Page 92 of Old Girls on Deck

‘Why? Have you… when? I thought you decided not to have sex with him? So, you just kissed him instead.’

‘Oh, well,’ Diana tried to look offhand.

My mouth dropped open. This was very unexpected. But then why shouldn’t she enjoy herself. They were both single, reasonably sensible adults.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

There were a few minutes silence then, broken by the sound of Diana munching biscotti. Her fillings must have been in good shape, I always dunked mine in my coffee first.

‘And?’ I said at last.

‘Don’t be so damned nosey. It was great. I enjoyed it,’ she said with a little smile. ‘He was very?—’

What? I wondered. Kind? Considerate? Athletic?

I don’t think I’d ever had a lover I would describe as athletic. It always conjured up an image of someone in running shorts and a sweatband. Like John McEnroe in the Seventies. These days they might also have an iPhone strapped to one arm to check their vital stats. Which would be very off-putting indeed. What if it beeped at an important moment to say the daily step target had been reached and to start cooling down?

‘…Enthusiastic,’ Diana said at last, ‘and so was I.’

‘You little devil,’ I said. ‘Go you! So, when and where did this enthusiastic behaviour take place?’

Diana looked at her watch. ‘I’m not going to talk about it. It’s eight thirty, we should get dressed so we can meet up with Evelyn for our last breakfast together.’

‘You know you aren’t going to get away with that, don’t you?’ I said. ‘I’ll get it out of you if I need to use wine, or the threat of violence.’

Diana just laughed. And then she went to the door and picked something up off the floor.

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘this is what I warned you about. This is the moment of truth. It’s our bar bill.’

After paying our bar bill and marvelling that it was such a considerable sum, we made our way to the Bizet restaurant which was surprisingly almost empty that morning. Because we were in a suite on the eleventh floor, we didn’t have to get off the ship too early. And the buses to take us to the airport were also going to be later than the ones going on the excursions.

We found Evelyn sitting at what we had come to think of as ‘our’ table, drinking tea, pulling a croissant apart and staring out of the window. There were the usual cranes and trucks out there, plus the concrete buildings we had come to expect.

Behind us was the distant bustle of people sorting out their luggage and preparing to leave the ship. It really did feel like the end of something.

‘The busiest port in Europe, so they say,’ Evelyn said as we sat down. ‘Carlos told me they deal with twenty million passengers every year.’

‘Didn’t you want to go off on an excursion?’ I asked. ‘After all, you’re not leaving the ship today.’

‘I’ve seen Athens many times, I thought it would be nice to have a quiet day for a change. My new hip has been playing me up a bit, and I think my poor ankle needs a rest, too. I seem to have been racing about all this week.’

‘That’s our fault,’ Diana said, ‘sorry if we made you do too much.’

‘Nonsense. I’ve enjoyed it. But now you are leaving, I need to boldly go and find new people to talk to, on my way to Dubai and beyond. I hope they will be as amusing as you two have been.’

I felt a bit doubtful then, and slightly concerned, as though we had been the comedy turn for Evelyn’s week. Perhaps we had. Still, we had not sat on our balcony muffled up in blankets complaining about the bacon being the wrong sort or the shower pressure being too low as had other people I had eavesdropped on.

‘At least this way you don’t have to rush to get the earlier shuttle to the Acropolis tour. You’ll have time for a leisurely breakfast. And plane food isn’t what it was, even if it is free,’ Evelyn said.

‘We would have to pay for food on our airline,’ I said, ‘and even then, it would probably be some horrible, microwaved thing.’

Her eyebrows raised. ‘Really? Things have changed. I can remember when Wendy was working on long flights, they used to carve joints of meat in the aisles and wear white, cotton gloves too.’

‘I think it’s disposable vinyl ones now,’ Diana said.

We ordered our breakfast and sat in quiet reflection for a while. Outside, far below us, we could see the piles of suitcases being loaded onto shuttle buses and queues of people waiting to be told where to go. It was quite an organisational feat, and this was just one lot of passengers from one ship.

Evelyn opened her handbag and pulled out a little silver case.