Chapter 17
M aureen stuffed her book into her bag, ensuring her hat and sunglasses were firmly in place before leaving The Retreat. She wanted to venture back to the cabin and check on Donal to see if he’d nodded off. He was no good when he napped too long in the afternoon. She owed it to the country music fans aboard the Mayan Princess to ensure they weren’t graced with a groggy and, yes, grumpy Kenny for The Gamblers’ gig later. Carole, however, had opted to stay a little longer, spent from all she’d shared, stretching out on her lounger and closing her eyes.
It had been tempting to swing by the Lido Buffet for a late afternoon tea graze, but Maureen decided an early dinner was a smarter idea. She didn’t like performing on a full stomach in case she got the indigestion. It was very hard to keep the rhythm with the tambourine and suck on the Rennies at the same time. Nobody would say, ‘Well done, sweetheart,’ like she did the twins if she brought up wind during her Sheena or Dolly set.
With all the eating she’d done since discovering the wonderland that was the Lido Buffet, Maureen opted to take the stairs. As she reached the tenth-floor landing, the fleeting thought of whether or not Kenny occasionally took afternoon naps crossed her mind. He was bound to, was her consensus, as the unmistakable sound of a baby crying on the floor below distracted her. She hurried down the stairs to the ninth floor like a magnet pulled toward the fridge door. The piercing sound tugged at her, and a wave of pity over Carole’s predicament washed over her too. To never have even seen your grandchild, well, it was unimaginable. Still and all, she had high hopes that her plan for her new friend to reach out to Carlos and mend bridges would soon have mother and daughter reunited. The thought of Carole’s face when she saw her little grandbabby for the first time made her eyes smart. The homesickness that followed this as she thought of her own little ones took her by surprise. She’d only been away for a week, but this would be the longest stretch she’d ever been parted from any of them. Thank goodness they’d all be barrelling on board with their mammy and daddies in a month. That was when she stopped short in her tracks because without even realising she’d done so, she’d followed the wailing around the corner to the lift where a young mammy around Moira’s age was jiggling a plump baby girl frantically trying to get her to stop crying. The poor girl was almost in tears herself. Maureen saw several passengers giving her and her crying child a wide berth, opting for the stairs instead.
People could be so intolerant, she thought. Sure, they were all babies with wants and needs once. ‘What’s her name?’ Maureen asked over the wailing din.
‘Laura.’ The woman gave Maureen a frazzled smile. ‘And I wish this lift would hurry up.’
‘Oh, that’s a lovely name, so it is. How old is she?’
‘Thank you. Nearly ten months, and I blame her dad, who is right now picking up our toddler from Little Minnows, for booking a cruise with a baby and a two-year-old. “We’ll make memories,” he said. “It will be a chance to relax as a family.” Well, look how that’s going.’ She glanced about self-consciously.
‘Is Laura hungry?’
‘No.’
‘Tired?’
‘Yeah, a little. She’s going to be a nightmare to put down for a nap, though.’
‘In need of changing?’
She patted her daughter’s nappy-clad bottom. ‘No.’
‘Right then.’ Maureen rolled up the sleeves of her caftan. She’d have to improvise and do the Kenny bits and Dolly’s, but it wouldn’t be the first time that the ‘Islands in the Stream’ song crooned solely from her lips. Little Laura turned toward her as she reached the Dolly part, the tension seeping out of her, and her face unscrewed until she laid her head on her mother’s shoulder contentedly.
‘Oh my goodness, you’re like the baby whisperer.’
Maureen beamed. ‘It works a treat for my granddaughter.’
‘Can I hire you? Like on an as-and-when-needed basis?’
Maureen wasn't sure if her leg was being pulled but was spared from answering by the ding of the lift. ‘Off you go now. You’ll find she’ll go out like a light and be altogether different when she wakes.’ She said ta-ta to the sleepy Laura and gave her mother a reassuring smile that said, ‘You’ve got this,’ before they disappeared from view inside the lift. She was about to continue on her merry way when she spotted a sinewy shadow and spun around to see it was him, Tony, the manchild who thought she was on the prowl for a toy boy. Wumph: heat raced up her neck and into her face. ‘Yoo-hoo,’ she trilled, charging toward him, determined to put him straight. She’d tell him in no uncertain terms that Maureen O’Mara had a man friend and was not a cougar!
Tony glanced over his shoulder at the noise. For a moment, his resemblance to a meercat surveying the African savannah was stunning. Then, as Maureen advanced toward him, he sprang into life and began charging through the people, making their way down the corridor as though she were a hit woman and him her target. It was like a scene from a James Bond film with Maureen, the femme fatale assassin, in her flapping caftan as she gave chase.
‘Hey Bob, isn’t that the woman who got escorted away from the table tennis tables earlier?’
Now, it was Maureen who froze in her tracks. It was too late but she pulled her hat down as low as it would go, only to find her vision impaired as she skulked away. Tripping over would only draw further attention to herself, and she decided the best thing to do was take it off altogether as she all but fled to the stairs.
***
Maureen banged the cabin door shut, leaning against it to catch her breath. She closed her eyes briefly. She’d made it back without anyone else pointing her out. Tony, the manchild, would have to wait for another day.
Donal was wide awake and watching the credits roll on a film. ‘Are you alright there, Mo? You’re looking very flushed, so you are. Did you decide to visit the gym?’
‘No. I ran down the stairs all the way from the ninth floor. You won’t believe the afternoon I’ve had, Donal.’
Donal patted the space beside him on the bed. ‘Come and tell me all about it.’
Maureen pushed off from the door and kicked off her flip-flops, padding toward the bed.
‘You’ve just missed your favourite film.’
‘Ah no, Donal, don’t tell me.’
‘Alright. I won’t.’
Maureen flopped down next to him. ‘It wasn’t—’
‘It was Mo. The Last of the Mohicans .’
‘No!’
‘I shouldn’t have told you. Now then, what have I missed?’
Maureen told him she'd spent a pleasant few hours getting to know Carole and left it at that.
‘I’m forgiven for my unsportsmanlike behaviour then?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive, and I was hardly a model citizen myself.’
‘You could say you were put under “citizen’s arrest” by your Director of Entertainment's sidekick though.’ Donal made the inverted commas with his fingers and began chortling away, making the bed shake. Maureen failed to see the humour in having been manhandled away from the table tennis tables, so she decided it was time to move things along, telling him about her impromptu baby whisperer performance.
‘It’s a good job the toddler Kiera wasn’t here to see it, Donal. She might have got upset seeing her nana singing to another babby like so. A wee dote she was, too.’ Kiera had a territorial streak in her, just like her mammy.
‘I think you’d be right there, Mo.’
‘Donal, there’s something else.’ Maureen hesitated, unsure she could bring herself to share the label she’d been pegged with by a fellow Mayan Princess entertainer.
Donal, sensitive as ever to the subtle nuances in Maureen’s voice, picked up on this. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘It’s just, well, it’s just that it’s mortifying, so it is.’
‘You know you can tell me anything.’
That was true enough, and Maureen haltingly explained the misunderstanding between herself and the manchild, then thumped Donal on the back. His chortle had morphed into a cough. ‘That will teach you for laughing, Donal McCarthy. You want to have seen him just now. He tossed his head like a wild pony when he saw me. Sure, I thought he’d whinny before stampeding off like so.’ Her mouth began twitching at the imagery, and it wasn’t long before they were roaring laughing together.
Maureen felt much improved, her equilibrium restored by the time she’d stopped with the hiccups all that laughing had brought on. It was good for the soul, the laughter, she thought, as her tummy gave a loud rumble.
‘Is it time for a bite to eat, Mo?’
‘An early dinner would be just the ticket.’
‘Right so.’ Donal sat up. ‘We’ll hold our heads up high out there, Mo. Brazen it out. People have short memories. They’ll have forgotten all about the table tennis by tonight.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, Donal.’