Here Come the Girls (21 page)

Twenty minutes later, Olive was sitting in Café Parisienne, drinking ice wine and telling Frankie and Roz all about it, when Ven turned up.

‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Roz.

‘I had a message to meet Andrew and do an interview.’

‘Ah, the elusive Andrew,’ said Roz. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Nice, ordinary. Nothing special to look at.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘A sort of sitting-room area,’ said Ven. ‘Behind one of those doors that says Staff Only. He asked us if we could get some photographs done together for PR purposes.’

‘No worries,’ said Roz, taking a long sip of her ice wine. ‘I don’t mind posing around in posh frocks.’

‘Sounds a bit odd for a high-profile competition though,’ Frankie mused. ‘Getting your own pictures done.’

‘He said he didn’t want to compromise our holiday. Anyway, I’ve given him an interview and he said that I’ll see him again before the end of the cruise. They obviously know what they are doing.’

At that moment, Dom Donaldson passed by the open front of the restaurant. He was striding along with Tangerina, who was tottering in extremely high heels. ‘Yes, of course I had it when I came out! I must have dropped it,’ he was saying irritably.

Ven’s shoulders dropped two feet with a sigh. ‘Isn’t he the most gorgeous man ever? Wonder what he’s looking for.’

The rest of them kept schtum. None of them had any intention of smashing their friend’s illusion with the sad reality that Dom Donaldson was actually a total plonker.

Chapter 36

Manus had just broken the news to an old couple that their beloved ancient Morris was past its last legs. They’d had it for over fifty years and Manus imagined they’d bought it as a young couple and ferried their children around in it and travelled on holiday with it. The old man was sniffing back tears as each option he suggested was greeted with a slow sideways shake of the head from Manus. The insurance company had declared it a write-off and, determined not to give up, the couple had invited various mechanics to see it, only to be told the same thing that Manus was telling them now.

As Manus got back in his van and drove away from them, his heart felt heavy in his chest. The words he had used about the car seemed to have a strange, deeper meaning:
It’s scrap – you can’t do anything with it but let it go. Whatever you try to do, it won’t work any more
. It was as if he was talking about his life with Roz and not their car. If he and Roz split up, would she punish the next man for his sins as she had punished him for Robert’s? He doubted it. He had not made a fraction of the impact upon her that her ex-husband had – that seemed more and more obvious to him with every passing day. He wondered often if she were punishing him because he was Manus and not Robert. Was having to deal with the old car some subliminal message from the Cosmos, guiding him to let their relationship go, because it was unsalvageable scrap?

As he parked up at the side of his garage, he saw Jonie outside it, big smile spreading across her face when she spotted him.

‘Hello, Jonie,’ he said, forcing up the corners of his mouth in greeting, although all he wanted to do was get back to work so he could concentrate on something that would stop him from thinking about the events of the morning and what they had stirred up inside his head. ‘What brings you here? Come into the office.’

‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ she started after a deep breath, following him inside, ‘but I have a stupid suspicion that I didn’t sign that cheque I gave you yesterday. I may have done, but we were talking and I can’t actually remember doing it – and I’m rather prone to that habit, alas. Always getting them sent back to me.’

‘Ah,’ said Manus. ‘You didn’t actually. It’s not a big deal though. It wasn’t exactly thousands.’

‘You weren’t going to leave me in blissful ignorance, were you?’ Jonie gasped. ‘Oh, you silly man, you’ll never run a successful business letting stupid people off their debts. I am
so
sorry to have put you to this trouble.’ She looked genuinely upset by her forgetfulness. ‘Thank goodness you didn’t get nasty about it like the window cleaner did last month.’

‘No point in getting nasty about things like that,’ said Manus. ‘It’s a mistake. No one’s perfect.’ He hoped it was an error on her part too and not some flirting manoeuvre. He didn’t want any more complications in his life – not when his brain was still mashed potato from
that
talk with Roz about trial separations and his heart was so, so lonely and aching for a green light. Affairs could have the tiniest starting point – a spark to dry tinder – and suddenly they were forest fires and totally out of control; he had seen it happen to a few people over the years. Manus knew he was vulnerable and in real danger of snatching something that would comfort him. He handed over the unsigned cheque after taking it from a drawer.

‘I had to check with you. I’m so glad I did now,’ Jonie said. She scrabbled in her bag for a pen, took out a triple pack of sandwiches so she could hunt underneath it, and eventually retrieved a pretty white pen with gold lattice markings on it.

‘Have you had lunch yet?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he replied.
Ah, wrong answer!
It would probably lead to her saying,
Would you like to share mine?
Jonie clicked on her pen and scribbled her signature on the cheque. Then, to his surprise, she put the sandwich pack back into her bag.

‘Sorry again, Manus,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you get your lunch now and stop bothering you.’

‘It’s no trouble at all,’ said Manus, a little taken aback, for he really had been expecting her to volunteer to share her lunch. That served him right for being a self-deluded prick. Then again, he was never very good at reading women – his relationship with Roz had driven that point home well enough.

‘Thanks again,’ said Jonie. ‘See you again soon, I hope.’ And she twirled and waved and was gone.

Chapter 37

There was an outdoor theatre performance that evening around the Topaz pool, which had been set up for the occasion with huge fake palm trees and pirate decorations. But the four of them were more in the mood for a quiet night in Beluga – the champagne-and-caviar bar on deck eight.

‘Look at us old farts,’ said Ven. ‘We could be out raving and we’re sitting here in big leather armchairs.’

‘We’re sitting here drinking champagne and eating chocolate truffles though,’ corrected Frankie. ‘And I, for one, have still got all my own teeth to bite into them. So less of the old, Venice Smith.’

‘I’ve never had caviar,’ said Olive, looking at the menu.

‘Get some ordered,’ said Ven.

‘Are you kidding?’ said Olive. ‘After all I’ve eaten tonight? There’s no room in here.’ And she patted her tummy.

‘Well, before the end of the cruise we’ll come back and have some,’ said Ven.

‘On your birthday,’ suggested Roz. ‘Only three more sleeps!’

‘Fab idea, Rozzy,’ said Frankie, taking a long sip of her Kir Royale and wondering if Vaughan was at the pirate show.

Roz seethed quietly.
Rozzy
. How dare she be so bloody familiar again? Frankie seemed to be under the impression they were all best buddies now, just because Roz was keeping a cork in it for Ven’s sake.
The cow
.

Ven went for a walk up on the top deck before turning in. It was so easy not to think about anything beyond life on the ship – something else she would have found impossible to believe. She stood there for a while, looking out and letting her mind drift until she began to yawn.
Ah well, Corfu tomorrow. Bedtime
, she said to herself. As she headed back towards the door, she glanced over the balcony and saw an old couple dancing on the deserted deck at the back of the ship. It was Florence and Dennis. She recognised the black shimmery dress, or it could have been a similar one – goodness knows, her mother used to have forty variations on a theme for everything she wore. The old couple were waltzing slowly, smiling at each other and talking softly together. Ven waved but they didn’t see her, they were too wrapped up in each other. Just like the way Ven’s parents used to look at each other. They loved to dance too. Ven wondered if that would be her one day, dancing in the moonlight with a man she had grown old with. Or if she would simply be a lonely old lady hanging over a balcony looking at the rest of the world paired up in couples.

How lovely it must be, still to be dancing with each other at that age. They looked so in love. She had married Ian never doubting that they would grow old together too. She could never have imagined that he’d turn out to be such a greedy and selfish person. In the end, he was no longer recognisable as the sweet guy she had exchanged vows with ten years ago. Who would have thought that a change in career would have altered everything about him? He didn’t even look like the same man she had married, with all those overstuffed muscles.

Revisiting it all started to stir up angry feelings inside her, then she remembered what had happened to her recently –
what she had told no one yet
. Maybe it was a case that, in life, some paths seemed hard to travel but they didn’t half lead on to the best gardens.

D
AY
7: C
ORFU

Dress Code: Smart Casual

Chapter 38

Corfu was a pretty and lush green island, and in the distance the hills looked like a Japanese watercolour painting. The sky was impossibly blue that day, as if God had decided it wasn’t quite deep enough and added some extra pigment. It looked very, very hot – and it was. As soon as the four girlies stepped out of the ship, the heat smacked them full on.

‘Blimey,’ said Ven. ‘I think I’d be overdressed if I was naked in this heat.’

‘Don’t test out the theory,’ said Roz. ‘You might give some of these old ’uns a heart-attack.’

Roz adjusted the tie on her shorts, loosening it a touch. She needed to throttle back on some calories or she’d be a dead ringer for Clive the bus driver by the time she got home. They walked to the bus terminal, passing a monster of a private yacht, apparently owned by a Russian oligarch.

It was even more boiling in the shuttle bus, until the driver switched on the engine and the aircon revved up. The whole bus sighed with such orgasmic relief that it was like being part of a giant orgy.

It was only about a twenty-minute journey to the edge of Corfu Town. On the road between the steeply rising city walls, motorcycles zipped and weaved around the buses and the grid-locked cars. Roz took a long drink from her bottle of water, fresh from the fridge in her room, to find that it was almost warm enough to make a cup of tea with.

The bus crawled along the road past fresh-fish markets and pastry shops, but eventually made it to the drop-off point. From there it was just a short walk to the thick of the shops. Roz saw one selling bottles of Limoncello. Manus loved it. She’d buy him a couple of bottles when they were heading back to the ship. Or should she?

‘Anyone fancy an ice cream?’ asked Olive, spotting a man by a Mr Whippy-type machine twisting out the biggest cornets she’d ever seen.

‘What flavours does it say he sells?’ asked Ven.

‘Dunno, it’s all Greek to me,’ said Roz, laughing at her own joke.

‘I don’t care if it’s tripe, shite and onion-flavoured – if it’s cold, I’m having it,’ said Frankie, who was on the verge of selling her soul for something to cool her down.

But she needn’t have worried about making herself understood. The waiter spoke perfect English and soon the women were all walking off with four half-chocolate half-vanilla icecream turrets. Ven had to abandon hers halfway through – her stomach felt a bit unsettled that morning. She hoped to goodness she wasn’t coming down with something. Not so close to her big day.

It was so hot the ice cream was melting all over their hands faster than they could eat it. They were in such a mess at the end that they went into a café and bought three lagers and a coffee for Ven, just so they could use the cloakroom.

‘I’d forgotten the delights of a Greek bog,’ said Roz, exiting with her fingers pegging her nose.

‘Hope you remembered to put your toilet paper in the bin at the side and not flush it away,’ reminded Olive.

‘I did unfortunately,’ said Roz. She took a long gulp of lager which made her gasp with delight as it splashed against the back of her throat. ‘My, that’s good. There’s nothing like a pure German beer for hitting the spot.’

The Barnsley honeymooners passed holding hands and looking very young and golden. A few other people whom they recognised from the ship waved and shared a little witticism like, ‘Terrible this global warming, isn’t it?’ or, ‘It really makes you appreciate the British weather, being in a hellhole like this, doesn’t it?’

Apparently back home today it was raining and chilly. No one managed to read news like that in the
Mermaidia Times
without a smug smile.

‘Nothing urgent,’ said Ven, trying to underplay things, ‘but if you see a chemist, let me know, will you? Better to be safe than sorry.’

‘Oh no, are you okay?’ said Olive.

‘I’m perfectly fine,’ lied Ven with an attempt at breezy. ‘But I think I’ll get some stomach-settling stuff just in case.’

The Greek coffee was strong and tarry and Ven would probably have been better off having a beer with the others. When she went to pay the bill, she collared the ancient café-owner and asked him where the nearest pharmacy was. He didn’t speak a lot of English and Ven wasn’t particularly keen on playing out diarrhoea in charades. She did a mock-vomit instead, which the café-owner seemed to understand. He grabbed her by the shoulder and pointed up the steps of the alley outside.

‘What was all that about?’ said Frankie.

‘I just asked him if there was a chemist nearby,’ said Ven. She didn’t want to spoil anyone’s day by wimping out and going back to the ship; she knew her friends wouldn’t have let her return by herself. But boy, her stomach really was starting to feel dodgy.

‘Come on then, let’s go and sort you out,’ said Olive, pushing her gently out of the café.