the huge bears, remote-control helicopters and iPad covers, and heading straight for the make-up. I didn’t really mind although I wouldn’t have admitted it to my sister. To be honest I’m especially keen on those dinky little palettes of eyeshadows and blushers with the tag ‘Airport Exclusive’. There’s just something about ‘travel-size’ products I can’t get enough of. Within seconds India found a male assistant to help her. I was just having an enjoyable few minutes playing with a battery-operated pig when she found me.
‘Don’t wander off like that,’ she said furiously. ‘You’re supposed to be looking after me. Mum said.’
I gritted my teeth. The phrase ‘Mum said’ had haunted me down the years for as long as I could remember. It didn’t hold the same power now though; after all, India was twenty-six and more than capable of looking after herself.
Luckily we heard our flight being called and scurried off to the right gate, oohing and aahing as we saw the bulk of our plane just outside the window. We were on our way.
*
We found our seats, had a slight argument about who would sit next to the window (India won; as she kept reminding me, this was ‘her’ holiday after all); we pressed all the buttons on the entertainment system; we read the menu card. The plane took off without crashing into the Queen Mother Reservoir so we drank gin to celebrate. Then we had dinner and some wine. Then India started moaning about how much she was missing Jerry so I stuck my earphones in and watched a film about a detective who would have got the case solved far quicker if he had stopped smoking quite so much. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to agree how marvellous Jerry was or discuss the colour of the sugared almonds, India curled up on her seat like a cat and had a nap.
I had another little gin and flicked over to the screen showing us where we were. That was a bit unnerving as we were south of Greenland, about as far from land as we could be. I took my mind off it by watching a film about a man rescuing his wife from some unnamed organisation. It involved a lot of explosions and dangling off collapsing bridges; I love that sort of thing. He must have had the upper body strength of Superman and the wife did the whole thing in stilettos and never once smudged her lipstick. Then India woke up and we had some odd cakes and an even odder cup of tea, and then we were descending through the cloudbank to JFK Airport.
I leaned across my sister to look out of the window, hoping for some of those interesting little glimpses into people’s backyards you get when you’re coming in to land. There were crowded twelve-lane highways and massive houses and the occasional swimming pool and then car parks and industrial yards full of trucks. I tightened my seatbelt and clung on to the seat arms as if trying to keep the plane in the air for a few more seconds, but suddenly there was a runway and we were down with that terrible back thrust of the engines that makes you think the wings are going to fall off. When we landed I realised I hadn’t thought once about work or what Charlie was doing with my in-tray or whether the Masons would complete on Stafford House. This had to be a record. I should have timed it.
The woman in front of us was disobeying the keep seatbelts fastened sign and was already scrabbling in the overhead locker for her hand luggage. Not that it would get her off the plane any quicker, just earn her a dirty look from the flight attendant on the way out.
Vacation Cocktail
Vanilla Vodka, Coconut Liqueur, Lime and Pineapple Juice, Egg White, Blue Curacao
Until you stand next to a transatlantic liner the size of the Reine de France you can’t imagine how huge they are. It was sensational to see it coming into view as our transfer bus pulled up to the quayside. A sleek black hull reared up out of the oily waters of the dock. There were hundreds of exciting-looking windows above us and people leaning over balconies to wave to their friends.
It turned out several people on the plane were going to be on the trip with us and none of them looked old or infirm or miserable. They seemed to be just as thrilled as we were to be joining a liner to sail up the coast and across the Atlantic.
There had been a bit of a discussion on the transfer bus as to whether we were allowed to bring our own alcohol on with us. Some said no, others waved innocent-looking water bottles and raised their eyebrows in a knowing way. I guessed it was gin or vodka. Someone else said they knew someone who had been chucked off a cruise for trying to sneak a case of wine on board and we wondered how that might be possible. I mean, you couldn’t exactly disguise a case of wine or slip it in under a blanket, could you?
This? Oh, this? Oh, it’s just my sewing machine/medicine/art materials.
We negotiated the snaking queues in a hangar-like building where bored-looking women checked our passports and asked if we had any firearms, animals or drugs. Happily we didn’t.
On board there were waiters who greeted us with trays of cocktails, which is the way every holiday should start. I took an orange one. India worried for a bit about calories and then gave in and had a pink one. The crowd swept us up to the reception desk where we queued to collect our cabin keys. When it got to our turn, another excessively chic young woman – name badge Marie-France – frowned over her computer screen and did a great deal of frantic typing.
Right, this is where we get chucked off, I thought; ever the pessimist. This was the point where she would discover I had an unpaid parking ticket I’d forgotten about or that someone had stolen my identity and opened up an online shop selling explosives and cocaine.
At last Marie-France looked up and smiled.
‘So sorry to keep you, Miss Fisher and Miss Fisher. You were booked into cabin 840. A twin with a window? Hmmmm.’
She typed some more and then turned away and picked up a phone. She rattled some French off at high speed and did some Gallic pouting and shrugging.
‘They’re not going to let us on,’ I whispered.
‘Shut up! For God’s sake, don’t start,’ India hissed back. ‘Honestly, Alexa, we have this every bloody time. You can barely get on a bus into town without assuming you’re going to be chucked off. It’s just a bit of admin. If there’s any problem we’ll just wing it.’
India might be scattier than I am but she can be far more assertive in certain situations. Winging it is not something I’m good at. Fixing Marie-France with a steely glare, India began tapping her fingernails on the desk in front of her. Then she began shifting her weight from one foot to the other in a don’t mess with me sort of way. Marie-France began muttering in French into the phone again.
At last she put the phone down.
‘So many apologies. Your cabin is unavailable.’
‘See, there you are, I told you,’ I said, bending to pick up my bag.
I could imagine myself slinking away down the gangplank and trying to get back to JFK in the rain, a tragic figure with my dark hair in rats’ tails around my face; although the September sun was still streaming in through the portholes so perhaps I was being overly dramatic on this occasion.
‘There has been – ’ow you say – spillage and the cabin must be redecorated –’
Redecorated? And spillage? What sort of spillage? A dropped breakfast tray? A carelessly thrown bucket of creosote? Blood
