"Don't blame me," she whispered, "you know what they're like, you invited them."
It was true that it had been William who had actually uttered the words, "we were wondering if the two of you would care to come on a sailing holiday with us," but he had added "you probably don't want to, too busy, you might find the yacht a bit cramped as well, we would understand it if you decided against."
He was expecting, or perhaps, hoping, that Ernie or Joyce would politely thank Cordelia and her husband for the kind invitation, and then do the decent thing and decline. Unfortunately, they hadn't, instead as William recalled, Joyce had literally jumped up and down clapping her hands like a teenager meeting a pop idol. Not at all how he thought a woman in her eighties is supposed to behave.
"Sailing around the world is definitely on my bucket list before I die," she told him. "This will do for a start."
Ernie and Joyce were, according to their friends at the bowls club in Worthing, game for a laugh. They still did twice weekly Popmobility sessions at the local sports hall that they had run since the early 1970s when it had first begun. Worthing Borough Council had tried to pension them off two years before, but there had been an outcry when the story hit the national media, and their jobs had been saved. Joyce had been quoted on BBC Breakfast as saying that they were "still young for Worthing" which the newspapers had loved, and she had had her five minutes of fame.
William suspected that he might come to regret the invite. It wasn't that he didn't like his in-laws. He admired them in many ways but preferred that admiration to be at a distance. An extended exposure to them tended to tire him out. They were always so busy, never sitting still, and always so bloody happy with life. He couldn't remember a time when they had felt sorry for themselves or downbeat about anything. He supposed he should be grateful for this, but in this moment he just craved silence.
Joyce had woken early as she always did, even beating Barry and Brenda. She made Ernie his morning cup of tea and honey (they did not eat processed sugar if they could avoid it). Then they silently, or as silently as was possible on a thirty four foot boat, got dressed and set off for their daily constitutional. They soon left Nidri behind and followed a road up into the mountains surrounding the town. Joyce had happily chatted with any and all the locals that she came across not letting her lack of Greek get in the way. On returning to the yacht two hours later and finding the "children" as they insisted on calling William aged 45 and Cordelia aged 43, still in bed, they made their breakfast from the provisions they had bought with them from England the day before. One of Ernie and Joyce's hobbies, almost an obsession, was saving money. They had plenty and were comfortably off, but still couldn't bring themselves to "waste money on luxuries." So, not for them expensive toasted sandwiches and coffee from "Costa Rip-off," no, Joyce always brought neatly sliced proper sandwiches from home with a flask of tea or coffee. On this occasion they had the items they had bought from their local Tesco discount section and then kept frozen. Ernie and Joyce were two people who rued the day supermarkets started opening on Sunday, not for religious reasons, but because the best bargains used to be had on Saturday evenings. They had made a fine art of turning up to Tesco at precisely the right moment on Saturday evening come rain or shine. Not too early so the manager hadn't authorised the bargains to be put out, and not too late, that other shoppers had already scooped them up. They had become well known to the local supermarket staff. Then the government had ruined it by letting stores open seven days a week.
After breakfast had been cleared away, and the washing up done with the own brand washing up liquid Joyce had bought with her, the "children" were still not up. At that point Ernie and Joyce decided to go shopping for the few items they had not bought with them. So off they went to buy fresh bread, milk and bottled water. This latter item was against their strongly held view that "there's nothing wrong with tap water," but they had accepted William's argument that the water tanks on a much-used charter yacht may be a little suspect. Between them they had carried five multi packs of water back to the boat along with the other purchases and loaded them on board.
"What a shame the children are missing such a beautiful day, but kids will be kids," Joyce told Ernie.
She then decided that the boat could do with a bit of a clean. She had bought a few cleaning items with her so that was easy enough. But then she looked around the boat for a vacuum cleaner opening cupboards from bow to stern.
"I can't seem to find a hoover dear," she said to Ernie. "Can you pop up to the office and see if they have one there?"
For Jock this was a first, but he gave Ernie the office vacuum anyway. It was an old model and noisy, and it was this noise that William was vainly trying to blot out with his inadequate pillow.
Eventually he and Cordelia decided that further sleep was not going to happen, and they got up. "Morning children," said Joyce in her chirpiest voice, "what a lovely day. We've done the shopping and a bit of cleaning; hope we didn't disturb you. I think there is some kind of meeting up at the club house in a little while so let me make you both breakfast and then you can get dressed so we can all go."
Although neither of them was hungry, it was often easier to go along with Joyce. After trying a halfhearted "just coffee for us" and being told that they needed a "good breakfast inside them," they sat down to Joyce's haute cuisine. She served up out of date frozen pop tarts with strawberry jam and put some tinned salmon on the discounted bread baked yesterday that she had bought in town.
"It's a bit stale but what a saving," she said.
William and Cordelia struggled through their breakfast, went back to their cabin and put on their near identical three-quarter length shorts and striped T shirts. Then, along with Ernie and Joyce who were wearing matching Popmobility shirts and skimpy shorts that they had owned for twenty years now, made their way to the meeting.
The pontoon was filling up with the various flotilla members. The Star Trek flotilla was ready to leave having had their meeting a little earlier and one by one the boats set off. The movement of the water caused by the eleven boats leaving around the same time, together with the swell from the waterski boat as it flew past, caused the narrow pontoon to begin to rock from side to side. At that moment Gemma stepped off the plank of wood that served as a passerelle between the boat and the pontoon. As the pontoon swayed so did her narrow bridge, and with nothing to grab onto, she tumbled into the water with a loud splash.
"Always one hand for the boat dear," said Barry as he rushed to help. "Probably should also consider wearing a life-jacket if you are not that experienced," he added as he watched Gemma scowling whilst treading water.
"Watch out for the jellyfish," Barry added, "they've got quite a sting to them. If you get stung we'll all have to pee on you."
Gemma looked left and then right, all around her she could see massive green jellyfish with huge long trailing bits, she wasn't going to risk a sting, let alone the suggested cure.
At that moment Jock came along the pontoon and spotted Gemma in the water.
"Hi there, you don't want to be swimming here," he said, "you see that pipe over there, well that's the sewage outlet pipe for the whole village."
Jock pointed twenty metres upstream.
"Nathalie, get me out of here, now!," she cried.
Chapter Eleven
"I could have walked there by now."
"Elvis don't be so ungrateful. Georgios is going out of his way to take us to Nidri, we couldn't ask him to put aside his important business to accommodate us."
"Taking two hours to choose some bloody bells for these goats does not amount to important business in my book," replied Elvis grumpily, "it flippin' stinks back here."
"Be quiet and stick your positive affirmations in your ears, we'll be there soon."
"How about you take a turn with Billy and his mate?"
Naomi shut the window between the back of the truck and