Here Come the Boys (2 page)

‘Dear God,’ said the elderly woman with the big hips non too quietly. ‘He’s telling us now what we can and can’t do down the pan.’ There was a titter of laughter amongst the naughty children at the back of the bus, Gil and Angie included.

Gil’s lips could barely contain the length of his grin when they saw the sign for Southampton, then arrows directing traffic to the docks. Angie smiled at his child-like enthusiasm. He hadn’t had a day off in months; he needed a break more than she did. He worked so hard but was never crabby with anyone, however exhausted he was. She was a lucky woman having a husband like Gil Silverton.

They’d met at a mutual friend’s wedding after Angie’s heart had been broken yet again (her sister said that if there was ever an Oscar for picking rubbish men, Angie would wipe the floor with the competition). Physically Gil wasn’t her type – far too tall, ginger-haired and he had long arms that he waved around like windmills when he got excited. He had worn her down with persistence and a charm offensive and though she hadn’t been expecting that much from their first date, he had totally won her over with his courteous manners and witty conversation. And now, ten years later, he was still as sweet and funny as he was on the day when their paths crossed.

But her first love, sodding Zander Goldman, had cast a very long shadow and none of the men she had been out with since had managed to bring enough sunshine to blast it away. Including, to her shame, her husband. That was Angie’s secret.

She had admired Zander from afar for two years, watching him pair up with and split from various other girls, first at school, then at sixth form college, always hoping that he would notice her, but he never did. He was a raven-haired god in her teenage world and it was his name that covered her jotters, his blurry photo, snipped from the local newspaper when his football team won the league, that occupied the heart-decorated photo frame next to her bed. Then one joyous fabulous day, his radar picked her up and his attention turned towards her and when he asked her out, she thought her heart would burst with joy. Obviously the first thing she did was share the news with her best friend, the girl who was closer to her then than her own sister, Selina Molloy. She recalled how they had danced around the room like a pair of spring lambs, drunk with elation.

Angie knew that she would never find a lovelier, gentler, kinder, funnier, more hard-working man than Gil but – and she hated admitting this even to herself – if Zander Goldman appeared back on the horizon declaring that dumping her had been the biggest mistake of his life, she might not be able to resist dropping everything and going back to him. With every year that passed, Zander Goldman acquired more of shimmering glow and her mind’s eye viewed him with an ever-increasing rose tint. He was perfect in her head – more handsome, more desirable, more everything than he had ever been in real life. In the shrine dedicated to him in her brain, Zander Goldman made Hugh Jackman look like Quasimodo.

‘Look at the size of that,’ gasped Gil as the bus turned a corner and there, moored in the water, was the
Mermaidia
.

‘There she is, ladies and genklemen,’ said Jed through his microphone. ‘That’s where you’re going to be spending your next seventeen days. Think of me washing my bus tomorrow when you’re sailing past France.

‘When we stop, if you could just stay on the bus until we get the cases out please, ladies and genklemen. Five minutes at the most. I know you’re keen to get on the ship, but if you’ll just be patient. Thank you. And if anyone has packed their passports in their suitcase, now is the time to shout up because the next time you’ll see your cases after this will be outside your cabins, but you won’t see them if you haven’t got your passport on you now because you won’t be able to get on the ship.’

Angie didn’t need to check. She never got details like that wrong. She was organisation personified.

The closer they got to the dockside, the louder Gil’s gasps of delight became. He was beginning to sound like a chronic asthmatic.

‘That can’t possibly float,’ he said, puffing out his cheeks. ‘It’s massive.’

‘You’re scaring me, Gil, shut up,’ said Angie, looking at the side of the ship. It went up and up and up. She stopped counting at sixteen decks.

The bus stopped and let out a farty brake noise.

‘If you could just hold on as I said,’ called Jed as people started to get up and totally ignore him. The elderly couple, Vernon and Doreen, couldn’t wait to get off the bus. Judging from the conversation she had overheard, Angie guessed they were seasoned cruisers.

‘Plan of action: straight up to The Buttery for a scone and a champagne cocktail,’ Doreen commanded.

‘As you wish, my love,’ replied Vernon. ‘I’m slightly peckish myself.’

‘That sounds good,’ said Gil to Angie. ‘Though, I suppose you want to unpack first.’

‘You know how I like to be organised.’

Gil nodded and gave her one of his patient lop-sided smiles. ‘Yes, I know.’

The bus doors had opened and people started moving out and into the terminal. Gil and Angie joined a long snaking line of holidaymakers. Doreen and Vernon were in a different queue, marked by a sign which declared: ELITE MEMBERS.

‘That will be us in a few years,’ said Gil, leaning to whisper in Angie’s ear.

‘We’ll see,’ she replied, moving forwards.

There were loads of check-in desks, so the queue was going down very quickly and within a few minutes they were presenting their passports, visas and booking reference numbers and signing a form to confirm that neither of them had a diarrhoea-type bug. Then they had their photos taken with a camera shaped like a large eyeball and were presented with a card that acted both as their door key and method of payment on board.

They passed through security and then were on the walkway that led them from the terminal towards the ship.

‘Good grief,’ gasped Angie as she took her first steps on board the
Mermaidia
. She hadn’t expected to be
that
impressed. The reception area was a massive atrium open to five storeys with walls opulently decorated with glass mosaics of mermaids. A magnificent statue of a mermaid stood at least twenty foot high. Two glass elevators, full of people, were moving upwards.

A breathy ‘wow’ escaped from her and Gil smiled. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ he said. ‘Wow indeed.’

An Indian officer in immaculate whites asked Gil for their room number and then directed them where to find it.

‘Rather nice, isn’t it?’ Gil said to a gob-smacked Angie as they turned down a passageway to the Aft staircase and up two flights to their cabin.

To Angie, the word ‘cabin’ had conjured up a picture of basic facilities and a small porthole to see out of but their room was as spacious and comfortable as one in a very nice hotel. It had a decent-sized bathroom, loads of wardrobe space, two TVs, a fridge, lovely pictures on the walls, plenty of drawers for all her new clothes and a huge glass door that led out onto a balcony.

‘There’s a Raul Cruz restaurant on board. We’ll have to go to that,’ said Gil excitedly as he read the welcome letter on the dressing table.

‘Sounds good. Will it be expensive, do you think?’

‘I don’t care,’ said Gil, putting his arms around his wife’s shoulders and bending down to give her a kiss. Then he grabbed her hand. ‘Come on. Let’s explore.’

There seemed to be bars and restaurants everywhere. There was also a spa, a casino, a gym, and a lovely little coffee bar called The Samovar which had some delicious-looking cakes in glass cabinets. They each had a caramel latte in there and Gil had a slice of carrot cake, although Angie stole half of it.

They were more than happy to sit and people-watch for half an hour, surprised at the mix on board – young people, children, couples with babies, elderly people, groups. Despite what their friends had told them, Angie had still been convinced that ninety-nine per cent of people on board would be retired admirals married to posh ladies dripping in diamonds.

‘Do we dress up for dinner tonight?’ she asked.

‘Dave said no. Everyone is very casual on the first night,’ Gil answered. Their friend Dave had been the loudest advocate of cruise holidays and he’d given Gil quite a few pointers.

After they had finished their drinks, they returned to their cabin to find their suitcases waiting for them so Angie proceeded to unpack. She had just finished when there was a knock at the door and in came a pretty young Filipina woman. She introduced herself as Melissa, their steward, and pointed out some cabin features and how to alter the air-conditioning and then informed them that they had to attend a life-jacket drill in an hour. She showed them where their life jackets were and then left to move on and introduce herself to the people in the next cabin.

‘That’s comforting,’ said Angie. ‘Welcome to the ship and oh, you need to go to a meeting to show you what to do when the ship starts to sink.’

‘“In the unlikely event of the ship sinking…”, it says here,’ said Gil, reading the notice on the back of the door informing them where their muster station was. ‘It won’t sink. The Med is baking hot, that means the sea conditions will be mill-pond-like.’

They attended the meeting with their orange life-jackets and then returned them to their cabin because everyone was starting to gather on deck for the grand sail-away party. Gil and Angie joined them. Waiters were weaving through the crowds with trays of champagne and, on the quayside, a brass band was playing. Gil ordered two glasses of fizz, signed for them, and chinked his against his wife’s.

‘I could get used to this system,’ he said. ‘It’s like having things for free.’

‘Dangerous,’ said Angie. They’d spent years scrimping and saving and she wasn’t comfortable about being indulgent.

‘Cheers, darling. Here’s to a very merry trip.’

‘Yes, bon voyage,’ Angie replied.

The ship’s horn sounded, the waters began to churn and soon they were gliding away from the dockside. Seventeen nights touring the East Mediterranean on a luxury cruise ship in a room with a balcony.
Suck on that, Selina Molloy
.

‘We’re moving,’ Gil said. ‘Either that or the band have shrunk a bit.’

‘Yes, we are,’ Angie replied, wishing she could grin like a Cheshire cat on Prozac too.

‘I’m getting hungry. It must be this sea air.’

‘Sea air? We’ve only been near the sea since half-past two.’

‘Thank goodness there’s only an hour until dinner. ’

Gil was already bedded into life on the waves.

Oh, please don’t let me be bored, said Angie to herself.

And the gods, it appeared, were listening.

Chapter 2

Gil and Angie found themselves on a dining table for eight. Seated with them were a couple their age, Ken and Cynthia from Devon, a couple in their late fifties, Jerry and Yvonne from Northallerton, and the old couple on the bus, Vernon and Doreen. Angie’s first impressions of the strangers weren’t that great. Ken and Cynthia looked very quiet and boring. Cynthia had frumpy grey curls and wore huge glasses like Deirdre Barlow in the eighties, and Ken had mad brown hair and was very red-faced. He was either a farmer, a chronic alcoholic or really bashful, Angie decided.

Jerry and Yvonne were far from backward about coming forward though. They’d only been sitting at the table for five minutes and everyone had already learned that they were on their twentieth cruise, that they were off again on the
Queen Mary
in three months and they had one of the large suites on B deck. Jerry and Yvonne presumed that Vernon and Doreen were new to cruising as the elderly lady had dressed up in a long sequinned black frock and very sparkly jewellery and Vernon was sporting a tuxedo and bow tie. They didn’t know about the first-night dress code evidently, a point which Jerry felt duty bound to bring up over their starter.

‘People don’t tend to change for dinner on the first night, you know,’ he said to Doreen. ‘Too much hassle.’

‘Not for us,’ Doreen answered, not missing a beat. ‘Our butler unpacked all our clothes and ran an iron over them. We shall be dressing up every night, whatever the dress code tries to dictate. It’s part of our holiday getting our glad rags on.’

Gil gave Angie a little conspiratorial kick under the table that she translated as,
that shut him up
.

It didn’t though. Jerry seemed extra keen now to drop in some serious bragging to try and outdo the elderly couple.

‘We had a butler once but we preferred our privacy, didn’t we, Yvonne?’

Yvonne, casual in a tailored Joseph suit, nodded heartily by way of agreement. ‘Absolutely.’

‘What about you then, Cyn? You been on a cruise before?’

Cynthia cleared her mouth of her prawn cocktail before speaking in a broad country Devonian accent. ‘No. It was always hard for us to get away from the farm to take many holidays.’

Ah, Ken is a farmer then,
thought Angie. Not a chronic alcoholic or extra shy, after all.

‘Got an arable farm, or is it quite nice?’ Jerry burst out laughing at his own joke. It was to be the first of many ‘jokes’ he cracked at the table and Angie found her patience wearing thin by dessert. Jerry was fond of his own voice, but no one else was. Thankfully he didn’t want to stay at the table for coffee as he and Yvonne preferred to dash off to the theatre and bag the front seats.

‘Thank God for that,’ said Doreen to Jerry’s retreating back. ‘There’s a man who could match the bus driver for talking bollocks.’

Angie stifled a giggle. She noticed that Cyn and Ken were chuckling too.

‘We can all get a word in now,’ said Vernon, who appeared to be very comfortable in his smart clothes.

The atmosphere around the table seemed to warm by degrees with the absence of the dreadful Yvonne and Jerry.

‘If I hear one more word about how talented her grandchildren are, I shall scream,’ said Doreen, launching into an impression of Yvonne by delicately patting her hair as she spoke. ‘Our Pia has just done grade fourteen on the piano. She’s applied for the Royal Academy of Music. Her brother Sebastian is a flautist. He takes after his father who played in front of the Queen after single-handedly bringing down Osama Bin Laden’s regime. He was made Field Marshal at nineteen, don’t you know.’