Here Come the Girls

by Milly Johnson

  ‘We have that,’ chorused Doreen, and smiled.

  Vernon let go of Doreen’s hand and walked over to David, putting an arm around the man whom he could now openly call his son.

  ‘David, lad. I’m handing over my empire to you. It’s all yours. Ten fish-and-chip shops and a restaurant. It runs itself like clockwork because I’ve got good loyal staff working for me. All you have to do is show your face every so often and be a presence. It’s all yours, son. Enjoy it. You’re a rich man.’

  David didn’t know what to say. His first thought was, Damn, I’ll have to sign off! to be replaced by the wider view that he would have to sign off because he would have more money than he knew what to do with. He and Olive could move into the big bedroom upstairs. He could buy a 50-inch plasma TV with Blu-ray and cinema surround. Not to mention have free fish and chips for life!

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ was all David managed, whilst his mother looked at him, tears of joy in her eyes.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in, David lad, I know. And the day after tomorrow, you and me are going around the empire and I’ll introduce you as my son – and my heir.’ Vernon Turbot was oozing pride as he spoke.

  David found he was shaking. In the past ten days his wife had buggered off on a cruise ship, he had found out that the kind quiet man who used to skive off work to take him fishing wasn’t his real dad, that his mother had a pirate’s chest of loot under her bed and the bloke at the fish shop was his father and was handing over a fortune to him.

  ‘I’m going to leave you to pack. Will you be all right, Doreen?’ Vernon asked gently. ‘I’ve just got a few “t”s to cross and “i”s to dot. I want everything to be perfect when you move in. Although I don’t mind if you come as you are. You don’t need to bring anything – I want you to have everything new. No expense spared for us, girl,’ he said.

  It was funny to hear his mum being called a girl, thought David. But in a way that’s what she looked like, giggling and smiling and sighing and seeing Vernon Turbot through eyes so rose-coloured he must have looked like a giant strawberry to her.

  ‘Till tomorrow,’ said Vernon at the door, blowing Doreen a kiss, which she caught and clutched to her heart. He slapped his hand on his son’s shoulder and announced, ‘Corpus delicti, as the Romans say – seize the day. Well, your mother and I are certainly going to seize our day, son.’

  David saw him out, noticing the Rolls-Royce and driver waiting outside to whisk him home to his big house at the back of the park. Crikey, there was a lot of money in a few haddock and some sloppy peas then.

  He stood at the door and waved off his new dad, thinking about all that had happened. And then he smiled, visualising Olive’s face when she returned from her cruise and he told her that her cleaning days were over for ever.

  Chapter 51

  Frankie had cheered up considerably by the time dinner was announced. The ship had a very happy carnival feel that couldn’t fail to nudge anyone from a dark mood. The sound of steel drums filtered through from the decks where bands were playing, and most people were dressed in loud clothes. Even the majority of the more staid guests in their traditional cocktail dresses had made some sort of an effort and were sporting bright earrings or flowers in their hair. All the waiters were wearing yellow Hawaiian shirts with patterns of palm trees, and the head waiters were in blue with pictures of bright orange suns on them.

  ‘Supremo’s trousers are a bit tight tonight,’ Frankie told the others. ‘I think I see why they call him Supremo now. A man of unhidden talents.’

  ‘Don’t be rude,’ tutted Roz, who stole a look anyway.

  ‘Good evening, ladies.’ Supremo handed them all a floral lei to wear. ‘How are you all?’

  They twittered that they were all very well as Elvis and Buzz attended to them, draping the serviettes over their laps. The waiters were always so chirpy and smiley even though they never seemed to stop working.

  ‘They’re thinking of the tips at the end of the cruise,’ explained Royston when he arrived at the table in a lime-green shirt decorated with pink flamingos that exceeded the legal decibel limit – and three leis draped around his neck. ‘I’d smile at anyone like that as well if I thought they might give me a big tip,’ he went on, flashing a Simon-Cowell-white grin.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Stella. ‘There’s a lot of mean swines on here who don’t tip. Celebrities are the worst, apparently. ’Ere, did you know that actor from the telly is on board – Dom Donald?’

  ‘Dom Donaldson,’ corrected Eric, who had also joined in the dress code and was wearing a floral shirt but at the more sober end of the scale. ‘Yes, we’ve seen him a few times around the ship.’ He didn’t sound that impressed. ‘He’s one of the brigade who reserve their sunbed in the morning then wander off until after lunch.’

  He didn’t absorb the lesson we gave him then, thought Frankie. She wasn’t surprised really. Dom Donaldson was far too arrogant to think that other people’s rules applied to him.

  Nigel caused quite a stir when he made his arrival. He was wearing lots of bright leis around his neck and had one of the table party-blowers clenched in his teeth, which he blew loudly when he sat down. He explained that people were more likely to join in festivities if they saw him taking part. No one said anything aloud, but they all noticed how Ven puffed up visibly when Nigel took his seat next to her.

  ‘And how was your day?’ Nigel asked the table in general as he sat down.

  ‘Awful!’ said Royston. ‘There was actually a cloud at one point. I nearly asked for a refund.’

  ‘Gorgeous,’ corrected Stella. ‘Korcula is one of our favourite islands.’

  Frankie stayed quiet. She couldn’t have cared less if she never heard about the place again. It would be forever tainted with memories of being rejected by a drop-dead gorgeous hunk and not having a clue why.

  The menu was very tropical that night – lots of coconut and banana scattered about the dishes. Ven just hoped she had enough room for the banoffee cheesecake. She suspected she might just squeeze a forkful or two in.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Nigel leaned across her for the butter pats and his arm brushed against her hand, which he immediately apologised for. Under the table her knees went ever so wobbly. There was a little cut on his neck where his razor must have nicked it. She wondered if his face was as smooth as it looked or whether she would feel stubble on her cheek if he kissed her.

  ‘And what did you think of Korcula?’ Nigel asked Ven, turning the full beam of his attention onto her for the first time that evening. ‘She’s a bit of a jewel, isn’t she?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Ven. ‘Not quite as nice as Venice though.’ She deliberately made that sound like a flirt, only to regret it immediately afterwards as he didn’t react and a second later had turned and was talking to Royston. Annoyingly, Royston and Eric claimed most of his attention over the main course as well, talking about technical ship-things.

  Any plans Ven had to engage him over dessert were thwarted as Nigel made his excuses when Buzz brought the menus back. He wished them all a good evening and hoped to see them up on deck for the party. He touched Ven on the shoulder as he did so. She felt a stupidly romantic sigh swell up inside her. He made her spirits feel like she was on an Alton Towers ride. She might have been forty on the outside but inside she was fourteen again, nursing her secret crush on Mr Lambert the English teacher, who was the Mr Rochester to her Jane Eyre.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow in Cephalonia then, girls?’ asked Royston, ordering a round of banana liqueurs for everyone with their coffee and, as usual, allowing no one to stand in his way.

  ‘We’re going to the caves,’ said Roz. ‘Have you been?’

  ‘Yes, we have,’ said Irene. ‘Wear sensible shoes because there’s a lot of steps.’

  ‘Yes, Olive told us,’ Frankie replied. ‘She lived in Cephalonia for a while.’

  ‘A long time ago,’ added Olive. In another lifetime.

  After coffee, they all headed up en
masse to the deck party. Frankie spotted Vaughan at the other side of the pool. He was wearing a shirt with bright orange giraffes on which complemented his ruffled blond hair. For such a big man he looked cute, but she didn’t want to smile at him this time. The shadow of a very big scowl fell across her face until Olive saw it and nudged her back into their company and away from once again trying to work out what she had said whilst they were enjoying pizza and salad on that lovely Croatian island.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and embarrass ourselves by doing “Agadoo”,’ she said, pulling Frankie towards the dance floor.

  ‘You’re on,’ replied Frankie with a firm nod of her chin, and threw herself into pushing pineapples and shaking trees, even though she felt as crushed as one of those pineapples in a piña colada. Then all four of them did a fully coordinated macarena. Roz found that her hips seemed to be very much more snaky since she had started belly dancing. Frankie threw everything she had into the ‘Ketchup Song’ then they joined a long conga that was going to python past Vaughan and his party in about twenty steps’ time.

  ‘Don’t look at him,’ Olive ordered sternly, only hoping that she had the same strength left for herself when they were on Cephalonia tomorrow. Because she had an awful feeling she wouldn’t be able to practise what she had just preached.

  DAY 11: CEPHALONIA

  Dress Code: Formal

  Chapter 52

  ‘Another shitty day in paradise!’ called Royston to the four of them as they passed in the Buttery, before Stella slapped him on the shoulder for swearing so loudly in public.

  There had just been an announcement over the Tannoy, in Nigel’s soft Irish brogue, that today the temperatures were tantamount to being in a furnace and please to make sure that passengers were carrying plenty of suncream and wearing hats and keeping hydrated.

  ‘That goes especially for you two natural blondies,’ said Frankie, giving Olive a poke in her back and Roz a wink.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Olive. ‘I’m slathered in factor forty.’ She just wished there was something that could have protected her heart as well, because she could feel its vulnerability, every time her head turned towards the shore and her eyes landed on the lush green island of Cephalonia.

  She pictured herself aged nineteen, sitting in the Greek sun and being handed the forecast of the life that was to come to her. Would she have upped and left so quickly then, knowing what was in store? Would she have left the arms of a kind, loving man and an island of blue seas and white pebble beaches for a fat, lazy husband and a life of cleaning other people’s toilets? God, what an idiot.

  *

  In 1943 Cephalonia had been occupied by Italian troops for two years. There was a co-existence between occupiers and occupied, friendships and relationships had grown and there was much merriment on the island. But when Italy surrendered to the Allies, German forces arrived en masse to disarm the Italians. However, the latter did not trust that the Germans would allow them safe passage and they were worried for the safety of the Cephalonian people. The Italians and the Cephalonians joined arms against the Germans, but alas, the Italians were overcome. Five thousand soldiers were massacred in battles and coldly executed in groups. And of the four thousand surviving Italian soldiers who were loaded on ships destined for labour camps in Germany, three-quarters of them died when the vessels hit mines in the water.

  Olive cried in class when Miss Walker taught them about the slaughter of the Acqui Division in fifth-form History. The teacher brought the island to life for Olive, with her stories of goats and rabbits whose teeth were gold because of the minerals in the ground, of underground lakes and the caves where the acoustics were so superb that the opera singer Maria Callas sang in them for an audience of hundreds. But it was this episode of history which would eventually lead Olive to visit this island, cursed by earthquakes but blessed with outstanding beauty. And it was on this island that Olive’s heart first learned to beat for another.

  Olive tuned out on the tour bus as the guide started talking about Captain Corelli and the history of the island. There wasn’t anything about the history of Cephalonia that Olive didn’t know.

  The bus trundled down the main street in the capital Argostoli. Olive saw the dress shop, renamed now, where she had bought the flowing white sundress that she hoped would catch Atho’s eye. She saw the restaurant where Atho had taken her for her first ever meal out with a suitor. She saw the path which led up to the small farm where Atho’s brother lived. Atho Atho Atho.

  Every minute was one step closer to the Bay of Sami and the small hamlet in the hills – Tanos – where the Lemon Tree bar and restaurant sat. And as the bus pulled in alongside the entrance to the Drogarati Cave, Olive felt breathless from a rush of memories.

  ‘I’m glad I’ve got flatties on,’ said Roz, after descending into the cool cave. ‘How many steps have we just done?’

  ‘I don’t know, I stopped counting at five hundred,’ puffed Frankie.

  ‘There’s about one hundred and twenty,’ corrected Olive. ‘Drama queens.’

  ‘I just want to start singing very loudly and see what it sounds like,’ said Ven.

  ‘Well, if it’s anything like how you used to sing in the school choir it’ll sound bloody awful,’ replied Frankie, before Ven gave her a thump on the arm.

  ‘Look at those.’ Olive pointed up at the stalactite spikes plunging down from the roof of the cave. ‘Took thousands of years to form and the Nazis used them for target practice during the Second World War.’

  ‘Isn’t it stalagmite?’ said Ven. ‘I get mixed up.’

  ‘“Mites go up and tites come down”,’ chorused the others in unison.

  ‘Can’t you remember Mr Harrison in Science telling us that?’ added Roz. Mr Harrison was very young and handsome, and that lent extra sauce to his ‘tites’ coming down. Funny to think he’d be tearing towards retirement now.

  The sun was waiting for them outside the cave to hit them full blast with its heat. They sat at a nearby café with bottles of ice-cold sparkling mineral water in front of them and sleepy ginger cats weaving underneath their seats looking for scraps. Then they boarded the bus for the second part of the trip – to the Caves of Melissani.

  When they got there, Olive’s knees felt trembly as she retraced the steps she had made twenty summers ago down to that cave. It had been closed for maintenance purposes then, but Atho had persuaded/bribed the foreman to open it and let them be alone for an hour. She had packed that memory away in her head like a beloved keepsake, but now it had leaped out of its case and had taken over her brain.

  As she walked down the cool stone tunnel and her eyes touched on the first sight of the impossibly blue lake, Olive was instantly transported back to the intensity of that afternoon.

  ‘Oh God, look at the colour of that water!’ gasped Roz. The Lake of Melissani was in a cave, but a small portion of the roof above had fallen in many years ago. Now, at midday, the sun was overhead, pouring into the roof and lending the water its light.

  ‘Wait until you get on the boat and then look down,’ advised Olive.

  Soon they had climbed into one of the small rowing boats and set off across the lake. The water was turquoise, clear and deep, half-salt half-sweet, fed from water from the other side of the island that magically found its way through the rock.

  ‘I want to dive in,’ said Roz, mesmerised.

  ‘It’s colder than it looks,’ Olive warned her. She and Atho had made love in the boat under the eye of the sunshine and then slid into the water to taste it upon their skin. Olive trailed her hand in the lake. It was named after the nymph Melissanthi who had loved the God Pan, but when she found out he did not feel the same way, she threw herself in the water and drowned.

  Love was such a precious fragile thing, to be treasured – yet people didn’t and were fools for it – herself the biggest one of all. She’d felt the force of Atho’s love and had run from it. Here in this cave he had told her what he felt about her, how much he wa
nted her – body and soul. His emotion was raw, his passion for her honest and wild, yet his love-making had been gentle and selfless. She had been in five-sense heaven that day.

  David didn’t love her, she had learned the truth of that since she had come on this cruise. She was essential to the smooth running of his life and if she ever left him that’s what he would miss – not her, not Olive. That was the biggest difference between the men. Atho had loved Olive with all his heart, but David could have married anyone and been satisfied. And yet which one had she picked to spend her life with?

  When the boat moored at the side, Olive suddenly knew she had to go to Tanos.

  ‘I’ll find my own way back to the ship,’ she announced to the others at the cave entrance, heading quickly for one of two taxis which were waiting by the buses. As she climbed into it, she heard a chorus of three voices behind her saying:

  ‘About flaming time an’ all!’

  Chapter 53

  In the hallway were two suitcases with everything that Doreen was going to take to her new home. A few clothes, photos, toiletries – that was all. She was waiting for Vernon and his Rolls-Royce and driver to pick her up.

  An added bonus for David was that Kevin had announced he was moving back in with Wicked Wendy. Apparently she couldn’t do without her ‘sausage love’ he announced that morning, just as David was about to bite into a Walls skinless pork. So that meant that David and Olive were going to have a house to themselves – at last.

  ‘I’m sorry if this has all been a bit too much for you to take in so quickly,’ said Doreen, as she sat on the chair in the hallway. There was a gentleness to her voice as she went on to talk about the man who had brought him up. ‘Herbert was a good man, you know. I liked him a lot. Of course he was a lot older than me, but it was a nice marriage all the same.’