Harry stared blankly until a moment of knowing hit him. “Hold on. Is she the fat bird with hair like wire?”
Susie nodded reluctantly. “That would be her, Harry, yes. You’ve not seen her? When you were out at shops?”
Harry paused for a few moments, pondering, then replied, “You’ve asked the right fellow, as I have a photogenic memory. And I can tell you, with certainty, that she was in the toilet when I was here on the Tuesday of this week. When she came out of the toilet, the smell made my eyes bleed. The smell was that bad that I ended up walking home instead of waiting for a taxi. And it had just begun raining, and showed no signs of abating, and there was me without my mac. And yet I walked home anyway, because that’s how bad the smell was. And when I’d gotten home, I discovered that my fruit had turned, and I blame that entirely on the noxious bathroom odour.”
“Your fruit?” Susie asked, wondering if this were perhaps some kind of euphemism, or…
“The fruit I’d just purchased at the shop! Do pay attention!”
“Ah. But you haven’t seen Stella today?” Susie tried to coax out of him.
“Today? No, of course not. I’ve already told you.”
“I’m sorry about your fruit, Harry,” said Susie.
“Hmm? What fruit? What are you on about, dear lady?”
“Your spoiled fruit?” she reminded him. “That you got at the shop?”
“Oh, that. I thought you were speaking in code. I’m very good at interpreting code. I’d done it during the war. I’m very clever, you see. I know my onions. And so I thought you were speaking in code, and perhaps flirting with me. I’m much too old for that sort of nonsense! But, with my dashing good looks, I can understand perfectly why you’d be so overcome with—”
“Oh, look, your taxi is here,” Susie announced, relieved. “And just in time.”
“Hmm? Just in time for what?” Harry asked, confused.
“Just in time for being on time,” Susie told him. “Look, I’ll tell the driver that this fare is on me, for your fruit, and for the odouriferous assault on your nasal passages. Okay? And there’s your car outside, so you have a nice day, all right?” Susie motioned to the driver, and he came in to help Harry out to the taxi.
She could hear Harry carrying on as he was led away. “She keeps talking about my fruit!” … “I think she was chatting me up!” … “Imagine! At my age!” Susie offered a half-hearted wave, now distracted by her ringing phone.
“Lee!” she shouted into the phone, with no longer any attempt to retain her calm professional demeanour. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you!”
Susie paced around the reception area, keeping one eye on the front door. “Lee, we’re in deep trouble. Stella left me a message this morning saying she knows you’ve been cheating on her. She said Eric Fryer at the café told her he’d seen you with a woman.”
She listened for a few impatient moments, then continued, “I know you know more than one woman on this earth. But she knows something’s been going on, or at least thinks there is. Lee, Eric Fryer saw the two of us together, and if he walks into my office, for any reason, and recognises me, he’s sure to tell Stella that I’m that woman, and… Oh, god, I don’t want to think about what Stella would do. Lee, you need to sort this out! Lee? … Lee, are you still there? Hello? Lee??”
Susie checked the phone, but the call was still connected. She placed the phone back to her ear…
“You’re back. Oh, you’ve found a note from Stella? Why didn’t you tell me that five minutes ago?? … Okay, sorry, you’ve only just found it. But you’ll need to excuse me for being somewhat cranky. Knowing Stella could turn up at any second here, only to separate my limbs from my body, is not exactly a prospect I relish. She scares me at the best of times, but knowing what she does… Good god, it doesn’t bear thinking about.” She paused, lest her anger and frustration get the better of her. “Well?” she said expectantly.
Susie smiled as a young couple entered. ‘Just one moment,’ she mouthed, with her finger raised politely. ‘Sorry about the wait.’
She turned her attention back to her phone, cupping her mouth now for privacy. “Well what? What do you mean, well what? Lee what do you think I mean? What does the bloody note say?? Yes I’m listening, Lee…”
The male half of the couple, the couple now stood waiting by the counter, shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. “Thank you for your patience. Bit of a family emergency here,” Susie told him, smiling apologetically.
“No, not you,” she said, back on the phone. “I’ve got a customer here… What? Great, so Molly’s going to the Isle of Man to support her dad, so Stella’s gone with her. I guess I’m running the business all by myself, yet again. How marvellous! Now. How are we going to sort out this kerfuffle when she’s on another piece of rock entirely? … Yes, I know she can’t physically harm me from over there, at least, but it’s still not ideal, now is it? When are you due to go over to help at this racing event? Tomorrow? Okay, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow, as Stella seems to have turned her phone off. What do you mean, what are you going to say to her? Lee, you’re a grown man. You’ll just need to grab the bull by the horns and tell her what you’ve decided, won’t you? It may come as a shock to her, but at least she will then know, and we won’t need to continue carrying on behind her back. She deserves that, don’t you think?”
The fellow at the counter looked at his wrist, making a show of checking the time even though he wasn’t wearing a watch, communicating that his patience was clearly wearing thin. His lady companion was now stood at the window watching the flow of traffic, perhaps looking to see if she could spot another company’s taxi car they might procure.
“Lee, I’ve got to get back to work,” Susie said into the phone. “I’ll speak to you later.”
There remain two modes of travel to the Isle of Man — by air, being one method, and by sea being the other. In November, the latter option could, on occasion, be a calculated gamble. If you also wanted to bring along your own transport, four hours on the ferry from the port of Heysham awaited. On a calm day the ferry was a sublime way to travel, but if the Irish Sea was angry then you were in for rather a tumultuous adventure. Molly, tasked with bringing more of her father’s belongings over to the Isle, was beginning to regret her offer of taking them over by car. Not just because of the inclement weather, as it turned out, but also because of now having an unexpected, uninvited, and unhappy travelling companion in tow. Travelling with Stella did, however, have its advantages, on this occasion particularly on an overcrowded boat, as Molly was about to learn…
“There are no seats, Stella,” said Molly, smiling politely at those already seated. Unfortunately, ferry passengers had a habit of taking a seat, then placing their belongings either side to avoid unwelcome neighbours — with any neighbour being considered, in fact, unwelcome — and the end result of which was that one person essentially occupied three seats. These types of people were exceptionally good at avoiding eye contact, often waving at people who didn’t exist in order to back up their subterfuge. The vision of Stella in a leopardskin dress certainly exaggerated this reaction, with that many people motioning over their imaginary travelling companions that it looked like they were involved in a stadium-style Mexican wave.
Stella pointed towards the rear of the bar area, where a series of bench chairs joined together to create a large seating area. People there sat squashed together, some reading, some listening to music, along with one particularly inconsiderate woman lying down across the bench taking the space of four people. The woman lay positioning herself to face the wall, it seemed, so that she didn’t have to look at the people who were left standing because of her, or had given up completely and were sitting uncomfortably on the deck floor. Those sat closest to Sleeping Beauty offered a frustrated tut-tut, and an occasional murmuring, but, being too British for their own good, they remained entirely too polite and their angst manifested itself no further than this.
/> Stella, on the other hand, was not any of these people. “Over there,” she said, placing a half-smoked fag behind her ear. “Luckily, I see a seat opening up just now. Bully for me.”
Molly was about to protest, but Stella was already making her move…
“Alright, princess. Shift yourself!”
There was no response.
“Oi! Yes, I’m talking to you!”
There was still no reply, but the woman was likely only feigning deep sleep, and so Stella carried on, undeterred. Not that the woman genuinely being asleep would have made the least bit of difference anyway. “Look,” Stella suggested, not at all discreetly. “You’re taking up about four bloody seats here. So shift your carcass. Pronto.” She said this with a snap of her fingers for good measure, to get the point across.
With no response yet forthcoming, Stella leaned closer so there would be no doubt as to her intentions. “Listen, luv. I’ve had a really bad day. All I want to do right now is sit down and have four or five pints of Guinness to sort myself out. So, you either shift your sorry ass, RIGHT NOW, or I’m going to pick you up and throw you overboard. DO I MAKE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR?”
The woman may have been an idiot but she was not, apparently, a blithering idiot because she did indeed, at this point in time, perform the action that was instructed of her.
“And that’s how it’s fucking done!” Stella announced aloud to the present onlookers, now staring in wonder.
Stella took one of the now-vacant seats. “Good girl. It looks like you may retain your health today,” she said, directed to the very nervous-looking woman now sat in a perfectly upright position next to her. “Molly,” Stella said, pointing a thumb over to the bar. “Grab me a Guinness while you’re up, yeah?”
“But I’m not—” Molly began, but of course it was useless.
“I’ll watch your seat for you,” Stella told her.
Molly rose to the occasion, although it was more a case of her realising she didn’t really have any real choice in the matter.
“Oh!” Stella shouted across the length of the bar. “Scampi fries, if they’ve got them! Two packets! No, wait, better make it four!”
Stella pulled her mobile phone from her bra as she waited for her refreshments, casting a frustrated glance down at the screen. “Fucking bastard,” she muttered, due to the absence of any unread messages. Or it could have been in reference to the screensaver picture of Lee on a trampoline, dressed as an elf. Or, it could have been both things at once.
Molly returned, offering a sympathetic smile to their now rigidly-vertical neighbour, and took a still-available spot next to Stella, despite the shortage of seating, handing over her pint as she did so. “The boat’s really busy, Stella,” Molly said to her by way of conversation. “I was speaking to that group at the bar and they all said they’re going to the Isle of Man just for the race on Sunday. You know, I think the boys could really be onto something with this event,” she said. “Oh,” she added. “And you know who else is on the boat, don’t you?” But she didn’t finish what she was going to say, now staring, as she was, at Stella’s empty pint. Molly had only looked away for a tick, but the only evidence there’d been anything there at all was the white outline of foam presently on Stella’s hairy upper lip.
“What? I was thirsty,” replied Stella matter-of-factly. “Who?”
“Who, what?” asked Molly.
“Who else is on the boat?”
“Oh, yes. Your friend Guy Martin.” Molly turned her head back towards the bar area. “Those blokes over there said they’d been chatting with him while he was queuing to get on. He was sat with his mate in that tricked-up Ford Transit van he raced on that show of his, according to them, so they were especially interested in that…” But by the time Molly looked back to Stella, her seat was empty, aside from two empty packets of scampi fries and her well-drained plastic beaker of Guinness.
It wasn’t too much of a challenge, actually, to find out where Guy was seated, on account of the large group of people milling about, forming a circle to perhaps have a picture taken or to have something signed by him. A large proportion of those waiting were lovestruck women, as it would happen. Guy was obliging and happy to sign anything placed in his way, including a large pair of breasts, which were suddenly inches from his face. This was not an uncommon occurrence, women asking to have their breasts signed, so he didn’t bat an eye. “Would you like me to personalise it, luv?” he asked routinely. And it wasn’t until he pulled back a little to capture his admirer’s response that the expression on his face changed to one of terror again — that strange mix of excitement and terror — as before, at the Glasgow hotel.
“Yes, please,” Stella said.
Guy stared intently at Stella for several awkward seconds, and then relaxed. He knew from experience that a battle with Stella was one he’d never win, so he simply accepted the inevitable. “Bloody hell,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Joey,” he said, addressing his mate who’d accompanied him on the trip. “This is Stella. The one I was telling you about.”
“I thought you were having me on, Guy,” Joey replied, cautiously absorbing the wonder that was Stella in a skintight leopardskin dress. “I didn’t think she was real. I thought you’d made her up!”
“Oh, she’s real alright,” Guy assured him. “And she’s bloody brilliant at managing enthusiastic crowds, this one, among other things. You should see her in action. She’s the best,” he said, turning back to Stella and giving her a wink.
“When you’re right, you’re right,” said Stella, taking the compliment with no modesty on her part. She looked over to Joey, whose eyes were transfixed. She waved her hand around her face. “Oi! You keep your eyes north of the border, you dirty get,” she told him. “See? Or we’ll have a problem.”
Guy stifled a burst of laughter, with Joey looking like he was about to unscrew the porthole window and take his chances in the force-7 gale outside. “Right. You just see that you do,” Stella further admonished him. “Anyway,” she continued, addressing Guy now. “Your offer that we discussed before. Were you serious?”
Guy flicked his eyes over to Joey, for he knew how her question might be interpreted. “You mean about the personal assistant job, Stella?” he clarified.
“Yes, that.”
Guy nodded, running his hands through his mass of unkempt hair. This had the effect of sending a mass quivering amongst the assembled women present in the queue, along with a collection of audible gasps. Strangely, for her part, however, Stella now appeared to be largely immune to Guy’s special charms, or perhaps merely preferring of the battery-operated version of him.
“Absolutely,” Guy told Stella. “You can handle people like nobody’s business, you can drive, presumably, and you can provide the security services of three grown men!” he joked. “But… are you not happy in the taxi office? You’re co-owner now, I think you were telling me?”
Stella still had two packets of scampi fries on her person, somehow, and she produced them from locations unknown given her skin-tight attire, ripping open the packets of fish-flavoured treats and swallowing their entire contents down in one go, one after the other, like a cormorant eating a pollock. With her snack sorted, she turned her attention back to Guy. “I was happy in the taxi office,” she said to him thoughtfully. “I was happy, until just recently. But things have changed. That’s what you get for trusting people, I suppose, and I won’t be doing that again in a hurry, I expect. Anyway, I’m over all weekend helping Frank and Stan with their race, so I’ll catch up with you there,” she said. “And you can sign my tits there, if you like,” she added. “I’ll leave you to it for now, as there’s others waiting,” she told him, mindful of the remaining throng, or, just confident she could get her personal bits signed whenever she pleased.
Stella manoeuvred round in the tight space she’d wedged herself into next to Guy, and Guy lifted his legs like his mum was running the Hoover around his feet, to accommodate her, al
lowing her an easier route. Joey stared on in terrible astonishment as she took her leave. “Mate, I thought you were joking about her,” Joey whispered, reiterating his earlier comment, once certain Stella was out of earshot. “Did she ever do wrestling? She must’ve done, now I think on it. I’m sure I’ve seen her on the telly?” But Guy only laughed.
“Everything okay?” Molly asked Stella. “Only you were gone for a good while.”
Stella didn’t respond at first. She looked out to sea. And, if they’d been out on the open deck, she could have blamed the salty wind for the hint of moisture at the corner of her eye. “Molly,” she said, finally. “Have you ever questioned your career choices?”
“Of course. Don’t forget I used to be a lap-dancer, after all. What’s going on, Stella?” Molly slid up the already intimate bench seating, placing a comforting hand, somewhat bravely, on Stella’s thigh. “Has Guy Martin upset you?” she asked. “Because, if he has…”
Stella smiled at the sentiment. “I’m alright, Molly. But thanks for that,” she said, patting Molly’s hand in a way that both acknowledged her kindness and indicated that she might perhaps consider taking it the hell off of her thigh forthwith.
“Mm-hmm?” Molly said, pulling her hand away, and encouraging Stella to continue.
“I’m just annoyed with myself, to be honest,” she went on. “I’m annoyed that I’ve opened myself up to the point others can take advantage of my good nature. I was happier on my bleedin’ own, without a man to complicate things. What do we even need them for? I’ve got two replacements in my bedside drawer which are better than most I’ve met, especially that ruddy punter, Lee. I suppose deep down I knew this day would come. After all,” she went on, running her hand up and down in front of her body illustratively. “I’m an acquired taste for most, glorious as I am. I know that. And the last time I was with a man, before Lee, it turned out I was a bloody bet. But I thought Lee was different,” she said, exhaling sharply. “I truly did. I can’t believe I’ve been this stupid. Still, it’s not all bad. I’ve just sorted a new job. I’ll be providing personal services for Guy Martin. So there’s that,” she told Molly. “Oi, I’m going on deck for a quick fag.”
Frank 'n' Stan's Bucket List #3 Isle 'Le Mans' TT: Featuring Guy Martin Page 23