The High Life (The Mercury Travel Club #3)

Chapter One Back For Good

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‘I’m back.’

My best and oldest friend Patty blasts into the Mercury Travel shop like a rock star exploding onto a stage amid dry ice and pyrotechnics. She’s wearing huge oversized sunglasses, so I won’t be surprised if her next words are, ‘Hello, Glastonbury!’

‘You couldn’t have scared me more if you’d had an axe and shouted, “Here’s Johnny!”,’ says my business partner Charlie as I scrape him off the walls.

‘You know me — I do like an entrance,’ Patty says. ‘What are you all staring at?’

We’d been closing up after a busy Thursday’s trading when Charlie, Josie ― our assistant manager, and I noticed people in hard hats carrying clipboards and tape measures arriving at the empty shop across the road. An estate agent — or at least the only one of the group not wearing a hard hat — is now changing the sign from ‘TO LET’ to ‘TAKEN’.

‘The builders over there,’ I tell Patty, pointing at them.

‘Ooh, yes. Not bad at all, but I am taken too.’

‘We’re talking about the refit, not the workmen,’ I scold. ‘Wondering what it’s going to be.’

‘I’m hoping for a gin palace,’ says Josie. ‘That’s definitely what this town needs.’

We all nod at the wise words emanating from this young head.

‘Maybe one with detoxifying doors,’ adds Patty. ‘They’d look like normal revolving doors but one spin in them and your body is a temple once more.’

It isn’t unusual for the shops on the high street of this leafy Manchester suburb to change hands, but normally we’d have heard something about it. Chorlton has extremely efficient jungle drums. However, I’m not even bothered what it might become at this precise moment in time because the idea of detoxifying doors has me very excited.

‘That would be absolutely brilliant,’ I say. ‘Amazing. Can you imagine? Every new year — no fasting for a month, we’d just take a swing round the doors and our bodies would be pure again. It would put Gwyneth Paltrow and the rest of the clean-eating brigade out of business but I think everyone else in the world would be delighted.’

‘We could get my man Dyson to give up on the vacuum cleaners and invent something women really want. It must be the same technology — sucking the crap out of things,’ adds Josie, her Aussie accent really going for the word crap. Josie has real disdain for a man with a brain the size of a planet who then uses it to invent cleaning products. She keeps a mental list of things that would be a better use of his intellect. Before today, a cellulite attachment for the Animal V8 was top of her list.

‘Sounds gruesome,’ says Patty, ‘but if this was Dragon’s Den I’d definitely be in. Now who wants to make me a cup of tea?’

Patty breaks our fantasy and heads into the kitchen. As it’s past closing time, Josie signals that she’ll head home. She knows that with Patty on the premises, it could be hours before she escapes if she doesn’t go now.

I lock the shop door and join my best friend in the kitchen. I watch with amusement as she makes herself completely at home boiling the kettle and grabbing some mugs as if we’d invited her to — not that she ever waits for an invitation. Patty has been singing in an eighties tribute group on the cruise ships for around six weeks, and it shows. She’s definitely a little rounder and her skin has the glow of a person who is both content and very well fed.

‘Where’ve you hidden the bikkies?’ she asks, pulling open every cupboard. ‘It would be afternoon tea time if we were still aboard.’ I hand her the hidden stash of chocolate digestives. ‘Mind you, I could probably do with losing a couple of pounds now.’

‘You’re still gorgeous,’ says Charlie who’s joined us.

‘You’re right and at least there’s more to hold on to.’ Patty simultaneously sinks her teeth into the biscuit and her butt into one of the kitchen chairs. One or maybe both results in a loud sigh of pleasure and relief. I can’t help but smile at the sight of her making herself comfy. It may only have been a matter of weeks but I have missed this woman so much and am suddenly overwhelmed with the sheer joy of seeing her again.

I give her a big kiss on the top of her head and wrap my arms around her as tightly as I can. ‘It is so good to have you back. I was afraid you might end up sailing the seas for ever.’

Patty clamps the digestive between her teeth, gets up and hugs me back, one of her all-consuming unabashed hugs. It feels just as good as it looks, so Charlie gets up and joins in. Who doesn’t need a hug every now and then?

‘It was really great fun,’ Patty says when she releases us from her grip. She swallows the biscuit then continues. ‘And I’m glad I did it but it made me realize that I can’t do it for ever. Even I can’t spend my entire life dressed up as Cyndi Lauper. I think only the woman herself would be happy with that. No, my darlings, it is time for a new adventure.’

‘Any idea what that’ll be?’ asks Charlie.

Patty shakes her head. ‘I’ve no idea. To be honest, I was quite fired up about coming home and doing something new but now I’m here, with the exception of seeing my most fabulous friends again obviously, it feels a bit flat.’

The room goes quiet. Patty was marvellous on stage and I can imagine her genuinely missing all that applause. Reality doesn’t tend to come with adulation, except on reality shows and they’re not really real.

‘Well, we can certainly do something about that.’ Charlie claps his hands, banishing the contemplative silence. ‘Come to dinner at mine this Saturday night. Peter and I will host a reunion for our nearest and dearest. Is Dr Lurve on shore, too?’

Patty laughs at the nickname she gave her partner when she first met him. Jack was the ship’s doctor who tended Patty when she took a fall on the dance floor. She likes to tell us she was under him for weeks after that. Seeing her looking like her old self again brings a sense of relief to the room. I love my friend’s ability to just cheer up everyone with one dirty laugh.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘I haven’t left him behind. How could I deprive any man of all this now he’s used to it? Actually, we’ve both decided this is it. We’re leaving the cruises and joining you landlubbers permanently.’

‘Is he looking for something new, too?’ Charlie asks, but Patty shakes her head.

‘Jack already has a great offer in a local children’s ward. He’s a bit sick of tending sunburn and overindulgence dressed up as gastroenteritis. He starts the new job next week.’

‘Well, all the more reason to celebrate before he has to do the whole Grey’s Anatomy thing. This weekend your new life begins with a glorious dinner party,’ gushes Charlie. He loves to entertain and I can see him getting into the mood already.

‘All of us together with our menfolk. We’ve never actually had everyone together at the same time,’ he adds

And we haven’t. Although Charlie, Patty and I have known each other for many years, we’ve each started a new relationship over the past year and the only time we’ve ever had even the majority of the group together was to celebrate New Year. I’d just met my other half, Michael, that very day, so it was hardly a friendship, never mind anything else, and Jack wasn’t in the country. Him and Patty had a very different start to their relationship to Michael and I. Although they’ve only known each other a few months longer, living the whole time in the cocoon of a cruise ship positively nurtured their romance. The frequent emails from Patty are always laced with loved-up innuendo. They both seem completely smitten.

After agreeing the time and dress code, which, let’s face it, was always going to be glam and gorgeous with Charlie in charge, we say our goodbyes and head home.

‘Is it OK if I come round in an hour or so to collect some things?’ asks Patty as we’re about to get into our cars.

‘If you bring wine.’

‘Never go anywhere without it.’