She stood, absorbing the subtle shades and distinctive smells of the sea. What a peculiar thing she had done. And for what would very likely turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Crossing over to the kingdom of night, time seemed suddenly to gather with new possibility. Out of the darkness a strange sense of well-being descended on her, a feeling that things might turn out all right after all.
SECOND DAY
To know the ropes: on a square-rigged ship there were many miles of rigging. It took an experienced seaman to know the ropes.
Before going to bed, Vi pushed open the heavy glass door which divided the cabin from the balcony. It took an effort, she wasn’t strong, and a wind was getting up and the door was designed to spring back against any influx of weather. Finally she managed to wedge it open with one of the metal balcony chairs, so that her night could be spent as close as possible to the sea, being rocked in its strong grip like the baby in the old nursery rhyme.
When she was a child, her mother had told her that long ago there had been a pirate in the family, whose career had ended dramatically when he was hanged for treason on the high seas. Her mother had died when Vi was not quite ten. As with many of the best storytellers, the boundaries of her mother’s reality were, Vi now suspected, blurred. But whether or not it was the legacy of piratical blood in her veins, the sea was comforting to her.
When she woke next morning, the ocean which had beaten all night in her mind had dissolved into the sound of the steady irregular thrashing of water on the ship’s sides. She slid from under the heavy counterpane, which she’d kept over her against the cold, and went barefoot out on to the wooden deck of the balcony.
The sky was not quite fully alight. Splashes of crimson and orange shivered on the shot-satin water. A solitary white bird made a graceful arc above her head against the olive and rose-dragged sky. She stood in her nightdress, flexing her bare toes on the cold wood, the breeze wrapping the thin cotton close round her body, looking out to the faint line where the deceiving eye suggests that sea meets sky. Before her the ocean stretched, calmly offering nothing but its own vast, limitless, unapolo-getic being.
A kind of frenzy had set in when Vi, washed and dressed, went down to breakfast a little later. Cereals of all kinds, were available: Corn Flakes, Branflakes, Rice Krispies, Shredded Wheat, Weetabix, Cocopops, Fru-grains, muesli, together with stewed prunes, pears, apricots, green figs, sliced cheeses, ham, salami, smoked salmon, as well as bacon, sausage, black pudding, kippers, haddock, eggs cooked to order, mushrooms, tomatoes, pancakes, porridge, waffles and every conceivable variety of bread, muffins and toast. Besides these were jams, honey, marmalade, Marmite and peanut butter (with a prominent health and safety warning about possible allergies). Lest this were not enough, there were plates of fresh pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit and piles of apples, pears, oranges, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, mango, kiwi fruit, guava, passion fruit and bunches of bananas.
Although the food was continually being replenished by teams of attentive waiting staff (and no passenger was left from 5 a.m., ‘Dawn snack’, till midnight, ‘Bedtime cookies and cocoa’, for more than fifteen minutes without ready supplies) a fever of impatience had overtaken the line of passengers as Vi queued for a bowl of muesli.
Even more consternation was being stirred up over the question of the tables. Those with sea views were sought after hotly. A bagging system was in operation: books and cardigans had been left to establish possession. This strategy, however, was not proof against the more experienced voyagers, who were willing to brazen it out and remove these colonising tokens in order to stake out their own claims. Those who had been on past cruises, and knew the score, took the precaution of leaving one party on guard while others foraged for food.
The single were at a disadvantage here. Vi, hesitating with her tray, was hailed by Ken on his way to the hot food counter.
‘We were wondering where you’d got to. Come and join us. Jen’s over there by the window.’
Vi found Jen sitting at one of the prime locations which commanded an unobstructed view of the sea. To Vi’s surprise, Jen was leafing through a book about the Russian Revolution but it turned out the book belonged to Ken. ‘He only reads non-fiction,’ she explained. ‘Loves his history. I like novels myself. Where are you sitting?’
‘Ken said to join you here.’ Vi was ready to beat a retreat.
‘No, I mean where are you in the evening? We’re way down in the Beatrix. It’s not bad, though I didn’t much like what they did with my sea bream.’
‘I’m in the Alexandria,’ said Vi, a little reluctantly in case it seemed like showing off.
But Jen was only impressed. ‘That must have cost an arm and a leg. Still, you can’t take it with you. That’s what we said. What are the others on the table like?’
‘There’s a retired sea captain. He used to work on this line.’
Jen divulged that some people at their table had had a death in the family. ‘It cast a bit of a pall on things to be honest. You have to feel for them, of course, but Ken’s going to try to get us moved.’
Ken returned with two plates on which he had piled, as if against a coming famine, bacon, black pudding, sausages, mushrooms, tomato and fried potatoes. ‘You not having any?’ he asked Vi. ‘Go on, we’ll keep your place.’
‘Really. I never eat cooked breakfast.’
‘That’s why you’re so slim,’ said Jen, amicably. ‘I’m a greedy pig, me. Can’t resist food. I had a twenty-two-inch waist when I met Ken.’
‘Too skinny by half,’ said Ken. He speared a sausage and examined it as if to ensure it had no plans to acquire a waist. ‘Not you, though,’ he added quickly to Vi. ‘Suits you. She,’ he nodded at Jen, ‘was a bag of bones before I took her in hand.’
Jen pulled a face at her husband and asked Vi what her plans were. Having no ‘plans’, Vi, who didn’t want to appear standoffish, said she thought she might explore the ship. Then, unequal to spinning out any longer a bowl of muesli and a cup of coffee, she said goodbye to the Morrisons. As she walked away, she heard Ken urging Jen to another helping of bacon. ‘Go on,’ he was saying, ‘you know you’ll regret it later if you don’t.’
Vi went out on deck, which had been colonised by those pursuing health programmes. Elderly joggers, in shorts or track-suits, sporting baseball caps and bedecked with iPods, pounding the boards to the throbbing engines, swerved perilously around troops of speed walkers who, in turn, were being frustrated by strolling passengers whose only aim was to enjoy the traditional health-giving properties of the sea air. Others had given themselves up to indolence and were sitting reading or lying, well-oiled against the sun, on the wooden loungers which lined the perimeter of the deck.
Vi shaded her eyes against the sun spangling the water with dancing points of silver and wondered how the silver of sunlight differed from the silver of the moon, and then if it really differed at all. Probably not, she decided. She strolled on round to where a small group of smokers, defiantly outfacing the disciples of health, had gathered. Above the mint green foaming train of the ship, gulls cruised the breeze, as if released by some airy conjurer’s legerdemain.
Enjoying aimlessness, she wandered round towards the ship’s bows and ran into Captain Ryle.
‘Look,’ said the captain, seizing her arm. ‘Over there. Look, look, porpoises.’
He passed her a pair of heavy binoculars and, adjusting the focus, her eyes caught up with the line of lithe, gun-metal hoops, leaping through