I offered thanks to the pirates of the East Coast for, without them, this magnificent beast of a boat would not have come our way.
It has 11 decks, four restaurants, two swimming pools, a theatre and somewhere between seven and 14 bars, depending on how you approach them. But this is no floating hotel. This is more like a country with no government. Not in a bad way, like Somalia, but in an ideal world kind of way. For example, one is able to walk from the blunt end to the sharp end with two purple cocktails in each hand and a bottle of vodka down your broeks and pass all manner of men in uniforms who, instead of shoving you up against a lifeboat and frisking you, smile and wish you a happy cruise. I should have known it was a poisoned chalice.
We were asked if we wanted to be first or second sitting for dinner. I opted for the first out of fear that by the time the second sitting came around, I might be on my third falling down and that simply wouldn't do. The waiter, who had something of the Khmer Rouge about him, showed us to a table set for four. Fabulous. I always find tables for two far too small to accommodate my drinks, food, elbows and sometimes my head all at the same time.
Things were going swimmingly. Brenda was even allowing me to nuzzle her ankle with my foot, something that at home would have ended in a ruptured spleen. She excused herself and said she had to freshen up. More like rub up against an Italian deckhand, but I let her go, nevertheless. I was planning the seduction when the rebel waiter arrived with two strangers in tow. "Here is your table," he said. Had he suddenly gone blind? This was astounding. "Hello?" I said. "This table is taken." He thought I had gone mad and couldn't understand why Brenda and I would want to eat alone when we could share the table with our countrymen even though they only speak Afrikaans and have the dullest jobs one could imagine.
I can't remember their names but they were dreadful and the experience was absolutely mortifying. I tried to ignore them but they insisted on introducing themselves. Brenda returned from the freshening up business and seemed deeply confused by the new arrangement. How could it happen that I had made friends while she was gone? I tried to tell her what was going on, like that Frenchman who wrote an entire novel by blinking in code, but she thought I had developed a nervous tic and asked if I was okay. Of course I wasn't okay. I was suffering from a monumental hangover and forced to make small talk with a couple from the hinterland who did not even drink. I can barely tolerate my friends, let alone complete strangers.
Divine intervention came in the form of a phone call from Freebie Fraser, a journeyman who has been hammering away at the coalface of journalism for more years than he cares to remember. He was on the boat as part of a media junket for hacks and travel agents. For the circle of the damned to be complete, the only people missing were estate agents.
We made our excuses and fled before the main course arrived. Freebie Fraser introduced us to the open bar and it was noses firmly pointed in the direction of downhill from there.
The ship was full of Eurotrash afflicted with early melanomas and late husbands. Everyone seemed to be drinking as if there might be no tomorrow. I invented a new illness called Titanic Syndrome and felt a lot better about self-medicating after that.
Returning to our cabin in a state of disrepair, my hopes of a romantic interlude were dashed when Brenda fell over and became entangled in the shower curtain. The bathroom was too small to allow me to assist her and by the time she had unravelled herself, I had given up and gone off to explore the disco. They were playing hits from Saturday Night Fever while silver-haired playboys hit on tipsy teenagers from Turin.
The barman, a retired Viet Cong commander, complimented me on the tattoo on my neck. I didn't tell him it was a cheap transfer, but I think he must have known because, after my seventh mojito, it began to melt and looked more like a weeping sore than a tattoo. He stopped serving me after that and it took me over an hour to find the cabin. At one point I must have ventured into the crew area because a patrol of Sendero Luminoso renegades escorted me to an elevator and threatened me in an incomprehensible language. It might have been English.
When we woke up we went for breakfast where a Balinese peasant told us that we had just missed lunch. Cocktails at the pool, it is then. R6.90 for a Long Island iced tea! Brenda ordered a brace of Sex on the Beach and giggled like a schoolgirl. Things weren't quite so funny when it came time to pay and we discovered that everything was in euros, not rands.
For more on this saga, see the other column on this page.
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