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I pushed down such disloyal thoughts and looked at my watch.
‘Well, I think we had better be going. I can’t wait to see our new room. Right, it’s one fifteen and the class starts at two. We’d better collect our stuff up and make a move. You’re not line dancing are you, Evelyn?’
She chuckled. ‘Heaven forbid! Not with my new hip, it would be asking for trouble. No, I will take a walk around the deck and find a quiet spot to read for a while. I’m in the middle of a book which is quite spicy, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. The heroine seems to have problems staying upright. She’s always falling onto a sofa or a bed or failing that, the ground. Luckily the hero is very accommodating and must have impressive upper body strength as he is always scooping her up. Mean, moody, magnificent. And he’s a duke, although all the dukes I have known have been rather decrepit and wearing their father’s clothes. Anyway, I am on deck 11 too, so perhaps we will be neighbours.’
‘I’d like that,’ Diana said.
We stood up and started to clear our trays away, but almost immediately our helpful waiter appeared and took over the task.
‘Thank you,’ Diana said.
‘My honour, madame,’ he replied.
I grinned at her. ‘I like this, it’s like being on holiday with a member of the royal family.’
‘See what I mean?’ Evelyn said. ‘Have fun!’
5
We made our way to the Seabreeze ballroom at the other end of the ship, a walk which was surprisingly long and involved two different staircases. We eventually came out to a huge room, decorated in Louis Quatorze style with any number of pillars and gilding. There were tables and chairs on a raised surrounding area, and a lot of cabling and speakers on the stage.
A girl in jeans, checked shirt and a cowboy hat was standing in the middle of the room fidgeting a little, and pointing her cowboy boots to distract herself. She looked vaguely familiar.
Looking around we seemed to be a collection of rather elderly cowpokes, including one with a Zimmer frame. Still, no reason why they couldn’t enjoy themselves too.
Our teacher waved us in with enthusiastic hands.
‘Come in everyone, there’s plenty of room, yes that’s right, come forward.’
We shuffled self-consciously onto the dance floor and lined up as directed. I noticed there was a woman standing in front of me, wearing three-inch stilettos and made a mental note not to get in her way.
‘I’m Shelley, and I’m going to teach you a really easy line dance. In ten minutes, you will be able to hold your own in any saloon bar in the West,’ Shelley said confidently.
We all gave a polite chuckle and a man next to me muttered, ‘I’d rather be at the table playing poker with Wyatt Earp, actually Dorothy.’
His wife threw him a look. ‘And knocking back two fingers of red-eye I’m guessing, Derek. You promised you wouldn’t be silly. Now pay attention.’
‘We’ll be doing the simplest of introductions to line dancing. Everyone is going to have such fun,’ Shelley said with a wide, white smile.
Ah yes, she was the same crew member who had been dressed as a sailor when we boarded the ship and Diana had fallen over and burst all those balloons. I hope she didn’t remember us.
No such luck.
‘Ah! Mrs Wedderburn! Come forward, do. I bet you’ve done this before. How nice to see you.’
I think Diana had been hoping to lurk somewhere near the back but now we shuffled forward self-consciously. I encouraged her forwards, pushing from behind and snorting with laughter.
‘Stop it!’ she hissed, flapping at me with both hands.
‘Yee ha!’ I muttered back.
‘I’ll just put on some rootin’ tootin’ music to get you all in the mood,’ Shelley said, messing with a few switches on the sound system.
The strains of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ started up and a few of the more engaged dancers started giggling and doing tentative grapevines with proud looks at the others who looked puzzled.
‘That’s the spirit! Let’s just start by moving from one foot to the other,’ Shelley shouted over the increasing noise. ‘And left and right and… just watch each other and left and right… Lady in the I Love Cats T-shirt. Just change foot, that’s right. Now then we’re getting somewhere. Now I’m going to teach you a really simple dance called the Cowboy Hustle. On the right foot we are going to do heel toe, heel toe twice. Couldn’t be simpler. Um… I Love Cats lady, right foot, yes? Excellent.’
We heeled and toed for a few minutes while Shelley patiently got us all using the same foot and then we moved on to single heel toe, which for the lady in stilettos seemed quite challenging. I Love Cats woman had to hold onto her husband for a bit before she got it right.
