The Holiday of a Lifetime

“It was supposed to be the holiday of a lifetime!” Sue mumbled as she banged her empty glass onto the bar. “And here I am, in sodding Southport!”
“Same again?” the middle-aged woman behind the bar asked already putting a gin in the glass while simultaneously getting a bottle of tonic from the fridge. “Ice?”
“Although there isn’t anything particularly wrong with Southport...” Sue started, whilst nodding to the ice “...it’s just not Gran Canaria.”
“Why, were you supposed to be Gran Canaria?” the barmaid asked, hoping that there was going to be a juicy story with the answer.
“Yeah” Sue answered between gulps, “It was supposed to be the holiday of a lifetime. Suppose that’s what I get for leaving all the organising to my boyfriend, that’ll teach me.”
“Why, what did he do?” she asked whilst getting herself an orange juice and propping herself up on the bar.
“I’m Sue by the way.” She said offering her hand.
“Oh, Janet, nice to meet you.”
“Well” Sue continued, “As I said, we were supposed to be going to Rome for the week, in fact, today was going to be the first day there, it got to a week before, and I found out that we couldn’t go. It hadn’t been paid for. I left all the details up to my boyfriend, or ex boyfriend rather, Adam; the flights, the hotel, excursions, everything, I really should have known better.”
“Why, what was the problem?” Janet probed for more details.
“It turns out that Adam had a secret life” Sue answered, a tiny tear hanging from her eyelashes. “But he didn’t even have the guts to tell me himself, he left me a little note. Here...” Rooting through her handbag Sue found a tiny scrap of crumpled paper and thrust it towards Janet.
“Dear Sue.
There is no easy way to say this, but I’m afraid that we can’t go on the holiday.
I have caused a few financial troubles and have had to use the holiday money to sort it out.
I promise I will make it up to you somehow, we will still get the best holiday ever, it might just take a little longer than we had planned.
I love you, I just hope that you can see it in your heart to still love me.
Adam.
xxx

“So, what are you going to do?” Janet asked, forgetting that she had only just met Sue and didn’t really know her from Eve.
“I have no idea to tell you the truth.” Sue confessed. “I think I still love him, I mean we have been together nearly 10 years, and I did know about his online gambling, but I feel a bit cheated, he near enough cleared out our savings to feed his little habit, thank God we have separate current accounts! Suppose I am to blame a little bit though.”
Janet pulled her face, not totally agreeing with her.
“So here I am, in Sunny Southport!” Sue said sarcastically “You know, we came to this hotel a few years back and it’s always had a special place in my heart, so I couldn’t think of anywhere better to get away from it all.”
“How’s your room?” Janet asked whilst serving another customer.
“Lovely, no complaints there.” Sue replied with a smile. “I’m going to go and get some fresh air, might as well take advantage whilst the rain has stopped. See you in a bit.”

The cold breeze hit Sue like a slap in the face, making her pull the zip on her thick grey fleece up a little more. Her shoulder length ginger hair blew across her face and sand whipped around her trainers.

The seaside town took on a different air in the winter, not as many tourists were around, and the few that were wandering about were of an older generation. “Probably taking advantage of the cheaper rates.” Sue thought to herself whilst strolling along the pier.

The sea was still miles away, even after the beach had been altered to allow the tide to come in.
RING.......RING......RING.....
Sue dug her mobile out from the bottom of her handbag. “Great!” she thought to herself reading the screen, “Just what I need.”
“YES!” she snapped.
“H..Hi Sue, where are you?” The caller asked nervously.
“What does it matter to you? You’ve had your chance, you’ve ruined what we had, so does it really matter to you where I am?” Sue was getting louder and louder with every syllable.
“I’m sorry.” Adam answered sheepishly, “but I can make it up to you, just tell me where you are.”

The seagulls were dancing about on the beach, shouting at each other, fighting over a single razor clam. The sea-breeze was becoming more aggressive the nearer to the end of pier she got.

“I’m taking a few days out.” Sue replied. “Please give me this little bit of freedom, I think I more than deserve it.” With that Sue slammed the phone down, or rather, she pressed the red button harder than was necessary.
“That’s the end of that!” She thought with a smirk to herself.
Even the arcades were empty. The old penny arcade at the end of the pier that usually had swarms of kids running around was dead.
“Ten pennies for a pound!” Sue sighed to herself as she put her money in the slot, “I remember when you used to get 240 for that!” She was beginning to feel old. “I’ll be talking about when I was a little girl next, or the war!”

Even the lure of the penny arcade didn’t lift Sue’s mood. She couldn’t help feeling that it was a stupid thing to do, spend some money gambling in an arcade when she had just been fleeced by someone who doing the equivalent, albeit online.
Sue skidded as she tried to rush along the pier back to the hotel. The rain looked like it was settled for the night, and there was nothing that she enjoy that a hot bath and an early night. Time to herself, so she can totally relax.

The hotel looked entirely different in the wet. The gutter above Sue’s window was like a waterfall, but Sue didn’t mind, she didn’t even notice the noise as she drifted off. The bathwater was soothing and warm, just as the doctor ordered. She had been waiting for this for the last week of hell.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

Sue jumped up with a start. “Did I imagine that?” she whispered to herself, trying to work out where her dream ended and reality started. It happened again.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

“I’ll just ignore it.” Sue thought to herself, trying to relax again, but she couldn’t, knowing that someone was trying to get in touch with her.

Trying to rush just made it worse, Sue was slipping about trying to rush out of the bath. As she frantically dried herself another damp patch seemed to appear from nowhere.
“Arrgh!” she moaned to herself, rushing out of the bathroom. As she got to the door, she noticed a small slip of pink paper on the carpet just behind the door.
“Not another note!” Sue’s heart sank as she bent to pick the note from the floor.
It was from Janet, a scribbled note asking her to call into reception when she had a spare couple of minutes.
“Hmmm, that’s a bit strange...” Sue thought to herself as she re-read the note over and over again. The bed creaked as she sat on the corner brushing her damp hair. She grabbed the clothes that she had been wearing before her bath, planning to put them on just to visit reception. “Best put them on the radiator to dry.”She said aloud.
“That’s better.” She said as she pulled on her grey jogging bottoms and a light blue t-shirt. Her trainers were still damp, but they would do as she wasn’t planning g on being a long time.
“Aah.” Janet said as Sue made her way to the reception desk. “Glad you came down so fast!”
“Why? What’s so urgent?” she asked puzzled.
“Well, it’s a bit tricky actually.” Janet replied looking around to check there was nobody who could overhear them. “There was a bloke looking for you earlier. Tall fella, light grey hair, grey goatee beard, I told him to pop back later, so I’d have a chance to warn you that he was looking for you.”

Sue’s eyes widened, she immediately knew who was looking for her, but how did he find her? She flew up the stairs to her room, nearly breaking the door down getting in there. She leapt across the bed grabbing her handbag, shaking it upside down emptying the contents over the bedspread.

“Got it!” she cried as she picked up her battered mobile and switching it on in one swift motion.
“Come on...come on...there we are!” and the phone was turned on.
Beep-beep, beep-beep the mobile shrieked as a new message came through, and it was from Adam as Sue expected.
“Coming to Southport, I need to speak to you, look out for me. I love you. A. x”

Sue’s heart sank once more. The one thing that she didn’t want to spoil her weekend looked like it was going to. How did he work out where she had run off to though? The thought was going around in her head over and over.

“He’s in there” Janet said as Sue got back to the reception, “at the bar. Is everything okay?”
“Thanks Janet.” Replied Sue looking heavenward, “I’ll let you know later.”

From the entrance to the bar she could see Adam propping the bar up. He looked like he hadn’t had a chance to change clothes since she left, his hair was stuck out making him look like a mad professor, and his goatee looked unkempt and was sprouting out all over. But it was Adam for sure.
“How many you had?” she asked as she got to the bar noticing three empty pint pots next to him.
“Just these.” He answered. “How have you been? I’ve missed you.”
He looked sheepish as he looked at her, knowing what he had done wrong and the pain that he had caused.
“How did you know where I was?” she asked mystified.
“I heard the seagulls when I called, and put two and two together. I remembered this place from that weekend a few years ago.” Adam answered with a smile, a smile that usually helped him get what he wanted.
“But why did you come?” Sue asked. “I needed this time to myself, I wanted to think about us, about everything...”
Adam held his finger up to her lips. “Shh.” He urged. Rooting in his pocket, pulling out a sheet of paper and a small box.
“I promise nothing like this will ever happen again.” He said. “I had to sort the situation out, and I think I have. Look...”
He handed the piece of paper to Sue.
“What’s this?” She asked not wanting to read another of his notes.
“I entered a contest on the internet...” He started, but before he could get any further Janet Jumped in.
“No, not again, please, I don’t want to hear this!”
“...Let me finish!” Adam said a little louder. “I entered a contest on the internet, it was a free one, I didn’t have to pay anything. It was to win a holiday, a holiday of a life time to the Seychelles. And I won! We won.”
Sue looked at the paper noticing the word ‘Honeymoon’.
“But...” she began.

Before she could finish Adam was on one knee.

“Will you marry me?” he pleaded as he opened the tiny box holding it out to Janet. “I promise that I will never do anything that will make you unhappy, you will be my life, you are my life. The fact that you disappeared made me think, what would I do if I never saw you again? The answer is nothing, my life would be over, I couldn’t go on.”

Tears were pouring down both of their faces. Sue couldn’t even give answer, all she could do was nod her head hysterically thinking of what adventures were to come.