Page 4 of Old Girls on Deck
‘Oh, how exciting, and only the other day you were saying you never win anything.’
‘Well, it’s not Premium Bonds or the Lottery. But this is almost as good. And you, Diana Wedderburn, are coming with me.’
‘I’m not going to Glastonbury,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard about the toilets. There’s no way…’
‘Not Glastonbury, don’t be daft. You’re not going to believe this. There is no one better equipped to come with me than you. It’s from Southampton to the Mediterranean.’
There was a long pause when I wondered for a moment if we had been cut off.
‘Really?’ She sounded less than enthusiastic.
‘Ferrets bite me if I lie. Steve “the Groover” Groove talked to me off the air afterwards, and he was really charming, well-spoken without that strange Lunnon accent he puts on, and he didn’t swear or anything. Then he put me on to Fiona the Fixer who told me all about it. Steve was making random calls to people and the first one to answer with “Ahoy there”, won the prize, and that was me. And it’s all thanks to you.’
‘Good heavens!’ Diana gasped, ‘Oh dear.’
‘It’s a ten-day cruise for two people to the Western Med on the Avanti. It’s the first leg of their world cruise. You know, that new cruise ship that’s just been launched. It had the maiden voyage about eight months ago and lots of people claimed to have norovirus. And some of the cabins flooded because a couple of pipes burst. I bet your husband would have been absolutely incandescent if he had been captain of that ship. There was all the fuss about people wanting refunds, you know, sad faces in front of the camera.’
‘I’d be sad too if I got norovirus and my cabin flooded. And yes, Casper would have been furious. It doesn’t bear thinking about. He used to do a lot of shouting, especially when the sunbeds weren’t put out properly.’
I pressed on. ‘So, because they had so much bad publicity, the Voyage Première cruise line decided to give away a prize, for some good publicity. And heaven help us, I won it.’
I felt another little burst of excitement at the prospect. A ten-day cruise. Wow.
‘But doesn’t Eddy want to come with you? Surely, he’d enjoy that?’ Diana said, sounding worried.
I bit down my disappointment at her lack of excitement. I’d have to handle this carefully, not storm in, all guns blazing, like I usually did. Married to a cruise captain, my sister had been all over the world. I on the other hand was married to Eddy who regarded holidays abroad as something to be avoided.
‘He says not. He says now he has retired he has plans for the garden next year. He’s decided he wants to start clearing away those scruffy flower beds by the French doors and build a patio. And he says it will be far easier to do it without me around, interfering and complaining about the noise and the making silly suggestions. He’s going to ask his brother and some friends to help. Like a boys’ project. With bigger tools. If you’ll excuse the expression.’
Diana sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. That’s very generous of him. But I bet he will change his mind.’
‘Oh, he won’t, you know Eddy. Once he gets a sniff of paving slabs and bags of concrete, he’ll be like a dog outside a butcher’s shop. And he said it would be more fun doing the patio without me, and I thought about being offended, but he’s probably right. Anyway, wouldn’t you like a change of scenery?’
My sister hesitated. ‘I’ve barely been anywhere since Casper died, actually. And with all the terrible things you hear on the news, I’m beginning to think it’s safer to stay close to home.’
‘You can’t live like that forever though,’ I said, biting down my frustration and trying to sound reassuring, ‘and what better way than this? We will have each other for company, everything will be organised for us. A car from the front door to the ship. Everything paid for.’
Diana made a doubting noise. ‘Except for the drinks. We’ll start drinking strange things at odd hours and we won’t really remember them until the final bill comes through. They slip it under the door in the middle of the night, like a poison pen letter. And then we’ll have an outraged half hour when we think of going down to the purser’s desk to complain, and then we start remembering. And we are rightly embarrassed and pay up.’
‘I suppose we get a receipt?’ I said.
‘After ten days you won’t care, or have them all in any sort of order,’ she said, ‘but if you are anything like me, you will have collected a lot of biros from the waiters. I’ve still got a few.’
I was cheered by this, it sounded almost as though she was coming around to the idea.
‘Well, we can deal with that when the time comes,’ I said, ‘but wouldn’t it be such fun? I mean what else would we be doing? It’s only ten days. And we can do what we like, no one else to consider.’
‘I really – I’m not sure. Let me think about it. I’d have to run it past Eric, he phoned me this morning.’
Eric was Casper’s younger brother, Diana’s now overbearing brother-in-law, who seemed to have assumed ownership of her since she had been widowed. In my opinion, this was because she was nearly always available for baby-sitting or ironing. He and his third, much younger wife, Rose, had recently had a baby. Rose had plenty of time to post videos on TikTok and Instagram of herself floating around the garden in a shady hat and flicky eyeliner or having lunch with ‘the girls’ but apparently not enough time to do the housework.
‘Oh yes, what did he want?’
‘He wants me to research tartan to wear to Sam’s wedding. He says he had an aunt who was a Campbell.’
‘Eric wrapped in a red and white soup label? Very Andy Warhol.’
Diana giggled. ‘I don’t think that’s quite what he had in mind.’