AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turned to look, and there it was. Captain Casper Wedderburn – and then some ingredients. Which started with whisky, which had been Casper’s favourite tipple, and went on to add various other things. There was a little note underneath it.
This cocktail was created and dedicated to honour Captain Casper Wedderburn, one of the longest serving officers on the Voyage Première line. Admired by all, respected by his crew, a true sailor who deserves to be remembered.
Diana turned to me, and she scrabbled up her sleeve for a tissue.
‘Oh, would you look at that! How absolutely marvellous. He would have been so proud. We must have two!’
I felt the tears come to my eyes, seeing how moved she was, and we both did some discreet sniffing and wiping away of tears. After a few moments, a concerned bar steward shuffled up to us.
‘Are you alright, mesdames?’ he murmured.
‘We’re fine,’ I said, ‘she’s a bit overcome. There’s a cocktail here named after her late husband.’
‘Tom Collins?’ he said, frowning a little.
Diana gave a shaky laugh and blew her nose.
‘Casper Wedderburn,’ she said, and gave a little gulp, ‘he was my husband.’
The bar steward, name badge ‘Pierre’, took a step back, his eyes round with amazement.
‘But madame, I knew him! I served with him for several years on the Pirandello. He was quite a character! Not a man to tolerate anything but the best service.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make a fuss. I’m fine now. I think we’d better have two. He would have liked that.’
‘It would be my honour, madame.’
Pierre flicked a couple of cocktail napkins onto the bar in front of us and with a great deal of flourishing and jolting of a silver shaker, concocted two Casper Wedderburns.
Placing them proudly in front of us, he obviously felt something else was needed to celebrate the event and pushed two little dishes of cashew nuts towards us.
And then he was called away to the other end of the bar where a tall American in a Houston Astros baseball cap was asking loudly about bourbon.
‘Well. Cheers,’ Diana said, raising her glass towards me. ‘How amazing is this?’
We clinked glasses. Whatever was in there made our eyes water, and on top of the emotion, it was a pretty damp few minutes.
I wondered about the impression my brother-in-law, Casper, had left behind him with his crew. It must have been a good one by the sounds of it.
Not a man to tolerate anything but the best service.
Well, that was true from what I knew about him. He’d been the one to do a lot of fussing about place settings when we went round to their house for Christmas dinner, and the lawn always had to be mowed into precise stripes or he would do it again. Heaven knows how Diana was managing that now.
‘The tales I could tell,’ Diana said at last. ‘Casper knew all about his ships, every crew member. And we had so many photos from those days. One of the last things he did before he died was transfer them all on to my laptop. He met royalty, dignitaries from every part of the world… But he always said it was the everyday holiday makers that mattered the most to him. Especially first-timers. I wish he was here, so I could tell him.’
‘I’m sure he knows, in a way,’ I said, patting her hand.
That was the sort of kind, hopeless attempt at comfort that I’d heard a lot of people say to her since Casper died. But then, as I have thought on more than one occasion, what could anyone say to console someone whose husband had gone so unexpectedly? One minute he was trying to put up a shelf in the kitchen, the next he was dead.
We went to bed after that, tottering down the long corridor to our room, where we had another tussle with the electronic key card.
Inside, the curtains had been closed, someone had turned our beds down, and placed a thoughtful chocolate on our pillows. There was also a printed newsletter on the desk, telling us all about the following day’s activities.
‘Day at sea, cruising the Bay of Biscay,’ I read, unwrapping the chocolate, ‘but we can do an orientation tour of the ship, meet the crew for coffee, line dancing, wine tasting, fruit carving, and there is a cookery demonstration, ballroom dancing, introduction to Cadiz, a bridge club, a talk on sea birds, and a piano recital. And look at this, there’s a talent contest for the passengers later in the week. That’s to give the dancers some time off – I expect by then they will need it.’
‘Then we can hit the gym, go to the spa or enter the shuffleboard competition on deck 12. Or just eat?’ Diana said, ‘I think that’s very popular too.’
I went to brush my teeth and got into bed.
