my face in my pillow. ‘Do we really need another party?’
‘Wash your mouth out. Come on, let’s get tarted up. There might be some nice men on board –’
‘India! You’re engaged! You’re getting married in a few months!’
‘For you. Let me finish, will you! What do you take me for? There might be some nice men on board for you. I’m only trying to help!’ she said over her shoulder as she riffled through her luggage looking for the perfect outfit.
‘I don’t want a nice man,’ I grumbled, swinging my legs on to the floor. ‘I’ve only just got those CDs back from Ryan. And yes, I know it’s been months, but I’m not in any rush.’
I didn’t really want more cocktails either, to be honest. If anything, I wanted a nice cup of tea and a chocolate digestive.
‘Well, just a man then,’ India said. ‘Mum said you weren’t to come back without one.’
‘What, like a sensible coat for school or a puppy or something?’
India rolled her eyes. ‘You can be so boring these days. Come on, get a move on.’
The Captain’s cocktail party was in full swing by the time we got there. There was even a bloke in a white tuxedo playing the piano and grinning and nodding at us like Liberace as we came in.
We shook hands with the Captain, who was an imposing old salt with beetle brows and a weather-beaten complexion that spoke of many years before the mast. Then I had some more blue stuff and India chose a gin and tonic that she said could more accurately be called tonic and gin. We soon realised we were part of a select band that had been invited from Decks 11 and 12 only, so we felt rather special and important.
There were several of the bulky American matrons there who were ‘golly gosh darned thrilled’ to be in close proximity to the Captain and his First Officer, almost as though they were the celebrity remnants of a boy band. They clustered round taking selfies and asking whether he had met any royalty during his time at sea. When he mentioned a Spanish princess and a member of the Swedish aristocracy they looked a little confused and disappointed so he cheered them up by mentioning the Duchess of Devonshire and Princess Michael of Kent and they all started taking selfies again.
Outside the evening was darkening and, in the distance, I could see the lights of Manhattan shimmering and flashing just like every picture you’ve ever seen of them but more so. It was breathtaking.
‘Bloody hell,’ India said as we moved to the end of the room, ‘look over there! It’s her! It can’t be!’
I looked to see who she had spotted. A tiny woman in a white sequinned cocktail dress was standing smiling and tossing her abundant red hair about, surrounded by a posse of Japanese ladies who were taking selfies and twittering like a flock of hyperactive starlings. The woman looked familiar, as though we had unexpectedly encountered an old school friend. Who was she?
I looked blank for a moment. Beside me India fidgeted with exasperation at my ignorance.
‘It’s only Marnie bloody Miller,’ she said.
I gasped. ‘Marnie Miller? Of course!’
The name was almost as familiar as my own but I couldn’t for the moment remember why.
‘Marnie frigging Miller!’ India said, her voice a deferential whisper.
Then Marnie swished her trademark hair over her shoulder, flashed a dazzling smile and I suddenly remembered. The self-help guru, lifestyle authority, cookery expert, writer and sometime agony aunt? The woman with possibly the most envied lifestyle in the world? That Marnie Miller?
I almost wanted to rush over and take a selfie with her too. She was the one celebrity India and I had agreed on. We had devoured her books over the years, watched her on television, tried to make her healthy carob and beetroot brownies, bought her books on Christmas crafts and had even heard her Desert Island Discs. I’m not a massive fan of Iron Maiden but if Marnie Miller wanted to take ‘Two Minutes to Midnight’ with her as one of her eight records, they must have something going for them.
‘Bloody hell,’ I breathed.
We stood back, watching her signing autographs and posing prettily for her fans. Her impossible to emulate (trust me, we’d tried) red curls were flickering and shining under the lights as only very expensive hair can.
I’d not met many famous people before. Well, I’d seen Alan Titchmarsh when he was doing a programme in Cheltenham about urban trees and I tripped on one of the camera cables and nearly knocked him over. And I saw Helen Mirren riding a bike once. Well, I think it was Helen Mirren.
But to be in the same room as someone as famous as Marnie Miller was a bit different. I just wanted to stand really close and stare at her, which obviously would have been weird and freaky so I didn’t.
‘I wonder what she’s doing here?’ I said. ‘I mean she wouldn’t just be having a holiday, would she?’
‘Hardly. She’d be off to Necker Island with Bill Gates and Richard Branson if she wanted a holiday,’ India replied, slipping her lip gloss out of her clutch to reapply.
A large American woman in a purple jumpsuit, which had probably seemed like a good idea when she bought it, was also staring at Marnie and had overheard our conversation.
‘She’s running two courses on the ship,’ she said in a loud stage whisper.
‘No! What on?’ India said, rubbing her little finger over her lower lip, looking perfect once more. ‘Whatever it is I’m going to it.’
‘I think it’s something like Love Your Life,’ our new friend said. ‘And Your Story. Isn’t she wonderful? She gives of her time so freely. She does such a lot of charity work too. Orphans and clean water. The last time I saw her on a TV appeal I cried. I could hardly see my credit card through the tears.’
Down at the end of the room, Marnie Miller gave a merry laugh and hugged one woman who promptly started crying. Wow. It was like one of the gods had come down from Olympus.
‘Isn’t she just gorgeous?’ our companion breathed, shaking her head in wonderment. ‘So pretty and so unaffected. And a figure to die for too. She can’t be more than a size four. Just the cutest thing.’
We all turned to stare at her again for a few minutes and then the crowds suddenly parted.
‘Come on,’ India said, smoothing down her dress. ‘Let’s go and say hello.’
I wasn’t too sure I was ready to be so close to Marnie Miller, but India had always been braver than me in these situations. So I shook my hair back in an attempt to look confident and we strolled across the room towards Marnie, who looked at me, a ready smile on her face.
‘Oh, hello, ladies,’ she said, smiling with lots of teeth that had probably spent a great deal of time in the company of an orthodontist and a veneer specialist. ‘How lovely to meet you.’
Yes, it was definitely her: that very faint trace of a Scottish accent that was so attractive; the flawless skin and pocket rocket figure.
‘Lovely to meet
