still gorgeous.

Kirk pretended to be annoyed with us for not taking the quiz seriously, we never did, but really he was delighted because we were all a little bit in love with Brian Harvey. He had a bit of a moan that we hadn’t asked him to come to Chelsea Aurora Moonbeam but we said it was a girls’ thing. Then he wanted to know why the chap with the crazy trousers was allowed to go, because Sinead hadn’t shut up about him. Kirk said he must be gay, Sinead insisted he wasn’t. Sinead said he was in touch with his feminine side. I said it was more like he was in touch with his crazy trouser side.

‘So we’re going then? To the festivals?’ Sinead pleaded.

‘You promise there are hair straighteners in the yurt?’ asked Steph.

‘I promise.’ I could see Sinead was getting excited.

Steph raised an eyebrow and looked even more intrigued. ‘And we get a proper bed. A proper bed each? And it’s free? Okay then. What do you reckon, Fiona?’

‘I’m not sure. Because you know, the caravan and everything.’

Yes, I was trying to make a caravan with my parents seem more appealing than a free weekend in a luxury yurt. And to be honest, it did. If Steph and Sinead were going to join the Chelsea Aurora Moonbeam cult, then I’d be safer in Weston and I wouldn’t have to pretend to be a tree – or worse, Doris. But it was free. And it might be my last chance to have fun before I ‘seized my destiny’ and turned into Doris in September.

‘I didn’t really get anything out of tonight at all, and I imagined I was Doris and I don’t want to do that again. It’s just bringing me closer to being a mad cat lady. So if you can promise that I don’t have to go near any Chelsea Moonbeam types. Then maybe.’

‘But there’s the music festival too, it says here that it’s only down the road. We could walk there, hang out with some cool musicians and then just show our faces at whatever Crazy Trousers wants us to take part in. We could have a wild time,’ said Steph.

‘And the sheep festival!’ offered Sinead excitedly before Steph motioned at her to be quiet. It wasn’t exactly the main selling point.

‘Great. Something else I’m not invited to do. We don’t care, do we Brian?’ said Kirk nuzzling up to the puppy.

‘Well if Fiona doesn’t want to come you can have her bed.’ said Sinead.

Bloody cheek. I wasn’t having Kirk nicking my bed while I went off to Skegness-super-mare.

‘Okay. I’ll go!’ At least I was taking a step towards spontaneity. I panicked slightly I didn’t have time to plan for it properly.

‘Well, if you don’t want me and Brian there,’ said Kirk, huffily.

‘You can still come Kirk, but you’ll have to get a tent. You and Brian can pitch up next to us. Will Gav come?’

‘Doubt it,’ mumbled Kirk.

‘I don’t know why you bother with him, sometimes,’ I said.

‘Look who’s bloody talking!’ he said.

It took me a minute to realise Kirk was talking about Connor and me. I looked around at the others to gauge Steph and Sinead’s reactions and I could see by the way they were both avoiding eye contact with me they felt the same. I could see it now – perhaps Steph and Sinead both gossiped about Connor like we all did about useless Gav. None of us could understand why Kirk put up with him and now I knew they thought the same about me. I suddenly felt defensive about Connor and was ready to relate his good points to them when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Connor.

I didn’t want to let the huge cracks in our relationship show in front of the others so I pretended I was more pleased to see him than I was.

‘All right?’ I said.

The others politely acknowledged him.

He cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, hi. Look I wanted to say, I know I’ve not been around much lately, and I’ve kind of not been a great boyfriend. I’ve been so busy and well, I’ve not had any time to spend with you, and so…’ he paused.

I raised my eyebrows and for a moment, I wondered if he was going to propose, right here at the pub quiz.

‘I’ve come to say sorry, and I want to make an effort, so if you could give me an hour or two, I want to make it up to you.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you can come now?’ he said.

I looked at the others and they showed me their approving faces. I hoped they could see he was making an effort, so I nodded at Connor, said goodbye to the others and left.

When we were in Connor’s car I said ‘I thought you were going to propose for a minute there.’

‘I wasn’t even sure you’d say yes to going for a drink or something first,’ he laughed. ‘But yeah, I do want to marry you, Fiona. One day.’ He looked over and smiled.

I didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not.

‘Is that where we are going then, out for a drink?’ It wasn’t the most imaginative idea, but it was a start.

‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘It’s my only night off, I’ve got another festival in Dorset at the weekend, but I wanted to spend my night off with you.’

‘In Dorset? Is it the Castle Festival?’

‘That’s it,’

‘That’s where I’m going.’ I said. ‘I’m going with the others. We’re staying at a luxury campsite up the road. We are glamping.’

He sat up a little and shuffled in his seat.

‘Great well, come over and see one of the sets on Saturday night, I’m managing one of the bands – we’ll get a drink after.’ He didn’t sound as enthusiastic as I thought he should be, seeing as he had just announced he was desperate to spend more time with me.

‘Yeah, maybe. I’ll have to see who else is on at the same time. You know what festivals are like.’ I tried to sound as nonchalant as I could.

‘There’s only one stage, Fiona. It’s not Glastonbury.’

‘Where are we going now anyway?’ I said as I saw we were headed towards the city centre.

‘You’ll see!’ he said with that cheeky grin again.

‘Are we going to town?’ I said.

He nodded.

I was expecting him to pull onto Broad Street and guessed maybe he was taking us for a spontaneous date night and maybe a meal in a restaurant by the canal, but then he pulled into a side road and turned into an underground car park for the swanky Millennium Apartments, the ones with the swimming pool on the roof.

‘What are you up to?’ I said.

When we got out of the car, he led me to the lift and pressed floor number twenty which took us up and opened on an airy lobby. He took a key from his pocket and opened a door to the left.

‘Come in,’ he said.

I was struggling to work out what was going on here and my thoughts were darting all over the place. Had he bought an apartment? Or perhaps he was bringing me here to meet his wife and family who he had been keeping a secret all these years? ‘What is this?’ I said as I stepped into the room. The lights came on automatically which filled the room with a subdued light and illuminated the sleek white interior. A pristine white sofa curled around the living room and there was a gleaming kitchen full of hi-tech appliances. Perhaps it was a serviced apartment and he’d rented it for the night?

‘You like it?’ said Connor, with a slightly cocky look in eyes.

‘Well, yeah, of course I do, it’s bloody gorgeous. But what are we doing here?’

‘It’s ours!’

‘Ours?’ I said ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s not ours yet, this is the show home, but it could be ours – or at least one just like it. That is, if you like it?’

‘You mean, we could buy it? Now?’

He nodded. ‘Not right now, but I’ve done the sums and I reckon in six months, we’ll have enough to move in.’

‘Wow, Connor, I can’t get over it. Something like this could really be ours?’

I had to admit, when I thought of us moving in together I pictured us in a little terrace or a cottage with a garden, maybe somewhere semi-rural. Still close enough to everything and everybody but with a bit more space to breathe. Having said that, I wasn’t about to say no to a swanky city centre apartment with a swimming pool on the roof. And we could always move somewhere more rural in the future, right? This would certainly be close to work and although a little sterile, all these years of scrimping and saving would be worth it to live here. I was almost certain.

‘Come and look at the view,’ he said, gesturing to the balcony.

I felt a little panicked by the height, it didn’t seem natural to be up so high – but when I stepped outside, the view was breathtaking. I could see almost all of the city centre, where the skyscrapers sparkled like fairy lights.

‘And if we are in town where I’ll be working most of the time, then we’ll get to spend more time together. Every night.’

I wandered into the kitchen and Connor followed me.

‘Drink?’ he said.

I nodded and he opened the biggest fridge I had ever seen and took out a bottle of champagne.

‘Where did this come from?’

‘I had a word with the estate agent, told her I was thinking of buying several so she agreed to rent it to me for a couple of days. We can stay the night if you like?’

‘Oh right,’ I said, ‘you really think we can afford this Connor?’

‘If we save,’ he said, ‘Put a little bit more into the savings account than normal, we could be moved in here in six months.’

‘Six months?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said, shrugging ‘A year at most.’

I could hardly believe it. It looked like my plan was back on track. Now all I had to do was get Doris’s job and start saving in earnest. Things were going to be better between me and Connor, I was sure of it. Despite my doubts that things were suddenly moving too fast. This is what I’d wanted for such a long time and now it was within my reach. Plus, I had my weekend off to look forward to. Everything was fitting together again perfectly and despite my doubts about the place Connor had chosen for us to live, I did feel that I was seizing my destiny – or perhaps it was more that I felt comfortable knowing what my destiny actually was.

When I considered it, I couldn’t see what could possibly go wrong. That was until the day after when all the things that could possibly go wrong, did so and did so massively.

Chapter Six

At exactly 9.02 a.m. the next day I sat down at my desk. I had sneaked in successfully without Juliet noticing. I was bursting to tell Ayesha about the Millennium Apartments, so I asked her to come to the ladies with me while I showed her the pictures of what would be our new place. ‘Oh my god. That’s beautiful.’ she said.

Ayesha turned to the mirror and preened her hair. ‘You have landed on your feet there.’

‘Come on,’ she said and put her arm round me and shoved me out the door of the ladies. ‘This calls for a celebratory cuppa.’

There was still no sign of Juliet, so I spent a good part of the morning when I wasn’t answering calls emailing Steph and Sinead and telling them about the new apartment and excitedly chatting about the weekend.

I had considered not going glamping, as I needed to save now more than ever after all, but this one last splurge wouldn’t hurt. I’d asked Ayesha if she wanted to come shopping with me and the girls at lunchtime, but she said she wasn’t going to go out today because she was going to add all the sales team to her public list of arch nemeses on twitter.

Shopping with Steph was almost a military operation. She spent the evening before picking out outfits for us online and then made a little map of Selfridges with different coloured stickers on for each of us. Sinead sometimes tried to resist some of the things Steph picked out for her, saying they were unethical or unsustainable, but everything that Steph picked usually did suit us. So Steph pulled us around, picked out the outfits, held them up against us and sent us to the changing rooms. They made ‘oooh’ noises and got excited with me when I told them about the apartments but then Sinead asked a question.

‘Are you sure you definitely want to do this, Fiona? Because you weren’t very happy with him last week. Don’t let him turn your head with an apartment that isn’t even yours.’

‘It will be fine,’ I said, although I was still having huge doubts about everything, including my relationship with Connor.

‘If you’re sure. He does seem to be making more of an effort’ said Steph. She and Sinead glanced at each other and I detected a hint of concern.

‘And…’ I paused and proudly announced as I shoved my hands in the pockets of the Stella McCartney shorts in front of the changing room mirror, ‘… he’s going to the festival!’

‘Seriously?’

‘That’s good,’ said Steph ‘You’ll be able to keep an eye on him.’

I winced a little that Steph thought I needed to keep an eye on him. The thought had crossed my mind too.

Steph led us round and round, pinning more clothes up against us. I made a little dent into my pay day money and it felt nice to have a little splurge. We even had time for a very quick glass of champagne and we chatted excitedly about our holidays. I hadn’t been on holiday for so long and could hardly believe we were going the next day.