Ship Ahoy! (A Cliffhanger Novel Book 3)

by T. J. Middleton

  ‘Ah, The man with the sister with no clothes!’

  I turned round. Trudi from Amsterdam was standing right behind me, with what looked like her twin standing next to her. They had tight white shorts on, the pair of them, and different coloured matelot t-shirts, proper, I’m-up-for-it, holiday gear. I love a stripe on a good chest, me. Trudi gave her companion a nudge.

  ‘This is the man I was telling you about Else, the one married to that woman who escaped from prison. What are you doing here Mr Greenwood? Not on the run too I hope?’

  I mean how special is that? Not only a corker in stripes, but she could be ironic in a foreign language. She looked at me with those swimming pool eyes. God, did I feel like diving in.

  ‘Getting all that business behind me, Trudi. Surprised you know so much about though.’

  ‘That woman with the lampshade on her head? She came back, right after you left, wanted to know what you had been buying, the sizes, and so on and so forth. She told me all about you. To be married to a murderess. It is very sad I think.’

  She made with the eyes again. If Audrey wasn’t fifteen metres in front…

  ‘That’s why I am here Trudi, to get away from it all. Staying long are you, in Guernsey?’

  ‘In Guernsey! No! We are bound for Jersey. You get a better class of men there. This will be my second time. Else’s fourth.’

  Else’s eyes were dancing up and down like she’d tried on a few Jerseys already.

  ‘You are alone?’ Trudi asked.

  A tricky one. I mean this is where I should have booked Audrey and me into one of those first class cabins they have on board, but I thought that might draw attention to her more than if she just mingled. Never crossed my mind that Trudi from Amsterdam would show up though, did it? Else whispered something into her ear. Trudi nodded, eyes fixed on mine.

  ‘That’s right. It was so funny. He stood there and made me choose all the reddest clothes in the store. Trousers, blouses, underwear, like I was shopping for something very naughty, the fluffiest things, just like…’ she stopped, put her hand to her mouth. Right at the front of the queue, Audrey was hitching her bag over her shoulder, her fluffy right arm raised.

  ‘Why, that is the jumper I sold! Surely it is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Over there. See?’

  I looked

  ‘No. Don’t think so. Different shade of red.’ I tried to stand in front of her but she wasn’t having any of it.

  ‘No. I am sure. I know these clothes very well. The skirt too. I recognise it. That woman… ’

  I ducked down, pulled her with me.

  ‘Jesus! You’re right! Has she seen me?’

  Trudi looked up.

  ‘No I don’t think so.’

  ‘Good, Get me to one of those tables, out of sight. You stay here. Else, keep her place.’.

  I grabbed Trudi’s arm and we stumbled over to one of the empty tables. I flopped down, crouching down in my seat. Trudi stood over me, quite a pretty sight.

  ‘What’s the matter Are you all right?’

  ‘No I’m not Trudi. That woman…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She was one of my models. I’m an artist. Did you know?’

  ‘No. The woman with the lampshade on her head told me you were a taxi driver and how-did she-say, a serial shagger.’

  ‘I was a taxi driver Trudi, before I discovered my true vocation, sculpting. It’s what I live for now, shape, structure, the expression of who we are in a three dimensional context. I started off in what was known as my cold fish period, sharks in the main, but am now devoted to exploring the female form, nymph, warriors, primitive woman in the raw.’ I jabbed my thumb in Audrey’s direction.. ‘And you couldn’t get more primitive or rawer than her. But, how shall I say, she wanted more of me than just my art, more than was prepared to give. She refused to leave, burnt all her clothes, so I couldn’t throw her out. That why…’ She clapped her hands

  ‘You came the store.’

  ‘I could hardly tell you the reason could I, that I got a naked Neanderthal flinging herself at me every time I opened the door.’ Trudi laughed. She was loving every minute of it.

  ‘You poor man. To suffer so. So why is she here?’

  ‘She must have found out where I was going Trudi, followed me here. Oh fuck. I got a stalker on my hands. Get me a double brandy would you. Something for yourself too if you want. Here.’

  I pushed a twenty pound note in her hand. She slid out the bench and danced over to the bar. Lovely little bounce to her. Quick as a flash, no hesitation, I rifled through her bag, one of those nice open leather sling ones, perfect. It was right near the top. It always bloody is if you’re about to show it. Out it came, her passport, plus her purse too, just to make it more difficult. Audrey and me might not need our passports but she probably would. A quick stretch over to the nearest rubbish bin and they were down in amongst the empty beer cans and slabs of uneaten pizza. She wouldn’t lose it, but she wouldn’t be on that bloody boat either. When she came back I took my drink, tipped half of it back. She did the same with hers. Oh if only…

  ‘God, did I need that. You’re my saviour Trudi. More ways than one.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m looking for a new model Trudi, someone to inspire me. I broke new ground with my sharks, the sensual savagery, the eternal curve suspended in motionless muscle, texture, dream, nightmare. Now I want to do the same with the nude, put it back where it belongs. I’m fed up with seeing sculptures of women with bloody great holes where their stomachs should be. I means there’s no hole in your stomach is there?’

  ‘No. Just this.’

  She pulled her t-shirt up. She had a ring stuck through her navel. I nearly fainted.

  ‘Exactly. I mean you like your body don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes.’

  ‘Thought as much. We can tell you know, us artists. Models who are comfortable with their sexuality. Look. I’ve got some things to do, deal with that woman, see she gets some medical help, then meet a few art collectors I got lined up who are interested in my work. What say I drop by the department store when you get back. You’re still working there?’

  She nodded, her hand resting on the rim of her shorts, fingers touching her flesh. She was imagining it already.

  ‘Come over to the studio, see if you like the set up. Have a first sitting, see how you feel about it, how we get on. You’d enjoy it, being immortalised in art and me…’ I shoved another two twenties across. ‘Here. You and Else have a few drinks on me, enjoy yourself. I’ll be in touch. Off you go now. I’ll stay here, make sure cave-woman doesn’t see me.’

  I ran my hand down the side of her body, ran it back up again. She knew she shouldn’t but she liked it. She knocked the rest of her drink back, picked up her bag and was gone.

  I waited until she’d re-joined Else, then snuck into the other queue. By the time I was through I could see her standing to one side, searching in her bag something frantic. Well at least she had forty quid to help her over the next few hours.

  I got through, went on board, one of those spanking new efforts, that no-one wants to spend any longer in than they have to. Audrey was standing in a shop entrance, sizing up the duty free. They can’t help it can they, even when they’re on the run.

  ‘I can’t believe you were chatting someone up back there,’ she said. ‘You can’t stop can you. Even when you’re helping your ex-wife escape from the law.’

  ‘Why don’t you put that over the ship’s tannoy,’ I said, ‘so that everyone can hear.’

  I bought a tray of brandies and steered her towards a table. My heart was thumping. We’d just had a very narrow escape. What I needed now was some peace and quiet, a nice view of the sea seen through half a dozen Courvoisier’s. I was just beginning to relax when these bags were plonked down, blocking my view. I looked up. A bearded wonder and his pink faced missus were squeezing themselves in the seats opposite. I’ve never liked beards, ever sinc
e Carol’s first fiancé, Robin, appeared with one.

  ‘You don’t mind do you,’ he said. ‘Only can’t let these out of our sight. You going to the festival too?’

  Festival?

  He put his hand out

  ‘Dafydd,’ he said. ‘And this is Gwyneth. We’re clog dancers and those are our clogs. It’s a marvellous thing isn’t it, a folk festival on a place like Guernsey.’

  I said nothing. Audrey gave me a sharp nudge.

  ‘Marvellous,’ I said. ‘Do you have bells in there that might rattle around? Only I have a bit of a headache.’

  Dafydd shook his beard about.

  ‘No, no. That is Morris Dancing. Not the same thing at all. Our type of clog dancing originated in Wales.’

  ‘You astonish me.’

  ‘Yes. We got to all the festivals, Gwyneth and me. There’s a competition here this year. We have very high hopes, don’t we? ’

  Gwyneth dropped her eyes. She was a shy thing, but big, like on a farm.

  ‘Clogs,’ I said. ‘They’re the ones without any laces, just gaping holes where you stick your foot in. Don’t they fall off, when you’re waving your leg about, or do you all have webbed feet or something?’

  ‘Muscular control,’ he explained. ‘Are you here for the festival too?’

  ‘Not likely.’ Audrey patted my leg.

  ‘We are actually, only it’s our first time.’ She stuck a hand into her bag, handed him one of Tina’s hand-outs.

  ‘She’s into hysterical healing,’ I said.

  ‘He means holistic. It’s the sea-sick pills.’

  Dafydd flipped through the brochure.

  ‘Reflexology?’ he said. From Wales and he could read.

  ‘Yes. That’s when she hits your knee with a hammer. Put an end to you clog dancing days, in no time.’

  His beard didn’t know whether to smile or not.

  ‘Do you have those things on the end of your clogs?’ Audrey asked, ‘for the rhythm? Only I learnt tap dance, and I love it, the sound they made. Tap step shuffle hop, tap step shuffle hop. That’s called a Mickey Mouse.’

  Dafydd was nodding. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Tap-dancing?’

  ‘When I was a teenager. Didn’t I ever tell you?’

  ‘No you bloody didn’t. After all these years and you tell me right when you’re…’

  I let the sentence drift. Dafydd and Gwyneth looked at each other. They could tell there was some tension between us.

  ‘The festival’s a very friendly place,’ Dafydd explained. ‘Full of like-minded souls showing the world there are more harmonious ways to inhabit this planet of ours. You’ll be astonished, the vibrations one absorbs. Why don’t you join us? Soon as we’re booked in, we’re off to the flat-footing ho-down. Everyone is welcome. You’d love it…er…’

  ‘Audrey,’ Audrey said.

  ‘Though people call her Tina,’ I added. He didn’t seem that bothered.

  ‘Well, Tina, why don’t I get us all another round of drinks. And we can get to know each other.’

  I kicked her. She kicked back.

  ‘No. He can do that. I want to know more about this clog dancing of yours.’

  So I went and stood in a queue for twenty-five minutes and bought another tray of drinks. When I got back he had the bloody things out on the table. I think I preferred the beard. Audrey had started waffling about the body’s centre of gravity, and how crystals could re-align long standing discrepancies. It was hard to credit, the amount of rubbish coming out her mouth. He bought the next round and the one after that. I’ll say one thing for them. They knew how to sink their drink, those two, ‘specially Gwyneth the farm girl. Explained the gut on her though.

  Then the hooters went off and we were nearly there, and I hadn’t thought about the trip over at all. We walked out on deck with them. Guernsey was laid out before us. all neat and pretty, the little houses jostling down to the harbour like they’d run down to greet us. And we just waltzed down the gangway, no questions, no papers, nothing, the air all fresh and tangy, Audrey chatting away, carrying one of their cloggy bags, me bringing up the rear, like I’d been doing it for years. Then she was through. Royalty itself could not have had it easier.

  Once off, I made the call, told Michaela were we there, following Audrey and Dafydd and Gwyneth as they walked through the main street to their digs. Michaela had it all worked out by then, where she was going to pick Audrey up, this jewel of a bay, she said, on the near side to France, and I could see it, on the map I had, quite similar to the shape of our cove back home. But that’s why they’re called coves I guess, ‘cause they’re all the same shape. Michaela said she’d be there ten tomorrow morning, coming in on the tide. Suggested we took our swimming things. Had I packed any? I couldn’t fucking remember.

  We couldn’t stay in Dafydd’s digs, cause the place was full, but we got in one street away, Gwyneth sitting on the wall outside breathing brandy fumes, while we dropped our things off, before she took us back into town, to join him at the shin-dig. It was crazy really, what we were doing, but there was safety in it, safety and re-assurance and something to do while the last hours ticked by. We didn’t even have to pay to go in, this long barn of a place near the front, with lanterns on the walls and straw bales round the sides and men in collar-less shirts and big boots, the women more flouncy, all colour and twirls. I mean Audrey, it was like I’d dressed her for the part, the music all pipes and accordions and fiddles, horrible stuff really in the light of day, but there it sort of worked, everyone whooping and hooping and stamping their feet. You couldn’t think straight, which was just as well, cause we didn’t want to think straight, couldn’t think straight. Being there was enough. Being there was bloody marvellous actually. Christ after an hour my own foot started tapping, and Audrey was pulling me on the dance floor. I mean I’d never danced with Audrey in my life, never danced with anyone. Don’t hold with it. It’s too risky.

  Then before I knew it Audrey was stood slap in the centre, doing her tap dance routine, tap step shuffle hop, tap step shuffle hop, her skirt held up above her knee, her face ablaze, laughing and crying at the same time, everyone standing around clapping and cheering, Audrey going faster and faster, faster and faster until she was spinning like in a blur. And when she stopped and they were still cheering her she grabbed hold of the handbag and flung Tina’s leaflets up into the roof, so that they fell down on their heads like outsize confetti. Tina Newdick. Probably the best PR she ever had.

  And then we were out of it, into the night air. There was a light drizzle in the air, but we didn’t mind. We was glad of it, the heat that was on us. I took her arm.

  ‘Lady in Red,’ I said. ‘Never see you looking…how does it go?’

  ‘Oh Al. Stop it.’

  ‘No really. You were wonderful back there Audrey. Simply wonderful, as my soul rival would say. Makes you think.’

  ‘Thank what?’

  ‘What we missed.’

  We didn’t say nothing more, just walked back in the rain. Refreshing it was, cleared the head. Back in the B and B it took me a while to get the key in the lock, but we got there eventually. Then we were standing in the room, staring at the bed.

  ‘I’ll sleep in the bath if you like.’

  ‘No you won’t. This is our last night together Al. You’ll sleep with me and bloody like it.’

  She turned off the light. I heard her clothes dropping to the floor. Lady in Red. She got in. I followed. I lay apart, as far as I could, not knowing what to think. Then her arm snaked over, and she reached round, pressed herself close, snuggled in.

  ‘That was the best night with you ever Al. The best night ever. You were wonderful too.’

  She sighed, like all her breath had left her, like she was here, content at last. I snuggled back. We’d never done that in the past, not in all the time we’d been together, snuggled in like that. It was either thrashing about on top of each other or the Berlin fucking Wall. She lay there, all close and
comfortable, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we’d been doing it for years. It was Audrey and yet it wasn’t Audrey. It was me and yet it wasn’t me. It was the Audrey who might have been, if it hadn’t been for me. It was the me who might have been, if it hadn’t been for Audrey. It was the little bit of us that had always been left outside, cold and hungry and fearful.

  ‘Audrey,’ I said. ‘I got to say something.’

  But there was no reply. She was asleep

  I took her hand, and followed her in.

  And then it was the morning and getting dressed and sitting down for the breakfast we couldn’t eat. Too much last night, the woman joked, and we couldn’t even laugh.

  We paid up and set off, the rain still coming down, people going the other way from us, back down into town in their anoraks and waterproofs, us going the other way. It wasn’t difficult, the roads turning into lanes, with high hedges and bungalows, the air scented, like someone had thrown down flowers in our path, and then, all of a sudden it was downhill, the lane like a track, lumpy and bumpy and everyone gone, like we was alone. Then we were stood on it, like two Robinson Crusoes, this little bay, rocks pressing in on either side and the rain bouncing patterns on the sand. We got down onto it, walked along a bit.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she said. I looked at my watch.

  ‘Ten past.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll come? In this weather?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a risk with a boat, drizzle like this.’ Her face fell. ‘Don’t be stupid, Audrey,’ I laughed. ‘Course she’ll fucking come.’

  We sat on a rock, waited.

  ‘I’ll give Carol a buzz when this is all over,’ I said. ‘Tell her what’s what.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Be nice to hear from her again. The kids must be in their teens by now.’

  We stared at the bay some more. Nothing.

  ‘Em’s a good kid,’ she said. ‘Better than you deserve.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘ Perhaps you’ll have children with her. Do a better job that we did.’

  ‘Audrey!’