by J. R. Bonham
He did actually cheer up a bit thinking of seeing that place and remembering the old John Wayne films he loved so much. He read all through the tour that Jan had chosen.
“That looks a good tour, it takes in a big area. I’ll just have a look at what planes they use,” he said as he turned to the back page. Jan was keeping her fingers crossed. “Oh, that’s OK. They use jumbo jets with four engines.”
“Is that the thumbs up for this trip then?” Jan was ever hopeful.
“If we must! Now can I have some peace and quiet?” he demurred.
‘Yes of course you can, forever if you like!’ she thought but wondered how she would ever be able to leave without him coming after her and locking her up for himself. Was she trapped? She certainly felt like it.
The holiday was several months away so she just told him the date so he could book the time off at work. She said she had it all sorted and nothing more was said about it until nearer the time. She was afraid to get too excited about it in case he got too depressed and then say they would have to cancel. She kept her fingers crossed. But she also told Sheila at work all about it. She had to tell someone or else she felt she would explode.
“I hope it all goes well for you,” Sheila was genuine. “I must admit Terry isn’t that keen on holidays. I think he wants us to get a campervan and then tour around the UK in that. Maybe go over to France. So there will be no long haul holidays for us. But that’s fine. We get on really well.” She wasn’t bothered because she was so pleased to find a man who was really supportive. He was also very family-orientated and had been taken into her family very easily. Her divorce from Eric was now settled.
“How did the kids take the split from Eric?” Jan enquired.
“Oh, he talked them around. They didn’t want to know him at first but he worked his charm on them and now they’re OK with him. I’m not sure what they’re like with his new woman or even if he’s still with the one he left me for. Knowing him, he’ll probably be looking around for another one anyway!” Sheila told Jan and they both laughed, thinking about it.
“Oh, he’s not as bad as that, is he?” Jan asked.
“Well, he was always looking at other women when he was with me. I suppose we lasted over twenty years so that was a miracle, although I don’t know how many affairs he had in that time – and I don’t think I want to know.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to be cheated on, it must be horrible,” Jan said to Sheila. “I’m sure Geoff isn’t really interested in that sort of thing and I’ve never looked at anyone else although I’ve had one or two offers! I remember when Geoff and I used to play badminton, there was one man there who I just couldn’t shake off. He always chose to play with me, it was so obvious! Even in front of his wife AND my own husband! Then he used to make suggestive remarks, it was really creepy. In the end, I avoided him by getting on court first and choosing someone else to play with. Luckily Geoff never suspected and I never said anything to him. I know that if I had told him, he would have knocked the man’s block off!”
“Did the other man get the message in the end?”
“I think he must have. I know his wife was suspicious of him and had her beady eye on him. She may well have said something to him, to back off. I was never really very good at doing that, telling someone to back off or get lost. I just found it easier to walk the other way. Better get back to work, we’ve got a lot to get through today.”
Jan loved her work. She was only part time and Sheila worked full time. They were the only women amongst an office with 12 men. It was a small firm of chartered accountants that had been struggling financially for some time and it transpired that another, larger firm was looking for a merger.
This happened quite smoothly, with some alterations to the building but they didn’t have to close and the clients were happy with the expansion. Sheila and Jan were moved to another part of the building into a new, modern reception office with a beautiful long wooden counter with lovely décor and new carpet. They realised how old fashioned their old office had become.
This new working arrangement worked fine for about six months until a new office manager was appointed and then out of the blue he gave Jan notice to quit. She was mortified.
“Did you ask them why you were sacked?” Geoff enquired.
“No I didn’t because I know why. They want to bring in a junior to help Sheila. All in order to save money. Well, they can stuff their job, it was never the same after they were taken over. Before that it was a nice, friendly, family-run firm and then the big boys came in and ruined it.”
“Are you going to look for something else?”
“Well, I shall sign on at the job centre but with our holiday coming up soon, I don’t think it’s worth starting anything just yet. I shall have some time to myself. Maybe play more tennis and badminton, go out to lunch occasionally and see Sheila in her lunch hour, and she can give me all the gossip from work. She’ll certainly notice the difference without me there.”
“Don’t enjoy yourself too much,” Geoff snarled.
“No, I won’t!” she lied.
Chapter 25
Packing started in earnest for their holiday of a lifetime to America. First time on their own without the children.
“I think I shall have to pack warm things as, according to the brochure, it’s one of the first tours of the season. Apparently, there’s thick snow up in the mountains.”
“You pack what you like.” Geoff was unhelpful as usual.
‘Maybe you could pack your own things for a change!’ Jan murmured but hoping her thoughts wouldn’t be heard. ‘Last time you made such a fuss when your favourite jumper wasn’t in the suitcase as you expected it to be!’
“OK, but don’t say to me when we get there, ‘Where is such and such?’ and when I say I didn’t pack it, you don’t complain, please. Maybe you could be more helpful now and tell me what you want me to pack?”
“Oh, I don’t know! Just pack whatever you think fit. The usual, I should think,” he said. He really didn’t want to think about it anymore.
Jan made sure all the paperwork was up to date and that she took all the things they would need. She went to the bank and ordered some traveller’s cheques – enough for the journey, plus some American dollars.
“Louise is taking us to the airport and Steven is going to pick us up, so that’s all sorted,” Jan told Geoff. “Is there anything else you can think of?”
“I expect you’ve thought of everything. Shall we go now?”
Louise stopped off on the way to buy petrol and Jan gave her some money towards it. They arrived and retrieved the suitcases from the boot.
“You have a lovely time,” Louise said to them. “It sounds a great holiday. How far do you go in the coach?”
“I think it’s around three thousand miles,” Jan replied.
“How far?” Geoff interjected. “Oh, I don’t want to go that far in a bloody coach!”
“Well, it’s too late! Come on. Bye Lulu. Be good and… no parties!”
“No Mum, no parties, promise!” Louise smiled as her parents took their suitcases and disappeared into Departures.
“What do we do now?” asked Geoff. ‘Useless or what?’ thought Jan.
“We have to check in our suitcases and then wait three hours,” said Jan rather scathingly. She thought he would know that by now, having been to America before.
“What! Three hours! I’m not waiting three hours just to get on a plane!”
‘Oh don’t be such a pain.’ Jan huffed but partially ignored his remark.
“We have to do as we’re told, so just be patient. Come on, there’s a person free at the desk, we’ll go to her.” And off she went to the check-in desk with Geoff in tow.
They went through to the departure lounge after having dropped off their suitcases.
“Do you want to
have a look around the shops or the duty-free?” Jan asked Geoff.
“No thanks, there’s nothing I need; I’ll stop here and read my book. I haven’t got anything else to do with my time.”
‘Bloody hell, what’s the matter with you?’ she wondered to herself.
“OK, I’ll go and have a look around on my own then.”
“Don’t spend too much.” Geoff thought he’d better say that even though he actually knew that she never spent very much on herself. She was more likely to buy something for Louise and Steven.
“No, I won’t. Maybe we can go for a coffee a bit later and something to eat,” she said to try and cheer him up.
“Don’t they feed us on the plane?”
“Yes, of course they do. I just thought you’d like something else to do instead of just reading your book.”
“I’m not spending good money on food if we’re getting a meal on the plane.”
“OK, whatever.” Jan was getting exasperated so she went off to look at the shops.
‘Wow, what lovely shops, you could spend a fortune here. I’ll have a quick look at the duty-free and then I’d better get back to Misery-guts. What on earth is the matter with him, I wonder?’
“What are we going to do now?” he asked her as soon as she returned.
“What would you like to do? Shall we go and get a coffee? There’s a nice café over there,” she said, pointing in the general direction of restaurants and cafés.
He agreed they could pass some time at a café. He sat down at a table while she went up to order two coffees. He would always expect her to wait on him.
“This is nice coffee, isn’t it?” Jan was desperate to find something to talk about. “I wonder what the kids are doing now?”
“Probably plotting who to invite to their party!”
“Well, Lulu promised she wouldn’t have a party and I trust her. I think we should have had a word with Steven too before we left. Oh, well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“Unless we phone them. You go and ring them and make sure there are no parties.”
“No! I won’t ring them! I expect they’ll be at work now anyway,” she stated.
“We could send them a postcard and tell them. We’ll get one as soon as we land. If it goes off airmail, they should just about get it in time before we get home.”
“Yes, maybe.” ‘Anything to placate him. It would probably be too late; if they’re going to have a party they would have had it by then.’ “I think it might be time to go to the gate. They said we should be there half an hour before take-off, as it takes quite a bit of time for boarding everyone.”
“I need to go to the toilet,” Geoff said. “Better go now instead of in those horrible little cubicles on the plane.”
“OK, then, hurry up.”
They got to the gate just as the last call went out on the tannoy. Geoff had taken a long time in the toilet, just as Jan had predicted. They were shown to their seats by the stewardess and they stowed their hand luggage in an overhead compartment.
“Christ, there’s not much legroom,” Geoff complained as he sat down.
“Never mind, I expect you’ll manage. Maybe we should have upgraded to business class, then we would have had better seats.”
“At great expense, no doubt.”
“Probably.”
They arrived at Denver airport and found their tour manager together with the rest of the group they were going to tour with. They seemed mostly couples with a few singles and one foursome. Around 34 people in all.
“Welcome to the United States of America,” said Pat, the tour manager, to her flock. “Our coach is just outside if you’d all like to follow me.”
Pat seemed to be interested in the foursome in particular; it transpired that they had been on a trip with her the year before. They were two married couples – two women, Rosemary and Maureen who were sisters, together with Maureen’s husband, Russell, who was also their cousin. Mike was the fourth member, who was Rosemary’s husband.
“There is a strict rotation on the coach which will begin tomorrow but you will be told about that,” Pat told everyone when they were comfortably seated on the coach. “Meanwhile I shall come and see you all, while our driver, Kevin, drives us to our hotel. And if there’s anything you’re not sure about, please do let me know. Tomorrow morning will be similar to most mornings where we will stay just one night. You’ll get an early morning call, usually between six and six-thirty. You’ll need to put your cases outside your door, go and have breakfast and we usually have to leave by seven-thirty or eight o’clock, depending on the distance we have to drive that day.”
“Six o’clock call! I don’t call that a holiday. It’s more like we’re in the army,” Geoff said rather too loudly for Jan’s liking.
“Shhh, someone will hear you,” she whispered to Geoff, quietly nudging him.
“We have long distances to travel which is why we have to leave so early,” Pat had heard him. She looked directly at Geoff and he looked away.
‘Oh dear, not a good start to our holiday, he’s blotted his copybook already.’ Jan thought. ‘I expect Pat’s marked his cards, so no specialist treatment for us like she’s giving to that foursome.’
They arrived at the hotel quite tired after the long journey and they went straight to their room to freshen up and change for dinner. There was no need to unpack because they were only staying one night. Pat told them they could meet in the bar before dinner for a drink and to introduce each other. She said it was a good time to meet up and get to know everyone in the group.
“It’s a lovely hotel isn’t it?” Jan mused. ‘It’s a huge bed but I won’t mention anything to do with that in case he gets the wrong idea! I suppose they called it American size, big like everything else is here.’
“It’s OK, I suppose. How about trying out the bed before dinner?”
“I don’t think so, it’s been a long day. I don’t know about you but I’m too tired to think, let alone anything else.” ‘Does he never stop thinking about sex?’
“Never!” Geoff put the TV on to take his mind off thoughts of sex, for the time being anyway.
“Shall we go down for a drink before dinner, like Pat suggested?” Jan said while she started to get changed and took out the sponge bag, in readiness for putting it in the bathroom.
“I’ve just got interested in this now. It’s a programme all about the space race, it’s really interesting.”
“Are you saying I should go on my own then? I don’t want to see the space race, I’ve come to America to see all there is to see here. And to try and make some new friends out of our tour buddies.”
“Oh, they’re only a load of old fuddy-duddies, wanting to drink too much before they eat too much at dinner.”
“Yes, well, I don’t want to have to come in late and then have to sit on our own, or with someone we don’t like. It’s best to talk to people first, over a drink, and see who we’d like to sit with at dinner, surely?”
“Do we have to? I’d rather it was just us, not some other old buggers.”
This was just the start of the holiday. Jan wasn’t looking forward to the rest if he wasn’t going to bother to join in.
“I do think we should meet with some of the others in the group. You never know, you might actually like someone.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Let’s get changed for dinner anyway. We only need to unpack our night clothes, nothing else much because we’ll be off first thing tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to change. What’s the point? I’m alright as I am.”
“OK then,” she agreed. “Let’s just go down for a drink. I don’t know about you but I’m thirsty after that long flight.”
“Yes, and I’m tired. We’ll just go for dinner at the proper time.”
&nbs
p; Jan was tired too so she sat down again, resigned to just go for dinner. ‘He’s won again,’ she thought. ‘I’m not going down there on my own and I can’t force him.’ Then she had a brainwave.
“Maybe I’ll just raid the mini bar.” She predicted what was going to come next and she was right.
“Oh no you won’t!” he exclaimed. “You know they charge an arm and a leg for those drinks. I saw a programme once about the mark-up on mini bars. It stays shut, OK?”
She went to get some water from the bathroom and began to drink it and watch some of the programme on the television. There was only about another ten minutes and she thought that he would make a move then – but the news came on and he just sat there. She sat through it too. At the end of the news he got up and she thought he was going say he was ready to go. But he went to the bathroom and shut the door. Another ten minutes went by when he finally emerged.
“I’m hungry now!” he announced.
‘Finally!’ She was relieved and she jumped up and went to the door.
They went downstairs to where everyone was waiting for the dining room door to open. They all had drinks in their hands and they were all chatting to one another. This made it all the more awkward for Geoff and Jan to butt in, so they just waited in silence at the end of the queue. Pat came along and announced they would be on two long tables and wherever there was room she would join that table. She waited for them all to get seated. Jan and Geoff sat near the end of one table next to the foursome. There was one place spare at the end and so Pat came along and perched there. Jan was hoping to strike up a conversation with someone – anyone but Geoff.
This wasn’t to be, much to her chagrin. The foursome were all chatting together, and when Pat sat down they talked to her across Jan and Geoff.
“We had such a great time last year, thanks to you,” Mike, one of the foursome, told Pat. “We got home and told everyone we knew about it and said we would definitely recommended it.”
“Thank you so much. I’m so glad you’ve come on my tour again. You really made it for me last year. All my other tours have been a bit boring since then!” she told them.