by Terry Waite
‘Mr and Mrs Hardcastle,’ he said genially. ‘A very good morning to you.’
‘Aye,’ said Albert. ‘It’s a grand day, of that there’s no doubt.’
‘I assume everything is well with you both?’ the man then asked.
‘As well as can be expected,’ said Alice. ‘Although I don’t care for the tea much.’
‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘It might be the water. Water affects the taste of tea very much.’
‘It’s those damn tea packets,’ Albert stated. ‘Useless, totally useless.’
‘Is all well with your suite - a Balcony Suite, I believe?’
‘Yes,’ Alice answered, ‘we like to travel that way. So much more comfortable, you know.’
‘It is indeed,’ rejoined the officer. ‘If one does not mind the little extra climb then one is well rewarded with great comfort.’
The officer seemed reluctant to let them go. ‘Is everything working well in the Suite?’ was his next question.
‘Aye,’ Albert said impatiently. ‘Come on, Alice, we will have no time to see around if we continue to linger here.’
The officer smiled politely. ‘Have a lovely day,’ he said, secretly irritated at not having been able to extract some details of the alleged attempted theft from the Suite.
At the car-hire booth neither Albert nor Alice needed to have had the slightest concern about language problems. The couple ahead of them were conversing with the clerk in faultless English. They approached the desk with confidence.
‘We want a car,’ said Albert.
‘That is what we are here for, sir,’ replied the desk clerk. ‘Would you like a Mercedes? A lovely car and most suitable for cruise passengers.’
They examined the price-list and the car offered was about twelve times the cost of the Cinquecento they had been advised to hire.
‘Well, we are Balcony Suite passengers,’ said Alice, ‘and normally we would hire a car and a driver.’
Quick as a flash the clerk jumped in.
‘Oh, we can arrange that without any difficulty,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I would drive you myself.’
‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ said Alice. ‘But today my husband insists that we hire a car he drove when he was a young man - a Cinquecento.’
Albert looked startled. It was only two days ago that he had first heard of the vehicle, let alone driven one.
‘Ah, I see,’ the man replied, slightly crestfallen. ‘We have just the thing for you.’ He completed the formalities and directed them to a park outside.
‘Numero Venti,’ he said, forgetting his English for a moment.
‘Eh?’ queried Albert.
‘Oh, my apologies, sir. Number Twenty, Vehicle Number Twenty.’
Outside, a very large number of cars were parked. After much searching they found Vehicle Twenty, a minute vehicle which Albert immediately likened to one of the dodgem cars that he had seen at the fairground in Grimsby.
‘Thee were right, Alice,’ he said. ‘I did drive this sort of contraption when I was a lad.’
They squeezed in and tried to understand the controls, which were nothing like the controls on Albert’s car in Grimsby, nor one of the dodgem cars for that matter.
‘See what the manual says luv,’ said Albert as he looked for the ignition.
‘It’s all in a foreign language,’ she told him as she thumbed through the glossy document. ‘I don’t see one word we learned from Enzo yesterday. Not one word.’
After half an hour of precious time had elapsed, Alice returned to the booth which was now closed. Back at the car, she noted a youngish man in a sharp suit unlocking a Cinquecento parked nearby.
‘Bon afternoon,’ she said politely.
He stared at her. ‘Non capisco.’
‘Bon journal,’ she tried next, thinking that she might have got the first greeting wrong.
‘Speak English?’ he enquired, to Alice’s relief.
She said that she did, and within a moment or so the car was started and they were on their way.
It would be kind to the reader of this book to pass over the details of Albert’s venture onto the highways of Naples. Apart from having to be constantly reminded by Alice to keep to the right, which he just about managed to do most of the time, he was constantly alarmed by vehicles darting in front of him, and drivers gesticulating - and not least by his unfamiliarity with the controls of the vehicle. They were both so occupied in attempting to preserve their lives that the scenery around them went totally unobserved.
‘Remember where we are going,’ said Albert as they left the city behind them. ‘We have to get back, you know.’
Obediently, Alice did her best to scribble notes on the scrap paper she had brought along but, as the car was bumping up and down, and also as every sign was in Italian, which she had difficulty in recording, her directions were not altogether legible. They approached a high point overlooking the bay and a totally exhausted Albert suggested that they call a halt and take a breather. They pulled off the roadway by a small path that led towards a viewing-point.
‘While we are here we might as well walk up there,’ said his wife. ‘After that we can go back to the ship. I’ve had enough.’
They secured the car and set off toward the summit.
It was a lovely view. Below them was the town, which looked strangely attractive from this height and, of course, there was the bay with the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean to complete the picture.
‘Now that is nice,’ said Albert as he surveyed the scene below him. ‘Very nice indeed.’
‘Best be getting back,’ said Alice after a while. ‘I dread the journey, don’t you? They are like madmen on the roads here.’
Near to where the car was parked was a small café and, had their language skills been greater, they would have stopped in for a drink. As it was, they decided against this and proceeded towards the hire vehicle. As they approached, Albert stopped in his tracks.
‘Is that our car?’ he queried.
As it was the only car in the area, and in the place where they had left it, Alice replied that it was very likely their car.
‘Then look at it,’ said Albert with a pained expression on his face.
‘My God!’ cried Alice. ‘It’s got no wheels.’
They rushed towards it and clearly on the windscreen was a small sticker with the number Twenty visible.
‘What in God’s name has happened here?’ asked Albert. He looked around desperately. Some distance away, a family group were picnicking. Sitting at tables outside the café, several more people sipped drinks. Albert felt panic approaching.
‘Alice,’ he said, ‘as you speak Italian, try and explain the problem to the chap in the café. He might be able to help. I’ll guard the car.’
Alice, as near to tears as she had been for many a year, and clutching her scrap of paper with her Italian words written on it, went into the bar. An elderly man stood behind a gleaming espresso machine which made a furious noise as he prepared a coffee for a patron.
‘Bon Bon,’ she said, completely forgetting the customary form of greeting in Italian.
The assistant didn’t reply but turned around, took a packet of confectionery from off the shelf and handed it to her. She stared at the packet of sweets and handed them back.
‘No, non,’ she stumbled. ‘My car no wheels. I need four wheels.’
Not knowing what the Italian was for wheels she drew four circles in the air with her hands.
‘Wheels, round like pizza,’ she said. ‘Quantro.’
She had almost got the Italian word for ‘four’ right but not quite.
The waiter seemed delighted and his face lit up. He gestured to her that she should sit outside and he would bring the order across. Alice rejoined Albert.
‘It’s all right now, luv,’ she said soothingly. ‘He will bring four wheels for the car in a moment.’
Albert puzzled as to how a café in Italy would have four car wheels in stock, but there
was no telling what these foreigners would get up to so he said nothing. Fifteen minutes went by and then they saw the waiter approaching.
‘I can’t see the wheels,’ he said anxiously.
The waiter came closer and beamed at them both before placing before them four pizzas and a full bottle of Cointreau. Albert and Alice gawped at him in disbelief.
‘What’s this?’ asked Albert as he examined the bottle. ‘What have you done, Alice? We can’t run the car on booze and pizza.’
The waiter presented them with a bill and reluctantly Albert paid it with the money he had changed on board that morning.
‘This is a right carry-on,’ he mumbled as he took a bite from one of the pizzas. ‘What on earth do we do now?’
There are times in life when guardian angels seem to take pity on the poor mortals whom they are charged to protect and, for Albert and Alice, such a moment had arrived. For who should pull up in front of them on a scooter but the very officer with whom they had spoken on leaving the ship. He recognised them instantly.
‘Ah, Mr and Mrs Hardcastle,’ he said. ‘Enjoying some light refreshments, I see.’
Immediately they poured out their troubles to him, and who better to listen to those troubles than the ship’s Security Officer. In no time at all he had contacted the car-hire company and arranged for the sorry couple to be driven back to the Golden Handshake.
‘I always said this was a damn fine ship,’ said Albert that evening, now safely back on the ship and ensconced in the safety of the Balcony Suite.
‘Aye,’ said Alice, as she packed the unwanted bottle of Cointreau into a suitcase.
‘It’s not bad, Albert. It’s not bad. But as for Naples … ’
She said no more and neither did her husband.
23
On the bridge, all was sweetness and light. The Captain and the Staff Captain quipped with each other as the Golden Handshake cut a fine figure through the water on course for Messina in Southern Italy, or as many preferred to emphasise, Sicily.
‘The cattle didn’t know how lucky they were when they sailed in this ship,’ said Sparda. ‘Sheer luxury.’
The Staff Captain was a little more cautious with his enthusiasm as he was receiving frequent reports about the poor functioning of the steering gear. However, he had to say that since the problems experienced in Gibraltar had been dealt with, the ship had performed reasonably well.
Sparda was looking forward to meeting his wife for a few brief hours. Lilian Sparda had been born in the United Kingdom and was known there as Lilian Foster until she met and married Sparda in Deptford. He had been doing a temporary job dredging the Thames and had lodged with the Foster family, many of whom had connections with shipping in one form or another. It had taken Lilian some time to settle in Messina, but certain of the changes were easy enough. She left the closeness of a London family, where relatives lived around every corner, for the closeness of an Italian matriarchy where relatives lived in every corner of the house! Peché, her husband, was very accustomed to English ways, and with his support she was able to develop a degree of independence. Some of the relatives, especially those who lived in Catania, rather frightened her, but thankfully they did not visit too frequently and she had little occasion to visit this inland Sicilian town.
The chaplain continued to languish in his limited quarters in the sickbay. The doctor had declared him completely cured of the throat condition, but had warned him in no uncertain terms that he must not, under any circumstances, sing hymns too loudly, and any sermon he delivered must be limited to three minutes. This was because the doctor knew that as a senior staff member, he would be required to attend Divine Service and he could not tolerate clerical sermonising.
The chaplain took this warning seriously, but as there had not yet been a Sunday which was a sea day, he had not been called on for duty. Neither had he been able to see the Captain, as Sparda had requested. Each time he tried to get an appointment, he was fobbed off with one excuse or another. Finally, as the ship headed towards Southern Italy, Sparda came out of the bridge into his own small cabin.
‘Come in,’ he boomed as he heard a timid knock on the door.
The chaplain had put on his only clerical suit for the occasion and this, together with a very broad clerical collar, made him look for all the world like Mr Slope, the Trollopian character. The chaplain entered and the Captain gave him the onceover,
‘Off to a funeral, are we?’ said Sparda merrily. ‘Who’s died then?’
‘No one that I am aware of, Captain,’ the man replied softly.
‘Speak up, young man,’ said Sparda. ‘I can’t hear a word you say.’
The chaplain cautiously cleared his throat and tried once again. This time apprehension got the better of him and not a sound emerged from his quivering lips.
‘Look, lad,’ said Sparda impatiently, ‘I got a fine education, but lipreading was not on the curriculum. Speak up or get out.’
By now the chaplain had forgotten what he meant to say and so once again remained mute.
‘By sainted George of England you’re a queer fish. Well, I’ll do the talking then. This Sunday is all yours. There will be Divine Service at ten o’clock, and you,’ at this juncture he prodded the chaplain in the chest with his forefinger so that the other man nearly fell over, ‘you,’ emphasized Sparda, ‘will be responsible for the service. Understand?’
The chaplain nodded.
‘Furthermore,’ continued Sparda, ‘I like good rousing hymns and better still, a full-blown sermon. I don’t consider that I have been to church unless there is a sermon of twenty-five minutes at least. Understood?’
Remembering the doctor’s instructions, the poor chaplain began to tremble again.
‘But …’ he began, this time in a half-audible whisper.
‘No buts,’ boomed the Captain. ‘You have to work your passage on this ship. Now, back to your quarters and get stuck into that sermon.’
The chaplain did not think it opportune to raise the question of his quarters and so he resigned himself to returning to his little room in the sickbay.
‘Good day, Padre,’ said Sparda in farewell. ‘Don’t tax your tonsils too much. You’ll need them on Sunday.’
And with that the chaplain left the cabin and returned to the bowels of the ship.
In another part of the ship altogether, Mr Toby Troy, former hostage turned lecturer, was working on his lecture series. The unfortunate fellow had been detained by Hezbollah, mainly because he had irritated them and, alas, he had not lost the ability to irritate all who came into contact with him. Although he had long ago abandoned his fiercely held religious beliefs, he had simply transferred his energy into promoting the activities of ‘The Society for Exposing Anything’. The Society had been founded by Assad Wikiwhats who, as a market trader in Swindon, laboured under a heavy sense of injustice. Why should he, a simple seller of fruit and vegetables, be denied access to global secrets? Brave Assad threw caution to the wind and set up the Society, and from day one never looked back. He met Toby Troy at an antique gun fair in Bristol, and they had worked together ever since. Their first major coup consisted of exposing an MP for paying too much tax.
‘He cannot be diligent,’ trumpeted Troy, ‘if he pays too much tax. He must go.’ And go he did.
The next triumph was for exposing a well-known retailer for selling bent bananas when European Economic Community regulations clearly stated they must be straight.
‘There are too many lawbreakers,’ thundered the Society, ‘and the country is going to the dogs because of them.’
The retailer was fined a considerable sum and banned from selling fruit for twelve months. Troy also took it upon himself to ‘doorstep’ individuals whom he considered needed exposing. He visited a home in Sevenoaks which had appeared on a television commercial. The lady of the house, a Mrs Liza Goodrich, had held before the camera a shirt and had both said and sung ‘Washo washes whiter’. When visited by Mr Wikiwhats and asked
, ‘Whiter than what?’ she was stuck for an answer and admitted, on camera, that she had held up a new shirt that had never been previously washed. This caused massive unrest across the British Isles and resulted in the Company of Detergent Operatives completely revising their code of practice. Clearly Toby Troy, partner of Assad Wikiwhats, was a dangerous man to have on board.
24
Enzo Bigatoni, Cruise Director extraordinaire, and master of the game ‘Piddling Pursuits,’ was a happy man. So far on the cruise his quiz session in the afternoons had attracted very satisfactory numbers, largely because no other event ever clashed with this slot. He had spent hours collecting obscure and unusual facts which he carefully noted in his little red book. Black books were for his language classes and red books for quiz questions.
The game was simple. Passengers were divided into teams and collected points, which were named ‘carats’, for correct answers. At first passengers thought they were being awarded vegetables, which caused much innocent laughter, until it dawned that this was a clever play on the ‘golden’ theme and stood for a measurement of gold. From time to time he would announce a special session of Pursuits during which he asked a series of difficult questions - twenty-four in all - all related to the same theme. In the most unlikely event of anyone getting every single question correct, (i.e. reaching pure gold) he was able to tempt them with a very special prize - a shore excursion for two with lunch and all the trimmings, the total value of which would not exceed five hundred pounds. As he never believed that any one person would ever win such a difficult quiz, he had not thought it necessary to get authorisation from the Hotel Manager for such a huge prize.
Sir Archie, a simple good-natured man, was a regular attender at Pursuits, although his solitary wife did not go along. Behind her brooding exterior lay a fierce intelligence and she would have undoubtedly been able to collect a massive number of carats, had she so wished. Mr Toby Troy had gone to each session of the game and had succeeded in irritating his team members by boasting about his unique knowledge of the world and, on most occasions, failing to get the correct answers and thus bring glory to the team. Albert and Alice had gone to one session, after which Albert declared it ‘totally daft’ and they avoided it thereafter.