All at Sea with Truffles Page 14

  Much later she returned and let me out on the balcony, which was nice and dry again, thank goodness. Then we carried out our usual bedtime routines, and that was another day over - and one I certainly wouldn’t forget in a hurry!

  Life on board

  The next week passed by in something of a blur. Both Sheila and I had by now got right into the routine of the relaxing life on board a cruise ship. Indeed, I almost began to forget our home life back in Cornwall, I was so into this new, unheard-of for a cat, style of living! On several days Sheila went ashore at some exotic- sounding places: Livorno, Civitavecchia, Cagliari, Cádiz, Lisbon and Vigo. Strangely, each time she returned another handbag would appear on the shelf. I don’t know what Eduardo must have thought! She appeared to meet up with her friend Margaret on her trips ashore, so the handbag shops in those towns must have done very well out of the two of them, with Sheila and Margaret no doubt matching each other bag for bag!

  In the afternoons we usually spent some time after lunch on our own balcony, lazing in the sun - so Sheila could wear her shorts in private! Then she would change into some longs and we’d go up to the top deck, where I would lie on the grass and she would sometimes play a game with Connie and Ron or Graham and Petra. We never saw Mr and Mrs Golightly anywhere again! Then we’d have an ice cream. I wished we had a whippy ice cream-making machine back at home! Afterwards maybe we’d go down and stroll along the main shopping promenade and Sheila would give yet more of her money stuff away in return for sparkly things or treats or whatever. At this rate, I thought, she’ll soon have no more money left! Sometimes, if there was a trivia session on somewhere, the ‘Triangles’ would take part, and one day Sheila came back to the stateroom very excited as they had won prizes! “Key rings!” she told me, putting hers into her pocket. What’s a key ring? I wondered. Well, whatever it was, as I was unlikely ever to be the owner of a pocket, I guessed it wouldn’t be of any use to me! On another occasion she dumped me back in the stateroom earlier than usual and rushed off to some lessons in how to salsa dance. She only ever went the once, which didn’t surprise me - I mean, DO fairy elephants dance the salsa?! Sorry, readers, that really was a catty remark! I didn’t mean it, Sheila! She did have some success, however, in another set of classes she attended. She made a teddy bear to add to her collection. It didn’t quite match the standard of the one she had bought on the ship; it was a bit of a ama… amat… amate… cack- handed effort, but she was happy with it and called it Thread Bear!

  She had met another couple on board: another Graham, but his lady was called Jacqueline. She told me that they ate with her on the table at dinner in the evening, along with Dianne and David. Well, not literally on the table, I mean they were actually sitting by the side of the table! I do find your ways of ex… exp… expre… making things clear still a bit difficult at times - sorry! I did meet them once when we were outside on the deck. Graham had been climbing the big rock - though he didn’t shin up it anywhere near as quickly as I did! Jacqueline had been watching him and we happened to be passing, so we stopped to watch too. After what seemed an age, he got down to the bottom again, puffing a bit, and Jacqueline gave a sigh of relief. “I was worried you’d fall,” she chided. “No, it was a piece of cake!” he said. Oh dear, here we go again, I thought. A piece of cake? It was nothing like any cake I’d ever seen - ah, perhaps it was a rock cake! I remembered Sheila once saying to someone that her old granny used to make lovely rock cakes, although I couldn’t imagine how you would ever get a bit of a rock like that into your mouth! I decided I would stick to cat crunchy treats!

  Talking of food, I had definitely got fatter since being on board on account of all my overeating - all those extra treats from Eduardo and all those lovely rich dinners! I found that, because my tummy seemed to have grown so, it was much more difficult for me to lick my nether regions! It was proving quite a strain on my back. I resolved that when I got home I would sadly have to cut down my food intake for a while. Still, the food at home wouldn’t be so hard to resist, as tinned food isn’t exactly inspiring. It’s adequate and reasonably tasty, but it in no way compares to the gourmet standard to which I had now become ac… accu… accusto… used to on the ship!

  On the evening before our last full day on board came Sheila’s much-anticipated dinner on the Captain’s table. It was also the final night, which meant that everybody would be wearing their best outer coverings and all the lady humans would be trying to outdo each other! In the daytime Sheila had got off the ship at a place called Vigo and when she returned she was carrying with her a very big bag. I wondered how on earth she was going to get all the extra stuff she’d bought home with us; it had been a big enough struggle carrying everything on here in the first place! Oh well, that was her problem, not mine!

  After lunch she went off to the fur-dresser and I sat out in the sun as usual, but after a while I began to feel a bit of movement underneath me, which seemed to be coming from the ship. Up until now, ever since we left Southampton, you just couldn’t have told it was even moving; it was only when you looked over the back and saw the trail of froth behind the ship that you realised we were going along pretty fast. I couldn’t explain what the ‘movement’ happening now felt like. Everything had always been so very smooth and now, when I looked out from the balcony at where the edge of the C met up with the edge of the sky, it seemed to be moving slowly up and down. Most odd! As the afternoon went on, I could feel the floor sort of swaying. It felt rather like when you sit on a tree branch and the wind is blowing. Although somewhat strange, I rather liked the feeling - it was almost soothing and in a while it was kind of lulling me to sleep!

  When Sheila came back from her visit to the fur-dresser, she came outside and I thought said we were in the bay of biscuits (or some name that sounded like that!) and it might be a bit rough for a few hours. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but she didn’t seem particularly worried and said that this often happened in the bay of biscuits. As far as she was concerned, it made things a bit more interesting but many of the other passengers might not agree with her. As I said, I didn’t know what she was going on about, so I just lay there and didn’t take much notice.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon trying on the new set of outer coverings that had come out of the big bag she had brought back from Vigo. Together with the fur-do she’d just had, she looked at her very best I must say. The top half of the outfit was mostly covered with thousands of tiny, round, shimmering silver, dark purple and light purple beads. She then spent ages matching the new outfit up with various of her sparkly bits and humming and hawing over what paw covers to wear and what handbag to carry. She was certainly ‘going to town’ (one of your human sayings!) for this evening’s special dinner! When Marcello brought in the usual canapés, he looked at the shimmering outfit hanging up and said, “Oh, madame, you weel be belle of ball zees evening, eh?” “Well, I can but try!” laughed Sheila. What a lot of fuss you lady humans make when you go outsome where special, I thought. An extra five-minute body lick is all we cats need to do for an important date!

  After she had got everything sorted to her satisfaction, Sheila made herself a cup of the frothy stuff and we sat together on the sofa, as outside the sun had disappeared and it did seem a bit unsteady on the balcony. “I thought it was going to be a bit rough,” she remarked. “It had to be tonight of all nights, didn’t it?!” Still, the rocking didn’t stop us from eating our afternoon treats - some venison pâté on teeny-weeny bits of crispy bread for me and I don’t know what else for her! Then I dozed for a while and she watched the moving pictures on the wall, glass of bubbly in hand!

  The swaying movement of the ship seemed to be getting worse. I noticed that my bed had slid from its corner right across to the opposite corner of the room! Mind you, nothing else seemed to have moved - nothing had fallen off the shelves or off the table, though I did notice that Sheila had been careful to keep tight hold of her glass
of bubbly! She got up and went over to the talking machine to order my dinner, and I could that see she was lurching about a bit. Surely just one glass of the bubbly stuff couldn’t have made her squiffy already, I thought! Then I got up and I, too, felt a bit unsteady on my paws - only for a second or two, though, soon regaining my balance. As you probably know, cats can cling on to anything, be it moving or still. I wondered why the bay of biscuits was doing that to us.

  Sheila swayed over to the bathroom and I heard a crash and one of those words you humans shouldn’t say in public as she dropped something on the floor. I got back onto the sofa and sat firmly down on my cushion whilst she finished her ablutions, and then she spent a further half-hour in front of the looking glass fiddling with her face and her claws, which she was painting a very pale purple colour - her claws, I mean, not her face!

  Very soon my dinner arrived - lobster! Great! I waited impatiently whilst she chopped it up and decanted it into my bowl. “Better put on some lower heels, I think. It’s still rough, and I don’t want to fall over in front of the Captain,” she muttered. “Bye, Truffles.” Then, with one final glance at herself, off she went for her big evening. I continued with the lobster. Very nice! Afterwards I got back on the cushion, cleaned up my whiskers and settled down again. The regular rocking and swaying movement soon lulled me to sleep. But suddenly I had a rude awakening! After what must have been a much stronger lurch of the ship, my cushion and I suddenly landed on the floor! By now the floor was definitely swaying more violently and I began to feel rather na… nau… naus… sick. I am hardly ever sick and can’t remember being so since I was a kitten, except perhaps occasionally when I’ve gulped down my food too fast. Oh yes, and once I had a very nasty moment after I’d eaten a frog! Well, I didn’t want to embarrass myself by throwing up here, so I made my way over for a drink of water, which was slopping about a bit in the bowl, and had a few laps. Good, I felt instantly better!

  Sheila hadn’t warned me that ships sometimes rocked like this! It wasn’t frightening or particularly unpleasant, just a rather strange feeling. I sat on the floor and leant against the sofa whilst the rocking continued to get even worse, causing some of the coloured fruits to roll out of their bowl onto the floor and the papers to slide off the table. Fortunately, Sheila’s bottle of bubbly remained solidly wedged in its container. I heard one or two things toppling over in the bathroom, but I didn’t go to investigate. Well, Eduardo would be here soon and he would see that everything was okay. I remained where I was...

  By the time he arrived, I felt that the rocking was not quite so violent. “‘Ello, Trufools,” he greeted me, “are you okay?” He bent down and stroked me and replaced the cushion on the sofa. I got back into it. “Lots times eet iz bit ruff ‘ere in zee bay,” he said, “but getting beeter now. Look, I got you soom cheecken. You eat, eh?” Oh yes, I definitely ate it! Then he put things back into their right places, changed the towels and stuff and finally turned the bed down, laying his latest towel masterpiece down on top of it. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was supposed to be, though! Tonight I noticed that he put extra choccies out for Sheila. That’ll please her, I thought. A final pat for me and then he was gone.

  Much later Sheila returned, holding a single red flower and also a large picture. I know you humans like to make pictures of each other. I have had lots of pictures made of me, too. The stateroom was still swaying slightly. I had wondered if she would also be swaying of her own accord if she’d had too many of the naughty cocks’ tails, but she seemed no different from normal. I guessed the dinner had gone well. “I had a lovely time, Truffles,” she said, sitting on the sofa beside me. “The officer I know sat next to me and the Captain was opposite, and the other people on the table were all charming. They took a photo of us all. Look!” She showed me the picture, but, although she was obviously pleased with it, I can’t really see pictures like you do, so it didn’t make much impression. “The food we had was superb,” she went on, “and the Captain spoke to everyone and was telling jokes. One was about how when you are in a big ship all small ones have to get out of the way. So I told him the true story of old Jim the fisherman and he really laughed!” I had heard this story many times before, but I think you might like to hear it too! This is how Sheila tells it:

  A lot of naval ships are based in Devonport, Plymouth, and where the river joins the sea is called Plymouth Sound.There is a special area out there where the frigates and other large naval vessels used to carry out a procedure called ‘swinging the compass’. I don’t know if it’s still done nowadays, but it’s all a bit technical for me anyway! However, on one occasion old Jim (when he was younger!) was out with his father in their little fishing boat and a large navy frigate was looming down on them. Its Captain shouted out through a megaphone: “Get out of the way!” However, the fishing boat carried on regardless! The frigate got nearer. The Captain leant out of the bridge window and shouted again: “I order you to turn aside! I am the Commander of this ship!” And Jim’s father stood up and bellowed back: “And I’m the skipper and owner of this one!” (But they did move out of the way!)

  “Right, Truffles,” said Sheila, “let’s go to the casino! I feel in a winning mood! It’s my last chance, as tomorrow night we’ll be in bed early as we’ll be getting off first thing on Saturday. So come on, we’ll go now and then I can have my last lovely Amoretto coffee! It’ll be back to normal again when we get home - instant out of a sachet!” I let her dress me in my ‘formal night’ diamanté collar and we set off. By now it seemed to me that the ship was hardly rolling at all, though there were still some passengers tottering past us who looked a bit pale. Sheila had told me earlier that she had never felt seasick (as she called it), so I didn’t let on that I’d had an anxious moment back in the stateroom! She had said that some people would always feel ill at the slightest rocking of a ship, so she couldn’t understand why on earth they would choose to go cruising! On the other hand, others, like herself, would have no problems even in the strongest winds.

  The casino was even more th… thr… thro… crowded and noisy than normal. Everyone else must have been feeling in a winning mood too! People were standing several deep around the tables and nearly every machine had some person frantically pressing its buttons! By a stroke of luck (excuse the pun!) Sheila’s favourite machine was sitting there all alone. She sat down and I assumed my usual position underneath her seat, from where I could observe the comings and goings of the crowd without getting trodden on. “Well, Truffles,” she said, “I’ve not really lost too much this trip. But, there again, I’ve not won much either! I always expect to lose my initial stakes anyway.” Steaks? She does drift off so, I thought. One minute she’s talking about winning money and then she’s on about meat! Oh well... “But all told,” she continued, “it’s taken quite a lot of my money over the past fortnight, so now it’s payback time! I’m going to double my stake tonight - you’ve got to speculate to accumulate - as it’s my last chance, so let’s hope!” Some hope, I thought gloomily - she’ll just be throwing her money away!

  I heard her above me continually pressing the buttons and sometimes the machine was making the loud jangly sound she loves to hear when it pays out. At other times I would hear her mutter a naughty word under her breath! But after quite a while and much effort, things finally paid off for her - I couldn’t believe it! The machine was making a horrendous noise that seemed to go on and on and things inside its tummy were whirring, clinking and pinging! The people next door were laughing - not so much as Sheila, though! “Blimey,” she screeched, “it’s not the jackpot, but very nearly! That’s given me back all I’ve put in and more besides!” She pulled out the bit of paper from the machine’s chest and dragged me over to the corner of the room where two lady casino people were sitting behind a counter. Sheila passed over her bit of paper. “You’ve done well - $375!” said the person, smiling at her, and she put several pieces of paper money into Sheila’s paw. “Thanks,”
replied Sheila. “See you again next May!” And she dragged me off again.

  Is she winning at last?”

  Up to the next deck we went and, sitting down at her usual table in the coffee place, she ordered her Amoretto drink and, what’s more, a large piece of Amoretto cake! “Might as well indulge,” she muttered. “Back to normality soon and a strict diet!” Me too, I thought ruefully! I was feeling very portly and didn’t want the cats next door to be laughing behind my back if they saw me waddling around the garden! We sat companionably together and a few people that Sheila knew passed by and stopped for a chat. They were all disappointed that the cruise was nearly over, and I realised that I was sorry that my ‘once in a lifetime’ experience was about to finish, too. I say ‘once in a lifetime’, but perhaps I should rephrase that - it should be ‘once in a nine lives time’! Cats have nine lives, as you probably know - though after the vile bird and water-spewing snakes episodes, my personal life level has now dropped to seven!

  Sheila looked at the little time-telling machine strapped to her paw (sparkling with diamanté like my collar, I noted) and seemed amazed that it had got so late. “Goodness, Truffles,” she said, “it’ll be nearly time for breakfast soon. We must go!” And so we went!

  Back at the stateroom and bereft of our finery, we sat and looked at each other. She patted me. “Well, that’s about it, Truffles. Home soon and back to normality! When it gets to the end of a cruise I always feel I’ve just got into the swing of things and into the shipboard routine, and wish I could stay on for another week!” I nodded in agreement. But, nice as it had been, I was eager to get home and out into the garden to check on the local bird populace! I also intended to brag about my exploits to the cats next door!