by Bloom, Tracy
Fi, of all people, saved her in the end.
‘Game time!’ she declared, pumping her fist in the air. ‘More drinks and game time.’
The rest of the girls cheered and trooped off the dance floor as one, taking Katy, Ollie and Abby with them towards the back of the boat to get more drinks and presumably play some hen party games that could be no worse than the torture of more dancing. And at least that would get Abby away from the lecherous men leering at her voluptuous cleavage.
She was wrong. Everything was about to get much worse.
It didn’t take long for drinks to miraculously appear, resulting in them all chugging near-neat vodka quickly to quench the thirst they had achieved through dancing.
‘So how come you’re here on your own then, Ollie?’ asked Rachel. ‘You got no friends?’
‘No, I, er… I, er… I, er… was supposed to be on my honeymoon but my fiancée changed her mind.’
‘What? You didn’t get married?’ gasped Fi.
‘No,’ said Ollie, looking at his feet.
‘So this should have been your honeymoon and instead you are on my hen do?’ gasped Cassie.
‘It would appear so, yes,’ he replied.
‘Blimey,’ said Fi. ‘That’s got to be like some seriously bad karma, hasn’t it? Having a jilted fiancé on your hen do, that would freak me out.’
‘I don’t think it’s catching,’ said Ollie.
Katy looked at Cassie, who had gone very pale.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Cassie. ‘Must have been absolutely devastating.’
‘It was!’ said Ollie bluntly.
Nooo, thought Katy. Don’t tell her that.
‘But you’ve survived, haven’t you, Ollie?’ she said. ‘You realise it was the right thing. If she didn’t love you then it was a good thing you didn’t get married.’
Ollie stared back at her.
Too blunt perhaps, thought Katy.
‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Yes, it probably was.’
‘You wouldn’t want to be married to someone who didn’t love you, would you?’ continued Katy. Was she going too far now?
Ollie stared at her again and she noticed Cassie was hanging onto his every word.
‘No,’ he said firmly, a hint of determination in his voice. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘It’s got to be time for Dickhead hoopla now, hasn’t it?’ declared Fi. ‘Especially as we have Ollie as our special guest. He can be the Dickhead and we can all play hoopla with him.’
Katy felt sick and she was sure it wasn’t the alcohol that she had consumed.
‘Come on, get it out, Ruth,’ urged Rachel. ‘We all said we were going to play Dickhead hoopla on the boat. Get it out, now.’
‘I’m not sure that’s fair on Ollie actually,’ said Cassie.
‘Come on,’ said Fi. ‘If we have a man in our midst, he has to be the Dickhead surely? It’s a gift, don’t you think, girls?’
They all nodded and soon a chant of ‘Dickhead, Dickhead, Dickhead, Dickhead’ started to gather momentum as Ruth delved in her bag of tricks and pulled out whatever monstrosity was about to befall poor old Ollie.
Katy dared not look at him.
A plastic penis emerged attached to a piece of elastic and for one horrifying moment, Katy thought Ollie was going to be further humiliated by having to wear a strap-on. Then Ruth pulled out some brightly coloured rings about the diameter of an orange. What on earth were they going to do with them? Katy shivered.
‘It’s just hoopla,’ Ruth said to Ollie. ‘That’s all. This goes on your head and we all throw rings at you to see if you can catch them on the… you know the…’
‘Penis!’ shrieked Fi, howling with laughter.
‘If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine,’ Cassie said. ‘He doesn’t have to do it, does he, Katy?’ she said to her desperately as the chanting started again.
‘Dickhead, Dickhead, Dickhead…’ it began.
Ollie looked round him bewildered, then thrust the plastic penis on his head and looked back up, sweat pouring off his head.
Katy thought she might cry. How had she got Ollie into such a humiliating situation? She was supposed to be looking after him. Or was she? No, that was Abby. She was supposed to be improving Ollie’s confidence with women! And now here he was, standing in front of her with a plastic penis on his head, with a load of girls chanting ‘Dickhead’ at him. Never had a night gone so terribly wrong.
Katy watched from between her fingers as the girls proceeded to throw plastic rings at Ollie’s head.
It will be over soon, she thought, and then she would whisk him away and they would both go and hide in a corner somewhere until they got back to shore. She would console him and promise that life could not get any worse than this.
But then, it did.
Suddenly they were joined by the group of men who had been bumping and grinding with the girls on the upper deck. They took one look at the high jinks and soon the muscle men were throwing plastic rings at Ollie too. This was utterly terrible. Katy had to get him out of there. This could scar him for life, quite literally. Imagine getting an injury whilst playing Dickhead hoopla and having to say that was why. Utterly devastating.
Then she watched in horror as the oily guy who had clearly taken a liking to Abby snaked his arm around her waist and took aim at Ollie. She wasn’t sure if Abby was welcoming this attention or she was just going with the flow, either way, if Braindead saw her, Katy was sure he wouldn’t be happy.
In the end, it was Cassie who came to the rescue. She’d tried to end the game several times by bravely standing in front of Ollie and waving her arms around but everyone had ignored her and just thrown the rings over her head. She’d even told Ruth that she thought as the bride-to-be that she should take a turn as Dickhead but Ruth just laughed at her and said that a man being the Dickhead was much more entertaining. Eventually Cassie shouted, ‘Let’s do more shots!’ at which point the crowd cheered and as one turned to the bar. Cassie nodded at Katy to take care of Ollie as she hustled them all away. The last thing she saw of Abby was her being hoisted on the man’s shoulder in a fireman’s lift and disappearing up the stairs. She was pounding his back with her fists and Katy wasn’t sure if that was in protest or just play protest. Should she follow Abby and get her off that man’s back or stay with Ollie? One look at Ollie and she knew she had to stay with him.
Trembling, Katy scrolled through her phone for Ben’s number. She looked nervously over at Ollie, who was now breathing into a sick bag to try and calm down. He was pale and still wearing his Dickhead hoopla headwear, albeit cocked to one side at a jaunty angle.
She held the phone to her ear and prayed Ben had his phone with him.
‘Hello,’ he said in a surprised manner. ‘Having fun? We’re not. Jack, do not put French fries up your nose, especially not ones with ketchup on,’ he shouted. ‘Dinner has been a disaster. Millie didn’t like the cheese they used in the carbonara so she ended up eating my steak, my entire steak, whilst I ate snotty spaghetti. How is your evening going?’
‘Come and get us,’ she whimpered.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, come and get us.’
‘Why? Aren’t you pissed as a fart and doing the Macarena?’
‘No,’ gulped Katy. She didn’t know where to start. ‘It’s like we have been violated,’ she whimpered.
‘Violated!’ said Ben. ‘What do you mean? No-one’s touched you, have they? Because if they have, they will have me to deal with.’
‘No, no, it’s not me, it’s just that… well, I don’t know how it happened but they attached a penis to Ollie’s head and threw things at him and now he’s hyperventilating and Abby has just been carried away, and I mean literally carried away by some drunk knucklehead, and I didn’t know who to stay with so I’m with Ollie because he may never breathe properly again but I really need to go and see if Abby is okay but I can’t leave Ollie so please come and rescue us. We have to
get off this boat.’
There was a silence at the end of the phone. Then she heard Ben speak to Braindead.
‘Katy’s upset,’ he said. ‘She wants us to go and fetch them. Ollie has a dick on his head and Abby… well, Abby has been carried away by some bloke.’
She didn’t hear Braindead’s response.
‘Where are you?’ Ben asked.
‘In the middle of the sea,’ she whimpered again.
‘We’re on our way,’ he said after a slight pause and then the line went dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
They were at the harbour before they could both draw breath. It had been a hazardous journey, what with two toddlers in pushchairs and Millie trying to keep up. Then Braindead had suddenly shouted ‘Nappy bag’ at the front door of the hotel and had to dash back. Obviously an essential item when you were staging a rescue attempt.
They paused, trying to get their breath back.
‘Can I have an ice cream?’ asked Millie.
‘No!’ they both said in unison.
‘Ice cream,’ whined Logan.
‘No!’ said Braindead.
‘Perlease,’ he whined again. Braindead crouched down in front of him.
‘Buddy, we are on a very important mission to save Mummy, do you hear? This is no time for ice cream,’ said Braindead, standing up and looking out to sea. ‘Do you think that’s their boat?’ he said, pointing.
About half a mile out to sea a boat was bobbing around with twinkly lights sparkling in the twilight. It looked as though it was packed with party revellers, dancing on the deck and jumping off the sides.
‘Must be,’ said Ben.
‘We could swim there?’ said Braindead.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ben.
‘Pedalo!’ shouted Braindead, looking down the beach. ‘We could grab one of those and get to them that way.’
Ben stared at him.
‘Do you not recall our disaster with the pedalo yesterday?’ he said. ‘We got precisely nowhere thanks to your steering. We went round in circles for forty minutes. I was actually seasick on a pedalo.’
‘It was broken,’ said Braindead. ‘Must have been. Anyway, you got any better ideas?’
Ben looked round him. He spotted the small line of boats with outboard motors lined up along the harbour and a couple of men sitting on deckchairs next to them.
‘Let’s try them,’ he said and headed down the length of the pier with Millie and Jack in tow.
‘Do you speak English?’ he asked.
The man shook his head.
Where was Gabriel when you needed him?
‘We need to go there,’ he urged, pointing at the boat on the sea.
The man looked out to sea, squinting, then shook his head.
‘You take us there,’ Ben said, pointing to the party boat and then to the boat next to them.
The man shrugged and returned to his card game.
Ben turned to face Braindead, at a loss, but he was on his phone.
‘Gabriel, mate,’ he said into his phone. ‘Listen, we are in a bit of a pickle. Abby and Ollie are in trouble on the party boat and we need to rescue them. So we are at the harbour trying to hire a boat but the man doesn’t understand our English. Can you tell him that we need him to take us to the boat out on the water?’
Braindead nodded his head, listening to Gabriel.
‘I don’t think they are in physical danger,’ he said. ‘It’s just that Katy rang and said we needed to rescue them so we are down here with the kids, on our way.’
He nodded again and then passed the phone to the old man.
The old man took it reluctantly and listened, nodding his head. Then came a great avalanche of Spanish and then silence again. Ben held his breath. If anyone could convince an old Spanish man to take random men with kids to a party boat then Gabriel could. Couldn’t he?
Eventually the man nodded again and returned the phone to Braindead.
‘We go,’ he said, nodding at the boat. ‘Your friend will be here to pay me when we return or I keep one of the children,’ he added. Then smiled.
‘Right, kids,’ said Ben, clapping his hands. ‘This is an exciting adventure, right, isn’t it? We are just going to get on this little boat and pick up your mummies and Ollie. Is that okay? Exciting, hey?’
‘Ice cream when we get back,’ said Millie, crossing her arms, ‘or else I’m not getting in.’
‘Yes,’ said Ben with a deep sigh. ‘Whatever you want, just get in the boat.’
The old man was handing out lifejackets, which of course took an age to put on the children as they wriggled and protested with their little bodies. Finally they were all in the boat and able to set off. The old man took up his oars and started to row.
‘No, no,’ said Braindead agitatedly. ‘Motor! We need speed.’
‘More money,’ said the man, whose English seemed to be returning to him at a remarkable speed.
‘Yes,’ said Braindead. ‘More money. Now for goodness’ sake, get a move on.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
On our way x
Katy looked down at the text. She let out a sigh of relief. She peered out to sea and then irrationally peered up into the sky. Did she really think they were going to fly in by helicopter? She really had lost it.
Katy couldn’t see anything coming across the water though. What exactly did Ben mean when he said they were on their way? Had they only just left the hotel? She could feel her heart starting to beat faster again. What if they took ages to arrive? She wasn’t sure how long she could last in this situation.
Ollie had not emerged from the sick bag. In fact, when Katy tried to take it away from him, he clung to it, shaking his head vigorously as though it were some sort of security blanket. As though breathing into a sick bag somehow would prevent any further woe befalling him.
‘Is it okay if I go upstairs and check on Abby?’ she asked him. But he clutched her hand so tight that it hurt and his breathing increased so alarmingly that she daren’t go anywhere.
She looked towards the shore again and thought she could see something heading towards them. A small vessel crowded with people in life jackets. It was like a scene from Titanic. She couldn’t quite make out whether she recognised anyone in it but assumed it wasn’t Ben, because why would he have brought so many people with him? She was just about to call him to ask exactly where he was when she thought she heard something. Something that she could recognise anywhere. Something that made her look sharply back to shore again.
Was that Jack crying?
She squinted her eyes, searching for other boats, but there weren’t any apart from the overstuffed little dinghy.
Wait a minute. That looked like Millie’s sunhat. The pink one. On the overstuffed boat. Oh God, it was all of them. All of them stuffed into a tiny boat heading out to their rescue. Ben, Millie, Jack, Braindead and Logan, she could see them all now. Logan and Jack were clasped in their dads’ arms and Millie was at the front next to some old Spanish guy driving the boat. Why on earth had they brought the kids? Had they any idea what den of iniquity they were bringing them to?
‘Here,’ she began to shout, jumping up and down. ‘Over here. I’m here. They’re coming,’ she said, looking down at Ollie. ‘They’ve come to take us away.’
Ollie jumped up and looked out to sea. He took the bag away from his mouth.
‘They brought the kids!’ he exclaimed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Look, there’s someone waving,’ said Braindead, pointing at the boat. ‘See at the back.’
‘It’s Katy!’ said Ben. He raised both arms in the air, waving them vigorously. ‘Katy!’ he bellowed. ‘Katy, we’re coming.’
‘Mummy!’ shouted Millie, having now spotted her. ‘Mummy! We’re going to get ice cream.’
Ben leant forward and tapped the man on the shoulder and pointed to where Katy was. ‘Over there, look,’ he said.
The man nodded grimly, eyeing up the m
ultitude of drunken swimmers that were now in his path. There was a continual drip feed of bodies jumping off the top deck into the water accompanied by shrieks and shouts. For the most part, they doggy-paddled around whilst occasionally trying to drag each other down before heading for the steps at the rear of the boat and hauling themselves back up for more drinking, dancing and diving.
‘They’re all semi-naked,’ said Braindead in awe as they approached. ‘Look, all of them.’
‘You sound so old and married, mate,’ said Ben.
‘That looks fun,’ said Millie. ‘Can we do it?’
‘No!’ said Ben and Braindead in unison.
Then suddenly the old man cut the engine about fifty yards from the boat.
‘What!’ said Braindead. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Too dangerous,’ said the man, shaking his head. ‘Too many swimmers.’
‘But we have to get to the boat. You said you’d take us to the boat.’
The man shrugged and sat down resolutely as the boat came to a standstill and everyone went quiet.
‘Have we broken down?’ said Millie. ‘Are we going to drown, Daddy?’
‘Of course not,’ said Ben. ‘We’ve just had to stop because of all these drunk people swimming. I mean, what are they thinking? What a ridiculous thing to do.’
