Free The Sunshine Cruise Company by John Niven Page A

on,’ Susan said. ‘Let’s be honest, I never really did a day’s work in my life.’
    ‘Well, there is that, yes.’
    ‘At least you did things, Julie. Got out there. Saw the world. Australia, America, London …’
    ‘Yeah, well, you can’t eat good times and all that. You had nearly forty decent years though.’ Julie shook a fresh cigarette from her pack of Ambassador: the cheapest brand available at the local shop. She’d have killed for a lovely Marlboro Light.
    ‘But it was all a lie. I was married to … to a sex addict.’
    A pause. The two women looked at each and then, at exactly the same moment, both of them
buckled
with laughter. Very quickly they were rolling on the carpet, tears running down their faces. ‘Oh, oh, have you met my husband?’ Susan said, flattening a hand on her chest, feigning cocktail-party introduction. ‘He’s a sex addict!’
    ‘Shurrup,’ Julie gasped. ‘Stop it, please, I can’t breathe.’ She wiped a tear away and reached for the bottle. ‘Here.’ She poured them both another. ‘Shit, we’re out of OJ.’
    ‘Oh sod it,’ Susan said. She picked up her glass and pounded it back neat, grimacing, shuddering, shaking from side to side, falling over and kicking her feet in the air.
    ‘SUSAN!’ Julie said, amazed.
    ‘Ooh – that’ll put hairs on your chest,’ Susan said, sitting back up, blinking.
    ‘Christ, Barry,’ Julie said, lighting her Ambassador, leaning back against the sofa. ‘And here was me thinking I had the monopoly on all the worst men.’
    ‘Oh but you’ve had some
shockers
, haven’t you? Who was the alcoholic? Remember – the Scottish guy?’
    ‘Andy?’
    ‘That’s it! And the manic-depressive, wassisname? Tried to light himself on fire at New Year that time?’
    Julie let out a squeal of laughter, remembering. ‘Michael!’
    ‘Michael. Christ. Oh no no. Wait. My favourite. The hard man. The gangster type you met when you were working in that club in Mayfair.’
    ‘Gangster?’
    ‘You know! He was older than us. Handsome. Looked a bit like thingummy … ooh, that actor. Terence Stamp.’
    ‘Terence Stamp?’ Julie saw that, fairly incredibly, Susan was pouring herself another vodka.
    ‘Come on, you know who I mean. Had a mad nickname and everything. Screws, or Rivets, or something.’
    ‘Oh – NAILS?’
    ‘NAILS!’
    They both collapsed laughing.
    ‘You know what – I got a Christmas card from him a few years back. It’s in the sideboard somewhere, I think. He lives over in Tillington.’
    ‘He’s still alive? Christ, he must be getting on a bit now surely?’
    ‘God, yeah. He was in his forties back then.’
    ‘He was a gangster, wasn’t he?’
    ‘Kind of. You don’t remember what he did?’
    ‘No.’ Susan sipped her drink carefully this time.
    ‘He was a bank robber!’
    Susan sprayed vodka across the room as they both collapsed in hysterics again. ‘A bank robber!’ she screamed.
    ‘I think … I think he wound up doing twenty years!’ Julie said, laughing so hard now her ribs were aching.
    ‘A bank robber,’ Susan repeated, flat on her back on the floor.
    ‘God, I could pick them, couldn’t I?’
    ‘A bank robber,’ Susan said again, in a very different tone of voice this time.
    ‘What?’
    Susan sat up. She was breathing hard, but she wasn’t laughing any more. There was a strange look in her eyes, a faraway, thinking expression, something Julie had never seen before. Or hadn’t seen in a long time at any rate, not since way, way before Barry, back when Susan Frobisher was Susan Connors, the girl who put tacks on the teacher’s chair, who flashed her knickers at passing buses.
    ‘What is it?’ Julie asked.
    ‘A bank robber,’ Susan said for the fourth time, looking directly at Julie now.

EIGHTEEN
    ‘YOU’RE OUT OF your mind,’ Julie said.
    ‘Seriously, how hard can it be?’
    ‘Grief. That’s it. Delayed shock. You’re out of your teeny tiny mind with grief and shock.’
    ‘You get a