Cold Play

by Winona Kent

  Where are you? Jilly asks.

  Lido Deck. Outside Prom.

  Is there an enclosed promenade?

  Yes, one deck down.

  You’ll find her there. It’s tea time. She’s eating a little cake, with coloured icing.

  I run to the nearest door, haul it open, go inside. Down the main passenger stairs to Promenade Deck. Out through the doors again, to the Enclosed Promenade, where tall windows overlook the water, punctuated by potted trees and ferns, and a row of wooden deckchairs stretches along the inner wall. All occupied.

  And it is tea time. Waiters in white coats are circulating with trolleys. Silver service. Thick china cups and matching saucers. Milk in china jugs. Cubes of sugar, with little silver tongs, in china pots. Nostalgia. The china bears the old steamship crest, from Sapphire’s transatlantic days. Little pastries and tiny cakes. Real cream. Butter icing, brightly coloured…

  I walk aft quickly.

  There she is. I don’t believe it. She’s sitting on the long end of one of the chairs. With a glass of milk. And a little cake, with bright pink icing, on a china plate.

  The upper part of the chair is occupied by Annie Baysting. “Oh! Hello!” she says, raising her cup of tea to me.

  “Hello.” I’m down on my knees. “Imogen. You can’t just wander off without telling me.”

  Imogen looks at me, intently. And then at Barnaby, who’s still wearing my Ray-Bans, his guitar, and the foil devil horns.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind.” She takes Barnaby back, and solemnly returns my sunglasses. “And Barnaby knew where I was going. Didn’t you, Barnaby?”

  Barnaby’s looking at me with his dark button eyes.

  “It’s all right, really,” Annie’s saying. “I met the Staff Captain’s wife this morning, and we were introduced then, weren’t we, Imogen?”

  “Yes,” Imogen replies, with her mouth full of cake.

  “And then this afternoon I came down for tea and saw her sitting by herself. I did ask who was looking after her. She told me you were, and that you’d be along in a few minutes. And here you are!”

  Imogen’s shaking her finger at Barnaby. “You’re very naughty for not telling Jason about tea time.”

  Barnaby’s still looking at me. I know he hates me. It’s revenge for the devil horns.

  I’ve got my iPhone out. Have you found her? Jilly’s asking.

  Yes. Safe and sound. With cake. How did you know?

  Five year olds are easy. It’s 40-something musicians who cause me the most trouble.

  And she’s gone again. Bloody Guardian Angels.

  My favourite spot on Sunday afternoons is the underused Games Room, a hangover from Sapphire’s past, when gentlemen sought respite from ladies in the company of dog-eared playing cards and fat cigars. It’s tucked away midship on Promenade Deck, and today is inhabited by a solitary lad intent on a jigsaw puzzle, and a man staring out of one of the two windows, possibly thanking all he believes in that he’s not with his wife at the Texas Line Dancing Class in the Disco. There are four comfy leather armchairs in the Games Room—and this one in the corner is mine.

  Linedancing Husband checks his watch, and, with a very audible sigh, pulls himself away from the view, and leaves.

  Jigsaw Boy stares at the card table, and then, with great deliberation, fits one more piece into the puzzle. It’s something abstract, very colourful, but impossible to identify, unless you look at the picture on the cover of the box. It must have taken him hours. The trouble with doing a jigsaw puzzle on a cruise ship, though, is that if you leave it, someone else invariably comes along and finishes it for you.

  Jigsaw Boy’s contemplating another piece. But changes his mind. There’s Bonus Card Jackpot Bingo in the Disco in five minutes’ time and the grand prize today is a set of lovely Star Sapphire mugs.

  I won’t warn him about the possibility of returning to find the Puzzle Gremlins have been at work. Sea days are meant for surprises.

  I’m alone, but only momentarily. There’s Katey, lugging a knapsack filled with God knows what.

  “Hello,” she says, swinging it down off her shoulder—and catching the corner of the puzzle table—so that the entire thing tips up on two legs and all of Jigsaw Boy’s meticulous work scatters down across the floor.

  “Hello,” I say back. “I hope you’re not going on the Galley Tour.”

  Katey’s down on her hands and knees, picking up the pieces. I suppose I’d better help. If Jigsaw Boy changes his mind about the Bonus Card Jackpot Bingo, we’ll have some explaining to do.

  “I’ve been banned from Galley Tours,” Katey says. “Ever since that incident on board the Radiance of the Seas…”

  I return my collection of pieces to the card table. Some of them are still stuck together. We can blame it on an elderly man with trembly hands I saw earlier, on a scooter, his walking cane lodged behind him like a hunting club.

  “And anyway, it wasn’t me,” Katey finishes, adding her pieces to mine. “And I’m certain nobody really wanted Cherries Jubilee Flambeau Avec Cointreau for afters that night, really.”

  Fifteen minutes later, and Katey’s emptied the contents of her knapsack onto another of the tables, and everything’s spread out, like a historical display in a maritime museum.

  It’s my lady, her life story presented in curious, fabulous artifacts. Christened Royal Sapphire, launched at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on May 9, 1960. 27,984 Gross Tons, 650 feet long, 86 1/2 feet wide. Two sets of geared turbines, twin screws, a published service speed of twenty-one knots. Fitted with stabilizers to combat rolling, and a bulbous bow to reduce the negative effects of pitching in heavy seas. Bow, stern and midship thrusters retrofitted in 1981. Hull rated Winter North Atlantic.

  Coloured postcards. The Royal Sapphire in her original livery, smart white with a navy stripe running around her hull, and a blue two-toned funnel bearing the logo of her parent company, British Canadian Steamship Lines. The same logo that’s on all those thick tea time china cups.

  Some brochures, printed for travellers who hadn’t yet discovered the jet age. Suspended lifeboats, a life preserver and a couple embracing, their hair impossibly perfect, considering how much wind’s on deck. A well-fed seagull perched on top of the ship’s bell. Which isn’t there anymore. It used to hang over the stern on Promenade Deck, according to these photos. Bold as brass. I think it’s now somewhere in StarSea Corporate’s Head Office. Preserved for all time as an antique conversation piece. Perhaps our CEO gives it a celebratory ring each time he tots up year-end profits.

  Another PR photo: two waiters serving tea to smiling ladies in heels and twinsets on the Enclosed Promenade. That picture could almost have been taken today.

  Printed menus, each cover an artistic masterpiece. Daily activity bulletins. Yellowed copies of the ship’s newspaper, The Ocean Times. Virtually the only way you could stay in touch with what was happening in the world as you sailed overseas, out of sight of land for five days at a time.

  Luggage tags. A deck plan of the passenger areas. A huge affair on crinkly onionskin paper. Every cabin detailed, beds, showers, portholes and washbasins. Every lift and staircase. Public toilets and lounges, gift kiosk, library and restaurants. Beauty salon, barber shop, ironing room, dispensary. Beside it, the coloured, stylized deck plan that appears in all of our brochures. Sapphire’s silhouette is comfortably familiar, corridors and decks and cabins. But her public spaces have all been renamed.

  Grand Ballroom. Maple, birch and mahogany dancefloor and overhead dome, a sweeping expanse of navy blue studded with a silver moon and stars. Now the Atrium Room.

  Windsor Den. Paintings of English landscapes and comfortable grey-blue leather armchairs. Castaways.

  Mayfair Room. First Class. Waiters in tuxedos and well-heeled passengers helping themselves to peanuts in glass bowls on the tables. Casino.

  Bond Street Club. Tourist Class. A bright green carpet and stylized drawings of contemporary London on the wall. Disco.

&
nbsp; The Seawind Dining Room looks the same. It’s called the Carleton Restaurant on the old deck plan. But the etched glass doors are still there. And the figured sycamore and rosewood panelling. And the sea-coloured carpets and curtains.

  St. Lawrence Club. There it is! My domain—the TopDeck Lounge. Marine blue carpet, and blue comfy chairs…those are long gone, but the tall bar stools with their stylish brass footrests are still there. The original bar stools. I had no idea.

  It’s all quite evocative of another time, a lost age. Trunks filled with silk gowns. Garrulous old men with drooping moustaches and hair-raising tales of stampeding elephants and snarling tigers. And dowager aunts with nieces in tow, lessening the devastation of a broken engagement with a restorative journey abroad.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” I say. “This was one of the first ships on the North Atlantic to carry her own water distillation equipment. We still make a lot of our own drinking water. The Engineers drink it straight out of the distillation tank, before the chlorine’s added.”

  “Living dangerously.”

  “And my other fascinating fact for the day…the water in the toilets glows in the dark.”

  “Is that to prevent the Engineers from drinking it?”

  I’m laughing. “It’s the detergent and electrolytes they put in as disinfectants.”

  “I once went out with an Engineer. He was obsessed with my dishwasher. To the point of taking it apart.”

  “Did he put it back together again?”

  “No,” Katey says, “and that contributed more than anything to the end of our relationship, really.”

  Tickets. Deck chair reservations. A little card that says: Mrs. E. Shawcross.

  “My Nana,” Katey says. “A lot of this stuff belonged to her. She and my Grandad sailed on the Sapphire from Southampton to New York in the 1970s. Look—I’ve got her pictures.”

  Amazing shots. A historical archive all on its own. A cabin—looking much like the passenger cabins today, but with 1970s colours and 1970s artifacts. A table for six in the Dining Room, waiters posing with passengers. Food a lot more functional back then, not nearly the gourmet event it is now. A long shot of the Inside Promenade—utility white, no trees, no bright decor. Those same deck chairs…though in the 1970s, they were the real thing, not expensive replicas. Passengers wearing miniskirts and flowered shirts.

  “That’s her.”

  Katey’s Nana, about the same age Katey is now—and I can see the family resemblance—laughing at the camera while behind her, on what I recognize as Lido Deck, passengers mill about, enjoying a sunny day.

  “She died a few months ago.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “No—don’t be! She had a fabulous life, a long life, and in the end, it was as if that life was draining away…I was secretly glad that she was released. She didn’t need to suffer like that.”

  She shows me a little ziplocked plastic bag, filled with a few spoonfuls of greyish dust.

  “It’s not all of her…she wanted to be scattered in quite a lot of places, so we’ve done our best to carry out her wishes. I actually asked to come on this Fam just so I could do that.”

  I’m looking at the little bag of ashes. I’ve never actually seen cremated remains before. “Where…exactly,” I ask carefully, “did she want to be scattered?”

  “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  Hand over my heart.

  “TopDeck. Where you work. She and my Grandad got adventurous one night and slipped in to First Class to do a bit of exploring. Nobody stopped them—by then, the only people who really cared were the passengers who’d paid top dollar for better cabins. It was all very posh and exclusive. My Nana and Grandad went back to Tourist feeling rather chuffed about it all. And she very specifically told me, she wanted this little bit of her to end up in the St. Lawrence Club, whatever it had become now.”

  She pauses.

  “I wasn’t going to tell anyone. But I’ve been looking around in there…and I’m not quite certain where I can leave her, where she won’t be disturbed or discovered.”

  “Or hoovered up by the cleaning crew at the end of the night,” I muse. “Possibly one of the potted palms?”

  We have a number of them. By the windows. She’d have a fantastic view.

  “We’ll do a stealthy scouting trip,” Katey decides. “Like they did.”

  “Can I be Nana?”

  Katey laughs. She looks over the artifacts spread across the table. “It’s lovely comparing then and now,” she says. “I suppose I’m a bit obsessive about it. Or is it compulsive? I’m never quite sure.”

  “Thoughts are obsessive, behaviors compulsive.”

  “Ah,” Katey says. “Like Twitter.”

  “That’s just addictive.”

  Katey laughs again. “I think you must have an addictive personality. All that tea and chocolate.”

  “You should have seen me before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I ran away to sea.”

  11

  Sunday, at Sea

  All of Katey’s artifacts are safely stowed back in her knapsack. A note of apology has been left on the wreckage of Jigsaw Boy’s puzzle. We’ve relocated to the Atrium Room. It’s half past four, and we’re sampling the last of Afternoon Tea, which is served indoors, as well as outside on the Enclosed Promenade.

  No Rick or Carly, but there’s Annie again, having now abandoned her deck chair to sit on her own at a table, scribbling furiously into her notebook. Did she see us and follow us in? Or is this a coincidence?

  I’m in two minds about Annie. Could she be SaylerGurl? Or is she my Guardian Angel?

  Is Jilly aboard my ship, and not in Caterham at all? How else could she be so specific about where to find Imogen? But…I was DM’ing Jilly at the same time I was talking to Annie…so they’re definitely not one and the same. Curiouser and curiouser.

  Here in the Atrium Room, as well as little cakes, we’re offered cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off. And the best tea on—or off—the west coast of Canada, with the possible exception of the pots I brew in my cabin.

  “And then,” Katey’s saying, “there’s POSH.”

  “Everybody knows where that came from.” I’m being clever. “Portside Out, Starboard Home.”

  “Yes, from the early days of the passenger ships, when they were sailing from England to India. The shadiest cabins—the best cabins—were on the port side of the ship going and on the starboard side coming home. Posh. You didn’t know that, did you.”

  “I did.” I hide behind my teacup. I didn’t, actually.

  “There is, of course, the lesser known euphemistic definition…”

  “Prevention of Sexual Harassment?”

  “Possibility of Sensual Handling.”

  “I knew that too.”

  “You didn’t.” It’s Sal, interrupting, in the friendliest of I’m-curious-who-you’re-having-tea-with ways.

  “Hello, Sal.”

  “Hello.”

  She waits.

  “Hello,” Katey says. “I’m Katey Shawcross. Travel agent.”

  “Not the stalker, then,” Sal says, humorously. “Sally Jones. Captain’s Secretary.”

  I’ll strangle her later.

  “You’ve got a stalker?” Katey inquires.

  “Long story,” I tell her.

  “On Twitter?”

  “Apparently,” Sal provides. “But since the info came from someone who’s 89.2% looney-bins, I wouldn’t lend it much credence. The tea’s lovely, isn’t it.”

  “Fabulous,” Katey says.

  “I have something for you,” Sal says, to me.

  It’s another lilac envelope. I’m afraid to look inside.

  “Left at the Purser’s Desk half an hour ago,” Sal says.

  “Did anybody see who dropped it off?”

  Sal shakes her head. “Appeared by magic at the end of the counter. I did ask. I’m as curious as you are.�
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  And now Katey is curious as well.

  “His secret admirer,” Sal provides. “One of the passengers. We haven’t decided who, yet.”

  I’ll read it later. There may be poetry.

  Sally and Katey both look disappointed.

  “By the way,” Sal adds. “Your musical VIP’s been onto me about the Captain’s private party on Wednesday. He wants you to attend as his personal guest.”

  “Oh!” Katey says. “That’ll be fun. We’re invited too. The travel agents.”

  “It’s usually all garrulous old men and women in grey silk frocks who’ve undertaken dozens of cruises on our ships,” Sally says. “They enjoy the special attention. We bring out the posh canapés.”

  “In another life,” I tell Katey, “they’d be travelling First Class and enjoying cocktails in the St. Lawrence Club.”

  “Best behaviour,” Sal says, to me. “And wear socks this time.”

  She helps herself to a cucumber sandwich, and goes.

  “I like her,” Katey says.

  “I’d marry her in a minute if she asked.”

  Katey smiles. “Come on then, let’s see what your secret admirer has to say for herself.”

  “Later,” I tell her. “More tea?”

  Tonight is our Champagne Welcome Aboard. It’s a grand affair, in the Atrium Room, free bubbly all round, Captain Callico deftly doing the honours. Sparkling champagne cascading over hundreds of precariously balanced glasses.

  The Captain circulates with Sally, who’s actually keeping him from turning and bolting. He hates crowds. Hates meeting and greeting. Would rather be up on the Bridge, commanding. He’s old school, and believes his seniority and years at sea should automatically exclude him from having to participate in anything to do with corporate PR.

  There’s Diana, in silver and sparkles, commanding a show of her own on the sidelines. She’s been recognized by some of the passengers. She’s basking.

  There’s Rick and there’s Carly. Carly’s wearing the frippery she bought in the shops earlier. And she’s doing her best to drag Rick over to meet Diana.