Free Here Come the Girls by Milly Johnson Page B

her rocking chair, decomposing whilst she watches what Benny’s up to.’
    ‘If you look to your left you’ll catch the first glimpse of your ship,’ said the real Clive, as they edged closer to the dock. There in the near distance was a white ship with a yellow crest. It was approximately fifty times the size of the vessel that they all expected to see.
    ‘Bloody hellfire, that’s enormous!’ gasped Roz. It was more like a floating multi-storey town than a boat.
    Olive didn’t say anything because she was so open-mouthed with astonishment that her jaw felt dislocated.
    Big Clive asked everyone to wait a few minutes when they eventually pulled up, so that he could get the suitcases out first. Old Mr B Deck ignored him, of course.
    Up close, the ship was even more massive. Olive was still gobsmacked. And to think, had she not had a headache last night and come home early she would have been halfway through cooking Sunday lunch now and trying not to retch as she loaded Kevin’s washing into the machine. What’s going on between the walls of 15, Land Lane now? she allowed herself to wonder until Clive boomed in loud Lancastrian, ‘Okay, ladies and jeng-kel-men . You can come out now. Have a smashing holiday, and don’t forget to send me a post- cord .’
    ‘Come on, Olive,’ smiled Ven. ‘Your holiday’s about to begin.’
    They filed out and said goodbye to poor Clive. Ven hoped the fiver tip she gave him might soften the blow of him not going on a sixteen-day cruise. He could buy lots of tins of peas now. Especially if they were on a BOGOF.
    ‘I can’t believe I am actually going on that ,’ said Olive, pointing up at the ship and feeling the same sort of excitement she had experienced on seeing Blackpool Tower for the first time, when Ven’s mum and dad took her there for a twelfth-birthday treat.
    ‘You won’t be going on it if you don’t come with me and get in that queue,’ said Ven. ‘I’ve got your ticket. You concentrate on getting your passport out ready.’
    ‘Is the competition bloke coming to meet you?’ asked Olive. ‘What’s he called?’
    ‘Er . . . Andrew something or other. No, nothing was said,’ Ven replied. ‘He’ll no doubt catch up with us on board.’
    ‘Thought he’d be here with a photographer to capture the moment for max publicity purposes. I mean, it’s not exactly a tea-towel they’re giving away, is it?’
    Ven didn’t answer, she just looked around at the pictures of the Figurehead fleet on the walls of the terminal building and stepped forward as the long snake of the queue began to shorten.
    Olive had checked that her passport was in her bag at least sixty times but still had a panic when she couldn’t locate it because it had fallen between the pages of her magazine. She reckoned since seeing Doreen skipping down the road last night, her heart must have done more racing beats than it had in the whole of her life so far.
    They saw that Mr B Deck and his little missus were in a special queue of four passengers with an ELITE MEMBER sign above it. But then he was a hard-line cruiser, as everyone on the bus would surely know by now. He probably had his own bloke at Liverpool waiting to renew his passport every ten years.
    ‘Look at that hunk over there with the dolly bird.’ Ven pointed to a tall, impossibly handsome man with jet-black hair behind Mr B Deck in the queue. He was standing with a stunning, leggy woman with a pouty mouth, gravity-defying breasts and tumbles of long dark hair. Both were sporting shades of skin that couldn’t possibly have been achieved naturally. It was more like woodstain than tan. ‘He looks like Dom Donaldson.’ Ven sighed, as she always did at the name of her idol, the soap star rough-diamond-with-a-heart character.
    ‘So it is!’ said Roz. ‘And over there is Brad Pitt, and wait – David Beckham is bringing up the rear.’
    ‘Okay, sarky beggar,’ Ven said with a disappointed sigh. ‘Aw well, it would have been nice