Pan in.
Lillian is standing in the middle of Amy’s lounge room in a sailors suit. She is clutching her wallet and her passport and her tickets in her hand. Her suitcase is sitting next to her. “Five minutes darling and the Uber will be here.”
“I’m nearly ready,” calls Amy from some where inside the house.
Lillian is wearing huge tortoise shell sunglasses, she feels safe behind them, and a wide brimmed straw hat, she feels safe under it. Her skin is pulled magically tight, she thinks, as she glances at herself in the mirror over the mantel.
A car pulls up out the front, the front door is open so the street is clearly visible.
Lillian moves her case to the front veranda. “Oh come on darling,” says Lillian. “My scars will have fully healed by the time you get yourself out here.”
The Uber is a rather ungainly tall-boy designed car, with a rather small luggage compartment, which only saving grace is that it fits Lillian’s wide brimmed straw hat in without a worry. Amy looks poured into the seat next to Lillian, her belongings some how piled up on top of her.
“I think that was quite unfair,” says Amy. “You rushing me like that.”
The driver is African and speaks with an accent.
“The dock,” thank you driver,” says Lillian.
The driver doesn’t seem to know what that is.
“The dock. Boats?” says Lillian. “We are going on a cruise.”
“Sorry?”
“To the port,” says Amy.
The driver looks around at Amy and smiles.
“Oh never mind,” purrs Lillian. “I’ll direct you. Take a right at the end of the street.”
The ship is big and exciting.
“Sexy, isn’t,” says Lillian when she first looks at their luxury liner.
“It’s big, isn’t it,” says Amy.
Amy and Lillian have a two-bedroom suit on the upper deck with views of the ocean. They get settled quickly into their luxury surroundings.
There is a Captain’s Dinner celebrating their departure. Dress formally. The captain leads the feast. They all stay up late and party the night away.
The morning is slow. Amy sits at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Lillian appears in a black one-piece bathing suit, enormous black sunglasses and a straw sun hat. She removes her glasses. “I’m going to hang out at the pool.”
“You just think Rodolfo will be there,” says Amy.
“You say that like it is a bad thing,” says Lillian.
“Oh, I don’t mean to.”
“I’m hoping it will be a bad thing,” says Lillian. She laughs. “And Rodolfo being the swimming instructor, there is a fair bet he’ll be there.”
“I’m glad we got separate rooms,” says Amy.
“Why do you think I insisted,” says Lillian.
“Did you see that boy in his speedos?”
Lillian smiles. She puts on her over sized sunglasses and exits the cabin.
There are sunset drinks on one of the upper decks, everybody dresses up in cocktail frocks and drink and eat.
Lillian gets drunk and goes back to Rodolfo’s cabin.
The sun has come up, Lillian has just come in. She closes the front door, as Amy comes out of her room in her nightie with cold cream on her face.
“Oh my, my, my, my.”
“Good morning,” says Amy. “How was your night?”
“Oh my, my, my, my.”
“You have been repeating that ever since you got back,” says Amy.
“Oh Amy…”
“Lillian?”
“It was so quick, and, and, and, impersonal,” says Lillian. “I’ve never…” She laughs.
“Never…” Amy looks questioningly.
“I should have tried a few more before I married Denis,” says Lillian. “That is clear to me now.”
“You did try a few more before Denis.”
“Well, I should have tried a few more than that.”
“So Rodolfo was good?”
“I can tell you he is anatomically correct,” says Lillian. “Goodness me.” She laughs. “I’d recommend it.”
“Oh, Lillian,” says Amy. “I’ve only ever been with Carl.”
“As untrue as that statement is,” says Lillian. “Oddly, that is rather my point, luv.”
“What ever do you mean?”
“Well, it wasn’t really just Carl, now was it? Who do you think you are talking to?” says Lillian. “But, be that as it may, I have no idea what is stopping you getting back on the horse now?”
The ship is huge. The two women get dressed up and head out to dinner. In their first state of sobriety since that have been on board, it is as if they are seeing the ship a new again. The dinning room is immense and exciting, all colour and movement and filled with people. Lillian stops them at the door, by putting her left arm in front of Amy. Lillian closes her eyes and takes a big breath, she looks at Amy when she opens them again. “Party time.”
The ship, it is like a palace on the water, it is like one huge luxurious shopping centre, it is like being shut in a casino for a week of parting.
The discos throb all night, the girls are up every night dancing, pissed on too many glasses of chardonnay. Sleeping away the morning. Surfacing at lunchtime for the buffet. A little herb therapy after lunch, “On the poop deck,” laughs Lillian. Sitting by the pool in the afternoon. Dressing for dinner. After dinner drinks. Change of clothes for the nightclub. Repeat. Amy and Lillian are exhausted.
Lillian finds a Taiwanese man, named Howard, who sells cocaine on board, so of course she buys a couple of bags. “Think of it as a lazy stash.” That is inhaled with much enthusiasm for the good part of the time they are on the water together.
Lillian humps Rodolfo like a woman possessed.
The sun is shinning, the sky is blue overhead. Lillian is on a chaise by the pool. The water reflects the sky. She is reading.
Amy is a sleep on a chaise next to her, her towel pulled over her face.
Lillian puts her book down on the white plastic table next to her. She takes a hand rolled cigarette from a silver cigarette case and lights it with her silver lighter, held in her talons, her white painted nails.
The sun shines on Amy’s smooth face.
“You are going to have to give them up, if you want, you-know-what, to work.”
“I’ll just have more you-know-what, to get rid of the effects,” says Lillian. “It was a doddle.”
“You’ll end up like those trout pout Hollywood stars.”
“Show me the brochure,” says Lillian. “My old life is behind me, and meeting people now a days is meeting new people. None of them know what I look like from one day to the next.”
Amy holds out a painted talon for the joint.
“I thought you said you were giving up?”
“No, I said you were giving up.”
Lillian hands the joint to Amy. “If my children could see me now,” says Amy.
“My children would stab me,” says Lillian.
The two women laugh.
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