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The Plumber and the Shower Girl

Nora McDonald

    “I have to have a shower!”
    Ally’s voice was strident.
    April looked at her friend standing stark naked, apart from a shower cap, in the shower and felt intrusive. It was the scream from the bathroom that had got her here in the first place.
    “You don’t have to have a shower!” she said. “You won’t die without one!”
    “Yes, I do!” said Ally, petulantly. “I have to wash my hair!”
    “You washed it last night!” said April.
    “So? I wash it every night!”
    “Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?” retorted April.
    Ally and she were best friends but, since they’d come away on holiday to Corfu together, there had been several disagreements.
    “There’s no way I’m going down to dinner without a shower,” said Ally.
    April sighed, spotting the familiar big puddle of water on the bathroom floor.
    “It looks like you’ve had one,” she said sarcastically.
    “It was cold! Freezing! And it came out of the wrong place!” said Ally. “It’s all the maid’s fault!”
    “I don’t see how the maid figures in all this,” said April, carefully circumnavigating the ocean of water on the floor in an effort to remain upright. Last time she’d rallied to Ally’s rescue, which seemed every day, her flip-flops had skidded like some over-zealous ice-skater on the wash of water on the bathroom floor and she’d ended up on her back, luckily without injury.
    “She’s changed the setting on the shower!” whined Ally. “It used to come out here!”
    Ally pointed to the large, rectangular, modern overhead shower-head. Then her hand moved.
    “Now it’s coming out here!”
    She was pointing at what looked like a removable hand held shower located on the back wall of the shower.
    “How the hell do you change it?” she squealed.
    April pushed past the naked body of her friend and peered in the dark gloom of the shower cabinet at the contraption. It had already taken them practically a week to try and figure out how the shower worked. Some devious designer seemed to have gone out of his way to try and trick any tourist who was foolish enough to want to stay in the four star refurbished hotel room.
    “We should have asked reception the first day we were here,” said April, but there had been no time. Ally had jumped in the shower straightaway on their arrival, amid squeals of horror at the gush of cold water that had emanated from the enormous, rectangular, inescapable, overhead metal shower plate.
    “It must be up or down,” April had said that first night, studying the large, chrome cuboid of a shower handle..
    “Ow! That’s freezing!” Ally had said, jumping back in horror..
    “Well, it must be down then!” said April, moving the control down.
    Ally held her hand tentatively under the thick curtain of water that was coming down from a hundred tiny holes in the shower plate.
    “Ouch! It’s still freezing!”
    “We’d better call reception,” April had said that first night.
    “At this hour!” Ally had said. “There’ll be no one to come!”
    “Well, you’ll just not be able to have a shower then!” said April, secretly glad. She was tired and just wanted to go to bed after the long journey by plane and coach.
    “I have to have a shower!” Ally had retorted, pulling the chrome knob in directions the compass would not have approved of
    April had sighed and retreated to the bedroom. How was she going to stand two weeks of this? Ally was her best friend but that was all they had in common. Everything else about Ally irritated the hell out of April, who’d always thought herself tolerant until she’d hitched up with her friend. This was just one more irritation. Why the hell did Ally have to have a shower morning and night?
    “I need to look my best!” Ally had said in one rare disclosure, that first week, “if I’m to attract my Greek shipping magnate.”
    They’d both laughed at that, in agreement for once.
    But after the first few days, April had wondered when Ally would find time to meet him. The time she took to get ready, he would have sailed to all of the Greek islands and home again
    There had been a shout of euphoria that first night from the bathroom which had sent April running back to the bathroom.
    “You tilt it out at this angle!” said Ally, triumphantly. The chrome cuboid of a shower handle looked distinctly uncomfortable at his 179 degree angle.
    “Are you sure that’s right?” April had said, thinking the designer would either have a heart attack if he saw it or he had a devilish sense of humour. “It looks as if it’s about to fall off!”
    “Well, the water’s hot, so I’m not caring!” said Ally, ruthlessly.
    April retreated from the bathroom, trying to avert the visions of impending disaster that kept torturing her like an ever approaching tsunami.
    With no escape.
    Weren’t holidays meant to be fun?
    She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had fun. Every holiday since her divorce had been a disaster. The ones alone and the ones with Ally.
    She remembered the one last year.
    Ally and she had gone to Cyprus. Ally had been having her second shower of the day after they’d returned from a stifling, sun-soaked day at the beach during which Ally, who always maintained she had to spend the whole day there sun-bathing, had spent most of the time surveying the beach for potential partners. None of who had appeared within a five mile radius of her. Does she never give up? thought April. Did she really believe she would meet a Greek shipping magnate on a public beach in Cyprus?
    By the second week of the holiday, the search for potential suitors had worn April to a frazzle. Didn’t Ally realise she was better off single? What was so great about men anyway? April had been tired. Ally had dragged her out every evening till two, kept her up talking all night due to an overdose of alcoholic beverages and subjected her to a drench of discourse about the difficulties of finding an available man.
    Maybe you should stop looking, April had thought.
    She had.
    The balcony had been April’s only escape the whole holiday. April had escaped there late one afternoon while Ally had her second shower of the day. April had breathed a sigh of relief. The sound of the running water was wonderful. All too soon it stopped.
    Ally slid back the patio door that April had left partially open. Ally was wrapped in a white bath towel. April herself, too tired to change and the bathroom completely out of her control, was still in her beach gear.
    “I’ll just get my cigarettes,” said Ally.
    April sighed. Now she’d be pickled to death. Didn’t Ally realise her smoking would deter any potential suitors?
    “Right, now I can relax,” said Ally, slamming the patio door behind her.
    “No!” April had yelled.
    But it was too late. They were locked out on the balcony.
    “There’s no way to get back in!” April had said.
    “Of course there is,” Ally had said, trying to squeeze her newly painted nails in the crack to force the door open.
    But April knew she was wasting her time.
    “We’re locked out!” she’d said woefully.
    “Well, we’ll just need to attract someone’s attention!” said Ally.
    “Right,” thought April, surveying the plethora of empty balconies around her. It was mid-afternoon. Everyone was still at the beach. Except Ally who’d had to come back to have her second shower of the day.
    They’d attracted attention all right. But not the kind Ally or she wanted. The whole hotel was talking about it the next day. The fact they’d managed to finally, after an hour on the balcony, attract the attention of another guest who had phoned reception and arranged for someone to come up and let them back into their room.
    April had sworn then she wasn’t going on holiday with Ally again.
    But here she was, one year later.
    Beggars can’t be choosers, she thought.
    “I never have problems going away with anyone else,” said Ally. “It’s you! You’re a jinx!”
    “Me!” April had thought. Me!
    But she’d said nothing then. And nothing on this holiday.
    Not that this holiday had been short of drama either. Take that incident today. On the way back from the beach, an elderly Greek woman had rolled down her car window and shouted at them.
    “I read your palm.”
    April had carried on walking but Ally had rushed over to the window of the car and said, “How much?”
    “Only ten euros,” she’d said.
    Ally’s hand was outstretched quickly after thrusting the note into her hand.
    “You have much heartache,” she said to Ally.
    Tears formed in Ally’s eyes.
    “But you meet man. Nice man.”
    Ally brightened instantly, all thought of previous tragedies toppled.
    “I give you reading,” the old woman said to April.
    April laughed and shook her head.
    “Me and men don’t go together!” she said.
    “Give me! Give me!” the old woman insisted.
    April stretched out her hand reluctantly.
    “You meet very rich man,” she said.
    “Me, too?” said Ally.
    The old woman shook her head.
    “That’s not fair!” Ally had said on their return from the beach. “You’re not interested in rich men! It’s me who wants one!”
    “Don’t tell me you believe all that guff?” April said, incredulously.
    But April knew, at Ally’s petulant face, that she did.
    Was there no peace to be had?
    April retreated to her bit of the balcony she had reserved for herself. Five minutes peace while Ally had her shower.
    A piercing scream came from the shower. April rushed to the rescue.
    Had Ally injured herself? Was she ill?
    She flung open the bathroom door.
    Ally was standing in the middle of the bathroom floor, a towel covering her front only.
    “The water’s freezing!” she said.
    Was that all?
    April put her hand under the shower head. Sure enough, the water was cold.
    “It’s not good enough!” Ally complained.
    April manipulated the shower controls. The water was still cold.
    “We’ll need to call reception,” she said. “They’ll need to send someone up to fix it.”
    “Not like this! no one can come up while I’m like this!” Ally said.
    “You can get dressed,” said April.
    “I can’t get dressed! I haven’t had my shower!”
    Oh, for God’s sake! thought April, her hand already on the phone to reception.
    They didn’t have long to wait. There was a tap at the door. April opened it. A smiling, handsome face said, “You have problem with shower?”
    April nodded in the direction of the shower.
    Ally appeared, towel to the fore.
    “I’ll leave you to deal with it!” April said.
    She had had enough of Ally’s demands. She’d find some peace at reception.
    Ally mouthed, Don’t leave me!
    But April had already gone.
    That’s the last time I’m going on holiday with Ally, she thought.
    And she didn’t.
    The plumber went.
    Ally met her nice man after all.
    April has believed in foretelling the future since that day.
    “You got back in all right?”
    April looked up from reading her book in reception.
    The face looked familiar.
    “Back into your room in Cyprus, last year?”
    She nodded.
    Then she recognised the face. It was the man they’d shouted to on his balcony in Cyprus to rescue them.
    What was he doing in Corfu?
    He seemed to read her thoughts.
    “I own the Cyprus hotel. And this one,” he said.
    He smiled. His face lit up with laughter. It was a lovely face.
    “You gave us all tons to talk about!”
    April felt herself blush. But she wasn’t sure if it was from the embarrassment of what the man said or the ardent way he was looking at her.
    April doesn’t resent Ally any more. How could she? If it hadn’t been for Ally, the shower girl, and her plumber, she’d never have met her rich man.
    And the fortune teller? April’s often seen her plying her skills at the beach. Don’t avoid her, if you see her. She could change your life.
    April and Ally don’t go on holidays together any more. It’s better that way. That’s why they’re still friends.
    It’s funny how life never turns out the way you’d expect, isn’t it?
    There’s only one consolation. It’s usually better.
    And Ally? Is she jealous of April marrying a rich Greek shipping magnate who owns lots of hotels?
    How could she be?
    Everyone knows how scarce good plumbers are.
    And what the few good ones earn.

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