The Sunshine Cruise Company Read Free

Bull, Nurse Diesel,’ Ethel said cheerfully to no response.
    ‘Right, five minutes,’ Julie said. ‘You be OK, Alf?’
    Alf nodded, gratefully crunching a barley sugar.

THREE
    ‘SIXTY. YOU OLD bastard. You fucking
ruin.
’
    They were out in the sunshine of the fire escape. ‘I know, Ethel. Christ, how did that happen, eh?’ Julie dragged deeply and passed the cigarette back to Ethel, glancing towards the door.
    With a grunt Ethel levered herself up out of the wheelchair, trotted the few steps over, and pushed the fire door securely shut. Julie knew that the degree of Ethel’s immobility, like the degree of her deafness, was selective. She could get out of that wheelchair and move a few steps when it suited her all right, like when another resident had left a bag of boiled sweets temptingly unguarded and just out of arm’s reach.
    ‘Oh, shut up,’ Ethel said, taking the fag with one hand, the other clamped around her hip flask, glittering in the morning sun out here. ‘I’m just taking the piss. Sixty’s nothing. Fuck, when I was your age I was ruling. I had it all, bitch, let me tell you. So much cock …’ She took a pull on whatever was in the flask and let out a long, satisfied ‘ahhhh’ before adding, almost as an afterthought, ‘Fanny too.’ Julie laughed as Ethel offered her the flask. She shook her head. ‘Man up,’ Ethel said, still proffering the booze.
    ‘It’s just after nine, Ethel!’
    ‘Did I ask you the time?
Did I ask you the fucking time?
’
    ‘And I’ve got lunch with Susan later.’
    ‘Oof. Let the party begin.’
    ‘Oh, stop it. Susan’s all right once you get to know her.’
    ‘Boring,
’ Ethel trilled.
    ‘And then we’ve got this party thing tonight after her rehearsal. You’re still coming?’
    ‘A few hours out of here? Even the Wroxham Players are sufferable for that. But to return to the matter in hand.’ Ethel looked at the hip flask, as though it contained the key to all mythologies. ‘You seem to have misunderstood me. I did not ask for the time. Nor did I enquire as to your bastard schedule for the next twenty-four hours. I simply requested that you join me in
a drink on your birthday.
’
    ‘Oh God,’ Julie groaned, reaching for the thing. She glanced again towards the fire-escape door and took a quick swallow. She felt neat gin scorching her innards, torching through her like a house fire seeking oxygen.
‘Shiiitttt.
’
    Ethel laughed. ‘Martini. My own recipe. Well, I say my own. I nicked it from an RAF boy, just after the war. What was the bugger’s name? Cecil? Cedric? Celly? Something wet. Flew Mosquitoes out of Duxford. Not much up top but fit as a Dobermann in the employ of a retailer of meats, if you catch my meaning.’
    ‘Yes, Ethel. It’s not that obscure, your meaning.’
    ‘Gin had to be near freezing, viscous, was his rule. And you just rubbed the Vermouth bottle against it.’
    She passed the fag back. Julie took it and they looked over the rooftops of the home together: chimney pots, puddles on the flat asphalt, TV aerials, decaying brickwork. The sun was already warm though. It looked like it would be a fine day. Ethel watched Julie smoke, her cheeks flushed slightly from the gin and a faraway look in her eyes. ‘Right, out with it,’ Ethel said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Don’t fucking what me.’
    ‘It’s just … sixty, Ethel. This isn’t where I thought I’d be.’
    ‘Where did you think you’d be?’
    ‘I dunno. Somewhere nicer than this. Not living in a rented flat. Mopping up piss.’
    ‘You think you’ve got problems? Here, give us a last drag on that. Look at me – star of stage and screen reduced to mixing my own cocktails in a locked bathroom and stealing barley sugars from sleeping pensioners.’
    ‘Were you really famous, Ethel?’
    ‘From Piccadilly to the Amalfi Coast, darling – if it had a bar and a stage chances are I’ve sung and danced in it.’
    They both turned at the sound of someone trying to force