by Dawn Brookes
Rachel had already spotted Sarah and the women jumped up and down with excitement as they embraced.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Rachel.”
“You too, you look great. Obviously, life on the high seas is suiting you.”
“You look good, too. I can’t wait to show you around. I’ll catch up with you after the safety drill tonight. What time are you eating?”
“I chose 6.30pm dining so that I could take in some shows and the gym afterwards,” said Rachel.
“Trust you! What stateroom are you in?”
“I’m on deck nine – room 9003.”
“Great, I’ll catch you later. Your stateroom is on the starboard side at the front of the ship. I’d better get back to work.”
Some of the other passengers smiled as Sarah left her friend.
A man sitting on the other side of the room had also been admiring Rachel’s looks from afar.
Maybe when the job’s done, I can have some leisure time with that one, he thought. He was a bit disappointed to see the woman in uniform arrive on the scene.
Perhaps as well I know she has a friend on the crew. I can’t afford to draw attention to myself.
Chapter 6
Rachel headed towards the crowds as she heard her deck number called out and joined a line of people for a relatively long walk upwards via makeshift ramps. There had been a bottleneck at the beginning as people were being urged by the ship’s photographers to have a pre-cruise photo taken, but Rachel had taken the opportunity to bypass it while a large family was being directed into position. After that, the walk was relatively simple. As she arrived at the entrance to the ship, her photo pass was scanned and she was on board the Coral Queen.
Waiters were handing out champagne or soft drinks to passengers on their arrival, and Rachel noted a few sales desks out to nab passengers as they boarded. Sarah had warned her about how expensive things could be on the ship. Rachel had been given a drinks package as part of her booking, meaning she would be able to choose from a limited range of wines or spirits and all soft drinks without extra cost.
She realised she was in the upper part of the ship’s atrium and was struck by its opulence. The atrium spanned two decks and there were seats and pristine, shining tables scattered around. She could see a number of eating areas including a patisserie, a pizza lounge and a few coffee bars on the deck below.
She found herself a seat and noticed the old lady from the VIP entrance sitting with a glass of champagne, but not drinking it. The lady looked troubled. Rachel’s instinct was telling her that something was not right, but her deliberating over whether to go and join her ended when a man and woman, who looked to be in their fifties, approached. The woman was incredibly well-dressed for a boarding day, wearing a blue silk dress with a laced V-neck.
“Are these seats taken?” the man asked in an American drawl.
“No, help yourself.” Rachel smiled.
“Are you travelling alone, dear?” asked the woman.
Get right to it, why don’t you?
“Yes and no,” Rachel replied. “I have a friend who works on board and she will be joining me for some of my trips. Where are you from?”
“We’re from New York City, ma’am,” said the man. “We take regular cruises and this is about our third around the Mediterranean. Rome is by far my favourite place. Isn’t that right, Mildred? I’m Joe, this is Mildred. Do you have a name?”
“How do you do, Joe and Mildred. I am Rachel and my friend is called Sarah. She is one of the ship’s nurses.”
“Well hopefully we won’t be meeting her in her professional capacity,” said Mildred, laughing.
Joe chatted away, making easy conversation, and Rachel was happy to listen as she didn’t want him to ask her what she did. She had debated whether she should tell a white lie while she was on board the Coral Queen and say she was a civil servant rather than a policewoman, mainly because she did not want to hear the inevitable “Evening all” jokes or stories about criminal relatives (or indeed anything work-related). She needn’t have worried in this instance, though, as Joe and Mildred were happy to talk about themselves.
The announcement came over the ship’s loudspeaker that passengers could go to their staterooms and Rachel excused herself. She noted she was currently on deck five and her cabin was on deck nine – I must get used to calling it a stateroom. When she had asked Joe and Mildred about cabins, they had been shocked.
“They’re called staterooms, dear,” Mildred had explained. “They are far grander than any cabins I have ever seen.”
The lifts were packed with people, and even though there were six of them where she was standing, Rachel decided to run up the stairs. She had not done any exercise at all today, and she usually took in a morning run and an evening gym session. Having noticed a number of well-proportioned people milling around, she was determined not to gain weight over the next fortnight.
Cruise or no cruise, I will keep fit.
The stairs were wide with shiny banisters that had obviously been freshly polished. They rose in sections that enabled them to spiral up through the central area between the lifts. Rachel gulped in air when she arrived on deck nine, but felt stimulated by the exertion.
Large bronze plaques were on the wall with odd room numbers on one side and even on the other. Rachel hadn’t yet worked out which side was starboard and which was port. She knew that starboard was right and port was left when facing the front, but she didn’t know which way was the front.
Once she had worked out which side of the ship the odd numbers were on and the direction her room was in, she stepped into the corridor.
Gosh, I knew it was big, but this corridor must be a mile long.
There were lots of people walking up and down a fairly narrow corridor and she had to step into indents where cabins – whoops, staterooms – were to let people pass who had a lot more hand luggage than she was carrying. She noticed that luggage was also starting to appear outside some of the staterooms and she passed a room with a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the outside.
Room 9003 was almost at the end of the corridor, a fair walk from where she had exited the stairs at midships. She noticed another lift area nearer to her stateroom and assumed there would be more towards the rear of the ship.
As she was making her way forward, she saw the old lady she had spotted earlier walking slowly along the corridor, dragging her hand luggage along behind her.
“Can I help you with that?” Rachel asked.
“No thank you, dear, I have already turned down one of the stewards, and he might be offended if he sees me accepting help from someone else. Although I’m beginning to wish I had taken him up on his offer.”
The old lady smiled and the worry appeared to leave her for the moment. Although she looked frail, her eyes were sharp, and Rachel suspected that she was a ‘no-nonsense’ type of woman.
“Where are you heading?” Rachel asked.
The lady looked confused for a moment, then checked her papers and answered, “I am in 9005.”
“I think we will be neighbours then,” said Rachel. “I was told midships was the more comfortable.”
Tactless, she thought, slightly embarrassed. She had noticed the lady earlier passing through the VIP lounge and presumed she could afford the more expensive rooms.
“I thought I would try out a different part of the ship for a change,” replied the old lady. Her eyes misted up momentarily before she blinked and came back to the present. “What about you? Is this your first cruise?”
“Yes.” Is cruise virgin stamped on my forehead? “A friend invited me. She works on the ship as a nurse and decided I needed a holiday.”
“How nice, I do hope you will enjoy yourself. Cruises can be great fun. I have done fifteen on this cruise line, which in my opinion is the best. This is my first one alone.” Her eyes became sad again. “My name is Marjorie.”
“I’m Rachel. My friend is called Sarah, but I’m not sure how m
uch I will see of her. It depends how busy the medical centre is. I have brought plenty of books, though.”
They arrived at their staterooms and parted company. Rachel liked the old lady; she definitely had breeding, and Rachel didn’t believe she normally roughed it – if having a balcony room at the front of a ship could be considered roughing it. Not the prying type, either, which Rachel liked - and needed.
Interested, but not nosey, she thought, wondering again whether something was troubling her new neighbour.
Chapter 7
Marjorie walked into her stateroom and saw that the double bed had been made up. Not for the first time, she wondered whether this whole cruise idea had been a mistake.
There’s still time to leave the ship.
She had never felt so alone. For sixty years, she had been married to her beloved husband, and although she had good friends, she knew that she would have to face some tough decisions over the next few months that she couldn’t discuss with them.
Her mind wandered to her only son who appeared so cold these days.
Where did we go wrong? She asked herself this question for the thousandth time, but knew that she and her husband had not made Jeremy who he was. She so wanted to be able to confide in him; she had wanted to cry on his shoulder following his father’s death, but he had seemed detached both before and after the funeral. She only saw him when he needed money for the business that her husband had worked his fingers to the bone to build.
The rumblings from the directors had made their way to her ears, but Marjorie had remained loyal to her son for months, explaining that it was early days and he would become more like his father in time. In her heart of hearts, she knew that this was never likely to happen. Her husband had managed to rein him in, but now that he was gone, Jeremy was left to do things the way he wanted. He had always been a bit like a bull in a china shop, never having the sensitivities required for managing people in the way that his father had.
Perhaps we let him get away with too much when he was young.
Their only child had been born out of a difficult pregnancy and an even more difficult labour. Marjorie’s blood-pressure had been raised during her pregnancy and she had been confined to her home for the majority of the time. Labour came one awful, stormy night – as if it had been a sign of things to come. She had awoken with terrible pain and was taken to hospital, where she spent the next forty hours in labour. When the time for delivery came, it was long and protracted, and in the end the doctor was called in by the midwife to carry out a forceps delivery.
Marjorie could still remember the excruciating pain as the local anaesthetic hadn’t worked. Eventually, their son had been pulled out, screaming at the top of his voice.
“You have a baby boy!” the doctor had announced, happily. She’d held out her arms to take her baby, but he’d been put into a cot by the midwife and wrapped in a shawl.
After this, Marjorie had bled, and she could see the concern on the doctor’s face as he tried to stem the bleeding. She remembered staring at the ceiling, crying out for her husband, who wasn’t allowed in the room, and she sobbed at the thought that she would be facing death alone. All the time, she could hear a screaming baby.
“Please let me hold my son.”
She’d pleaded, but the midwife was too busy rushing around handing the doctor bits of equipment to try to stem the bleeding. A blood transfusion was put up. Eventually, Marjorie had been taken to theatre for an operation to stop the blood loss. She had woken in the early hours of the next morning and seen Ralph’s head resting on her bed.
“Thank God!” he’d said as he woke up. “I thought I’d lost you.” The tears, that he had obviously been holding back, filled his eyes. “You are never going through that again.”
She’d found out later that during the night-time operation, her womb had been removed to stop her from bleeding to death. Going through ‘that’ again would never be an option.
Marjorie’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the stateroom door, which she had left ajar.
“Hello, madam, my name is Josie and I will be your stateroom attendant for this cruise.” The voice was loud and jolly and came from a pint-sized Philippine lady. “Is there anything I can do for you at the moment, madam?”
Marjorie was well aware of how busy the room stewards were at this time. She and her husband had usually had a suite with a butler in attendance when they’d travelled together. Although she could still afford this type of room, she had always thought it an unnecessary extravagance, but Ralph had loved to treat her.
Realising that Josie was waiting for an answer, she lifted her head. “Not presently, thank you, but if you could ensure that there is a regular supply of Earl Grey and camomile tea in the room, I would be grateful.”
“Absolutely, madam.”
Marjorie surmised that Josie knew she was a VIP passenger and likely to be wealthy, so the attendant would go the extra mile. Stateroom stewards provided a good service to all of the guests, but there were those who left generous tips, usually Americans. Marjorie was also aware that Josie was more likely to receive a generous tip from those with plenty of money, and would be hoping she would oblige.
“If there is anything you need, just call housekeeping, madam, and I will do my best. There is an emergency drill at 5pm. Let me know if you need any assistance, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Josie, but I am quite agile for my age!” She couldn’t help but smile as Josie slipped into ‘ma’am’ and ‘madam’ at random.
“Oh, your luggage has arrived, madam. Bring it in here,” Josie instructed a man twice her size. He obediently brought in the luggage and placed it carefully on the plastic sheet that lay over the foot of the bed for this purpose. With that, they both left the room.
Marjorie remained where she was and could hear Josie knocking at the door of the nice young lady she had met in the corridor.
Rachel, I think her name was.
Chapter 8
Rachel checked out her room and appreciated its luxurious feel. She opened the balcony doors and stood on the balcony, enjoying the fresh air after travelling all day. She noticed the table and chairs that she could use for outdoor leisure and quiet times.
It was a pleasant day for England, but her room was facing the dockside so she couldn’t watch any boats just yet. Instead, she watched men filling luggage trolleys and bringing them on board. She could also see what must be the bridge ahead of her as there were officers milling around in their white suits. It protruded out to the side as if floating in mid-air.
There was quite a bit of activity on the dockside as Coral Queen was due to sail at 4pm and it was now 3.30pm. She admired the well-oiled machine going on all around her and respected the efficiency.
Hearing a knock at the door, she went to answer it.
“Hello, madam. My name is Josie and I am your stateroom attendant for this cruise. Is everything to your satisfaction?” A very small woman with dark black hair was wearing a badge with her name on it over a maroon uniform.
“Everything’s fine, thank you.”
“Let me know if you need anything. Your luggage has arrived, madam. There will be an emergency drill at 5pm, madam.”
“Please call me Rachel.”
“Okay, madam Rachel,” Josie replied, and off she bustled to the room next door.
Rachel chuckled as she brought in her suitcase and placed it on the bed so that she could unpack. This would all take some getting used to, but in the force, she called people sir and ma’am, so the situation was not entirely alien. She pulled in the suitcase and placed it on the bed so that she could unpack.
I think I might enjoy this holiday after all.
After unpacking, Rachel went upstairs to deck twelve. There a lively ‘sailaway’ party was rocking with music as people watched the ship manoeuvring through the Solent. A well-equipped deck confronted her with a large swimming pool, spa and children’s pool along with a cocktail bar and a grill bar. Waiters strolle
d around offering cocktails to unsuspecting passengers, who were then asked to provide their stateroom card and sign a chit. All of these drinks would be added to the bill at the end of the cruise and could add up to a large sum over a two-week period.
“Don’t take any cocktails off the waiters once you’ve have had your free boarding champagne,” Sarah had warned. “That’s how the ship makes money when people first come on board – they think the drink is free, and once they realise it isn’t, they are too embarrassed to refuse it. Stick to your drinks package allowance.”
Rachel could see some people swimming already, and because of the hot summer afternoon, others had found sunbeds around the pool. A band played on a stage and the booming sound of the bass must have been audible from the dockside.
Rachel made her way to the side rails so that she could watch as the ship left Southampton. She couldn’t believe how close some of the small sailing boats came, and every now and again, the ship would deliver a thunderous sound as the horn blasted to warn them to move away. A tiny dot of a motorboat with the word ‘Pilot’ on the side was leading the ship safely out to sea before returning to port. Rachel looked forward to exploring the whole ship, but for now contented herself with watching people party and looking out to sea. The dock was becoming more and more distant as the ship moved away.
How on earth do you navigate a ship this size through this busy port? She admired the captain immensely.
Rachel spotted a few passengers who she recognised from the departure lounge, including the man she had noticed watching her. He also seemed to be travelling alone. He was good-looking in a dark sort of way, with black cropped hair and a physique that made him look ex-military. Something about him made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe it was his good looks, or maybe it was because she was wary of men at the minute. The last thing she wanted was a man in her life.
Rachel texted her parents to let them know that she was safely aboard and would be out of range for a few days until they made the first port of Lisbon.