Murder on Board

by Mark Rice

  We ran through the two troublesome songs and I thought that we sound quite different now, on the stage. It also seems we can ease off a bit on the volume and concentrate on the diction. Before we left for lunch we all had to sign a form declaring we wouldn't sue if we got injured on stage. That was the least of my worries!

  I ate a hearty final lunch before the show that afternoon and then retired to our cabin to shower and change into the black suit trousers, a white shirt and black bow tie.

  Together we made our way to the theatre and Margaret slipped into the second row in the auditorium while I joined my fellow tenors in the dressing room.

  There, the men and women chatted nervously as Lorcan took to the stage and introduced the choir. As we trooped out I sought out my rehearsal spot on stage right but things had changed.

  The piano had moved, and some chairs for the disabled had to be found and brought out front. A lot of alterations and repositioning occurred on stage which ultimately led to me losing my visible, short-person spot out front and ending up three rows back. Margaret would have no chance of seeing me, I thought, and so it was. Periodically I appeared from behind a tall man to wave, between songs, in her direction but other than that I could barely see the choirmaster on his pedestal much less the audience. I saw Anita, who sat with Margaret and who also spotted me, but I was lost to Margaret, in a sea of singers.

  The choir sang well, better than in most rehearsals and earned good applause after every number. A few minor errors lost us some brownie points, mainly at the end of lines when there were some singers going up and some going down. After our penultimate number, one of the bass singers, and a regular member thanked Lorcan and Andy for their work and their good humour over the weeks of rehearsal. Applause rang out from the audience and the choir. Then we sang our final number Can You Hear the People Sing and it was over.

  I asked some of the men would they join up again for the next choir and was surprised to hear some with reservations.

  "I'll have to wait and see what music they will be singing," said one older singer.

  My, my, what the effect of a little success has on some people.

  Within twenty minutes, the glad rags removed, we sat by the pool on deck and stole the final rays from a fading sun.

  The dinner tonight was with a casual dress code but Margaret just didn't feel able to keep even the small talk going as she was still a walking zombie so we settled on a meal in the Palace restaurant, the food theme tonight being Chinese.

  After a walk down the outer staircases where the air was hot and windy we stepped onto the deck then into the Pacific Lounge where Cantons, a band of five lads from Liverpool, were playing ukuleles to a packed house with standing room only. I thoroughly enjoyed their music and we moved on when we tired from standing at the back.

  We got seated in the Gaiety Theatre with my choir buddies, Arthur and Geoff, accompanied by their partners, about five rows from the front. Red Rose featured four stunning sopranos who sing opera and pop music and their forty-five-minute set contained a 007 Bond medley, Queen's Find me, someone, to love, Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You and a fistful of operatic numbers. They were backed by the ship’s orchestra who were just brilliant. We poured out richly entertained and headed back to our cabin for an early night.

  Day 27

  Sunday 29th January.

  Docked at Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe.

  We arrived in euro land again! The ship docked right in the capital city of Pointe-a-Pitre, so that is good news for the independent traveller. The bad news is it is Sunday and a handful of shops will open today.

  However, right by the ship are thirty small shops so we could have stopped our visit there and then, but of course, prices are going to be higher there than further afield. We kept walking as we have decided to go to Gosier, the main tourist centre, on the island and only eight kilometres away. It has many beaches to enjoy but today Gosier is celebrating Carnival and is closed to tourists. I was about to give up and settle for the shops next to us on the dock when a tourist information person told us of Sainte Anne.

  "There are plenty of beaches there," she said. “Expect to pay 10 euro each one way, if you can find another couple to share the cab with.”

  We did better than that and found two couples and, together, the six of us sat in an air-conditioned cab and were driven close to a private beach for the Club Med Hotel complex, a few kilometres before Sainte Anne. The first language spoken there is French so I managed to act as an interpreter for the ride. The driver said the public beaches would be very busy but free to use except for the hiring of sunbeds.

  He told the truth. We set up a pickup time of 15:00 which gave us five hours on the beach and enough time, if he fails to show, to organise another taxi as the ships sailing isn't till 17:30.

  He dropped us off on a dirt lane with a few shanty cafes and I was a bit worried we’d been tricked until we suddenly reached the sea. There we could see miles of magnificent white sand, hundreds of palm trees and a marvellous bay of blue water.

  We snaffled four sun loungers, two for us and two for Max and Chris, another couple from the ship, and paid the 10 euro each to the beach boy receiving a black arm tag that enabled us to use the loungers, the hotel toilet and eat at the Beach Hut, which was clearly an expensive hotel.

  "Any Wi-Fi?" Margaret asked the beach boy and within minutes she s ringing Rachel, her daughter.

  Once settled, we proceeded to paddle in the sea and sunbathe on the loungers.

  Max and Margaret took separate walks further along the beach and noted that the strong breeze we were encountering had disappeared within yards of rounding the bend but the beach in that area was heavily occupied so we stayed where we were.

  The strong breeze was a great plus for kite flyers, windsurfers and two birds that hovered over the sea near us and repeatedly dive-bombed the fish that swam close to the shore in shallow water. The birds seemed to work together and would fly for yards just scanning the sea before dropping like stones, wings tucked in by their sides as they crashed through the water, only to rise with fish dangling from their long beaks.

  Max and Chris reported seeing large iguana's moving in the green undergrowth behind the beach, but Margaret and I didn't see any of them.

  We ate at the beach hut cafe a Panini de la jour and splashed out on a couple of bottles of the local beer called Desperate, a red coloured liquid.

  I tried to enter the hotel restaurant but was stopped by staff and turned away. “Wrong colour armband, sir,” they said politely.

  Back with Max and Chris, we found out that Chris was still feeling a bit dodgy about food having been confined to her cabin for six days’ with the Novo virus. Four passengers had been flown home from Key West she said. So, my murderous activity could be mistaken for the Novo virus, interesting.

  We gathered our stuff together, after we had returned from our final swim and beach walk. Trudging through the soft energy sapping white sand we made our way to the agreed meeting place. The local driver was early so we waited a further ten minutes for the clock to tick round to pick-up time. Our final couple, young loved-up Italians from the other ship in port duly appeared and only then did we find out that two further Octavian Cruise passengers needed a lift in our taxi. Their driver had reneged on their agreement.

  Our driver appeared happy to squeeze two more in but felt the need to inform us that his licence was for only six passengers. That was fine we said and we all squeezed in and got back to the ship in good time.

  There we met Bill and Joan along with others who had opted to spend the day in the town of Pointe a Pitre and pronounced it a dive and a dead town. "Even the cathedral was closed," quipped Bill.

  In the duty-free area next to the ship, almost one hundred passengers sat on rows of wooden benches, logging onto the internet. It's pitiful to watch pensioners and frail elderly folk sit on benches in crude terminal buildings trying to contact their families.

  We showered and noticed
for the first time that both of us had been sunburnt. Not badly burnt but I had a patch on my forehead and the front of my left hand. Margaret just looked generally reddish.

  Refreshed we stepped out on deck and joined the poorly attended sail away party that consisted of a musical duo who were very good but no entertainment team staff to motivate the passengers to sing along or get up and dance.

  Margaret was in the mood to boogie so after a table tennis session she danced away and waved to the passengers on the MSV Breeze, a ship which wasn't sailing till after us and who were watching our departure.

  Both ships exchanged greetings, ours a deep bass bellow and their horn a tinny slight blast.

  We changed again and we joined our dinner table. There were eight again tonight. Apparently, they'd all gone to the choir's concert yesterday and were ready last night to give me a standing ovation at dinner but we hadn’t shown up.

  The chat flowed easily across the table.

  “I was talking to another passenger over lunch today,” Roger said. “He told me it was rumoured that we lost a passenger at every stop.”

  A few heads nodded and no one seemed surprised. The three couples at the table tonight must have been on over one hundred cruises all told, so if they accept that up to twenty deaths are normal then my few killings will not be spotted.

  Margaret then mentioned what Max had told us today about a Novo virus outbreak and his wife’s slow recovery. The table went quiet.

  Finally Roger spoke up. “Well, that’s bad form by the ships officers! Nobody has mentioned a Novo virus outbreak to us, the passengers. I’d have thought that should be general knowledge.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” Jill said. “I noticed yesterday a lot of new hand wash soap dispenser stations are now in position throughout the ship and unusually the crew are actively reminding passengers to use them.”

  “Yes, I noticed that too!” said Rose. “Of course I didn’t think anything of it at the time but it’s all now making sense. We should each take steps to protect ourselves against the virus.”

  Like what sort of steps? asked Margaret.

  “Like frequent hand washing, using tissues when opening and closing doors, not touching staircase bannisters or pressing buttons on lifts with your bare fingers” answered Rose.

  “And washing fruit and vegetables. Don’t handle shellfish” added Mary.

  “So is there anything that eliminates the Novo virus?” I asked to all in sundry.

  “Apparently, if you mix water with bleach, five to twenty-five tablespoons of household bleach per gallon of water you can kill the virus,” answered Frank. “But, you know, I clean forgot to pack the bleach for this cruise!”

  Roger spoke again “It’s just not on. This policy of treating passengers like mushrooms, keeping them in the dark and feeding them bullshit is really unacceptable. We can be trusted with matters as important as life and death.”

  “It’s understandable really, Roger,” Margaret said “They don’t want to provoke panic and have hundreds of passengers looking to be flown home or seeking medical assistance. If it persists I’m sure we’ll be told.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Roger “but I admire your optimism.”

  We had an hour to kill that evening so we went to the Tiffany cafe where Grieg played the piano for most of the night in the public concourse, surrounded by comfy seats and round tables.

  There we sat and played our card game for ten hands, with Margaret winning seven to three.

  I watched four stewards gather close by, their conversation in muted tones, their hands encased in surgical gloves, their nose and mouths covered by masks.

  A ships officer appeared and led them over to a small table by the window where I now saw an elderly woman lying prone on the floor. As one, they picked her up and carried her to the lift. A swish of the doors and the group were gone in seconds.

  Margaret missed this entirely as it all occurred behind her back and I continued to play cards. Passengers were beginning to drop like flies on this cruise.

  We finished our drinks and attended a recital by the Damask Duo. They were two girls, one a pianist and one a flautist who played a selection of classical numbers but finished with the modern song, Riverdance, an Irish hit composed by Bill Whelan. They praised the choir’s performance of yesterday and afterwards we chatted to them as they waited on the audience to file out. The girls leave the cruise at Barbados and will return to a cold England with an overnight flight to Gatwick.

  Day 28

  Monday 30th January.

  Docked in St. Vincents.

  We rose late the next morning which was unlike us.

  Margaret pronounced herself clear of the zombie effect of the tablets taken for her insect bites.

  We ate a hearty breakfast and took in the volcanic island of St Vincent, as it appeared from the open decks. The full title of this kingdom is St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It is a southern Caribbean nation comprising of a main island and a chain of smaller ones.

  We are docked in the harbour of Kingstown, the islands capital city. Next, to our ship, a local ferry arrives in the port and reverses into its mooring location with the ramp at the rear of the vessel already half lowered. The seas are so calm that they can do this without fear of being hit by a wave and sinking. On the quayside, a two-man Caribbean band are playing uplifting music on steel drums to entertain the disembarking passengers who walk past, without a second glance. I'm sure the band are not offended by this behaviour. They'll finish the gig and be gone by 1:00 eleven themselves.

  For band and passenger this is a recurring event as a local band is engaged by the cruise line to greet passengers at every port. Clouds are still to be seen around the nearby mountain peaks but the sun is shining strongly down upon us and the temperature is already 27 degrees, even at this early hour.

  We opted to play a game of tennis before going ashore and found the court still rain-sodden. The water evaporated quickly and within fifteen minutes the wet surface was a distant memory. Playing tennis in the Caribbean sunshine with the lush green vegetation covering the mountains behind me is one of the lasting memories I will take from this cruise. We retreated to our cabin for a shower and change of clothing before slapping on factor 50 and grabbing a floppy hat for a visit ashore.

  Within the hour we were ashore and striding through the crowded duty-free area, that was filled with passengers just hanging about and blocking our way. It turned out to be the draw of free Wi-Fi that was causing the pile up.

  We were approached by a squad of orange-shirted men offering sea ferry trips to a white sandy beach, St. Margaret's for $15 per person return. Talking to other passengers we were reassured that it was a good deal and that the beach was clean and had lots of shops.

  Simultaneously, two taxi drivers approached us offering tours of the island and visits to the botanical gardens. It was all too much pressure and in the end we walked away from them all.

  We slipped through the chain link gates and out of the port harbour area. Yards away we entered into a local supermarket called Massy and saw that prices were displayed in Caribbean dollars. Prices looked good but we decided not to buy at this stage. No point in dragging rucksack loads of shopping around the town. We continued our walk into the heart of the town which was buzzing with activity, being market day.

  About the town, policemen and women directed traffic at busy crossroads managing the endless queues of vehicles going here and there. There was plenty of honking of horns and loud music but no one really seemed upset by the jammed up streets and the slow progress from A to B.

  Stalls lined the footpaths throughout and there was constant traffic of people moving in every direction. Many locals stared at us but not in an aggressive or confrontational manner. We seemed to be a curiosity to the locals, with our lightly-tanned skins and unusual dress sense. Most stall holders were selling to local people not tourists because on their stalls contained goods such as vegetables, fruit, clothes, ho
memade cakes and CDs.

  The few that were selling sunglasses, clothing and tourist souvenirs seemed to be relaxed about business and none approached us or pressed us to buy. Through the crowds came schoolchildren dressed in smart uniforms and all of them at least six-foot tall. They looked healthy and were polite and well mannered. Many women walked about in uniforms, to our eyes, similar to those worn by 1960's air stewardesses and others appeared wearing nursing uniforms. Uniforms are definitely "in" on this island.

  We kept walking, further and further away from the ship heading around the mouth of wide bay. We came across a large market made up of wooden shacks and corrugated roofs in which lots of locals sat eating and drinking. There were constant coming and goings of local vans and taxis. We reckoned the main purpose of the area was to provide shebeens—cheap drinking bars for the locals.

  We walked into the market as far as we dared before turning back towards town. At one point we split up as Margaret had to find a toilet and it gave me a chance to visit a chemist I had seen earlier on the periphery of the market.

  “Excuse me” I said to the chemist. “Have you a bottle of 1080?”

  He reached below the counter and rummaged about for a minute. I kept glancing back, nervously, to the spot where I left Margaret but there was no sign of her yet.

  "No" He said finally emerging, "but I have got something quite similar". He produced a small bottle of white powder with Kittcha Datcacoll written on it. “This is a cheaper local version”

  "Man, you want to kill a dog or something?" he asked looking me in the eyes. I could see he was mildly curious but hadn’t sensed my true purpose.

  "Not one dog but several wild ones that have been attacking my hens," I said.

  "Ah, a pack of them." he said, correcting my English and nodded. "I’d better give you two bottles then." He grabbed a second from under the counter and wrapped them up in a brown paper bag. “Anything else?”