Page 2 of Old Girls on Deck
‘Who’s that? The chap from the council about the recycling?’
‘Steve “the Groover” Groove. Off the radio. Apparently I’ve won a cruise.’
‘Really? That’s nice. Are there any Jaffa Cakes?’
I rolled my eyes. Eddy loves Jaffa Cakes with a passion and I hide them from him in empty cereal boxes. The promise of them had meant I have been able to wangle many things out of him. Not least a shopping trip to Cribbs Causeway last Christmas and a holiday in France instead of Cornwall for once.
‘Did you hear what I just said? I’ve won a ten-day cruise to the Mediterranean.’
He looked thoughtful. ‘Hmm. A cruise. When is it? You should take Diana, she knows all about life on board ship, and she could do with cheering up, don’t you think?’
I was quite shocked for a moment. ‘Don’t you want to come with me?’
I was a bit miffed at his reaction. At how rapidly he had declined to come and found me a travelling companion in the space of five seconds.
Eddy chuckled. ‘I get seasick going over the Severn Bridge, remember?’
Well, yes, that was true, but even so, I wasn’t that awful a holiday companion, was I?
He opened and closed a few cupboard doors in his search for other biscuits, despite the fact that they are and always have been in the pantry, in a plastic box with one of the postman’s red, elastic bands round it to keep the mice out.
I say ‘search’, Eddy did what most men do, gave a perfunctory glance around the shelves, and prodded a couple of tins with a dissatisfied finger before admitting defeat. I could probably hide a submachine gun in the fridge, and he wouldn’t notice if it was behind the milk.
But back to the prospect of a free holiday. I tried to persuade him.
‘Yes but… I mean a free cruise. Sightseeing, entertainment, excitement, gala nights, lovely food. We could properly celebrate your retirement. You watched that programme with me, about cruising with Jane McDonald. It looked like fun.’
Eddy came back out of the pantry triumphantly after a second look, with a multipack of KitKats in this hand and looked pensive.
‘Well maybe. But it would be more fun for me, if you were away for ten days, and then I could build the patio I’ve been thinking about. I could get Simon and Big Tommy to help, and Billy, they’d enjoy it too. By the time you came back it would be finished and you wouldn’t be able to complain about the noise or the mud or anything.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
More fun for me if you were away for ten days. What?
How insulting was that? Although the idea of a patio had been floating around between us for about ten years and nothing had been done about it. Nor had the pergola I asked for materialised, and we had been talking about doing that since we moved in twenty-four years ago. We had both agreed it would be a nice idea to have one in a secluded corner of the garden. Now we both had more free time, it had become something that would be really useful. I imagined us sitting out on a balmy summer evening, drinking wine with various friends.
At that moment the phone rang again with a London number, and I pounced on it.
‘Hello, lucky winner! This is Steve “the Groover” Groove, who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?’
‘Jill “the Joker” Parker,’ I replied, not to be outdone.
More choking laughter.
‘You’re a one, I can tell that already, Jill,’ he replied. ‘Now then, I’m going to put you on to one of my researchers who will fill you in on all the details. Where you will be going and when. All we ask is that you agree that the ship’s photographer can take some publicity shots of you during the voyage. Nothing intrusive, but the Voyage Première people want to use this as some good publicity, after all the negative stuff they had on the maiden voyage. I’m sure you remember that?’
I did, it had been all over the papers a few months ago. People being ill – they claimed it was norovirus, I think – problems with the drains and the air conditioning, not to mention the weather in the Baltic, which had been terrible. There wasn’t much point paying for an upgrade and having a balcony if it was covered in sleet.
‘Sounds okay to me,’ I said cheerfully, throwing a hard look at Eddy. But he was eating a KitKat and flicking through an old tool hire booklet, because heaven forbid, I ever throw them away. There is a special basket for all his catalogues, which is full of them and overflowing onto the worktop. ‘Tool Porn,’ I call it. Still, I’m the same with the Lakeland brochures.
‘Excellent, right, hold on and I’ll get Fiona the Fixer to speak to you, and happy sailing!’
Fiona the Fixer, who sounded very young and overexcited, as though she had been mainlining double espressos all morning, spoke to me at length about the details while Eddy continued opening the post and chuckled with glee as he held up the new Screwfix catalogue as though he had just won an Oscar. Each to their own, I suppose.
Actually, if I thought about it, Diana probably would enjoy this trip if I could persuade her to go. She’d been getting a bit odd in recent months. Not reclusive, exactly, just not her old self. Not the sister I remembered. And let’s be honest, Eddy wouldn’t have much fun if he spent ten days hanging over the ship’s rail throwing up and complaining.
Then, with Fiona’s eager promises of emails, communication and all the information I would need, I took the last shirt from the laundry basket, switched the grimacing, brave detective on again, and marvelled as he drove like a maniac through the streets of Manhattan, went into another abandoned warehouse (were there really that many, and if so, why?) and shouted at some criminals who had thought it was a good place for their nefarious activities.