Page 62 of Old Girls on Deck

‘No, I think he missed that. But I bet you a pound to a pinch of snuff, he will have good things to say about it all. I couldn’t be more pleased.’

‘You’re very kind,’ she said, which was very generous under the circumstances.

I rubbed my sore knee and gave him a reproachful look.

‘Everything okay, Mrs Parker? No harm done. You gave yourself a bit of a bump there, didn’t you? Alfred should have some arnica cream in his first aid kit.’

Dick looked at his watch and his face collapsed into worry.

‘Now I am expected in the Seabreeze in ten minutes, I must fly. I’ll leave you to your new fans and I’ll be in touch.’

The minute he left us, several people came up, wanting to talk to Diana and ask for her opinions. One man in a battered blue anorak zipped up to the neck tugged insistently at her sleeve.

‘I wanted to ask you about your opinions of the Dean Blue Hole,’ he said. ‘You mentioned it but you didn’t go into any detail.’

‘I’ve seen it,’ she said, ‘in fact I met someone who had dived down there. He got about two hundred feet down.’

Our companion snorted. ‘Madness. What about the Lusca? You didn’t mention them.’

‘Lusca?’

He gave her a hard stare. ‘Look, I’m an expert. I’ve been all over the Bermuda Triangle and I have years of experience as an oceanographer, a wreck diver and much as I enjoyed your little talk, you can’t just brush aside the facts. Planes that take off, disappear and arrive years later. The Lusca, half shark, half octopus that pull boats down in the blue holes. Whirlpools that sink huge ships. Ancient civilisations that have mastered magnetic fields…’

‘I’ve heard of these things but I’m not an expert in any of them as you are,’ she said tactfully.

‘Indeed, I am an oceanographer with decades of experience, in fact…’

She turned as I tugged at her arm. ‘Diana, I hate to interrupt but it’s urgent that you come. It’s… that thing we were talking about.’

She looked mightily relieved.

‘Ah, the… thing,’ she said. ‘Sorry but would you excuse me?’

‘You can’t ignore Atlantis. The time/space warp…’ he shouted after us.

We hurried away, and eventually back to our cabin, which as always was immaculate. I rummaged in the replenished minibar and pulled out a brandy miniature which I slugged into a glass and handed to Diana.

‘The oceanographer with years of experience. You promised me he wouldn’t be there,’ she said faintly, sinking into an armchair.

‘How exciting was that?’ I said later as we sat in the Thai restaurant sharing a platter of delicious treats. ‘I mean, now you’ve had time to get over it all.’

Diana picked up a spring roll and dipped it into some chilli sauce.

‘It went better than I was expecting. After all, I can’t consider myself any sort of expert really. I just know stuff I have picked up over the years and what I put into Casper’s notes. I mean my notes.’

‘It sounded good to me,’ I said. ‘So what next?’

‘Next?’

‘They wanted you to do another talk, didn’t they?’

‘Yes, but…’

She chewed thoughtfully for a moment while I filled up our water glasses.

‘Go on,’ I said, ‘you look like you have been having deep thoughts.’

‘Halfway through I looked at all the pictures and it hit me, I really had spent most of the time I went ashore on my own. And I spent a lot of my time on board the ship on my own too.’