Chapter 14
‘I’m too nervous to eat breakfast, I want to sort out some more pictures and some of the graphs I made for Casper’s talk,’ Diana said.
I decided to dress up smartly for the occasion in a silk shirt, a cashmere cardigan and some new trousers which were unexpectedly a bit tight around the middle. I held my breath and sucked in the tummy which seemed to be returning far faster than it had gone.
‘You look very sophisticated for what’s probably going to be a non-event,’ Diana said gloomily.
‘Now, none of that defeatist talk. I’m taking a leaf out of Betsey and Cyn’s book,’ I said, rubbing a fingertip over my lipstick, which was pink and perfectly matched my cardigan. ‘I am going to turn into a polished, elegant older lady who has a capsule wardrobe. Wasn’t there a thing on social media recently that said everyone should stop buying new clothes and throw away fifteen things every day? Or was it every week? I’m going to be like that.’
‘But then eventually you’d end up with nothing. So what will you get rid of first? Your collection of Guns ’N’ Roses tour T-shirts or your vast collection of milk jugs?’ Diana asked.
‘Well not those things, obviously. Marie Kondo said no one should have more than thirty books. Which is ludicrous, I have about three thousand. Not to mention the strange Haynes Owners’ Workshop Manuals Eddy has stacked up in his study. I’ve been buying them as joke presents for him for years. He even has one on how to run the Large Hadron Collider and one on Men’s Pies. He won’t get rid of them.’
‘So, what are you going to get rid of in this quest for elegance?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps I haven’t thought it through properly. I’ll make a plan when I get home. Now then, are you sure you don’t want breakfast? I’m sure Alfred would bring you something. We’ve hardly taken advantage of him at all.’
‘No, I’ll just have some coffee and do some more practise. And I have a couple more pictures I want to use. God, I feel sick at the thought of this. It was much easier when I did the work and Casper took all the applause.’
‘Well, we’re not doing that again. It’s your turn to shine. Don’t worry, I’ll stand outside the door and force people in. I have a marvellous idea; I’ll say there is a rumour that there is a free something to one lucky person. A Range Rover or a trip to the Seychelles. And then at the end I’ll say no one had the lucky seat number so we are holding the prize over to the next talk.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ she said, laughing despite her nerves.
Diana opened her laptop and the folder of photographs she had downloaded over the years. I looked over her shoulder, pointing out a couple I thought looked useful. She looked so young, so slim. Even skinny. And actually, although she was smiling in most of them, not really very happy. How odd that I hadn’t noticed that before.
There was a picture where she was sitting on a beach in Jamaica, holding up a drink towards the camera. And a short video she had recorded on the same day. I knew that because she was wearing the same outfit, the same broad sunhat against the Caribbean sunshine.
Diana hesitated for a moment and then clicked on it.
Happy Birthday, Sam! Hope you are having a lovely day. I’m thinking of you and sending lots of love. Wish you were here in Jamaica with us. I hope the interview went well, and your flight to Paris is on time. See you very soon, I hope. Dad sends his love. He’s very tired, he’s been busy on the ship at the moment, there’s been some problem with the air conditioning and a lot of the American passengers are complaining. We are off to the Turks and Caicos Islands next. There are some lovely beaches there and great scuba diving. You’d enjoy that, I bet. Anyway, look, I hope you have a great day, happy birthday again. And when we get back next month, we must meet up and hear all your news. I can’t remember when you come home from France, I will be home on the 14th. It was going to be the 5th but they have asked Dad to take the ship to New Orleans when this trip finishes. There’s some problem with something. Isn’t there always? Right, happy birthday from the Caribbean, lots of love. See you soon.
She stared at the frozen image of herself, her mouth stretched into a smile, and I almost felt like weeping for her.
I knew Sam hadn’t come home any time soon after that; he had met Felicity there and stayed on in France while she did her research, and eventually they had moved to Scotland when they returned home. Had those trips around the Caribbean, across the Atlantic, and through the Baltic really made up for missing out on her son’s life? By the expression on Diana’s face, no, they hadn’t, and unexpectedly I felt a surge of anger against Casper.
He had been so insistent that she should be with him, that Sam was perfectly alright at boarding school, didn’t need her, didn’t mind, and I could see now that the infallible Casper Wedderburn, well respected leader of men had been terribly wrong. Diana had gone along with it to keep the peace, but at what cost? Thousands of miles of travel, no matter how luxurious, didn’t make up for both of them losing out on so much of Sam’s teenage years.
I went out on the veranda and looked at the sea rushing past us. In comparison, Eddy had been a great father when our boys were growing up. He had endless patience with them, taking them to football and rugby practice. Helping them ride their first bikes and teaching them how to mend a puncture. I couldn’t count how many spoons they had bent over the years, levering the tyres off. Surely in the grand scheme of things, Eddy had done a better job, had been a better father? I felt very thankful for that insight.
Instead of running though her talk, Diana wrote a long email to Sam, telling him what she was doing. The places where she was going, how she had been asked to give a talk to the passengers. And then she attached some photographs: me with a huge panini in my hand, a selfie of both of us with glasses of wine, the view from our suite overlooking the docks at Cadiz and Barcelona, the view down the main staircase to the marble floor of the reception area.
There was new determination in her face.
‘I’ve told him I want to see him when I get back, how much I’ve missed him. I want to apologise but an email isn’t the place to do it. I need to see him in person.’
At ten fifteen I couldn’t bear hanging about any longer, so I chivvied Diana into action. We collected all the things she would need and went to find the Debussy conference room on deck 4. If nothing else, we would get in there before anyone else and not see how many – or how few – people would turn up to listen to her.
‘You’ve got to come with me, I feel sick with nerves,’ she said.
Diana checked her reflection in the mirror one last time. She had gone for an unusually stylish look, a grey silk shirt and tailored trousers, paired with on-trend white trainers.
‘You look great,’ I said. ‘Very business-like.’
She did too, and despite the fact that we had probably eaten the same things since we came on board, she didn’t seem to be putting on weight like I was. Life’s very unfair sometimes.
Diana pulled a face at her reflection and after a moment pulled off the trainers and replaced them with a new pair she had bought in honour of the cruise, with kitten heels and a cute little diamante bow on the front. She admired her feet for a second.
‘There, so pretty, that’s much better and before you ask, yes, they are comfortable. These are the sort of thing stylish women wear, not slightly battered lace-up shoes that have been through the washing machine at least twice.’
‘Well, if you are sure. The last pair of heels you wore ended up in the dustbin,’ I said doubtfully.
Deck 4 was strangely quiet when we got there. Just a few of the cabin stewards were present, pushing their metal carts out of the lifts ready to clean the passenger cabins and freshen them up with fresh towels and toiletries. All that activity behind the scenes that most people didn’t see, working so hard to a strict timetable. I knew each member of housekeeping was probably responsible for over twenty cabins twice a day, allowing only fifteen minutes for each one. And the passengers who rose late or created chaos every day only added to their burden. It wasn’t a job I would have liked, but they always seemed so cheerful and polite, several of them nodding and smiling at us as we passed them.
At last, we reached the Debussy suite and Diana nervously opened the door. It was empty. In fact, it was in darkness, the curtains were closed, and the lights were all off. There were a couple of mugs and a coffee machine on a side table, but no evidence it was about to be used. No Dick Dainty, no tech guy messing about with wires, and certainly no eager shipmates ready to listen to her.
She closed the door quickly and gave me an agonised look, so I opened it again, in some foolish belief that when I looked for a second time things would be different. Of course, they weren’t. After all it wasn’t like a surprise party when people would leap out laughing from behind the curtains.
Diana started to panic. ‘What am I supposed to do now? Go back to my cabin and hide?’
I stood, hugging my sister’s sheaf of notes, the printout from the purser’s office of Casper’s talk which she had found buried deep in her hard drive, while Diana had her laptop bag close to her chest, shuffling from foot to foot. Further down the corridor there were a couple of housekeepers in grey and white striped dresses stuffing dirty towels into a container.
‘There’s supposed to be a talk here at eleven,’ I said. ‘Any idea where everyone is?’
They shrugged and looked blankly at me.
‘Mr Dainty?’ I said.
Another shrug and a stare. I don’t think they knew what I was talking about.
‘It’s a good job Casper isn’t here,’ Diana said, ‘I know exactly how he would have reacted. Given me that resigned look, perhaps a bit of eye rolling. But actually, Casper would never have let me do such a thing in the first place. I had to maintain my position. Under no circumstances could I embarrass him or do something so foolish.’
‘Calm down,’ I said, ‘this is not embarrassing or foolish. And we are not going to wonder what Casper would have said, ever again. There’s obviously been some simple misunderstanding.’
‘Ah, there you are. I wondered where you had got to. You didn’t get my message!’
We turned to see Dick Dainty scurrying towards us. I don’t think I had ever expected to feel so glad to see him. I almost felt like hugging him, and Dick was not the sort of man I would normally have considered embracing.
‘Message?’ Diana said.
‘Your talk, it’s not here,’ he replied.
‘Well, I think we’ve deduced that,’ I said rather sharply.
He gave us his abject apologies for the mix up and then stretched his arms out towards us like a shepherd herding recalcitrant sheep, encouraging us to follow him without actually touching us. I expect touching the passengers was not something that was encouraged.
Diana fell into step beside him, her heels rattling as she tried to keep up with him. He moved fast for a short man; at one point as we dodged past other people, I wondered if he was on castors.
‘So sorry again,’ he said, ‘I had hoped to catch you before you left your cabin – I do hope you are comfortable in there by the way. The Picasso has always been one of my favourites, even though it’s not mid-ships. Have you noticed any problems with sea sickness? No? that’s good. There is more movement at the front of the ship, but then you’d know all about that. Now then…’
We had reached the lifts, which were, as usual, surrounded by crowds of people wanting to avoid the stairs. Dick jabbed at the buttons and huffed with impatience.
‘I should have taken you the other way – well, no matter. I have an idea. Are you okay with the stairs? I think it would be quicker. We’ll go down first and then up. Bit of a short cut.’
We assured him it was fine, and he dithered about for a bit, before taking us through a featureless door, which led to the crew stairway and down an echoing stairwell, Diana’s kitten heels clattering.
‘I feel so bad about this – my fault – hadn’t anticipated – well, this shouldn’t take long. Here, let me help you.’
He took her laptop bag and slung it over his shoulder like a postman, trotting ahead of us, round corners in the staircase at speed until we almost lost sight of him.
At last, we came out into a dimly lit area, nothing like the bright, attractive public rooms. This was one of those secret pathways through the ship that only crew used. Diana had told me every ship had them. Then we went through a pair of flapping, translucent, plastic doors which led into a corridor that seemed to stretch on forever in front of us. There were dozens of people there in blue boiler suits and hairnets, pushing metal carts about, moving the ship’s massive supplies of food and drinks and linens.
Dick turned briefly to make sure we were still following, and we set off.
‘I suppose I shouldn’t really bring you this way. It runs the length of the ship; the crew call it the I-95. After the road in America that leads from Florida to Maine. Nearly two thousand miles. What a road trip that would be.’
Diana stumbled a bit on her kitten heels as she tottered after him. People stared at us as we passed them, no doubt wondering what a man in a rather loud, checked suit and two women dressed for a business meeting were doing down there at all.
Dick checked his watch. ‘We’re going to be late. I hate being late. It’s really unprofessional. “Punctuality is the politeness of princes.” I said that only yesterday in my staff briefing. I’d tear a strip off anyone else if they were late for an event. Oh dear.’
He broke into a slow trot, the laptop bag banging against his hip. I was suddenly reminded of the March Hare in Alice in Wonderland and almost laughed.
Trying to avoid a worker who was busy wielding a broom, Diana’s foot banged into a crate of pineapples and one of her shoes flew off. They were the sort of footwear that were made for sitting on a bar stool, not running through the bowels of an ocean liner after all. Dick scrambled to retrieve it from certain destruction under the wheels of a metal trolley laden with flattened cardboard and we hobbled on. After a few steps she pulled the other shoe off and ran barefoot, almost catching Dick up as he barged through some more plastic doors shouting, ‘Coming through, emergency. Coming through!’
Diana trod in something squelchy and hopped about on one leg, yelping. Neither of us stopped to investigate. It seemed wiser not to. I took hold of her arm and we limped on. This was hardly the way to get a valued speaker to their appointment on time, was it?
At last, we reached the far end of the I-95 and a set of utilitarian metal lifts where someone had drawn a rude picture on the doors and evidently someone else had tried to scrub it out.
Travelling up, Dick tutted and fidgeted until we got out. Another dim corridor stretched ahead of us, and we followed him, puffing and sweating. This was definitely not how I had expected things would go. Then he barged through another door and up a few steps.
Halfway he stopped and pressed a hand to his chest.
‘Phew, we made it and five minutes to spare. Off we go. I’ll say a few words and introduce you and then I have to dash off and see if the girls have sorted out the feathers for one of their shows. I don’t know whose idea it was to do “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens”and where that fits into Oklahoma I have no idea.’
He took a deep breath and pushed open the door at the top of the stairs, plastered on his trademark smile and strode through.
‘Go on,’ I said, ‘I’ll be right behind you. I’ll help you set up. You’ll be brilliant.’
Diana followed him, her wet foot sticking unpleasantly to the step, so that she stumbled, tripped over the same stray cable which had nearly felled Dick on the first night, screamed and dropped all of Casper’s notes onto the floor. Then I fell over her and landed like a beetle on its back.
The papers sprayed out in front of her. Her shoe, which she had jammed under one arm, flew out in an elegant parabola and clattered onto the stage, striking Dick a glancing blow on the forehead. He brushed it off with commendable sangfroid.
I got up, wincing at a bruised knee and hurried forward to help her to her feet and then both of us turned and blinked at the bright lights, realising that there were a lot of people watching us. Everyone turned, open-mouthed to see our less than stylish arrival and a few of them gave sympathetic ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ as Diana stood up, tucked her shirt back in and I scrambled to retrieve her notes.
It took me a moment to register that we were actually on the stage of the Ocean Spray theatre. Someone in the front row stood up and waved at me, and I realised it was Evelyn. Flanking her were several familiar faces. Ken and Thelma with their friends Carol and Les. The Texans, Cyn and Betsey with their husbands whose names I couldn’t at that moment recall, and the woman who had asked Diana if she had written a book. I couldn’t remember her name either, which made me feel bad, when she had been so nice.
On the stage a man in a blue boiler suit and a high-vis jacket was tweaking some cables and looking up at the screen behind him, which displayed an annoying No Signal message.
‘Oooh, Diana, deary me. Upsy-daisy, you took a bit of a tumble there. Are you alright? Sure? It’s all good. No need to worry,’ Dick muttered, more to himself than her I think. ‘Always the same when there are these last-minute changes – I like everything to be sorted out before we get going. I like to know where I am, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said with feeling. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Too many people, do you see? They wouldn’t have fitted into the Debussy. There was nearly a riot. Some people were getting very flaky. We had to make a quick decision, spur-of-the-moment thing, and that’s not something I like to do, but there was no alternative. The Fluffs – I mean the dancers weren’t happy. They were supposed to be rehearsing – well they will just have to wait. I still don’t know how the stagehands are going to put up a barn for the next show they are planning. I shall have to make it up with them later.’ He touched two fingers to his nose and made a honking noise. ‘Press the old charm buttons. Now then…’
He handed back Diana’s other shoe with a little bow. It looked as though one of the dinky little heels was hanging off.
‘You mean I am giving my talk in here?’ Diana said, horrified.
Everywhere I looked there were people. Either sitting and fidgeting in their seats, wondering what the delay was, or standing up and looking for their friends.
Dick pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow.
‘Well, yes. As long as you haven’t hurt yourself. Didn’t I explain that?’
‘No, I never expected so many people…’
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said, encouraging her towards the middle of the stage.
The view from there was even more terrifying. For the first time I could understand what stage fright felt like. Looking down at all those faces, all those people. Evelyn – now in her seat just in front of us – waved again and gave a little cheer.
No wonder Diana had been feeling nervous. I felt rather sick on her behalf and clutched her disorganised notes even harder.
Behind me the tech guy was still pulling out wires and plugging them in again to different sockets.
‘Right then, we’re all settled. Here’s your laptop. I’ll get you a glass of water. There’s a chair there and a podium if you prefer to stand up.’ Dick turned towards the tech guy and hissed, ‘Bruce, what is happening with the feed?’
Bruce tutted and sucked his teeth disapprovingly. ‘Someone has been messing with this, it was okay yesterday. I don’t know… who was in here last?’
Dick tutted and rolled his eyes. ‘Wally the Weatherman, his talk on earthquakes and tidal waves. According to him we are going to be wiped off the face of the earth sometime in the next few years. He says it’ll be like the dinosaurs but with traffic jams and a lot of politicians fighting to get into bunkers. The very last people we will need in an apocalypse if you ask me. I don’t know what the matter is with him, he can’t stop fiddling with things. I’m going to have another word.’
Suddenly the screen behind him flashed into life and there was a cheer from some of the audience who had been enjoying watching the problem unfold.
Diana Wedderburn – The Bermuda Triangle. Myth, Mystery and Monsters.
‘That was what Terry Baker-Engels called his talk. I hope it fits in with yours. Sorry about the unexpected marathon to get here. Still, the show must go on.’
I pulled my sister out of the harsh glare of the spotlight and quickly checked her over. Her bare feet were filthy, her silk shirt was dark with sweat under the arms and who knows what her hair was doing. I patted it into some sort of order and wiped a smudge of dirt off her face with a tissue.
I don’t know how she was going to continue in that state – I certainly wouldn’t.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said faintly.
Dick patted her on the arm. ‘No, you’ll be fine. Just the excitement. Have a sip of water. Right then here we are, sorry about the wait, ladies and gentlefolk, but as you probably realise, we couldn’t have fitted you all into the original venue. Sorry about the scramble, but we are only a tiny bit late. Uno momento and we will be ready.’
Dick had a muttered conversation with the technician and then turned to Diana with a happy smile.
‘Better? That’s the spirit. Now then, Bruce will get your laptop linked up to the screen. Do you need anything?’
Diana sat down and tried to hide her feet. ‘Valium?’
He chuckled. ‘I’ll just say a few words when Bruce has everything ready and then off you go. Remember, nothing to worry about, these people are all your friends and if they aren’t, they soon will be. And here’s a little pro tip. If you get a bit nervous, try and imagine them with no clothes on, that’s what I do. Here’s the control to change the slides.’