by Dawn Brookes
Her father texted back. “Have a lovely holiday, we will miss you. Stay safe and give Sarah our love. Love you x”
She was aware her parents worried about her since her engagement had broken off, and they had tried to support her as best they could.
“Will do, Dad. Relaxing already, so looking forward to the cruise. Love to mum, see you when I get back xxx”
The hour after departure passed quickly and soon the passengers were summoned to muster stations. Rachel attended the compulsory safety drill, which consisted of a lesson on the different alarm sounds and how to put on a lifejacket. The latter had been fun as some people needed assistance adjusting lifejackets to fit around generous waists and chests. Each lifejacket had a torch and a whistle attached to it so passengers could be seen and heard in the dark. Fire safety was also covered as a fire on board a ship could be fatal. Some passengers were taking the drill a lot more seriously than others, but the crew were all taking it very seriously.
Rachel knew how important it could be for people to pay attention to a drill which might seem meaningless at the time. She herself had attended terror-attack and chemical-attack drills and she knew that the majority of people would not know how to react in such circumstances. Rachel paid the utmost attention to the safety drill, and by the end she knew how to put on her life jacket and how to find her muster station in the dark without using the lifts. Sarah would laugh at her because her nickname at university had been SWOT as opposed to SWAT. The man-overboard drill had been a sobering moment as she had recently read about a man who had gone missing while on a cruise. Missing Presumed Dead, the headline had read.
After about thirty minutes, the passengers were dismissed and the atmosphere returned to holiday mode. Rachel made her way back to her stateroom so that she could change out of her travelling clothes and have a shower before dinner. She took the stairs down to deck four and made her way towards the restaurant.
It was huge. She could see the sheer scale of the room from where she stood in a queue that had formed. A crew member had already sprayed Rachel’s hands with hand disinfectant while the Maître D’ was welcoming everybody as they arrived. When she got to the desk, she had to look up as the Maître D’ towered above her at around six foot six.
“What is your room number, madam?”
“It’s 9003.”
“Ah, Miss Prince. Are you happy to sit with others?”
“Yes, that would be fine.”
“This will be your table for the rest of the cruise, madam. Welcome aboard.” He turned to a waiter standing by. “Table 305.”
Rachel was led away and seated at a round table set for eight people. Another waiter pulled out the chair for her and smiled. Six people were already seated at the table and she felt a little bit like a fish out of water being on her own.
She needn’t have worried.
“Hello, I’m David and this is my wife Florence,” said a man sitting to her left. He was in his early sixties, Rachel thought, well-dressed, with greying hair, and his wife - who appeared to be some fifteen years younger than him, was glamorous.
“I’m Rachel,” she responded and smiled at them both.
“We were just getting to know each other,” said a lady opposite. She had bleached blonde hair and was around forty. “This is my husband Greg and I am Sue.”
Rachel detected a Scottish accent. She nodded to Greg, who almost disappeared under the table, being quite short.
“I’m Jean and this is Brenda,” said the lady next to the empty chair on Rachel’s right. The two ladies were probably in their early fifties, and Rachel thought Brenda looked pale.
Animated conversation permeated the restaurant as people settled down for dinner. The place next to Rachel had been set, so the waiters were obviously going to give the eighth diner at table 305 a little more time to arrive before taking their orders.
“Is your partner running late?” asked Greg. A casually dressed man with a moustache, he seemed ill at ease. Rachel thought he must be mid-thirties.
“Sorry?” Then Rachel realised that he was referring to the empty seat. “Oh no. Erm, I’m travelling alone,” she managed to say just as a man was seated next to her.
Blast, it’s the man from the deck party.
“Sorry I’m late,” he apologised. “My luggage took longer than expected.” His accent was slightly foreign, but Rachel couldn’t work out whether it was Italian or Spanish. “I am Carlos.”
Carlos gave the impression of someone who was comfortable in his own skin. Rachel wished she could be like that. He managed to charm everyone into easy conversation, including her.
The waiter appeared.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Coral Queen. I am Stavros and this is Geraldine.” A young waitress appeared at his side, smiling. “We will be waiting for you over the next few weeks and will do our best to satisfy your tastes.”
Good English, but not perfect, Rachel noticed. They were given à la carte menus with a choice of up to five courses. Rachel’s eyes nearly popped out.
The wine waiter, a Bulgarian man called Grigor, had already been to the table and introduced himself. The drinks were arriving during Stavros’s introduction.
“Please to enjoy your drinks and we will be back momenta.”
Stavros then moved on to the next table.
Rachel noticed Marjorie being seated at a table for two nearby.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit with company?” she overheard Stavros ask.
“No, thank you, I shall be quite happy to eat alone.” Marjorie looked overwhelmed and Rachel managed to catch her eye. She smiled, and Marjorie raised her glass of water in salutation.
As soon as Rachel saw Marjorie, she wished she had been seated next to her rather than the overly charming man to her right. She didn’t want to be sucked in by anyone’s charming ways and was annoyed that a single man had been seated next to her.
What are they up to? Are they matchmaking? She realised she was being silly. The Maître D’ wouldn’t know who she, or Carlos, was.
It was just a cruel twist of fate.
Carlos, on the other hand, seemed quite delighted that he had been seated next to her and made every effort to charm her. She decided to be polite, but aloof, and intentionally conversed more with the couple to her left rather than with him.
The dinner passed agreeably. Rachel liked David and Florence. Florence was a paediatrician, and she and David had met when his son had had an accident and had ended up being cared for by Florence. Recently widowed at the time, David had been desperately worried that he would lose his son, too. After the boy had been discharged from hospital, David had sent flowers to Florence and attached his phone number, but Florence had been aware of the ethics of having a relationship with a relative of a patient and had not called him.
“I could stand it no more,” David said. “I know it might seem like stalking, but I had to know if she would consider going out with me and so I waited outside the hospital and followed her until she was off-site.”
“I was thrilled to see him.” Florence continued the story. “I had regretted throwing away his number so that I wouldn’t be tempted to call him, and there he stood, in my local café. Of course, I didn’t know then that he had followed me or I might have called the police.” She nudged him gently at this point.
Rachel was delighted that after a rough time, David had found happiness with this charming woman.
“We waited for twelve months before announcing that we were going out together, which gave me enough time to explain to my son and daughter that I had met someone else. My son didn’t mind at all as he already knew Florence, but my daughter, who was fourteen, made things difficult and left home at the earliest opportunity.”
“That’s the only sad bit,” said Florence. “I tried everything to become friends with her, explaining that I didn’t want to replace her mother, but she was anger personified. To this day, she hardly acknowledges me, even thoug
h she’s now twenty-one.”
Rachel couldn’t imagine anyone disliking Florence, but then, she had not lost her mother at such a tender age so she couldn’t judge.
There was only one tricky moment during dinner when conversation lulled and Jean had asked Rachel what she did. The table seemed to go quiet.
“I have just finished a training course and now I work in the public sector.” This seemed to satisfy the other guests for now and no-one had asked for further details. Only Florence appeared to want to ask more, but Rachel sensed she understood her not wanting to elaborate.
With dinner over, coffees were served. Rachel had declined wine because she wanted to go to a show and thought she would have a drink in the theatre.
Carlos was hanging back after dinner, and he asked Rachel what she was doing next.
“I’m meeting a friend,” she said, even though Sarah had said it would be late before she could join Rachel as she was having to show two new members of the medical team the ropes. Rachel excused herself, saying she had to dash.
In the ladies’ room, Rachel came across Marjorie re-touching her lipstick.
“Hello,” she said. “Did you enjoy dinner?”
“Yes.”
Rachel thought she looked troubled.
“Are you going to the show?” she asked.
“Well, I was going back to my stateroom, but perhaps I will go to the show. I always find it difficult to sleep on the first night of a cruise.”
“Perhaps we can go together?” Something about this woman made Rachel want to look after her, and she trusted her instincts.
“That would be nice,” replied Marjorie. “Yes please.”
Rachel took the old lady’s arm and they walked along from the bow to the stern, where the theatre was situated. Rachel noticed Carlos in a crowd of people who were hanging around outside the rest room, and he looked none too pleased when she emerged with Marjorie. He turned his back and walked away.
Good riddance.
When she and Marjorie were walking back to their staterooms, Rachel had a feeling they were being watched. The feeling disturbed her, but she forgot all about it when she saw Sarah outside her room.
Sarah was in a different officers’ uniform from the one she had been wearing earlier. “About time too!” She laughed. “Living it up already?”
“For your information, we have just enjoyed a very pleasant show,” answered Rachel. “This is my friend, Sarah. Sarah, this is Marjorie.”
“Good evening, Lady Snellthorpe,” replied Sarah. “The ship’s chief medical officer, Dr Graham Bentley, knew your husband, I believe, and he asked me to send his regards and an invitation to join him for dinner tomorrow in the officers’ dining room.”
“Young Graham, of course! Please tell him I would be delighted,” replied Marjorie. “Goodnight to you both, enjoy the rest of your evening. This old lady needs to go to her bed.”
Rachel was curious, but not surprised by the conversation. She could tell a woman of breeding when she saw one.
“Goodnight, Marjorie.”
Marjorie entered her stateroom feeling happy after spending a pleasurable few hours with the young woman called Rachel. She was delighted that Graham Bentley had remembered her and invited her to join him for dinner the next evening.
She reflected on the evening. The waiter at dinner had asked if she wanted to join other people or sit alone, and she had chosen the latter. In the past, she would have chosen to be sociable, but these days she felt a little edgy in new company and often experienced a need to withdraw herself. The whole cruise idea had become a bit overwhelming without Ralph by her side and she was now wishing she had brought a friend along for company. Johnson had offered to accompany her, as had her maid but she had been convinced she needed to do this by herself.
Blasted be your stubbornness, Snellthorpe, Marjorie chided herself. Oh well, it’s too late now, and I will make the best of it.
On the whole, she viewed the cruise positively. It provided her with an opportunity to strive for independence and show Jeremy that weakness didn’t mean walkover.
She had been enjoying people watching over dinner, and when she had seen Rachel seated at the large table, she’d almost asked the waiter to move her. Then she’d scolded herself.
A young woman doesn’t want to have an old lady following her around.
Something else was now troubling Marjorie.
That young man at the table, I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before. Where was it? Oh, how I wish Ralph was here. My mind seems to be meandering these days.
Chapter 9
Rachel and Sarah nattered into the small hours.
“I’ve left my colleague, Bernard, showing the new team members round the ship,” Sarah had explained when they’d met at Rachel’s door. “And he’s agreed to be on call. I have a great team to work with, but it’s all change now as we’ve got a new senior nurse and a new baby doc.”
“I’m sure it will be okay, I don’t know anyone you can’t get along with.”
“It’s so good to see you, Rachel, but you look like you’ve lost weight?”
“Only a few pounds, and I’m sure the ship’s food will fatten me up. We had a three-course dinner tonight. It could have been five, but I abstained from two. I am not used to that amount of food as you well know.”
“I know. The food is wonderful, but you can’t eat like that for too long. We get to eat in the officers’ dining room, and sometimes at the infamous midnight buffet. A lot of staff aren’t allowed in guest areas of the ship and rarely get above water level.”
“That must be awful,” sympathised Rachel. “It is rather upmarket, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s great fun as a nurse, although extremely tiring. Many of the crew work twelve to fourteen hours a day, and then they drink too much and romp too much in their time off.”
“Really? Like being back at uni, then?”
“Worse because some of them don’t have a clue about the meaning of safe sex and when they’re drunk they will go with anyone. We have a few who are renowned Casanovas and are always needing treatment for VD.”
“Yuck, that doesn’t sound so good. Don’t tell me more or I won’t be able to look the stateroom stewards in the eye.”
“They’re not all bad. Many of the Philippinos are married with families back home. They work to send money home so that their families can have a better life. Fidelity is not unheard of, but the bad are bad. Who is your steward?”
“Her name is Josie and I think she is from the Philippines.”
“Yes, she is, and very hard working. You will be well catered for.”
Rachel enjoyed hearing Sarah’s stories while they shared a bottle of red wine, until eventually Sarah fell asleep. Rachel had pulled out the sofa bed in the room for Sarah so that they could chat until they were tired.
It took Rachel a little while to get used to the night time ship noises. She could hear the constant humming of air conditioning and engine noise, along with the rocking of the ship as it negotiated its way through waves. Eventually the rocking became soothing and lulled her into a slumber. She saw Carlos’s face just before falling into a deep sleep.
By the time Rachel woke up, Sarah had left for work. She’d explained that she would need to return to her cabin to change her uniform before going to morning surgery. Rachel’s room was really dark, but once she opened the heavy curtains, light flooded in. She could only see the sea as she was on the right hand side of the ship, facing the Atlantic as the ship headed south. The sky was relatively clear and it looked like it might be a sunny day.
Rachel decided to go and explore the gym, maybe go for a run before breakfast, so she pulled on a tracksuit and made her way to the upper decks. The gym was on deck sixteen, and she was pleased to see that there were only a few people using the facility. A small Indian woman sat behind the desk and smiled at Rachel as she entered.
“Welcome, madam.” She spoke perfect English. “Are you familiar wit
h gym equipment?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Okay, madam, help yourself. The female changing rooms are over there.” She pointed to her left and then she handed Rachel a fresh white bath towel.
Rachel spent forty-five minutes working out on the treadmill, the bike and the rower, and felt a lot better for it. She then decided to go for a shower and postpone her run until the next day. All the while, Carlos’s face kept popping into her mind. She became annoyed with herself for thinking about him, although she was willing to admit to herself that he was attractive. Drop dead gorgeous, actually, but she didn’t want to fall for his obvious charm, nor have a holiday romance that would go nowhere. Another part of her, though, was warming to the idea of a fling, which showed that her heart was mending. It must be if she could be attracted to another man after what had seemed like a lifetime of pain.
You’re getting ahead of yourself. All he has done is be polite over dinner.
On the way back to her room, she saw Marjorie waiting for a lift. The old lady smiled.
“Good morning, my dear. It looks like you have been active already this morning.”
“Good morning, Marjorie. Yes, I went to the gym, and now I’m just going to change for breakfast. Where are you heading?”
“I’m going to the main restaurant. What about you?”
“I think I’ll head up to the buffet for breakfast – I saw it on my way down, then I’ll take a tour of the ship.”
“You have a good day, dear.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot! Sarah invited me to dine in the officers’ dining room tonight and she said she would pick us both up at around six. Is that alright with you?”
“That would be perfect. I’ll see you then.”
Rachel thought that Marjorie seemed a little more relaxed and wondered if she had been imagining the worry in her face. Sarah had explained that the chief medical officer had known Marjorie’s husband well and that she and he had been very close, so understandably she must be missing him.