Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Flaming heck, Roz, I’ve got five weeks until then,’ laughed Ven.

  ‘She’s obsessed,’ tutted Olive, shaking her head in exasperation. ‘Anal, totally anal.’

  ‘I want to get it booked,’ Roz explained. ‘Honestly! What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘So my choices are egg fried rice, korma or spag bol. How our plans have shrunk over the years,’ laughed Ven. ‘Remember being on the school playing-fields and planning that cruise we were all going to have when we got to forty?’

  ‘Aye, well, we were young and daft then,’ said Roz. ‘If you remember, I was going to be a PA for an international businessman and travel the world on private jets, not work for an old sow in a boring bank.’ It was no secret that Roz hated her administration job in a town centre bank, and despised her pernickety, frumpy boss – Mrs Hutchinson – even more.

  ‘Aye, and we were all convinced we were going to be multimillionaires by the time we were twenty-five,’ added Olive. Oh, if only she still had all those dreams packed tight in her heart like buds ready to flower into giant blossoms. She had managed to live out only the one – spending a single summer on a Greek island – but the rest had rotted from neglect. ‘God, it seems another lifetime away – the four of us lying on the grass in our grey, white and red uniforms, looking at shapes in the clouds.’

  She felt Roz bristle at the memory of them being ‘a four’. However much she had reconstructed history and reclassified them as a ‘three’, to Olive and Ven they would always be a quartet. The Fabulous Four.

  ‘Would you still go on a cruise if you could?’ Ven asked.

  ‘Course I would,’ said Roz with a humph. ‘In fact, I’ve got a spare five grand in my purse. Why don’t I nip into Thomas Cook’s right this minute.’

  ‘But if you did have a spare five grand . . .’

  ‘I’d get a new bathroom,’ Roz counter-interrupted. ‘But I haven’t, so that’s the end of that one.’

  ‘I’d go on one,’ sighed Olive. ‘I haven’t been abroad for twenty years.’ She thought back to that summer, swimming in water that was as blue as Paul Newman’s eyes, harvesting olives, tasting fruits that had been kissed by the sun.

  ‘Yes, well, we aren’t fourteen any more with heads full of stupid dreams,’ said Roz, with that bitter tone they were so used to hearing in her voice these days, but it still had the effect of a cold shower on the conversation for a while.

  Eventually Olive broke the silence. ‘Do you fancy a surprise party?’ she piped up, which made Ven laugh and Roz roll her eyes and say, ‘That’s a grand idea, Olive. But let’s not mention it to Ven. We wouldn’t want her to GUESS WHAT WE’D GOT PLANNED.’

  ‘No, I don’t fancy a surprise party, thank you,’ Ven told them. ‘I have an idea what I would like, but I need to do a bit of arranging first.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Olive. Conversation broke off for a minute whilst the coffee and cakes arrived.

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Ven, tapping the side of her nose and picking up her fork. ‘But let me just say that my money’s on an Italian meal.’

  Chapter 2

  On the bus home, Olive was all wrapped up in that revisit to a precious memory of them all at school on the playing-field, lying in the sun, Frankie pointing to the sky and saying, ‘That one looks like a ship.’

  And Roz saying that she wished she were on a ship instead of psyching herself up for double Classics with Mr Metaxas.

  Mr Metaxas. Olive smiled to herself as she thought how she always turned to mush whenever he said her name. He made it sound like something earthy and desirable. Then five years later she was to meet a man with the same smouldering Greek accent who didn’t only make her name sound beautiful and succulent as sunshine embodied into fruit, but he made her feel beautiful and ripe and ready for the plucking.

  Her smile grew a little wider when she remembered herself aged fourteen. Then, she’d thought anyone over twenty-four was ancient. And people at forty were only fit for sitting on deckchairs reading books about jam-making, if their cataracts allowed them to. Her younger self had never considered that at thirty-nine her spirit wouldn’t have aged a day, even if her body had. In her head she was still that same skinny, leggy lass who loved rounders and had posters of the Police up on her wall. Olive, Ven, Roz, Frankie. The Fabulous Four. They had even nicked their thumbs with Ven’s dad’s razor-blade and sealed their friendship in blood after seeing it on a film because apparently it would bind them together for life. Well, that obviously hadn’t worked. Everything was a right old mess now.

  Olive got off the bus at her stop, crossed the road and walked down the back alley opposite to the house where she lived. She never thought of it as ‘home’, because it wasn’t. It was her mother-in-law Doreen’s home. Home was a place for which she would choose the carpets and the wallpaper. She was a lodger at number 15, Land Lane. It was not her home and she suspected it never would be.

  She pushed open the front door and stepped inside.

  ‘Olive, is that you?’ That screechy female voice dragged her kicking and screaming back from warm memories of girlhood into the dull chilly present.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ Olive said, slipping off her eight-year-old raincoat and hanging it up next to David’s work jacket. Although the word ‘work’ was pushing it a lot. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d done a full day’s labour. She wasn’t sure he ever had, come to think of it.

  ‘Did you get my corn pads?’

  ‘Yes, Doreen.’

  Doreen Hardcastle shifted her bulk in her specially wide wheelchair so she could straighten all the gold cushions around her. She looked like a very fat queen on a reinforced sturdy throne. Except instead of a crown on her head there was a helmet of tight curls, thanks to over-zealous perming by the mobile hairdresser who came once every eight weeks with a bag full of rollers and some stinky setting chemicals.

  ‘I’ve been sat here for ages watching the same channel. The batteries have conked out in the remote.’ Doreen Hardcastle huffed with some annoyance. ‘And I’ve run out of pop.’

  ‘Where’s David?’ asked Olive, falling into automatic ‘sorting-Doreen-out’ mode and going to the drawer for a pack of AA batteries.

  ‘He’s having a lie-down – his back’s been playing up again.’ Doreen’s voice softened, as it always did when she was referring to ‘her boys’ – David, her only child, and Kevin, the nephew who came to live with her at fifteen when Doreen’s unmarried sister died. Butter wouldn’t have melted in either of their mouths.

  ‘Ooh, our poor David. He does suffer with his back.’

  Marvellous, thought Olive. Not only would she have to pander to her mother-in-law’s whims, but she foresaw an afternoon of running up and downstairs as well after David, who would no doubt be groaning like a baby with croup. Then in four hours she would be off to yet another cleaning job when the rest of the world was getting dressed up to go out and celebrate their Saturday nights.

  ‘Is that you, Olive?’ Olive heard a limp voice float down the stairs.

  ‘Yes, I’m back.’ She checked her watch.

  ‘Can you give my back a rub, love? I’m in agony.’

  ‘I’ve a toenail that’s digging into my slipper as well,’ said Doreen. ‘When you’ve sorted our David out, nip it off for me, would you?’

  Please, added Olive to herself. Not that anyone in the house ever used the word to her. That would have dangerously elevated her from slave status.

  ‘Anything else before I go up and sort David out?’ she asked, turning on the bottom step.

  ‘Aye,’ said Doreen Hardcastle. ‘Cup of tea. Make it three sugars, but don’t stir because I don’t like it too sweet.’

  Olive back-tracked to the kitchen and nearly tripped over a huge black binliner spewing out smelly jeans and pungent men’s pants.

  ‘Doreen, what are all these clothes?’ Olive called.

  ‘Oh, our Kevin’s stopping here for a bit. He’s split up from Wendy for good this time. Can yo
u make sure the spare room is all right for him when you go upstairs? He’s just gone back to get the rest of his stuff.’

  Olive opened her mouth to protest, but what could she say? After all, it was Doreen’s house and she was just the skivvy who did the laundry, the cooking and all the cleaning.

  Sunshine seemed even more than a few million light years ago from Olive’s life.

  ‘Hello, love. How were the girls?’ Manus gave Roz a kiss in greeting as she walked through the door. He noticed, as always, that her neck twisted in reflex so that his kiss would land firmly on the edge of her lips, not full onto them. He tried not to let his spirits dip, but these constant subtle rejections from Roz never got any easier to bear.

  ‘They’re good,’ said Roz. ‘And send their love.’

  ‘Fancy getting a DVD out of Blockbusters and having a curry delivered tonight?’

  ‘Oh, er, which film?’ said Roz.

  ‘Anything you want.’

  Damn, thought Roz. He was making it hard to refuse. She knew he was being nice but she couldn’t help being annoyed, because she was good at being annoyed with him – and pushing his boundaries.

  ‘Not sure I’m in the mood for a film. I might do the ironing and then get an early night.’ Whoops, thought Roz then. Not the ideal thing to say after a month without sex. She imagined Manus’s brain starting to tick. But for the first time he didn’t pick it up and run with it. He didn’t say, ‘Ooh, early night. Can I join you?’ Because if you kick a dog enough, eventually it learns. Instead he gave a conceding nod and said, ‘Ah, no worries. It was just an idea.’

  Roz felt the hard impact of a turning-point in their relationship.

  Chapter 3

  The following Monday morning, Ven drummed her fingernails on the table as she prepared to ring that number. The notepad next to her was full of a weekend’s scribbles and crossings out. She had no doubt in her mind that what she was about to commit herself to was the right thing, so what was stopping her? The logistics of her grand plan were a nightmare; there were just so many points where it could all go horribly wrong. Really, she shouldn’t think about it too much. Her head was already on the verge of exploding.

  She sipped at her coffee and noticed a chip in the edge of the mug. She should get herself some new ones. The kettle was on its last legs too. In the time it took to boil, she could fly over to Iceland, fill up a jug with water from one of those hot springs, and fly back home again. Replacing all the old and broken things around the house hadn’t been a priority though, since being made redundant from her deputy-managerial position at Furniture for You when it fell into receivership eight months ago. It hadn’t been the most scintillating of positions but the people she worked with had been lovely. She’d been doing a bit of rubbishy temp work since, until a permanent job came up, but it didn’t exactly bring in enough money to go mad and splash out. Still, things weren’t that bad that she couldn’t go and buy herself a few new badly needed cups, she smiled to herself.

  She herded her thoughts away from the state of her crockery and towards the job in hand. It was now or never. Ergo, it had to be now. Her hand reached out for the phone then shot back to her side.

  Oh sod it and just do it. Her dad’s favourite saying blasted into her brain. He’d used it when she was prevaricating about buying her first car, having her waist-length hair cut off, getting a kitten, buying her first house . . . She heard his gentle voice say the words again to her, then she heard her own voice repeat them aloud.

  Sod it and just do it.

  She picked up the phone and pressed in the number written down on her pad. Apparently Roz’s boss at the bank was a right old bat but very active in the WI and always on the lookout for donations, which was a good bargaining point. A woman’s plummy voice answered after three burrs: ‘South Yorkshire Banking Services, Margaret Hutchinson speaking.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Hutchinson,’ began Ven. ‘I understand you are Rosalind Lynch’s boss. I wonder if I might have a word with you about her.’

  Chapter 4

  The alarm went off and after seven shrill beeps, a barely conscious David kicked his wife in the calf, his long toenail digging uncomfortably into her skin.

  ‘Olive, wake up. Your alarm’s going!’

  His voice dragged Olive from her sleep. She had been swirling in a bright blue sparkly sea, which she didn’t want to leave. Her hand came out and connected with the snooze button, not that she would be able to find her way back into that dream in the nine minutes she had until the beeps went off again. As soon as her eyes had opened, it had disappeared for ever.

  She was no longer swimming with dolphins, but in bed with a whale. In jokes, wasn’t it the woman who was supposed to make the major claim on the space? David slept like a man on a crucifix, arms spread out leaving barely a sliver of bedspace for his wife. Olive tried to stretch. Her back was playing up at the moment which was probably caused by vacuuming all the stairs in Mr Tidy’s five-storey house. She was half-crippled by the end of her Monday, Tuesday and Friday hours there. She hated that house; it had a horrible cold feel to it – a permanent Monday-morning feel. She kneaded hard at her lower back and wished she could just pull the duvet over herself and stay in bed and rest. She fantasised about David not being there and having the whole five-foot width available to starfish her limbs.

  David snored so loudly he woke himself up fully and rolled over onto Olive.

  ‘Ow!’ she shrieked. A few more degrees and he would have squashed her flat as a pancake.

  ‘Ow,’ he echoed, rubbing his spine. ‘Are you still here? Have you overslept?’

  ‘No, I’m just psyching myself up to get out of bed,’ replied Olive. ‘My back’s hurting a bit.’

  ‘Hmmm, I know that feeling well,’ yawned David. ‘I hardly slept a wink last night, mine was so bad.’

  Olive fought down the retort rising inside her. Hardly slept? You were snoring like a machine for at least eight hours. And no doubt, he would go back to sleep for another eight, as soon as she was up and out of the house. But then he shifted position and groaned and sounded in such genuine pain that she fell instantly into dutiful-wife mode.

  ‘Would you like me to give you a bit of a rub before I go to work?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, flipping quickly over onto his front and sighing with anticipation.

  Olive reached for the tub on his bedside cabinet and scooped the cold gel out, warming it up between her own hands before applying it to David’s back. He shivered with delight as she worked her thumbs into his skin, trying to find the muscle under the fat as he fired instructions at her. ‘Higher, lower, shoulders, left a bit, right a bit . . .’ and all the while, her own aching back groaned in protest.

  ‘There,’ she said eventually as the snooze button went off again and called an end to her ministrations. ‘That’ll have to be it for now. I’ve got to be at Mr Tidy’s by eight.’

  ‘Hang on,’ squealed David. ‘You can’t leave me like this!’ He rolled over with the agility of a man whose back had just been dipped in the water at Lourdes. Then he pointed to his very stiff erection.

  ‘Come on, Olive.’ He tried pulling her on top of him. ‘Sort me out.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she protested through her teeth as the bed gave an almighty creak. ‘Your mother will hear.’

  ‘Give me a blow job then. I’m only a couple of sucks away.’

  And afterwards he had the cheek to ask her to bring him up a cup of tea before she went for her bus.

  Chapter 5

  ‘The usual for me.’

  ‘Ditto.’

  ‘Three nutty honey lattes, two pieces of cappuccino cake and one slice . . .’

  ‘. . . of lemon drizzle.’ The waitress finished off Ven’s sentence. She had taken the same order so many times she could have reeled it off in her sleep.

  ‘Thank you,’ laughed Ven.

  They were sitting in their usual Saturday-afternoon fortnightly haunt, the Edwardian Tea Room. For once they�
��d got the coveted table in the corner. When the waitress had gone, Ven turned to Olive. She looked to have aged five years in the two weeks since she had last seen her.

  ‘Sure you don’t want another shot of espresso in yours, Ol? You look knackered.’

  ‘I am knackered,’ said Olive, unable to stop the yawn that followed her words.

  Even though the friends only met for coffee once a fortnight, they kept in regular contact by phone and text, so they knew that David’s cousin Kevin had now moved in and was as dependent on her cooking/washing/arse-wiping duties as the other members of the Hardcastle clan. Kevin usually managed to migrate from one woman’s flat to another’s when his transient sexually-fuelled relationships ran out of steam, but for the first time he had been unsuccessful and needed a place to lay his head and stink the house out with his dirty underwear.

  ‘I can’t understand why you put up with all of them,’ said Roz. ‘I’d tell them where to go.’

  ‘It’s not my house though, is it? I’ve got no say in who stays.’

  ‘I’ve been telling you for years to put yourself down on a list for your own council house,’ snapped Roz.

  ‘David wouldn’t leave his mum alone in her state.’

  Roz bit back the retort. She was convinced, as was Ven because they’d talked about it on many occasions, that Doreen Hardcastle’s ‘poor crippled bad legs’ were, in fact, ‘capable fat lazy legs’. She was far too happy to let Olive run ragged after her and charge her rent for the privilege. Roz wanted to shake some sense into Olive every time she saw her. There was being soft, then there was being Olive. Try and let Manus treat her like that and see what happened!

  Ven gave Olive a kind smile. She was too selfless by half, was Olive. She didn’t have it in her to say the word ‘no’. She couldn’t wait to put her plan into operation and give Olive the break of a lifetime.