We touch down in Gerona airport, collect our bags and Perce and me set off in search of the bar. Then we sit and wait three hours for Liz who is sharing a cab with us to Lloret de Mar.
We make it to Llort de Mar bus terminal and we're having a quiet beer when a loud squeal is heard and a mad blonde girl hurls herself at Liz and me. "Hi Mandy," we say.
Mandy says she has been drunk for three months though asit's my first time abroad I'm slightly fazed to see policeman carrying guns and I'm wondering who are these blokes that Mandy has gotr to carry our cases.
We reach our pension and Mandy goes in search of Chris who owns the place so I sit on the pavement outside when Mandy's charming mate Alison pops her head over the balcony. "Is that fatty James?" she says and tries to see if she can spit on me from up there.
Mandy can't find Chris so she says we should try the Cutty Sark. We leave our bags and follow her and the gang of lads she's with. They buuy jugs of champange sangria which we drink and Chris appears, takes 6,000 pesetas off us and shows us to our room.
After a sleep we go for a wander and latch on to some scouse lads who have been in trouble with the police for riding on car bonnets. After a few beers we are all defiant and march past the Policia yelling "Ingerland Ingerland!" I am at the back of the group and get whacked on the arse with a truncheon.
*
Although Perce has vomitted in his bed and surrounding walls and is moaning about the state of his guts, he still manages to join me on the beach. We see Liz and Mandy and they are both topless and I can't believe I am sat there watching Mandy's tits after all this time. I can't think of words to give poetic justice to this moment though Perce says she has nipples like Scammel wheel nuts.
*
We usually get drunk in the local bodegas where beer is cheap and sometimes we go to the Texas bar where Mandy works, selling tacky badges with filthy slogans to pissed up Brits.
I wonder if I expected that me coming to Spain to see Mandy would result in blossoming romance as I think I'vbe always believed one day we would get together. Watching her here, playing the crowd and putting up with the gropers and the letches so she can sell them her badges makes me realise I live in a world a million miles away. I can't see Mandy wanting to play Clegg at The Knight on Saturday night.
*
We get friendly with some lads from Yorkshire and one of them, Kev, has a Mandy fixation. He gets beered up and spends all night just watching her, not taking part or joining in but just standing there playing the fantasy in his head. This has been me for the last three years.
*
We don't see much of Mandy so we let Liz tag along with us for most of the holiday. One night Perce retires with bad guts and Liz and me get mistaken for a married couple by some West Ham fans which is a worry.
Later we go to a club and Liz and I have a dance to the slowies and Liz strokes my arm and looks all gooey. I think, fuck me I'm on holiday with Liz and I think she's coming on to me and I could probably sleep with her. But I don't want to because I don't really fancy her and I thought fancying someone was the point of shagging them. Or maybe I'm very naive.
*
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