‘What on earth have I done?’ Violet Hetherington asked herself.
She was standing in one of several queues in the dock at Southampton. The queues, by now spilling out of the cattle shed marked ‘Departures’, to board the Queen Caroline were long and none were moving. ‘It’s best to get to the docks late,’ her friend Annie had advised. ‘If you get there too early you can grow roots hanging about.’ Annie, married to a diplomat and full of advice, was a seasoned traveller. But on this occasion her advice was mistaken.
After a while an announcement came through the loudspeakers: there had been a ‘breakdown in the computer system’. In the face of this setback the atmosphere among the waiting passengers darkened. Some attempted patience, some brave souls even tried to rise to jollity but for the most part the mood became rebellious. The world was going to the dogs and they had paid good money—many were inclined to feel through the nose—for this voyage. It might be their last chance for a bit of luxury. That they could not even be got aboard efficiently did not promise well for the rest of the voyage.
Vi’s own instinct was to turn tail. She felt in her bag for her phone and discovered that it was missing. This was a good deal more annoying than the length of the queues. It confirmed an uneasy sense that the whole idea of this voyage was one of her mistakes. She hated any form of group activity and here she was, thrown to the lions, and entirely of her own doing. And now there was the nuisance of the phone. Either she had left the wretched thing behind or she had lost it at some point on the journey to the port. She couldn’t ring the minicab company to check because the number—along with all her other numbers—was stored in her phone. The very error that her elder son Harry was always counselling her to avoid.
Behind her in the queue, stood an approachable-looking couple. ‘I’m sorry but, stupidly, I seem to have left my mobile behind. I couldn’t borrow yours to make one call, could I?’
Vi rang Harry on the obliging couple’s phone and left a message asking him to ask Kristina, her Polish cleaner, if she would check to see whether the phone had been left behind. If it was not in her flat then she was going to be in trouble, since she had no other means of finding the numbers she needed in New York. A large part of her thought, Good riddance! But this she did not confide to Harry. Harry had come to the view early in life that, if not older than his mother, he was a good deal more worldly wise. Daniel, her younger son, was more sympathetic to her foibles but that was because he shared them. Dan might easily forget to give Kristina the message at all.
The couple whose phone she had borrowed remarked that they had also arrived late expecting to avoid the crowds. ‘It was a breeze last time,’ the woman, a tall blonde with a ponytail and cowboy boots, recalled. ‘We walked straight on. I’m Jen, by the way. He’s Ken.’
She nodded towards her companion, a broad-shouldered man with a lot of reddish chest hair. ‘Ken and Jen Morrison,’ the man said. ‘We’re a double singing act.’
‘Really?’ Vi was impressed. ‘I’m Violet Hetherington. Vi.’
‘He’s just kidding. Don’t be daft.’ Jen whacked her husband with a copy of Elle.
‘We did think of doing a singing act when we first met, because of Van Morrison,’ Ken explained. A gold Star of David was visible beneath his shirt. ‘But her over there sings like a neutered cat.’
‘Charming,’ Jen said equably. ‘Look out, we’re on the move.’
The press of people moved urgently forward, although, as Ken remarked, the boat could hardly leave without them. Reaching the head of their queue at last, Vi parted from the helpful Morrisons and was ushered towards a window where she handed over her travel documents, credit card and submitted to a photograph for the security pass that acted on the cruise in place of money. As she prepared to go aboard, a man stepped forward with another camera.
‘Is this necessary?’ She detested having her photo taken.
‘Smile nicely,’ a young woman in uniform suggested.
‘But is it a requirement?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I do not want another photograph of myself unless it is a requirement for boarding the ship.’
‘Not a problem,’ said the girl. ‘It just makes a nice souvenir of your trip.’ She made the hint of an eyebrow gesture towards the photographer, who was not bad-looking and was booked for the whole of the world cruise. ‘Go right ahead, madam.’
