We ascended the gangplank and were smartly directed to the ship’s library, where the seated purser swiped my debit card and took our passports. This purser’s face was prematurely aged, disfigured by misfortune, implacably hostile. Would she be keeping our passports until the voyage end, we asked humbly? We would get them back at the end of the cruise and not before, she barked, furious at our ignorance of the ship’s rules.
Cabin 302 was one deck down, next to the dining room. Catriona’s suitcase was already placed outside the cabin door. Mine perhaps had yet to complete its journey through the cruise-terminal security machinery. The cabin was roomier than expected. A sealed, chintz-curtained porthole vouchsafed a view of the horrible sea. While I investigated the facilities, Catriona filled the lockers with her clothes and erected our miniature portable Christmas tree. Then a German voice, speaking in English, filled the cabin. In five minutes’ time we were to assemble at the muster station wearing life jackets. The drill was compulsory for all passengers, it warned, and would include a roll-call.
The muster station was a section of the main deck between the Tropical bar and the library. Wearing our cumbersome life jackets, we joined about 100 other fluorescent orange Billy Bunters milling about. Presently, the owner of the loudspeaker voice appeared: a tall, blond Teuton with a piratical ponytail, bleached white teeth, white shirt, white shorts, white orthopaedic sandals. He climbed up on to a sea chest and from this orator’s stump described an increasingly desperate series of misfortunes and told us the plan of action for each one. If the captain gave the order to abandon ship, for example, we were to leave everything behind, even our medication, and simply drop over the side standing to attention.
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