Ladies Who Launch Read Free Page B

half of the
cruise? On the bright side, the ship was certainly big enough for that to be a possibility.
    Gil had bought them a bottle of pink champagne at dinner to christen Selina’s new life. They had taken in a show and had far too many cocktails but that night she had slept like a baby in
the cool crisp sheets of her double bed. She was alone but less lonely than she had been for years. The next day she had not taken up the offer to accompany her friends around Venice, but enjoyed
pottering around the city by herself, knowing that Zander would not be there to bump into. He hated crowds of tourists and preferred to spend the day in the private spa pool on board away from the
hoi polloi.
    She kept away from the sorts of places he frequented and so managed to successfully evade him. People often moved in their own personal orbits on ships. Selina knew that he would be in the
casino and the more sedate ‘gentleman’s club’ lounge. She knew he would avoid the shop area, the coffee bar and the nightclub. He would never eat in the buffet, or join the jolly
sail-away parties – nor would he come looking for her because this was a battle of wills which he was prepared to wait out and win.
    Angie and Gil insisted she accompany them into Dubrovnik and they had a wonderful
al fresco
lunch and too much grappa. They all lazed on the beach together in Corfu and went
dolphin-spotting in Gibraltar on a small, bumpy boat. Selina’s face muscles were worn out with smiling and it felt marvellous. She was half tempted to paint her face half-white, half-blue and
run along the ship decks shouting
FREEDOM!
    Angie told her later that she had spotted Zander coming out of the celebrated chef Raul Cruz’s restaurant on the last formal night and admitted that her heart gave a thump as old feelings
galloped around her in a confusion of what to do. At such close range, she couldn’t resist studying him; he was still as tall and dark and handsome … sort of. He hadn’t ripened
as she had imagined he would, she said. She’d always thought he’d mature like those film stars, whose flaws become assets: crinkles at the eyes like Clooney, sprinkles of white hair
like Brosnan, but vanity, it seems, had steered Zander from the path of natural maturity. His hair was a block of black, as if it had been painted, and there were no merry rays of lines spreading
from the corners of his eyes; in fact the skin there was iron-flat. His face looked as perfect and lifeless as a Ken doll’s. It was ironic that his narcissism would prevent him from looking
the best he could.
    Angie had said that he had seen her too, that was evident from the way his eyes rested on her for a few beats longer than a natural glance at a stranger, but he didn’t acknowledge her
presence. He strolled past out of her sight and out of her fantasies forever. ‘How could I ever have thought that Gil was second best to him, Sel?’ she’d said. ‘I
haven’t a clue, Ange,’ she’d replied. Lovely Gil Silverton with his ginger hair, big nose and laughing eyes. Sel hoped that one day she’d find someone who made her feel
loved and needed and cherished as he made her friend.
    On the very final night of the holiday Selina was browsing in the stalls outside the on-board jewellers shop when she felt a hand close around the top of her arm and, too surprised to initially
resist, she found herself being forcibly, but discreetly, pushed out and into a private corner by a staff access door.
    ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Zander, his eyes hard and narrowed.
    Selina peeled his fingers off her arm. He had left long white marks on her tanned skin.
    ‘I told you: I’ve left you, Zander. It’s over. There will be no turning back this time.’
    ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ His voice dropped in volume as someone passed. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’
    ‘This is the first time in twenty years that I haven’t been fucking stupid,’ Selina spat back.