Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  Ven nodded, looking out over the view. ‘There’s nothing to see, so why do I think it’s so lovely?’

  ‘A little glimpse of heaven, maybe?’ smiled Florence.

  Ven didn’t comment. It maybe wasn’t the thing to say to an elderly lady – that she believed in nothing beyond the final breath. But she gave a sigh that she wasn’t conscious of, which prompted Florence to ask again if she was all right.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ said Ven. ‘Just had a bit of a strange day, that’s all. Someone knocked a tray full of glasses into the pool and it all had to be drained. It was awful.’

  ‘Still, the Captain dealt with it superbly,’ said Florence.

  ‘Do you think?’ asked Ven, not convinced by any means.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Florence. ‘He can’t have people like that on his ship.’

  Ven’s ears pricked up. ‘What do you mean? What did he do?’

  ‘That actor chap – he’ll be off at Gibraltar tomorrow.’ Then she was suddenly distracted and shouted in response to a sound Ven hadn’t heard, ‘Coming, dear. That’s Dennis calling me. I’m attuned to the slightest sound of his voice after all these years. I’ll have to go. If he can’t find me he starts to panic. Have a lovely day tomorrow in Gibraltar, won’t you?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Ven, as Florence turned. ‘I have a card for you for your anniversary. Where do I deliver it to?’

  ‘Oh, that’s very kind,’ said Florence with a wide smile. ‘We’re on table one in the Ambrosia restaurant. First sitting.’

  ‘Let me write that down,’ said Ven, getting a pen out of her bag and writing down the details on the back of a bar chitty. ‘Table one, did you say? And before you go, what was that you said about the Capt . . .’ She looked up but the door to the ship’s interior was just creaking shut. The old lady had gone back inside to find her husband.

  DAY 14: GIBRALTAR

  Dress Code: Smart Casual

  Chapter 61

  When Ven drew her curtains it was to see the mighty sight of Gibraltar. She didn’t realise that the rock was Gibraltar. She had thought it might have been a discernible bump on the landscape, not the huge steep mountain it was. She quickly washed and dressed because three of them were going on a dolphin-watching trip that morning. Roz was having a meander around Gibraltar by herself. She wasn’t a fan of the unpredictability of little bobbly boats.

  ‘Wakey wakey, are you uppee?’ came Olive’s voice and knock through her door. ‘Got something to tell you – open up!’

  When Ven opened her door, Olive was beaming. ‘Guess who I saw in Reception this morning with bags packed?’

  ‘Brad Pitt?’

  ‘Not even close, although he might disagree with you. Only that Donaldson prat and Tangerina Orange Jelly. Seems the Captain told them to leave the ship after yesterday’s performance.’

  ‘You’re joking?’ gasped Ven. So what Florence had said was true.

  ‘I am not,’ said Olive, as Frankie’s cabin opened and she joined in the gossip as they wandered up to the Buttery for a quick bite.

  Ven had two almond croissants that morning. Suddenly her appetite, and her smile, were restored to full power.

  Whilst Ven, Frankie and Olive were leaning over the side of a small boat, screaming like kids whenever they spotted the dolphins that leaped up to within touching distance, Roz was walking towards Gibraltar’s long busy main street full of tourists buying cheap booze and cigarettes and kids looking for the latest console games at a snip. Roz suspected the prices were a lot cheaper when there wasn’t a ship in town. Signs in shop windows promised the ‘Best prices for Mermaidia Passengers’.

  The last time she had visited Gibraltar, it hadn’t been so busy. There had been no cruise ships in the harbour. She and Robert had travelled down from Benalmadena for the day. Roz drew level with a jewellery shop and went cold as the memory flooded back over her like a frozen wash of ice. She had been buying perfume in the pharmacy across the street and caught up with Robert here and found him looking at rings.

  ‘I’ve got one already.’ Roz had nudged him teasingly.

  ‘It’s not for you,’ Robert had replied. It had just slipped out. He could have made a joke out of it but he had been as surprised as she was with what he had said. And once out, it was too big to fold back in and forget.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Roz looked into his face, smiling nervously, but she knew exactly what he meant. Two minutes ago she had been so happy, on holiday, feeling a rare semblance of security. Now she felt as if someone were quickly disassembling her from the inside, brick by brick, each one bringing her closer to her last total collapse.

  ‘Not here, Roz,’ Robert said, head held high, looking around him, trying to rise above the scene he hoped his wife wasn’t going to cause.

  He didn’t say, ‘Don’t be silly, Roz. Don’t exaggerate, Roz,’ He said, Not here, Roz. He had something to tell her but not here.

  Roz had wanted to scream. Her whole body was vibrating with tension, fear, panic. It had happened again. Another affair. Another cheap tart. Except that this time it wasn’t, was it? Because this time he was looking to buy a ring for the ‘someone’. In front of his wife, he was looking at rings for another woman. It was beyond the cruellest thing he had ever done to her, and he really had ground her nose into the mud over the years. Roz was too distraught to explode; she imploded instead. There on the street outside that jewellers, she began to cry. Fat, salty, full-of-pain tears began to slide down her face and she heard Robert’s loaded sigh of embarrassment.

  ‘Is it Kay?’ she asked. She had suspected his PA for some time.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not any more.’

  What the fuck? So it had been Kay and now it was someone else?

  ‘Don’t cause a scene.’ He had grabbed her arm firmly and led her up a side street. She was so numb; her fingers were tingling as if the blood was racing around in confusion in her system, forgetting which direction to flow in. Her breath was short and staccato – nothing in her body seemed to know what to do.

  ‘I was going to tell you when we got home,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry it came out now. Don’t cry, for God’s sake, Roz.’ His plea was not concern for her well-being but more a warning growl that she shouldn’t show him up in public. Roz tried to gulp down the tears and stop them but they kept coming.

  ‘Who . . . who is it?’ she hiccuped.

  ‘You don’t know her. Look, let’s do this back at the hotel.’ And then he delivered the killer line. ‘I need to buy a camera before we go.’

  And ludicrous as it seemed, Roz, her heart breaking, trailed behind Robert whilst he wove from side to side of the main street in Gibraltar comparing prices of SLRs.

  ‘That’s ten quid cheaper down the road,’ he said, voicing his annoyance to her, as if she cared. The tears streamed down her face and she kept having to take off her sunglasses to wipe them away. She heard a little girl say, ‘Mummy, why is that lady crying?’ and Roz wanted to sink down onto her knees in the middle of that long road and just sob. And when Robert had bought his camera, she had followed him to the car, let him drive her silently back to the hotel and then packed for the next day’s journey home.

  He had moved out immediately when they landed back in Barnsley. It tortured her that he wouldn’t tell her the name of the woman he was having the affair with. It tortured her even more when he admitted it was her Cousin Tina and she was pregnant. Then Robert came back home three weeks later saying it was all over, then moved out again two days later to be with Tina once more. Roz was at nervous-breakdown point. It had been Frankie who chucked all his stuff out onto the lawn and rang him to tell him to pick it up and feck off. Frankie had got the locks changed for her and made the appointment with the divorce solicitor. Roz had forgotten all that strength Frankie had shown for her when she couldn’t find it within herself.

  It had taken Manus years of patience to make her trust a man again. She wished he were here, to take away those awful vibes from this town. To walk up t
he street with her and imprint himself over every bad memory and make new, lovely, fresh ones for them to treasure. He was such a beautiful man. She felt her eyes filling. She would never have hurt Ven’s feelings by saying this to her, but she was desperate to go home now. She wanted to fall at Manus’s feet and tell him how much she loved him. She wanted to take back every rotten insecure barb she had ever thrown at him. From now on, she was going to love her man like he deserved. If he would let her. If it wasn’t too late.

  *

  Frankie had had enough sun for a while. She had loved the couple of hours on the jaunty little Dolphin Safari boat, squealing long and hard with kids and pensioners alike at the sight of the darling creatures. She just wanted to dive off the side of the boat and live out a dream. Apparently, though, the Straits were renowned for violent undercurrents and it wouldn’t have been one of her wiser moves. Still, it had been a magical morning.

  She had got to a good bit in her book and wanted to read it in the shade. So whilst Ven and Olive were having a swim, she went down to the lovely coffee-and-cake shop on the fifth floor – the Samovar. She settled into the sofa seat in the corner by the porthole window and finished off a caramel latte and a slice of soft, creamy Victoria sponge beautifully presented with a sprinkle of icing sugar and a spoonful of raspberries on the side. The big-mouthed Brummie Sun God who yesterday insisted he wouldn’t even burn if he basted himself in vegetable oil hobbled past walking like a crippled lobster, brimmed hat pulled right down over a very puffy face which was showing pain with every step. Apparently, like mere mortals, it seems he did burn and he should have listened to Nigel’s warning about the sun being very strong for passengers sunbathing at sea. Poor bloke, but she couldn’t resist a little smirk as she thought it.

  Frankie looked up momentarily as she turned the fifth page and there he was again, just outside the Samovar area. Viking Vaughan. Looking gorgeous in long sloppy shorts and a faded black AC/DC T-shirt. Bloody man. Frankie dropped her head quickly and tried to get back into her book, but though her eyes were following the words, nothing was computing and she started the page another three times before a single word sank in.

  She presumed the presence she felt at the table was the waiter asking her if she wanted anything else to drink, but when she looked up, it was to see Vaughan, staring down at her with his fjord-blue eyes.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘No, you can’t, you switchy-on-and-off loser, bugger off,’ said Frankie. Well, at least, that’s what she wanted to blast at him, but her perfidious mouth betrayed her.

  ‘If you want.’

  Vaughan sat down on the chair at the other side of the table, hands on his long, strong legs. ‘I owe you an apology,’ he said cautiously, as if expecting her to throw the sugar container at him.

  ‘Do you?’ sniffed Frankie. ‘What for?’

  Vaughan could see the annoyance in her eyes. Of course she knew she was owed an apology, but she deserved to see him crawl a little after his ungentlemanly behaviour.

  ‘For running out on you in Korcula,’ said Vaughan. ‘I was rude and stupid, and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Frankie, returning to her book. He’d said his piece and now he could go. What else was there to say? That self-betraying part of her was hoping that he had plenty more to say – nice things.

  He didn’t go. Instead, with anguish bursting out of his low voice he said, ‘Frankie. I felt a total shit the minute I got up from the table in Korcula. I was having a lovely time with you.’

  ‘I could tell,’ said Frankie, a hard edge to her voice. ‘Men always run off as if their arse was on fire when they’re having a good time with me.’

  Vaughan sighed and rubbed his forehead with the flat of his hand. ‘You won’t understand unless I tell you, but it’s difficult for me. I really like you. Really, really like you, Frankie. And I wasn’t expecting to find anyone I liked that much again. Especially not on a cruise ship.’

  In her chest, Frankie’s heart started leaping up and down. She didn’t know how to respond. Stupidly, she kept her eyes on the print in her book – but it might as well have been written in hieroglyphics for all the sense it was making.

  Vaughan’s hand came out, gently lifted the book from her hands, and he put it pages-down on the table between them.

  ‘Hitler and I have a lot in common, apparently,’ he said. Which at least made her look right at him. Had he really just said that?

  ‘Probably not the best way to start,’ Vaughan said, scratching the back of his head. Whatever it was he was trying to say wasn’t coming easy.

  ‘You mean you have a girlfriend called Eva Braun and a secret bunker in your house?’ Frankie answered dryly, which made him smile gently.

  ‘Not quite. You know that song about Hitler and Goebbels and Himmler?’

  Frankie shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a frigging clue what you are talking about.’

  Vaughan puffed out his cheeks, took a deep breath and dived in.

  ‘About how many balls they’ve got.’

  This was random, Frankie thought. One minute she was reading a nice romance, the next she was talking about the quantity of bollocks that members of the SS had.

  He waited then for Frankie to work it out. She was just about to say again that she didn’t know what he meant, then the fog began to clear. ‘You mean the one that goes, “Hitler had only got one ball. Goering had two, but they were small . . . ”’

  ‘Yes, that one.’

  Frankie scratched her head this time. Surely all this wasn’t just because . . .

  ‘You haven’t got two balls?’

  ‘Shhh!’ From the way Vaughan crunched himself low and looked around him, Frankie appeared to have guessed correctly – if rather loudly.

  ‘So bloody what?’ She laughed incredulously. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Oh Frankie, it’s not just that,’ said Vaughan, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘A few years ago I had, you know, the big C . . . down there. My partner left me afterwards. She said she was scared of catching it.’

  ‘You can’t catch cancer!’ Frankie barked back.

  ‘I know, I know.’ Vaughan held his open palms out. ‘But, nevertheless, whatever was going through her head – well, that’s why she said she was leaving. I’m okay now, touch wood. But I haven’t been with another woman since. I’d always been the hard man – you know, bikes and tattoos . . .’

  For a split second it crossed Frankie’s mind that this was a line of seduction. Some men seemed to think it wasn’t a well-known ploy to tell a woman they ‘couldn’t get it up’ only for the silly cow to try and heal them by taking them to bed where – lo and behold – she found with her he was all man again. Four times. But Vaughan wasn’t faking it. Any idiot could see he was reducing himself to base level by confessing this.

  ‘I grew my hair long to hide behind. I didn’t feel like a proper man any more with just one ball. Much better to be alone than risk getting rejected.’

  Gary Barlow was right when he said it only takes a minute to fall in love, because Frankie looked at the pain in big Vaughan’s eyes and knew she was one shove away from falling in love with him.

  ‘You’re the first woman I’ve reached out towards,’ he said.

  ‘But what did I say to you that put you off?’ asked Frankie, reaching forwards herself and touching his arm.

  ‘About your exes not having any balls. It was like balls equals man, no balls equals prick, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh God, I never even thought!’ Frankie gasped. Then a laugh of shock spurted out of her, breaking an intolerable bubble of tension. ‘I’m sorry for laughing, Vaughan. You’ve got more balls than all of them put together. You silly, stupid man! Just don’t ever become a maths teacher!’ God, he was gorgeous, vulnerable, hunky and she wanted to grab him and eat him all up.

  ‘It doesn’t put you off?’ His eyes were full of the weight
of disbelief.

  Frankie stood up and held out her hand.

  ‘Come to my cabin, big boy,’ she said, her dark Italian eyes glittering mischievously. ‘I’ll show you how much it puts me off.’

  ‘Because you feel sorry for me?’ He didn’t take her hand.

  ‘No, because I want to restore a bit of faith in you. Plus I have a little story to tell you about hiding away from the world and why it’s a bloody stupid thing to do,’ she said.

  Vaughan took her hand.

  Chapter 62

  When Frankie met the others later in the Vista lounge for pre-dinner drinks, she was smiling so much it looked like she had a coat-hanger caught in her gob.

  ‘Ay ay, and what have you been doing this afternoon?’ asked Ven.

  ‘Vaughan,’ sighed Frankie.

  ‘You haven’t!’ squealed Roz.

  ‘I have so!’

  Over gin and tonics and the complimentary Japanese crackers, she filled in the others on how Vaughan, like her, was a cancer survivor. Because she understood what he had gone through, and because they had both lost parts of their body associated so closely with their sexuality, they’d found a safe harbour within each other.

  ‘Actually he found it a few times,’ winked Frankie. ‘I haven’t had sex for so long, I’d forgotten how damned good it is. When it’s done properly, of course.’

  ‘Spare us the details,’ said Roz.

  ‘Oy, don’t spare me any,’ put in Olive. ‘I want to hear it all.’

  It turned out that lying in bed and talking after long-overdue sex was something to be recommended. Olive wasn’t quite convinced she would be wearing a mask of ecstasy like the one on Frankie’s face after bonking David when she got home. She had a sudden rush of panic about the prospect of sleeping with him again, imagining he was Atho Petrakis and then opening her eyes to find he wasn’t and never would be. She took a hard swig of her gin and tonic to splash it away.