Page 37 of Old Girls on Deck

‘Perhaps five,’ Diana said, ‘if they aren’t too big.’

‘Take a spoonful and roll between your palms, lightly, delicately so they do not start to melt. And then plunge them into the melted chocolate, or perhaps the cocoa powder, or the shards of chocolate for some unusual effects.’

‘This is an unusual effect, don’t you think?’ I said, holding up my palms which were covered with truffle mix. ‘Perhaps my hands are too hot.’

‘And then place them on the sheet of silicone to set. You may wish to use a bamboo skewer to lift them, so as not to damage the shape.’

Feliz seemed to have non-stick hands; perhaps it was his years of experience? I on the other hand didn’t, and was covered.

‘And there you have it my friends, ten perfect truffles.’

I looked uncertainly at my offerings.

‘Well, one that looks like the cat’s had an accident, and the other two are a bit like slugs.’

‘Ah but wait until the decorations come out. You will be astonished how suddenly they look amusing and delightful,’ Diana said confidently. ‘I’ve got truffle mix in my watch strap. I really should have taken it off first.’

Time passed, Feliz helping the wiser ones who had stood at the front and ignoring the muffled laugher coming from the back of the room where we were.

‘And now my assistants will bring you your chilled decorations and I will show you what to do,’ he said.

Our little helper brought us some mangled sheets of polythene and shyly presented them to us with a sweet smile. What she was thinking was anyone’s guess.

By then Raphaël wasn’t pretending to be discreet, he was standing in front of us, his camera shutter whirring.

Feliz skilfully peeled a thin layer of perforated chocolate from his bubble wrap, and stuck dainty shards of it into his perfectly spherical truffles.

Diana and I found ourselves hacking lumps of chocolate off, scraping up the remains and trying to prise strands of plastic out of it.

‘Oh, flipping heck, I don’t think I’m much good at this,’ she said.

‘I’ve got a good idea. Let’s not start a small business making truffles.’

‘Agreed,’ she said, holding up a palm to high five me, and then thinking better of it.

‘There,’ I said, stepping back to admire my handiwork, ‘what do you think?’

Instead of ten perfect little treats, I had managed to make three muddy looking lumps. Diana had made five, but they were the size of marbles, not the generous ping-pong ball size of everyone else’s.

Raphaël had tactfully retreated to the side of the room and was examining the digital pictures he had taken. Occasionally he chuckled and shook his head.

‘But madame, what happened to the rest of it?’ Feliz said as he came to see how we had done.

‘No idea,’ I said, casually wiping my mouth with the corner of my apron, ‘perhaps my batch was faulty?’

8

‘I wonder if we could have a chat?’

We were sitting on two very comfortable sunbeds which Diana had found cleverly situated away from the sea breezes behind a glass windbreak. The weather had improved overnight, and now the ship was heading into the Mediterranean, the sky overhead was blue, the sun was shining down and there were even a few seabirds about, evidence we were closer to the coast than we had been. I had been enjoying a quiet hour reading while beside me Diana had been having a snooze, but if I was honest, the book wasn’t really grabbing me.

‘Raphaël. Yes, of course,’ Diana said.

I was wondering how long he had taken to find us. Perhaps one of us really had been secretly fitted with a tracking device?

‘Two things,’ he said, with another of his attractive smiles.

‘Go on.’