‘Nope. Not according to Chippy from the club, just casual on the first night,’ said Nigel, again quoting from the Chippy Guide to Cruising. Pete had heard a lot of Chippy Craddock’s wisdom on the drive down. Chippy and his wife had notched up over twenty cruises. What he didn’t know about holidays on ships wasn’t worth talking about, said Nigel.
‘Ooh look, captain’s got the same name as me,’ said Nigel, showing Pete the front cover of the Mermaidia Today. ‘Captain Nigel O’Shaughnessy. All the best-looking men are called Nigel. Nigel Havers, Nigel Mansell, Nigel Benn . . .’
‘Dream on, Dad,’ said Pete, laughing at him. ‘When do we eat, I’m starving?’
‘We’re booked on a table at eight-thirty for eight,’ said Nigel.
Pete looked at his watch. ‘Eight-thirty? That’s two and a half hours away.’
‘Let’s go and get a drink and have a wander,’ said Nigel. ‘Do you think they’ll have a snooker table on board?’
*
Laurie put on a dark green satin cocktail dress for the first night’s dinner, then seeing everyone else was in casual clothes she turned abruptly and went back to change into trousers and a top. Lesson one, she thought.
She went down to the restaurant not feeling half as confident as she looked, smiling at a line of waiters who smiled first and said good evening to her. Already seated on her table were four middle-aged women and an elderly couple looking at menus. They looked a cheery bunch and welcomed her warmly. A waiter pulled a chair out for her, tucked her under the table and flapped a serviette open to place on her knee.
‘I could get used to this,’ she said, breaking the conversational ice.
‘Cruising by yourself are you?’ asked the older woman who had a lilting West Country accent.
‘Yes,’ replied Laurie, expecting everyone to burst into laughter at that and point their fingers.
‘First time?’ asked her husband.
‘Yep.’
‘I’m Don and this is my husband Bunty,’ she said.
‘No, you aren’t,’ said Don. ‘And that’s before she’s had a wine.’
That triggered off a tinkle of laughter and more introductions. The four women were Ven, Roz, Olive and Frankie and they were also from Yorkshire, although Olive said she lived in Cephalonia now, Frankie had moved to Cornwall and Ven had moved to a village in Hampshire because her husband was the captain of the ship. ‘He’ll be joining us,’ she said. ‘But not tonight.’
The four Yorkshire women were old school friends who were on the ship to celebrate their fiftieth birthdays. ‘We don’t get together much in person these days, as you can imagine with us living so far apart,’ Ven went on to explain to Laurie.
‘You’ll love cruising,’ said Frankie.
‘I’ll be honest, I’m pretty nervous about being a solo passenger,’ replied Laurie.
‘There are loads of them around. You can either hook up with them or do your own thing. You can always come and say hello to us of course,’ Ven went on. ‘We’re either doing a quiz in one of the downstairs bars, shopping or having a cocktail.’
‘Mostly the last one,’ chirped up Olive.
‘Have you booked any trips?’ asked Frankie.
‘I’ve booked everything,’ replied Laurie. ‘Visiting an Ice Hotel, a reindeer ride, a husky ride and an evening hunting the Northern Lights.’
‘We’ve been up to Norway two years running now and we’ve haven’t seen them once,’ said Don, cutting into his steak as if it was directly responsible for causing the nonsighting. ‘Then blow me, my neighbour went up to Scotland and saw them just before Christmas in Aberdeen.’
‘Our neighbour’s a bloody liar,’ said Bunty. ‘He said that just to annoy you.’
‘He had pictures,’ said Don.
‘He’ll have photographed other people’s photos, the lying hound,’ said Bunty. ‘He’s one of those that has to have done what you’ve never managed to do.’
‘I’ve seen them every time I’ve come up here,’ said Ven.
‘You’re our lucky charm then, are you?’ said Don.
‘She is,’ said Frankie and winked at the captain’s wife. ‘Don’t you worry. We’ll see the lights if Ven is on board.’
*
‘This is my lovely wife Doreen and I am Vernon Turbot, of Turbot fish and chip establishments. If you’re from our part of Yorkshire, you’ll have heard of me,’ said the elderly gentleman, introducing himself to Pete and Nigel at their dining table.
‘I have heard of them of course,’ said Nigel, shaking his hand. ‘My, it’s a small world.’
‘There seem to be a lot of Yorkshire people on this ship,’ said Gerry from Herefordshire – he wouldn’t narrow it down any further where he came from, in case one of the Yorkshire people traced his house and arranged to have it burgled while he was away, Nigel would say later. Gerry was on the ship with his wife Sylvia and their daughter Susan who – Nigel would also say later – looked like a hamster.
‘Is this your first cruise?’ said Gerry to Vernon.
‘No, it’s our forty-eighth,’ said Vernon, closing down Gerry’s chance to brag about his thirty-two. ‘We’re late starters, Doreen and I, so we thought Caveat Emptor, as the Romans used to say. You’re only here once.’
He’s got that wrong, thought Pete, but Vernon said it with such conviction that Pete wondered if it was actually the Romans who’d had it wrong all this time.
‘Must be a lot of money in fish and chips,’ said Sylvia with a haughty trill of laughter.
‘And peas,’ said Vernon. ‘Best mushy peas in the country.’
Pete liked Vernon and Doreen from the off. Not so much the Gerry trio.
‘And what do you do for a living?’ asked Sylvia, shifting her attention to Pete and Nigel.
‘I’m a retired joiner,’ said Nigel, answering for them. ‘Pete’s a fireman.’
Nigel would swear later that it was at this point he heard Susan’s pants hitting the floor. She looked like a woman who had never been kissed, never even seen a pair of lips puckered in her direction but who dreamed every night of being carried off and ravaged by Jason Momoa.
‘Very noble profession, fighting fire,’ said Gerry, chest puffing in anticipation of delivering his next words. ‘I was a tax investigative officer and so was Sylvia.’
‘Ah, snoops, you mean,’ said Vernon, enjoying goading this fleshy toad of a man. This particular comment set Gerry’s trio of chins wobbling for all they were worth.
‘Fraud costs the decent taxpayers a lot of money,’ said Gerry. ‘My beautiful daughter has followed firmly in my footsteps.’
‘How many daughters have you got?’ asked Vernon, looking confused.
‘Just the one,’ said Gerry.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Vernon. ‘You mean this daughter then?’
The waiter rescued the situation by arriving to take their order.
‘So did you catch a lot of people dodging taxes?’ asked Doreen.
‘Gerry holds the record for most prosecutions,’ said Sylvia proudly. ‘Quite a few from Yorkshire.’