Chapter Twenty-Six
You better watch out … Santa Claus is sailing into town …
The Lido Deck was buzzing with guests, full of their Christmas meal and plenty of cheer as they settled into seats around the swimming pool to await the arrival of Santa Claus.
The domed ceiling above the pool was laced with colourful lanterns, a sharp contrast to the darkened sky outside.
It was cool on the deck and many guests indulged, as stewards circled with trays, balancing steaming mugs of mulled wine and marshmallow-topped hot chocolate.
Henry found a table suitable to accommodate Jim and hastened to pull out chairs for Leticia and Joy before reaching for blankets from a neatly folded stack.
As they settled the blankets around shoulders and knees to await Santa’s arrival, Nora and Sid appeared and stood at the side of the pool.
Suited and capped and ready for a swim, the couple held hands and plunged in.
‘Are you joining us?’ Sid called out as he turned on his back and floated by.
‘It’s lovely and warm,’ Nora added. Her orange hair was tucked under an explosion of rubber flowers. As she swam, Henry was reminded of a tropical bird that had crash-landed on the water.
‘I think I would sink like a stone after that meal,’ Leticia replied and patted her tummy.
‘It was rather good, wasn’t it?’ Henry agreed.
Jim began to discuss the merits of the meal and the company they’d enjoyed, and as he spoke, Henry’s attention drifted.
Surreptitiously, he watched Joy, taking in how lovely she looked in her glamorous gold gown.
The shimmering fabric caught the light, complementing the rich chestnut waves of her hair.
Despite her polite smile, Henry sensed that she was holding back when he’d chatted during the meal, and he wished that he could talk to her and break down the wall that had risen between them.
He wondered what Audrey would tell him to do but knew that she would bark out instructions to act like a man, take the lead, and push forward.
Henry wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.
He wanted to push forward but was worried about trying too hard and couldn’t risk the fragile connection they’d made.
For now, as they sat waiting for Santa, he knew that he would have to find the right moment and hope that Joy’s wall might eventually tumble down.
Before it was too late, and the cruise ended.
Stirred from his thoughts, Henry turned as Simon appeared and stood beside Jim.
After escorting Kenneth to his suite to sleep off his excesses, Simon had changed into his festive outfit again, and greeting the guests, commented, ‘I thought it was only children who got excited about Santa. You all look as though you’ve just spotted him surging through the sky. ’
‘It’s the magic of Christmas,’ Leticia replied, ‘you’re never too old to act like a child.’
Before Simon could reply, music sounded, and all eyes turned to look to the side of the pool, where several crew members, dressed as elves, began to appear, singing ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town!’
A sleigh, carried by four fluffy reindeer, burst across the Lido Deck and resplendent in a long red cloak fur-trimmed to match his hat, Santa sat astride a huge sack, jingling a large brass bell.
‘Ho ho ho!’ he called out as the reindeer staggered under the weight of the sleigh, their antlers akimbo and tangled in a string of fairy lights.
‘The reindeer remind me of bears,’ Henry commented, his head thoughtfully on one side as he studied them.
‘Wardrobe had to improvise with Jungle Book costumes,’ Simon hastily explained.
‘Santa looks extremely fit,’ Leticia added and noted the slim lines of his coat that moulded to his body.
Santa made several laps around the pool, and the elves encouraged guests to join in with the Christmas songs before the reindeer, knees buckling with exhaustion, brought the sleigh to a stop by the bar.
‘Who wants to see what’s in my sack?’ Santa called out.
Guests gasped, but many moved forward, as, without warning, Santa leaped onto the bar and, in one grand sweeping motion, ripped off his cloak and threw it theatrically to the floor.
Simon closed his eyes. Already, he was calculating the number of complaints that would land on his desk before showtime.
Kyle, wearing nothing more than red sequinned budgie-smugglers and scarlet Converse trainers trimmed with white fur, adjusted his beard and straightened his hat before reaching into his sack to retrieve parcels that he hurled into the crowd with the gusto of a man launching T-shirts at a pop concert.
‘Who’s been good all year?’ Kyle called out as Sid leaped from the pool, soaking two silver-haired sisters, and reached up to catch a gift.
‘Watch your lumbago!’ Nora yelled as she too scrambled from the deep end, determined to snag a gift of her own.
As Wham! sang out ‘Last Christmas’, Simon wondered if it was a sign. If he didn’t do something to stop the mayhem, there was little doubt that this Christmas at sea would be his last.
Pressing hastily forward, he made his way through the crowd.
‘Here comes the ring master!’ Sid called out.
‘Time for Santa to get back in his sleigh,’ Simon said and indicated to an elf to recover the cloak. Dodging several soggy seniors and an inflatable snowman, he clapped his hands together to spur the reindeer into life. ‘Santa has a lot more visits to make,’ he said.
Kyle had one hand on his hip and distributed candy canes, and as he lifted his beard, he flashed Simon a dazzling smile. ‘Just spreading a little Christmas cheer, babes,’ he called down.
‘You’ve gone too far,’ Simon hissed. ‘If the captain hears about this, we’ll both be working at Butlins next year.’
Kyle pulled a face, and as Sid helped him down from the bar, Nora offered Simon a swig of her hip flask. He reluctantly declined.
The music had swelled, and with the reindeer recovered, Kyle wrapped himself in his cloak and, to a round of applause, disappeared from the deck.
Back at Henry’s table, Simon was hoping to see that things had calmed down, but his eyes soon widened when he saw that Henry, encouraged by Jim, had taken hold of Leticia and Joy’s hands and, together with the elves, joined Sid and Nora, who were leading a conga line around the jacuzzis.
Turning to Jim, Simon sighed.
‘If you can’t beat them, why not join them?’ Jim asked. ‘I would if I could,’ he added with a grin.
Glancing again at the riotous group, Simon shrugged. ‘Oh, why not?’ he said. ‘To hell with it.’ And casting off his doubts, Simon stepped forward to grab hold of Nora and surrender himself to the fun.
By the time the meal ended, with Kenneth dispatched from the table and the captain suitably charmed, Barbara’s blood pressure had settled, and she was feeling pleasantly serene.
The captain’s invited guests had begun to disperse when one lady, whose rope of emeralds were as large as olives, caught Barbara’s arm.
‘Do you think Kenneth might be in the early stages of cognitive decline?’ she asked quietly. ‘My own husband became quite aggressive when that awful illness took hold. Perhaps it’s worth looking into?’
Barbara fought an urge to laugh the comment away. The only cognitive decline in Kenneth was when he’d forgotten where he’d hidden his brandy. But she managed a gracious smile and thanked the woman for her concern, with as much feeling as she could falsely muster.
With the guests moving away, Barbara seized the opportunity to hold back and catch the captain on his own. ‘Captain,’ she said, ‘I must thank you for your company.’
Captain Lindholm smiled politely. ‘The pleasure was mine. You brought a welcome calm to the conversation.’
Barbara let that hang for a beat, before fluttering her eyes, her expression coy.
‘Kenneth and I, we’ve been married a long time and as you can see, he’s becoming …
difficult.’ She moved a little closer and lowered her voice.
‘I’m not used to unburdening myself to a handsome captain who has his hand firmly on the rudder. ’
Captain Lindholm looked nervous and frowned.
‘But, if I am to be perfectly frank, a woman can find herself very alone in a difficult relationship and when on the open sea, she might wonder what it would feel like to indulge in a little diversion.’
The captain’s eyes widened, but before he had time to reply, a steward politely informed him that he was wanted on the Bridge.
Moments later, Barbara slipped her keycard into the lock of her suite, a smug smile played on her lips.
The seed was sown, and she felt certain an invitation to the captain’s quarters would find its way to her before the cruise was through.
All it needed was the right nudge, and after all, it had happened before.
Tossing her bag on a sofa, Barbara unclipped her diamonds and thought fondly of sultry Caribbean moments aboard a similar ship, wrapped in the arms of a handsome Jamaican first officer, while Kenny, full of rum punch, dozed contentedly on a sundeck.
‘Babs! Is that you?’
Barbara rolled her eyes. She’d been hoping to find her husband asleep and out for the count for the rest of the day.
‘Babs, darling, there you are …’
Kenneth stood in the bedroom doorway. Stripped of his formal wear, he now sported a monogrammed dressing gown, the belt loose and doing little to conceal the soft fold of stomach that sagged over the waistband of the atrocious underpants Barbara detested.
Barbara glared, her eyes icy.
‘I’m not going to be speaking to you for some time,’ she began crisply, ‘so listen carefully.’ Barbara crossed her arms. ‘You made a complete ass of yourself over the meal and embarrassed me terribly. I don’t want anything to do with you for the rest of the day. Your behaviour is inexcusable.’
‘I suppose a bonk is out of the question?’ Kenneth leered, and his fingers trailed suggestively.
The ice bucket, when it landed, caught Kenneth off-guard and before he had time to duck, the heavy object caught his forehead, sending his toupee flying.
‘I say!’ he yelled, holding his head, ‘that’s a bit rich …’
But Kenneth, seeing stars, staggered back to the bed.
Barbara reached down and with the tip of her fingers, pinched the offensive toupee.
She walked to the balcony and calmly slid back the glass door, and with a swift flick of her wrist, hurled the object into the night.
It caught the wind, sailed over the railing and somersaulted once before vanishing into the black swell below.
Without pausing to consider her actions, Barbara turned on her heel and marched to the bathroom and seized toupee-two.
Her face curled into a vicious sneer as the second toupee arced into the air and joined its fallen twin in the churning sea.
‘That will teach you,’ she muttered.
Simon was back in his office, seated at his desk, where Penny had kindly placed a cafetiére of coffee beside him and now poured a hot, steaming mug.
‘Thought you could do with this,’ she said, ‘there are a few things to deal with before you head off to host the crew show.’
Simon sighed. He was exhausted from his exertions in the conga line.
The line, led by Sid, had snaked away from the Lido Deck through the hushed elegance of the Observatory Bar, where guests from the higher-priced suites were quietly enjoying their complimentary Yule Mule cocktails, nestled in leather armchairs beneath twinkling fairy lights.
They hadn’t taken kindly to being interrupted by a sweaty conga line.
Deciding to make a sharp exit, Simon had untangled himself from Nora’s grip and hurried past frozen expressions of disbelief as Sid, still in his Speedos, chanted ‘Loosen up, it’s Christmas!
’ and twirled a string of tinsel like a lasso over several dipped heads.
‘Unfortunately, we’ve received one or two complaints …’ Penny let the words hang as she unloaded a thick wad of paper on Simon’s desk.
As Simon read a note from Patrick and Celia from Godalming, he wondered if the cruise was unravelling. This wasn’t in the brochure, and we were appalled by Santa’s nudity on the day our Lord was born …
Another was marked, ‘Formal Complaint’ by Muriel and Derek from Cheltenham.
My husband and I are deeply disturbed to see Santa gyrating in a manner unbecoming of the season …
Margaret added that this sort of behaviour could only lead to moral collapse and wasn’t something they thought would be included in their upgrade.
An indignant woman occupying a Dream Suite complained that she hadn’t paid thousands of pounds to see a man’s nipples and partially clad nether region bouncing about on a bar while she was having a hot chocolate.
‘Are there many more like this?’ Simon looked up at Penny.
‘’Fraid so, but there’s good news too.’ She held out another sheet of paper.
Simon held his breath and read on.
Finally, some Christmas spirit! Kyle had us crying with laughter, More, please! Cabin 2310, Beryl & Mandy (Book Club).
‘Then there’s this one …’ Penny ploughed on.
Best Christmas ever! Haven’t laughed so hard since Judy leaped on a table thinking there was a rat in the pool. Jack & Judy, the Deck Mile Club.
‘Well, that balances things out a bit,’ Simon said, and wondered how soon he should be handing out complimentary bottles of champagne to the complainers.
‘You need to get ready,’ Penny said and pointed to the clock on the office wall. ‘The stage manager says one of the engine room dancers has twisted his ankle and he isn’t sure if the Backroom Boys routine can go on.’
‘Hell! Well, I’m not standing in for him.
’ Simon cursed and imagined himself in a tight boiler suit split to the waist as he fumbled the steps to the Village People’s ‘YMCA’.
He tried to remember the lyrics and vowed that this young man wasn’t ‘going to feel down’ and wouldn’t be ‘picking himself up from the ground’.
As Penny reached the door, she turned. ‘Oh, and there is a message from the captain saying that if you ever put him beside Barbara Montgomery Jones again, he’ll make sure you end up scrubbing the decks until the cruise is over …’