But no. By her latest headcount, there were at least fifty of them. The small coastal hotel had only been big enough to fit Kath and her rather vast television crew overnight, so the rest of them – the riders – had been parceled out amongst the guest houses dappled along the one and a bit streets that made up Ravenglass. (Raven, naturally, had been thrilled by the name and that the smattering of buildings made up a hamlet rather than a village because both Hamlet and Ophelia were apparently ‘proper goth icons’. That girl could put two and two together and come up with seventeen).
‘Sue?’ Flo held up the bowl of fruity yoghurt pots when Sue failed to rise. ‘They hadn’t put it out yet. Apparently there’s only the one poor girl on today.’ Raven leant in from beside her and made a can’t quite hear you face so Flo took matters into her own hands and brought the entire bowl over. Sue quietly thanked her as she selected a raspberry flavoured one from the handful of pots resting in ice then fastidiously went about opening and decanting it into her bowl.
Flo frowned. Sue was very quiet this morning. Nerves, most likely. She was feeling them too, but they were obviously manifesting themselves differently. Whenever she was nervous, she got very ‘helpy’. After she’d woken to the sound of Raven talking to herself in the loo, Flo sorted herself out in her usual expeditious fashion and in a matter of minutes had busied herself out on the street directing folk to the main hotel, back to the dining room, pointing out the long row of bicycles they’d be assigned after breakfast (no one was allowed to bring their own for some strange health and safety reason she hadn’t quite grasped) and all sorts of other things she would’ve imagined the ‘team organisers’ would’ve been all over but weren’t. All in all it had been a very busy morning. For her and the poor girl at the front desk, anyway.
‘I’m loving that eye make-up, Raven.’ Flo tapped the side of her own, more modestly adorned eyes, wondering if she’d gone with her more natural look a bit too soon in life. ‘You look like Cleopatra as one of those Marvel Superheroes.’
‘Cleopatra would’ve been an epic goth,’ Raven grinned a surprisingly toothy black-lipped smile as she dug into her bowl of Frosties.
Flo basked for a minute. A smile from Raven was one of those truly rewarding smiles. Rare. Like sightings of a white hippo. Perhaps not the best of similes and one she certainly wouldn’t share, but they were rare and lovely and Flo was pleased to have elicited one. Endorphins, she was guessing. The thrill of something new? Whatever it was, Raven had been quite the cheery little goth lately. Lovely to see. Just lovely.
It was just what she’d needed to see as, over the past week or so, Flo had been increasingly worried she’d bullied the pair of them onto the ride. She’d long had a habit of cajoling her fellow cabin crew into ‘little adventures’ away from the pool at the crew hotel. Adventures which eventually got her the nickname Fearless Flo. She’d taken it as a compliment at the time, but now that Jennifer had schooled her otherwise as regards her family adventures, she wondered if, in actual fact there hadn’t been a bit of an edge to it. A note of warning. ‘Join fearless Flo at your peril!’ As if it were her fault the tyres blew on the bus bringing them back from the rather excellent elephant polo match some forty miles outside of Delhi three hours before call.
As she watched Sue and Raven, cycling clothes on, exchanging quiet observations about their fellow riders, Flo was gripped with a desperate need for this to have been the right decision. Convincing Sue and Raven to ride with her. More than anything she hoped they were here by choice. Not force, or obligation or, even worse, guilt. She’d be horrified to discover they’d only come because they didn’t want the jobless, busy-body, old woman who’d all but commandeered their lives over the past couple of months, feel bad. They’d been like the perfect economy passengers for weeks now. Riding, collecting donations, doing the interviews with Kath though they’d both recoiled at the first mention of it. They’d proverbially accepted that they were getting sour cream and cheese pretzels rather than dry roasted peanuts and a glass of real champagne from the off. Not at all fussy like the Premium Economy passengers. Inventing allergies to Prosecco that didn’t extend to the champagne they happened to know was available in the First Class Cabin. Asking for a duvet from Business because they were feeling unwell. A baby to stop crying.
She’d found the door-to-door debt collecting quite fun. The second they answered the door Flo could assign the person to their cabin, their pre-booked dietary needs, their utter helplessness now that they were strapped into a seat ten thousand miles above sea level. Her favourites were the cheery sort who tended to sit back near the loo, flicking through Heat and Grazia and having a bit of a laugh, settling in to watch the latest Romcoms, eyes glittering with excitement when she pulled up with her trolley, whether or not she’d run out of the green peppercorn steak. They were the types who made sure they said something lovely about Gary. Who made Sue’s eyes glitter with tears of pride.
Feeling too restless to sit, Flo carried the yoghurts round to the other early bird cyclists already eating their Wheaties or Bran Flakes or tapping the table impatiently waiting for coffees or hot breakfasts that clearly wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon if the recent arrival of the chef and the queue at reception were anything to go
