Here Come the Girls (6 page)

A surprise of tears pricked at her olive-green eyes. She never cried – she had no time for the luxury – but she realised, sitting on that bus and looking at the reflection of the sad-faced woman in the window, how totally worn out she was. When one job ended, another started; she only rested when she was asleep in the sliver of bedspace which David allowed her. There was no break in her routine, no meals out or trips to the pictures or holidays to look forward to like normal people in normal marriages. She had blinked and her whole life had somehow gone by and she had nothing to show for it.

She was just too weary to do all the bending and cleaning with this pain thrumming persistently in her temple. Janice would do her share of the work for her share of the pay, but it would be worth it tonight. Olive got off at the next bus stop. It was winter-cold for August and the rain was lashing down, but she for one was glad of it. It was just what her headache would have prescribed. The cool drops on her forehead were like a medicine.

She walked slowly down the narrow alley towards Land Lane and pictured what it must be like for Ven and Roz, looking forward to going off on holiday tomorrow morning – on a luxurious vessel that would have taken her eventually to Cephalonia with its white beaches and blue, blue sea. How would it feel, being single figures of miles away from Tanos and the Lemon Tree? And Atho Petrakis. How would he look now, twenty years on? Would the grey have rampaged through his thick black wavy hair? Would his eyes still be as big and bear-brown? Would his skin still smell of wood and coffee and herbs?
Would his lips still be as full and soft?
Olive cut off those thoughts. They weren’t exactly helping her headache.

She was nearly at the end of the alley now and wondering instead if anyone had lifted a finger since she went out of the house that afternoon or, by some miracle, someone had washed up or vacuumed the carpet, or splashed some bleach in the toilet. Then, just as she was about to cross the road, she saw the front door of Doreen’s house open – and what she witnessed was to jerk the course of her slow life off its track in favour of a far more perilous and unpredictable one.

Roz was just struggling to close her suitcase when Manus came in, his overalls scented with oil and petrol. The smell of him prodded an old responsive part within her that was hidden under her pettiness and stubbornness. And there was she, telling Olive that she was weak, when she wasn’t strong enough to say to this kind hunk of a man in front of her that she should be going for some sort of medical psychiatric help because she loved him and couldn’t tell him. In the past fortnight, since agreeing to the break, they had been living like virtual strangers, civilly talking to each other when it was needed but no more than that. Manus had moved into the spare room.

He didn’t attempt to kiss her in greeting. Instead, he pushed down on her suitcase so she could close it more easily.

‘Packed then?’ he said. ‘Got the kitchen sink in there?’

‘More or less,’ she said with a small smile.

‘I’ve got a little something for Ven myself,’ he said, reaching in his pocket and handing over a black pouch. ‘It’s only because it’s a special birthday. Forty, like.’

She watched him stumble over his words, expecting her to make some smart-arse comment about buying presents for other women, and realised what a nervous wreck she’d made him. It was easier to rebuff that fact than accept it as the truth, and she heard herself say tightly, ‘I’ll pack it and give it to her for you.’

‘I haven’t had time to wrap it, as you can see.’

‘Doesn’t matter. You’re a bloke – she’ll understand.’

Once again she lumped him with a bunch of useless men. She wanted to backtrack and say that she didn’t mean how that came out, but her stupidly galvanised pride wouldn’t let her.

She watched him walk out of the bedroom, his expression stone. She had not thought it possible he could look so cold.

Chapter 11

‘Bugger,’ said Doreen Hardcastle to herself as she opened up her packet of Black Superkings to find it totally empty. David or Kevin must have sneaked her last one when she was napping, the little monkeys. Neither of them were at home to send to the shop for her, and Olive was working and not due back for at least two hours. There was no way Doreen could wait that long for a nicotine fix.

Because she was alone in the house, she didn’t have to go through the pretence of struggling to her ailing legs. She stood up fairly effortlessly, despite her bulk, and crossed the room for her purse. She double-checked the clock. Nope, no one would be around for ages yet. She had plenty of time to nip out to the newsagent on Warren Street and replenish her stocks.

She opened the front door cautiously and poked her head left and then right. The street was totally clear. Doreen stepped out, walking stick under her arm, and closed the door quickly behind her. She moved so nippily down the street, there was smoke coming off her slippers.

Just as Doreen had turned the corner from Land Lane into Warren Street, a scruffy yellow Volvo pulled up doors short of the Hardcastle home.

‘Drop me off here, will you, Gary mate,’ said David to the driver. He didn’t want anyone peering out of the window and seeing him carrying his bag of tools. ‘Have you got my money?’

‘I have,’ said Gary, levering on the hand-brake then fishing deep in his pocket for a brown envelope. ‘Cash in hand as agreed.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’ve got a couple of soffit jobs for you next week – I’ll ring you on the moby. Probably Wednesday or Thursday, providing it’s not pissing down.’

‘Smashing,’ said David. Fixing soffits onto the roofs of houses was a good little earner and he was loaded at the moment because of all the work Gary had put his way. But he didn’t want to overdo it or risk the benefits people rumbling that he wasn’t incapacitated, after all. Or worse – Olive finding out that he was fit and well enough to run after himself. He couldn’t do without her molly-coddling him, or his mum mothering him; he had got far too used to that.

David climbed out of the car and swung his huge bag of tools onto his strong back, giving Gary a friendly wave as he drove off. Slyly, he opened the door to the garage at the side of the house and threw in his bag. Then he began his preparation for entering the house. His shoulders slumped and a hang-dog look of back pain crept over his features. He hobbled the few steps to the front of the house and took out his key, fully – and safely – back in character. He was so chuffed with himself, he didn’t see the figure across the street hiding in the alley.

Ven’s mobile rang just as she was checking her ‘money, tickets, passport’ for the zillionth time. She didn’t recognise the Barnsley number on the caller display so answered it tentatively. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s me,’ said Olive, her voice shaking.

‘Hiya, Ol. You okay?’

‘Oh Ven, I don’t know what to do.’

‘Whatever’s the matter, love?’ said Ven. ‘What’s upset you?’

‘Upset? Ha!’ said Olive in a suddenly very strong voice. ‘I’m not upset, I’m bloody livid. You were both right. I am stupid and I deserve the biggest slap . . .’

‘Ol, calm down and talk slower,’ said Ven firmly. ‘Where are you?’

‘The phone box just outside the post office on Ketherwood Street,’ said Olive, breathing in and out so hard, it was as if she was revving herself up for a fight with Muhammad Ali.

‘Don’t move. I’m driving round for you now.’

Olive was in a terrible state. One second she looked as if she was going to burst into tears, then her mood suddenly segued into homicidal mania.

‘Blimey, what on earth’s up?’ said Ven, as Olive threw herself into the passenger seat of her car and buckled herself in.

‘I believe you. I believe David has been swinging the lead and claiming benefits for a bad back when there’s bugger all wrong with him, and I believe that Doreen can get up off her fat lumpy arse and tottle down to the shops. I also believe that the whole bloody Hardcastle family thinks I’m a doormat and I’ve been pathetic enough to let them treat me like that. Will I ever learn?’

‘Wow,’ said Ven, with her eyebrows raised so high they needed oxygen. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘I saw them,’ said Olive, the tears pushing through now and making themselves an exit. Hot, angry tears that Olive couldn’t wipe away fast enough. ‘I had a headache and didn’t go to my second cleaning job and I didn’t have enough credit on my phone to ring David and say I’d be home early. Anyway, I was just in the alley opposite and I saw our door open. Then I saw Doreen peep out to check the coast was clear. Then . . . then – she
ran
down the road like Sebastian Coe and was back, presumably from Warren Street newsagents, with a packet of cigarettes before I had a chance to blink.’

‘Oh crikey,’ said Ven, really clamping down on the urge to say, ‘Told you so.’ Any joy she felt in seeing the scales ripped from Olive’s eyes was offset by her friend’s distress, which she didn’t want to see.

‘Oh, hang on, there’s more!’ laughed Olive in a very dry, humourless way. ‘In between Doreen leaving the house and coming back, a car pulls up at the other end of the street and out springs – like Wayne Bloody Sleep – my husband with a massive bag of tools over his sore delicate shoulder. Then, when the car drove off, I watched him hide the bag in the garage, flop into his usual “ooh, me back’s killing me” shape and drag himself into the house. It was like watching a Jesus miracle in reverse.’

‘Oh heck,’ said Ven.

‘So I left it five minutes,’ Olive went on, ‘then I did a really slow walk in to give them all a chance to rearrange themselves in their usual tableau, and sure enough upon my entrance I found that David was “in agony” leaning over the sink, and Doreen was hobbling on her zimmer frame to the kitchen to get a “slice of dry bread” to see her poor starving twenty-stone stomach through till I got home to make their tea.’

Ven opened her mouth to sympathise, but Olive still hadn’t finished.

‘Wait, there’s even more. Then lovely Kevin appears at my back with a plastic basket full of rancid clothes. How that man manages to get that many stains on a pair of underpants is beyond me! “Any chance of getting these ironed for tomorrow?” he says. “They aren’t washed!” I say back. “Well, I meant, washed and dried and ironed,” he says. “I’d do them myself but I’ve got a date.” “Sorry, but I can’t stop now, I’m working,” I say, and grab a bottle of bleach and pretend I’d just called home for that. And then I rang you from the phone box.’

For the first time Olive felt the boil of anger bubble through to the forefront of her feelings. She really had been a first-class idiot. She had washed Doreen and hauled her over to the toilet and pandered to her every whim, she had supported her lazy sod of a husband who hadn’t put a penny in the housekeeping pot for years, and all the time Doreen was probably more able-bodied than she was. And if David was back-pocketing money on sly jobs, he wasn’t declaring any of it – to her or the taxman.

‘Do you know, if I could come with you on holiday, I bloody well would,’ said Olive, wiping away the fat drops which were now spurting from her eyes.

‘Then do. Come with us,’ said Ven, seizing on the delicious moment.

‘Yes, well, if I had anything decent to wear I’d throw it in a suitcase. But I haven’t. Come to that, I haven’t even got a bloody suitcase.’

‘You’ve got a passport, that’s enough.’

‘Aye, I’ll sew a couple of straps to it and use it as a thong.’

Ven checked her watch. ‘Look, Meadowhall doesn’t shut until ten this week because the sales are on.’

‘I didn’t put the cheque in the bank . . .’

‘Never mind that, we’ll sort it out later. I’ll stick what you buy on my Visa. We’ve got about two hours to get you a holiday wardrobe.’

‘It can’t be done,’ said Olive.

‘Oh yes, it sodding well can,’ said Ven. The miracle was that Olive was coming with her. Anything else was child’s play.

Chapter 12

Fifteen minutes later, they were in Meadowhall hurtling towards Marks & Spencer. Ven was grabbing clothes off rails and shoving Olive into changing rooms. By nine o’clock, Olive had a basic capsule cruise wardrobe: trousers, shorts, new undies, T-shirts, two posh blouses, two skirts, sundresses, a sarong and a couple of little black cocktail dresses, which Ven assured her could be tarted up with the loads of scarves and costume jewellery she was taking. Oh – and a big pink suitcase. Anything else she could buy on the ship or in a port. Olive packed it all at Ven’s house, then rang all her clients from Ven’s phone and left messages on their voicemails to say that she wouldn’t be able to come for at least a fortnight because she had caught a contagious virus and had to be quarantined. If she returned home to find they had dispensed with her services, well, so be it. Because nothing was going to stop Olive from getting on that ship now. She was riding on the crest of a wave of anger that refused to bring her back to a sensible shore.

Ven’s ancient tabby cat jumped on Olive’s case and scared her to death.

‘Ethel, you made me jump!’ she said, giving the purring cat a scratch under her chin. Ven had got Ethel from a rescue centre when the cat was nine, and that was well over thirteen years ago. Ethel had no teeth now and cloudy sleepy eyes. Ethel spent her life journeying from Ven’s rocking chair to the food bowl, fitting in a couple of loo visits in the garden along the way, and was always on the lookout for a visitor to scratch her head. Flaming cat has a better life than me, Olive thought suddenly.

‘My Cousin Jen is picking Ethel up in the morning. She has the life of luxury on their farm – gets petted to death by the kids.’

‘She’s a lovely lass, is Jen,’ agreed Olive.

‘She is, bless her. Poor as a church mouse but a heart of gold.’ Ven smiled fondly at her friend. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re coming with us, Olive. You’re going to have such a great time.’

God, I hope so, thought Olive. She had a feeling she would be facing hell when she got back. So she’d better make it worth the punishment.

As Ven dropped Olive and her bag of cleaning stuff off at the end of Land Lane, she was thrilled to bits that the gods had been looking out for Olive, after all. As Ven said, ‘Goodbye, see you in the morning,’ she almost went on to tell Olive her secret. But at the last second, she shut up. If everything went tits up, she alone would take the blame.