‘Oh, yes, that rotting shark, dis-gus-ting!’ the large Englishwoman was all but shouting. Despite the rattling of the minibus, Francis couldn’t help listening as she swapped stories with the two tanned American guys sitting opposite her. They were discussing unpleasant local delicacies from around the world. The shark was what they insisted on giving you in Iceland; washed down with this ‘local firewater’ that ‘kind of took the taste away but then again didn’t’.
Cue laughter. But had she ever been to Malaysia and tried Durian fruit? asked the younger American. ‘Oh my gad, the smell of it! It’s like a gym sock.’
‘What did that guy in Taiping say, Damian?’ the other replied. ‘That after you’d eaten it your breath smelt like you’d been French kissing your dead grandmother.’
The Americans were chortling, but the Englishwoman wasn’t to be outdone.
‘You remember those witchetty grubs we were offered at Uluru, Gerald?’ she said, turning to her companion, a skinny fellow with a trim grey goatee. ‘So gross, weren’t they?’
‘We didn’t eat them, Shirley,’ he pointed out.
‘We just couldn’t,’ she admitted. She had three, if not four chins, wobbling below a face like a pink blancmange. Trying not to stare at her, Francis found himself wondering what she might have looked like when she and Gerald were young. She had a dainty nose buried in there somewhere, and intense, rather beautiful pale blue eyes.
‘Ooh-loo-roo,’ asked Damian, ‘where’s that?’
‘In Australia. Haven’t you been? It’s the most sacred Aboriginal site in the world.’
‘You mean, like, Ayers Ruck?’
‘The Aborigines call it Uluru,’ Shirley replied, a tad self-righteously, but she clearly wasn’t going to spoil her fun new friendship over a matter of parochial PC.
As the Americans fought back with turkey testicles in Hong Kong and deep-fried guinea pig in Argentina, Francis tuned out. Through the tinted windows, under the cloudless cobalt sky, was the here and now of Africa; to each side of the potholed coast road, stalls on the orange earth, selling everything from bananas to motorcycle tyres. Happy Corner Shop Bar. In God We Trust Butcher. There was one ramshackle outlet that had fifty identical Pepsi bottles for sale. Women, swathed in colourful robes, walked languorously through the late-morning heat, carrying their goods and shopping on their heads; on individual braided topknots was balanced everything from a huge white enamel bowl full of pineapples to a teetering pile of black bin bags.
Over the other side of the coach, the competitive travel-boasting had advanced from delicacies to destinations. The worn tarmac coast road had degenerated to a rutted dirt track, so Francis strained to hear over the bumping and clattering. The Americans were now enthusing about Burma: ‘… temples laid out on the plain … totally awesome … you can take a balloon at dawn.’ Shirley fought back with Georgia: ‘Not the American one, the Caucasus … stunning frescoes … you just walk in.’ But Brad and Damian had been in Antarctica, which had been amazing: ‘Like, armies of penguins … you have no idea how huge the icebergs …’
But – oh no – Shirley had been to Chernobyl. ‘They only let you in for two hours. And you have to wash all your clothes afterwards. But it’s extraordinary. Incredibly spooky. Wasn’t it, Gerald?’
Brad and Damian couldn’t top Chernobyl, but they didn’t have to, because suddenly the minibus had turned on to smooth cement and they were into Tema docks, driving past tall stacks of oblong containers in red, rust-brown, pale blue, grey – MAERSK, MOL, CGM stencilled on their corrugated sides. Assorted vessels were moored up along the quay. Gulls swooped and squawked among tall masts. The fresh, salty tang of the ocean was mixed with the industrial whiff of engine oil. At one end, dominating the rest, was the gleaming bulk of a cruise liner.
‘That’s our ship!’ Shirley cried, stating the obvious excitedly.
The minibus came to a halt in its shadow. Francis had been told that the Golden Adventurer was not large. Indeed, one of its merits, the PR people back in London had stressed, was that it was comparatively nimble, could go to places that more sizeable cruise ships could not. But to Francis, as he stepped out and stood looking up at it, it seemed substantial enough, with its five long rows of windows above the waterline. Portholes in the black hull, then above the encircling red line, where every surface was a gleaming white, small, round-cornered square windows, then much bigger ones, with sliding doors and slim, flush balconies, then another layer with a surrounding walkway. Above that, tall white railings circled the open top deck, which bristled with masts and funnels and satellite dishes.
As the new arrivals got out and gathered in a loose gaggle on the quay, a silver Mercedes drew up beside them. The front door swung open and a uniformed chauffeur sprang out, ran round and opened the left rear door, from which disgorged an elderly woman in a large and floppy straw hat, a dark-blue silk knee-length dress, navy tights and tan leather espadrille wedges. The old fellow that followed her, helped out by the chauffeur, was correspondingly dapper: blue blazer over checked grey trousers, shiny brown brogues, panama hat. He smiled round at the waiting group and then followed his urgently beckoning partner over to the narrow gangway that led steeply up to the walkway three decks above.
At the foot of this stood a Filipino crew member in a crisp white shirt and pressed dark trousers.
‘This way, please, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, grinning as he gestured upwards.
As the others stepped on to it, one by one, the gangway wobbled visibly. Big Shirley looked terrified, holding tight to the rails as she manoeuvred herself carefully to the top, where there were more smiling staff to take her hands and pull her on board. A fresh-faced blonde with her hair up stood with a circular silver tray holding flutes of champagne. Another stockier greeter, with tight brown curls and a rather tense smile, offered flannels from a neat pile. Francis took one, gratefully. It was cool on his skin, delicately scented. Sandalwood, he rather thought.
‘Sparkling apple juice?’ asked the blonde. ‘Or a Bellini?’
Why not? It was after noon already and Francis had woken early in his unfamiliar hotel room. He took a Bellini and waited in line as the newcomers handed over their passports and were registered at a desk in a gloomy reception area with patterned blue and gold wallpaper and deep blue carpets. The elegant elderly couple – she still in the hat – were being given the royal treatment by a handsome fellow with four-stripe epaulettes on his white shirt and thick blond hair swept back from his forehead.
‘So good to see you again, Mr and Mrs Forbes-Are-lee …’
His accent was almost cornily French, while Mrs Forbes-Harley was American, from somewhere on the East Coast, Francis thought; distinctly refained anyway.
‘And you, Gregoire. How have you been keeping?’
After a minute or so of this, as Gregoire moved seamlessly on to a little old lady with a grey bun, Mrs Forbes-Harley turned round to take in Francis. Close up, her lipstick gleamed a deep maroon against the wrinkly brown crepe of the surrounding skin. Her coiffed blue-grey curls trembled as she smiled, revealing incongruous but magnificent white teeth.
‘They treat you so well on this ship,’ she said. ‘This is our seventh time. We love it. I’m Daphne, by the way.’
‘Francis,’ said Francis, taking her extended hand.
‘Good to meet you, Francis. And where do you hail from?’
‘London.’
‘London, England? Oh, we love London. Brown’s Hotel in Piccadilly, d’you know it?’ She pronounced it as if ‘a dilly’ were some kind of exotic flower. ‘It’s one of our favourite hidey holes.’ She gestured at her companion. ‘This is my husband, Henry.’
‘Nice to see you again,’ said the old man, vaguely. Then he focused and smiled charmingly. ‘It’s Tom, isn’t it?’
Daphne gave Francis an apologetic moue. ‘You – haven’t – met – him, Henry,’ she said slowly, as if speaking to a small child.
The old man looked taken aback. ‘Don’t we know each other?’ He paused, as if retrieving some distant memory. ‘From Antarctica?’
‘No, honey. Francis is new on this ship. We’ve never seen him before.’ She switched on a thousand-volt smile. ‘Are you travelling on your own, Francis?’
‘I am.’
He could have told her that he was a crime writer and had been invited to lecture; and that in return Goldencruise had offered him the ten days for free. But he decided to enjoy being a man of mystery, for the time being at least. What was he? Newly divorced? An inveterate single? Gay? Wealthy, obviously.
‘Do please consider us to be your friends,’ said Daphne.
Now Gregoire was making an announcement: about the cabins, which were, he said, in the final stages of preparation, and would be ready for occupation immediately after lunch. ‘So please, feel free to go on up to the restaurant, one deck above us ’ere, which is now open.’
With remarkable speed the passengers got moving. Francis heard the rising crescendo of Shirley’s laugh dwindling away down the corridor.
He stayed where he was, taking a seat on a blue velveteen banquette, sipping his Bellini, noting that the peach juice was mixed with real champagne. No half-measures in this luxury zone. Below, on the quay, a few final bits and pieces were being loaded on to the ship; square crates hauled up on tense, quivering blue nylon ropes to the open top deck above. Urgent shouts accompanied the work; but none of them, thankfully, were for Francis.
He was glad to be away; to have escaped, even if only briefly, the pressures and distractions of his life in London. Not to mention the demise of his latest relationship, with the stimulating, sexy, but in the end impossibly solipsistic Chloe G. What had happened to him? The temporary fame that had settled on him after he, a mere B-list crime writer, had solved the ‘litfest murders’ of Mold-on-Wold had led him to a strange place. For an autumn and a spring, he had found himself lionized. In public, there were requests to appear on TV and radio shows, to contribute his thoughts to this or that desperate rag: Of what quality in yourself are you most proud? What advice do you have for an aspiring writer? Has your colour ever held you back? Wine or beer? Steak or sushi? In private, there were invitations to little dinners in London suburbs, where he was often seated next to a suitable ‘single’ female, generally equally put out to be so obviously matchmade. On the couple of occasions he had followed up these thoughtful introductions of his married friends, he had found that things were not as simple as they seemed and there was a present or past attachment lurking. Chloe had been one such. In her late thirties, allegedly looking for someone to settle down with but in reality hung up on another, older man who had messed her around for years. In the end it had been easier not to try and compete; to back out and put a stop to intimacy and its complications. At least for a while. Back to lonely but straightforward celibacy.
After ten minutes or so, Francis got to his feet and followed the others through, out of the reception area and into a central landing from where circular stairs went up and down. He passed a young man with a bushy blond beard peering into a cupboard with a torch. Up one floor at the entrance to the restaurant, a maître’d in black tie was waiting to receive him. Another Filipino, another clean white smile. James said the name tag on his lapel.
‘Good afternoon, sir. Please, take a seat.’ James gestured through to the swathe of empty tables. There were bigger windows up here, mirrors on the walls and a lighter colour scheme, cream and gold, so it was altogether brighter. Shirley and Gerald and the two American guys were lunching together, but Francis didn’t feel ready to butt into such gregarious hilarity. He walked over and found a table in one corner, with a view out in two directions: to the quays and containers and assorted masts of the docked ships one way; and then, to the other, beyond a distant breakwater, the open sea. He took out his notebook and settled in for some quiet thinking time. But now James was upon him, beaming. A couple of yards behind stood a tall, red-faced gentleman with thick white hair and a matching moustache. He seemed to be twitching slightly.
‘Would you like company, sir?’ James asked. To refuse would surely be churlish.
‘Of course,’ Francis replied. ‘Why not?’
He smiled up at his new acquaintance, who grunted loudly as he bent to take a seat at a right angle from him. Klaus was his name and he was from Hamburg, Germany. A surgeon, though now retired. ‘I must apologize in advance for my school English,’ he said.
‘Please don’t. I have no German at all.’
‘In the world as it is, you have no need to.’ Klaus chuckled as he picked up the menu. Now was Francis having wine? Good. Was he familiar at all with German wines? No? So perhaps he would allow Klaus to choose?
There were, Klaus said, after he had tasted the Spätlese and they had clinked glasses, in his opinion three stages of an individual’s life. The first, until about twenty-five, thirty even, was learning. The second, from thirty to maybe sixty, was working. And the third, which some unimaginative persons called retirement, was living. ‘At last,’ he grinned, ‘you have got shot of your responsibilities. You have, if you have been at all clever, accumulated some nest egg or so. So now you have the freedom to do what you have always wanted.’
In this living phase Klaus was now in, he loved to travel. Sometimes his wife came with him; quite often she stayed behind in Hamburg. Klaus liked it either way, though each was different. ‘When I cruise with Helga, it is all very nice, but we sit together at meals, and we have a drink after dinner in the bar before retiring to our cabin. When I am on my own, I get to know strangers. I explore. I am more, how-to-say, adventurous.’
He really did say ‘how-to-say’ and his th’s were z’s, like some character from a bad sitcom. Under the friendly surface, there was something, in the look from his cool grey eyes, if not menacing, at least controlling. You got the sense that Klaus was not a man who was used to being thwarted.
So had Francis ever been on a cruise before? he asked. No? OK, so perhaps he should explain that there were cruises and cruises. On a standard cruise around the Med, you would find all types, and perhaps all ages too. Such things were starter cruises. Then there were the huge American leisure ships, ten, twenty times the size of this, with passenger numbers in the thousands, which went from island to island in the Caribbean.
‘Horrible,’ said Klaus, grimacing. ‘Thankfully, I have never been on one.’
And then there was this kind of cruise, which was, how-to-say, top-end, but also for the more experienced cruiser, the traveller, if you like. Had Francis ever heard of the Century Club? No? To be a member you had to have visited over one hundred different countries. Not just states, or subdivisions of countries, like Wales or Scotland, but proper separate nations.
‘And have you got your hundred?’ Francis asked.
‘No. I am not concerned with such nonsense. But there are plenty who are. And if you take this particular trip, the whole way from Cape Town to Dakar, you would be able to add at least twelve to your list. So you will find some who are here just for that.’
‘How many countries have you been to?’
Klaus sat back. ‘Sixty, maybe seventy. But then I do not have an obsession with stamps in my passport. What is the point of going to Monaco for two hours just to get the stamp? What do you learn? No, it is all very stupid.’
Klaus had travelled with the Goldencruise group before, he explained. To the Antarctic, another how-to-say adventurous location. And then before that along the north coast of Australia. ‘The Kimberley, they call it, after one of your British colonial administrators. A very wild area. Plenty of crocodiles but no people. There were some Aborigines there once, but those convicts poisoned most of them.’ He laughed, challengingly, but Francis wasn’t going to rise to this sort of provocative non-PC; he always preferred to listen and let people reveal themselves.
As their starters arrived, there were loud shouts from below as moorings were untied; then a wobble as the ship moved away from the quay and out into the harbour.
‘At last we are sailing,’ said Klaus, raising his glass again.
It felt good to be on the move, the port receding as the view from the windows changed to the open blue of sea and sky. They passed fishing boats heading out beyond the long stone breakwater, each with its halo of circling white birds.
At the welcome drinks that evening, Francis wore a cream linen suit. He had bought it on a whim in a January sale and never quite found the right occasion to wear it at home. Now, he felt, it came into its own. He looked round at the dressed-up groups of guests gathered in the wood-panelled Panorama Lounge. They were mostly from what Klaus would have called the ‘living’ third of life: white-haired, bald, turkey-necked, liver-spotted. The best plastic surgeons in the world couldn’t totally turn back the clock, though valiant attempts had been made here and there.
Francis wondered if he had the nerve to go and chat to one of the exceptions: a tall, middle-aged Asian guy with shoulder-length dark hair, magnificently turned out in a crimson and gold salwar kameez, who was standing next to a portly white fellow in a double-breasted Prince of Wales check. He decided he didn’t quite, not yet, then found himself exchanging smiles with the dark-haired young woman he had noticed during the afternoon’s mandatory safety briefing up on the top deck, when the guests had been shown their emergency muster stations and how to put on their lifejackets (as well as being warned to keep their blinds down at night because of the ‘slight risk’ of piracy). Her name was Sadie and her older companion was not her mother, as Francis had imagined, but her ant. Aunt Marion’s husband Saul had had to drop out of the cruise at the very last moment but fortunately Sadie was working in South Africa for nine months so had been able to fly up and take his place.
‘My husband the workaholic,’ Marion grumbled, flashing chunky diamonds as her bony fingers seized a smoked salmon tartlet from a passing tray. ‘I only wish he knew what he was missing out on.’ When dinner was called, Marion invited Francis to join them.
Head waiter James put the trio on a table for six and then brought three singles over. First, the old lady with the grey bun whom Francis had seen at check-in, all sparkly and smiley now in an eau-de-Nil top criss-crossed with threads of silver; she was English too, it turned out, and her name was Eve. Then a pink-cheeked American with a head as shiny as a billiard ball – Joe. And finally, crisp in a navy blazer with brass buttons, Klaus. He took the last place between Marion and Sadie. Having introduced himself to Sadie, he gave Francis a man-to-man nod which pretty much said, A very attractive woman I see. You are the younger man. All yours for now. He then turned politely to the aunt.
So Francis settled in with Sadie. Her missing uncle Saul was some big-shot on Wall Street and – she rolled her lovely brown eyes – he was always doing this. Aunt Marion only forgave him because he earned such pots of money. It was obscene, to be honest, how much he pulled in. Not that she, Sadie, usually got the benefit of his holiday no-shows. But because she was in Cape Town anyways it made sense. She was working for the Peace Corps on an education project down there. It was in this township, Khayelitsha, which was like this huge sprawling area of shacks that most whites never saw, except when they flew over it into the airport. Some of the classrooms were actually in ship’s containers. ‘Like the ones we saw in dock back there? You wouldn’t believe the poverty?’ She had that sing-song rising inflection more usual with Australians or Californians than East Coast Americans.
The starters arrived. Roasted goat’s cheese with herb salad for Sadie; steamed monkfish medallions for Francis. Accepting another top-up of Chenin Blanc, Sadie started telling Francis about her South African boyfriend, Louis, who was like the most exciting guy in the Cape Town NGO sector; but then, she giggled, it was only Cape Town. She couldn’t really imagine him being her boyfriend in New York. In fact, to be totally honest, she was wondering what to do about him.
With the arrival of the intermezzo, Klaus swung round and joined in. ‘Did I hear you two talking about the Peace Corps?’ he asked and he was off, starting with the interesting info that George W. Bush had, counterintuitively, actually doubled its size during his so-called war on terror. Francis was aware that on his left Eve had been dropped by the bald American and was eating her curried cream of clam soup by herself. So he left Klaus and Sadie to it and turned to her, introducing himself by offering her a glass of wine. ‘Thank you, but I won’t,’ she said. ‘I gave it up many years ago.’ Eve had thoughtful green eyes above a puckered, amused mouth.
She lived, yes, in the UK, in a little town called Malmesbury – did Francis know it? Just north of the M4 near Bath. Her husband, Alfred, had passed away seven years ago and after that she hadn’t seen the point of sitting around at home thinking about their life together, so she’d decided to do something completely different. She went on a cruise, just a little one, up to the Norwegian fjords. ‘And then I got a taste for it, and there was no stopping me. Now I do three or four a year.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Francis.
‘So you should be!’ She laughed. ‘I’ve been all over. The South Seas. That was extraordinary. All these tiny islands with vast tracts of ocean between them. You feel wonderfully remote. Then I went to Greenland last summer, and I loved that so much I followed it up with Antarctica at Christmas. Got to see these places while you’ve got the chance, don’t you think? You wouldn’t believe the colours you get in the icebergs. And the wildlife is quite magnificent. Polar bears in the north, penguins down south. Such funny little creatures. Like so many pompous Rotarians heading off for a black tie dinner. To see them out there in the wild is such a joy.’
Next year she had signed up to do the Russian Far East and Indonesia. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Kamchatka, ever since I played Risk as a child. And it may sound silly, but I’ve a hankering to see Komodo dragons.’ She loved Goldencruise. ‘They do this very nice thing where the ships aren’t too big, so you can get to know the other passengers. And the staff and crew. They become your friends too, believe it or not.’
‘I see,’ said Francis.
‘You don’t believe me, do you? Poor, lonely, deluded creature, you’re thinking. Imagining the staff are her friends.’ Eve’s eyes twinkled. ‘But sometimes, Francis, people tell an old bird like me things they can’t tell anyone else.’
‘Such as?’
‘Personal things. Troubles they might have at home. That sort of stuff. You know, I like those sorts of confidences. It makes me feel useful again. And if you travel with the same ship, you see the same people. Lovely Gregoire, waiting to greet you with a kiss at the top of the gangway when you arrive. It somehow makes you feel safe …’
The funny thing was, she went on, that she had never travelled at all until she was seventy. In her middle age she had looked after her elderly mother for years. ‘I was a carer, basically, though we didn’t call it that in those days. Not a lot of fun, looking back. Mummy got needier and needier, until it came to a point where I gladly would have smothered her. And I missed out on children. Which was a shame. Then, when Mummy finally shuffled off her mortal coil, I met darling Alfred, at a bridge night, and my life changed again. He was a lovely man, but not a traveller in the leisure sense. He spent so much time going round the world for business that he was happiest on the golf course back home when he had time off.’
Somehow it didn’t seem polite to ask where the money had come from: Mummy, or Alfred? Had Alfred been the charming adventurer, latching on to a lonely middle-aged woman with inherited wealth? Or quite the reverse?
‘I realize I’m very fortunate,’ Eve said. ‘To be as old as I am and still to have my health and sanity. So many don’t, do they? Living in la-la land, unable to recognize their friends and relatives. Ghastly. And yes, to be comfortably off with it. But when you get to my age you realize you can’t change the way the world works. I give to charity, of course; but then I also make the most of things, because if I don’t, who’s going to? And when I do finally pop off there’ll be some very happy donkeys in Somerset.’
A blackberry and apple sorbet arrived. Then, with the main courses, the conversation became general. It emerged that the bald American was a soldier; Colonel Joe, no less.
‘Did you see action?’ Sadie asked; a trifle mischievously, Francis thought.
‘Nothing like the boys do these days.’ Colonel Joe paused, then puffed out his barrel chest. ‘No, ma’am, I was more what they called a Cold Warrior.’
Francis caught Sadie’s eye for a second; her lips quivered, but there was no open laughter. Colonel Joe was serious, as he was, too, about the risk of piracy, which had been rather scooted over, he thought, during the safety briefing earlier. Over half the world’s attacks took place, he said, either off the coast of Somalia or in the Gulf of Guinea, which is where they were right now.
‘This adds a certain how-to-say frisson to our dinner, does it not?’ said Klaus.
‘It would be more than a freakin’ frisson if any of these guys got on board,’ said the colonel. ‘They’re famous for their ruthlessness.’
‘Stop it, you two, you’re frightening me,’ said Eve. ‘Goldencruise surely wouldn’t take a risk with this sort of thing, would they?’
‘That expedition leader guy did say they had made preparations,’ said Sadie.
‘Preparations!’ scoffed Colonel Joe. ‘But cruise ships are not allowed to dock if they’re carrying weapons, so I don’t know what they’d do if there really was an attack.’
‘They have search lights,’ said Klaus, authoritatively. ‘Very powerful ones. And loudspeakers. And water hoses and such.’
‘Loudspeakers,’ scoffed Colonel Joe. ‘“Will you please remove your Kalashnikovs from the ship”.’ He mimicked a tannoy announcement and then laughed. ‘I don’t see a bunch of war-hardened n–– Africans taking much notice of that.’ He had swerved off the N-word just in time. Presumably for my benefit, Francis thought.
After the meal, Francis accepted Sadie and Marion’s suggestion of a digestif in the Panorama Lounge. Klaus was close behind them, adding himself to the group by asking what people would like to drink. This was a somewhat bogus way in, as everyone knew the cruise was all-inclusive, so it wasn’t as if he were standing a round. There was a pianist in black tie tinkling away in the corner, a pint-sized Filipino doing schmaltzy covers of popular classics, but not many from the dining room had come up this first evening of the second leg. The fabulously dressed Asian and his portly chum were there, drinking up at the bar with another odd couple: a short, tanned old fellow with suspiciously jet-black hair straggling down over the collar of his blue Hawaiian shirt and a much younger woman whose glowing caramel skin was set off beautifully by a tight silver lamé dress. They were all laughing extra-loudly, as if at a sequence of private jokes.
In Francis’s little group, Klaus rather dominated the conversation, revealing yet another area of expertise: where to find Club Class flights on the cheap.
‘Excuse me,’ said Sadie. ‘I’m just going for a walk on deck. Clear my head. Would you like to join me, Francis?’
How could he refuse? As he got to his feet Klaus gave him a sophisticated look: that of a man whose dominance of the conversation has been usurped by half the listeners leaving, but who is determined not to show that he minds, even a little; added to that, the ill-disguised envy of an older man who watches a younger one being invited away for who knows what reason by an attractive woman.
‘Mind how you go,’ he said, raising his whisky glass and giving Francis a wink. ‘Remember – no lights. No torches, not even smartphones.’ He cackled, proprietorially.
One floor up, on deck six, Francis held open the double doors. A whoosh of night air greeted them, warmer and more humid than the air-conditioned interior. At this level a gangway ran right around the ship, passing the steel wall that enclosed the theatre and then, ahead of that, up by the bow, the big, curved-glass windows of the Observation Lounge, all blinds down tonight. At the stern was an open area of deck with another bar, though that, too, was dark and closed.
‘Shall we go up to the top deck?’ said Sadie. Francis followed the swish of her cocktail dress as she climbed the clanging steel steps. Above, they found the open space of deck seven, the two big lifeboats on either side dark silhouettes against the brilliant night sky.
Sadie all but ran to the stern, where she grasped the white railings.
‘Sorry,’ she said, after a moment, turning, smiling. ‘My ant was doing my head in down there.’
‘I thought it was Klaus who was being the bore.’
‘Oh, yeah, he was, for sure.’ She giggled. ‘But it’s just the way she sits there and takes it, all twinkly-eyed, expressing interest in something she has no interest in at all. She’s loaded. Why would she give a toss about cheap flights? She and Saul always fly First. When he joins her, which he doesn’t, because he’s usually having an affair. Really, everybody knows except her, it’s tragic. But I mean, why does she even bother to pretend to be one of the real-traveller gang? It’s so phoney.’
‘She’s just being polite, surely.’
‘Oh, sure she is. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be getting annoyed by her at this stage of the holiday. She’s been very kind, asking me along. It’s just, like, we’re sharing a cabin and, I don’t know how she does it, she manages to get right on my last nerve within about an hour of me first seeing her. Anyways, this is better.’ She let out a long, powerful sigh. ‘Just look at that.’
Below them, beyond the deserted tables of the darkened deck six bar, the white wake of the ship bubbled away in a flat, narrowing line into the blue-black night. To the side, the sheer drop down to the ocean was dizzying.
‘You wouldn’t want to fall in there, would you?’ she said.
Francis shivered and held the rails tightly too, his old vertigo kicking in. ‘You wouldn’t,’ he agreed.
Sadie flung her profile upwards. She had a lovely retroussé nose above those frankly rather sensual lips. ‘Check these stars,’ she said, turning. ‘So bright out here, you feel you could reach out and touch them.’ She sighed. ‘That’s the thing I like most about Africa. The night sky. And the sunsets,’ she added.
‘And the space,’ said Francis. ‘Just the vastness of it.’
‘You’ve been to this continent before?’
‘I lived here. Some years ago.’
‘You never mentioned that.’
‘Nobody asked me.’
‘Even when Klaus was telling us about his great expedition to the tree where Stanley met Livingstone.’
‘Yes, well, there is a virtue in not sharing everything, don’t you think?’
‘I’d say.’ She turned and gave him a long, approving look. ‘You’re very English, you know that.’
‘Shall I take that as a compliment?’
She laughed. ‘You should. That’s exactly the sort of thing I mean. “Shall I take that as a compliment?”’ she repeated, in a poor imitation of his accent. ‘Very Downton Abbey. So where were you in Africa? What were you doing?’
‘Something a bit like you, I suppose. Helping out in a school in Swaziland. It was only for six months. After I left college.’
‘When was that?’
‘A while ago.’
Francis was vain enough not to want to say how much of a while. But without dating his experience, he gave Sadie the gist of it. How, too, he had hoped to identify with the heritage of his Botswanan birth father, but had soon realized that what he had in common with the kids he was teaching had nothing to do with skin colour. Indeed, the whole experience had made him realize just how British he was.
When they went back down to the bar, half an hour later, Klaus and Marion had gone off to bed.
‘Separately, I hope,’ laughed Sadie.
The glamorous Asian and the old white guy with the suspect hair were the only ones left at the bar. His shapely younger partner, if that’s what she was, was out on the little circular dance floor, twirling round and round to the music on her own. She looked sad, and not entirely sober, stumbling a little on some of her turns.
‘Lively scene,’ said Sadie. ‘You want a nightcap?’
‘Maybe I’ll pass on that.’ Francis yawned. ‘There’s an early start tomorrow.’
‘Yes, Togo, exciting. A bit of real Africa.’
They went out together past the library and down two decks to discover they were sleeping on the same corridor.
‘I’m right opposite you,’ Sadie said, inserting her keycard in the wall slot with a giggle.
‘See you in the morning,’ Francis replied.
‘If those pirates keep away.’ She winked.
He fell asleep to the soft rolling motion of the ship; the low hum of the distant engine; the gentle rustle of the sea on the hull. He imagined what it might be like, making love to a woman, in this bed, with these soothing sounds in the background. But no. That was absolutely not what he’d come for.