All at Sea with Truffles Read online

  Anyway, she finally succeeded in pouring a glassful of the bubbly from the bottle, wiped up some splashes from the table with the towel and put the bottle back into the silvery bucket. “Phew,” she said, before picking up a box of her favourite choccies, which she’d brought with her, and then walking out onto the balcony and sitting down. I followed and plopped down not far from the doorway - no way was I going near the edge! The sun was still shining and we were about to depart; our holiday was really beginning now!

  We sat there for a while, me savouring the late afternoon sunshine and Sheila sipping her drink and nibbling at her choccies - I noticed that she ate four! She looked at her time- telling machine. “Any minute now, Truffles,” she remarked. And, indeed, just after she spoke there was a very, very loud noise from the ship (I thought it sounded like a pack of lions all roaring in unison), and she got up and leaned on the glass edge wall of the balcony, looking over the side. I remained where I was - I felt safer there.

  Sheila was talking to the neighbours and they were chinking their glasses and telling each other what a lovely time they were going to have and saying how lucky they were to be on such a beautiful ship. It was going to be a real treat for them all to be pampered, entertained and fed to the highest standard, and most definitely worth it even though it had cost them an arm and a leg. An arm and a leg? What did they mean by that? I wondered. I thought you humans paid for things with that stuff called money (or dosh, lolly, spondulicks, as I’ve also heard you refer to it!) But surely you don’t chop off your arms and legs to buy things? Sheila’s remained intact, so obviously she paid for the holiday some other way. I was puzzled yet again by the odd things you humans come out with! Still, I wasn’t going to do my head in worrying about it. I was feeling much too relaxed to bother.

  I couldn’t even feel we were moving. But from the others’ conversation I gathered that we were now away from the dockside and leaving Southampton. Sheila sat back down again, resisted the temptation of another choccy and sipped some more bubbly. “This is the life, Truffles,” she said. I agreed - to sit lazing in the sun and dozing all day, only really having to move to eat your meals, was most definitely my idea of heaven!

  I knew that Sheila’s idea of heaven was to be on a cruise ship, particularly this one. She had been with this cruise line many times before. If circumstances permitted, I reckon she would go on it about six times a year instead of two! I have heard her telling some friends who have never been on cruises that they really ought to try one. Even though they had probably seen pictures, both still and moving, it was impossible to understand just how big a cruise ship was until you were stood by its side looking up and feeling dizzy! And inside (well, on this particular cruise line anyway) it was just pure, unadulterated luxury - like a big floating hotel with every amenity you could want. Her friends had remained unconvinced - well, it was their loss!

  We sat out for an hour or so, and then I stood up, looking upwards and outwards - though I still hadn’t plucked up the courage to go right to the outer edge - and I could see that the many large surrounding buildings of the port had now vanished and in the distance, just past the water, was some green countryside with just a few low buildings here and there. I could see now that we were definitely moving, as the scenery was changing all the time, but we weren’t going nearly as fast as we did in Tony’s motor machine, not by a long chalk. Perhaps I would like this better - this more civilised and genteel way of moving.

  Sheila checked her time-keeping gadget and gathered up her glass and the choccy box. Then she said the magic words: “Time for your dinner, Truffles!” That’s more like it, I thought. “It’s lovely, so you can eat outside,” she said, “and then you won’t make any mess on the carpet either.” What a cheek, I thought - I never make a mess on the carpet. My manners are far too good for that! I waited impatiently and she brought me out a bowl of my favourite chicken and turkey in gravy topped with a healthysprinkling of crunchy biscuits. I eat this a lot of the time at home, but I was hoping that on this cruise I would have the chance to sample perhaps some more exotic foods! By the time Sheila turned round after one more look over the balcony edge, the meal had gone - I was that hungry! We both came back into the stateroom and she pulled the sliding glass doors together, leaving just a small opening for me to squeeze through for access to my litter box. Might as well go now as later, I thought, so out I went out again and had a nice sit down followed by a bit of digging and scratching. I returned inside and indicated that I had finished and that she should forget she was on holiday for a moment and concentrate on her toilet cleaning duties pour moi! I didn’t have to worry. “Oh good, you’ve been,” she said. “I must tidy it all away, as I don’t want Eduardo to find anything nasty when he comes in later. I’ll have to keep an eye on your box. Lucky you went now, because I don’t want to be cleaning it out when I’m all dressed up for my own dinner!” She busied herself sorting out the box and I retired onto my fluffy bed, where I enjoyed a calming licking session followed by a pleasant scratch. I was beginning to feel quite drowsy - it must have been the sea air!

  The first evening on board

  Whilst I dozed on and off I could hear Sheila rummaging around the cupboards and laying out some of her outer coverings on the bed. She switched on the wall picture-making machine and sat and watched it for a while before disappearing to carry out her ablutions and then reappearing to change into her outfit for the evening. She then spent what seemed to me to be an extraordi- narily long time fussing about her face and head fur before she finally gazed into the looking glass and said, “Well, that’s about the best I can do.” She took out something sparkly from a drawer and clipped it round her neck and then went to the little cupboard with the inner heavy door, pressed some of its buttons and stuck more sparkly bits on her paws. I blinked. I’d never seen her so ‘dressed up’ at home. She looked very different somehow. Quite nice! Maybe this was what dressing for an evening on a cruise ship did to you - made you smarten yourself up more. Not that (I hasten to say, as she will be reading this) she ever looks sloppy. She is not a ‘casual’ type of person. Although we live in the countryside, she is a town girl at heart and never goes out without everything matching, head fur tidy or covered with a snazzy hat, paw covers and handbags colour-coordinated, etc. - you get the picture. On a cruise she can really go to town and that’s why she takes so much luggage. Most things will only see the light of day once and then will be packed away again - what an exhausting business, I thought, and all for vanity! Still, if it keeps her happy...

  “Now, Truffles,” she said, “Time for me to go for a pre-dinner cocktail and then to the dining room to meet my tablemates for the cruise. You will be quite okay here - have a nice sleep, and Eduardo will come in soon I expect.” I knew what dinner was, of course, but what on earth was a cocktail - something that hangs on the rear end of a chicken? I like birds’ tails, but somehow I couldn’t imagine that they would appeal to Sheila very much. Perhaps they are a delicacy you humans just have on board ships - ah yes, maybe they are seagulls’ tails?

  She patted me, took a small bottle off the top of the drawer units and sprayed some sickly smelling stuff from it on her neck, then glanced in the looking glass once more and went out, closing the stateroom door behind her. I settled down again and almost immediately fell asleep.

  I don’t know how long I slept, but I was awoken by a light knock at the door and a voice outside saying something I thought sounded like “housekeeping”. I sat up. The door opened and I got ready to retreat to my safe spot behind the bed. But it was Eduardo - that was okay, he was nice, I liked him. “‘Ello Trufools,” he said, then bent down and gave me a pat. “‘Ow are you, leetle puzzy?” He talked in a funny human way, not like Sheila does or, indeed, any of her Cornish friends, who also seem to have a different accent from hers. I remember her saying once that she came from a place called Surrey, which I don’t think is in Cornwall or even nearby to it. Cats speak i
n different tongues, too, you know. For example, when I was living in our home near the fields (where I told you I occasionally used to hear gunshot bangs) one of my old feline pals there was Taro, who was a Birman but who had been born in some other place called Liverpool, and he had a very unique miaow that was scouse/oriental! The other cats’ accents were mostly Cornish or Devonian, with one exception, who also came from ‘up north’ somewhere! I always found it difficult to understand Taro, especially when we had one of our cat slanging matches and his voice got shriller and shriller with rage. Probably just as well, because if I’d understood the words he was hurling at me, no doubt I would have blushed with embarrassment! He was a very feisty character! I sometimes remember my past housemates and wish they were still with us. We were all shapes and sizes - five or six cats, a Basset hound, a St Bernard and a Macaw parrot, plus various indoor and outdoor fish. Something for all tastes - fur, fish and feather, Sheila used to say! You can read all about them and the funny things that happened to us in my diaries.

  Eduardo patted me for a few moments and then said, “I ‘av sometheeng for you, Trufools,” and he reached into his pocket (yes, another person who has a pocket - why can’t I have one?) and brought out something wrapped in shiny tra… trans… transp… clear paper. It was a lovely little silvery fish. Ooh, I thought, that looks tasty - and it was! I rubbed round his legs, showing my pleasure. What a nice man! I sat in my bed again and watched Eduardo bustling about, changing Sheila’s drinking glasses, polishing the big looking glass, pulling the curtains over the balcony doors and doing things in the ablution room. Finally he turned down her big bed and put a choccy on the pillow (ooh, she’ll love that, I thought) and then he brought over a towel and began folding it and folding it until eventually, I thought, it looked to be in the shape of a dog, or maybe a lion, I wasn’t sure. He placed it on the bed together with another of those printed paper sheets. “Goodnight, Trufools,” he said, and then he slipped out of the door, leaving some wall lights on above the bed that gave a cosy glow to the room.

  Once he’d gone, I nipped up on the bed and took the opportunity to flex my claws on the soft towel. A lovely feeling! Itrod and trod on the lovely fluffy material for nearly five minutes and the image of the dog or lion or whatever it was swiftly disappeared. I don’t know why Sheila was so cross earlier when she’d seen me doing it in the ablution room. After all, there were about ten towels in there, so surely she wasn’t going to use them all! Oh well, if Eduardo was going to leave a towel on the bed each night specially for me, I would have to leave my daily flexing exercises until then - it didn’t really matter to me at what time of day I did them. Anything to keep the peace! I went back to my own bed and decided to have a nice doze. The little fish would get itself digested and my batteries would get recharged.

  Quite some time must have elapsed when I heard the door opening again, this time without a warning knock. The main light came on and Sheila appeared. I stretched and sat up. “Well, Truffles,” she said, “I’ve had a really good dinner and the people at my table are ever so nice. I’m just going to the loo and wash my hands and then I’ll take you for a bit of a stroll round the ship. I’m not going to have a late night tonight, I’m feeling quite tired after our early start this morning.” Well, me too - it had been a long day. She disappeared into the ablution room and once again I heard that horrendous flushing noise. I would get used to that in a day or so and take no notice I expect.

  Out she came and she walked over to the bed. She paused by the crumpled towel, looking puzzled. “I’ve seen better efforts at towel folding in a kids’ playgroup,” she remarked. Then she looked hard at me. “Was this YOU, Truffles?” she said. “I’m sure Eduardo wouldn’t leave it in a state like this!” I said nothing and hung my head. I didn’t want to get Eduardo into trouble, as he was such a nice man. “Oh well, never mind now,” said Sheila. “Where’s your lead? Let’s go.”

  We sauntered along the passageway and came to the bank of elevators. Sheila pressed a button on the wall and soon one arrived, heralded by the ghostly female human voice saying, “Doors opening”. Inside it didn’t seem quite so scary as it had done the first time I’d seen it, and I courageously walked towards the outer edge and peered through the glass as we hurtled down towards the lower decks. We passed some real, yes real, trees that appeared to be su… sus… susp… hung up in big round buckets in the air and all around I could see beautiful pictures and statue things. It was totally mind-boggling to me. Sheila was admiring the view but didn’t seem particularly gobsmacked herself. Then I remembered, of course, she had been on this ship before, so it wasn’t new to her. The elevator stopped and, as we were exiting an elderly male passenger got in, doing something of a double-take as he noticed me. “Well, I’ve seen pink elephants when I’ve had a few,” he spluttered, “but never a tabby cat!” I watched him shaking his head as the doors closed.

  Sheila tugged on my lead and we walked out of the elevator area. In front of us I saw a kind of floor made of glass with coloured lights shining up through it. Fascinating! As we neared it I realised it was actually a glass bridge leading to a street and there were lots of people walking up and down it, looking at the shops and other places on each side of it. It was just like a town. But how can you have a town inside a ship, I asked myself? Something else for my frazzled brain to attempt to solve! Sheila regularly goes to our nearest big town in Cornwall, so she once explained to me exactly what a ‘town’ is. She usually visits one near us called Truro and she told me that it is full of these shop places where you humans like to spend your money. Humans and their use of money are still a puzzling scenario to me - if you all want this thing called money so very much, why on earth, when you DO get it, do you then go out and get rid of it? I knowthat Sheila always says she can “shop for England” (especially when she is on a cruise ship or ashore in some other country!) and as soon as she ever seems to get any money it never lasts very long! “Well, you can’t take it with you,” is something she’s often said, too, or, “There’s no pockets in shrouds!” I’m not sure exactly what a shroud is, but she doesn’t seem to want one. But there, see, perhaps these shrouds are like cats: they don’t have desirable pockets either!

  As we crossed over the glass bridge I kept looking down between my paws, wondering where the lovely colours were coming from that were shining up through it. Perhaps there was a rainbow underneath it? Isn’t there a song you sing about a yellow brick road leading to a rainbow? Well, this definitely wasn’t made of yellow bricks; it was glass. I’ve sometimes seen rainbows in the sky when I’ve been in our garden. Don’t tell me there was a garden inside this ship, too? Though, after what I’d already seen today, nothing would surprise me any more! All of this was like being in a dream - totally incomprehensible (another word from the human vocabulary I’m proud to know the meaning of!) to a little cat like me.

  We ambled slowly along the road, passing lots of people who either stopped and said, “Hello, puss,” or laughed as they walked by. I ignored the laughter and decided not to let it bother me. I don’t think it was meant to be unkind laughter anyway; more probably they were all rather taken aback at seeing a cat on board and didn’t really know what to say or do. So I smiled at them all and purred on demand if someone patted me. I would need to get Sheila to brush my fur when we got back, after being patted by so many strange, sweaty paws. Normally I don’t like anybody I’m not familiar with to touch me - I’m very particular about hygiene!

  As we passed the shops, Sheila was telling me about them. The first one was the coffee shop, where you humans love to drink that hot and frothy brown stuff. I know she loves her coffee, but of course she couldn’t go inside just then as I was with her, unfortunately. We continued on past a general store with shelves full of those coloured drink bottles, boxes of choccies and all manner of other things. Next were several more shops containing all kinds of your outer coverings, hats and handbags, the sparkly things for your paws, printed
papers, luggage and toys for infant humans. I noticed some very realistic furry creatures for the infants - dogs and cats, fishes, meerkats and lots of teddy bears. Now, Sheila has a large collection of teddy bears and she usually brings one home from every ship she travels on. She’s bound to spend some of her money on one of them from this shop, I thought! Her ‘travelling bears’ all sit together on a large armchair in her bedroom. Most of them wear vests with ships’ names on them, so she can look at them and treasure the memories they bring of past cruises, I suppose. Bit pathetic, I’ve always thought, but whatever turns you on!

  Talking of teddy bears, as we walked on I glanced to the right and saw a rather snazzy, sporty, bright blue motor machine parked on the road outside one of the places where you drink those naughty drinks. Surely they can’t drive motor machines inside the ship? I thought! It looked real enough, though it didn’t actually seem as if it was going to move anywhere. I blinked and looked again, this time noticing that the driver was, in fact, a huge teddy bear, with another one sitting beside him! Both were attired in smart navy blue tops with the name of the ship on the front. People were milling around them, taking pictures on their little picture gadgets or their flat speaking machines. They certainly seemed very popular - even more than me! Sheila looked, too. “Pity I can’t carry you home,” she said laughing. Just as well, I thought - God alone knows where you’d put them!

  We carried on past another drinking place called the Dog and Badger - should have been called The Cat and Fiddle, I reckon! A much more popular name, surely! Then on to yet more ladies’ outer covering shops before we finally reached the end of the road. “Right, Truffles,” said Sheila, “we’ll go down the other side of the parade now and then make our way back to the stateroom. It’s 11 o’clock and we both need our beauty sleep after such a long day.” Speak for yourself, I thought, I’m beautiful enough - but I did agree that some proper sleep would be nice!