Two’s Company

‘May I?’ She sat down across the table with a silken kiss of her legs and raised her glass. ‘Cheers!’

The ship began to roll with the open sea. ‘I love going places, don’t you?’

‘Not at night,’ I said. Water and darkness. Like crossing the river Lethe.

The mascara, the false eyelashes, gave her the wide-eyed gaze of a doll. ‘Are you a writer, or something?’

‘Sort of.’

‘It must be wonderful to write.’ She watched the lights of the ferry going the other way. ‘Ships that pass in the night,’ she added dreamily.

A distant beam of light swung in a lazy arc. The French coast. ‘Hasn’t the time gone quickly!?’ She smiled over my shoulder. ‘Alright, darling?’ Bill had to take his seasick pill and lie down.

On the car deck the names Bill and Sandra were stuck over the top of their windscreen. Then we were off in a blue haze of exhaust.

Ships that pass in the night.