Maid for Advertising - Susie Tate Page 0,16

starfish on her covers in her tiny pajamas, and we had to be in the kitchen in five minutes or suffer the wrath of Short Man Syndrome himself. All our other bunkmates had already left.

I rolled my eyes. “Ki Ki, get your arse up you idiot.”

“I can’t move,’ she whined. “And I’m so tired of all the cockwombles on this boat.” She paused for a moment and then started singing/shouting Dolly Parton, 9 to 5, badly.

I’d put my hands on my hips at first but she was just so ridiculous that by the end of the first verse I was laughing. I flopped down next to her on the bed and sang the rest with her.

We were having such a shitty time on the boat that I closed my eyes and let myself have this moment to sing the chorus.

I dimly registered that Kira was quiet.

After I held the last note, the cabin filled with silence. I looked up at Kira who was now sitting up in the bed and staring at me with watery eyes.

“Buggering badgers,” she breathed. “That was insane. You’ve got a voice on you, girl. Every time I hear it it’s a massive shock. You should be up on some stadium stage somewhere, wowing an audience. Not serving drinks to a bunch of wankpuffins.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I’m a composer - at least, that’s what I want to be. Performing is . . .” I paused. In some ways I just couldn’t imagine letting my compositions be performed by someone else. There was a small part of me, buried deep under my insecurities, that knew I needed to be the one to do it. That even felt excited by the prospect. But somehow that part of me never seemed to win out. In truth, the negativity around my music from my family probably had a large part to play in my not wanting to perform it. “. . . not my gig. I come out in a stress rash if I ever have to go on a stage.”

“Hmm,” she said, rubbing her chin. “We’ll just see about that, young lady. Just you wait till Bunt Fest.”

I sighed as Kira raised her arms above her head and I pulled off her vest top. Everything about Kira was drama! But she was one of the funniest and kindest people I’d ever met.

She wasn’t completely right though - the boat wasn’t full of just wankpuffins, but there were a fair few of them. And I was now at peace with the fact that Jack was to be counted in their number. He’d been deliberately ignoring me since I arrived. Gone was the smiling, charming man who went out of his way to be kind to bar staff, and stood out among the other city boys as being genuinely decent and fun. He’d been replaced by an arrogant twat with a chip on his shoulder. Maybe he was worried that if he showed me any glimmer of attention I might embarrass him by attempting an actual conversation. It had hurt me that first night, but I was over it now. And besides, I had my own troubles to contend with.

The weight of the trays we had to carry, whether they were laden with food or champagne glasses, was insane. My feet ached, my arms ached and I had a constant headache from exhaustion. We only went to bed after all the guests had and last night that wasn’t until two in the morning. Even then I hadn’t been able to sleep. Not after I’d gone to check the main bathroom in the guest quarters and run into Stella emerging from Jack’s room with a smug smile on her face. Why I was disappointed I had no idea – it wasn’t like he was the wonderful man I had thought he was before this trip. But that didn’t stop my stupid eyes from stinging and the ache starting up in my chest as I scuttled back to the bunkroom, or change the fact that sleep had then evaded me for hours.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, this morning I’d had to get up three quarters of an hour early to check my blood sugar, inject my insulin and make sure I ate something low GI that would hopefully last me through the morning. Because once we started work at six there wasn’t really any time for breaks. Hence my blood sugar control was poor at best, and downright dangerous