Here Come the Boys Read online

  First published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd 2014

  Copyright © Millytheink Ltd., 2014

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Milly Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-47113-388-6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dear Readers,

  This novella is a little thank-you for all your support, lovely letters, e-mails, kind tweets and facebook messages and is dedicated to you.

  As you may already know, I treated myself to my first cruise as a fortieth birthday treat and spent the weeks before leaving in a state of panic that I’d totally done the wrong thing and that my children would be swept overboard and eaten by sharks and I would be bored rigid. That, thankfully, didn’t happen. I fell in love with that way of holidaying so much that I wanted everyone else to as well. I wrote Here Come the Girls after a wonderful cruise during which I saw my first sights of Venice, Dubrovnik and the beautiful Korčula. It’s one of my most popular books and features some of my favourite characters. Doreen and Vernon were minor characters in that book but I couldn’t let go of them and so they keep turning up in other books – like this one.

  The idea for this story came from something that actually happened during the summer of 2012. ‘How can you miss a ship?’ I’ve said a few times over the years, when passengers are stranded ashore. Then I missed the ship, with my two sons in tow. A lot of Angie’s and Selina’s experiences were ours too. We encountered the Chinese knicker saleswoman, the hairy salad, and had to make a mad dash across several countries to catch up with the ship in Korčula three days later. The full account of this misadventure can be found on my website: www.millyjohnson.co.uk. As an author, of course, nothing is wasted and I had to write about it, partly as therapy.

  The port representatives really were as lovely as I’ve portrayed them in this book too. I was truly humbled by the kindness shown to us by strangers.

  I would like to thank a few people in the cruising family I have acquired over the years: P&O Cruises have been absolutely brilliant with their support – the wonderful Michele Andjel has become one of my dearest friends.

  Thanks also to the marvellous Michael Gallagher of Cunard and David Dingle who made it possible for me to have the best day out in Venice it is possible to have. To Keith ‘Father Christmas’ Hamilton, one of my favourite travelling companions, Captain Paul Brown and Cruise Director Neil Oliver who had faith in me to get back on the ship and welcomed me with open arms when I made it.

  And thank you to the lovely Irene Miriam Muzas Calpe who corrected all my Spanish!

  I’ve made so many happy memories on board, I’ve met some fantastic fellow travellers, and seen some wonderful places. If you’re in any doubt as to whether you’d enjoy a holiday on a ship, let me tell you – you will. Heaven for me would be an eternal cruise.

  Now… hope you enjoy Here Come the Boys!

  Milly Johnson, 2014

  ‘There are good ships, and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be.’

  Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy

  Contents

  DAY ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  DAY TWO

  Chapter 4

  DAY THREE

  Chapter 5

  DAY FOUR

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  DAY FIVE

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  DAY SIX

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  DAY SEVEN

  Chapter 15

  The Teashop on the Corner

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  DAY ONE

  Chapter 1

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will be stopping for an hour in ten minutes for me to have some dinner as I won’t be getting fillet steak and lobster like you will tonight. They do a really nice pie and chips and peas here though if anyone is interested; best gravy outside my mam’s house. You won’t be eating until about half-past six so it might be a good idea to have a likkle snack now. Or a big one if you haven’t had any breakfast. If we can all be back on the bus in one hour – it’s twelve zero zero hours now, so we’re talking one zero zero hour. Fank you.’

  Angie Silverton looked at her husband and raised her eyebrows to their limit. ‘Thank God for that. One hour without hearing his bloody voice. He hasn’t stopped talking since we left Barnsley bus station this morning.’

  Her husband of ten years, Gil, smiled. ‘Oh be fair, love. He did shut up for ten minutes after we left Woodall services.’

  ‘And what a blissful ten minutes it was. I know his mother and father’s names, ages and occupations, what he’s eaten for the past fortnight and how many times he’s washed this bus. I can’t wait to get off and buy some ear plugs.’

  Angie calculated there was at least another couple of hours before they reached the docks at Southampton. That was enough time for Jed the bus driver to fit in quite a few more of his monologues.

  An elderly lady walked past Angie down the middle of the bus. She had to turn sideways to squeeze between the seats.

  ‘Come on, Vernon,’ she said, turning to the man behind her. ‘If I don’t get a wee in the next five minutes, I’m likely to flood the place.’

  ‘Sic transit Gloria mundi, Doreen, my love,’ he replied. ‘More haste, less speed.’

  ‘There’s not a lot of room,’ said the elderly lady bumping her rather large bottom on the side of every seat she passed. ‘You’d think with the size of the bus drivers that they’d have designed their vehicles with wider aisles.’

  Gil stifled a giggle.

  ‘I knew we should have gone to Spain as usual,’ sighed Angie.

  ‘Oh, give over,’ replied Gil, digging his wife in the rib. ‘We’re going to have a great time.’

  Angie had always thought that cruises were for the rich and retired and then three years ago their friends Sue and Dave went on one as a fifteenth anniversary treat. They’d returned full of cruise beans – they’d even booked another one whilst still on board. They’d convinced their other friends Mark and Pam to take one to the Caribbean and they, in turn, had influenced Rob and Kate’s holiday choice. They had really pushed the boat out and gone whale-watching on an Alaskan cruise. In short, every one of their coupley friends had now been on a cruise apart from them. They’d never been able to afford one before, and anyway, Angie had been quite happy with a fortnight in Spain. Gil, however, had been swayed by their friends’ reports and was eager to see what all the fuss was about. So, just after they closed the deal on the massive order that would change their fortunes, Gil was down at the travel agents so fast there was smoke coming from his heels. Their business had not only ridden the recession but bat
tled it and battered it into submission. Silverton School Supplies was no longer a two-man concern, but a thriving business employing thirty people. After years of hard work, they were now reaping some well-deserved rewards. A cruise for Gil’s fortieth birthday treat being one of them.

  ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a pie and chips,’ said Gil, standing up. ‘And some of that superb gravy on Jed’s recommendation.’

  ‘You will not. I’ve dieted like mad to get into those size twelve frocks.’

  Angie had invested in a whole new wardrobe since hitting her target weight. She hadn’t been a size twelve since she was twenty-one. Now her old size sixteen clothes were either in charity shops or on the landfill site. Gil had insisted she go mad in Meadowhall and buy some dresses with sequins on. For once they could afford it, so he made her go for it. She hadn’t fought against him too hard.

  Gil had a burger in the service station and Angie had an egg mayo sandwich, though she couldn’t resist nicking a few of his chips. Her friends had warned her she would put on a few pounds on this holiday, but she would attempt to take things steady. Angie was only five foot two and every additional pound showed in her curves, whereas Gil, who was six foot four, and ran three miles every day, could afford to be more lax.

  Gil couldn’t stop grinning.

  ‘You’re like a kid at Christmas, do you know that?’ said Angie.

  ‘I’m worse,’ giggled Gil. ‘I am so excited. There are some great ports on this cruise. Dave said that Korčula is a real hidden gem.’

  Angie wrinkled up her nose. ‘I think I’ll be looking forward to Dubrovnik and Venice a bit more than a tiny island like Korčula.’ She’d given the place a passing glance when she was studying the itinerary. It hadn’t exactly floated her boat.

  Gil offered her the last of his chips. ‘Sometimes there can be too much to do. I expect it will be bonkers busy in Venice and Dubrovnik so won’t it be nice to visit somewhere small and quiet where we can have lunch and chill in the sun?’

  ‘Chill in the sun?’ Angie chuckled, stuffing the chip in her mouth before he changed his mind.

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean.’

  That did sound inviting actually. Still, she was looking forward to bonkers busy Venice much more than peaceful Korčula, however quaint Dave might have painted it.

  There wasn’t much to do in the service station once they had been fed and watered, and all the passengers were restless to get on the road and on to the ship. Angie and Gil walked back to the bus with a young couple carrying a baby.

  ‘Been cruising before?’ asked the man in a strong Brummy accent.

  ‘First time,’ replied Gil.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ said the young mum, a Yorkshire woman. ‘This is our favourite itinerary and the nicest ship. We’ve both been cruising since we were little. We actually met on board at one of the kids’ clubs twelve years ago.’ They were both wearing the same giddy grin that Gil was. Angie wished she could catch their enthusiasm. She was so worried that she’d hate it and be bored rigid. Or worse – be sick for the entire seventeen days.

  They joined the queue of people standing outside Jed’s locked bus, waiting for him to return.

  ‘Bit of a nip in the air,’ said an elderly man in front of them.

  ‘I’m hoping this is the last I’ll be wearing my cardigan,’ said his wife. Both of them had holiday smiles too.

  ‘And me,’ Gil nodded enthusiastically.

  What if I loathe being on a ship and Gil loves it? What happens then? Angie started to worry before being snapped out of it by someone at the back of the queue shouting. ‘He’s here,’ and a hurrah rose up. Jed did his fastest walk to the bus door.

  ‘Sorry everyone. Toilet was full.’

  ‘Too much information,’ Angie whispered to Gil.

  As the bus loaded, Angie amused herself by looking out of the window at the people crossing from their cars to the service station and vice versa, and she wondered what their stories were. There was a woman in a long hippy dress with two curtains of grey hair framing her face, linking arms with a long-bearded man as they walked towards a vintage camper van painted with flowers. They were wearing holiday faces too. There was a woman leading a crocodile of six skipping children from her people carrier, and coming out of a flash black Jaguar was a slim, preened lady with white-blonde hair pinned up into an immaculate French pleat who looked like an elderly version of Sharon Stone. That’s what she would age like, Angie thought. Selina Bloody Molloy. She wondered if she and Zander Goldman were still together twenty years on. Yes, of course they were – who would let him escape once they were bound by marriage vows? The sudden picture flashing up in her brain of her one-time best friend always had the power to make every nerve in Angie’s body hiss.

  The bus juddered into life and so did another Jed monologue.

  ‘Hope you all enjoyed that break, ladies and genklemen. That was the last one before we get to Southampton docks so if you need a tinkle, you’ll have to use the toilet at the back of the bus. If you need anything else though, it might be best to hang on.’

  ‘Dear God,’ said the elderly woman with the big hips non too quietly. ‘He’s telling us now what we can and can’t do down the pan.’ There was a titter of laughter amongst the naughty children at the back of the bus, Gil and Angie included.

  Gil’s lips could barely contain the length of his grin when they saw the sign for Southampton, then arrows directing traffic to the docks. Angie smiled at his child-like enthusiasm. He hadn’t had a day off in months; he needed a break more than she did. He worked so hard but was never crabby with anyone, however exhausted he was. She was a lucky woman having a husband like Gil Silverton.

  They’d met at a mutual friend’s wedding after Angie’s heart had been broken yet again (her sister said that if there was ever an Oscar for picking rubbish men, Angie would wipe the floor with the competition). Physically Gil wasn’t her type – far too tall, ginger-haired and he had long arms that he waved around like windmills when he got excited. He had worn her down with persistence and a charm offensive and though she hadn’t been expecting that much from their first date, he had totally won her over with his courteous manners and witty conversation. And now, ten years later, he was still as sweet and funny as he was on the day when their paths crossed.

  But her first love, sodding Zander Goldman, had cast a very long shadow and none of the men she had been out with since had managed to bring enough sunshine to blast it away. Including, to her shame, her husband. That was Angie’s secret.

  She had admired Zander from afar for two years, watching him pair up with and split from various other girls, first at school, then at sixth form college, always hoping that he would notice her, but he never did. He was a raven-haired god in her teenage world and it was his name that covered her jotters, his blurry photo, snipped from the local newspaper when his football team won the league, that occupied the heart-decorated photo frame next to her bed. Then one joyous fabulous day, his radar picked her up and his attention turned towards her and when he asked her out, she thought her heart would burst with joy. Obviously the first thing she did was share the news with her best friend, the girl who was closer to her then than her own sister, Selina Molloy. She recalled how they had danced around the room like a pair of spring lambs, drunk with elation.

  Angie knew that she would never find a lovelier, gentler, kinder, funnier, more hard-working man than Gil but – and she hated admitting this even to herself – if Zander Goldman appeared back on the horizon declaring that dumping her had been the biggest mistake of his life, she might not be able to resist dropping everything and going back to him. With every year that passed, Zander Goldman acquired more of shimmering glow and her mind’s eye viewed him with an ever-increasing rose tint. He was perfect in her head – more handsome, more desirable, more everything than he had ever been in real life. In the shrine dedicated to him in her brain, Zander Goldman made Hugh Jackman look like Quasimodo.

  ‘Look at the siz
e of that,’ gasped Gil as the bus turned a corner and there, moored in the water, was the Mermaidia.

  ‘There she is, ladies and genklemen,’ said Jed through his microphone. ‘That’s where you’re going to be spending your next seventeen days. Think of me washing my bus tomorrow when you’re sailing past France.

  ‘When we stop, if you could just stay on the bus until we get the cases out please, ladies and genklemen. Five minutes at the most. I know you’re keen to get on the ship, but if you’ll just be patient. Thank you. And if anyone has packed their passports in their suitcase, now is the time to shout up because the next time you’ll see your cases after this will be outside your cabins, but you won’t see them if you haven’t got your passport on you now because you won’t be able to get on the ship.’

  Angie didn’t need to check. She never got details like that wrong. She was organisation personified.

  The closer they got to the dockside, the louder Gil’s gasps of delight became. He was beginning to sound like a chronic asthmatic.

  ‘That can’t possibly float,’ he said, puffing out his cheeks. ‘It’s massive.’

  ‘You’re scaring me, Gil, shut up,’ said Angie, looking at the side of the ship. It went up and up and up. She stopped counting at sixteen decks.

  The bus stopped and let out a farty brake noise.

  ‘If you could just hold on as I said,’ called Jed as people started to get up and totally ignore him. The elderly couple, Vernon and Doreen, couldn’t wait to get off the bus. Judging from the conversation she had overheard, Angie guessed they were seasoned cruisers.

  ‘Plan of action: straight up to The Buttery for a scone and a champagne cocktail,’ Doreen commanded.

  ‘As you wish, my love,’ replied Vernon. ‘I’m slightly peckish myself.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ said Gil to Angie. ‘Though, I suppose you want to unpack first.’

  ‘You know how I like to be organised.’

  Gil nodded and gave her one of his patient lop-sided smiles. ‘Yes, I know.’