My Best Friend Has Issues

Laura Marney’s first novel,
No Wonder I Take a Drink
, was voted by the public in
The List
magazine poll as one of the Top 20 Scottish books of all time.

“At last, a funny novelist with guts.” – Henry Sutton,
Mirror
, on
Nobody
Loves a Ginger Baby

“Divine comedy… a joyous celebration of human imperfection” – Louise Welsh, author of
The Cutting Room
, on
Only Strange People Go to Church

“A rollicking earthy humour.” – Zoe Strachan on
No Wonder I Take a Drink

“Marney is a marvellous comic writer. Those postcards to Scotland are worth the read alone. She captures to a tee the innocence and vulnerability of a small-town girl while also showing the dark, knowing, manipulative side of human nature, spinning it all into a comic noir.” –
Barcelona Review

“Bored of chick-lit? Well, the full-on-bitch-lit of
My Best Friend Has Issues
could be the answer! Small-town girl Alison’s new friend is… more dark and twisted than Barcelona’s back streets… Soon Alison finds herself caught in a sordid world where manipulation, theft and even murder are the norm. Darkly funny and even shocking at times, this is a holiday read that’ll snap you out fo your poolside doziness and have you shaking your head in disbelief. In a good way.” – Louise Christie,
Heat

Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Reading group questions
Why I Wrote My Best Friend…
Also by Laura Marney
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Copyright

Now shush, come on, stop crying. Please? For me? You know how it upsets me. I told them, it’s not an option, never gonna happen. We told them absolutely not and that they must never bring it up again. I’m not gonna just stand here and let my oldest friend die, am I? I certainly am not! Come on honey, cheer up, huh? Why are you staring at me like that?

What did I know about life? A wee heifer like me, a
twenty-two-year-old
no-mates stay-at-home from the rump end of Cumbernauld? What did I even know about sex? Never mind drugs, or violence, or murder.

After I’d been there a few days I sent a postcard with views of the city: Gaudi chimneys, weird modern sculptures, the Olympic stadium.
Dear Lisa and Lauren
, it said,
Weather lovely. Recuperating nicely and working on tan. Had to buy new clothes (size twelve too big!). Enjoying sangria on La Rambla. Don’t know if you’d like it here. The hot weather would be a nightmare for your athlete’s foot and intimate itching – think of the thigh chafing! Nasty. Hasta la vista, Alison x x x

And then I went back to flat hunting.

I was a little anxious going into flats alone. For all I knew there could have been a psycho behind the door with a hessian sack and a packet of cable ties. The girl showing me the room was called Montse and looked about twenty-five. She was living there on her own with a baby. She spoke very little English but she was very accomplished at the word ‘no’. No boyfriends, no smoking, no alcohol, no eating – except in the kitchen, no staying out late, no TV after 8pm, it would wake the baby. This lecture was delivered in a whisper, the baby was sleeping.

It was a nice flat. The bedroom she offered was small but clean. Not luxurious but, unlike most of the other flats I’d seen, within my tight budget. It was clean. The fact that Montse didn’t speak much English could be a plus point. I’d learn Spanish quicker, I’d have to. At least to begin with, conversation would be limited. Apart from no telly after 8pm it would be the same as living with Mum.

The baby woke up and started wailing. Montse’s face changed to a martyred expression. Was she actually trying to imply that it was my fault her baby had woken up? She came back into the room with the crying infant in her arms, shaking it as if it was a piggy bank that she expected coins to fall out of, and repeated what she’d said, in case I didn’t get it the first time: no boyfriends, boyfrens, she pronounced it, and then again in Spanish just to be sure: hombres, no.

The old me would just have taken the room. But the new slimline me knew there was more to Barcelona than this. With this figure, in this city, I was planning on having plenty of boyfrens.

‘No thank you,’ I told Montse, although I knew she didn’t
understand
. ‘If I’d wanted to live like a nun, I’d have joined a convent.’

The next and final flat for the day was in Raval, a dodgy part of the city. I knew this because I was already staying in there in a cheap hostel. Raval was the immigrant part of town: poor, dirty and run-down. Nearly everyone I saw there wore Arab or Asian dress. The narrow lanes were choked with garbage. Short-skirted high-heeled girls stood on corners. Shifty looking men sat watching them as they sat on kitchen chairs parked on the pavement. There was nothing like this in Cumbernauld.

Despite the lax morals and hygiene of Raval, this next flat was the most expensive of all. I was hot and knackered and nearly didn’t go, but it was on the way back to the hostel. If I did move in there at least I wouldn’t have far to lug my rucksack. And, as I navigated my way through the dog-shitted streets, I remembered that the Internet advert for this place had sounded the most promising. For a start it had none of the weird syntax I now realised was Spanish poorly translated into English,
‘we look for ladies for to share apartament’ or ‘to wash the clothes no is problem’.
This advert was obviously written by a native English speaker.
‘Room to let for girl/guy, whatever. I’m single again so this is back to being the party apartment. Let the
partying
begin!’
It wasn’t clear if the person placing the ad was a girl or a guy but it sounded fun. Even if I couldn’t afford the room, maybe I’d get invited to the parties. It would be a way to meet people and make friends, another thing I was determined to do.

It was a door entry system, upmarket for Raval. I pressed the buzzer for 4B and waited. Nobody answered. I checked the address and my watch, 1pm, right on time. I buzzed again, maybe he or she had been in the toilet. Still no answer. Perhaps they’d popped out for a minute. I waited ten minutes, leaning into the door to let people pass on the narrow pavement, and buzzed once more but nobody came.

They must have already let the room. Fair enough, but they should at least have the decency to tell me. What about the
parties
? They could still invite me. With the flat of my hand I pressed all the buzzers at once, pressing out an SOS dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot.

Mayday.

It worked. At least three flats buzzed me in. Whether 4B was one of them I had no idea but I’d soon find out.

Inside the windowless stairwell I made for the light switch and pressed it but although I could hear the timer ticking, the light didn’t come on. There was no lift in the building either, that was unusual. I’d have to walk up but it wasn’t completely dark, I could see flights of stairs above me on the open staircase. I knew from my previous two days’ flat hunting that there would be a light switch on every floor.

Halfway up the first flight my foot skidded on what I thought must be a banana skin or dog poo. Surely people didn’t let their dogs shit
inside
the building? I looked down at my feet and it seemed I was standing in some kind of thick fluid that threatened to swamp my flip-flops. I curled my toes, lifted my foot and looked for somewhere dry to put it. There was nowhere, the next steps were covered in it too. I held on to the banister handrail as I made my way carefully up the stairs. It felt, through my thin rubber sole, like the liquid was viscous, like skidding on olive oil. I slipped and toppled forward, falling on to my hands and knees. For a moment the pain of absorbing the shock in my bones and the sting on my skin didn’t let me think about anything else. But when it did, when the sensation faded, there was a worse one. Now I knew what was dripping from my forearms and shins.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to clean it off in fast panicky swipes, as if I was trying to flick away a cockroach crawling on me: horrified to touch it but desperate to be rid of it. Then I noticed the boy.

He was lying at the bottom of the next flight of stairs. His head didn’t make sense. It was at a weird angle, his ear touching his
shoulder
. I tilted my ear towards my shoulder to see if it was possible but it wouldn’t reach. The stuff I’d skidded in was leaking from the boy.

From this side he was handsome with big, brown, surprised eyes and dark, curly hair but when I saw him straight on, the other side of his face looked as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. It was pulped mush, so battered it was difficult to make out his other eye. But it was there, almost buried in torn skin. Inside his crushed skull, his eye was intact.

It must have been shock, but at that moment the fact that he had two eyes was important to me. Like when a baby’s born and its fingers and toes are counted by the midwife. I didn’t touch him, thank God. Later I’d be thankful for that. I heard a door opening on the floor above. I panicked, I turned and fled down the stairs, out of the building and on to the street. Straight into a crowd of Asian men.

They stared at me. I looked down. In the glaring sunlight they could see my arms and legs splattered in bright blood. They were all talking, talking at me, asking questions, talking excitedly between themselves. I didn’t understand. Their voices got louder as they crowded around me, shouting, demanding. They were angry. I looked back and saw my flip-flop shoeprints, bloody and
incriminating,
lead out of the building and straight to me.

I wanted to run but the men were crowded round me, jabbering at me in Spanish and some other language, maybe Arabic. They towered over me, I couldn’t see beyond them. Someone put a hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand, powerful enough to snap my skinny little body like a popadom. I felt warm breath on my neck. I don’t know when I started screaming, maybe it was when I saw the boy, but I now realised I wasn’t the only one screaming. Somewhere behind me there was another female voice shouting something in Spanish.

‘
Dejala cabrones!
’ and then, ‘Get away from her you fucking assholes!’

An American voice.

A tall thin girl rushed at the man who had his hand on me and delivered a swift kick to his balls. He doubled over, going down with his hands between his legs. And then I was running down an alleyway with her. The girl sprinted easily in her rope wedge high heels. Behind her I had an impression of thin bare shoulder blades flashing as she ran, long graceful legs covering the ground easily. My own short legs were no match; I couldn’t keep up with her. Then she slowed, turned and smiled. She extended her hand towards me. I didn’t know who she was, I’d never seen her before in my life, but she’d rescued me. She had appeared from nowhere, like some kind of angel of deliverance, and took me out of that hellish place.

Gratefully I put my hand in hers. Her swift pace carried me through busy side streets full of rubbish stacks, men in doorways, parked motorbikes, dog shit, toddlers, old women, more rubbish. I
held tight to her hand as we ran. After a few lung-busting minutes I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I pulled on the girl’s hand like a brake. We stopped in a quiet lane. We leaned against old stone walls, our chests heaving. Through breathless gasps she asked me, ‘Are you okay?’

I nodded.

‘You sure? You’re covered in blood.’

She rummaged in her bag and pulled out paper handkerchiefs and put them in my hand.

I nodded again. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’

‘What the hell happened back there?’

‘I fell.’

‘You fell?’

‘On the stairs, they were slippy, I just slipped.’

I knew I probably wasn’t making sense. She took the hankies out of my hand and began wiping the blood from my arms and legs.

‘You have a cut under your knee and you’ve scratched both arms but it looks much worse than it is.’

‘I just slipped, it’s nothing,’ I said.

‘Jeez, you’re quite a bleeder. We need to clean out those lacerations.’

‘Are you a doctor?’

‘Me? Are you kidding?’ she laughed.

She didn’t look like a doctor. She had shoulder length blonde hair, pale skin and a wide, full-lipped mouth. She had US
standard
issue straight white teeth and was thin everywhere except for her large shapely breasts. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, her face was slightly too long, her mouth too big, but she looked healthy, abundantly healthy. An all-American girl. She looked like she could have been a cheerleader except that her supersized breasts gave her an un-American stoop. She was slightly hunched, curled up, like a new leaf that hasn’t fully opened yet.

‘I thought those guys were trying to murder you.’

‘No, I fell, that’s all.’

‘But you were screaming!’

‘I just got a fright. They saw me and crowded round, I couldn’t get away. I panicked, I’m really sorry.’

‘Hey, don’t be sorry. My bad, I kicked that poor guy’s balls,’ she laughed.

I laughed too.

‘He was probably just trying to help and I come along and smash his nuts. He won’t be having sex anytime soon.’

‘He’ll probably never have sex again. He’ll be a eunuch,’ I said.

‘Yeah but he’ll still have his tongue. He won’t be completely useless.’

She laughed again. She seemed to like this kind of talk.

‘Thanks very much for rescuing me.’

‘
De nada
,’ she said, waving her hand like she was swatting a fly, ‘I only hope the poor chump isn’t crippled for life. Listen, let’s go to a bar and wash up, you don’t want that getting infected.’

She took me into a dark underground bar. From outside it looked nothing but inside it was like the headquarters of a comic book villain. It was a huge cave, filled with noisy teenagers.

‘
La Oveja Negra’
it said above the door, ‘
The Black Sheep
,’ she translated. ‘The washroom’s back here.’

The cuts on my arms and legs were minimal, scratches really, but I was worried. The dead boy’s blood had mingled with mine. With my health record that was the last thing I needed. She filled the sink with hot water and poured in perfume from a bottle in her handbag. ‘The alcohol will kill the bugs,’ she told me.

‘Lovely smell,’ I said, wincing as she dabbed the solution on my arm.

‘Yeah, it’s Paris Hilton.’

I flinched. ‘Doesn’t that stuff cost a fortune?’

‘Hell no,’ she laughed, ‘and it makes a pretty good antiseptic.’

She must be loaded.

‘Come on,’ she said once I’d got cleaned up, ‘I could use a drink.’

She left me at the table while she went to the bar and ordered drinks in what sounded like fluent Spanish. She made out as if she didn’t know that the boys at the pool table were staring at her, or if she did she didn’t care. She brought back a tray with glasses of water, a jug of garnet-coloured sangria and a little plastic basket of popcorn.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I don’t know your name.’

‘Chloe,’ she smiled, a big wide smile that took up most of her face. I was forced to admit that she was in fact lovely.

‘Thanks Chloe. I’m Alison.’

‘Nice to meet you. You’re English, right?’

‘No, Scottish.’

She made a face. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s an easy mistake to make.’

‘I’m American,’ Chloe said. ‘You guessed, huh? I’ve lived in about ten countries but I’m from California. My mom lives there, I guess it’s home. Hollywood, Disneyland, all that shit. I’m sure you know what it’s like. You’ve probably been there.’

I shook my head.

‘Which part of Scotland are you from, Alison?’

‘Cumbernauld. It’s just a town, near Glasgow.’

Neither places seemed to register with her.

‘It’s quite near Edinburgh too.’

‘Yeah, Edinboro,’ she nodded, ‘I haven’t been to Scotland yet, but it’s on my list.’

‘Well when you go, stick to Edinburgh and maybe the
Highlands
, they’re the best bits. That’s usually what Americans do.’

‘Okay. Thanks for the tip,’ she laughed.

There was a silence. I drank most of my glass of water and didn’t want any more.

‘I suppose we both have time to see the world,’ she said. ‘We’re about the same age, aren’t we? How old are you?’

‘Twenty-two. You?’

‘Twent-three,’ she groaned.

Chloe was only a year older than me yet she she’d lived in all those countries. She was taller, slimmer, with a better figure than me, if you liked that skinny big-breasted thing, which everyone did. She was amazing.

‘How long are you gonna be in Barcelona?’ she asked.

I shrugged, ‘I’m not sure. I came to live here.’

‘Good for you, Alison,’ she said with a slow, impressed smile. ‘All right.’ She poured us both large glasses of sangria. ‘
Enhorabuena
: congratulations.’

It was probably raining in Cumbernauld right now. Lovely damp Scottish rain. If I was at home I’d be eating a crisps and fish finger sandwich in front of
The Weakest Link
shouting out the answers, pressing crumbs on to my fingers and licking them. I’d be looking out the rain-blurred window, waiting for Mum to come back from the bakery and start making dinner. After seeing that poor, bashed head boy, after lying in his blood with him, Cumbernauld and rain and Mum was all I wanted.

Even before I got here I kind of knew something was going to happen. It was inevitable. My life had always been blighted, maybe it was always going to be. Might as well go home and accept it. Anyway, I was never going to find an affordable flat that didn’t have a dead body draped on the stairwell. It wasn’t fair. Lucky people, rich beautiful girls like Chloe who’d lived in ten countries, and had fabulous breasts, these things didn’t happen to them. They didn’t spend their lives dodging death.

‘You?’ I asked. ‘How long are you here for?’

‘Oh, you know, kinda the same, indefinitely.’

I lifted my glass, ‘
enorbor
…’

‘
Enhorabuena
,’ she corrected me.

‘Congratulations.’

We laughed and clinked glasses and took long swigs of sangria. Maybe in toasting her some of her good luck would rub off on me. The sangria tasted good, fruity and potent.

‘Whoa!’ I said, putting the glass down. ‘That’s strong. What’s in it?’

‘The usual stuff: red wine, fruit juice, but the real kicker’s the gin. They use kick-ass gin here.’

‘Right,’ I nodded, smacking my lips and taking another slug. I wasn’t supposed to drink at all for six months and after that only in moderation. Extreme moderation Dr Collins had warned me, but the drink had already gone to my head.

The sangria relaxed me. Maybe I shouldn’t rush home at the first hurdle, although Bashed Head Boy was indisputably a pretty big hurdle. What if the murderer saw me? Or if the police thought I killed him? There were plenty of witnesses who saw me covered
in his blood. It wasn’t fair. That boy was nothing to do with me. But I’d come to Barcelona to dwell, not to dwell on things. Dwelling on things wasn’t healthy, I knew that better than anyone.

‘I can’t believe how much I totally misread that situation,’ Chloe said. ‘But you know, guys come here all the time on bachelor weekends, the city’s full of them. They get beered up and go wild. All I know is, I see a bunch of guys messing with a girl half their size and it makes me crazy. I thought you were Catalan.’

‘Don’t dwell on it, Chloe. It wasn’t your bad,’ I said, savouring the opportunity to talk American, ‘it was mine. The whole thing was my fault. I shouldn’t have screamed like that. You thought I was what?’

‘Catalan. You look like them, the same auburn hair. They dye theirs but yours looks real, is it?’

‘Yes, but… that’s why you rescued me? Because I have auburn hair?’

‘No, I thought you were from around here! It’s an easy mistake. Jeez.’

Chloe’s shoulders hunched and she curled in on herself. I had offended her. Not knowing how to undo it, I sat with a stupid grin on my face.

‘Right,’ she laughed, ‘I get it, you’re joking. British sense of humour. I see a twinkle in your British green eyes.’

Relieved, I laughed too.

‘You have great eyes,’ she continued.

‘Cheers.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. You probably get that all the time.’

I nodded as if yes, I did get it all the time, but it wasn’t true. Apart from old ladies on the bus telling me and then using it as an excuse to launch into how sick or lonely they were, I very rarely heard it.
‘Oh, you’ve got lovely emerald eyes, hen, just like my Jack, God rest him. I miss him, so I do. But Jack’s the lucky one, I wish God would take me.’

‘D’you speak Spanish or Catalan?’

There was that word again.

‘Catalan?’

‘The language of this region, Catalunya.’

‘Eh, no. Not yet, sorry.’

‘Hell, Spanish is easy, you’ll pick that up in a coupla weeks.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure.’

I wasn’t.

‘How long have you been here?’ I asked her.

‘Coupla months. You?’

‘Coupla days. I arrived on Tuesday.’

‘Where’s your apartment?’

‘Eh, I don’t have one yet, I’m in a hostel in Raval just now.’

That was a thought. How could I go back to the hostel? I wouldn’t be able to set foot in Raval ever again.

‘Alison,’ Chloe said, leaning forward across the table with her arms folded and a grin on her face, ‘do you believe in karma?’

I nodded.

‘Because maybe we were meant to meet today. Yeah, go ahead and smile but it so happens we can help each other out.’

I didn’t know I was smiling.

‘You need somewhere to stay and I need someone to look after my apartment. For a few days. I’ll be out of town three days, probably not more, but that should give you time to find your own place.’

I waited for her to continue but she’d stopped talking. I didn’t say anything.

‘Hey, no pressure. I totally understand if you don’t want to.’

‘Where is your apartment?’

‘It’s in Gotic.’

‘Is that near Raval?’

‘No, I’m at the opposite end of Gotic, going into Barceloneta, but it’s a sweet little apartment, it’s on the roof.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay? You’ll move in?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Excellent! Wanna come round now and check it out? I might have a band aid for your arm.’

‘Okay.’

As we moved away from the table I staggered and narrowly missed stumbling into a boy carrying a tray of drinks. If Dr Collins could see me now, I thought.

‘Whoa!’ said Chloe. ‘Sangria overload! We need to get you some coffee. Let’s get out of here.’

I nodded carefully, not wanting my befuddlement to show. I didn’t know if I could trust her. After what had happened, I didn’t know if it was safe to trust anyone in Barcelona.

He was lying on me, his breath coming in loud gasps.

I was crying again.

‘Shhhh,’ he said, ‘it’s okay, pet. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.’

He was too heavy, crushing my chest, I couldn’t breathe. I tried to push him off, to wriggle out from under him but there was nowhere to go. If I moved, he woke up and moaned; then I was too scared to move.

‘Alison, don’t tell your mum,’ he said, as if that was the important thing. ‘Promise.’

Our faces so close together, I couldn’t look at him. I knew he didn’t want me to look at him.

‘I won’t,’ I said, ‘I promise.’