Ladies Who Launch

by Milly Johnson

  Sumeer returned a few minutes later with the delicious news that yes, they had a spare cabin they could let her have at a reduced price. Selina didn’t care if she had to pay double because money was no object to her; at least she had that on her side. The room would need to be prepared, Sumeer explained. Selina replied that she would pack and return to Reception with her suitcase and any documentation they might need.

  The walk back up to her cabin felt so long and momentous and she found she was shaking as she slid her cruise card into the lock and the door flashed the green open light. Zander was sitting on the balcony reading his book – a Jeffrey Archer; she had never forgotten the title: False Impression. His head had swivelled towards her; there was no expression on his face. He was so handsome, always so handsome, and yet the sight of him with his perfect hair and perfect body had no effect on her at all. It was as if she was looking at a stranger.

  There was no preamble to her announcement, which she delivered in a level and calm voice: ‘When we get to England, I’m filing for divorce.’

  She saw his shoulders lift slightly as he huffed to himself. They’d been at this point many times before and yet she had never carried the threat through and he thought she never would, so there was no point in even acknowledging her words anymore.

  She badly needed a shower and a change of clothes, but that could wait. Item two on her checklist was packing. Selina reached under the bed and pulled out her suitcases into which she threw her clothes by the armful; there were enough laundries on board, she’d iron everything later. Zander paid her scant attention, suspecting it was all childish dramatics for his benefit to which he refused to rise. It was only when he realised she was sifting through the dirty-washing bag to remove her things that he asked her what the bloody hell she thought she was doing.

  ‘I’m moving out,’ she explained, as if it was obvious.

  A hollow dry mirthless laugh came from his lips. ‘Yes, of course you are.’ He returned his attention to Jeffrey safe in the knowledge that after she flounced out she’d have to come crawling back later with her tail between her legs because she had nowhere to go.

  She was packed and ready to leave in just over five minutes. He let her get on with her ‘tantrum’ ignoring her, a curl to his lips which could have been annoyance or amusement, she couldn’t tell.

  ‘You really are a ridiculous cow,’ he called after her as she struggled through the door with her two cases.

  A couple were just passing in the corridor and from the look they exchanged it was obvious they had heard the comment. Selina felt ashamed, as she had done on too many previous occasions to count. But this time she wasn’t going to cry or feel her spirits plummet; she wasn’t going to let his words sink into her like poison until she believed them. She parked the cases outside the cabin knowing they’d be all right for a minute or so, then – with surprising aplomb – she stepped back into the cabin and closed the door.

  ‘And you, Alexander Goldman are the vilest man on earth.’ Her voice was calm and measured, which was a miracle because there were twenty years of repressed rage inside her, poised to burst out of her like a jack-in-a-box with a broken spring. ‘I can assure you that the end of this sham of a marriage is finally here. I’d like to wish you well but I can’t, because I don’t. What I do wish you is double the sort of misery you’ve given me.’

  Still, he didn’t look in the slightest bit convinced that this wasn’t anything other than a show. He gave a ‘huh’ of derision and his eyes drifted back to Mr Archer.

  ‘It’s going to be a rough ride I think, divorcing, but ultimately worth it. The trouble is: I don’t know whether to cite adultery or unreasonable behaviour. Do you have a preference? I think adultery. Naming and shaming will be very cathartic.’

  She had his attention now, she was pleased to note.

  ‘Hannah Whitestock – did Andrew ever find out I caught you both in flagrante delicto? And I can’t imagine Sir Martin Brierley will be all that pleased to hear his daughter exposed as the little tart she is. I found some of the letters she sent you, you know. You really should have checked they’d all burned in the garden incinerator, but unfortunately for you they didn’t. I kept them as a little insurance policy for the day when I might need them.’

  Selina almost wanted to laugh at the manifestation of fury on Zander’s face which not even the Botox could hold off. In twenty years, she had never seen him rattled before but it was a sight worth waiting for.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ His words carried a clear warning.

  ‘Now there’s a red rag to a bull.’ Wouldn’t dare? Ha! The old feisty Selina was dormant not dead. Dragging a few names through some stinky, putrid mud was exactly what she would do and enjoy every second of it. And from the way Zander’s eyeballs were bulging, it was evident he knew she had just picked up the gauntlet he had thrown down and was about to run with it.

  ‘You bitch,’ he growled.

  ‘Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,’ replied Selina, taking with her that vision of his furious expression and wishing she could print it out and keep it. ‘See you in court, bastard.’

  The couple from earlier on were just coming back down the corridor the other way when Selina walked out. She smiled at them.

  ‘Morning. Isn’t it a lovely day?’ she said as she slammed the cabin door hard behind her. They answered nervously and politely that it was indeed, as if she was the Terminator and they were afraid of upsetting her.

  As Selina started to wheel her suitcases towards the lift, she started to quiver and a rush of euphoria swept through her. She’d done it – my GOD she had actually done it – taken that first big step. She had seduced her best friend’s boyfriend and life had given her a twenty-year sentence for it, but now she was free. It was as if a great chain across her chest had snapped and she could breathe to full capacity again. Even in the windowless lift, everything looked so bright her eyes hurt. She was euphoric and knew it must be the effects of shock but didn’t care, it was better than any drug. She could have blessed her own stupidity for making her miss the ship in Malaga and shifting the track of her life. She only just managed to stop herself jumping out of the lift and screeching with joy. Knowing her luck, the couple from the corridor would be there and Selina thought she’d given them quite enough to gossip about for one day.

  She left her case at the reception desk, went into the nearest bar and ordered a brandy. She felt heady, light as if she were a balloon filled with helium. The sensation made her brain fuzzy more than the brandy did. Then she rang Angie’s cabin to tell her what she had done and Angie and Gil both rushed down to keep her company until the cabin was ready.

  Her new cabin was much smaller than the one she had shared with Zander, and it only had a window and not a balcony, not that it mattered, because it was heaven at any size. As Angie helped Sel hang up her scrunched-up clothes, Gil took it on himself to find the restaurant manager to sort out a change in her dining arrangements. Two people had recently left their table and so there was room for Selina to join them every evening and enjoy the company of the merry people who sat with them.

  Angie left Sel to have a long-overdue soak in the bath and Selina had lain in the foamy water and cried her eyes out. The enormity of what she had set in motion dropped on her like a ten-tonne brick. Logistically, the split would be horrendous and bitter. There would be so much to divide up and sort out. And could she really avoid seeing Zander for the remaining week and a half of the cruise? On the bright side, the ship was certainly big enough for that to be a possibility.

  Gil had bought them a bottle of pink champagne at dinner to christen Selina’s new life. They had taken in a show and had far too many cocktails but that night she had slept like a baby in the cool crisp sheets of her double bed. She was alone but less lonely than she had been for years. The next day she had not taken up the offer to accompany her friends around Venice, but enjoyed pottering around the city by herself, knowing that Zander would not be there to bump in
to. He hated crowds of tourists and preferred to spend the day in the private spa pool on board away from the hoi polloi.

  She kept away from the sorts of places he frequented and so managed to successfully evade him. People often moved in their own personal orbits on ships. Selina knew that he would be in the casino and the more sedate ‘gentleman’s club’ lounge. She knew he would avoid the shop area, the coffee bar and the nightclub. He would never eat in the buffet, or join the jolly sail-away parties – nor would he come looking for her because this was a battle of wills which he was prepared to wait out and win.

  Angie and Gil insisted she accompany them into Dubrovnik and they had a wonderful al fresco lunch and too much grappa. They all lazed on the beach together in Corfu and went dolphin-spotting in Gibraltar on a small, bumpy boat. Selina’s face muscles were worn out with smiling and it felt marvellous. She was half tempted to paint her face half-white, half-blue and run along the ship decks shouting FREEDOM!

  Angie told her later that she had spotted Zander coming out of the celebrated chef Raul Cruz’s restaurant on the last formal night and admitted that her heart gave a thump as old feelings galloped around her in a confusion of what to do. At such close range, she couldn’t resist studying him; he was still as tall and dark and handsome … sort of. He hadn’t ripened as she had imagined he would, she said. She’d always thought he’d mature like those film stars, whose flaws become assets: crinkles at the eyes like Clooney, sprinkles of white hair like Brosnan, but vanity, it seems, had steered Zander from the path of natural maturity. His hair was a block of black, as if it had been painted, and there were no merry rays of lines spreading from the corners of his eyes; in fact the skin there was iron-flat. His face looked as perfect and lifeless as a Ken doll’s. It was ironic that his narcissism would prevent him from looking the best he could.

  Angie had said that he had seen her too, that was evident from the way his eyes rested on her for a few beats longer than a natural glance at a stranger, but he didn’t acknowledge her presence. He strolled past out of her sight and out of her fantasies forever. ‘How could I ever have thought that Gil was second best to him, Sel?’ she’d said. ‘I haven’t a clue, Ange,’ she’d replied. Lovely Gil Silverton with his ginger hair, big nose and laughing eyes. Sel hoped that one day she’d find someone who made her feel loved and needed and cherished as he made her friend.

  On the very final night of the holiday Selina was browsing in the stalls outside the on-board jewellers shop when she felt a hand close around the top of her arm and, too surprised to initially resist, she found herself being forcibly, but discreetly, pushed out and into a private corner by a staff access door.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Zander, his eyes hard and narrowed.

  Selina peeled his fingers off her arm. He had left long white marks on her tanned skin.

  ‘I told you: I’ve left you, Zander. It’s over. There will be no turning back this time.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ His voice dropped in volume as someone passed. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’

  ‘This is the first time in twenty years that I haven’t been fucking stupid,’ Selina spat back. ‘It’s done. I’ve had enough—’

  ‘Had enough what?’ he interrupted her with a brittle laugh. ‘Had enough cruises? Had enough luxury? Had enough big houses?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I think we’re living proof that money doesn’t make you happy.’ His finger came out and lifted up her chin, none too gently until she smacked it away.

  ‘You’ll find out then, won’t you? If you think I’m going to play fair in a divorce, think again, my love.’

  Just for a moment, Selina would have let him have everything in exchange for a clean break. But having him stand over her, attempting to intimidate her, she found that she was stronger than she had imagined. Like hell he would take everything that she had worked so hard for from her. She was prepared to fight for her fair share. She had money of her own these days, not enough to buy business-class tickets everywhere they travelled or suites on cruise liners, but she was sure she would cope. To Zander, luxury meant opulence and the best champagnes on the menu; to Selina luxury was waking up to a day completely free of a vain, lying, cold, miserable, spirit-destroying knob.

  ‘Zander,’ she said, her eyes boring even harder into his than his were boring into hers: ‘Bring it on.’

  Then she turned from him and walked away to a round of inner applause.

  She didn’t see him again for the remaining three days which were spent at sea. She took up Gil and Angie’s offer to drive her up from Southampton to Barnsley where she intended to catch a train to her flat in Harrogate above the school, but Gil had insisted taking her right to her door. First thing the next morning she contacted her solicitor and started divorce proceedings.

  Zander, as expected, had fought her every step of the way and employed a cobra of a divorce lawyer. Selina’s solicitor, however, was a tenacious mongoose who took a particular delight in plunging her teeth into the jugular of the obdurate defendant. The divorce cost Selina a fortune in fees but it was worth every penny. Her decree absolute was framed and hung in her study along with all the certificates of her other finest achievements.

  A loud voice from the café brought her back into the here and now. ‘When you said I should put some chicken fillets in my bra, I thought you meant real chicken fillets. They stunk bloody awful when I got home. I were nearly sick. And so was our Dave when he copped a feel of ’em.’

  Selina laughed to herself. She’d been without friends – real friends that is – for too long. She would miss a ship every year and bear the cost and indignity if it meant she could keep Angie in her life to share stories, gossip, moans and cake with. Especially in this sweet tea room filled with sunflowers.

  ‘Ooh, that’s better,’ said Angie, returning to her seat and flopping heavily down as if she’d just run a marathon. ‘You can hear all the conversation in the loo. It’s so funny. Have you been listening?’

  ‘No, I’ve been sitting here thinking actually,’ replied Selina.

  ‘It’s a good place for doing that, isn’t it?’ smiled Angie. ‘I could stay here for hours. It’s as if it’s a place that likes people. As if it doesn’t care what you look like or what your job is or how big your bum is, it just wants you to sit down and forget the world outside for a bit. Does that sound daft?’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ replied Selina. ‘Now do you and my budding godson want that last chicken and celery sandwich or can I have it?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  In the meeting next door Hilda was calling order.

  ‘Now, I thought we’d have a whip-round for Ava and buy her a bouquet to lift her spirits a bit. She’s gutted over her shoe. Is that all right with everyone?’ There followed a rustle of bags, snaps of purse clips, clank of coins.

  ‘Isn’t friendship bloody marvellous, Ange,’ grinned Selina.

  Read on for a sneak peek of Milly’s new novel. Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café.

  And to read about what happened to Angie and Selina when they missed their ship, check out Here Come the Boys.

  Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

  Prologue

  The awning that hangs over the window is a tired yellow and white stripe and much of the paint has flaked off the sign above the door announcing that this is The Sunflower Café. On a quiet lane in the village of Pogley Top, it barely registers as a place of interest. But should your eye venture past the unspectacular façade and you push open the door and walk in, you would find yellow walls as cheerful as sunshine, pretty sky-blue curtains dotted with sunflowers and a long window affording the village’s prettiest view of the adjacent stream. You would find a warmth as if the café has a spirit that welcomes you and is happiest when filled with laughter and chatter. Of the women who visit here to partake of the owner’s delicious and generous afternoon teas, many of them are like the café – you would never guess what beauty and streng
th sit beneath the ordinary outside.

  Hung up are many pictures of sunflowers but one, near the door, in particular catches the eye. Underneath the smiling giant petalled head is written a poem:

  Be like the sunflower:

  Brave, bright

  bold, cheery.

  Be golden and shine,

  Keep your roots strong,

  Your head held high,

  Your face to the sun,

  And the shadows will fall behind you.

  This is the story of three women who never realised they had the capacity to be the tallest, boldest, brightest flowers in the field.

  Chapter 1

  When Jimmy Diamond told Della on Thursday morning that she would have to cancel her day off on Friday, he could not have known what wheels he had started in motion.

  When Della protested and said that she’d had it booked for weeks; it was her old boss’s retirement party, Jimmy still insisted that she couldn’t take it.

  He said no.

  In the fifteen years she had worked for him, he had never said no before. He might have man-grumbled a bit under his breath when she asked for a favour, but he knew what side his bread was buttered where Della was concerned. He would never have found anyone else who worked over and above the call of duty as she did, watching his back, doing his dirty work, covering his tracks more than Della did and if she had to take a rare afternoon off for a dental appointment or if there was a panic on with her elderly mother, it had never been a problem before.

  Had he said yes, this story would never have been told and life would have trundled on in much the same way as it had for years. One woman would have continued to exist unhappily on the begging end of a non-relationship and one woman would have eaten the equivalent weight of a small emergent country in truffles. But Jimmy Diamond had said no.

  The office junior Ivanka had turned up to work that Thursday morning acting limp and tearful with a sickness and diarrhoea bug, obviously unfit to work, so Della had sent her back home again. Ivanka had protested a little before relenting and saying that she would be in after the weekend. Then Jimmy breezed in and announced that he was off that afternoon to schmooze on a golf course and wouldn’t be back until Tuesday. When Della reminded him that she had booked Friday off, Jimmy had thrown up his hands and said that someone was needed in the office and as he couldn’t be there and she had sent Ivanka home, who did that leave? Nope, there was nothing for it: as office manageress, it was Della’s duty to be there, especially in such a busy period. Once upon a time, cleaners had been ten a penny, now demand outstripped supply and they were like gold dust. Della’s attendance was needed more in manning the phones than it was in Whitby, eating vol au vents and drinking warm white wine out of a plastic tumbler at the party of a bloke who probably wouldn’t even remember who she was, said Jimmy firmly.