Here Come the Girls (9 page)

‘You are rotten,’ laughed Ven. Roz’s wit always did have a caustic edge to it, more so these past few years, but she could also be very funny. She started to do a heavily accented and wicked impression of Clive that had Ven in fits.

‘On Tuesdays, Mother and I like to share a plate of crispy pancakes and a big tin of marrowfat peas whilst watching reruns of
Crossroads
on Saddo TV. Well, when I say
shur
I eat them all because Mother has been dead for two
yurs
and so she doesn’t eat much. She’s just happy sitting in her rocking chair, decomposing whilst she watches what Benny’s up to.’

‘If you look to your left you’ll catch the first glimpse of your ship,’ said the real Clive, as they edged closer to the dock. There in the near distance was a white ship with a yellow crest. It was approximately fifty times the size of the vessel that they all expected to see.

‘Bloody hellfire, that’s enormous!’ gasped Roz. It was more like a floating multi-storey town than a boat.

Olive didn’t say anything because she was so open-mouthed with astonishment that her jaw felt dislocated.

Big Clive asked everyone to wait a few minutes when they eventually pulled up, so that he could get the suitcases out first. Old Mr B Deck ignored him, of course.

Up close, the ship was even more massive. Olive was still gobsmacked. And to think, had she not had a headache last night and come home early she would have been halfway through cooking Sunday lunch now and trying not to retch as she loaded Kevin’s washing into the machine.
What’s going on between the walls of 15, Land Lane now?
she allowed herself to wonder until Clive boomed in loud Lancastrian, ‘Okay, ladies and
jeng-kel-men
. You can come out now. Have a smashing holiday, and don’t forget to send me a post-
cord
.’

‘Come on, Olive,’ smiled Ven. ‘Your holiday’s about to begin.’

They filed out and said goodbye to poor Clive. Ven hoped the fiver tip she gave him might soften the blow of him not going on a sixteen-day cruise. He could buy lots of tins of peas now. Especially if they were on a BOGOF.

‘I can’t believe I am actually going on
that
,’ said Olive, pointing up at the ship and feeling the same sort of excitement she had experienced on seeing Blackpool Tower for the first time, when Ven’s mum and dad took her there for a twelfth-birthday treat.

‘You won’t be going on it if you don’t come with me and get in that queue,’ said Ven. ‘I’ve got your ticket. You concentrate on getting your passport out ready.’

‘Is the competition bloke coming to meet you?’ asked Olive. ‘What’s he called?’

‘Er . . . Andrew something or other. No, nothing was said,’ Ven replied. ‘He’ll no doubt catch up with us on board.’

‘Thought he’d be here with a photographer to capture the moment for max publicity purposes. I mean, it’s not exactly a tea-towel they’re giving away, is it?’

Ven didn’t answer, she just looked around at the pictures of the Figurehead fleet on the walls of the terminal building and stepped forward as the long snake of the queue began to shorten.

Olive had checked that her passport was in her bag at least sixty times but still had a panic when she couldn’t locate it because it had fallen between the pages of her magazine. She reckoned since seeing Doreen skipping down the road last night, her heart must have done more racing beats than it had in the whole of her life so far.

They saw that Mr B Deck and his little missus were in a special queue of four passengers with an ELITE MEMBER sign above it. But then he was a hard-line cruiser, as everyone on the bus would surely know by now. He probably had his own bloke at Liverpool waiting to renew his passport every ten years.

‘Look at that hunk over there with the dolly bird.’ Ven pointed to a tall, impossibly handsome man with jet-black hair behind Mr B Deck in the queue. He was standing with a stunning, leggy woman with a pouty mouth, gravity-defying breasts and tumbles of long dark hair. Both were sporting shades of skin that couldn’t possibly have been achieved naturally. It was more like woodstain than tan. ‘He looks like Dom Donaldson.’ Ven sighed, as she always did at the name of her idol, the soap star rough-diamond-with-a-heart character.

‘So it is!’ said Roz. ‘And over there is Brad Pitt, and wait – David Beckham is bringing up the rear.’

‘Okay, sarky beggar,’ Ven said with a disappointed sigh. ‘Aw well, it would have been nice to think that I was trapped on a ship with Dom Donaldson for sixteen days.’

Then Roz did a double-take of her own, for there passing quickly by was a drop-dead gorgeous man she could have sworn was Raul Cruz, the Spanish Michelin-starred chef on the television. He disappeared through a door marked Staff. Roz would never have admitted to the others that she had a crush on him; it would have been far too childish at her age and not ‘Roz-like’ at all. They would have teased her rotten about it. They didn’t think she had a heart these days, never mind one that actually might beat fast with desire for a man. It wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her, though. According to the brochure he had a restaurant on board the
Mermaidia
, so chances were it was really him. Roz gulped.

There was a bank of check-in personnel so the queue went down pretty quickly and very soon Ven, Olive and Roz were standing in front of a desk, declaring that they hadn’t had diarrhoea or vomited in the last twenty-four hours. Although Olive had come pretty close after discovering the truth about Doreen and David the previous night, but decided to keep quiet about that. Then they were all individually photographed with a camera that looked like a giant eyeball and presented with little plastic cards which they duly signed.

‘These act as your passport and your key card, as well as allowing you to charge expenses to your account,’ explained the lady at the desk.

Ven then produced her Visa. All expenses would be loaded onto that, and then Figurehead Cruises would reimburse her, apparently.

‘I hope they do,’ said Roz. ‘Wouldn’t like to think you’d be landed with all the champagne bills I’m going to run up.’

‘They won’t let me down,’ replied Ven. ‘Everything has gone smoothly enough so far.’
Oh boy, you really shouldn’t have said that
, a sudden voice chided inside her head. If ever there was a passport to disaster on a plan it was to say that everything had gone smoothly so far.

‘Bloody hell, what a competition prize. I’ve only ever won some shampoo on a tombola. And it was for brunettes,’ said Olive, flying into a panic as her chain bracelet set off the metal detectors and she had to be frisked by a female security guard who looked as if she had come directly from
Prisoner Cell Block H
.

They were given a boarding card with the letter L on it as they filtered into a large waiting lounge, but seeing as passengers with letter K had just been called to the ship, it wasn’t going to be a long wait. Then, immediately before they went on board, they posed quickly as a group in front of a photographer to capture the start of their holiday.

Olive was full of nervous excitement as they passed up the gently sloping and winding tunnel into the ship’s body. Now it was Roz’s turn to be struck dumb as they walked through the door and into a cavernous reception area which was opulent to the point of palatial and open-plan to five storeys. Two great glass elevators were carrying passengers upwards and downwards, and a line of apparently all Indian men in white suits were waiting to escort guests to their cabins.

‘This way, ma’am,’ said one, after Ven told him her cabin number. His name badge read
Benzir
. He gallantly took Roz’s giant handbag from her and led them down a carpeted hallway, the walls studded with huge pieces of artwork, and then up in an enclosed lift to the ninth floor.

Their rooms were next to each other. Olive’s pink suitcase had already arrived and was parked outside her door. She had assumed the pictures in the brochure Ven showed them were exaggerated or Photoshopped, and in real life her cabin would be a poky, bare space with a creaky hammock, but the photo didn’t even do it justice when she pushed open the door. To her immediate right was a huge open wardrobe space, a tower of shelves and an inbuilt safe, and layers of thick snow-white towels lined more shelves in the pretty mirrored ensuite with the full-size bath in it; there was also a tray full of beautiful complimentary toiletries next to the sink. Straight ahead was a double bed with big fat pillows on it, two TVs – one angled to the bed, one to the sitting area where there was a large sofa and coffee table. Floor-to-ceiling glass doors led out onto a balcony furnished with an outside table and two chairs. Wow. Sixteen days wouldn’t be enough, she knew that immediately. Already she was working out plans to stow away on the next cruise.

She had just started to unpack when Roz and Ven knocked.

‘Glad you came?’ grinned Ven. ‘Or do you want me to get Clive to take you back home on his bus with him? You can pick up some peas and have a wild ride.’

‘I’ll force myself to stay for a while,’ sniffed Olive. ‘Might be a struggle, though.’

‘You won’t properly relax until we’ve set off, will you?’ said Roz. ‘I know how your brain works.’

‘Probably not,’ replied Olive. ‘I know I’m a saddo, you don’t have to tell me.’

‘Well, you’ve less than three hours to wait now. We sail off at quarter past five.’

There was a timid knock at the door.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Olive, in a panic.

‘How the hell do I know?’ returned Roz. ‘I left my X-ray specs at home!’

‘It’ll be Doreen,’ said Ven in a very sinister voice and forming her hands into creepy claws. ‘She’ll have free-wheeled all the way down from junction thirty-seven.’

‘Don’t joke,’ laughed Roz. ‘She’ll believe you.’

Olive opened the door to a beaming-faced, dark-skinned man in an immaculate white tunic.

‘Hello, ma’am, my name is Jesus and I am the cabin steward for the rooms in this section.’

‘Flaming heck,’ said Roz, raising her perfectly arched eye-brows. ‘There’s the height of luxury – having Jesus as your cabin steward.’

Jesus laughed heartily, then he proceeded to show the ladies the hairdryer secreted in the drawer and explained how to set the combination on the cabin safe and where the fridge, the kettle and the air-conditioning/heating controls were. He directed their attention to the big blue folder on the dressing-table which had details of all the holiday’s entertainment, what was showing on the in-cabin TVs, the room service menu, stationery, the spa facilities and the card that told them which of the three restaurants, and sittings, they would be dining in that evening: the Olympia at 6.30, as it happened. Then he informed them that they had to attend a lifeboat drill meeting at 4.15.

‘That’s comforting,’ said Roz, as Jesus showed them where the life-jackets were kept.

‘It’s the law, ma’am,’ said Jesus. ‘Everyone has to go. But I have never had an emergency in the twelve years I have been with the company.’

‘There’s always a first time,’ sighed Roz, before Ven tutted at her. Roz’s glass was always half-empty.

Jesus poked his head out of the cabin and announced that more of their cases had arrived, then he left them to introduce himself to other passengers whom he was also looking after.

‘Right, we’ll leave you to carry on unpacking, Ol. Have you rung Manus to say you’ve arrived, Roz?’ asked Ven.

Roz pulled a pained face and Ven’s smile instantly dried up.

‘What?’ she queried, not liking that expression at all.

‘Look, you may as well know,’ Roz began. ‘Manus and I are on a trial separation.’

‘Oh Roz!’ said Olive and Ven in unison.

‘Please.’ Roz held up her hand to stem their flow. ‘Let us just get on with it. It’s been coming for a long time, you probably know that. Anyway, it’s just a trial. Everything is in the air so I’d rather not talk about it. I want to forget home for sixteen days, so . . . let me do just that, will you both? Please.’

She was right, it wasn’t all that unexpected, but it was still very sad because Ven and Olive thought Manus was a total catch and wished Roz could see him through their eyes. But their friend was so stubborn and unbendable where he was concerned. Olive cast a glance at Ven that spoke volumes:
Someone has to say something now. Before she and Manus split up for good. We can’t let that happen, not knowing what we know
. But for now, all they could do was nod.

Roz unzipped the suitcase which sprang open with a sigh of relief. She thought of Manus pressing down on it with all his might so she could close it. She really should ring him and say she had arrived in Southampton, then she remembered her own rules of no contact and switched off her phone. She wouldn’t miss the constant voice in her head berating her for how badly she treated Manus. Every time she sniped at him, she heard it pleading with her to grow up and stop pushing him because one day she would drive him too far – and she had now, hadn’t she? She put the phone in the built-in safe until the end of the holiday. She would check it every few days just in case of emergency, but she had no reason to expect any calls; her mother wouldn’t ring an ‘expensive mobile number’ even if she was dying. And then she would turn to one of Roz’s stepsisters first.

Roz had never had an easy relationship with her mother. Her father left – and disappeared into the ether – when Roz was nine and her mother found solace in bitter tears and cheap white wine. For her first nine years, Roz had grown up with her ears constantly ringing from the sound of marital arguments. For the next nine, all she heard were drunken diatribes about how twisted men were. Any small step Roz put wrong was greeted with the criticism that she was ‘stupid/wicked/selfish – just like your father’. And when she was low in spirits – which was often – Frankie would drag her over to the wonderful, warm and crazy Carnevale household for Lucia’s home-cooked food and Salvatore’s murdering of operatic numbers. Then Roz’s mother met and married a total twerp with two daughters in a whirlwind romance and suddenly didn’t hate men any more, but the poison she had dripped into her own daughter’s heart sat in a dark pool and waited its time to burst its banks.