The Friday Evening
It’s a Friday in September a few years after the events of The Sopranos. Kylah, Kay, Manda and Chell ride a bus at Gatwick Airport to the hotel where they’re booked to stay for the night. Already fed up with Manda, the others draw lots using Kylah’s selection of differently-sized condoms to decide who will share a room with her for the night. Kylah loses.
After they check in, Kylah, Manda and Chell argue over who was supposed to have brought what hairstyling equipment, discovering that between them they have four sets of straighteners and curling tongs. They decide who will have each room in the row of three that they’ve booked. Manda immediately decides she’ll have the one in the middle so she can eavesdrop on the other rooms on either side and that Finn and Ava can share since they’re girlfriends. Chell points out that Ava is not Finn’s “girlfriend-girlfriend,” but Manda is dismissive of this. Kylah quickly offers to share with Manda, which prompts Manda to claim that the rest of them obviously decided in advance that Kylah would be the one to share with Manda since they haven’t argued about it, but she agrees to stick with sharing with Kylah out of spite. Manda heads off with Kylah to her room, asking everyone else if they’ll be getting changed to go down to the hotel bar.\\\
As soon as she’s out of earshot, Chell suggests to Kay that they get changed anyway just to annoy Manda. Chell complains about how Manda has done nothing but play the martyred single mother role for the past two years even though it's actually her dad, sister and grandmother who do the work of raising her son, Sean. Chell thanks Kay for using her credit card to book the hotel and tells her not to let Manda’s constant sniping at her get to her. Chell admits that Manda’s behaviour drives her up the wall but can’t lose her temper with her because they’ve been friends since they were children. She also tells Kay that she might have been able to tell which condom was the larger one when she was choosing and that she feels like she conned Kylah into picking the smallest one. Kay jokes that Chell deserved to be a winner for being such a good judge of condoms.\\\
Manda and Kylah settle into their room. Manda takes some drinks from the minibar despite Kay’s warnings about how expensive it is.
Finn and Ava arrive not long after. Introductions are made, but Ava doesn’t give too much away. Manda sees that Chell’s changed and huffs off to do the same, as does Kay. The rest of the group explain that Manda’s always been pretty full-on but that she’s been acting out more since Orla passed away three years ago. Finn contends that Manda’s just using that as an excuse to get angry about how shit she’s made her own life as a result of her own decisions, but when Kylah bristles a little at this, they agree to disagree.
Kay re-emerges from the bathroom, which prompts Finn to ask what’s been happening in everyone’s love life. It amounts to a grand total of nothing much - after Manda broke up with the guy she’d been seeing, she insisted that Chell had to break it off with her boyfriend as well, and Chell acquiesced for want of an easy life. Finn admits that there’s nothing happening with her either. The conversation shifts to Ava being fluent in French, which leads to an impromptu rendition of Lady Marmalade until Manda knocks on the door and they all head down to the hotel bar.
After Finn gets a round in, Manda shows everyone her photos of Sean. The group discuss recent goings-on in the Port. Chell tells them about her underpaid job at the tourist information centre. Ava tells the others a little about the Oxfordshire village where her parents live. Manda complains about Sean’s Deadbeat Dad. Kylah complains how her job in Woolies hasn’t lived up to her expectations since all the staff are much older than her. Manda insists that she should have tried out for Popstars but Kylah brushes this off, saying that she never had any interest in being a pop artist.\\\
Kay moves the conversation towards choosing a possible destination for their holiday. Everyone has their own ideas about what they want to do but Kay reminds them that the idea behind doing a last-minute holiday was to go with whatever’s cheapest. With the first round finished, Manda tries to key everyone up for another but Kylah suggests an early night.
While Manda sulkily drinks from the minibar, the rest of the group convene in Kay and Chell’s room to complain about how stupid, vulgar, selfish, small-minded and fat she is. They notice the noise from the planes has stopped and feel a sense of anticipation building for the next day.
Saturday
The girls head to check-in after booking a last-minute deal for a week in Benidorm. When Kay tells them that they’ll need their passports, Manda realises that she can’t find hers and starts to get upset. Finn suggests that all of them find a place to sit down where Manda can go through her stuff and look for it.
Finn, Kay and Ava bemoan the situation with Manda’s passport. Kay decides to go back to the hotel to see if she can find Manda’s passport there and Finn goes with her.
Manda manages to push ahead of the group and get herself a pint of Guinness at the Gatwick Village Inn before Chell, Kylah and Ava catch up with her. Ava ruefully recalls having to watch the rest of the group ooh and ahh over the different shops in the retail village before reaching the pub. Once they find themselves a table, Manda hands Ava some cash and asks her to get a round in. While she’s up at the bar, Manda tries to draw Chell and Kylah into a discussion about whether or not Ava and Finn are sleeping together. Kylah tries to “defend” Finn from this accusation, but when Manda then accuses Kylah of fancying Ava, Kylah gets up from the table and leaves to join Finn and Kay back at the Flight Deck, angrily telling Manda to phone home and talk to her son, something that Manda had forgotten to do the night before because she was so drunk.
Ava returns to the table with their drinks and mentions that the bar wouldn’t take Manda’s Scottish note, saying that they’ll call it her round and Manda can spend her £20 on something else later on. Manda starts quizzing Ava on what the Philosophy degree that she and Finn are doing actually involves. Manda doesn’t understand how any of it translates into finding a job, but Ava claims that it’s just something interesting to do and that she isn’t especially brainy. She claims that Finn is the real intellectual, which prompts Manda to mention that Finn didn’t let on just how clever she was back when they were in school, with it only really becoming evident when the others found out how well she did in her exams.
Manda asks Ava about her religion. Ava says that she’s “lapsed Jewish”, and once she explains to Manda what “lapsed” means, Manda agrees that that’s a fair description of her views on Catholicism. She had started out believing in everything until she started to suspect that it was a ploy by the church to get people to do as they’re told. Now she doesn’t believe in any of it and thinks that people should do what they want to do in life. Ava says that that’s also her personal philosophy of life - “scepticism with a touch of the [[Useful Notes/Epicureanism Epicurean]].”
Finn and Kay return empty-handed from the Flight Deck Hotel and all six reconvene for lunch in McDonalds. Manda expounds on all the cons of a trip to Spain, from the heat to the food. The conversation turns back to Manda’s passport, with Finn urging her to check her suitcase. Tempers flare and Manda claims that one of the others must have taken her passport off her because they’re all sick of her, which they deny. Manda walks off to phone her dad to discuss what she should do. Once she’s gone, Finn suggests that Manda may have hidden her passport so she could be the centre of attention for a while and then produce it at the last minute. Kay then asks them if any of them really have stolen Manda’s passport to teach her a lesson, but they all deny it. They talk about what they’ll do if they can’t find it before their flight, since they can’t cancel without losing all their money and can’t trust Manda to make her way back home alone. They agree to hit the pub before making any big decisions.
Manda rejoins the group at the pub, and proceeds to regale the group with an anecdote about her holiday in Magaluf with Catriona and Shelly McCrindle, supposedly an acquaintance who Catriona and Manda don’t get along with but who they invited along since she happened to have her holidays at the same time. The girls talk about how the transitory nature of the airport pub means that they’re free to hang out there without getting hit on by men. Ava tells them about having sex in the toilets at an airport bar and inadvertently reveals that she had studied at Oxford for a year before dropping out and applying for her current course, something Finn had neglected to mention to the others. Manda deduces from this that Ava is in fact slightly older than the rest of them, who are all about 21. Ava clarifies that’s she’s 23. Kylah, Chell and Kay have all warmed to her by now, but Manda is still staunchly disapproving.
In Pizza Express, Finn, Ava and Kay try to psychoanalyse Manda. This prompts Kay to tell Ava about the abortion she had when she was 17, since she suspects that Manda will probably tell Ava about it at some point so she can continue to lord it over Kay, something that Manda’s escalated since having Sean. Ava reveals that she had an abortion when she was nineteen and still at Oxford - it had been a contributing factor in her departure, but not the deciding one. Kay wonders aloud at the idea of both her and Ava having four-year-old kids, or even being married, which prompts Finn and Ava to start teasing each other about a professor on their course who fancies Finn, which leaves Kay feeling rather left out. Ava announces that she’s off to get herself a newspaper and check at the Information Desk to see if Manda’s passport has been handed in. She fishes out some money for the pizza from her backpack, but once she’s gone Kay tells Finn that she saw that Ava had two passports in her bag.
Chell, Kylah and Manda ride the monorail to the North Terminal, but are left feeling a bit underwhelmed by the selection of shops compared to the South. They then come across the Meridian Hotel.
After buying her newspaper, Ava takes out her phone and makes a call, where she apparently arranges to meet whoever she’s speaking to at Victoria station. This person immediately calls her back, but Ava takes no small amount of pleasure in cutting them off.
At the Meridian, Kylah, Manda and Chell stop for a drink. Ava rings Manda and suggests that she join them for a drink once she’s checked at the Information Desk to see if anyone has handed in Manda’s passport, to which Manda happily agrees. Ava shows up soon after and relays that there’s no news about the passport. Manda starts talking as if Ava’s arrival means that she’s “come over” to their side rather than sticking with Finn and Kay, but Ava insists that she isn’t trying to join anyone’s gang within the group.
Manda starts quizzing Ava about Gilbert, Finn’s ex-boyfriend who she had been seeing while she was in London. They split up because Gilbert was too clingy. Manda tries to suggest that he was coming between Finn and Ava, but Ava denies this by saying that the break-up happened while Finn was staying alone at their place in London.\\\
Ava, managing to foreclose any questioning from Manda on her personal life, asks Manda about what childbirth was like. Manda obliges and tells Ava about the drugs she was on and shows off her c-section scar. The conversation moves on to bikini waxes and Ava’s account of getting caught skipping university by a helicopter pilot taking a photo of her while she was sunbathing naked on her balcony.
Back at Pizza Express, Finn and Kay debate what to do about Ava’s two passports. They also discuss the boys they’ve dated at university, although between the two of them there isn’t much to tell. Kay rings Ava and asks her about the passports. Rather than seeming offended that Kay thought she might have deliberately taken Manda passport, Ava laughs it off by explaining she had brought along her most recently expired passport as well as her current one to make sure she didn’t take the wrong one with her and leave her valid one at home.
Manda, Kylah, Chell and Ava head back to the South Terminal to meet up with Finn and Kay at the Village Inn, and it only really hits Manda now that she might not be going on holiday.
The gang reconvene at the Village Inn, where Manda gets an angry phone call from Catriona about having taken her suitcases without asking. Manda asks if she wants to say to the rest of the girls. When she mentions Kay specifically, Catriona hangs up on her.
Manda, on the verge of tears, pulls Finn aside. She asks Finn if she has a problem with Manda being there. Finn says that what she has a problem with is Manda’s behaviour. Manda launches into a tearful explanation of her behaviour being a knock-on effect from Orla’s death and Sean’s birth, but this isn’t anything Finn hasn’t heard before. Still, she promises to stay at the airport with Manda if they don’t manage to find her passport.
The two of them return to the group. Kay proposes a vote on what they should do next, which results in an agreement to stay at an airport hotel for the night. After Manda’s jokes at Finn and Kay’s expense about sharing beds, Ava insists on booking twin rooms. This leads to a discussion about threesomes. Ava tells the group about her experience with Ben and Joanne, a couple she knew while she was at Oxford. Joanne had been a school friend of Ava’s, and both she and Ben had told Ava separately that they had never had sex with each other despite living together. One evening, when the three of them were spending an evening at Ben and Joanne’s flat, Ava had tried to instigate sex with them, separately and together, but this resulted in all three of them lying in bed, not moving or saying anything until Ben and Joanne both revealed that they were sexually abused as children by their father and uncle respectively. The three of them are still friends but according to Ava, they've never discussed that night since.
Wanting to show off to Ava, Manda tells her about Kay’s threesome with Catriona and Iain Dickinson, inadvertently diffusing some of the tension Kay had been feeling about whether or not Manda would continue to silently hold this over Kay’s head. The girls carry on drinking and Kylah and Finn later return from the bar to find Manda has fallen asleep at the table. The others discuss rooms for the night and joke that Manda will chug the Guinness in front of her when she wakes up, which she does a few moments later.
The group retrieve their cases from Left Luggage and make their way to the Hilton. Once they’re out of earshot of Manda, Ava offers to show Kay and Finn her old passport. Kay’s still embarrassed but Ava is still unfazed, and Finn’s eager to see her old photos. Finn ruefully contemplates what a great holiday they could all have had without Manda.
Once they reach the Hilton, Manda gets distracted by the in-hotel hairdresser’s, so the others slope off to the bar to procure themselves a round of vodka and Red Bulls. Ava offers to share with Manda for the night. They get a Guinness for Manda in the hope that she’ll doze off sooner. Manda complains about not having a vodka and Red Bull but still chugs the Guinness. She asks Kay to get her a vodka and Red Bull as well, which she does. Manda finishes off her pint, takes one drink of the vodka and Red Bull and throws up spectacularly into her pint glass. Ava escorts her to the Ladies and then to the room they’ll be sharing, but Manda is sick again in an ice dispenser on the way there. Ava manages to manoeuvre her to their room, where Manda drops out cold on the bed. Ava pulls one of Manda’s boots off, and her cash and passport come flying out.
Sunday
The girls are in a hire car with Ava at the wheel, driving through Surrey. They’ve taken a vote and decided to visit Hever Castle. They drive past a pub where Manda wants to stop but Kay and Ava manage to talk her out of it. Once they reach the castle, Manda runs off ahead of the group, the others resolving to let her go get herself into trouble sooner rather than later since it’s bound to happen at some point. They leave the car and take all the passports with them.
Manda admires the castle and sends a text to Shelly McCrindle to find out what’s been happening in the Port. She then races back to tell the others what she’s found beside the castle - a hedge maze.
The group make their way towards the castle. Chell asks Kay about the architecture, who tells her that most of the castle has been restored since the original structure was built in Tudor times. Manda praises Ava’s generosity over the hotel bills, mostly as a way of getting another dig in at Kay for telling her off earlier about drinking from the minibar in the Flight Deck.
Ava goes off in search of some refreshments. Finn talks about how nice Ava's house in Oxfordshire is. Kay asks if Finn if the house is listed. Manda complains that the two them are boring her but they ignore her. Once Ava returns, she and Kay chat a little about the architectural history of her house. Ava suggests that Kay could come down and see it sometime if she wants.
