What If?. Shari Low
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what to be when I grew up, so I’d applied for university just because it seemed like the right thing to do. I didn’t have the financial support to study in a different city, so I opted for Glasgow University and was accepted to study English literature. Did I really want to spend four years immersed in Keats, D.H. Lawrence and Shakespeare? I’d rather have my teeth pulled. No, I wanted to travel the world, meet interesting people and rich men who would buy me diamonds while encouraging my career as a kickass boss with a big heart and a philanthropic sideline. Years of reading Jackie Collins novels had clearly had an effect on my life aspirations. In reality, however, I was lacking the finances for an epic, global life adventure, so I applied for Uni and settled for a fortnight with my chums in the centre of the Costa Del Juvenile Delinquent, Benidorm. It was hardly St Lucia, but we were living off our parents. Or at least the other girls were. I’d saved every bloody penny for this holiday. For eighteen months, I’d spent every Saturday clearing tables and serving coffees to loud women in fur coats with diamonds the size of Gibraltar dripping from their fingers, in one of Glasgow’s more ‘upmarket’ department stores. I hated that job. It was bad enough that I had to work on Saturdays when everyone else was hanging out and shopping at Miss Selfridge, but to make matters worse I had to wear a brown A-line overall that made me look an overcooked sausage. Not that it mattered, as I was apparently invisible as I trundled round the tables clearing away the used crockery. That was the thing with the kind of unbearably obnoxious, aloof women who frequented the store, they didn’t acknowledge the presence of anyone who earned less than £100k per year. They would just carry on their conversations whilst I cleaned their tables, oblivious to the fact that I could hear every word they uttered.
‘Have you seen her breasts lately? I didn’t realise the porn star look was in this season.’
‘So I said to Jeremy, Monte Carlo is so passé, it’s St Barts this year and don’t even think about flying commercial.’
‘Of course I fake it, darling, otherwise we’d be at it all night and I do need my beauty sleep.’
They didn’t even stop for breath, never mind to say a courteous ‘Thank you’ for clearing away their debris. Yet perversely, although I detested them, I vowed that one day I’d be able to drape myself in jewels and pay five pounds for a sticky bun. I would watch the way they held their cigarettes, flicked their hair and talked in exaggerated whispers, always with the self-assurance that they were above reproach. Only one thing, I decided, gives that air of confidence – money. I was determined that one day I’d be sitting there in my Janet Regers, underneath my Dior, talking about my rich husband’s failure to achieve an erection. But until then, me and my sausage-shade uniform were working all the hours I could get to save up for a bit of fun in the Spanish sun.
We left for Benidorm at 10.15 p.m.. In order to thoroughly embarrass us, all our parents insisted on accompanying us to the airport. In my case it was just my mum, as my dad was in the middle of another deep debate with Jack Daniel’s. I’d heard them arguing while I was packing and was relieved when it finally went quiet because that meant he’d slumped into a bourbon induced coma. I learnt when I was young not to get in the middle of them. Instead, I found a way to lock their issues in a box in my mind and escape into books, boys and pals, all the while having the same thought: I. Will. Never. Be. Like. Them.
All that fighting and staying together even though they brought no joy to each other whatsoever? No thanks. How could two people who must have loved each other enough to take their vows end up like this? If that’s how marriage turned out, I’d pass, thanks. Yes, in hindsight, several engagements later, I can see the irony of that train of thought.
Anyway, back to my seventeen year old self.
By the time we got to the airport, my mum was in organisation mode, with an undertone of disapproval. ‘Now, have you got the number of the British Embassy in case you have any trouble? Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Remember, don’t speak to any foreign men, they might misunderstand your intentions.’
I doubted it very much.
It took us an age to get rid of the menagerie of relatives. We finally managed it by convincing them that we should go straight through to the departure lounge, lest we get trodden on in the stampede of tourists rushing through security at the last minute. We stormed into the duty-free shopping area like it was a competitive trolley dash. There wasn’t a skirt longer than twelve inches or a heel under four, and we couldn’t walk right next to each other because our matching perms were teased, curled and sprayed to the size of beach balls. The only thing that varied was our hair colour. Sarah was a brunette, Kate was chestnut, I was light ash blonde (straight out of a box of dye from the chemist), Jess’s mane was fiery red and Carol was the one who put us all in the shade because aside from her natural dark tresses, she was 5’ 10” tall, and made Cindy Crawford look average. Right now, her perfect white teeth were glinting as she adopted the same gleeful expression as the rest of us. We were ecstatic. Two weeks of fun and freedom with not a responsible adult in sight.
We made straight for the ciggies and alcohol section of the duty-free. Five bottles of vodka, 1,600 Benson & Hedges, and five bars of Toblerone later, we settled down in the bar to await our departure to Alicante.
Sarah and I were doing our best rendition of Whitney’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, when we were rudely interrupted.
‘Right,’ bellowed Jess, doing her best Margaret Thatcher impersonation. Not that we were fans. Thatcher had just been voted in for a third term and in our working-class area of the West of Scotland that result was about as popular as sexually transmitted warts. ‘If we’re going to get through the next two weeks without getting arrested or killing each other, we need to set some ground rules.’
The rest of us groaned in horror.
‘Jess,’ countered Sarah, ‘we just got rid of the wrinklies and now you’re going all maternal on us. Calm down and have another vodka.’
‘But we’ve got to have some rules,’ persisted Jess, ‘or we could end up spoiling the whole holiday.’
‘What are you on about?’ Kate interjected.
‘Well, for example, I think we should agree that no men are allowed back to the apartment.’
This was greeted with total silence, save for the clinking of ice cubes as we all felt a sudden need for a large slug of alcohol. It’s not that we were promiscuous. In fact, unbelievably for five seventeen year olds, not one of us had done the whole deed, but we weren’t angels in the penis department. I’d had the same boyfriend, Mark Barwick, on and off all the way through high school (we were currently very much off), and we’d crossed a few lines, but nothing that could risk pregnancy. I had no intention of going any further than that with some stranger in Benidorm, but the whole point of the holiday was to have some uninhibited, unconstrained-by-parental-sensibilities, memorable fun.
Carol spoke up. ‘I’m not sure I agree with Jess on that one, but I do think we should have some ground rules so that any dodgy stuff gets nipped in the bum.’
My pal was gorgeous, but she was hopeless with her sayings and regularly had us in stitches when they came out wrong, back to front, or upside down. Or upside backwards, as she would say.
I nearly fell off my chair. In all the years I had known Carol, she had never demonstrated any sign of having one responsible brain cell, never mind a whole grey matter of them.
She continued, ‘I propose the rules are as follows: a. We must snog at least one new man every night; b. We must go home only when we can no longer walk due to overindulgence in the falling-down juice, and; c. No full sex, blow jobs only. How does that sound?’
I don’t think the lady at the next table needed to hear all that, because she suddenly started to choke on her cuppa.
The rest of us dissolved into hysteria.
‘I’ve got another one,’ piped Kate when she regained her power of speech. ‘No cooking, tidying up or washing dishes of any kind.’
By this time, Jess was a mild shade of puce.
It