‘That’s nice of you, thank you,’ said Manus bashfully.
She rubbed the outside of his arm at the door in a joint gesture of goodbye and gratitude.
‘Take care, Manus. It was lovely to see you. I can’t wait to tell Layla and Tim. Do you remember Layla Baker and Tim Stott? They were always glued together at school. They still are – in holy matrimony!’ She laughed. ‘They’re coming round for dinner soon. Tim’s a barrister now.’
‘I remember them well.’ Manus had liked the lovebirds Layla and Tim. ‘Well, it was great to see you too, Jonie,’ he said.
‘Oh, how will you get back to the garage?’
‘I’ll walk, it’s not far.’
‘Let me give you a lift. I insist. If you’re in a rush to do that MOT.’
Damn, he’d cornered himself there.
‘Besides, I can check that you’ve mended it properly,’ she winked at him.
‘Cheeky,’ he smiled.
Five minutes later he was waving goodbye to Jonie after she had dropped him off. Her perfume was still in his nose. It was spicy and exotic and very like the one Roz wore. It made him ache inside. Even the cheque had the faintest whiff of scent on it. Unfortunately, when he unfolded it, it didn’t have Jonie’s signature on it. Oh hell.
Chapter 34
Dinner that night was another formal affair. Roz didn’t even look at the steak option but went straight for the Lobster Thermidor, as did everyone else at the table. Buzz buzzed around them adjusting the cutlery, assisted by Elvis, Angel flitted expertly between them filling up everyone’s glasses, and Supremo regally made sure, as he did every night, that all were happy, that diabetics were being sufficiently catered for, that the waiters were attentive, the wines were to taste – and that everyone felt a little special for his attention.
The Great Supremo ran a tight ship, and no one who worked for him ever wanted to get on his wrong side. He relished his role as Restaurant Manager. His great chest puffed out of his ever-immaculate uniform with pride because the Olympia was his kingdom. Supremo was the perfect title for him.
‘Next stop Corfu,’ announced Eric with glee. ‘We love Corfu, don’t we, Irene?’
He turned to Irene who was buttering a warm roll crusted with poppy seeds. It looked so nice that Roz’s resistance to carbs crumbled and she took one from Buzz’s basket when he proffered it. Not only that, when the menus came around, she had eyed up the desserts for later as well. Manus’s favourite was on – Bailey’s cheesecake. She started to wonder if he was missing her, until Royston nudged her out of those thoughts with a tale about how he had just booked a Caribbean cruise for Christmas for the whole family. And obviously how much it had cost. Stella hushed him halfway through the tale and told him to stop showing off.
‘I’m not showing off, am I?’ he asked the table with genuine shock that he could possibly be perceived that way.
‘Which ship are you going on?’ asked Eric. ‘We’re going on the Io at Christmas.’
‘Oh poor you,’ said Stella. ‘You’ll be bumping into us lot then. You can learn all about my daughter’s Rolex as well.’
The table exploded in a splutter of giggles as Royston remained blissfully unaware he was the butt of the joke. He bought everyone at the table a port after coffee which they enjoyed with some extra truffles which Buzz had sneaked to them, and the subterfuge made them taste extra delicious.
‘This really is the life,’ said Frankie with a satisfied burp, looking out at a big orange sun sinking into a sea that looked as calm as glass.
‘Isn’t it?’ dittoed Olive. That thought was bittersweet. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to fit back into Land Lane after this. She was acclimatised to a life in the sun already.
There was another show that evening by the theatre company – Kings of Swing. However did they learn all those lines and song lyrics? Everyone worked so hard to make sure the passengers didn’t have to do any work. It was a bit like Mrs Crowther sitting there doing her nails whilst Olive wove her Dyson around her legs. Olive felt slightly guilty to be on the other side of things.
Ven went for a walk again up to the top deck after saying goodnight to the others later. It was a lovely, balmy evening with a slight ruffling breeze. Above her the sky was midnight blue, the moon a gently curving smile, its dark side just visible if you looked hard enough. She felt so beautifully calm and chilled, as if the sea air had seeped through into her bones and soul and soothed the very essence of her. She was the only one on the top deck; the ship might have been deserted for how quiet it was. Considering how many people were on board it was odd.
‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ said a sudden voice beside her, which made Ven jump because she had thought she was alone up there. The voice belonged to an elderly lady in a long black sequinned two-piece that shimmered where it caught the moonlight. She nudged back a white swoop of hair that fell across her eye. Ven decided she must have been a real beauty in her day.
‘It certainly is,’ said Ven. ‘I could stand out here for hours.’
‘Yes, it’s rather strange, isn’t it, the attraction that the sea can hold.’ She had a voice that matched her quiet elegance: well-rounded vowels, the product of elocution lessons as a girl most likely. ‘My husband Dennis spends a lot of time looking out to sea to spot dolphins and whales and seals. He’s always saying “Look, Florence, there’s one,” but mostly it’s the sea playing tricks on his old eyes.’
‘Have you been on many cruises?’ Ven asked, immediately thinking, Blimey, I’m turning into Eric!
‘Quite a few. We were on the maiden voyage of the Mermaidia four years ago, you know. It’s our favourite. We’re celebrating our Diamond Wedding Anniversary onboard this time.’
‘Oh how lovely,’ said Ven. ‘When’s that then?’
‘The second to last night. The Black-and-White Ball,’ said Florence.
‘So the waiters will be serenading you,’ smiled Ven.
Florence laughed. ‘Yes, we always enjoy the singing. Anyway, I must go and find Dennis. Oh, there he is.’
Further up the deck a man with a thick head of steel-grey hair and glasses was waving in their direction.
‘Enjoy the rest of your evening, my dear. Goodnight.’ Florence walked towards him, a slight limp to her step, her sequins twinkling. Ven’s attention was claimed then by a group of four teenage girls to the other side of her, loud and laughing and enjoying themselves. Were she and Ol and Frankie and Roz ever that young and wrinkle-free and full of energy? It seemed a lifetime ago and yet, in a different part of her head, it could have been only yesterday.
Ven yawned. It was just after eleven o’clock but the ship was like a giant cradle, in which they all slept like newborns. And in a few days, she would be a forty-year-old baby. Ven decided she’d better cram in some serious beauty sleep before then.
DAY 6: AT SEA
Dress Code: Semi-Formal
Chapter 35
Roz had built up a real sweat after that morning’s belly-dancing class. Gwen made it look so easy, but they say the easier someone makes it look, the harder it is – certainly that was the case with belly dancing. She felt totally justified in heading up to the Buttery and having one of those almond croissants that Ven was always going on about.
Olive was having a look around the shops. Every day new stock was wheeled out. Today there was a soft-toy sale and children were clustered around cuddling teddy bears and begging their parents to buy them something. A sad little stab of pain nicked Olive’s heart. She had never even had a sniff of pregnancy. She had hoped that getting pregnant would have made the whole family buck up their ideas, but it never happened for her to test the theory. Maybe it was a blessing – she couldn’t have worked as she did and cared for Doreen and David and raised a child. But of course now she knew the truth – that she need not have given them all that assistance – and suddenly that sadness was replaced by a whopping great thump of anger.
Frankie bumped into Vaughan when she passed through th
e photo gallery on the way to find the others and grab some lunch. He was wearing a shorts-and-vest ensemble that made the best of his long, lean, muscular body – and showed off the stunning black Celtic tattoo on his shoulder that made him look very gladiatorial.
‘Good morning, Friend of Dorothy,’ he whispered.
Frankie laughed. ‘I won’t live that one down in a hurry, will I?’
‘Enjoying yourself?’
‘It’s not bad,’ sniffed Frankie. ‘Although this weather isn’t a patch on Skegness.’
‘That’s amazing.’ Vaughan stepped back in amazement. ‘I feel exactly the same.’
‘Yeah, right!’
‘Look at this.’ He held up a photograph of his party at a table, taken last night at the Formal. ‘If the lads at the bike club saw me in a bow tie, they’d die laughing.’
‘Perfect blackmail material for the family then,’ smiled Frankie.
‘No more bouts of sea-sickness?’
‘No, thank goodness. But I’ll be down at the doc’s for an injection if I do. How fabulous was that?’
‘Dad!’ Vaughan’s daughter appeared with her young, handsome husband. She immediately recognised Frankie as the lady she had entrusted her father to in the sick bay.
‘Hello again,’ she said and smiled, looking just like her father when she did so – minus the facial hair. ‘You’re a bit less green in the gills than the last time I saw you.’
‘This is Kim, my daughter, and Freddy her husband,’ Vaughan said, introducing them.
‘Hello,’ replied Frankie. ‘Yes, that injection worked wonders. I highly recommend it.’
‘Ooh, I look a bit rough on that pic, Dad. You’re not buying it, are you?’ said Kim, catching sight of the family portrait. Frankie was stunned at how such a beautifully photogenic woman could see anything to complain about on the picture. She looked lovely on it – something her husband jumped in to say too.
‘That’s nice, that is, Kim. We’re having that.’ He had a real Wurzel voice which didn’t match his slick, groomed exterior.
‘No, we’re not,’ she returned.
‘Yes, we are,’ said Freddy, taking the picture from Vaughan and going over to the queue to purchase it, Kim following him and protesting.
‘Wedded bliss,’ tutted Vaughan, making Frankie laugh. ‘We’re going for lunch in the Ambrosia restaurant. It’s a sit-down-and-be-served affair. You wouldn’t starve on here, would you?’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Frankie, feeling the teeniest pang that their conversation was about to end.
‘Mind you,’ Vaughan leaned in close to her ear, ‘some people on here take greed to an art form.’
‘I don’t know where some of them put it all,’ Frankie replied.
‘You’re welcome to join us,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ Frankie told him, ‘but I’m just on my way to meet up with my friends.’ As soon as she had said it, she wished she hadn’t. The others wouldn’t have minded her going off and having lunch with Vaughan, just as long as she supplied any juicy details later. But it was too late to retract now.
‘Well, see you around,’ said Vaughan, turning to rejoin his daughter. And Frankie felt herself sighing in the manner of a teenage girl who had just caught the eye of the school rugby captain.
As Olive was heading up the stairs on her way to Café Parisienne, presuming the others would be there, she noticed a cruise card lying on the stairs. It was Dom Donaldson’s and he was just ahead of her and about to walk into the lift. Olive ran up and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Excuse me . . .’
He whirled around. ‘I’m on holiday,’ he said, eyes and smile cold, palms spread out towards her.
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m on holiday – okay? Please respect that.’ Then he moved forward into the lift, leaving Olive feeling really bemused. She looked down at her hand with the card in it, then realised that he had thought she wanted an autograph. Well, she hadn’t and he’d been bloody rude. She turned on her heel and went down to Reception to hand in the card and leave him to sweat a bit. She just hoped his fake tan wouldn’t slide off too much when he did.
Twenty minutes later, Olive was sitting in Café Parisienne, drinking ice wine and telling Frankie and Roz all about it, when Ven turned up.
‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Roz.
‘I had a message to meet Andrew and do an interview.’
‘Ah, the elusive Andrew,’ said Roz. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Nice, ordinary. Nothing special to look at.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘A sort of sitting-room area,’ said Ven. ‘Behind one of those doors that says Staff Only. He asked us if we could get some photographs done together for PR purposes.’
‘No worries,’ said Roz, taking a long sip of her ice wine. ‘I don’t mind posing around in posh frocks.’
‘Sounds a bit odd for a high-profile competition though,’ Frankie mused. ‘Getting your own pictures done.’
‘He said he didn’t want to compromise our holiday. Anyway, I’ve given him an interview and he said that I’ll see him again before the end of the cruise. They obviously know what they are doing.’
At that moment, Dom Donaldson passed by the open front of the restaurant. He was striding along with Tangerina, who was tottering in extremely high heels. ‘Yes, of course I had it when I came out! I must have dropped it,’ he was saying irritably.
Ven’s shoulders dropped two feet with a sigh. ‘Isn’t he the most gorgeous man ever? Wonder what he’s looking for.’
The rest of them kept schtum. None of them had any intention of smashing their friend’s illusion with the sad reality that Dom Donaldson was actually a total plonker.
Chapter 36
Manus had just broken the news to an old couple that their beloved ancient Morris was past its last legs. They’d had it for over fifty years and Manus imagined they’d bought it as a young couple and ferried their children around in it and travelled on holiday with it. The old man was sniffing back tears as each option he suggested was greeted with a slow sideways shake of the head from Manus. The insurance company had declared it a write-off and, determined not to give up, the couple had invited various mechanics to see it, only to be told the same thing that Manus was telling them now.
As Manus got back in his van and drove away from them, his heart felt heavy in his chest. The words he had used about the car seemed to have a strange, deeper meaning: It’s scrap – you can’t do anything with it but let it go. Whatever you try to do, it won’t work any more. It was as if he was talking about his life with Roz and not their car. If he and Roz split up, would she punish the next man for his sins as she had punished him for Robert’s? He doubted it. He had not made a fraction of the impact upon her that her ex-husband had – that seemed more and more obvious to him with every passing day. He wondered often if she were punishing him because he was Manus and not Robert. Was having to deal with the old car some subliminal message from the Cosmos, guiding him to let their relationship go, because it was unsalvageable scrap?
As he parked up at the side of his garage, he saw Jonie outside it, big smile spreading across her face when she spotted him.
‘Hello, Jonie,’ he said, forcing up the corners of his mouth in greeting, although all he wanted to do was get back to work so he could concentrate on something that would stop him from thinking about the events of the morning and what they had stirred up inside his head. ‘What brings you here? Come into the office.’
‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ she started after a deep breath, following him inside, ‘but I have a stupid suspicion that I didn’t sign that cheque I gave you yesterday. I may have done, but we were talking and I can’t actually remember doing it – and I’m rather prone to that habit, alas. Always getting them sent back to me.’
‘Ah,’ said Manus. ‘You didn’t actually. It’s not a big deal though. It wasn’t exactly thousands.’
‘You weren’t going to leave me in b
lissful ignorance, were you?’ Jonie gasped. ‘Oh, you silly man, you’ll never run a successful business letting stupid people off their debts. I am so sorry to have put you to this trouble.’ She looked genuinely upset by her forgetfulness. ‘Thank goodness you didn’t get nasty about it like the window cleaner did last month.’
‘No point in getting nasty about things like that,’ said Manus. ‘It’s a mistake. No one’s perfect.’ He hoped it was an error on her part too and not some flirting manoeuvre. He didn’t want any more complications in his life – not when his brain was still mashed potato from that talk with Roz about trial separations and his heart was so, so lonely and aching for a green light. Affairs could have the tiniest starting point – a spark to dry tinder – and suddenly they were forest fires and totally out of control; he had seen it happen to a few people over the years. Manus knew he was vulnerable and in real danger of snatching something that would comfort him. He handed over the unsigned cheque after taking it from a drawer.
‘I had to check with you. I’m so glad I did now,’ Jonie said. She scrabbled in her bag for a pen, took out a triple pack of sandwiches so she could hunt underneath it, and eventually retrieved a pretty white pen with gold lattice markings on it.
‘Have you had lunch yet?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied. Ah, wrong answer! It would probably lead to her saying, Would you like to share mine? Jonie clicked on her pen and scribbled her signature on the cheque. Then, to his surprise, she put the sandwich pack back into her bag.
‘Sorry again, Manus,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you get your lunch now and stop bothering you.’
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ said Manus, a little taken aback, for he really had been expecting her to volunteer to share her lunch. That served him right for being a self-deluded prick. Then again, he was never very good at reading women – his relationship with Roz had driven that point home well enough.
‘Thanks again,’ said Jonie. ‘See you again soon, I hope.’ And she twirled and waved and was gone.
Here Come the Girls Page 16