Read Online S.O.S. by Joseph Connolly - Free Book Online

everything.’
    â€˜Oh yeh they’ll
have
it. They’ll
have
it all right. It’s just Christ knows what they’re going to
cost
, yeh? It’s only the grub that’s all in, remember, and I told you, God, how totally bloody broke we are. I think that all I’m going to do till we get to New York is eat. I’ve decided. I’m going to eat and eat and eat until I bloody well explode. Maybe then I won’t have to buy food for the rest of the year.’
    â€˜We could’ve saved money by
flying
… They’ve got Tango as well. Want a Tango?’
    â€˜Yeh well. I don’t fly. As well you know. Anyway – flying, you don’t get all the food, yeh? Tango’s fine. No, actually – think I’ll stick with Coke.’
    â€˜Worried about mixing your drinks?’
    â€˜Oh
don’t
! I’d just bloody kill for a huge gin and tonic right
now
. We’ll just have to work bloody hard tonight and find some nice rich gentleman to buy them for us. You giggle – I’ll wiggle: that should do it. You know – I don’t know if I’ve really brought the right
things
for the – you know, for the evenings.’
    Stacy shrugged, and ripped her ring-pull. ‘What we’ve got is short and black. Don’t really see the problem. Bloody hell – it’s really gassy, this stuff. Don’t much like.’
    â€˜Oh God – look! Hally-bloody-loolia! They’ve justchanged the Two to a Three. Christ. How long is it going to be before they get to bloody Six? I should think that
Five
is probably the cargo and the livestock and the cars. Then they’ll get to bloody
us
. Oh look, Stacy – those seats are empty, now – let’s get them. I’m knackered, all this bloody hanging about.’
    â€˜You take my bag – I’ll get the drinks.’
    â€˜Anyway,’ resumed Jennifer – more or less as soon as the two of them were pretty much settled into a pair of bright green plastic bucket seats (they should, she had muttered – while her face went Oh Yuck as she shoved the last people’s coffee cups well under the table – have laid on four-bloody-poster beds, they keep you waiting about so long). ‘I hope the general level of men on the boat is higher than this lot round here. Think, Stacy, we ought to concentrate on the number Twos. Hey – what do you think the number
Ones
are going to be like? We didn’t even
see
any of those, did we? They were probably carried on earlier in those chairs, what are they? Sedan chair things. Or lowered from a helicopter.’
    â€˜The way you go on, you know, people might think that you’re looking for a husband. Isn’t that what old women are meant to do on cruises and stuff? How very cute.’
    â€˜Less of the bloody
old
, bloody Stacy. Thirty-nine – that’s hardly decrepit, is it? Not exactly
ancient
. We can’t
all
be sweet and fresh and young like
you
, bloody Stacy. Anyway – don’t
feel
thirty-nine. Feel like some dopey kid, most of the time.’
    â€˜Look like a dopey kid. It’s weird you don’t age. What’re you on?’
    â€˜Mm. I sometimes think that everything’s put on hold to get me nice and used to it, yeh? And then the minute I hit forty I’ll just simply self-destruct – quite literally fall to pieces. Just hope I’m not in Tesco when it happens.’
    â€˜You’re totally
nuts
 – you do know that?’
    â€˜And God – don’t please talk to me about
husbands
. Thelast two, thank you, were quite enough for one little lifetime, I think. I just – if I’m honest, you know, I just don’t understand why on earth people still do go and get married. Don’t you do it, Stace – it messes up your life, telling you.’
    â€˜Never
stop
telling me, do you? Yeh but