Page 2 of Take a Chance on Greece

Amira shrugged. ‘I’ll be honest, my memory is a tad patchy too, but there were definitely a few hours in the bar when we weren’t all dancing together. You said you wanted to chill out at the hotel because your feet were sore. Maybe you bashed your back then.’

‘But what about girl code? Never leave anyone behind,’ I said indignantly. ‘You know I’m a lightweight compared to you guys.’

‘Sorry, Lyds, but you did insist you’d be fine sitting out for a bit and the hotel was only over the road and we watched you walk across to make sure you’d got there OK. If a bruise on your back is your biggest concern, then nothing really bad happened, did it?’

Kat cleared her throat from across the aisle.

‘I hate to interrupt the heart-to-heart, ladies, but I’ve got a very important question to ask.’ She paused and looked me squarely in the face. ‘Lydia Evans, who is Andreas, what makes him awesome, and why do you now have his name tattooed on your lower back?’

Chapter Two

‘What the actual f…flip are you talking about?’ I said, as an uncomfortable hollowness settled in the pit of my stomach and slowly spread to the rest of my body.

‘Gosh, Lydia, I thought you were going to break the habit of a lifetime and swear,’ laughed Kat.

‘I do swear, but internally – I just choose not to vocalise it,’ I retorted. ‘Jim doesn’t like women swearing. And that’s really not the point. Why are you trying to freak me out by saying I’ve got a tattoo? If this is your idea of a joke, it’s really not funny. You know I’m scared of needles. Why on earth would I have a tattoo?’

Kat’s eyes were sparkling with amusement, but I thought her attempt at a joke was anything but funny. I wished she’d stop messing around and allow me to nurse my hangover in peace.

‘Turn round and let me get a photo of that lovely inscription saying “Awesome Andreas” which is scrawled on your lower back and you can see it for yourself.’

She sounded so sure of herself that I did as instructed, despite the fact that her words made absolutely no sense to me. She rolled my top up and I heard the snap of the shutter before she handed her phone across to me. As she was doing so, the coach went over another bump in the road and the phone nearly fell out of her grasp. She juggled it around in a rather showy way until she’d got hold of it again properly, another thing which made me suspect that this was one of her silly pranks. After making a great display of checking she hadn’t broken it, she finally handed the phone across, by which time of course the screen had locked so I couldn’t even see the picture.

‘Nice try,’ I said, typing in her passcode with fingers which were rather trembly, whether from nerves or excess alcohol, I couldn’t tell you.

The image was slightly blurry and distorted because of the reflection of the flash on the plastic covering, but beneath it there was definitely something there. I zoomed in to take a closer look. I couldn’t swear to it saying ‘Awesome Andreas’ but it did look like some kind of swirly writing, the type of fancy cursive script you’d see on a wedding invitation. Only, wedding invitations normally had a much smaller font. This writing must have been at least half an inch high. I stared at it, not wanting to believe what was in front of me. The photo was time-stamped from just a minute ago, so I knew it wasn’t one that Kat had prepared earlier. I zoomed in even closer, trying to detect how she’d worked the trick.

‘OK, very funny. I’m guessing this is some kind of non-hen-do mickey take. How did you do it? Did you stick a transfer on my back while I was asleep? Or draw it on in pen? Because you’ve been a bit heavy-handed about it. I’m probably allergic to whatever it is you’ve used because my back is really sore.’

‘I remember that from my first tattoo,’ said Kat, sitting back in her seat casually. ‘I don’t know why I was so surprised by the pain. I had after all been repeatedly stabbed by a tiny needle pricking ink deep enough into my dermis to make a permanent mark. Don’t worry, hon, it’ll stop stinging soon. You won’t even remember the pain. You’ll probably go back for more. Maybe a “Breathtaking Barry” or a “Corr-blimey Colin”. What would Jim be? “Jolly Jim”? No that’s not really right. “Jobsworth Jim” is probably more accurate.’

She started laughing at her own bad joke, gurgling away without a care in the world. I’d never been so close to wanting to lash out at my oldest friend. Her rude, rambling nonsense was totally infuriating. This prank had gone too far. Was I the only grown-up around here?

‘Kat, be serious, please. There’s having a joke, and then there’s just being mean. And drawing a fake tattoo on my back and then being offensive about my boyfriend is very much the latter. I’ve had enough. Tell me how you did it, or…’

My words faded as I saw the expression in Kat’s eyes. Beneath the amusement, there was definitely a flash of something that looked like pity, and that made me very nervous. Sure enough, a few seconds later, she’d managed to rein in the laughter and was looking properly sympathetic, head slightly tilted to one side, regarding me as if I were a fragile glass object that was teetering on the edge of a shelf. Amira, meanwhile, grabbed my shoulder and held on tight as if she expected me to make a run for it off the bus.

‘No, no, no, please, Kat, tell me it’s not true,’ I begged, my voice getting rather high-pitched with panic. ‘Amira, tell me, what’s going on? You’re more sensible than she is, I know you’ll be honest with me and won’t string this farce along.’ But I knew what the response would be before she even opened her mouth. However much I wanted to tell myself that my friends were playing a mean joke on me, I knew in my heart of hearts that they would never be so cruel and push things to this extreme when I was obviously in distress about it. Which left the question, how had I ended up with a tattoo and no memory of asking for it? Who the heck was Andreas? And why did I think he was so awesome? I wanted to hide away with the utter shame and horror of it. I was never going to touch a drop of alcohol ever again. I cursed myself with all the names under the sun, feeling like a first-class fool. And then the guilt kicked in. Here I was, just about to move in with my long-term boyfriend, and I’d gone and got the name of some random other bloke etched into my skin. What would Jim think of me? Would he even still want to be with me after this? How could I have done something so hurtful and awful?

I bit the inside of my mouth, trying to distract myself from the tears which were forming. I didn’t have time to cry. I needed to think, to come up with a plan and sort out this nightmare situation, but my body had other ideas. I’ve never been one of those people who could cry delicately. The minute the waterworks start, my nose always wants to join in the party. I’d lost enough dignity without turning into a snotty mess on top of everything else. I sniffed hard, and tried through misty eyes to find a packet of tissues in my handbag, my movements clumsy with distress.

Amira reached over and squeezed my hand which didn’t help me in my increasingly desperate search for the tissues. ‘Oh, babe, what have you done?’ she said, her voice so gentle and kind that it made me blub even more. Kat took my other hand and squeezed too. She quietly apologised for laughing at my predicament, explaining it was her startled reaction to the shock of spotting the inking. Normally I’d have taken strength from my two best friends, but their compassion made me feel even more alone in my misfortune.

I snivelled until my runny nose made it necessary for me to let go of Amira and Kat’s hands and find that tissue. By this time, fellow passengers were becoming aware of my distress, despite my best efforts to cry quietly.

‘He’s not worth it, darling,’ said one, assuming I was going through a break-up.Not yet, I thought. She passed me a bottle of water and a piece of chocolate. ‘It’s good for shock,’ she promised. Although consuming anything was the last thing I felt like doing, I took a small sip from the bottle and swallowed the chocolate to be polite.

‘You keep it,’ she said, as I offered her the bottle back. ‘When it’s meant to be, you’ll find Mr Right. And until then, enjoy your freedom to be answerable only to yourself.’

Her words, while kindly meant, only made me feel worse, hammering home all over again that my actions had the power to hurt someone very dear to me. As if on cue, theDoctor Whotheme tune started blaring from my handbag. Jim had assigned it as his personal ringtone before we set off on holiday so I’d always know that it was him ringing me. Or at least, that’s what he claimed was the reason, but we both knew it was really a bid to get me to answer the phone more quickly because I was so embarrassed by the loud tune. ‘I know you’ll be having fun with the girls, but there’s no one who knows the filing system better than you,’ he’d said, a glowing compliment, if not quite the one I’d have liked my boyfriend to give as his primary reason for needing to get hold of me during my vacation.

This time, the mild humiliation of the ringtone making the other bus passengers laugh was preferable to speaking to Jim. I knew he’d be able to tell the second I answered that something was wrong, and I wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet. To be fair, I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready to have that conversation. I waited for the phone to ring out – he’d be bound to notice if I rejected the call and ask me about it – then I switched it off, hoping that he would assume there was a bad signal rather than that I was deliberating swerving him. Then I turned my attention back to the matter in hand. Time to assess the damage properly and come up with a plan of action. I fixed my friends with as stern a look as I could muster.

‘I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with. Tell me honestly, how bad is it? And does it really say “Awesome Andreas”? I mean, it sounds like something I’d say if I actually knew someone called Andreas who I thought highly of, but I really hope you’ve made a mistake. I think I could deal with a surprise tattoo of almost anything else, just so long as it didn’t say a random man’s name.’

Kat opened her mouth, clearly about to suggest a load of other inappropriate tattoos which I could have got, but I shot her a steely glare and she wisely decided that this was not the moment to try out a new stand-up routine.

This time it was Amira who examined my back. She squirted some anti-bac gel on her hands, then carefully peeled off the plastic covering with clinical efficiency.

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