Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  Once upon a time, she had laid herself wide open to Robert and he had trampled all over her. She couldn’t go through pain like that again. However much she might want to open up to Manus, she had lost the keys to the door that was so tightly shut around her heart.

  Hearing Manus’s car engine start up, Roz slumped down onto the chair behind her. She had finally managed to do it – push her sweet, loving, long-suffering man to breaking-point after four long years of trying. So why didn’t she feel in the slightest bit victorious?

  Chapter 8

  Ven and Roz drove over to Meadowhall after work the following Monday. The sales were on and the shops were buzzing – a bit like they were inside. If only Olive had been there with them picking out holiday clothes, they both thought, with more than a little sadness.

  ‘Aw, I hope Ol does come,’ said Ven.

  ‘She won’t, the silly, soft sod,’ replied Roz, picking up a blue bikini. She wasn’t sure if she dared bare that much flesh in public though. Her stomach was as flat as an ironing board but she carried all the insecurities of a middle-aged woman whose first husband had run off with a skinny minx, even if that was over nine years ago and she was now living with a guy who would have savoured her whatever size she was, given half the chance. She put it back and plumped for a black all-in-one with a plunging neckline. She was proud of her bosom and would rather show some of that off than her stomach anyway. Out of the four of them, she had been first in the chest queue when God was giving them out. Ven, a close second, Olive just behind and Frankie way, way at the back of the same queue, with flat-as-a-fart AA cups. ‘Froz’ as they used to call themselves, long before Jedward segued their names (or had even been born), could never swap clothes the way that Ven and Olive could, being of similar heights and builds. Roz was leggy, slim and tall, Frankie was short and on the plump side. Although Roz did once catch Frankie trying on one of her bras, having stuffed the cups with loo paper.

  ‘Must be nice having tits,’ she had said, admiring her new pronounced profile in the bedroom mirror.

  ‘It is – not that you’ll ever know!’ Roz had laughed. They’d laughed a lot once, the pair of them. Froz.

  Roz shook her head and dragged her thoughts into the here and now. Why the hell am I thinking about her so much again, after all this time?

  ‘I am sure they’d all cope without Ol for sixteen days,’ said Ven. ‘I know for a fact that Doreen isn’t as disabled as she makes out because I once saw her waddling from the shop on Warren Street with a packet of fags in her hand. She didn’t look like a woman who couldn’t get off her backside without assistance then. And David’s so-called bad back hasn’t stopped him doing some sly pointing work on my neighbour’s gable end for some cash in hand. He didn’t know I saw him, but I did. He was halfway up a ladder with a cap on but I would recognise that flabby bum hanging out of those jeans anywhere.’

  ‘Crafty buggers!’ tutted Roz. ‘Have you told Olive?’

  Ven nodded. ‘She thought I was mistaken on both counts. She knows that David couldn’t get up a ladder without the aid of a winch. He’s too good an actor. Takes after his mother,’ she added with a sniff.

  Roz shook her head. ‘Who in their right mind turns down a free cruise?’

  ‘She’s not going to turn it down,’ said Ven decisively, fire in her sea-blue eyes. She didn’t know how she was going to get Olive on that ship, but she was; even if she had to play dirty tricks to secure it. Though in the end it wasn’t her dirty tricks that made it happen.

  Chapter 9

  ‘Did you get some nice clothes then when you went shopping?’ asked Olive at their last Saturday meet before the cruise.

  ‘I got a few bits in the sales, yes. By the way, I noticed when I did my banking online yesterday that you still haven’t put your cheque in,’ said Ven, slapping Olive on the hand. ‘It’s still not too late, you know.’

  ‘How can I bank that five hundred quid?’ replied Olive. ‘That money is for holiday clothes, you said it yourself. And seeing as I won’t be going on holiday with you tomorrow, I can’t take the money.’

  ‘You are going, you know,’ replied Ven, shovelling in a huge piece of cappuccino cake. ‘Whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I wish!’ laughed Olive. Not that she had much to laugh about, even less so with yet another lazy mouth to feed. David and his mother and smelly Kevin were slouched in front of the television all day arguing over what to watch. If it wasn’t for having to get up to go to the toilet occasionally, they would atrophy. David did manage to struggle to go out and sign on though, but it was Kevin who was really doing Olive’s head in at the moment. He was like a locust in the fridge. He bit off chunks of cheese and drank milk straight from the carton, and no one would want those custard teeth near any food they were going to touch. And he never flushed the toilet. And someone had raided Olive’s savings pot. It was a fiver light and no one was owning up to it. She was saving for her friends’ fortieth-birthday presents in that pot. Olive was only glad she’d taken out the thirty pounds to give to Roz for the locket they’d bought between them for Ven. Roz was going to take it on the cruise with her and give it to her on her birthday with her cards. They’d be in Venice that day. Another place Olive had always wanted to go. One of her cleaning clients had been and described it as ‘so beautifully unreal, you’d think you were on a film set’. She wondered if anything could be as hauntingly idyllic as Tanos though. She envied her two friends calling at Cephalonia more than she envied them anything else.

  ‘Have you spent up, Roz?’ asked Olive, ignoring Ven.

  ‘Not quite,’ said Roz. She’d taken her five hundred pounds and hit the shops big time, trying to drive the picture of Manus’s watering eyes out of her head with every purchase. ‘Ven says there are shops on the ship though, so I might buy something on there.’

  ‘There is everything you want on the ship,’ nodded Ven. ‘From tampons to tuxedos, so don’t fret about forgetting anything because you can buy it on board.’

  ‘It sounds perfect,’ sighed Olive.

  Ven suddenly grabbed her hands.

  ‘Please, Olive, please come. They can all cope for a couple of weeks without you. Sixteen days out of your life – that’s all. There’s a ticket in my safe with your name on it. In nineteen hours’ time, Roz and I will be getting on a bus and going down to Southampton and it won’t be the same if you don’t come with us. I am begging you. You know what a crap few years I’ve had with Mum and Dad dying and losing my job and Ian doing the dirty on me . . .’ Ven was deliberately curling up her lip and tilting her eyebrows to gain sympathy.

  ‘No emotional pressure then,’ smiled Olive. ‘Honestly, if there were any way, I would. But I’d feel too guilty.’

  ‘Sod them!’ said Ven, releasing a bit of red-head anger that Olive had been so fooled by them. ‘They’d all fend for themselves if they had to.’

  ‘Who’d look after them if you dropped dead now?’ added Roz, maybe a bit heavy on the point.

  ‘I know you think I’m stupid. I am stupid,’ said Olive, sadly. ‘I know they rely on me too much and are probably a little bit more able than they make out they are, but I couldn’t just up and go, even if I wanted to – and trust me, I do. Plus, I’m out cleaning tomorrow afternoon. I can’t let my clients down. Double-plus I haven’t got a stitch of summer clothing. I haven’t got a stitch of any decent clothing, come to think of it.’

  ‘The taxi is booked for twenty to eight tomorrow morning,’ said Ven adamantly. ‘It’ll be at yours by five to. You don’t need spending money because it’s taken care of by the competition people and you can borrow stuff from me and Roz.’

  ‘Don’t call for me, Ven,’ Olive said quietly. ‘I won’t be coming.’ She checked her watch. She needed to be heading off soon to attend to the first of her two cleaning jobs of the day.

  ‘Please, Olive,’ Ven begged, squeezing Olive’s hand. Oh God, she just wished she had more artillery. She had pleaded, even tried emotional blackmail, b
ut Olive was too honourable, too caring, too last-in-her-own-queue, too bloody soft.

  Roz drained her cup and looked at her watch too. Her parking time was nearly up. She needed to get a move on and finish packing. She stood, then pushed her wild blonde hair back over her shoulders as she bent to Olive.

  ‘You’re a very daft woman, Olive Hardcastle,’ she said, giving her a sad hug.

  ‘I know I am,’ said Olive.

  Chapter 10

  Olive had had a bit of a headache all day, but after saying goodbye to Ven and Roz, it revved up with a vengeance. She managed to struggle through her first cleaning job, but sitting on the bus heading off to job two, she knew there was no way she could work through it. It was obviously caused by the stress at having to turn down a free holiday with two of her dearest friends. What was she doing? Like Ven said, it was sixteen days out of her life and she would never have another chance like this again. She realised she was sat in a prison but holding the key to the door herself. Kevin might have been a lazy blighter, but he was able-bodied with no back or leg problems and could hold the fort for a couple of weeks. And, like Roz intimated, if she dropped down dead, they would all cope, because they’d have to.

  Olive rang Janice, her fellow office cleaner on her cheap pay-as-you-go mobile – there was just enough credit left for that call, but not enough to let David know that she’d be back early. She was suddenly struck by the irony that she worked all hours, including now on a Saturday night, and all she could afford was a fifteen-pound phone from Asda – and yet there was Kevin scamming off the state but able to afford a fancy iPhone and twelve million downloaded apps. She stared out of the bus window and caught her reflection. She looked years older than her age, with her long blonde hair tied back so harshly in a cleaning-practical ponytail. Her clothes were drab and frumpy, piling on even more years. It was the image of a woman tired of life. And she realised that was because she was tired of it. If it wasn’t for her olive-green eyes, she wouldn’t have recognised herself as the same person who was once so fresh and smiley and full of dreams.

  Olive couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t caring for people. Her dad was lame and she was always fetching and carrying for him; her mum, constantly in her bed with some ailment or other. At the time of her conception, Olive’s mum was in her mid-forties, her dad in his late fifties, and both seemed even older in their outlook. They never came to see her in school shows or prize-giving events. It was Ven’s mum and dad who were there to cheer her on and in whose house she found some semblance of the loving parent/child relationship for which she longed: Mrs Smith busying around them making sure they were fed and watered, Mr Smith slipping them secret money to go to the pictures with. Home for Olive was more of a workhouse than a sanctuary. To her shame, sometimes she felt like one of those ‘designer babies’ conceived only to look after her parents in their dotage.

  It would probably have been better had she not gone away to Cephalonia that summer, because it made her realise there was a lot of world and life out there to be enjoyed. But one day, when she rang home from the phone in the Lemon Tree, the feeble voice of her mother reprimanded her for leaving them to cope alone, and the guilt drove her instantly back to Barnsley where she found her parents in a right old state of not looking after themselves, which scarred her deeply to see. And yet, on his many call-out visits, the doctor intimated, quite impatiently sometimes, that there was nothing much wrong with either of them.

  Olive’s dad died of a stroke when she was twenty-four. She was grieving for him when the big, cocky David Hardcastle stood up on the bus to let her sit down. That simple act of giving to someone who wasn’t used to it secured him a wholehearted yes, when he asked her out for a date. He was something to take her mind away from her mother’s increasing mental confusion. When she became a danger to herself and Olive couldn’t handle her any more, she was put into a lovely home in Penistone, although Olive had to sell their house to pay for the bills. Being in David’s arms and listening to the plans he had for them took her away from all the drudgery of form-filling-in and visits to a mum who didn’t recognise her any more. Doreen, she recalled, was always friendly to her and Olive felt flattered that the woman would ask her to ‘stick the kettle on’, a sign that she was welcome in her home. It made sense for David and Olive to get married and move in with Doreen when the house sale was completed. The money was all gone by the time Olive’s mum died. There was nothing left for a deposit for her own home. But by then, she had slipped into a routine of caring again – different home, same rules. And the idiot that she was had been so blinded by a bit of love-light shining in her direction that she hadn’t seen it coming.

  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.