Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  ‘What’s the address of this place?’ Jonie took her mobile out of her bag. ‘So I can order a taxi.’

  ‘I’ll run you home.’ Manus indicated that she put her phone away. ‘So long as you don’t live in Bournemouth.’

  ‘Park Boulevard.’ Again she smiled. ‘Number seven.’

  A spark of memory flared up. ‘Didn’t you live there when you were a kid?’

  ‘Yes. I bought my mum and dad’s house from them when they moved to France.’ She smiled again. ‘Apart from the years studying at Oxford, I never moved away.’

  ‘Oxford? Wow. What did you study there then?’

  ‘Law,’ she replied. ‘I’m a solicitor now.’

  All those years living so close to each other and I never bumped into you once, thought Manus. He took his car keys out of his pocket and called to his assistant mechanic that he was nipping out for five minutes, then he turned to Jonie and indicated the black Audi behind her.

  ‘Let’s get you home and dry,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she replied. ‘I owe you big time for this, Manus. I’m even glad I broke down now – it was worth it to see you again.’

  Manus took the business card she held out to him with her phone details on it. He was all too aware that old pleasant memories were being stirred up, too thick and fast for comfort.

  Chapter 31

  Roz surprised everyone that evening not only by having a duck starter, but an oriental noodles and seafood main, and grudgingly conceded that she enjoyed it better than the soup and steak.

  ‘You’ll be having a dessert next,’ laughed Frankie.

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ said Roz. She allowed herself one slice of cake every fortnight with Olive and Ven, then afterwards starved herself until the next day. Carbs were the devil’s vomit.

  The dress code was smart casual but it didn’t stop Royston wearing a very large Rolex with his Ted Baker shirt.

  ‘Look at the way that hand sweeps – beautiful.’ He held out his wrist so Eric could admire the craftsmanship. ‘Seventeen thousand pounds, that cost. If someone would have told my old dad that one day his son would be walking around with a watch that cost more than his house, he’d have had them thrown in the nearest loony bin . . .’ And on he went.

  Stella nudged Ven and whispered as she held out a bling-encrusted wrist, ‘See that bracelet? Romford market. Three ninety-nine.’

  Ven hadn’t been expecting that and nearly choked on her Key Lime Pie. She wasn’t sure she believed Stella, though. If she was loaded and had the pick of designer shops, why would she buy things from a market? Maybe she was just saying that to balance out Royston’s bragging.

  ‘Honestly, since the day his business took off, he’s been a right royal pain in the bum with his designer this and designer that,’ Stella went on in a low voice. ‘If he could buy Armani loo roll, he would.’

  ‘Well, he’s just enjoying his good fortune,’ said Ven. Royston was a terrible show-off, but there was something quite cheeky-cockney-chappie about him that just let him get away with most of it.

  ‘Too much,’ said Stella, tapping her temple. ‘Went to his head a bit. A lot, in fact. And all that money changed my daughter as well.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘My grandchildren are called Sonata and Arpeggio. What sort of bloody silly names are those, eh? They’re not even musicians. She owns a beauty salon and her husband sells computers.’

  ‘How can I comment, with a name like “Venice”?’ said Ven.

  ‘Ah, that’s what Ven is short for, is it? Venice – that’s a lovely name,’ said Stella. ‘Did your parents call you that for a reason?’

  ‘It’s where I was conceived,’ explained Ven.

  ‘There you go. But where’s the story behind “Sonata” and “Arpeggio”? I get the evil eye if I call them Sonny and Pegs. Mind you, they go to this posh school where you have to be called something bloody silly before they’ll even let you in the door. There’s a Strawberry, a Water-Lily, a Nostradamus – silly sods, some of these people are. I bet I wouldn’t have to look hard for a Ferrero Rocher either. They think they’re bloody film stars.’

  ‘Did the money change your family so much?’ asked Ven, leaning forward with interest.

  ‘My daughter disappeared up her own arse, as I said. My son – well, he lives on a big farm in the country but the lot of them are always in jeans and riding on ponies – he’s the happiest of the lot of us.’ Stella pointed over at Royston. ‘He used to be worse than this,’ she said. ‘He’s calmed down a bit, reeled in his line. Three years ago, he ended up having it away with a woman in his office who did the books. Cheap bit of skirt, you know the type. Gave an old man a bit of attention in the hope he’d give her a bit of spend. It was prostitution all but in name. He thought his money made his paunch and varicose veins invisible. He was over five stone heavier then.’

  ‘No!’ gasped Ven.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Stella, calmly with a wry smile. ‘And it cost him a lot of jewellery, a boob job, tummy tuck, nose reconstruction, face-lift, Botox, the promise of two cruises a year at least and a villa in Florida to stop me divorcing him and taking half of everything.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Ven. ‘I thought you were really happy. I mean, you’ve been married thirty-nine years!’

  ‘We are happy,’ said Stella. ‘I get to come on cruises whenever I ask, and he gets to keep his balls.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Ven, genuinely stunned.

  ‘Believe it, girl, it happened. He lost all the extra weight with stress when he thought I was going to walk out. He’s looked after himself a lot better since, because I’m facking gorgeous now and what is sauce for the goose . . .’ Stella grabbed Ven’s hand and forced it on her stomach.

  ‘Feel that. Tight as a drum. I didn’t have a tum like this even when I was nineteen. And my tits’ – For one horrible minute, Ven thought Stella might have made her feel those as well – ‘are the best money can buy. You ever need some work doing, you tell me, darlin’. I have a surgeon in Turkey with a five-star, spotless hospital. Only thing real about me are my lips and my arse, and I’m having both of those done for Christmas.’

  ‘Blimey!’ was all Ven could manage, relieved that Stella had released her hand.

  ‘He looks about twenty years younger today than he did three years ago,’ Stella concluded. ‘I reckon that if he hadn’t had that fling, he’d be dead of a heart-attack now.’

  ‘So,’ Ven tried to phrase this carefully because she was the queen of putting her feet in her mouth, ‘she sort of did you a bit of a favour in the end.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ mused Stella. ‘Didn’t stop me smashing her front teeth in though.’

  ‘You didn’t!’ shrieked Ven. ‘Did you get away with it?’

  ‘Oh no,’ grinned Stella. ‘I ended up in court. “A woman of hitherto unstained character, driven to the edge of despair by a grasping, blackmailing, home-wrecker”. Yes, my barrister was brilliant.’

  ‘Blackmail?’ probed Ven.

  Stella moved in even more closely. ‘She volunteered to drop the charges if I paid her five thousand pounds. Little tart met me at Royston’s office to pick up the money. I just happened to have my hand pressed down on the Tannoy switch when I told her I wasn’t paying up, after all. I had twelve witnesses to that conversation. Courts don’t like blackmailers. I walked out of there a heroine.’

  Ven grinned. ‘How very delicious.’

  ‘Before all this,’ Stella gestured to her many surgical procedures, ‘and before the money, I had to fight all my life for everything. You don’t mess with East End women,’ she winked.

  ‘He must be worth clinging on to,’ Ven decided.

  ‘Ah, he’s a bloody silly man but he’s got a heart as big as his mouth. Very large. But I get more pleasure out of picking up a bargain like this,’ she stroked her bracelet, ‘than I ever could about having what I want out of Tiffany’s window.’

  ‘My husband ran off with another w
oman,’ said Ven, surprised she was confessing this to a relative stranger, trading crap-men stories.

  Stella drained her glass of Merlot and Angel appeared quick as a wisp to replenish it again. ‘I hope you made him pay.’

  ‘No, he ended up making me pay. He got fifty grand in cash and our house in the divorce. He took over the mortgage and is living in it with her now. He’s fuelling a mid-life crisis and a twenty-four-year-old blonde’s whims with it.’

  ‘Bastard,’ said Stella. ‘Still, it won’t last a long time with a tart to impress. That money will be gone before you know it, and she’ll be off.’ She put a comforting hand on top of Ven’s. It had a diamond on the ring finger as big as a bull’s eyeball. ‘He’ll get his comeuppance in the end. Just you wait and see, darling.’

  That evening, they went to see the comedian who was performing in the theatre. He was great fun, but though Ven was laughing along with the rest, half of her was somewhere else. She was wondering if Stella was right. And what would happen when Ian’s fifty-thousand-pound bonus booty ran out. And most of all, she wondered what her ex-husband would think when he found out about her secret.

  DAY 5: AT SEA

  Dress Code: Formal

  Chapter 32

  Ven didn’t think she would sleep because so many things were whirling around in her head, but the ship’s gentle motion worked its magic. She was up early the next morning and walked twice around the Prom deck, which constituted over a mile. Quite a few people were walking the same circuit, mainly pensioners, taking a leisurely stroll in the already warm air. She’d heard people over the years say they’d feel claustrophobic being stuck on a cruise ship. They obviously had no concept of how big these vessels were.

  She had a coffee by herself in Café Parisienne and read her book, and one by one the others drifted to her. Café Parisienne, it seemed, had become ‘their place’. Olive had bought handbags from the stalls outside Market Avenue, and Roz had been belly dancing again. Frankie arrived with very oily hair because she had gone for an Indian Head Massage in the spa.

  ‘Now we’re all here, let’s book some trips,’ announced Ven, reaching in her bag for an excursions book.

  Over muffins and more coffee they looked at all the places they could visit at the next ports. Ven wanted to go dolphin spotting in Gibraltar, Roz wanted to see that underground lake in Cephalonia that Eric was talking about, Olive wanted to go on a gondola in Venice.

  ‘I’ve had a fantasy about being on a gondola eating a Cornetto for as long as I can remember,’ she said.

  ‘We can discover Venice by ourselves though,’ said Frankie. ‘We’ll get a waterboat over to Murano and watch some glass-blowing . . .’

  ‘Wow,’ cut in Roz sourly.

  ‘I’m not saying we have to, I’m just saying we could do our own thing in Venice rather than be tied to a trip.’

  Olive tapped the table with her fork to bring them all to order. ‘It’s Ven’s birthday, I think she should decide what we do on that day.’

  ‘I’d rather not go on an organised trip, if you’re asking,’ said Ven. ‘I’d like to go on a gondola and then somewhere nice for lunch with you and then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to wander around by myself for a while. I want to find the hotel where Mum and Dad stayed on their honeymoon.’

  ‘Okay, whatever you want,’ said Olive. ‘It’s your big day.’

  Royston and Stella passed and waved.

  ‘Did you see the dolphins this morning, girls? Hundreds of them, there were!’ Royston called.

  ‘Oh no!’ said Ven. She was sure the dolphins were avoiding her. Everyone on the ship had seen them except her, apparently.

  ‘He’s looking extra bright today,’ Olive remarked as Royston walked on. He had trunks on which were bright orange on one side, electric yellow on the other.

  ‘Hope he removes his super-sweeping-hand watch before he goes in the pool,’ said Roz.

  ‘I’ve gone off him a bit,’ said Olive. She had been really disappointed in Royston when Ven had told her about what Stella had said the previous night. ‘I don’t mind him being the world’s biggest show-off because he’s quite funny with it, but fancy cheating on poor Stella.’

  ‘They all do, given the chance,’ said Roz with a bitter tone.

  ‘Right, who’s for booking those trips, then a spot of sunbathing?’ said Ven, cutting that line of conversation off straight away. ‘Phoar, look at that – double whammy.’

  Passing the front of the open-plan café area was that hunky officer in white talking to Dom Donaldson, who was wearing black shorts and a black muscle vest. Ven leaped off her chair like Zola Budd in hot pursuit of a gold Olympic medal. She might as well have some eye-candy to gaze upon whilst walking down to the trip-booking desk.

  Chapter 33

  Manus parked the Mercedes neatly outside 7, Park Boulevard. He saw the front curtain twitch as he clicked the lock on with the car remote, and Jonie had opened the door by the time he was halfway down the path.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she greeted. ‘Thank you so much, Manus. I am completely lost without my car.’

  He had intended to put the key and the envelope with the invoice inside quietly through the letterbox and go, but she was halfway down the hallway expecting him to follow and it felt rude not to. He closed the door behind him.

  ‘I’ve just this minute put a pot of coffee on,’ she said, beckoning him into the kitchen at the end of the hallway. It was a lovely sunny square room looking out onto a long flowery garden which backed onto the park. He’d always wondered if these houses were as nice on the inside as they were on the outside – and now he could see that they were even better, if this one was anything to go by. Her home was a perfect reflection of the Jonie Spencer he remembered, trendy and neat and bright and stylish. And very girly. He didn’t notice any men’s shoes on the rack or male coats on the twirly white wire stand by the door.

  ‘Coffee or tea?’ she offered. ‘It’s no trouble to boil the kettle if you want tea.’

  He was going to say ‘neither’ but she was getting him out a cup. ‘Coffee, please. Black, no sugar. Thanks.’

  As she stretched up to the cupboard he saw a flash of her tanned bare stomach. He averted his eyes. ‘Not working today?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m working from home,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind the odd day doing that, but it would drive me insane if I did it all the time. I like to talk too much.’ She smiled and poured a coffee into the cup and topped up her own.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ said Manus. ‘I’ve got an MOT to do this afternoon.’ He was lying, though; he didn’t.

  ‘You can stay for a thank-you coffee – I insist,’ said Jonie. ‘And tell me how much I owe you.’

  He felt awkward asking her to pay, for a reason he didn’t know. And yet what signals was he giving out if he let her off the bill? As it was, he’d settled for just charging her for the parts. The labour wasn’t that much anyway.

  ‘I don’t expect any favours as far as the bill is concerned, you know,’ Jonie said with a little pout that whisked Manus back twenty-five years, to being in the leavers’ disco and wishing he was the one slow-dancing with her and kissing that pout and not that knob-head smooth-boy captain of the footie team, Michael Ashley.

  ‘I’ve just invoiced you for what it cost me – honestly, that will be fine.’ Manus handed over the envelope, and Jonie opened it immediately.

  She made a gently-chiding sigh and pulled a chequebook out of a drawer behind her. She quickly wrote out a cheque, ripped it out, folded it and gave it to him. He slid it straight in his pocket.

  ‘Aren’t you going to check it?’ she asked with a little smile and two perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘I might have only made it out for fifty p.’

  ‘I trust you,’ said Manus.

  ‘Thank you, you saved my life.’

  ‘That’s putting it a bit strong,’ said Manus, taking a small sip because the coffee was too hot to shift q
uickly.

  ‘Trust me, when a woman’s car goes wrong, she is reduced to idiot level.’

  ‘My other half says the same,’ said Manus. He saw Jonie’s head give a little twitch.

  ‘Did you marry anyone I know from school?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know about you, but I only kept in touch with a couple of people.’

  ‘No, Roz didn’t go to our school. And we just live together, we’re not married.’ He didn’t know why he volunteered that. He felt immediately uncomfortable about it afterwards, as if he was making the point that he was legally available – which he wasn’t.

  ‘Any children?’

  ‘No,’ said Manus. ‘You?’

  ‘God no,’ laughed Jonie. ‘I’m a career girl. Single, no kids, not even a goldfish. That way, if I want to jet off to Paris for the weekend I can do so at the drop of a hat.’

  ‘Roz is on a cruise at the moment,’ said Manus, again wondering immediately afterwards if he should have said that.

  ‘Oh? Alone?’ Jonie asked, her interest sparked.

  ‘No, one of her friends won a cruise for four. They’ve all gone together.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely for them,’ said Jonie. ‘Although I’ve never fancied it myself. Maybe when I’m eighty.’ She smiled. Her eyes were full on him. Big and blue. A warm blue though, not like Roz’s which were a paler, icier shade.

  ‘I better get a move on,’ he said, abandoning the near-full coffee. She didn’t try to stop him.

  ‘Of course. You’ve got your MOT to do.’ She stood. She was tiny next to him. Neat and cute and perfectly pocket-sized, he’d always thought so. And age hadn’t diminished her appeal; if anything, it had added to it. ‘Manus, thank you SO much for sorting my car out. I’ll recommend you to everyone I know. I’ll tell them to mention that Jonie sent them.’