Читать книгу What If? - Shari Low - Страница 10

I never did go to university. The thought of having to dress constantly in black, wear eyeliner out to my ears and spend my life in the Student Union discussing the scourge of capitalism was too awful to contemplate. Incidentally, I’ve no idea if that’s what University is really like, but I can see now that I painted that picture in my mind because four years at university meant four more years staying at home, and that was the part of the equation that really did fill me with horror. I loved Callum. I loved Michael. But a drunk dad and a highly strung mother who could barely stand the sight of each other didn’t make for a fairy tale existence for the rest of us.

More importantly, I was desperate for excitement, fun and adventure but didn’t have a clue where to start.

‘What should I do, Callum?’ I implored of my sixteen year old brother, as we sat huddled on my bed with four packets of Golden Wonder pickled onion crisps and two Yorkies to sustain us. My younger sibling, Michael, thirteen now and all gangly limbs and freckle-faced cuteness, was lying at the foot of the bed, his head on my shins, but he was wearing headphones, eyes closed as he listened to his favourite Guns and Roses tape on Callum’s old Walkman.

Callum’s reply came with an eye roll and a shoulder nudge. ‘Give it up, Carly. You’ve been asking me the same thing for weeks and I still don’t know. Just make a decision and go with it.’ Insightful, emotional chats weren’t his strong point. He made up for it with killer bone structure and brooding good looks.

His argument had merit though. I had been in the same room, having the same conversation, eating the same junk food ever since my mum had grounded me because I wouldn’t go to university. I didn’t even have pals on hand to break me out of domestic jail, because, as planned, Jess and Sarah had both left for their respective universities in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, Carol had gone to London to try to get some modelling work, and Kate was working fourteen hours a day as a junior hairdresser. Callum was the only one brave enough to risk my mother’s wrath, not to mention the barbed wire around my bedroom door and the threat of land mines in the hallway, to sneak in to talk to me.

All I had was a fourteen inch portable TV for company, the only channels were BBC1, BBC 2, ITV and, if the wind was blowing in the right direction, the stars were aligned and I managed to bend the aerial to some kind of angular perfection, I’d get Channel 4 for about ten minutes at a time, before the screen would go fuzzy again. There were only so many times I could listen to my limited album collection and I’d read every Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz, Shirley Conran and Jilly Cooper novel in the library. It was as close to house arrest as possible without turrets and an armed guard, and I was bored rigid.

‘Mum and Dad won’t let you stay here unless you go to uni, sis.’

‘You’re right, I need to move out, but where? I want to travel, to do something different.’

‘How much money do you have?’

‘About two hundred pounds.’

That was a fortune to me, the result of working overtime at the posh café and the fact that my family had all given me money for my birthday a couple of months ago. Well, there was no point buying me clothes, they’d be out of fashion by the time my parents released me from my bedroom. Besides, unless Miss Selfridge started doing a natty line of prison pyjamas, I didn’t have much call for new togs.

‘I want to be sensible about this though. I don’t want to blow it and have to come back begging to Maw and Paw Walton downstairs.’ The Waltons was one of my favourite TV shows. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia during the Great Depression, the Walton family consisted of a Maw, a Paw, grandparents, about sixteen kids, and every episode had some kind of tragedy that made my gran and me sob into our chocolate digestives.

‘Sensible? None of this is sensible, Carly. Sensible would be uni and a boyfriend called Jeremy who collects stamps. It’s just not you.’

Callum was right. It was time to be assertive.

Next morning, I dressed, waited for my parents to leave for work and then charged down to our local travel agent.

‘I want to go away,’ I blustered to the insipid looking woman behind the desk.

Her default customer service setting was clearly ‘patronising and wholeheartedly indifferent’. ‘Yes, dear,’ she said, with treacly condescension, ‘and where would you be wanting to go?’

‘I’m not really sure. I want to leave tonight, I want to go abroad, one way, and it’s got to cost less than sixty pounds.’ A travel agent’s nightmare. I could see her visibly inhale, straighten up and sneer all at the same time.

‘Well, dear, the only options I can suggest would be by coach and ferry, and there are two leaving from Glasgow today. One is to Paris and one to Amsterdam.’

I contemplated. Paris sounded great, but wouldn’t it be crowded with couples being nauseatingly romantic and tourists with huge video cameras that make you feel like you’re in the middle of a BBC outside broadcast?

‘I’ll have a one way ticket to Amsterdam, please.’ If all else failed, I could always buy a feather boa and get a job as a go-go dancer.

I’m ashamed to say, I took the coward’s way out. Maw and Paw Walton were informed of Mary Ellen’s defection by a shamefaced John Boy later that night, when I was safely mid-Channel. Callum was a star and persuaded them not to immediately round up a posse and track down their prodigal daughter. I’d left Michael my entire stash of Wham bars, so he was nonplussed by the whole situation.

I arrived in Amsterdam the following afternoon, exhausted, bedraggled and feeling like I hadn’t washed for a month. I made for the tourist information office and enquired after the cheapest hotel in the city. And cheap it was. Nestled behind the Grand Hotel Krasnapolski on the Damstraat, the gateway to the Red Light district, was the Dam Central Hotel. Or the ‘You’ve got to be damn well joking to call this a hotel’, as it’s better known.

I humped my bag up four flights of stairs, dodging the holes and empty beer bottles to a room that made the tatty apartment in Benidorm look like the Hilton.

After unpacking my clothes, I flopped on to the bed, ignoring the puff of dust that rose around me. I kept thinking I should be terrified, but I wasn’t. I was smiling like a Cheshire cat and feeling, well, exhilarated. I felt like the world was at my feet, alongside the ancient carpet that had more holes than a colander and some extremely questionable stains.

That afternoon, I trawled the streets of Amsterdam, stopping in every café and bar to enquire after work. By early evening, reality had begun to dawn as I absorbed a few unassailable truths. I knew no one in this city who could help me. I had no work permit, so I was officially unemployable. And I wasn’t desperate enough yet to get my kit off and sit in a window.

I was starting to feel despondent. What if this was a gargantuan mistake? What was I doing in Amsterdam with no job, no friends and only enough money to buy baked beans for a week? How insane was I? The only experiences I’d had of Holland, prior to giving up my whole life to come here, were clogs and bloody tulips. Not a firm foundation for a life altering decision.

I trudged back to the hotel and had just turned the corner in to the Damstraat when a large gold sign illuminated above an impressive carved door caught my eye. ‘The Premier Club’, it said. It must have been closed when I passed earlier because I hadn’t noticed it. I checked it out. No women in windows trying to tempt business inside. No tacky lights. Just an expensive looking black stone façade and white spotlights that gave it an edge of glamour.

I was about to walk on by when I summoned one last burst of energy. I marched up to the door, only to be stopped by a bouncer who made Lennox Lewis look undernourished.

‘Can I help you, mam?’ he enquired in an American drawl.

‘I’m here to see the owner of the club,’ I replied boldly.

‘Is he expecting you?’

‘Yes, he told me to come here tonight,’ I retorted indignantly.

‘Just one second, mam.’ He disappeared inside to return five minutes later. ‘Go right ahead, he’s in the office upstairs.’

I couldn’t believe the bluff had worked, and I was suddenly wary. That was too easy. What was I doing? I was in the middle of a strange city, no one knew where I was, and I was about to go into the depths of some club that may or may not be entirely shady. If I had any sense, I would run. Flee the scene. Bolt to safety. But, of course, I had none, so I made my way upstairs and knocked tentatively on the first door I saw.

‘Come in,’ answered another American voice.

I entered, trepidation echoing in every step. This guy could be a mass murderer for all I knew. He could be a pimp, a drug dealer or Holland’s biggest trader in white slavery.

Sitting behind a large black glass desk, the man looked up and I could see the hint of a smile in his expression. He was about thirty-fiveish, broad chested, with hair that was thinning on top, wearing what could only be a designer suit. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way and I instinctively trusted him. Hopelessly naive, eternally optimistic. There was a pattern forming there already.

‘I’m Joe Cain.’ His eyes crinkled up at the sides as his smile widened a little. ‘And I may be losing my memory, but I don’t remember asking you to come here.’

‘I’m sorry I lied, but I just wanted to talk to you. I need a job.’

And then, to my eternal embarrassment, I burst into tears. The full waterworks. There were fluids flowing from every facial orifice.

‘I’m sorry,’ I gurgled, ‘I’m not normally like this, but I’ve had a really bad day.’

He jumped up, obviously terrified of this apparition in front of him, a cross between a burst pipe and a Cabbage Patch doll. I’m so not attractive when I cry.

He came round to my side of the desk and handed me a tissue. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you’re here. What did you run away from? Are you in trouble?’

‘I didn’t run away,’ I snottered.

I told him the whole story. It sounded so trite, so pathetic. The gist of it was that my parents are a nightmare, I didn’t want to stay at home, I was stupid enough to think I could come here and have an epic adventure and I was a complete tit for doing it with no money and no back up plan.

‘So I came here and now I really, really need a job. I worked in a restaurant for years and I’m a really good waitress. I just need a chance.’ Ok, so calling the bistro full of snotty snobs a ‘restaurant’ was a stretch, but he had no way of knowing that.

When I’d finished, he looked at me earnestly. ‘What age are you?’

‘Eighteen,’ I replied.

‘Do you have permits to work here?’

‘No.’

‘Do you do drugs?’

‘God, no. The strongest drug I use is paracetamol.’

He laughed. ‘This is a very upmarket club. No drugs, no sex, no gambling. There’s live entertainment and dancing every night and it’s strictly respectable. It’s one of the few places in Amsterdam where professionals can relax and entertain clients or bring their wives without masses of tourists or all the sleazy stuff. Do you think you could handle that kind of clientele?’

It was a valid question – I was sitting there looking like a groupie for the Grateful Dead. I thought back to the unbearably arrogant women from the café. I hadn’t murdered any of them, so clearly I was cut out for this environment. And as an extra bonus, this was a classy venue so my previous fears of resorting to go-go dancing were fading fast.

‘Of course I can.’

‘Well, I tell you what. Something says to me that you’re not trouble. Three of our waitresses haven’t shown up tonight. If you can start right now, I’ll give you a trial. I’ll pay you cash, that way the permits won’t be a problem.’

I wanted to hug him, but I tried to show a modicum of restraint. I’d already had one emotional breakdown in front of the poor guy, so I didn’t want to completely terrify him by invading his personal space and going for a full blown cuddle.

‘Go downstairs and ask for Jackie – she’ll find you a uniform.’

Please God, don’t let the uniform be a rabbit’s tail and a pair of ears.

‘Thank you,’ I stammered. ‘I’ll work really hard.’

And I did. For six months, I worked six nights a week in the club – no rabbit’s tail, no ears, and the place was as classy as Joe had promised. I made friends easily with the other girls and would often arrange to meet them before work for coffee. We’d sit in a little café on the edge of a canal and drink coffee and people watch all afternoon. Transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, drag kings, dominatrix, gay couples, straight couples – it seemed like every section of society was represented on the streets of Amsterdam, without judgement or prejudice. It was a world away from my working class, close knit upbringing and I adored it. The only downside was that I missed Kate, Sarah, Jess and Carol desperately and wished I could share this with them, but as a first year apprentice in a hair salon, struggling students, and a fledgling model, none of them had the money to come over, even for a weekend. I had to settle for quick notes dashed off on postcards, letting them know I was still alive.

In some ways, I’d transitioned to a new life, a new world, and most of the time it felt like my previous life didn’t exist. There was a lot of that in this city. Maybe that’s why I continued to live in the Dam Central Hotel, even though the girls from the club thought I was insane, because in a funny way I’d grown to love it. The owner was an eccentric Frenchman called René, who, after he had established that I wasn’t a drug dealing hooker, became almost fatherly in his affection for me. Or at least, what I thought fatherly affection would be like if it wasn’t drowning in bourbon. He would wait up for me in the evenings and bring me coffee each morning whilst I regaled him with stories about the previous night’s customers. The businessmen who dropped more money than I earned in a month on their bar bills. The models who looked like they could do with a pie. The fashionistas, the glitterati, the celebrities, the bizarre characters in their outlandish costumes. The pimps and dealers that made the mistake of trying to do business and were rapidly ejected by the security guys.

As for Joe, he always made time to have a quick chat in the evenings and he’d often join us for a dawn breakfast at the end of a shift, or for coffee in the afternoons. Watching him work had been an education. He ran the club like clockwork, with a fine balance of toughness and decency, and despite our age difference, we always seemed to have loads to talk about. He made me feel safe, protected, but it was more than that. We were friends. Not close enough that I could give him my opinion of the stunning women he occasionally dated – all gorgeous, glamorous socialites on the Amsterdam scene, and all of them brief flings that he never seemed to take too seriously – but close enough that we would watch an afternoon movie at the cinema and spend hours debating the merits of Miami Vice versus Hill Street Blues.

I was settled. I was happy. Until the universe decided to toss a grenade in my direction.

On a chilly afternoon in March, I was sitting in the coffee bar on the ground floor of the hotel, watching the world go by through the large window that faced on to the street, when suddenly my mother passed before my eyes. I closed them quickly, thinking that someone must have slipped a hallucinogen into my croissant, but when I reopened them, she was still there. And so was my dad. And my gran. My GRAN, for God’s sake! She’d never been further than Skegness in her life. This might only be a sea away from Scotland but I lived on the cusp of a different world and not one that my granny should ever have to see.

My heart started racing and I didn’t know whether to make a dash for the back door or hide under a table. I opted for the nearest table. Shit, shit, shit. Maybe they would pass by. Maybe they were just on a weekend break and it was just coincidence that they were here. Or maybe Callum had told them where I was and they’d come to drag me back, kicking and screaming. I’d written to them when I got a job and told them I was living in Amsterdam, but I hadn’t said where exactly, just that I was safe and well, and having an adventure. I’m fairly sure my mother’s head would have exploded on reading it. Only Callum knew my actual address, courtesy of weekly letters I sent to his best friend’s house, and I’d sworn him to secrecy.

Shit, shit, shit. I felt a draught as the door opened and then the footsteps of people entering. Don’t let it be them. Don’t let it be them. Don’t let it be them.

‘Excuse me,’ said the unmistakable voice of my mother to a stunned René, who was still reeling from the fact that one minute I’d been chatting to him and the next I was camouflaged as a table leg. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Carly Cooper.’

Silence.

‘Does she live here?’ my mother persisted in her posh ‘telephone or talking to the priest’ voice. I knew what she was doing. She was looking around thinking that the hotel was a dosshouse and all the people in it were obviously fugitives who’d broken their bail conditions.

More silence. Now I knew how criminals feel when they’re cornered by the police. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do except surrender with my hands in the air.

I slowly rose from under the table, banging my head on the way up. I smiled ruefully.

‘Hi, Mum,’ I stammered. ‘What brings you here?’

As reunions go, it wasn’t the warmest. My mum had come on a mission to take me home and had brought my dad and gran in the hope that they’d back her up. That was the first flaw in the plan. My dad was already eyeing the bar and my granny had plonked herself down at a table with two punks sporting blue Mohicans and was telling them about the terrible time she’d had last time she went to the hairdressers for a perm and a silver rinse. Her curls were still a shade of pale purple. She was a giggle, my gran, and I adored her, but that wasn’t enough to get me on a plane home.

I was outnumbered but defiant. I had no intention of leaving. After all, couldn’t they see that I was still in one piece after six months? When I put this point to a foaming-at-the-mouth mother, it was swiftly rebuffed.

‘Look, madam…’ She always called me ‘madam’ when she was severely pissed off. ‘We left you here for six months, thinking that the novelty would wear off and you’d eventually come home, but you obviously prefer living in squalor!’

René looked mortally offended.

‘But this has gone on long enough, so you’re coming with us, young lady, this minute!’

Eventually, after much shouting and arguing, I brokered a deal using powers of political diplomacy that would have made Jess proud.

‘Tell you what, Mum,’ I conceded. ‘Stay for two days and you can meet my friends and see where I work and if you still disapprove, then I’ll come back.’ I wasn’t sure what that would accomplish, but I was desperately trying to buy time.

She hummed, hawed, pursed and unpursed her lips, before realising that, short of dragging me out by the hair, it was as close as she was going to get to victory in round one. She reluctantly agreed.

My dad finally found his voice. ‘Do you have to work today?’

‘No, Dad. It’s my night off tonight.’

‘Well then, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we go back to our hotel and change, then we’ll meet you back here at eight and you can show us the Amsterdam night life.’

I knew what he was doing. He wanted to go out on the town to see if his closest friend also vacationed in Amsterdam, but I didn’t care. He was offering me a reprieve from my mum’s disapproval. God bless Jack Daniel’s.

They arrived back at eight o’clock on the dot. My mum always was a stickler for punctuality. It was a warm spring evening and in a world of tourists and jaw dropping characters, she stuck out like a sore thumb in her flowery dress and sensible pumps. My granny was wearing her trusty faves – crimplene slacks and her best bingo cardigan – and my dad, in his seamed chinos and polo shirt, looked like he was en route to the nineteenth hole.

‘What do you want to see, Dad?’

‘Why don’t we just have a wander around this area and we’ll see where it takes us?’ He was already slurring slightly.

‘But, Dad, this is the Red Light district.’

‘We’ll see something new then, won’t we?’ he replied with a wink.

My mother snorted her disapproval and I grinned. My dad really was the oldest swinger in town.

We set off down the adjacent streets. It was fairly quiet, the crowds not usually building up until after nine, but already there were some girls sitting in their windows, hoping for early trade. This wasn’t helping my case to stay here at all. My mother wouldn’t last two hours here, never mind two days.

I was on the lookout for a sling to keep her chin off the ground when we suddenly realised that my gran was no longer with us. We searched around frantically and finally saw her about a hundred yards back, staring in a window with a red light above it and a buxom brunette, wearing a leopard-skin bra and G-string, sitting in it. My gran looked like a senior citizen lesbian voyeur.

‘Gran,’ I shouted. ‘Come on. What are you doing?’

She bustled up to us. ‘I was just looking in the window of that lingerie shop, dear. I may be too old to wear it, but I can still admire it,’ she added with a twinkle in her eye.

The rest of us collapsed in hysterics. Even my mum managed a giggle. Thank God Gran hadn’t had her specs checked in ten years. She honestly thought she was looking at a mannequin modelling the latest line in undies.

We wandered on until Gran demanded we stop for liquid refreshment. Needless to say, Dad wasn’t arguing. In the first pub we came to, there was an eclectic mixture of pimps, pushers and tourists sampling the seedier side of the city.

We got drinks at the bar and found a free table. After a few moments of my mother’s silent disapproval, I was relieved when my gran broke the tension by announcing she was going to the loo. Standing up, she was scanning the place for a LADIES sign when a giant of a man wearing a gold rope the size of a tow chain passed her.

‘My, that must have cost a fortune, son,’ she remarked, invoking that Glaswegian theory of life that says it’s perfectly acceptable to speak to everyone you meet and verbalise every thought with no offence intended.

He looked at her like she was insane and thankfully kept walking.

‘He must have some job to be able to afford jewellery like that,’ she whistled.

‘I, erm, think he’s in sales, Gran.’

A frown of puzzlement creased her pan stick foundation. ‘What kind of sales?’

‘I really don’t know. Maybe coke?’ It was one of the most popular drugs of choice among the clubbers around here.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be having any of that,’ she wittered. ‘Those fizzy drinks give me terrible indigestion.’

I put my head in my hands as she spotted the toilets and beetled off. Tears of laughter coursed down my face. She really was priceless. She was also going to land us in serious trouble unless I got her away from this madness. I decided to take them to the Premier Club. At least there we would be safe from my gran’s naive utterings and there would be a better class of reveller for my mother to disapprove of.

As we approached, Chad, the doorman, grinned widely.

‘Hey, Cooper, what you doin’ here, babe? I thought this was your night off.’

‘It is, Chad, but my family have arrived from Scotland and I just wanted to let them see where I work. Can you let Joe know we’re here?’

We went inside and found a table. The act tonight was a Harry Connick Jnr lookalike, who was belting out ‘I’ve got you under my skin’.

‘Oh, I love this song,’ exclaimed Gran as she dragged my dad on to the dance floor, an easy task now that his limbs were lubricated to the consistency of rubber. She was soon quickstepping her heart away, looking like a star performer from Footloose – the Senior Years.

Joe joined my mum and I at the table. He immediately registered the general displeasure radiating from my mum and had the whole situation sussed in ten seconds.

‘Mrs Cooper, I’m Joe Cain. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

Mum gave him a look that would freeze hell, but Joe just kept on going, at his charming best.

‘You must be really proud of your daughter.’

Proud? What was he up to? My mum looked like she was about to develop an ulcer the size of Orkney and he was saying she should be proud.

‘And what exactly should I be proud of, Mr Cain?’

‘Of Carly. She’s done great since she got here. I think it’s so commendable that she’s over here, working hard whilst developing her language skills and cultural education.’

‘Really?’ I couldn’t tell if her tone was sarcastic, disbelieving or mellowing.

‘Why yes, Mrs Cooper. Her Dutch and French are coming along great and she spends her whole life in the museums and galleries here. It’s invaluable experience for a girl of her age.’ He grinned at me.

What in God’s name was he on about? The only French and Dutch I spoke was ‘good evening’ and ‘goodbye’. And the only time I went near a museum was to sit on the steps outside on a sunny day to top up my tan.

Stop, Joe, stop, I silently willed him.

But my mum was definitely softening. She had relaxed her shoulders and was almost smiling.

He continued. ‘And as for her work here, well, you can see that this is a very respectable club and Carly has worked so hard that we’ve decided to promote her to assistant manager.’

WHAT? Had he been taking the kind of drugs that were strictly banned from the premises? This was all news to me. I mean, sure, I loved my job and was always ready to work extra hours and stay late. And yes, I’d taken to organising the staff and doing the weekly orders. But promotion? I wanted to kiss him.

When Fred and Ginger returned from the dance floor, Mum introduced them to Joe. Within ten minutes, he’d won them over, using charm on my gran and a free bar tab on my dad.

He sat with us for the rest of the evening, even persuading my mum to dance a couple of times. He was outstanding and at some point my heart did a somersault and I started to see him in a whole new light.

We finally left at 3 a.m., everyone a little drunk (or a lot, in my dad’s case) and very happy. Joe walked us to the door and insisted that we let him take us to lunch the following day.

‘That would be just lovely, Joe,’ my mum agreed amiably. ‘I’m looking forward to it already.’ It was my turn now to scrape my jaw off the floor. I’d never seen her look so… I struggled to pinpoint it, before realising with shock that she was relaxed.

Joe winked at me and I blew him a kiss. He was spectacular.

The next day, lunch in the conservatory of the American Hotel was followed by a tour of the Van Gogh Gallery, where I pretended I’d been there many times before, and then dinner in the Krasnapolski. Joe gave me another night off and for once he didn’t go to work either. He couldn’t have been more attentive to my family or to me for that matter. What was going on? And why had my heart started thundering the minute he walked into a room?

My mum and gran sat down to breakfast with me on their final day. Dad was upstairs nursing his daily hangover.

‘Carly, your dad and I have been talking and it seems that you’ve done well for yourself here. We would have no right to force you to come home and I’m sorry I underestimated you. I was only concerned because we want you to be safe. I hope you know that.’

‘I do, Mum,’ I said, not sure I could believe what I was hearing. Sweet Jesus, it was a miracle. ‘But I’m happy here and I don’t want to leave.’

Gran spoke up. ‘That’s okay, Carly, ma darling. We understand. If I had a friend like your Mr Cain, I wouldn’t want to leave either, pet. He certainly loves you.’

He does? Whoa. Since when? How come I didn’t know this? Surely it was all a big act to save me from the wrath of the mighty Cooper clan?

I was still dazed as I saw them off in a cab to the airport. My parents weren’t big on displays of affection, but my granny wrapped me in a bear hug. ‘Have a ball, pet,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Right enough, that doesn’t leave much.’ With a cheeky cackle, and pursed lips from my mother, they were off and strangely, I was sad to see them go.

‘Get yourself together, Cooper,’ I told myself as I got ready for work that evening. I couldn’t believe it, I was nervous. Or excited. Or something that was definitely making me shake as I applied my mascara.

I went to the club early, hoping Joe would be there. He was. I tentatively knocked on his office door.

‘Come in,’ he shouted.

I entered slowly, trying my best to smile but only managing a demented grimace.

‘Hi. I just wanted to thank you for being so great with my parents. You didn’t have to do that and it was really nice of you. Don’t worry, I know you just said all that stuff about a promotion to get my mum off my case, so I’m not expecting anything. I want to pay you back for all the money you spent on us and I’ll make up the extra night off this week.’ My brain was screaming at me to stop talking, but my mouth was on Mission Babble.

He sat back in his big leather chair, a languid grin on his face.

‘Number one, it was no problem – your folks are nice people. Number two, the promotion is genuine – I was going to tell you later in the week. Number three, I don’t want you to pay me back – I enjoyed myself. Number four, you don’t have to make up any time – you do so many extra hours that you’re owed a few days off.’

I was stunned. Even more surprising, I was experiencing something other than just a thudding heart now.

‘Joe, can I ask you something?’ Oh no. My gob was running away with itself and my brain was desperately trying to apply the brakes.

‘Sure.’

‘Can I kiss you?’ Brake fail. Screech. Crash.

‘Sure.’ He laughed as he stood up and leaned over the desk, turning his head to one side and proffering his cheek.

I reached up slowly and touched his chin, turning his face as I did, so that his eyes met mine. I brushed my lips against his once, then again, then I launched an all-out assault, stopping only for breath when I began to turn a mild shade of pink. This was shocking. Crazy. And absolutely bloody wonderful. But what was wrong with me that my attraction to men seemed to come out of nowhere and ambush me? It had been the same with Nick Russo in that Benidorm bar, and now Joe had gone from my lovely boss to intoxicatingly attractive in the space of a couple of days.

‘I think we need to talk,’ he whispered, panic in his voice. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘But what about the club?’

‘It’s quiet out there. Chad can look after it tonight,’ he insisted.

He grabbed his jacket and my hand and pulled me outside. We walked silently for what seemed like miles, before stopping at an ancient wooden bench on the edge of one of the canals. I waited for him to say something, too terrified to speak in case I had this all wrong. Was he going to give me a lecture about how he was the boss and couldn’t fraternise with the staff? Was he going to fire me? Did snogging the boss constitute gross misconduct? Or was he just going to say that I was incredibly stupid, pat me on the head and tell me to keep my tongue well away from his tonsils in future?

Eventually he spoke. ‘I’ve wanted to kiss you for such a long time.’

Phew!

He continued, ‘You see, I’m in love with you.’

‘I know.’ It came out with a matter of fact nod and shrug.

‘You do? How?’

I giggled. ‘My gran told me.’

His eyes crinkled up in that gorgeous way as he laughed too, then leaned over and did that kissing thing again for a long, long time.

We were still smiling when the sun came up the following morning and we were still sitting on the same bench planning our future. I’d gone from zero to love in two point five seconds and it felt oh so right.

We’d decided that I would leave the hotel and move into his flat. He told me that he was going to open a new restaurant across town and he would split his time between both outlets, leaving the day-to-day running of the Premier Club to me. I argued that I was too young, and an illegal alien to boot, but he disagreed and said that I was more than capable and that my permits would be through any day now. It was the most warm and bubbly feeling. This amazing guy believed in me. And he loved me!

He took me back to his flat that morning and slowly undressed me, his hands tenderly drifting over my body, touching and probing everywhere. Thank God I’d worn my best underwear.

We stayed in bed all day – making love, talking. At one point we were discussing music and I confessed my hidden love of Elvis. Joe broke into an impromptu and really terrible rendition of ‘Burning Love’. I hoped he would never suggest the rhythm method of contraception because he obviously had none. But I didn’t care. Every fibre of my being told me I was on to something special with Joe Cain, and the next six months proved me right.

We worked in the evenings and slept late in the mornings, waking to make love before having a long lunch. The afternoons were filled with long walks and I finally did venture inside Amsterdam’s many museums and galleries. We would lie in the park, my head on his chest as he read to me or simply stroked my hair while I snoozed. Every day I fell more in love with him and I just knew, without a doubt, that we were meant to be together.

On the anniversary of my arrival in Holland, we went to our favourite Italian restaurant. Joe had been edgy all week and I was beginning to panic. What was wrong with him? Was he bored with us? I thought we’d been so happy, but maybe I’d missed something? He hardly spoke throughout the meal. I tried to be windswept and interesting, tried to draw him into conversation, but he wouldn’t have it. He was completely distracted.

Panic turned to sheer terror as he jumped up and asked for the bill the minute we’d finished our coffee.

We made our way outside and instead of looking for a taxi, Joe turned right and started walking, dragging me behind him. Bugger, I was going to break my neck – my shoes were definitely not made for walking. I could feel the blisters rising when he finally came to a stop at the bench where we’d spent our first night together.

‘What are we doing here, Joe? Tell me what’s wrong,’ I begged.

He sat me down and looked at his watch. What the hell was going on? What was he waiting for?

He said nothing.

I turned to face the canal, contemplating jumping in if the night got any worse, when suddenly I saw it. Approaching slowly from the west was a canal boat, lit up like a Christmas tree. As it neared us, I could see that it had a massive banner on the side, words emblazoned on it. I squinted to read it, only managing when it was directly in front of us.

COOPER, I LOVE YOU. MARRY ME.

I squealed, my hand flying to my mouth. It was only when I caught the questioning glint in his eyes that I realised he was waiting for an answer.

I threw my arms around him. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I screamed between kisses, until he disentangled himself and pulled a box from his pocket. When he opened it, there was the most beautiful diamond solitaire I had ever seen.

‘I thought I’d better wait until you said yes before showing you this,’ he laughed. ‘I know how shallow you are and I didn’t want you saying yes just so you could get the diamond.’

‘You know me far too well, Mr Cain,’ I answered, heart swollen to bursting point. ‘Do I get matching earrings if we last a year?’

As always, his eyes crinkled as he laughed, and if it was possible, I loved him even more. In fact, I was so besotted that I managed to get over the twinge of sadness that I wasn’t sharing tonight with anyone from home. Callum would interrogate Joe to make sure he was good enough. Michael would love the thought of having another brother. Kate would hug me, Sarah would shriek with happiness, Carol would try to work out the value of the ring and Jess would give me a full run down on the legal implications of marriage and divorce. I pushed the longing away. I missed my girls and my brothers madly, but the excitement of working in the club and living with Joe seemed a million miles from my old life.

My pals would love him, though. I was sure of it.

Joe. My fiancé. The girl who had spent years watching her parents’ marriage and vowing she’d never walk into that trap, was engaged. And crazy as it was, it felt great to have someone who loved me so much he wanted to spend a lifetime with me.

That night, we went home and had the most passionate sex I’d ever known. It was ferocious: licking, biting, swinging from the lights… I’m sure most of it would have been illegal in several countries. But thankfully, not Holland. When we were finally satisfied, I felt like I required oxygen and a pacemaker.

Joe rolled over. ‘Cooper, tell me your ultimate sexual fantasy.’ This was a game we often played before, during or after sex – there was a prize for the most original composition. Our fantasies were like cocktails. We had a fantasy of the week, a daily special fantasy and a monthly themed fantasy. It was all harmless humour and most of them were so ridiculous that we usually ended up in fits of giggles.

‘The ultimate one?’ I enquired.

‘The ultimate one,’ he responded. ‘The one that you definitely want to do in this lifetime.’

I racked my brains, trying to think of the most interesting one. There were loads to choose from, but, to tell you the truth, although I had fun thinking about them, I wasn’t sure that I actually wanted to physically act on them.

Come on, Cooper, play the game.

‘I guess it would be the one where we have sex in a room full of strangers – that would be a turn on.’

Mistake. Big mistake.

A week later it was our night off and Joe and I went to our usual bar on the edge of the Red Light area. After six-too-many cocktails we left and Joe steered me to a concealed doorway in an alley off the Leidseplein. I didn’t give it a second thought. Joe knew the city’s nightlife inside out and had taken me to loads of gems that were off the beaten track.

He rapped on the door. After a few minutes, it was answered by a burly chap with an English accent and a bad wig.

He beckoned us inside. I was ten feet inside the door when I froze to the spot. Everyone was naked. The bar was full of people sipping cocktails and chatting like it was the most natural thing in the world (which, I suppose, it was, really). Mother of God, you didn’t find bars like this in Glasgow. It was too bloody cold there, for a start.

The shock sobered me immediately. I scanned the room. Good grief, there was a couple having sex in the corner and nobody was batting an eyelid.

Joe put his arm around me. ‘It’s your fantasy, Carly. We can do whatever you want.’

How about a dash to the door?

I took a deep breath. I could handle this, I thought. I was a cosmopolitan woman of the world. Anyway, hadn’t I come to Amsterdam looking for adventure and new experiences?

As usual in times of crisis, I got a mental image of my mum. She didn’t have to say a word – she just pursed her lips and frowned, shaking her head.

I forced the image from my mind. Come on, Cooper, get a grip. No-one else here was in the least bit flustered, so why was I the same colour as the red lights spinning on the ceiling? I could do this. I could.

Time to put on my party pants. Or rather, to take them off.

We checked in our clothes at the cloakroom and made our way to the bar. It was bizarre. From the necks up, it looked like a room of lawyers, teachers and doctors, but from the necks down, it was a party in a nudist colony. And there was I, in the middle of it all, wearing high heels and a smile. Why hadn’t I stuck to that last diet? My wobbly bits were trembling. More deep breaths. I sucked in my stomach until my abdominal muscles threatened to snap. Then I realised something. Nobody was looking at me. Nobody was inspecting my thighs for cellulite or pointing in horror at the size of my bum. I started to giggle.

‘What?’ Joe asked. ‘What are you laughing at?’

By this time, I was splitting my naked sides. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. If the girls at home could see me now, they’d think I’d lost it and ambush me with a packet of pants!’

I tried to see the whole thing as a turn-on, but it was too ridiculous, so we settled for a game of pornographic ‘I Spy’ and a quick grope behind a pillar when I was positive that nobody could see us.

Eventually, we went home and slumped into bed, still giggling like kids during their first sex education lesson.

Joe pulled me on top of him. ‘Tell me another fantasy, Cooper.’

I’d learned my lesson. ‘No way, Mr Cain. You take things entirely too literally.’

Over the following months, our roller-coaster fired along without any major derailments. Thankfully, our sojourn to the ‘bare bum bar’ was never repeated and we continued to have long nights and mornings of love with lots of fantasies thrown in to keep things interesting.

In fact, that had started to niggle somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain. It seemed like our sex life revolved more and more around talking dirty than it did around love. I chided myself that I was just moaning about too much of a good thing. After all, I enjoyed the fantasies. But every night…?

It was a small price to pay. During the days, Joe was his usual funny, kind, caring, protective, interesting, gorgeous self. We spent endless hours talking about our wedding, a knees-up back in Scotland with my girl gang as bridesmaids. One Christmas Eve, I’d called everyone with the news. My granny had whooped with glee, my mother had said she hoped I knew what I was doing and my brothers demanded to meet him and asked if he was any good at football. My dad asked if he got a discount at the club now. I told him he was barred.

Next I called Kate’s house, hoping all my pals would be there, and they were. They’d all huddled around the phone, and when I’d told them I was engaged they’d shrieked with excitement for me. I promised I’d bring Joe back to meet them soon, but it hadn’t happened. The problem with owning and running clubs pretty much single-handedly is that there’s no one to take over when the boss wants a break. Chad could cover for a few hours, but he had his hands full on the door. All our staff were part-time, so – other than me – Joe didn’t have anyone he could trust with managing things in his absence. Add to that his workaholic nature, and I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get a break. Every time I mentioned it, Joe would promise me we’d get a holiday soon and my hopes would rise, then fall again as more time passed and it still didn’t happen.

On a freezing cold night in January, as I made my way to work, I knew it was going to be a quiet night. I was on my own, because Joe was out scouting other clubs, searching for his next investment. There were few tourists at this time of year and the six inches of snow on the ground would stop most of the locals coming out. By midnight, only a few tables were busy as I worked the room, chatting to all the regulars. At a corner table was a couple I’d never seen before, so I introduced myself as I passed them.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ the guy replied. ‘It’s a great club you’ve got here.’

I stopped in my tracks. It was the broadest Glasgow accent. I turned and smiled.

‘You’re from Glasgow!’ Why did my stomach just do a somersault in glee? And why did I want to hug them? ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ I offered, suddenly excited. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a dull night after all.

When I took over their drinks and joined them, they introduced themselves as Fraser and Wendy. They were over on a weekend break and as we chatted, it transpired that not only were they from Glasgow, but they were from the same area as me. In fact, Fraser played in the same football team as my brother, Callum.

I interrogated them for stories of home. How was Callum? Did they know Michael? What about Kate, Carol, Sarah and Jess? Fraser told me that my brother had broken his leg the week before. I was stunned. Callum had broken his leg and I didn’t know about it. What kind of a sister was I? I felt like I’d been overtaken by a variety pack of emotions. On the one hand, it was great to talk to people from home. But on the other… well, it was strange – I had never been homesick before and now waves of it were sweeping over me.

At closing time, they staggered out, drunk on the drinks that I had been plying them with as thanks for answering my relentless questions all night. I let all the staff go and as I waited for Joe to collect me, gloom descended. I tried to pinpoint what was wrong, but I couldn’t understand it. Suddenly, I just wanted to get on the first plane available and go home.

I sat silently in the car all the way back to our apartment, then listlessly undressed and climbed into bed. Joe put his arms around me.

‘Make love to me, Joe,’ I asked.

‘Sure, babe. Why don’t you tell me a story first?’

He didn’t get it. I didn’t want acrobatic sex and horny fantasies. I wanted him to make slow tender love to me. To make me feel better. To make me feel like I belonged here.

I rolled over and stared at the photo on my bedside table. It was of all the girls on our last day in Benidorm. We were literally falling over each other as we made daft gestures into the camera, faces the colour of tomatoes from too much sun. We looked like we didn’t have a care in the world. What were they doing right now? Our friendships were still there, but we’d all gone our separate ways and our contact was limited to the occasional letter or infrequent phone call, always instigated by me because Sarah and Jess were skint students, Carol was working in a bar between modelling gigs to make ends meet and Kate was living on just over thirty quid a week as a junior in a salon.

I reached for the phone to call Kate, but stopped myself; it would only make me feel worse.

Instead, I turned to look at Joe, who unfortunately was in an extremely unattractive, open mouthed mid-snore. Did he ever feel like this? Did he ever want to be somewhere else (I mean, other than a nudist bar in Barbados – fantasy number forty-six)?

Maybe it was an age thing, I mused. Joe was thirty-seven, I was nearly twenty years younger. He was only the second man I’d ever slept with, for God’s sake. And if I married him, then he’d be the last. Panic began to rise. Did I really want to look at the same penis for the rest of my life? What if this was a huge mistake? What would life be like in ten years’ time – would I be married with six kids by then, covered in food, tears and snot, trapped in domesticated hell? I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready to promise the rest of my life to this man, no matter how bloody spectacular he was.

And spectacular, he definitely was. I touched his cheek. He was everything I’d ever wanted. He was funny, sexy, smart…

I was so confused. I mean, this wasn’t a mild dilemma, like would I take the holiday or the car if I won on Family Fortunes. This was a full-blown life-changing crossroads and I had no idea which way to turn.

When I got out of bed at 5 a.m., the world seemed different. Joe still lay sleeping beside me, the snoring now ceased, the mouth closed and looking unbearably gorgeous and touchable. But it didn’t matter. I knew what I was going to do and I hated myself for it.

I leaned over and kissed him, feeling traitorous but unable to stop myself from betraying him.

You see, I knew I wasn’t staying. I knew I had to go home for a while. Back to Callum and Michael and my gran and the girls. Back to Maw and Paw Walton. Just home. But I knew that if I told Joe, he would insist on coming with me and that wasn’t the answer. I wanted to go alone, to see my mates and my family. To think about us and what we were doing. He would never understand. After all, hadn’t we vowed never to spend a night apart?

I took the coward’s way out. I took off my engagement ring and placed it on top of my signature.

Dear Joe,

the note read,

I’m so sorry. I need to go home for a while to do some thinking. I’ll be in touch soon. Love you – always,

Cooper x.

PS I’m leaving the ring, so you know I’ll be back.

I rushed to Schiphol Airport and caught the 7 a.m. flight to Glasgow.

I never saw Joe Cain again.