The waiter hums to himself as I’m led to a round table for eight in the middle of the room. It’s mobbed but the chatter isn’t overwhelming, and I don’t see many toddlers causing havoc. I assume their parents have just accepted that a peaceful sit-down meal on this cruise isn’t in their future anytime soon.
There are seven other people already seated at the table: four men and three women. I say hello and sit down beside a portly man in a white dress shirt and blue trousers. His face is sunburned already. ‘Brian Harrison,’ he announces before I even have time to lift my napkin. ‘This is my wife, Evelyn.’ His Geordie accent is endearing.
‘Sophie,’ I reply as Evelyn smiles at me. ‘Nice to meet you. Am I the last to arrive? So sorry, I had to change.’
‘Don’t worry, we haven’t been here long.’
Around the table, I also meet Mia and her partner Dieter. They’re from Germany, in their thirties and were last spotted in the lift earlier. Thankfully, the giggling twins aren’t part of their group. I’m not sure I could cope with that. Cameron and his husband Lucas are an English couple who now live in Finland, and there’s one other single woman, Isla, the whiny woman from the pool earlier. I have no idea where she’s from, it’s hard to pinpoint an accent when all she said was her name or from her high-pitched whining at Richie. What I can say is that Isla looks completely bored already, but her hair is still perfectly in place.
Our Italian waiter, Marco, brings us menus and takes our drinks order. If I understand correctly, Marco will be our waiter all week if we choose to dine here. Everyone orders wine, except Isla who sticks to her gin and slimline tonic. The menu changes every night and tonight we have various starters from prawn cocktail to crabcakes. Main courses include salmon, New York strip steak and risotto. For desert: ice cream, cheesecake, sticky toffee pudding or an artisan cheese plate. I wonder if saying yes to every single dish would apply here.
I settle on prawn cocktail and steak and will order cheesecake if I have any room left at the end of the meal. I would have ordered the spaghetti Bolognese but there’s no way I could have eaten that with any sort of grace or decorum. My dress would look like a crime scene once I’d finished.
‘What do you want?’ Dieter asks me. His cheerful face doesn’t match up to his somewhat stern tone.
‘For dinner?’ I reply. I assume this is what he means and he’s not just asking me why I’ve turned up at his table.
‘Ja.’
‘Das Steak,’ I reply, feeling pleased with myself for remembering that the word steak in German is steak.
Mia looks surprised. ‘Ah, sprechen Sie Deutsch?’
I’m tempted to say that I know a little German, but I forget the word for little and instead reply, ‘Not really,’ bringing an end to my charade.
Dieter chuckles. ‘My Englishistnotso gut. We will teach each other.’
I pour myself some water from the jug on the table, wishing I hadn’t tried to be a smart arse, but thankfully they seem to be a nice couple.
‘So what do you do for work?’ Brian asks me.
‘I work in marketing,’ I tell him, in perfect English. ‘And you?’
‘Retired now but we own a bed and breakfast.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ I reply. ‘But I hear it’s hard work.’
Mum’s friend Diana ran a B&B in Sandsend. I always remember her venting that the guests were ‘filthy, drunken bastards’ and how she worked herself ‘to the bone’. She did cater to stag and hen parties, though. That was probably her first mistake.
‘Aye, it can be,’ he replies. ‘Our daughter Claire runs it now but she’s as old-school as us. Not sure how long we’ll keep it. Hard to compete with the more modern ones, you know?’
I nod. Unless you are tech savvy, it’s difficult to stay ahead of the game.
Marco appears with our starters. I’m really impressed. Isla immediately starts taking photos, positioning and angling her mozzarella salad to get the perfect shot.
‘Instagram?’ I hear Cameron ask. Isla nods and carries on taking photos, her long nails clacking against her iPhone. His husband Lucas throws Cameron a side-eye at her rude behaviour. They both smirk. I like them already.
‘What do you both do?’ Evelyn asks as she digs into her crabcake. ‘We run a bed and breakfast.’
‘Charming!’ he replies. ‘We both work for Nokia.’
‘Like the phones?’ Mia asks.
Lucas nods, trying not to talk with a mouthful of prosciutto.
‘And you met at work?’
‘Ten years ago,’ he replies. ‘I was planning to go back to England when he joined the company. Needless to say, I stayed. What about you, Mia?’
