Love Ahoy!

Chapter 1

It’s official. I have slipped down the food chain of allure.

Since being publicly dumped by my medium-looking boyfriend of five months, Dillon, I have been deep in the throes of romantic collapse.

His betrayal has left me feeling about as sexy and desirable as a stomach ulcer which, unfortunately, has resulted in an eye-watering plethora of bad decision-making.

A spur-of-the-moment makeover, to show my despicable cheating ex what he’s been missing, backfired when the local beauty salon promised to work their magic, assuring me faithfully that even though mathematicians aren’t famously renowned for their love lives, effervescent personalities or superior conversational skills, nerds can be sexy too.

I felt as though they’d bitten off more than they could chew when I left with horrific pencil-thin eyebrows in the shape of perfect rainbows, backcombed hair as big as a beefeater, two neon-pink streaks to show the general public where my cheekbones should be and a ton of trust issues.

* * *

I hug my parents goodbye, hoping for a clean break as we stand in the busy departures terminal at Newcastle Airport. My mother has been weeping on and off for over two weeks as my father, keeper of the peace, looks on, exhausted from taking turns to be on my side then hers.

‘It’s not too late to change your mind, Madeleine, love.’ My mother sniffs loudly. She is wearing her my child must really hate me expression. She wears it when her where did I go wrong? face fails to get the desired results.

‘Well, I’ve already checked in my suitcase and the flight leaves in under an hour, so it kind of is too late to change my mind.

’ My heart twangs as I take in her red, blotchy eyes, her dejected, wonky smile and horrendous bubble perm, a shrine to the 80s.

Hairdressers can be so cruel when they want to be.

Who would give a woman with an already round face (think family-size pizza) an even rounder hairdo?

Especially when the brand new ‘Rachel’ haircut is teaching women everywhere the meaning of face-framing layers. But that’s 1994 for you.

The world is a crazy place. There are more headlines about Elizabeth Hurley’s Safety Pin Dress than the end of apartheid, and because money is too tight to mention, everyone is out to get what they can.

I have just graduated into one of the country’s bleakest economic recessions, and it looks like it is here to stay.

But while office jobs and stable careers are collapsing around us like tower blocks, the holiday industry is booming.

Just because no one can afford to get on the property ladder or pay off their Littlewoods catalogue bills, they still want to escape the humdrum misery of life at home by going abroad on a two-week, all-inclusive package deal for ￡99.

And after four long, uneventful years studying for a maths degree, followed by ten tedious months at a call centre and that one night of soul-splintering, public disgrace in my local pub (that I now bitterly regret), I am in great need of escape myself.

‘I still think you’re just running away from the whole Dillon fiasco. You don’t have to prove a point, Maddie, love. So what if you humiliated yourself? You just have to move on.’

‘I am moving on.’

‘But we might never see you again!’

Oh. My. God. She’s so dramatic. ‘Of course you’ll see me again!’

She clasps her hands together, pleadingly. ‘He’s not worth it.’

Finally, something we agree on. ‘I know he’s not, but this has nothing to do with Dillon!’ I snap, my nerves wound too tight.

The truth is, it has everything to do with Dillon, my call centre supervisor, and the fact that I caught him cheating with Denise the barmaid from our local pub.

And when questioned he said it was because she had a spontaneous vagina (whatever that means) and a more progressive outlook (they’d run off to Blackpool for a dirty weekend), and apparently, she doesn’t wear the undies of a frumpy, no-nonsense, middle-aged Latin professor.

I had to deduce from the very short conversation to end our five-month relationship that Denise doesn’t shop for three-for-one bargains at Woolworths and is far more exciting in bed than me.

And I’m not going to lie; the conversation could have gone better.

An undignified incident occurred involving a pint of snakebite meeting Dillon’s head.

This was swiftly followed by a Cinzano Bianco and the smug barmaid’s heavily made-up face, and on learning that I was the last to know, some yelling that the pub was full of pathetic losers.

All of which caused mass upset among the local residents, resulting in a lifetime barring of me from the establishment.

I’ve never been barred from anything in my entire life.

Except from the local library book club for insisting they include non-fiction.

In particular, Fermat’s Last Theorem. Very insightful.

Drills right down to showcase the perseverance and ingenuity of relentlessly obsessive mathematicians.

I was appalled when it was categorically pooh-poohed by the group.

Anyway, the silver lining was that I went straight out to the jobcentre the following day and, before I could change my mind, applied for a job with LoveIt Holidays, who just happened to be in the area interviewing.

I have too much self-respect to keep working at the call centre, with Dillon as my supervisor.

And even though I have an aversion to impulsiveness in all its forms, I signed a contract and agreed to spend the next seven months in Turkey working in the LoveIt head office.

‘But your dad says he can get you something working at his place, can’t you, Ronnie?’ She digs him with her elbow when he fails to agree. ‘And she could start on the filing today, couldn’t she?’ She’s raising her eyebrows at Dad, but he’s shaking his head in an exasperated fashion.

‘At the butcher’s?’ I put my hands on my hips glancing down at my Choose Life Wham T-shirt.

Mum knows I’m thinking of becoming a vegetarian.

But my family of carnivores are very suspicious about it all.

They seem to think vegetarianism is a fad and are hoping it won’t catch on.

‘Why would they need an almost qualified accountant at the butcher’s?

Wouldn’t they rather have an apprentice who can turn a blind eye to what they’re putting in the sausage meat? ’

‘We had to let the last apprentice go. He kept crying,’ she says in a baffled tone that would suggest not only is she in charge, but that crying in the workplace isn’t such a big deal.

How is this not worrying? Honestly, if we’ve had this conversation once, we’ve had it a thousand times. I’m exhausted with it and haven’t slept properly for days. I need to shut it down quickly.

My father, while extraordinarily comfortable allowing us to discuss his employer’s workforce deficit and dubious practices without any reliable input or hard evidence, is visibly uncomfortable with this escalating tit-for-tat.

He clears his throat loudly. ‘Have you checked you’ve got your passport, traveller’s cheques, boarding card, love?

It’s probably time for you to get moving. ’

My dad is right. The gate will be closing soon and I still have to get through the security baggage checks, and the more my perpetually flustered mother goes on at me, the more nervous I feel about it all.

Luckily, there’s a Tannoy announcement for all passengers travelling to Dalaman, Turkey on Thompson flight TH494… followed by three muffled letters, and can they make their way to passport control at boarding gate muffled number.

‘Okay. That’s my flight. I guess this is it then.’

My mother begins to howl loudly, still trying to sob out career’s advice. ‘But you’re only twenty-three. Have you thought about becoming an Avon lady like your aunty Maureen? It’s not too late.’

Literally no thought to banking, insurance brokerage or these new jobs in computer engineering and mobile telecommunications that everyone is suddenly raving about.

Her bewildered eyes flicker briefly to my father.

‘Women like us don’t do things like this, we don’t have high-flying careers abroad!

’ she blurts. ‘Isn’t an account manager the sort of job a man should do? It’s so official sounding.’

What does she think I’ve been doing all these years at university? ‘Mother, it’s hardly Director of Operations for the United Nations.’ I blink deliberately slowly at her. ‘A woman is more than capable of doing any job that a man can do, you know.’

There’s a beat where she looks at me as though I’ve completely lost my mind.

Her mouth droops open, as if this unthinkable notion is clouding her ability to form the next sentence.

A brief line from my final year dissertation pops into my brain.

The average human will react in an adverse and regrettable manner to a situation at least twenty-seven times over the course of their lifespan.

And even more so if they have an overbearing, out-of-touch mother.

She is simply making me more determined to see this hasty and impulsive decision of mine through.

‘Call us when you get there, love,’ my mild-mannered dad says gently while my mother resumes her wailing.

‘I’ll try.’ I shrug helplessly. ‘I suppose I can use the landline in the LoveIt head office for emergencies.’

My mother stops howling. ‘No phones? No…’ She pauses to put a hand to her chest as she takes an unusually loud, and unnecessarily deep, inhale through her nostrils before continuing. ‘Not even a phone box at the end of the street?’

‘I’m not sure. But I’ll write instead. I’ll send a postcard. Apparently there might be a postal service once a month.’

It’s like a red rag to a bull. My mother is recovering herself at an alarming pace. ‘Once a month? Once a month! Is it a third-world country? How are the letters getting here? By carrier pigeon?’