Ten Word Game by Jonathan Gash Page B

the station house, though? Only cops and railway men used that term, station house. This extravert, with his diamond cufflinks and commanding pose, was no humble signalman. Copper.
    No prices on the menu. I gulped. In my circles that means a new mortgage, always assuming you’d paid off your old one. It promised umpteen courses I’d never heard of. I wondered if I could afford a decent meal before the money in my pocket ran out.
    “Er, look, mate,” I said to the next diner, “where do we pay?”
    “Pay?” The bloke who said he was Kevin laughed, telling everybody round the table, “Lovejoy wants to pay twice! He thinks meals are extra!”
    That broke the ice. They didn’t know if I was putting it on or not. I laughed along, feeling a duckegg. Conversation moved to prices they’d paid for the cruise. It seemed to be a challenge, who paid least. Like, book your cruise through those people in Cumbria and you get a third off, but in St Helens it’s even cheaper. Scared somebody would ask me how come I was on an expensive cruise, I put in that I’d paid the full price. They were instantly full of concern for my sanity, and gave me guidance on how to handle rascally travel agents.
    “You’d never survive in the antiques import business , Lovejoy,” Kevin said bluntly. “We can’t be timidabout money.”
    “Use the Internet, old boy,” said a crusty bloke called Jim Akehurst. He was with Millicent, a shimmering lady with diamonds. “Book at the last minute. Prices go down.”
    “They do!” twittered Ivy, still anxious. I liked her. She wore black, trying to vanish I suppose in her loud-mouthed husband’s presence. “A girl in the Wirral books for us. She knows a hairdresser on board.”
    “Kevin always bests me,” said a woman in casual fawns. No jewellery, no rings, a hard glint in her eye. “Hello, Lovejoy. I’m Holly. Kevin here’s my partner. Hotel decoration and antiques import-export.” Kevin waggled his eyebrows roguishly. He had painted fingernails . “Watch out for Kevin. He’s nothing but trouble . I gamble, and Kevin practically lives in the ship’s casinos.”
    Kevin tittered shyly. “We cohabit in sin,” he announced loudly, causing heads to turn at nearby tables. “The hotels we decorate are sheer horror. Especially,” he added with a glance of pure malice at Holly, “if some cow gets colours disastrously wrong !”
    “Now, darling, don’t start.” Holly smiled, cool.
    Every relationship is like being in a row-boat full of cakes and ale, where each person claims to do all the oar work while the other only noshes and idles. Neither they, nor anybody watching, knows the truth, about who does what.
    “Millicent loves the swimming pool,” Jim Akehurst boomed. “Every morning and afternoon.”
    “I’m into shows,” Ivy remarked. “So is Billy. The glamour!”
    “And films,” her husband added. “I doze off in the cinema when I’m worn out from boozing. Ha-ha!” He laughed shotgun style, long pauses between. I could see he might unnerve me.
    Everybody paused expectantly. I went for it, risking derision. “Pool? Casino? Cinema? Are there…?”
    “The poor poppet!” Kevin exclaimed as Jude came to take our orders. Just in case, I felt my few notes in my pocket, and asked for one of everything. I was starving. “He really is new, isn’t he?” Kevin tapped Holly’s knuckles. “Holly, you must take Lovejoy in hand! Show him the ropes.”
    “Never seen the adverts on TV?” Billy demanded. “All holidays are cruises nowadays.”
    “They have everything,” his wife Ivy said quickly when he looked at her, as if prompted. “Library, a computer room. Didn’t you get a ship’s plan? Your steward should have given you one. Call at the purser’s office.”
    “I’ll manage, ta.”
    The reminder made me glance warily round the dining room looking for anybody I might know from a previous existence. Too many people to take in at one glance. Balloons bobbed at tables