Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I feel like I’ve had a crash course in ship-life,’ laughed Ven. ‘How much information did those four cram into us?’

  ‘Quite interesting information in some cases, though,’ said Olive. ‘As in which trips to book. And to turn our clocks forward one hour tonight.’

  ‘We’ll have a look at the trips tomorrow,’ said Ven.

  ‘Formal night tomorrow, according to the knowledgeable ones. Long frocks at the ready, ladies,’ grinned Frankie.

  ‘Oh heck, I haven’t got a long one,’ said Olive. There was no way she had enough clothes for this holiday. That nightmare was going to come true and she would be walking around the decks starkers.

  ‘Olive, we’ll go shopping tomorrow. Before your hairdo – and your massage,’ said Ven, giving her hand a comforting squeeze.

  ‘I’ve never had a massage before,’ said Olive. She was a bit nervous about it, though she didn’t want to make herself out to be a wimp and say as much.

  ‘Scared you’ll get turned on?’ joked Frankie. ‘It’ll be a bit different to having your David rub you down with chip fat.’

  David. Olive wondered what he would be doing now, then she threw him out of her head. There was no point being on a ship if her thoughts were going to be stuck back in Barnsley. She had promised herself that she would try very hard not to think about what was happening in Land Lane. She wouldn’t see the Hardcastles again until after she had been to Cephalonia.

  The Mermaidia had its own theatre company and they were very good. The six boys and six girls, all with perfect figures and beautiful faces, performed a musical tribute play to the ‘Rock Around the Clock’ era. Olive looked at one of the dancers, a long-haired blonde girl who was around the age she herself had been when she took off to work in Cephalonia for the summer. That girl had her whole life in front of her like a field full of freshly fallen snow on which to make her mark. Olive’s memories of those months were flavoured with the fragrance of lemons and slow-cooked lamb. And Atho Petrakis’s kisses.

  Ven looked around at the eclectic mix of passengers. Lots of children, confidently strutting teenagers who seemed to have linked into friendship groups already, old couples, and a shaggy-haired, bearded and tattooed man, looking at odds with the rest of his conventional party. He appeared more as if he had been searching for the Southampton Hell’s Angel Chapter and taken a wrong turning at the docks. Or was he a wild Viking – with something like ‘Bloodaxe’ in his name? Frankie was thinking on exactly the same wavelength.

  ‘He looks wrong here,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe he’s part of the security team. Wouldn’t tangle with him, would you, Frank?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Shave off that beard and tidy up the hair a bit and I bet he’d be quite handsome. Are we exploring?’

  ‘I’m knackered,’ said Olive. ‘Do you mind if I turn in?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Ven. ‘This is your holiday, you do what you want.’

  ‘I’m going as well,’ said Roz, affecting a yawn. She wasn’t that tired, but she didn’t relish the idea of trotting around the ship with Frankie pretending they were bosom buddies again. Bosom being the operative word now with Frankie’s new tits. No, there was only so much play-acting she could do in one day. So Roz and Olive said goodnight and headed back to their cabins.

  They both made contented gasps when they went inside them. Jesus had switched on some subdued lighting, closed the curtains, turned down their quilts and placed a chocolate on their pillow.

  Olive was too tired even to have a bath or a shower; she stripped off to her underwear then went to the drawer for her nightie. She was just about to put it on when she remembered she didn’t need to. If she got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, she wasn’t likely to bump into Kevin and his appendage-filled thong. She crawled between the starched white sheets stark naked, an extreme act of wantonness from her, and tried to remember the last time she had slept in the nude between sheets as crisp and cool as these. Her mind flew back twenty years and she saw herself rolling around naked with Atho Petrakis in his bed above the café, and though she was alone, Olive felt herself blushing. The ship barcaroled gently and made her feel as if she were in a giant cradle. Or Atho’s double hammock, strung between the olive trees behind his parents’ tiny villa. She slipped into sleep before she had a chance to savour her memories for long.

  Next door, Roz lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling and thinking about Frankie. She wouldn’t have recognised her if they had passed in the street, with her hair and her weight loss and her enlarged knockers. She could almost have been a different person but for those big sloe eyes of hers. But she wasn’t. She was still the same Frankie Carnevale who had tried to seduce her man . . . then distorted and exaggerated pictures of Frankie and Manus passionately locked in each other’s arms loomed large and colourful in Roz’s head. Her mother was right, after all. Anything with a dick should never be given the benefit of the doubt.

  Frankie and Ven caught the lift up to the seventeenth floor as they had decided to explore the ship from the top down, but once they had flopped onto a comfortable sofa in the beautiful Vista lounge on the sixteenth, they knew it would be their last port of call for the evening.

  ‘I’m so full, I don’t think I could even fit a drink in,’ said Frankie, feeling the curve of her stomach.

  ‘Drink, ma’am?’ came a waiter’s voice at her side.

  ‘A Classic Champagne Cocktail, please,’ said Frankie.

  ‘What happened to “I’m so full”?’ Ven grinned and ordered the same.

  ‘I am full, I’m just being a pig,’ said Frankie. ‘It’s not every day you get up from a dinner-table and swan off without paying the bill, is it? I could get used to this life very quickly.’

  ‘We’re right at the very back of the ship,’ said Ven, looking out to sea. ‘I bet this is gorgeous during the day.’

  ‘No doubt we’ll find out tomorrow.’

  ‘Sorry about Roz,’ said Ven, suddenly changing the subject. ‘I knew she’d be pissed off at seeing you. Not sure it was fair to risk it for your sake.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about me.’ Frankie tapped her on the hand. ‘The ship’s big enough for her to get out of my way if she chooses. I shall make no such detours, though. How’s Manus? Still as lovely as ever?’

  ‘He’s wonderful,’ sighed Ven. ‘I wish I could find someone as nice as he is. But they’re having a rough time, Frankie. They’re on a temporary break.’

  ‘Aw, that’s a shame,’ said Frankie, with quiet sorrow. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that.’

  ‘We don’t know what to do,’ said Ven. ‘If she knew—’

  Frankie held up a hand to stop Ven speaking further. ‘You can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to tell her now. You just can’t.’

  ‘That’s just it – I can’t tell her and I can’t not tell her, so I’m well and truly stuck,’ sighed Ven. ‘Things should never have got this far. You shouldn’t have made us promise.’

  ‘I know,’ said Frankie, shaking her head sadly. ‘I’m sorry, but I thought I was doing the right thing. I should have listened to you but I didn’t.’

  They paused to thank the waiter for the newly delivered champagne and for Ven to sign the chitty.

  ‘I could murder you when I think about the mess,’ said Ven through impatiently gritted teeth. ‘But I could equally as easily murder Roz. She’s been punishing Manus for Robert’s antics ever since they met. She’s not blameless in all this, so don’t think I’m saying she is, but she’s like a pit bull with a bone when she gets going.’

  ‘And I didn’t help.’ Frankie’s fist crashed into her thigh. ‘I just wish I could turn the clock back to that night. He loves her so much. She’s blessed – if she could but see it. He’s fab, you can’t help but love Manus, but not in that way. He didn’t fancy me and I didn’t fancy him.’

  ‘I know you didn’t.’

  Once upon a time Ven had ventured to tell Roz that, hoping to smooth some wa
ves . . . it had only made matters worse. Sometimes, she and Olive felt that Roz was more comfortable with Manus’s mistake than with forgiving him.

  ‘She nearly broke up my relationship and she didn’t even fancy him!’ Roz had railed, and Ven knew she had inflamed the situation whilst meaning to do the opposite. She was expert at getting things wrong when her heart was full of the best intentions, which was why she was worrying now that this trip was a disaster in the making.

  ‘I hate all this,’ said Ven, coughing back the tremor in her voice. ‘I hate the way Roz hates you, because I know she doesn’t really. She hates herself more than she could ever loathe anyone else, and it breaks my heart to see it. She gets herself into these ruts and can’t get out of them. That fecking mother of hers did a great job at warping her brain.’

  Frankie knew Ven was really upset because she rarely used hard expletives. ‘Well, Ven, she’s just going to have to carry on hating me. Because if you boil it down to the basic facts, I crossed the line . . .’

  ‘But . . .’

  Frankie wouldn’t let Ven interrupt her. ‘But nothing, Ven. I can cope with her hating me. And she never needs to know now, does she? Does she?’

  Ven shook her head. She wasn’t sure if she agreed, but when in between a rock and a hard place, it was as well to cling on to the more familiar of the two and hope for the best.

  Frankie plastered on a smile. ‘Okay, now for a bit of light relief. I suppose your ex hasn’t been back on the scene?’

  ‘Not since I signed the cheque for fifty grand,’ said Ven.

  ‘I bet your mum and dad are spinning in their graves,’ said Frankie.

  ‘I don’t let my mind go down that road,’ said Ven. It was bad enough that her husband Ian had been sleeping with another woman behind her back for two years, but to divorce her straight after her father had died and take half her inheritance in the settlement was cruel. Her parents had worked their whole lives to leave her a decent lump sum, even though Ven had told them to blow the lot. And now Ian and his squeeze Shannon were living it up in her former home and on her parents’ money. What hurt most of all was that, with hindsight, she could see that Ian had been hanging on, waiting for her poorly father to die so he could make his monetary claim. She never thought he could be that cold – but people change over the years. Roz was testament to that.

  ‘I hope your mum and dad’s money chokes him,’ said Frankie.

  ‘Please,’ sighed Ven, holding up an open palm to halt any more mentions of her perfidious ex. ‘He’s moved on, I’ve moved on. And there is nothing I can do about the money.’ Ven had even returned to her maiden name of Miss Smith. She couldn’t bear to see the name ‘Venice Walsh’ on any of her chequebooks and documents.

  ‘I wish that thing of Olive’s would move on,’ said Frankie, closing her mouth before a huge gassy burp escaped. ‘Sorry, that’s the bubbles. You know, the other week, I asked her if she loved David and she said “I don’t have bloody time to love anyone”.’

  ‘I know,’ said Ven, glad of a change of focus in the conversation.

  ‘Why does she stay with him?’ asked Frankie, who had never thought David was good enough for her friend. And she despised Doreen and that layabout Cousin Kevin with his wandering eyes. How anyone who dressed like a hippy living in a skip with teak-coloured teeth could believe he was God’s gift was anyone’s guess. She only wished she had his powers of self-delusion.

  ‘Because she wouldn’t know how to leave, is my guess,’ replied Ven sadly.

  ‘I thought she would have had kids, you know,’ said Frankie. Out of all of them, Olive would have made the best mother.

  ‘It never happened for her,’ said Ven. ‘And I don’t think they – you know, do it much anyway.’

  ‘Perish the thought!’ Frankie shuddered again. A hideous picture of a sweaty David puffing away above her nearly brought her John Dory back up. She took another quick glug of alcohol to quell her stomach.

  ‘I was never passionate about wanting kids, the way some people are . . .’ Ven’s voice trailed off . ‘Sorry, Frank.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Frankie. ‘I’m long over it.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever found anything to be truly passionate about,’ Ven confessed wistfully.

  ‘This from the woman who was going to be Barbara Taylor Bradford when she grew up?’ said Frankie. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I wanted to write but I couldn’t find anything to write about,’ Ven told her. ‘Plus Ian said it was really rude of me to be tapping away on a laptop when he’d come in from work and hadn’t seen me all day.’

  ‘The bastard cock! Not as rude as him shagging about,’ huffed Frankie. Then: ‘Sorry, Ven. You know what I mean.’

  Ven gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, don’t worry, I know what you mean.’

  ‘Never too late though,’ said Frankie. ‘Catherine Cookson was into her forties when she got her first book published.’

  ‘She wasn’t, was she?’

  ‘She was, you know. Look it up on your laptop. You can be as rude as you like on it now.’

  ‘I wish I were like you, Frank. You were always throwing yourself into things: salsa, art classes, singing, belly dancing, scuba diving . . .’

  ‘There’s a belly-dancing course on board. I saw a poster in the reception area.’

  ‘Are you going?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ laughed Frankie. ‘It’s great fun, but I want to chill – in the sun, if it’s possible to chill in the sun.’

  They sipped their champagne, suddenly too tired to talk any more. Then Ven yawned and Frankie grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her up.

  ‘Come on, before we fall asleep up here like two old farts.’

  ‘I was going to look around the shops,’ said Ven, ‘but I’m far too knackered. It’s just come over me all of a sudden.’

  Frankie noticed the big hairy biker man again as they went out towards the stairs. He didn’t look the type to be having a gin and tonic whilst listening to lounge music. Something about the incongruity of him here made her smile as he joined a bubbly group of people cheering as he approached them.

  The ship was buzzing with activity as they walked back down to deck nine. A bar had big TV screens above it and men were baying at the football match being shown. There was a harpist (or harpoonist as Ven called her) playing soft mellow music in another dimly lit bar. The shops below were full of people checking out goods and squirting perfume testers, and there was a team quiz in a bar next to the library. People were flooding out of the theatre after the Mermaidia Theatre Company’s second show of the evening.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ said Ven, fishing her cruise card out of her bag. ‘So we’re all meeting for lunch at Café Parisienne on the floor below? That still okay with you? Gives us all a chance to have a good kip.’

  Café Parisienne had looked beautiful when they passed it. Quietly elegant without being stuffy.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘Oh, and don’t forget to follow Eric’s instructions and put that card thing in your door slot. It says Do Not Disturb, then you turn it the other way when you leave your cabin tomorrow so the steward can do whatever he has to.’

  ‘This is just too nice,’ yawned Frankie. She gave Ven a big hug and went into her cabin, drawing the same sharp intake of breath that the others had at the sight of the cosy lighting and the pillow-chocolate and the bed just crying out for her to slip into.

  Ven too snuggled between the snow-white sheets and savoured the feel of them against her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped with all her heart that they would have the best holiday ever, because real life was waiting for them back at the docks. And they all needed a break from it – just for a little while.

  DAY 2: AT SEA

  Dress Code: Formal

  Chapter 21

  ‘Olive? Olive, wake up! I need the toilet. If you don’t hurry up, I’ll wet myself!’

  Olive sprang out of bed, crashed into a coffee t
able, which shouldn’t be there, then realised she wasn’t in her bedroom after all and that Doreen’s voice was only in her head. She was shaking. For a moment, there she was back in Land Lane with David, her sleep continually disturbed by his farting and snoring, or rolling his bulk onto her side, forcing her to nearly break her back in hoisting him over again. She looked at the clock. Five past ten! She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept past eight o’clock. In fact, six-thirty was a lie-in.

  She opened the curtains to a picture of grey waves and sky. Boring, some might have said, but she thought it was lovely. Far nicer than the rooftops of the roughest council houses in town and the ubiquitous litter outside the kebab shop which was the view from her bedroom window. She stopped herself thinking about home by forcing her brain to remember the lyrics of ‘I Am Sailing’ as she went for a shower.

  Twenty minutes later, she emerged tentatively from her cabin, and turned over the card in the door so that Jesus knew she had vacated her room just as Ven’s door cracked open.

  ‘Good morning,’ her friend greeted her cheerfully. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Like a big fat log,’ said Olive.

  ‘Would you like to join me for breakfast, Lady Olive, then onward for some shopping?’

  ‘This is unreal,’ said Olive. ‘I should have just finished at Mr Tidy’s and be heading off to do Mrs Crowther’s front room at this time.’

  Ven shoved her arm through her friend’s. ‘But this Monday morning, Olive Hardcastle, you are going to be scoffing brekky with moi in the Buttery.’

  Roz vacated her room about half an hour later and turned over the card in her door slot so Jesus could do his thing in her room. She called down to Reception first to get a brochure about the excursions they could take. Luck wasn’t on her side as the first person she bumped into near the reception area lift was Frankie.

  ‘Bugger,’ she said to herself.

  ‘Morning,’ tried Frankie. ‘Going up for some breakfast?’

  ‘Er no,’ said Roz. ‘I don’t take breakfast. I was heading up to the . . .’ From the corner of her eye, she saw a woman in harem pants, a tinkly coin belt and a veil, standing with a group of ladies – none of them under sixty, by the looks of it – by a sign that read: Belly Dancing for Beginners class meet here.