Here Come the Girls by Milly Johnson Page A

still a bit highbrow for Kevin.
    She’d only had the slice of lemon drizzle cake to eat all day and decided she’d better get something to fortify herself before she collapsed. She had made a huge shepherd’s pie that morning to be heated up for tea. True to form they hadn’t left her any. The dish was scraped empty on the work surface. She picked it up to soak it in the sink, then had a rethink and put it down. No, let them do it . She smiled to herself as she toasted two slices of bread and spooned some coffee into a cup. There was no point in having decaff – she wasn’t going to sleep much anyway.
    Olive then had a quick bath and packed some underwear, toiletries, her best shoes, a couple of nice tops, her only decent dress and passport into one of the bags she used for her cleaning stuff. David was snoring like a pig whilst she crept around their bedroom. He always said that medication didn’t help his back pain so it wasn’t worth taking; however, beer knocked him out and at least allowed him to get some well-needed sleep. She had always accepted that as a feasible argument. How the Hardcastles must have laughed at her. Well, they wouldn’t be laughing again for a while.
    She took her bag back downstairs into the kitchen and then got a writing pad and pen out from the drawer and wrote:
    Dear All
    I’m going on holiday and will be back on Tuesday 2nd September.
    Olive
    Then she ripped out the sheet, stuck it in an envelope and propped it up against Doreen’s fag supply next to the kettle. That way, she knew it would be found first thing.
    Olive checked the clock; in less than seven hours’ time a taxi would be calling for her. She didn’t think she would nod off in the easy chair in the never-used dining room, but she did – and dreamed of being naked on the ship and that Cephalonia had turned into a seedy seaside town.

D AY 1: A T S EA
    Dress Code: Smart Casual

Chapter 14
    Manus was standing at the side of Roz’s bed with a cuppa as her alarm went off and she jerked awake.
    ‘Wakey, wakey, Penelope,’ he said, then immediately clarified that before she broke into: ‘Penelope? Can’t even get my name right nowadays. Who’s Penelope? Not one of my friends, for a change.’
    ‘Penelope Cruz as in cruise , I meant – you know.’ Manus coughed, wishing he had never made the joke. ‘Anyway, here’s a caffeine shot for you. Thought you might need it.’ He was dressed only in boxer shorts; he suited them. He had strong muscular thighs that her eyes settled on until she ripped them away and took the coffee, thanking him politely.
    ‘I’ll get some clothes on,’ he said, thumbing to the spare room in the manner of someone suddenly realising he was inappropriately attired. Another sign of the ever-increasing divide between them that he could be embarrassed to be half-naked in front of her after seven years.
    When Roz came downstairs, showered and dressed, it was to the smell of hot buttered toast which he had made for her. ‘I could have taken you and Ven myself to the bus station, you know, instead of you having to get a taxi,’ said Manus.
    ‘The competition people are paying for it,’ replied Roz, taking a half slice of the toast. She was far too stirred up to eat any more.
    ‘Do you want me to come and see you off?’ Manus asked. Had she imagined it, or was there a little note of hope in his voice that she would say, ‘Yes, please come’?
    ‘No, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I grew out of waving through windows when I was twelve.’ Her insides were at war with themselves. Why didn’t she just say ‘Come and wave me off,’ like she wanted to? It hurt her that he didn’t press it.
    ‘Fair enough,’ was all he said with flat emotion. She deserved nothing more than his indifference, she knew.
    Roz was halfway through brushing her teeth when a taxi horn sounded in the street.
    ‘Jesus, they’re early!’ she flapped, drying her mouth, expertly applying two smooth lines of lippy and