Second Sitting Read online

  SECOND SITTING

  Stella Whitelaw

  © Stella Whitelaw, 2008

  Stella Whitelaw has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2008 by Severn House Publishers.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  To Harriet and Thomas McKew grandparents, soulmates

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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  Prologue

  A swarm of passengers were descending the sweeping stairs for the second sitting of dinner which was about to be served in the Windsor Dining Room on E deck. They were hungry, not starvation level but peckish and a little apprehensive. Everything was so new and unknown. The bracing sea air could do strange things to people and the Bay of Biscay had claimed a few casualties.

  They had to wait until eight thirty in the evening, which was late for eating and the temptation to nibble hard to fight. The bar peanuts always went first. But then the first sitting at six thirty was too early for many. The first sitting had been uneventful. That was about to change. And it wasn’t on the menu.

  Some passengers had been hovering outside the dining room for ten minutes, talking and laughing with new friends or tablemates, wearing their classy best. The women’s dresses were eye-catching and superb. Tonight’s suggested dress was ‘smart casual’. These were expensive clothes. I could recognize a designer label accurately at fifty yards. It was a useless gift. I could spot Top Shop and Monsoon, too. I’m no snob.

  The Windsor Dining Room was the last word in ocean-going elegance. This was good living in a sumptuous setting. Beautifully set tables with white linen, silver cutlery, china embossed with the Conway Blue Line emblem and sparkling glasses. The napkins were folded differently every evening.

  This evening, the second dinner out of Southampton docks, the napkins were folded into swans. Tomorrow would be the bishop’s mitre. All the immaculately garbed waiters were trained in folding. They cleared and reset the empty tables with swift efficiency. The dining-room staff had very little time between sittings. They had to work fast. It was a finely honed operation.

  The trace debris of the first-sitting diners vanished. There was one riotous table still drinking coffee and eating petit fours, fudge pyramids tonight topped with grated chocolate. Graham Ward, the head waiter, was making his way over to their table. They knew the rules, his steely eyes were saying. But he had to remember that they were also good tippers.

  At last the dining room was ready. They heard the maître d’hôtel’s announcement over the tannoy loudspeaker. He said it twice with a definite accent. Was it French, Spanish, Portuguese? Hard to tell.

  ‘Second sitting is now being served in the Windsor Dining Room. Bon appétit,’ he said with a certain aplomb.

  The passengers filtered in, some still unsure of where they were sitting. There were tables of eight for couples and unaccompanied passengers, tables of four, and select tables à deux.

  I stood by the elaborate flower arrangement on one side of the double door entrance, smiling and nodding. I was being gracious and welcoming, part of my Keep the Passengers Happy job.

  ‘Good evening, good evening,’ I said as the diners went by into the room. Some smiled back, a few answered, not a clue who I was or why I was there. They saw a tall young woman in a sleek, shimmering rose-coloured dress, her dark, streaky hair pulled back into a tight chignon with a silver clip. There was a streak of blonde from the brow. Don’t ask me how it got there. A stray gene. I look like a dancer, but of course, I didn’t dance any more.

  A table of eight would always be my choice. How could you really want to talk to the same person, every meal, for the entire cruise? Not unless he was Johnny Depp. He’d keep you amused and feeling special, be a different person every meal. Those eyes, that mouth. Hopefully not always a pirate, though I loved the beard. George Clooney would be second choice if Depp was busy.

  I hovered in the atrium, watching the latecomers sauntering in, holding out their hands for a squirt of the antiseptic spray. Everyone had to be sprayed, no matter how posh or titled they were. It was a procedure more closely adhered to than in some hospitals.

  This was lull-time, halfway between my appearances. I had to go back to the Princess Lounge soon, ready to MC the second presentation of tonight’s show for the first-sitting passengers who were digesting their gargantuan meal. Life was a continuing, complicated roundabout aboard the MV Countess Georgina. I needed to keep a strict eye on the time and my watch. Minutes counted. Even seconds could be crucial.

  I always tried to get to know everyone on board. Hence the hovering outside the Windsor Dining Room. I was imprinting faces. Next I would try to learn their names and cabin numbers. I had a passenger manifest, even if no one else outside the purser’s office had one.

  And I didn’t do it for the tips. No one tips the cruise entertainment director. They barely knew I existed. I was some exotic bird who floated around in the evening in gorgeous dresses, apparently having a high old time. If only they knew the behind-the-scenes flog and slog in my cramped office.

  I read the menu displayed outside the dining room. It was on a stand between the two enormous displays of fresh flowers. The florists on board were good at their job. They took on huge consignments of fresh and frozen flowers at each port of call.

  The selection of dishes advertised today abolished any diet. Avocado with raspberry vinaigrette and toasted pine nuts; blended mushroom and parsley soup; lemon sole meunière; tiger prawn and monkfish curry with summer vegetable goulash and wild rice; apricot pavlova with pineapple coulis. Four different kinds of rolls. Cheese, fresh fruit, candies, coffee and speciality teas. We didn’t get quite the same food in the officer’s mess down on deck F. It only sounded similar. This menu read like the Booker prize.

  And there were lighter options offered. Who wanted lighter options? I suppose the thin people did. We had some seriously thin people aboard. Walking clothes pegs.

  I was supposed to host one of the big tables but I rarely had time. This evening I made a brief appearance, introducing myself, making the seven passengers at the table feel at home. There was only time for the avocado and the soup tonight.

  ‘Hello. I’m Casey Jones, the entertainments director,’ I said, smiling as I sat down. ‘I’ll join you as often as I can but evenings are a very busy time as
you can imagine. All the shows to MC. Make sure everything is going along smoothly.’

  There were two tables of eight either side of the main entrance. They were on the raised outer level which skirted the dining room and gave the proportions more balance. Wide cabin windows flanked the walls but at night you couldn’t see out of them. Sometimes there was an occasional flash of white phosphorescence dancing on the waves. Pretty to watch, if you had one of those tables. Passengers tipped heavily for a window seat.

  I heard a crash as glasses and plates went flying and looked up. This was not an unusual occurrence with new waiters still finding their sea legs. They could clear up a disaster zone in minutes, whip on a clean tablecloth, lay fresh cutlery and glasses, replace spilt drinks.

  But there were raised voices also, some woman was screaming. A red-faced man was running out of the dining room. I followed him quickly. He was sweating and flapping. ‘We need a doctor,’ he shouted to anyone.

  I picked up a nearby phone and dialled the medical centre. Everyone knew the extension by heart. It was drilled into every member of the crew. We could have dialled it in our sleep. Sometimes we had to.

  ‘Dr Mallory,’ came a laconic voice.

  ‘Windsor Dining Room,’ I said. ‘Medical assistance required immediately.’

  ‘What sort of medical assistance?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Wrong answer. Compose yourself, Casey.

  ‘You should always find out,’ said Dr Mallory abruptly. ‘I should like to know whether I am going to deliver a baby, resuscitate a heart attack or stop femoral bleeding.’

  ‘I’ll go and find out.’ I put the phone down and hurried back into the dining room. People at nearby tables were craning and staring, talking in hushed voices.

  A man was sprawled across table two, his grey-haired head in a frothy puddle of wine. At least I thought it was wine. It couldn’t be blood, surely not? A strange cherry-red colour. A glass of water had gone over as well as the wine. Two of the waiters were hauling the man to his feet. He hung in their arms like a particularly well-dressed scarecrow. His white shirt front was spotted with spreading stains of crimson. A woman was still screaming, her mouth a gaping ruby hole. Another older woman, was patting the man’s face and his hand, her face white with concern.

  ‘George, George,’ she was murmuring. ‘Hold on. Help is coming.’

  ‘I’ve phoned for the doctor. Is it a heart attack, do you think?’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s a heart attack,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t move him,’ I said quickly. ‘The doctor is coming.’ The head waiter came over to me at speed. His face was expressionless, black tie only slightly askew. ‘We are moving Mr Foster to a side room. It will be better. The other diners, you understand.’

  ‘No, you mustn’t move him till the doctor gets here.’ Graham Ward drew himself up to his full height and he was an imposing man.

  ‘Nobody dies in my dining room,’ he said, sternly. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Jones, but I insist. Company policy.’

  There was no answer to that.

  One - Southampton

  Countess Georgina was without doubt, a beautiful ship. A white lady. It would be easy to fall under her spell. The clean line of the bows, rising above the quayside, white and glistening, like an ocean clipper. Every inch of her scrubbed Persil white. She was so clean, you could eat off the decks and maybe some of the passengers did after a hilarious, on-deck Caribbean party. Rum punch afloat and streamers streaming.

  I was about to find out. She beckoned to me. A new world. A medium-risk disclosure as they put pompously on my last learning curve.

  She was not a top-heavy floating hotel. The Countess was a proper ship and looked like a ship. Her funnels had the Conway Blue Line emblem. One of the last majestic liners still sailing the oceans.

  I stood under the towering hull, admiring the sweep of the bows, awed by the ship’s size. This was the beginning of a dream, my new ambition, and I was here now, ready to grasp all that had been offered. My second chance. Nobody wake me up, please.

  ‘Hello, Countess,’ I said, tugging at my pull-along suitcase. ‘Let’s get aboard and see if you are as splendid inside as you are outside.’

  I went up the crew gangplank. All the paperwork had been checked in the terminal. Endless queues at desks. Passengers arriving with mountains of luggage. Some were taking back-to-back cruises and needed twice the amount of everything. But at last I was actually going aboard, passport intact, all the right crew cards and passes, seaman’s discharge book, etc.

  The crew entrance was not as elegant as where the passengers stepped on board. Their first glimpse inside was the atrium, a circular space with a fountain and a sculpted tree in silver metal, very Japanese looking. This area had the sweeping reception desk, counters for excursion sales, flower sales, chocolates. And the double doors that lead into the Windsor Dining Room. Stewards leaped forward, greeted arriving passengers, taking any hand luggage and escorting them to their cabins. Passengers didn’t have to push or pull anything. Only their passports and their credit cards.

  I had to find my own way. The corridors were endless, winding and twisting. I wasn’t sure if I was at the front or the back of the ship, that is the bows or the stern. It all looked the same once inside. I had been given cabin number 414 on E deck.

  Then I realized I was hurrying along on the wrong side of the ship. These cabins were all uneven numbers. I needed to get over to the other side, which could be port or starboard. This was something I had to learn again. Dancers never bothered with their left or right, unless it was in a dance routine. They used different signposts. Stage right, stage left, towards those curtains, the exit door, the lights, move diagonally or in a straight line.

  I came to a fairly unpretentious lobby with a pair of lift doors and went across to the opposite corridor. Nice pictures though. All prints. Even numbers. This was it. I was getting tired of dragging my suitcase. The pull-handle didn’t make the case any lighter. And I had a lot of clothes for my job.

  A slim young Asian steward appeared, in his trim white uniform. ‘Can I help you, miss?’

  ‘Cabin 414, please. I’m not sure if I’m going the right way.’

  ‘Yes, miss. This way. I will take your case. Follow me.’

  He took my case and I followed him. I had no idea where he was taking me. Perhaps I had mistaken my contract and I was going to be set to work in the laundry. Somehow, in a very short time, like ten minutes, I had got to learn my way about this confusing labyrinth of decks and corridors. Across a closed door was a discreet sign: ‘No Entrance — Crew Accommodation’. This was a signpost I had to remember. I spotted a fire extinguisher on the opposite side, another signpost, and a Monet garden print. My brain logged on.

  The steward opened the door and ushered me along another corridor, and then used his key card to open the door to cabin 414.

  ‘This is your cabin, miss. And I am your steward, Ahmed. Your other suitcase has already come aboard. I have put it inside. Please ring if you would like some more hangers.’ He was about twenty, had a very shy, uncertain smile. He was not sure what kind of crew member I was going to be. I knew that some could be very demanding.

  I thanked him warmly. ‘Thank you for showing me the way, Ahmed. I was quite lost. Yes, I would like to have some more hangers. I’ve brought an awful lot of clothes. And could I have a cup of tea, please?’

  ‘There is a tray here for your tea and coffee making,’ he said politely. Ah, so stewards didn’t bring a china pot of tea on a tray these days, not on this line. ‘I will bring you some hangers.’

  He closed the door and I was left to look around my home for the next few months. It was basic, functional, not exactly spacious. The second single bed was folded against the wall, giving extra shelf space which would be handy for putting things out on and extra floor space. There was a desktop which doubled for a dressing table with a mirror and drawers underneath. Two fitted wardrobes had hanging space and shelves. The en suite
bathroom was all white, functional, clean. Set of three towels. A shower gel fitment was attached to the wall, full of some blue stuff for showering and shampooing. I had my own shampoo for my unmanageable hair.

  I liked the clean look. I like anything clean and plain.

  There was a porthole, double-glazed, which was almost too high up to see out of. I stood on tiptoe and stretched up, managed a glimpse of watery blue sea which seemed very near. This deck was near sea level. One deck above the Plimsoll Line, probably. No opening of this porthole, ever.

  The hospitality tray was on the desktop, and underneath was a small refrigerator. I liked the bottles of mineral water already provided.

  There was a knock on the door and Ahmed stood there with an armful of wire hangers. Enough for a tribe of entertainment directors. He looked like a porcupine.

  ‘Thank you so much, Ahmed,’ I said. ‘You’re a total star.’

  ‘Entertainment directors always have a lot of clothes,’ he said, with a glimpse of mischief as if he had seen many come and go. Entertainment directors worked on a rota basis, so many months on board, a few weeks of shore leave, then back again. Not always the same ship. The Conway Blue Line had three main cruise ships, all Countesses, and several smaller ships, tankers and ferries too. The line was run by a woman, Gina Conway, who had inherited the line from her grandfather.

  ‘They do indeed,’ I said. ‘It goes with the job. And thank you for the bottles of mineral water. Entertainment directors also drink a lot of water.’

  A first smile touched his face. He nodded and closed the door.

  ‘Hello, Miss Jones,’ I said to my reflection in the mirror. My face was pale and tired from the long, stressful journey by train to Southampton. There had been a points failure and I had started to imagine missing the ship. It was the crewman’s nightmare, arriving in time to see your ship and your contract gliding away from the quayside. My stomach had churned. But I made it.