The Time of Our Lives by Jane Costello Page A

glance at Nicola, who is green. ‘I’m sorry,’ she announces suddenly. ‘We need to go and check in now.’
    ‘Yes, we do,’ I reinforce. ‘We very much do. We need to go and get our friend, then go.’
    ‘Where are you staying?’ asks Mr Brayfield.
    ‘Madrid,’ Nicola replies.
    But, having made themselves comfortable on a tartan blanket, they’re now too busy rummaging around in the backpack to hear.
    ‘Sure you don’t want to stay and have a picnic?’ offers Mrs Brayfield, as she picks damp pieces of paper napkin off some soggy breakfast buns clearly appropriated from a hotel
buffet.
    ‘Ah, we could have a chat about old times!’ Mr Brayfield adds, but Nicola is now backing away as though she is being threatened with a pump-action shotgun.
    ‘Thank you, but no,’ she says. ‘Enjoy the rest of your day.’
    ‘Oh, we will,’ Mr Brayfield assures us. ‘And be careful with the suncream. Muggins here missed a few bits last time – ouch!’ He grins, pointing downwards.
    At which point Nicola looks like she might faint.

Chapter 7
    We finally get to our room around 5 p.m. I’m not sure why but, judging by the anxiety etched into the concierge’s forehead, it isn’t something that happens
often.
    The room is a miracle of modern hospitality: an ambiently lit, orgasmically appointed homage to interior design. Silk curtains fall heavily on a carpet of intense depth and softness, while
state-of-the-art gadgets sit in subtle juxtaposition to a view of amaranthine loveliness across the sea.
    I am running my fingers over the crisp white sheets of one of the two enormous twin beds, imagining how it will feel to sink into the whispering softness of its pillows, when Meredith bursts out
of the toilet.
    ‘There’s a LOO-ROLL LIGHT! Isn’t that
awesome
?’
    ‘What’s a loo-roll light?’
    ‘Well . . . it lights up your loo roll,’ she replies, an ask-a-sillyquestion response if ever I’ve heard one.
    There’s no doubt about it – it couldn’t be more perfect. All I need now is to clean myself up and enjoy this properly.
    As Meredith settles down with Spanish
Vogue
, I go to take a shower, a prospect I’ve never relished more as I peel off my Bolognese-coated T-shirt.
    I reach out to turn the chrome tap, closing my eyes as I anticipate warm suds sweeping down my body. Instead, I am assaulted by water colder than the deep end of Tooting Bec Lido in January.
Shrieking, I leap out, and spend the next five minutes hopping about, turning blue and wrestling with the temperature knob as Meredith provides what she clearly believes to be helpful instructions,
formed solely on the basis of watching one episode of
DIY SOS
.
    I reluctantly reach the conclusion that nothing I do is going to work, a fact I struggle to compute – that my five-star hotel, the likes of which I’m never likely to see the inside
of again, has failed to provide me with hot, running water.
    I grab a dressing gown and tiptoe into the bedroom to discover cards next to the phone advertising the hotel’s ‘Whatever your whim’ service, which apparently caters for every
tiny request imaginable. I phone the number and explain that my only whim is for a shower. A simple, straightforward shower.
    After apologising profusely, they send up a man. He proceeds to fiddle with the shower until, to the soundtrack of his frenzied cries, it sends water spewing all over him, our room and our
carpet of intense depth and softness.
    So another man comes along and – apologising profusely – tells us we need to move rooms. At which point a woman appears and – apologising profusely – marches us to
another room on the floor above. She reassures me that I can keep hold of the dressing gown until I get there, as if I’d considered the alternative.
    Meredith can’t resist a bit of a grumble, however, although that’s partly because she’s received a text from Nathan telling her he loves her and enquiring if she’s
massaging her perineum