Chapter 6
The Cruise - Day 1
T he ship might be the biggest cruise liner Maureen had ever seen. However, the cabin they would call home for the next three months aboard the majestic Mayan Princess was minuscule. With Donal peering over her shoulder in the doorway, Maureen told him they would frame their living quarters in a positive light. ‘Think cosy, Donal, and if we start getting claustrophobic, we can do the bendy yoga breathing.’
‘Cosy, Mo,’ Donal affirmed.
Now she was hanging up the last of her clothes, having just told the lads from The Gamblers to do the same when they’d swung by to see if her and Donal’s couples cabin was any roomier than theirs because they were four to a cabin, bunking in with a comedian from Canada called Kevin. It wasn’t. The silver lamé shimmering on its hanger caught her eye and, for a moment, she mourned the loss of the wig. It hadn’t survived to make the journey with them because, by the time Pooh had finally been lured off with a doggy treat, the wig resembled a headless, self-shedding sheep. Maureen had picked up the pitiful remains and cried, ‘Look at it! I’ll not be wearing that now. And what will Rosemary say when she finds out Pooh had his way with her wig?’
‘What Rosemary doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, we don’t want it colouring her thoughts on Pooh, given she’ll be his primary caregiver while we’re away. You can buy her a new one when we return, Mo.’
He was a wise man, Donal. She’d have to put ‘buy a new wig’ on her to do list for when they got home but, for now, it could wait. Three months was a long way away. She could hug herself at the thought of twelve whole weeks of not thinking about meal planning! A teeny-tiny cabin was a small price to pay for that.
They were a team, Donal and herself, who worked together like a well-oiled machine, she thought, finishing her unpacking and sliding her case alongside his in the wardrobe. Sure, look at how they’d seamlessly implemented an effective unpacking system to combat the space-challenged cabin whereby Donal had hung his things up in the closet first while she’d filled her half of the drawers; then, they’d swapped. She could not think of anyone else she’d like to share a teeny-tiny cabin with.
Maureen pondered what to wear for the Sail Away party, which they would soon head to the Lido deck for. As she eyed the tummy-control swimsuit and carefully picked poolside caftan brought at her Howth boutique a few days ago, she murmured, 'Sail Away party.'
‘Did you say something, Mo?’
‘I was just thinking that life will be ticking over in its usual fashion at home while we’re about to sip cocktails at a Saily Away party.
Donal chortled from where he was perched on the bed's edge, flicking through television channels. ‘I know what I’d rather be doing.’
Maureen half-wished she hadn’t told Patrick and Cindy not to hang about when they’d dropped them at the Port of Los Angeles as the babby Brianna was due a nap. It would have been nice to have family there to wave them off like they were embarking on an epic voyage. Still, Pat liked to get his head down whenever Brianna did so it was best they drove home to their apartment. She’d be sure he got plenty of rest and relaxation on his holiday aboard the ship. Smiling to herself, she thought, Once a mother, always a mother . No matter how old your children are! What a joy it had been spending time with her youngest grandchild these last few days and witnessing all her new tricks first-hand. They’d arranged with Pat and Cindy to meet for lunch when the ship was back in port next week for a few hours between it sailing off again. Her youngest grandchild, Brianna Buttercup O’Mara, was an absolute dote even if the poor love had Buttercup as a middle name.
So much had had to be done to make this stint aboard the Mayan Princess happen that it made her head spin. There’d been lunch with the family to tell them their plans and invite them on holiday, the shopping trip with her girls, packing, passing out lists of instructions and entrusting Rosemary and Cathal with Pooh’s care. And she wouldn’t allow herself to think about the tearful airport scene that had carried on for so long that the airline had paged her and Donal.
‘Are you ready, Mo?’ Donal asked, setting the remote down.
‘Nearly.’ Maureen’s voice was drowned out by a groaning from the ship's bowels below their cabin. ‘That’ll be the engine warming up.’ She said, swiftly wriggling into her swimsuit, pulling on a pair of floaty trousers, and slipping the caftan over the top. Then, ducking into the bathroom and banging her elbow on the wall, she rubbed it, eying the shower and wondering how Donal – who would be like Gulliver in this bathroom that could well have been built for Lilliputians – would get on.
‘Mo!’
She wished she had a flower to tuck behind her ear as she quickly swiped on some lippy and fluffed her hair.
‘What do you think?’ She popped out of the bathroom and, if there’d been room, she’d have given Donal a twirl.
‘You’re every inch a Mayan princess, Mo.’
Maureen smiled, noting Donal was getting a second airing from the shirt she’d bought him for the Hawaiian-themed housewarming party they’d held not long after moving into Magnolia Mews. ‘Thank you,’ she fluttered her lashes, ‘and you look the part too.’ This wasn’t strictly true because a Mayan prince was likelier to have worn loin cloths than flowery luau shirts, but he’d do her!
‘It’s going to take us a while to become familiar with the ship’s layout,’ Donal said as they hung their lanyards around their necks and pushed sunglasses on their heads.
Maureen thought he wasn’t wrong there a second later, turning to the left instead of the right as she exited the cabin. It was just as well Donal had a good sense of direction! She beamed at a young woman, a fellow entertainer presumably emerging from her cabin with a man appearing behind her as she padded down the narrow corridor behind Donal to the lift. Would they all become like family? she wondered. People often did when they were lumped together in the same boat, so to speak.
The woman was also dressed for the Sail Away party. She was wearing a bikini top and sarong and was beautiful, Maureen thought as she stood alongside them to wait for the lift. She reminded her a little of Moira only how Moira would look in another ten years. The man lagged behind, checking something on his mobile phone.
‘This is mine and my manfriend Donal’s first time on a cruise,’ Maureen informed her. ‘I’m Maureen.’
‘Tomasina and that’s my husband, Pawel.’
Pawel glanced up then and acknowledged them with a dip of his head.
The lift was taking forever, Maureen thought, looking up at the light to see what floor it was on.
‘It’s very slow, but all those stairs to the eleventh floor are daunting,’ Tomasina said.
Maureen laughed and agreed they were.
‘You're Irish?’
‘Yes. Where are you from?’
‘Poland.’
‘Oh, very nice.’ Maureen wouldn’t have a clue whether it was or wasn’t. Now she was next to the woman she decided she could pass for a Polish Demi Moore just as Moira could the Irish.
‘It is. My little brother has gone to Ireland for work. He has heard there is plenty.’
‘The Celtic tiger is roaring, Tomasina.’ Maureen could tell by the young woman’s face she might as well have been speaking a foreign language and added in plain speak, ‘Yes, the country is enjoying boom times.’
This time Tomasina nodded. ‘He’s in Dublin.’
‘Well now, would you believe that’s where we’re from. It’s a small world, so it is. And when you do visit Dublin, you’d be very welcome to stay at O’Mara’s Guesthouse. It’s my family hotel, and it’s in a grand location overlooking St Stephen’s Green. Be sure to let Aisling, my daughter, know you were on the Mayan Princess with me and Donal, and she’ll give you an excellent rate.’
‘Thank you, Maureen. I would love that one day and for my Mama too. She is a widow and misses me and Piotr: there is only the three of us so he is the baby of our small family.’
‘I’m sure she does.’
‘She even misses Pawel, not that she will admit this because she blames him for taking me away but there is no work where we come from so we must travel.’ She shrugged. ‘I worry for Piotr. He is young, you know. He has no life experience and then just like that,’ she clicked her fingers, ‘he is in the big smoke on his own.’
‘Don’t be worrying too much, Tomasina. Dublin is a very small big city. I’m sure he’ll be grand.’
Tomasina seemed reassured as she smiled at Maureen while Donal made impatient noises. Pawel put his phone away, coming to stand alongside them.
‘Are you contracted as entertainers?’ Maureen asked, wondering what talents this good-looking Polish couple had.
‘Yes, we perform as the Dreamweaver. An illusionist act.’
‘Magic, you mean?’
‘I love a good magic show, me,’ Donal piped up.
Tomasina and Pawel nodded. ‘I was a brick layer in another life,’ Pawel said. ‘What about you?’
Donal opened his mouth, but Maureen got in first. ‘You might have noticed that Donal here strongly resembles Kenny Rogers?’
‘Who?’ the husband and wife looked blank.
Maureen frowned. Perhaps Kenny wasn’t big in Poland. ‘Kenny Rogers is a much-loved and famous country music star in America.’
‘I see.’ Tomasina nodded enthusiastically, but Maureen wasn’t convinced she did; nevertheless, she continued.
‘Donal is the frontman for a Kenny Rogers tribute band called The Gamblers, and I duet with him on a couple of numbers and play the tambourine. It’s essential for keeping the rhythm, you know.’
Again, a knowledgeable nod as a woman with light brown hair, eyes, and the sort of face that was pleasant to look at but wouldn’t stick in your mind joined them to wait at the lift. Maureen put her age to be somewhere in her fifties. ‘Hello there. I’m Maureen from Dublin. Well, Howth these days, to be exact, and this is my manfriend Donal.’
Maureen received a tight little smile in return and a mumbled reply, ‘Carole from Sydney, Australia’ before the woman’s eyes slid away.
Now, it could be said and had, in fact, been said quite a lot, actually, and mainly by Maureen’s daughters, that there were times she was slow on the uptake. Still, on this occasion, she took the hint that the woman wasn’t in the mood to chat and, even though she was a little put out by the lack of reciprocal small talk, Maureen hadn't run O’Mara’s for so many years not to have learned you never knew what was going on with a person. As such, she reserved judgment. Tomasina quizzing her about Dublin distracted her. At the same time, she waited for the lift door to finally ping open.
Maureen overheard Pawel telling Donal he and Tomasina were seasoned cruise ship entertainers. So she deftly moved the conversation away from Dublin, eager to get the low-down on what to expect from ship life over the next three months.
The lift arrived and the couple continued to fill them in on what to expect at sea. It seemed to Maureen they were in for a mixed bag of hard work, what with performing night after night, rehearsals and having to always be ‘on’, even off stage. Tomasina told them that as a paid performer, they were public property on the ship. If people butted in on your relaxing times to chat about your show, so be it. The living quarters were cramped, and the novelty of the buffet and cocktails wore off after a while. At this stage, Maureen found it hard to believe that not cooking and leading a cocktail lifestyle would ever get old. Tomasina was adamant, however, as was Pawel, who nodded along. Cruise ship life was an adjustment, but they were lucky to make a living doing what they loved.
Maureen was digesting this as she and Donal shuffled back to let more people in the lift. It was stopping on every floor and was soon fit to burst. ‘We’re full,’ she mouthed, peering over the heads of her fellow passengers squished inside, in case those attempting to board on the sixth floor weren’t getting the message. Then, her eyes widened as a woman astride a motorised scooter began nudging it forward with a steely look of determination. ‘Quick, shut the doors!’ someone said. Maureen held her breath as the door was wedged open by the scooter’s front tyre but, after a moment, the woman gave up and reversed. The door slid shut, and the lift continued its laboriously slow journey.
‘Did you see your woman attempting to ram raid the lift just now, Donal?’ Maureen whispered.
‘I did, Mo. Perhaps she was hangry and in a hurry to get to the buffet.’
‘More like a pig looking into a washing machine,’ Maureen muttered. ‘Sure, you’d have to be dense to behave like that. Yer woman should have her licence revoked.’
Donal smiled but it had vanished by the eighth floor because of a pervasive smell.
‘It’s worse than Pooh when he’d had one too many doggy treats,’ Maureen gasped. The stench threatened to suffocate them all. She wanted to shout, ‘For the love of God, who did that?’ Nobody was giving anything away, though, as they stood, hands pinned to their sides, eyes staring straight ahead. Her eyes were watering, and she saw a look of desperation come over Donal. Then, finally, the doors opened onto the eleventh floor. Maureen grasped Donal’s hand and squeezed it silently, communicating her excitement and wanting to cry, ‘Freedom!’ He squeezed back and, losing Tomasina and Pawel in the throng, they ventured forth.