Here Come the Girls (12 page)

‘I hate all this,’ said Ven, coughing back the tremor in her voice. ‘I hate the way Roz hates you, because I know she doesn’t really. She hates herself more than she could ever loathe anyone else, and it breaks my heart to see it. She gets herself into these ruts and can’t get out of them. That fecking mother of hers did a great job at warping her brain.’

Frankie knew Ven was really upset because she rarely used hard expletives. ‘Well, Ven, she’s just going to have to carry on hating me. Because if you boil it down to the basic facts, I crossed the line . . .’

‘But . . .’

Frankie wouldn’t let Ven interrupt her. ‘But nothing, Ven. I can cope with her hating me. And she never needs to know now, does she? Does she?’

Ven shook her head. She wasn’t sure if she agreed, but when in between a rock and a hard place, it was as well to cling on to the more familiar of the two and hope for the best.

Frankie plastered on a smile. ‘Okay, now for a bit of light relief. I suppose your ex hasn’t been back on the scene?’

‘Not since I signed the cheque for fifty grand,’ said Ven.

‘I bet your mum and dad are spinning in their graves,’ said Frankie.

‘I don’t let my mind go down that road,’ said Ven. It was bad enough that her husband Ian had been sleeping with another woman behind her back for two years, but to divorce her straight after her father had died and take half her inheritance in the settlement was cruel. Her parents had worked their whole lives to leave her a decent lump sum, even though Ven had told them to blow the lot. And now Ian and his squeeze Shannon were living it up in her former home and on her parents’ money. What hurt most of all was that, with hindsight, she could see that Ian had been hanging on, waiting for her poorly father to die so he could make his monetary claim. She never thought he could be that cold – but people change over the years. Roz was testament to that.

‘I hope your mum and dad’s money chokes him,’ said Frankie.

‘Please,’ sighed Ven, holding up an open palm to halt any more mentions of her perfidious ex. ‘He’s moved on, I’ve moved on. And there is nothing I can do about the money.’ Ven had even returned to her maiden name of Miss Smith. She couldn’t bear to see the name ‘Venice Walsh’ on any of her chequebooks and documents.

‘I wish that thing of Olive’s would move on,’ said Frankie, closing her mouth before a huge gassy burp escaped. ‘Sorry, that’s the bubbles. You know, the other week, I asked her if she loved David and she said “I don’t have bloody time to love anyone”.’

‘I know,’ said Ven, glad of a change of focus in the conversation.

‘Why does she stay with him?’ asked Frankie, who had never thought David was good enough for her friend. And she despised Doreen and that layabout Cousin Kevin with his wandering eyes. How anyone who dressed like a hippy living in a skip with teak-coloured teeth could believe he was God’s gift was anyone’s guess. She only wished she had his powers of self-delusion.

‘Because she wouldn’t know how to leave, is my guess,’ replied Ven sadly.

‘I thought she would have had kids, you know,’ said Frankie. Out of all of them, Olive would have made the best mother.

‘It never happened for her,’ said Ven. ‘And I don’t think they – you know,
do it
much anyway.’

‘Perish the thought!’ Frankie shuddered again. A hideous picture of a sweaty David puffing away above her nearly brought her John Dory back up. She took another quick glug of alcohol to quell her stomach.

‘I was never passionate about wanting kids, the way some people are . . .’ Ven’s voice trailed off . ‘Sorry, Frank.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Frankie. ‘I’m long over it.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever found anything to be truly passionate about,’ Ven confessed wistfully.

‘This from the woman who was going to be Barbara Taylor Bradford when she grew up?’ said Frankie. ‘What happened?’

‘I wanted to write but I couldn’t find anything to write about,’ Ven told her. ‘Plus Ian said it was really rude of me to be tapping away on a laptop when he’d come in from work and hadn’t seen me all day.’

‘The bastard cock! Not as rude as him shagging about,’ huffed Frankie. Then: ‘Sorry, Ven. You know what I mean.’

Ven gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, don’t worry, I know what you mean.’

‘Never too late though,’ said Frankie. ‘Catherine Cookson was into her forties when she got her first book published.’

‘She wasn’t, was she?’

‘She was, you know. Look it up on your laptop. You can be as rude as you like on it now.’

‘I wish I were like you, Frank. You were always throwing yourself into things: salsa, art classes, singing, belly dancing, scuba diving . . .’

‘There’s a belly-dancing course on board. I saw a poster in the reception area.’

‘Are you going?’

‘I doubt it,’ laughed Frankie. ‘It’s great fun, but I want to chill – in the sun, if it’s possible to chill in the sun.’

They sipped their champagne, suddenly too tired to talk any more. Then Ven yawned and Frankie grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her up.

‘Come on, before we fall asleep up here like two old farts.’

‘I was going to look around the shops,’ said Ven, ‘but I’m far too knackered. It’s just come over me all of a sudden.’

Frankie noticed the big hairy biker man again as they went out towards the stairs. He didn’t look the type to be having a gin and tonic whilst listening to lounge music. Something about the incongruity of him here made her smile as he joined a bubbly group of people cheering as he approached them.

The ship was buzzing with activity as they walked back down to deck nine. A bar had big TV screens above it and men were baying at the football match being shown. There was a harpist (or harpoonist as Ven called her) playing soft mellow music in another dimly lit bar. The shops below were full of people checking out goods and squirting perfume testers, and there was a team quiz in a bar next to the library. People were flooding out of the theatre after the Mermaidia Theatre Company’s second show of the evening.

‘It’s been a long day,’ said Ven, fishing her cruise card out of her bag. ‘So we’re all meeting for lunch at Café Parisienne on the floor below? That still okay with you? Gives us all a chance to have a good kip.’

Café Parisienne had looked beautiful when they passed it. Quietly elegant without being stuffy.

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘Oh, and don’t forget to follow Eric’s instructions and put that card thing in your door slot. It says Do Not Disturb, then you turn it the other way when you leave your cabin tomorrow so the steward can do whatever he has to.’

‘This is just too nice,’ yawned Frankie. She gave Ven a big hug and went into her cabin, drawing the same sharp intake of breath that the others had at the sight of the cosy lighting and the pillow-chocolate and the bed just crying out for her to slip into.

Ven too snuggled between the snow-white sheets and savoured the feel of them against her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped with all her heart that they would have the best holiday ever, because real life was waiting for them back at the docks. And they all needed a break from it – just for a little while.

DAY 2: A
T
S
EA

Dress Code: Formal

Chapter 21

‘Olive? Olive, wake up! I need the toilet. If you don’t hurry up, I’ll wet myself!’

Olive sprang out of bed, crashed into a coffee table, which shouldn’t be there, then realised she wasn’t in her bedroom after all and that Doreen’s voice was only in her head. She was shaking. For a moment, there she was back in Land Lane with David, her sleep continually disturbed by his farting and snoring, or rolling his bulk onto her side, forcing her to nearly break her back in hoisting him over again. She looked at the clock. Five past ten! She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept past eight o’clock. In fact, six-thirty was a lie-in.

She opened the curtains to a picture of grey waves and sky. Boring, some might have said, but she thought it was lovely. Far nicer than the rooftops of the roughest council houses in town and the ubiquitous litter outside the kebab shop which was the view from her bedroom window. She stopped herself thinking about home by forcing her brain to remember the lyrics of ‘I Am Sailing’ as she went for a shower.

Twenty minutes later, she emerged tentatively from her cabin, and turned over the card in the door so that Jesus knew she had vacated her room just as Ven’s door cracked open.

‘Good morning,’ her friend greeted her cheerfully. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Like a big fat log,’ said Olive.

‘Would you like to join me for breakfast, Lady Olive, then onward for some shopping?’

‘This is unreal,’ said Olive. ‘I should have just finished at Mr Tidy’s and be heading off to do Mrs Crowther’s front room at this time.’

Ven shoved her arm through her friend’s. ‘But this Monday morning, Olive Hardcastle, you are going to be scoffing brekky with moi in the Buttery.’

Roz vacated her room about half an hour later and turned over the card in her door slot so Jesus could do his thing in her room. She called down to Reception first to get a brochure about the excursions they could take. Luck wasn’t on her side as the first person she bumped into near the reception area lift was Frankie.

‘Bugger,’ she said to herself.

‘Morning,’ tried Frankie. ‘Going up for some breakfast?’

‘Er no,’ said Roz. ‘I don’t take breakfast. I was heading up to the . . .’ From the corner of her eye, she saw a woman in harem pants, a tinkly coin belt and a veil, standing with a group of ladies – none of them under sixty, by the looks of it – by a sign that read:
Belly Dancing for Beginners class meet here
.

‘. . . belly-dancing class,’ finished Roz.

‘Ah,’ said Frankie, with an understanding smile. ‘Right, well, I’ll see you later then.’

‘Are you joining us?’ asked Harem Woman, spotting Roz striding towards her. ‘Brilliant, another member.’ Then she set off with very wiggly hips up the grand staircase which led from the reception area up to the shops.

‘Come on, ladies – to the Flamenco Room two decks up. You’ll all be walking like me before the end of the cruise!’

Roz followed on, unable to sneak off. There was nothing for it. She would have to endure an hour of belly dancing just to avoid looking at Frankie over a breakfast-table. As if she didn’t despise Frankie enough already.

Frankie bumped into Olive and Ven outside the Buttery, one of two huge self-service restaurants on deck sixteen. They’d gone up for a slice of toast and ended up marvelling at the spread of breakfast available and had almond croissants filled with crème patissière instead.

‘I was just coming up for a coffee,’ said Frankie, ‘but I’ll tag along with you instead if you’re going shopping. I’m not that hungry in the mornings.’

There were four huge shops mid-ship on decks six and seven, ranging respectively from posh to less-posh: Gallery Mermaidia, the Boulevard, Pall Mall and Market Avenue. Outside them today were racks of tuxedos and evening gowns and stalls of costume jewellery being raked over by interested passengers, including Royston, dressed in a pink vest, flowery shorts and lime-green Crocs. He was surprisingly lean and toned for a man of his age and because of that didn’t look half as daft as he should have done.

‘Morning, girls,’ he said chirpily when he spotted them.

‘Morning,’ they returned.

‘Tried sunbathing, but it’s
bladdy
freezin’. I’m just going to warm up with an Irish coffee instead. See you at dinner if not before. Remember the posh frocks!’

‘We will. Have a nice day,’ Frankie returned.

‘Come on, you,’ said Ven, pulling Olive into the shop and towards the beautiful long gowns in sumptuous colours.

‘Wonder if Roz is up yet?’ said Olive.

‘She’s gone belly dancing,’ smirked Frankie.

‘Get stuffed!’

‘She has, I tell you no lies. I bumped into her in Reception this morning. It was either come to breakfast with me or pretend she was interested in the belly-dancing class. I suspect she might have tried to sneak off had I not kept staring at her to make sure she went in with them all.’

‘You evil sod,’ laughed Ven.

‘Not at all,’ grinned Frankie. ‘I’ve done a bit of belly dancing myself. It’ll do her the world of good. Might even start to defrost her knickers.’ And with that she gave her friends a big knowing wink.

Chapter 22

‘Good morning, ladies,’ said Harem Woman in a very Welsh Wales voice. She then introduced herself as Gwen and went on to amaze everyone by telling them all she was sixty-seven. She had a figure like a nineteen-year-old. Flat-stomached, small-waisted, good legs and not a hint of a bingo wing on her arms.

‘I’m warning you now, just in case anyone tells you that belly dancing is a lot of fat women wobbling their stomachs – you’ll be crawling out of here, ladies,’ promised Gwen.

Great, thought Roz. This could possibly be the longest hour of her life then.

‘Let’s begin with a nice warm-up,’ said Gwen, switching on a CD behind her. Jangly music started up and Gwen began to gyrate her hips in a figure of eight, encouraging the class to follow suit. Grudgingly, Roz started to move. Then Gwen shifted to rotating her hips first one way, then the other whilst keeping the top half of her body still.

‘Belly dancing is about learning to isolate parts of your body,’ she explained as her hips undulated easily and hypnotically.

It was a lot harder than Gwen made it look. That’s what hooked Roz in, because she hated to be beaten on anything. Then Gwen thrust her hips forward and back.

‘You’re doing great, girls!’ she smiled.

Crikey, haven’t done this movement for a while, thought Roz, as the pensioners giggled at either side of her. She was quite puffed when the music stopped. And, though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, strangely exhilarated.

‘Right, now,’ Gwen went on. ‘Who wants to tighten up some thighs?’

Roz was quite interested to find that by vibrating the muscles of her thighs, her bum trembled in classic belly-dancer fashion. After a track-length of that, she felt like her quadriceps had quadrupled in size.