Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Althea, my wife, she was a sweet girl,’ said Atho, as he wove his fingers into Olive’s. ‘We would have been content to live together if she had survived. But my heart never beat as strong for anyone as it did for you.’

  Olive wanted to laugh a little. As if she could inspire that sort of passion! But she looked up at this big strong man and saw the truth in his eyes.

  Atho stroked her hair. His fingers came to it and left it as if he wanted to touch her, but felt it was wrong. But after twenty years and a crap marriage, Olive wasn’t so sure she could hold herself back from all she had missed.

  ‘I want to kiss you, Olive,’ he said, his lips dangerously close to hers. She could taste the honey on his lips from the baklava he had just eaten.

  ‘Atho . . .’ His lips landed hard on hers and she didn’t want to push him away. So she didn’t. She savoured the fierceness of his kiss like a woman who was trying to cram twenty years’ worth of all she had missed into a few seconds.

  ‘I don’t think you have been kissed for a long time, Olive,’ he said in hushed tones, his chest panting with desire.

  ‘I haven’t been kissed like that since you last kissed me,’ said Olive, and meant it. She had been so stupid. She had presumed her passion for Atho was a freak flame, a huge explosion then it would die out and leave her cold and alone in a strange country. So she had chosen instead a small flame that was too weak to warm her. And all the while the huge flame had kept burning and living – and hoping.

  ‘What time do you need to go back to the ship?’ asked Atho, his lips now on Olive’s neck.

  ‘I’ve got to be back on board for h...haaalf past four. At the latest.’

  ‘I will make sure you are safe on your ship,’ he said, pushing Olive against the tree of her namesake. ‘I want to make love to you.’

  Olive gasped.

  ‘But I won’t.’

  Olive gasped even harder.

  ‘You will come back to me this time, Olive. I will make sure of that.’ His lips brushed against her collarbone, the black stubble quickening every erogenous zone within a five-mile radius. ‘My God, you will be begging to come back to me.’

  Atho Petrakis kept his promise and did not make love to Olive. His hard groin pressed into her as he kissed her against the olive tree and made it perfectly plain that he could have taken her at any moment – and been ready. His fingers undid one single button on her shirt, then his tongue dipped into the space it uncovered and no further. He kissed her till her lips were swollen, her neck raw, her legs barely strong enough to support her. Her nerves were screaming for him to finish what he had started when his thumb made a single fleeting brush across her nipple – then he rang his son, told him to send a taxi for his friend and he buttoned Olive’s shirt up again as they waited for it to arrive. Annoyingly, it took only a few minutes before they heard a car horn toot its arrival.

  He picked off the fattest white rose and kissed it before he handed it to Olive. He smoothed down her hair because it was wilder than a haystack in a tumble-dryer and kissed her – fleetingly this time – on her throbbing lips. He smiled knowingly into her eyes which were as green as the olives he grew, shining with the light that only a woman who was desired and loved gave out.

  ‘Now you will return,’ he said. ‘We have twenty years to make up for. I can wait a few more weeks. Olive, you are a woman who needs to be loved and I know you still love me. Come back to me this time and stay and flower in my care like my white roses.’

  As she waved goodbye to him, Olive was shivering from the strength of her reignited feelings. How could they still be there after all this time, dormant, waiting? She had not expected that at all. Atho Petrakis had known exactly what he was doing by not making love to her and merely flicking drops of water at her newly awakened thirst. Olive’s brain was scrambled by the time the taxi reached the port.

  Chapter 55

  Ven, Roz and Frankie were thrown into panic when the Tannoy call sounded.

  ‘Would a Mrs Olive Hardcastle of cabin C160 please contact Reception.’

  ‘That means she hasn’t come back on board!’ said Roz, bursting into Frankie’s cabin, with Ven at her heels.

  ‘Oh hell!’

  ‘I knew we shouldn’t have left her,’ said Roz, who had been saying every hour something to the effect of ‘I’m not sure we should have let her go. It’s been twenty years since she’s seen Captain Corelli. He’s probably a fat old sweaty bloke constantly pissed on ouzo now with twelve kids and a kebab van.’

  Frankie dived for her handbag. ‘Has anyone rung her mobile?’

  ‘Tried it and it’s switched off,’ said Ven.

  ‘Oh buggeration. What do we do?’

  Their panic was further compounded by Roz’s observation that the ship was pushing away from the portside. ‘We’re setting off!’ she shrieked.

  ‘I’m off to Reception!’ yelled Ven, bombing out of the door and behind her, in quick pursuit, were the others. They took the stairs like Charlie’s Angels chasing a felon. There was a queue waiting for assistance.

  ‘This is no time to be British,’ said Ven, preparing to muscle in on a pensioner questioning her interim room statement. She had just got to the ‘excuse me’ part when Roz pulled her back. Because there, above them on the gallery of the next floor, they could see Olive looking at a carousel of books outside the Emporium. She was standing next to the huge wall sculpture which stretched up through three floors of the beautiful mermaid ‘Mermaidia’ and – but for the size – looking like her twin. Both women had long, flowing pale hair and a dreamy, beatific look on their faces. As if they’d just had one hell of a shag, thought Frankie to herself.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Ven asked, when they caught up with her. ‘We’ve been worried sick. We thought you hadn’t got back.’ She patted her heart, trying to persuade it to slow to a nice steady rhythm.

  ‘Chillax,’ said Olive, beaming. ‘What’s the matter with you all?’

  ‘They’ve been calling you on the Tannoy!’

  ‘Oh, my card didn’t register correctly that I was on board. I just went to Reception to tell them I was here – end of.’

  ‘We thought you’d done a Shirley Valentine,’ said Roz.

  ‘As if!’ said Olive, who was the most unlikely person ever to have done one of those.

  ‘Did you see Charlie Cairoli and his mandolin then?’ asked Ven, allowing herself to destress a bit now that all was well.

  ‘Was it in tune?’ added Roz.

  ‘Bang and Olufsen quality,’ grinned Olive. She was about to elaborate when she remembered this was Roz she was talking to so she bit back on any extra-marital detail. ‘Yes, he was there and made me lunch and we talked. I had a lovely afternoon. What did you lot do?’

  ‘Well, we had some free time during the trip so we moseyed around some shops, went for some nosebag and ice cream then came back here and vegged out in the sun,’ said Ven, still not fully recovered yet from thinking that the ship was sailing off without Olive. ‘Well, Frankie and I did. Roz hit the gym.’

  ‘I am getting so fat,’ said Roz, patting her tummy and feeling a hint of a wobble. ‘Belly dancing tomorrow. That’ll burn off a few more calories.’

  As they wandered back to their cabins to freshen up for dinner, Nigel’s gorgeous voice announced over the Tannoy that they were now on course for Gibraltar and there were two lovely relaxing days at sea to look forward to. And that the forecast for those two days promised even more sunshine and calm seas.

  Olive put on her green evening dress and studied herself in the mirror, trying to see herself through Atho’s eyes. Did he really want her to return to him? The mirror threw back the image of a slim woman with a decent chest and green, green eyes that were shining from a fire burning inside her. She didn’t look like Olive the cleaning woman. And she sure as hell didn’t feel like Olive the cleaning woman. There was a swagger in her step as she joined the others in Beluga for a pre-dinner gin and tonic and a nosy at other women’s
formal frocks.

  Frankie was wearing a dress she had bought that afternoon in Gallery Mermaidia – a stunning, bright red diamanté number that showed off her beautiful shoulders and fabulous chest to best effect. It was so nice to see her back in bright colours, they all thought. She wasn’t built for dowdy.

  It was funny how a bit of tanning affected everyone’s bravery levels. Women who had huddled up in pashminas on the first few nights to hide away their pale bingo-wings, now couldn’t give a toss who saw them. All sizes were showing off their bronzed bits with confidence, and heels were strutting all over the ship. It was lovely and liberating to see. The four of them could have sat in Beluga all night just people-watching.

  But the call came for dinner and they wended their way down to the restaurant where they were greeted by the friendly smiling face of Supremo in a shirt so white it could have caused them serious snow-blindness. Eric relayed the apologies of Royston and Stella that evening. Apparently they had decided, last minute, to attend the Indian buffet that was being held in the Buttery. And Nigel didn’t attend either, which pulled Ven’s spirits right down. She was almost back at the college disco, waiting in vain for her then heartthrob to turn up. Feelings just didn’t get any more refined with age, she had to accept. Her disappointment was just as raw now as then.

  The menu was Greek-themed tonight.

  ‘I’ll have a stifado,’ announced Olive confidently.

  ‘Haven’t you had enough of that this afternoon?’ said Roz, with a cheeky nudge.

  ‘Oy, he only kissed me goodbye!’ replied Olive. She did not add that the kiss had lasted over an hour and stolen her breath for most of it. Especially not to Roz, who despite her teasing, would most categorically not have approved of a married woman being subject to the sort of erotic pre-foreplay that made Debbie Does Dallas look like an episode of Dora the Explorer.

  At the other side of Olive, Ven whispered so that Roz couldn’t hear, ‘Was he as nice as you remembered?’

  ‘Oh Ven, he was gorgeous. He wants me to go back and make up for lost time.’

  ‘And much as you want to, you never will,’ said Ven, with impatience. ‘Fool.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me what I am,’ Olive answered with a smile, but one totally devoid of humour. She had felt brave – strong – on the island, but every second that passed was taking her further away from him, to a weaker place where sense and duty had a stronger pull than her own desires and needs.

  The entertainment in the Broadway Theatre was Mikey ‘Fingers’ Lee, a camp old pianist who had been half his present width when, aged nineteen, he had won Opportunity Knocks. He’d obviously tried to hang on to his youthful good looks with so much Botox that he made Stella look like Mr Bean. But it didn’t matter an iota because he was cheesy-fab. Roz groaned a bit about being dragged along to it but she was cheering the loudest for Fingers to do an encore when he took his curtain bow.

  ‘That was bloody brilliant,’ she said. ‘More. More!’

  ‘What’s come over her?’ said Ven.

  ‘She’s loosened her corsets so much this holiday they’ll ping totally off by the end,’ giggled Frankie. Then she realised how close the ‘end’ of the cruise was getting and it made a sour little splash in her laughter.

  Ven too heard that spoiling word ‘end’. But at least she had something to tell her friends that would considerably soften that particular blow.

  DAY 12: AT SEA

  Dress Code: Semi-Formal

  Chapter 56

  Roz studied the tattoo on Frankie’s shoulder as they sunbathed around the Topaz pool the next morning. She had to admit that, as a piece of art, the little angel was beautifully drawn.

  ‘Did it hurt – the tattoo?’ she asked.

  Frankie stopped reading. ‘It scratched a lot,’ she said. ‘In an annoying way.’

  ‘What made you have it done?’

  ‘I thought an angel on my shoulder might look after me. I would touch it and ask it to help me. Daft, I know, but you’ll try anything when you’re desperate.’

  ‘Like buy beige clothes to blend in,’ Roz teased.

  ‘And hope Death wouldn’t notice me,’ added Frankie, but she laughed loudly to offset the dark words. ‘Aye, well, they’re going in the bin.’ Her bosom sat proudly inside the new bright orange swimsuit she had bought in Cephalonia. She didn’t want to hide away in dull colours any more.

  ‘You never used to wear anything that didn’t give me a migraine. It wasn’t right seeing you in beige that first day on board. It felt wrong. Even though I hated your guts.’ Roz smiled and nudged her.

  ‘Yeah well, with you not around to wind up and spat with, I kind of lost my way a bit. You would have bullied me out of wearing anything less than psychedelic.’

  A rush of emotion blindsided Roz and she volunteered to go and get some drinks and settle herself. God, she had been an evil cow. A blinkered, nasty, selfish old bat. How had Manus put up with her? She just hoped it wasn’t too late to put things right.

  Dom Donaldson pushed right in front of Roz at the bar. She noticed he lacked any ability to say the words ‘Please’ or ‘Thank you’. As usual Tangerina was two paces behind him chewing one arm of her sunglasses as if simulating giving a blow job and positioning herself in a pose that made the best of her perfect figure. Roz wondered what they talked about at home: Einstein’s theory of relativity? Darwin’s theory of evolution? The vision of the actor in a smoking jacket and leather slippers holding court in a posh house with fellow luvvies came to her and made her burst out in an involuntary giggle. Dom Donaldson gave her a dirty look, recognising her as the woman who had had the effrontery to ask him to sign a common birthday card. If only his adoring public knew he was an arrogant arse. Ven, thankfully, was still in blissful ignorance about him. Never meet your idols, that’s what they said, wasn’t it?

  Frankie spotted Vaughan passing in front of her before he saw her, and her heart jumped a massive beat. He turned his head towards her, as if he had heard it, and she didn’t have time to avert her eyes and pretend she hadn’t seen him. He gave her a small wave because it would have been too rude not to acknowledge her at all, but he didn’t break his stride. Frankie tore her eyes away from his long, lean, tanned back but they quickly returned to it again. His sudden coldness hurt her more than she cared to admit to herself. The old Frankie would have raised two fingers to him and yelled, ‘NEXT!’ The new Frankie worried more about what people thought of her. There had been a lot of time for self-analysis when she was hiding in the shadows with her beige clothes on.

  She forced a smile onto her face when Roz came back with Chocolate Banana cocktails. It was a whole dessert in a glass, but also an essential part of their ‘five-a-day’, Roz argued.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s nearly lunchtime,’ said Olive, sitting up to receive her cocktail and glancing at her watch. Half past eleven in the morning and she was drinking alcohol. How deliciously naughty. But then she felt incredibly rebellious at the moment. Her dreams last night had been full of Atho Petrakis; in them he had carried on where he had left off yesterday, and she woke up feeling so horny she almost dragged Jesus in from the corridor to sort her out. She was under no illusions: she knew that if she were to return to Cephalonia, she would be in for the love-making of her life. He had always been incredibly attentive, inventive and superlative in that department. How the hell had she ever settled for David and his fumbling, selfish sexual ‘technique’? And with Doreen on the floor directly underneath them, Olive could never shake off the fear that they were being overheard, which didn’t make for abandon in the bedroom. Not that David was that sexually driven. He ‘scratched an itch’ in the same way every time, and if Olive got anything out of it, it was a mere byproduct. But then again, she hadn’t exactly tried to change the way things were by dragging him off to Pogley Top Woods, which were about as near to an olive grove as was available in Barnsley, or guided his hands to where she wanted him to touch her. She had just let him carry on i
n his own merry way, thinking everything in his garden was lovely. She was partly to blame for her own frustrations.

  She thought of ‘this time next week’. She would be back in Land Lane, gathering her stuff together to do Mr Padgett’s upstairs. The old man gave her the creeps, always taking any excuse to squeeze past her or touch her and make it look like an accident. Ugh. Maybe she would have had ‘welcome home sex’ with David by then. He would roll over in the middle of the night and she would lie there and let him enter her and grunt out his orgasm, whilst her imagination roamed to various film stars and Greek café-owners. It would be a poor substitute for the real-life man whom she knew would be patiently waiting for her in a garden full of white roses. Oh GOD – why had she gone back to the Lemon Tree? Life was so much easier without choices to make.

  Ven sipped her Chocolate Banana and nearly choked on it when Nigel came into her vision, striding purposefully past at the other side of the swimming pool. She watched as a woman in a pink sarong halted him with a perfectly manicured hand and engaged him in conversation. She was swishing her hair about flirtatiously, sticking her boobs out whilst sucking in her stomach. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d had shag me tattooed on her forehead.

  Ven felt a stab of jealousy, unable to stem it even though she was quite aware it was a puerile emotion to feel. She had no claim on Nigel. He was a man paid to be nice to passengers; a man who wouldn’t even remember her name in a week because he would be sitting with another group of people at dinner making small – if lovely and friendly – talk.

  He was smiling at Pouty-Knockers who was using her hands a lot as she spoke – another flirty gesture. Then his eyes swept to the side and Ven thought they fell on her; she was just about to wave when he turned back to Pouty-Knockers and they strolled off together out of sight.