Page 86 of Old Girls on Deck
I meanwhile was sending a long message to Eddy and the boys, along with some more pictures of our adventures, only briefly and casually mentioning the unscheduled overnight drive from Pompeii to Messina. I would undoubtedly tell Eddy the full story when I saw him, and knowing me, embellish it to make it more exciting. Five minutes later I had a reply from my younger son, Luke, which in itself was unheard of. As I read it I started chuckling, and then laughing so much the tears came to my eyes.
Luke
Mum, what on earth are you playing at? Are you ok? The three of you missed the boat and had to get a lift from some random stranger and a man you didn’t know? Are you crazy? What if they had been drunk or turned nasty and you and you friends were robbed? Or drugged? Or been in an accident? Or lost your passports? How would you have got home then? I’m glad it all ended up okay but please be more careful in future. I don’t want to worry about you.
‘What’s so funny?’ Diana said as she tried on another cardigan she had bought in the ship’s shop. She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of them already – mostly blue or black but the new one was a bright, lemon yellow; a colour I had not known her to wear since we were children.
I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes. ‘It’s Luke. Being outraged that we missed the ship and got in a car with a stranger. He’s saying all the same things I have said to him and his brother over the years. I’ve got a good mind to reply using the exact words he did. “Duh. Chill Mum, nothing happened. You worry too much.” Ooops here’s another one!’
This time it was from Joe.
Joe
Mum, Luke just told me you missed the ship and had to hitch hike through Italy. Is this true? Does Dad know? Where are you? You’ve got to be more careful.
‘Well at least he didn’t say at your age,’ I said. ‘I’ve a good mind to do what they always do and not reply. Then they’ll know how it feels.’
‘I never knew half the time what Sam was up to or with whom,’ Diana said. ‘He travelled all over the place, hitch hiking with random friends. I think about it now and my blood runs cold. The only time he ever rang me was when he was fifteen, and he had sneaked out and gone to France for the weekend with a couple of his friends from boarding school. They paid for a single room in some terrible place and then all crept in. Of course they were rumbled and the three of them were chucked out at four in the morning. And then they were chased down the street by a policeman, but when he caught them he just handed them back some socks they had dropped on the pavement. I had to transfer some money into Sam’s bank account otherwise he couldn’t have afforded the ferry home. Casper got involved then, and I can assure you, gave the headmaster a right earful.’
‘It will give Luke a taste of his own medicine,’ I said, still chuckling, ‘to imagine his sensible mother having an adventure. Golly, the number of times I had to go out at all hours to rescue him from missed trains and cancelled buses.’
‘Let’s not do that today though,’ Diana said. ‘I’ve had enough excitement for now. And we are booked on a proper coach tour to the Akrotiri excavations, so there should be other people responsible for herding us around. Right, I’m just going to cut the tags off this cardigan and then I’ll be ready to go. Let’s see if Evelyn is coming.’
‘She might want to stay behind and rest her ankle.’
When I suggested it, Evelyn looked outraged at the very idea.
‘I have one of Douglas’s walking sticks, and I shall use that,’ she said.
I weakened in the end and sent a very brief message to my sons, leaving out all the interesting bits and reassuring them I was back where I belonged on the ship. And then I sent them a picture of Genova which I had taken at the ferry, just before she left us.
This provoked an almost instant and predictable reply.
Joe
Who is that? She’s hot.
The tender took us ashore where a coach was waiting for us, plus a young man in baggy cargo pants and a cheesecloth shirt, standing holding up a board with the number 4 clearly displayed.
‘Don’t let him out of your sight,’ I muttered. ‘After last time, where he goes, we go.’
The coach took us up the winding road, with a number of alarming hairpin bends which gave us the most wonderful views of the sea below. We could see the bulk of the Avanti, gleaming brightly in the morning sunshine, but reduced now to toy-like scale.
The young man, who was called Enrico and had counted us all on, very seriously, started his commentary.
‘The volcanic eruptions that buried Akrotiri happened about three and a half thousand years ago, was one of the largest eruptions ever known, and created the caldera you see below you. It is believed that the island gave rise to the story of Atlantis. There have been eruptions since, but they were minor. There was some destruction of smaller islands, tsunamis, and fatal gas emissions…’
‘What the heck are we doing here? We are going from one disaster zone to another. I had no idea!’ Diana said.
‘Another ancient city destroyed by a volcanic eruption,’ Evelyn said. ‘Do you think we are pushing our luck?’
‘Ladies, there hasn’t been an eruption here since 1950,’ Enrico said cheerfully. ‘A very long time ago.’
‘Not that long,’ Evelyn murmured.
We got off the coach and walked past some beautifully built stone walls, past a large, canopied cafe, which had Thelma wondering loudly if they should stop for a cold drink. Then on through some wooden doors and into a vast, covered space which resembled an aircraft hangar with huge metal pillars holding up the roof, providing some much-needed shade from the heat of the sun.
There were some outlines of the ancient buildings, choked with piles of stone and ash, heaps of rocks, gently sloping wooden walkways and interesting picture displays to explain what we were seeing. It was marvellous and perhaps we were lucky, but surprisingly, it was not too crowded, and it was strangely quiet, as though people were awed by the ancient devastation in front of them.