Here Come the Girls (13 page)

‘I feel like I’ve done an hour on the leg press,’ said a pink-faced passenger in Roz’s ear. But she was euphoric at the same time.

‘Okay, ladies, that’s all for today,’ called Gwen after some snakey arm dancing. ‘We’ve got a lesson tomorrow here at eleven, so I hope you come again.’

‘That’s never an hour gone already,’ said Pink Face.

Roz checked her watch and found, to her surprise also, that an hour had indeed passed.

Even more surprisingly, Roz knew that she would be here for that second lesson and that she’d be practising in front of the mirror before then. She would nail that isolation move if it killed her.

Olive felt like a shoplifter as she paid for three beautiful gowns, a pair of pink cropped trousers, some blingy paste jewellery and a pashmina with a mere flourish of the pen.

‘You sure this is all on account?’ she asked Ven. ‘I’m having real problems believing that.’

‘Yep,’ said Ven, ‘and I have a signed agreement to say so.’

‘So what’s to stop us buying everything in the shop then?’ said Frankie, who was equally reluctant to believe any firm would be so stupid as to let four women loose with a free budget. Especially in shops with jewellery and clothes and handbags.

‘I’m presuming that they trust we won’t go barmy and start buying all the Swarovski we can lay our hands on,’ said Ven.

‘You’d better let me have a look at that agreement,’ said Frankie, ‘before we get into trouble.’

‘No need,’ trilled Ven. ‘It’s really all above board’cos I’ve checked all the small print. Plus I’ll go over it yet again if I must with the Figurehead rep when I see him. Even though I know there is no point. They made it perfectly clear we had carte blanche to spend.’

‘I would have thought he might have been in contact by now,’ said Frankie. ‘Didn’t he leave you a note or a message on the cabin phone answering machine?’

‘Oh, never mind how they do or don’t organise things,’ said Ven confidently. ‘He’ll be in touch, no doubt. Right – I’m going on ahead to the Café Parisienne to grab a table, so see you in five. I can’t believe I’m saying this after only having breakfast an hour and a half ago, but I’m peckish. It must be the sea air.’

‘Sea air?’ joked Frankie. ‘Don’t use that as an excuse. You’re just a piglet!’

Chapter 23

Doreen was in the toilet when David got up. He’d never seen his mother move as much as she had done in the past twenty-four hours. It hadn’t taken her long to dispense with the pretence of needing a mighty effort to rouse herself when she realised that Olive wasn’t around to fetch and carry for her. David thought back to all the times when she’d been ‘caught short’ and Olive had had to clean her up. It appeared she had a lot more control over her bodily functions than she had let on, and it suddenly came to him how hard life must have been for his wife with such a demanding and devious mother-in-law. But a thought like that was far too near to the bone, and he shut the door on it quickly.

Kevin was buttering toast in the kitchen. He had fancied a fry-up but there was only one egg left, no bacon, two squidgy tomatoes and no sausages. Someone would have to go food shopping today. David needed to stop being so stubborn and find out where Olive really was, drag her home and let them all get back to normal life, thought Kevin. He was built for love and pleasure, not skivvying.

‘So why has Olive left you, Dave?’ he asked, sloppily chewing the toast. ‘Haven’t you been looking after her properly?’ He winked.

‘What’s “looking after her properly” and a wink supposed to mean?’ David replied with more than a touch of impatience. That toast smelled gorgeous and it was the last bloody slice of bread in the house. And Kevin had put the only remaining Dairylea cheese slice on it as well.

‘In the bedroom, of course. At “sausage o’clock” time,’ said Kevin, crunching down again onto the toast and making David’s stomach howl with hunger. ‘I find that women who are looked after in the bedroom don’t usually run away.’

‘Of course I look after her in the bedroom!’ snapped David.

‘Well, I haven’t witnessed much action since I moved in,’ said Kevin. ‘The only noise I’ve heard through your walls is you farting.’

‘You’ve been listening?’ David’s jaw dropped open.

‘No – listening and hearing are very different things,’ mused Kevin, with the air of a great philosopher.

‘We do . . . all sorts,’ grumbled David, very unconvincingly. ‘We just don’t make a noise about it. I don’t want my mother hearing.’

‘All sorts? You and Olive?’ Somehow Kevin found that a bit hard to believe, and he mischievously pressed on with his line of questioning. ‘What, different positions and toys and role play?’

‘We weren’t supposed to have positions in my day,’ called Doreen from the downstairs bathroom. ‘It was lights off and nightie up only.’

‘Chuffing hell, she’s got the ears of a bat!’ called David, trying to knock the picture out of his head of his mother and father having sex in the bedroom upstairs.

‘Although,’ Doreen went on, ‘my Auntie Maud always used to say, “You’ll never be truly happy, married to a man who doesn’t want to explore all your orifices”.’

‘Mam!’ screamed David, slapping his palms to his ears.

‘You give her lots of foreplay then?’ Kevin probed even deeper. ‘You don’t just tell her to brace herself and then jump on, do you? Women have to be teased for ages and ages to get them truly going. They should be dripping wet and begging for it by the time you climb on.’

‘Of course I—hang on, why the hell am I giving you details of my sex-life? I don’t exactly see your ex-birds lining up outside for your attentions!’

‘Oh, don’t you worry about me,’ smirked Kevin. ‘I don’t go short. Now I’m unattached, I can give a lot of ladies a good old service without having all the hassle of having to stay overnight or be tied to one person. Although that’s okay sometimes, if you know what I mean.’ He gave a smutty laugh.

David thought of a few of Kevin’s harem and shuddered. Julie Two-Teeth; Ketherwood Kathleen – the footie-mad one who couldn’t get to see any of the matches because her arse was too big to fit through the turnstile; Caroline with the cauliflower ear – and nose; fishy-smelling Diane who had just been up in court for shoplifting from the local Rhythm and Booze off-licence, and his latest ex Wicked Wendy who was actually quite a good-looking woman, give or take the Nigel Mansell moustache. Ugh. He couldn’t go on. Pictures of them were worse than the ones of his mum and dad in a clinch.

‘Your dad, God rest him, was a lovely man but he didn’t know what foreplay was until he was in a home,’ called Doreen again, after a far from ladylike parp. ‘He saw it on a film where a couple were eating loads of things out of a fridge. Before that, he thought it meant “extra thick tissues”.’

‘Someone needs to go and get some shopping done,’ said Kevin, popping the last of the toast into his mouth.

‘I’ll go,’ David quickly volunteered. Anything to get away from this line of talk. And before his stud-cousin with his fancy bedroom tricks cottoned on to the fact that he knew even less than his father did about pleasuring a woman.

Chapter 24

Olive returned to her cabin to find her bed had been made, the sink and shower washed down, and fresh folded towels had appeared. Jesus must have flown around the room like Will-o’-the-Wisp. And to add to the magic of the day, she was now the owner of three new beautiful evening gowns which she took out of the bag and hung up: a long red one with shoestring straps and a matching shrug, a silver and black one with floaty cap sleeves, and the most gorgeous dark green one that cost as much as the other two put together.

Olive allowed herself a single thought of home and then cast it out, to be replaced with the quandary of whether she dare have a wanton lunchtime glass of wine or not in Café Parisienne?

When Roz joined Ven at the table in Café Parisienne, she was actually smiling.

‘Crikey,’ said Ven, at the rare phenomenon. ‘What have
you
been up to?’

‘Can you believe belly dancing?’ said Roz.

‘Was it good then?’

‘To be honest . . .’ Roz was about to confess that she had only gone along to avoid Frankie, but she didn’t want to see a look of disapproval on Ven’s face so she tempered what she was going to say. ‘Yes, it was great.’

‘Wouldn’t have put you and belly dancing together,’ said Ven.

‘Me neither, but it was like an aerobic workout. I wasn’t much good but I’m going for the second lesson tomorrow.’

‘Well done!’ Ven waved as she spotted Frankie. She expected Roz’s smile to wither then. She was right.

‘Hi, girls,’ said Frankie cheerfully, throwing herself into the seat next to Roz. ‘Plenty of toilets on this ship, thank goodness. How was the belly dancing?’

‘It was okay, thank you,’ replied Roz with lukewarm politeness. ‘Where’s Olive?’

‘She bought some frocks in the shops and has gone to hang them up,’ Ven explained.

‘Sea feels a bit rougher today than it did last night,’ said Frankie. ‘I noticed some of the stewards hanging sick bags on the staircases.’

‘We’re going through the Bay of Biscay,’ said Roz. ‘Apparently it can get a bit choppy.’

The happy face of Olive appeared and she bounced over to join them. She looked five years younger for a good night’s sleep and a morning doing something for herself for a change.

‘So you have posh frocks?’ enquired Roz.

‘Oh Roz, they are gorgeous. I’m just a bit worried that the competition people will say, “You can’t spend that much, you cheeky cow”.’

‘Relax,’ soothed Ven. ‘Let’s eat.’ She picked up the lunch menu and scanned it.

‘I had croissants for breakfast. I shouldn’t really eat lunch as well,’ whispered Olive. ‘I’ll be the size of a house.’

‘You’re on holiday,’ winked Frankie. ‘Live a bit. Besides which your massage will burn up all your excess calories.’

Olive’s face dropped. ‘I’m still not sure about having one of those.’

‘Oh Olive, they’re gorgeous – you have to,’ Frankie gushed. At that moment, she saw the long-haired Viking passing by. He had jeans on and a rock ’n’ roll T-shirt with big angel wings on the back. His arms were heavily tattooed, the biceps big and solid. He was studying a map of the ship and obviously going the wrong way because he doubled back, then turned around again and walked off, scratching his head.

‘What you grinning at?’ asked Olive.

‘It’s that bloke again.’ Frankie pointed discreetly over. ‘I bet it’s his first cruise. He’s making me look like a seasoned traveller by comparison.’

Roz muttered something which sounded like ‘might have known it would be a man that she was looking at’, but Frankie graciously ignored it.

‘I’m having scallops, followed by the pasta,’ announced Ven. ‘And pass me that wine list, will you?’

‘What’s that? What did you say you’re having?’ asked Olive.

‘Scallops,’ said Ven. ‘Not the Barnsley scallops, shellfish scallops.’ In Yorkshire the fish shops sold ‘scallops’ which were a mashed-potato patty with a layer of fish in the centre.

‘I do know,’ tutted Olive with a mock-insulted smile. ‘I
have
been out of Yorkshire.’

‘Hmmm. I never understood why you came back home to Barnsley, saying you’d had the best summer of your life in Cephalonia, you mad bag,’ said Roz. ‘Roast-beef salad for me.’

‘Well, Mum rang and didn’t sound too good, and . . .’ Olive shrugged her shoulders.

‘And?’ pressed Roz.

Olive took a deep breath. ‘And girls like me don’t do mad things like marry Greek men.’

Then the waiter arrived at their table and cut the conversation off.

‘Hello, Aldrin,’ said Frankie, recognising him from last night in the Olympia. ‘Working again?’

‘We are always working, ma’am,’ he said with a fresh-faced smile.

The wines in Café Parisienne had, apparently, been chosen by St John Hite, who was the sexiest, most floppy-haired, best wine buff on the TV. He had a weekly page in one of the Sunday newspapers and Ven found the descriptions of his featured wines so charged that she almost had to have a lie-down and a cigarette after reading it. The wine list was on par with his column:
a glug-fest of sticky black fruits . . . citrus oomph . . . a spank of raspberries
. . . Ven always imagined that St John Hite would be very good in bed.

‘This looks interesting,’ Ven said. She had intended to buy some champagne for them all, but her eyes were drawn to a Canadian ice wine. According to the description, the grapes were only picked when they were frozen on the vine, resulting in
a honey-smooth mouthful of ping
.

‘Goes well with fruitcakes, apparently,’ said Ven, reading from the menu.

‘It’s a must for us four then,’ giggled Frankie.

So the ladies ordered food and ice wine when the wine waiter, ironically called ‘Sober’, came over.

‘I prefer his twin brother “Pissed”,’ said Roz dryly, making them spurt with laughter.

Roz, Ven and Olive people-watched for a few minutes, while Frankie read her
Mermaidia Today
. She hadn’t realised there was so much to do on a ship. There were lectures, classes, a gym, an indoor pool as well as the outdoor ones, art sales, private parties – indeed, someone obviously important enough to be known by merely her first name ‘Dorothy’ was inviting her friends to meet up at the Planet room, at the side of the Vista lounge for coffee. There was even a club for single passengers.

A troupe of little kids holding hands passed by on their way to their club, led by one of the smiley ‘Youth Brigade’. Olive found herself smiling at them. She’d never have kids now, she knew, and accepted that. But occasionally a pang came from nowhere and scored a bull’s-eye right in her heart. Women in their fifties were getting pregnant naturally these days, so it wasn’t that, at thirty-nine, she was too old – but she suspected that something might be wrong in that department with either her or David. There had been more than a few occasions when they hadn’t used protection during sex, but it had never resulted in anything. So many times, in fact, that they didn’t use it any more. Still, it was probably just as well because she wouldn’t have been able to afford children – time or money-wise.