Aunt Bessie's Holiday (4 page)

“Yeah,” Doona answered, sounding
surprised.
 
“Actually, I feel pretty
good.”

The pair curled up with their magazines for
a while, trading titles back and forth as they went.
 
The only sound was pages turning for
some time and then, suddenly, Doona’s tummy rumbled loudly.

“Oh, good heavens, I am sorry,” she
exclaimed.

“I’m surprised mine hasn’t replied in kind,”
Bessie replied.
 
“We were going to
get breakfast when we boarded and we never did.”

“I can’t believe I forgot about a meal,”
Doona said, laughing.
 
“Should we go
and see what they do for lunch?”

“Yes, let’s,” Bessie agreed quickly.
 
“We still have over an hour of sailing
time and I feel as if I’ll starve if I don’t eat until we dock.”

Back down on the passenger deck, the pair
wound their way through the crowd, heading to the small café in the back corner
of the ship.
 
There were only a few
tables, and they were all full of large family groups.

“Let’s take something back to the cabin,”
Doona suggested, nearly shouting over the noise.

“Definitely,” Bessie agreed.

They studied the menu board for a moment and
then Bessie shook her head.
 
“Hot
food sounds too heavy,” she told Doona.
 
“I’m just going to get a sandwich and a bag of crisps for now.”

“That works for me,” Doona replied.
 

The pair walked over to the large cooler and
each selected a sandwich.
 
Bessie
added an apple and a bag of crisps to her tray and then selected a cold bottle
of fizzy drink.
 
Doona opted for a
banana, crisps and a bottle of apple juice.
 
They paid for their selections and
walked as quickly as they could back through the throng.
 

The cabin felt blissfully quiet in spite of
the noises of the ship’s engines that hummed constantly in the background.
 
Once they’d finished eating, Doona
decided to take a walk on the outside deck.

“We aren’t that far from Heysham,” she told
Bessie.
 
“I want to see if I can see
it yet.”

While she was gone, Bessie tidied up the tea
things from earlier, neatly stacking the dirty cups and spoons on one of the
trays from the café.
 
She set the
tray outside their door, adding all of the rubbish from their lunch to it.
 
Then she settled back in with her
magazines.
 

“I would have helped with the tidying up,”
Doona told her when she returned a short time later.
 

“It only took a minute,” Bessie said.
 
“But what could you see?”

“Nothing much yet,” Doona said with a
sigh.
 
“I’m starting to get bored.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“It is rather tedious,” she agreed.
 
“Did you explore the whole ship?”

“No, but I think I might if you don’t mind
being on your own for a while longer,” she replied.

“Oh no, you go,” Bessie said
emphatically.
 
She was quite used to
entertaining herself and had plenty to keep herself busy with.

This time Doona didn’t return until after an
announcement had come over the tannoy.

Ladies
and gentlemen, we are approaching Heysham and should be docking in about ten minutes.
 
At that time, we will ask all car
passengers to make their way to the rear staircases and return to their
vehicles for unloading.
 
I repeat,
we will be asking all car passengers to return to their vehicles in
approximately ten minutes.
 
All foot
passengers are asked to remain in their seats in the passenger lounge until
further notice.
 
Our guests who are
occupying cabins are asked to prepare to vacate them as soon as we dock.
 
Thank you.

Bessie was just gathering up all of her
things when Doona opened the cabin door.
 
She quickly packed up her own belongings and then sat down on her bunk
opposite Bessie.
 

“We only have a few minutes before we have
to join the masses,” she said.

“But we’re here,” Bessie replied, feeling a
bit silly for being so excited.

“We are indeed,” Doona said.
 
“It will be nice to be on dry land
again.”

“You aren’t feeling poorly, are you?” Bessie
asked.

“No, I’m fine,”
Doona
answered.

“Did you have a chance to see the whole
ship?”

Doona flushed.
 
“I saw the bridge,” she told
Bessie.
 
“Passengers are allowed to
walk around the front of the ship, and from there you can see into the bridge.”

“That sounds interesting.
 
Maybe I’ll take a look on the way home.”

“You should,” Doona replied.

“Why are you blushing?” Bessie had to ask.

“I met the captain,” Doona replied, not
quite meeting Bessie’s eyes.
 
“He
was, well, a bit overwhelming.”

“In what way?”

“He’s Italian,” Doona said dryly.

Bessie laughed.
 
While she hated stereotypes, some of
them were well deserved, and she often thought that Italian men took great
pride in living up to the reputation they had around the world.

“Did he show you around the bridge?” she
asked her friend.

“He did, and then he offered to show me the
captain’s quarters,” Doona replied.

Bessie laughed again.
 
“That seems very direct.”

“I think he was just being friendly,” Doona
said.
 
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t
actually a proposition.”

“But you turned it down anyway.”

“I would have, but we ran out of time,”
Doona told her.
 
“It was time to
start the docking procedures and he had to get back to work.”

“How fortuitous,” Bessie said.

“He’s going to be captaining our return
journey,” Doona told her.
 
“He wants
me to join him on the bridge once we’re underway.”

“Well, you have an entire week to think
about whether you want to do that or not,” Bessie told her.
 
“For now, let’s get out of here and try
to find your car.”

Doona laughed.
 
“Oh, I don’t have to think too hard,”
she said.
 
“The man is gorgeous and
his accent is very sexy.
 
I think
I’ll happily let him flirt with me all the way home.”

The two women were in the best of spirits as
they dropped off the cabin keys at the customer service desk and made their way
back to Doona’s car.
 
Then they
waited patiently while the long and slow process of unloading the ship began.
 
Eventually it was their turn to drive
carefully off the ferry and back onto dry land.
 
Doona had given Bessie a map before
they’d left; now Bessie did her best to follow it and direct her friend.

The route wasn’t particularly difficult and
once they’d reached the motorway the signs for the Lake District were easy to
follow.
 
They’d barely entered the
Lake District when they saw their first sign for Lakeview Holiday Park.

“According to the sign, we have about twenty
miles to go on the motorway,” Bessie told Doona.
 

Once they’d exited the motorway, there was a
further sign for Lakeview.
 
Bessie
pointed it out to Doona as they waited at the roundabout at the exit.

“So we go straight across here and then take
the next right?” Doona checked.

“That’s what their sign says,” Bessie told
her.

It was only about an hour after they’d left
the ferry when they turned into the entrance road for the park.
 
As they made their way into the woods,
Doona had to brake suddenly as a squirrel dashed across the road.
 
A moment later Bessie spotted two
rabbits chasing one another through the trees.

“How nice of the animals to come and greet
us,” Bessie said with a laugh, as another squirrel seemed to try to race
alongside them for a few yards.

“I’m just worried about running something
over,” Doona grumbled.
 
“I’d feel
terrible if I killed a rabbit or a squirrel.”

They drove around a bend and suddenly found
that they weren’t alone in the forest after all.
 
Ahead of them a long queue of cars
stretched for what looked like miles.
 
Doona stopped at the end of the line and looked at Bessie.

“I suppose we can’t run anything over if we
aren’t moving,” she said.

“But why are there so many cars on the road?”
Bessie asked.
 
“I was expecting to
find a car park, actually.”

“From what the brochure said, the check-in
is a drive-through, much like the ferry was this morning.
 
Check-in time is two o’clock and it
isn’t much past that now, probably everyone has turned up at the same time.”

Bessie dug into her bag and pulled out a
small box of chocolate-covered biscuits.
 
“As long as we’re waiting, we might as well have a little treat,” she
told her friend.

They moved forward more quickly than they
had expected and it wasn’t long before they could see the long row of
drive-through windows where people were being checked in.
 
Several members of the park’s staff were
busily directing people to each window, much like they’d seen at the ferry
terminal earlier, but on a larger scale.

A tall man in the holiday park’s uniform was
walking along and chatting with each driver on the road.
 
At one point he directed a car to leave
the line and move to the front.
 
Bessie and Doona exchanged glances.

“VIPs?” Doona wondered.

“It looks like an expensive car,” Bessie
remarked.
 
“So maybe they’ve paid
extra to get through faster.”

“I can’t blame them,” Doona said.
 
“If I had small children in here, I
think I’d be willing to pay just about anything to get through check-in and out
of the car.”

Bessie handed her another biscuit.
 
“It shouldn’t be too long now,” she said
encouragingly.
 
“You’re next to talk
to the man on foot anyway, even if we are still about thirty cars from
check-in.”

Doona grinned.
 
“Maybe I can charm him into letting us move
up,” she suggested.

Before Bessie could reply, the man was
tapping on Doona’s window.
 
She
lowered it and smiled.

“Welcome to Lakeview Holiday Park,” he said
cheerfully.
 
“I’m Pete, a
reservation specialist.
 
Do you have
your reservation letter handy?”

Doona pulled the paperwork from her bag and
handed it to the man.
 
He scanned
through it and then smiled at her.

“Ms. Moore, we’ve been expecting you.”
 
He glanced into the car and gave Bessie
a smile as well.
 
“And your
guest.
 
Please follow me.”

Doona looked over at Bessie and shrugged
before she put the car into gear and drove very slowly behind the man.
 
He led her around the long queue and up
to the entrance gates.
 
There were
three gates, but only one was actually open.
 
Now he unlocked a second one and waved
Doona through it.
 
As soon as she’d
driven through, he pushed it shut and locked it behind her.

“We’re getting a lot of angry looks,” Bessie
murmured.

“I’m just doing what I’m told,” Doona
replied.
 

Both women stared straight ahead, unwilling
to make eye contact with any of the long line of people they’d just cut in
front of.
 
Pete now walked back to
Doona’s window.

“If you’ll just drive over to window number
one, they’ll take good care of you,” he told her.

Doona looked over at the row of
windows.
 
Window one was shut up
tightly.
 
Pete had now walked away,
heading back up the road.
 
Doona
shrugged and looked at Bessie.

“Maybe it will be magically open when we get
there?” she said doubtfully.

Before they’d gone more than a few feet,
there was a sudden flurry of activity at the first window.
 
It wasn’t magic so much as three
flustered-looking girls rushing about to unlock the doors and get the shutters
on the small booth open before Doona drove across.