Low life | 7 December 2017

I took a dab of antiseptic gel and rubbed my hands together. ‘Alone tonight, sir?’ said the charming head waiter. I was, I said. For the sake of conviviality, he seated me opposite the only other lone diner in the ship’s restaurant, a chap in his mid-sixties with his head in a book. This bookish loner had a jutting Mr Punch chin and an old-fashioned lothario’s pencil moustache. A few hours earlier, I’d noticed him prowling the deck wearing only a minuscule pair of leopard-skin print bathing drawers and a sea captain’s hat. We shook hands and exchanged Christian names. Gunter hailed from Germany but spoke basic English.

I asked him what his book was about. ‘It is about life after death,’ he said. He was disinclined to elaborate, but willing to initiate a conversation about death. ‘And was your grandfather killed in the first world war?’ he said. No, I said.