The Sunshine Cruise Company Read online

  Lucas, Amanda and Fernanda the maid – who is busily making beds down the hall – are all treated very well by their employers, paid above the local rates and tipped heavily on their birthdays and holidays, the same employers who can now be heard laughing loudly out by the pool …

  The pool is large and tiled in aquamarine, with a frothing jacuzzi at one end. Ruth Steele is floating on a lounger in the late-morning sun, a Diet Coke nestling between her thighs, while Helen Davies, less of a sun-worshipper, is on a lounger in the shade of a parasol, reading the two-day-old copy of the Daily Mail which contains the article that just caused their laughter: a faintly hysterical piece on the ‘Arctic’ January cold snap that continues to grip the United Kingdom.

  Three years ago, when Ruth and Helen were still known respectively as Julie Wickham and Susan Frobisher, they strolled through the first-class fast track at Rio immigration with just under four million pounds in their hand baggage. No one gave them a second glance.

  They encountered a few problems thereafter of course. Buying a property in cash was never going to be straightforward. They took a suite at the Carlton in Rio for a few weeks and did some digging …

  This being Brazil and Julie being Julie they soon found someone who could put them in touch with a realtor who – for a not inconsiderable fee of course – was able to put them together with the kind of seller for whom a cash deal presented not a problem but an opportunity, resulting in the splendid five-bedroom, four-bathroom villa with pool and half an acre of gardens now presided over by Lucas, Amanda and Fernanda. Over drinks to celebrate the deal their vendor quietly introduced them to a banker who was also sympathetic to their situation and who – again for a reasonable fee – assisted them in opening the account where the just-over-two million US dollars they had left after the house purchase and sundry expenses (including a new Mercedes SLK apiece) is now parked at a rate of 5 per cent, earning them around 100,000 dollars a year in interest which they split as a salary.

  Their needs are simple. They eat, drink, swim and sightsee. They play cards and backgammon out under their lemon and orange trees. They are popular members of the small ex-pat community and routinely entertain guests and visit with others. No one ever doubts their story that they were partners in a very successful chain of hair salons back on the south-east coast of England who sold up at exactly the right time.

  They wake every day in their respective bedrooms, each with a balcony giving onto the pool and gardens, grinning with joy at the life they’ve made for themselves. So far, every morning has been Saturday morning, Christmas, the first day of the school holidays. And now, as Amanda heads out through the large kitchen to tell them lunch is ready, we leave them, the camera craning up and away, heading due north, over the grey Atlantic for a long, long way before whipping left, heading west and inland over the glittering billion-dollar battlements of Manhattan.

  Onto the island itself at the lower end, Wall Street, then zipping uptown on this chilly afternoon, the camera rocketing along 6th Avenue as though strapped to the bumper of one of the hurrying taxis. Arriving in Midtown, at Rockefeller Plaza and the studios of NBC television, where it zooms down many hallways before coming through the open door of a dressing room and an American voice saying—

  ‘How we doing in there?’

  The voice is coming from Trisha, the second assistant director on a programme called America Today! and it is directed towards the occupant of the make-up chair, facing a huge mirror surrounded by light bulbs: Mrs Ethel Merriman.

  ‘All good, darling,’ Ethel replies, ‘but I could do with having this fella freshened up …’ She is holding out an empty champagne glass which had, until a moment ago, contained a nice, strong Mimosa.

  ‘No problem!’ Trisha trills, taking the glass.

  Ethel burps happily and says, ‘Excuse me, love!’ to the nice giggling gay lad touching up her forehead.

  Ethel isn’t nervous – it’s her second time on the show. The first time was just over a year ago, upon the US hardback publication of her memoir I BRAKE FOR NO ONE! (the cover featured Ethel in her wheelchair giving the finger to the camera). Back then the book was simply a hot UK title with the curio value of having been written by a very elderly woman just out of prison. Since then, as everyone knows, the ‘frank, funny, upbeat tale’ of Ethel’s involvement in one of Britain’s biggest bank robberies and of her extraordinary life leading up to that moment has become a publishing phenomenon. It has been translated into thirty-seven languages with worldwide sales of over five million copies. The film, TV and documentary rights have all been sold for enormous sums with Helen Mirren slated to play Ethel.

  All of this has made Ethel a millionaire several times over as she enters her nineties.

  Her trial had been something. She had been charged with armed robbery, assaulting a police officer, illegal possession of firearms, obtaining a false passport, criminal damage, GBH and obstructing the course of justice. When the judge looked up to see how these charges were being received he saw that Ethel was eating a sheet of paper with a biro shoved up each nostril. She answered all questions in song and twice attempted to strip naked in court. It took the jury just fifteen minutes to find her guilty and another three minutes to accept her plea for diminished responsibility on the grounds of insanity. With time spent on remand taken into account Ethel served seven months in a low-level psychiatric institute, which was the time it took her to write IBFNO, as all her team now referred to it in emails.

  ‘OK, then. Here we go!’ an underling says, handing Ethel the fresh Mimosa. ‘Are we good? Shall we drink and roll?’

  ‘Lead on, Macduff …’ Ethel replies cheerily.

  Off they roll, down the corridor towards the set, where Ethel can already hear the laughter and applause of the audience, waiting to welcome her.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781448136384

  Version 1.0

  Published by William Heinemann 2015

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  Copyright © John Niven, 2015

  John Niven has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by William Heinemann

  William Heinemann

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  William Heinemann is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780434023189