Page 26 of Girls Just Want to Have Sun

‘Great night?’ I echo in disbelief.

‘Yeah,’ she says simply, giving me a vacant, questioning stare.

Really?

‘Remember when I started dry-humping Sister Kevin while he was trying to eat his curry and chips? They went everywhere,’ she recalls happily. Poor fella. It sounds more like assault to me.

Her face changes to a frown as her short-term memory returns in full and she goes on to say that Liberty was fingered at the bar and asks me if I thought that was bang out of order. I genuinely think it is, so I act all outraged. I wonder if the police were called. I’m pretty sure they’d take an unsolicited fingering very seriously.

Tash purses her lips. ‘I know! She’d already been with the Mother Superior. She’s just greedy. I mean, Liberty by name and liberty by friggin’ nature. Mind, we did have a very loud falling-out over it.’ She screws her eyes at me. ‘I think, anyway.’

I’m not sure how to react to that. ‘It’s been an intense twenty-four hours, what with your swollen ankle, Big Mand’s arm, Cherry almost drowning, the fire, the constant fingering and those photos of your gash all over Facebook,’ I say.

I could go on. In fact, I think I will.

‘And we haven’t even started rehearsing for tonight’s show. I mean, we should at least go down to The Jolly Roger to do a soundcheck this morning. Make sure they have all the equipment set up where we want it. We don’t want to show up at the last minute to find nothing works.’

Bit rich coming from the girl who set off this morning to do just that and forgot all about it the instant a six-pack was put in front of her.

‘Good idea.’ Tash stops halfway to a sunbed, glances up from her phone and sighs dramatically. ‘Oh no. Oh no, no, no.’

Christ almighty, what now?

‘It’s my phone. I forgot to plug it in last night. It’s only on 2 per cent. I’ll have to go back to bed and wait for it to charge up. We’ll do the run-through at the bar later. I promise.’

Who forgets to charge their phone?I experience a pang of pre-stage nerves and pat my pocket. All of my backing tracks are stored on my phone. Forgetting to charge it would be like a surgeon forgetting to clamp a main artery or a bomb-disposal expert forgetting to take his clippers.

It takes the girls another hour to get up and lounge by the pool. I am already swimming lengths, powering up and down with Big Sue, who has also promised that we will rehearse later, once the whole band is together.

Cherry wanders over. ‘This place stinks. Look at all that sick.’

‘It’s a disgrace. That’s what it is,’ says Liberty, plonking herself down onto the sunbed. ‘Someone needs to clean it up.’

Big Mand approaches with a frown on her face. I expect she will volunteer to clean it up. After all, she did start it.

‘I’ve just remembered,’ she says to Big Sue. ‘Who I was trying to think of last night. It’s Aquaman. You remind me of Aquaman,’ she says. ‘You’ve got incredible definition.’

Big Sue blushes.

And the pools of your vomit? Any thoughts about them?

Big Mand grabs a lilo and slips into the pool, playfully splashing Big Sue every time she tries to climb on. They seem oblivious to the unbearable stench.

‘It will take ages to clean the vomit off the patio now you’ve let it dry like that,’ I point out uneasily. ‘And it smells awful. You really should clean it up as soon as possible.’

I am met with an eerie silence, but I think I have made my point. Big Mand raises her sunglasses in an accusatory manner. Liberty does the same, her lips billowing out from her face. I wish I hadn’t bothered. A massive row breaks out between them all as to who had actually thrown up, ending with everyone denying it and glaring at me as if I had been the culprit.

I give up.

I spot a hose nearby and think I may as well hose the tiled pool area down and try to get the worst of it up. It is mostly a collection of blue, green and yellow puddles. After half an hour’s back-breaking work, I have finally managed to sloosh all of the sick into the drains away from the pool. Not one of them offers to help. I ask if we can talk about the song choices for the show so that we have no clashes, but the girls are so hungover that they can’t be bothered. Tash has emerged from her bedchamber with a bottle of Prosecco in each hand, announcing she needs to hydrate to get rid of her hangover.

‘But you could go to the shop and get more lemons,’ she adds. ‘You obviously didn’t get enough yesterday. Be a love and bring some glasses out, will you?’

I am baffled to find myself trotting to the kitchen to fetch them.Why?

‘Yeah, get me a pack of Fantas as well while you’re there, Connie, love!’ shouts Liberty from her sunlounger.

‘All that fingering must have brought on quite the thirst, has it?’ snipes Tash.

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