At Sea …

Blog 115 – At Sea – by Ms Paige Turner
I’ve just finished lecturing aboard Cruise and Maritime’s Magellan around the British Isles and it didn’t start well.
The landline rang at lunch time on the day before sailing. It rang with that kind of urgency that spells and smells of alarm. We all know that scarlet signal before we pick up the receiver. Maybe it’s the time of day or just old fashioned hunch but we know. Our daughter Miss Trial usually calls the parental mobiles especially when she is abroad. She was in Sicily. Alone. A colleague was getting married. Our daughter’s husband couldn’t take leave.
“Mum.”
“Is everything all right?” I can tell it isn’t by the shape of her vowels.
Of course it wasn’t. She was in hospital. The little she could decipher was that they were soon going to operate. Not keyhole surgery for suspected appendicitis but a general anaesthetic would be required and a scar would result. I don’t care about scars. They are there to be worn with pride but Miss Trial was alone, in a hospital I knew not where and she couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying. Neither could I when I phoned the hospital and asked repeatedly to speak to an English surgeon or even a cleaner who spoke fragmented English.
Within a half an hour, Mister Justin Case had located a translator in the nearby vicinity of this hospital and it seemed that Lorenzo appeared whilst I remained in mobile contact with our daughter for this sorry hour or so. By midnight that day her husband Master Mind was at her bedside. We were faced with the conflict of not wanting to be at sea when we didn’t know what would be the outcome of this sorry tale. But I had a professional commitment and Mister Justin Case is not so called for nothing. He had the number to organise tickets back from Inverness if the tale would transpire to be even sorrier.
The Sicilian hospital ran every test at their toe tips. The Sicilian bride in all her splendour visited our daughter an hour before her ceremony. An operation was not required and at much expense and relief Miss Trial arrived home safely some days later.
I told this story when I was lecturing ‘Writing Your Life Story’ to the lovely Magellan cruising writers. One writer asked me at the very end of the session if it was true. It was. I was proud that my Life Story sounded like fiction. Life Writing is story telling after all: an inciting incident, turning points, conflict of interests and a race against time. And the resolution? We hope one day to meet Lorenzo. He didn’t want any remuneration for his services. We texted him with our thanks. He texted back: ‘Don’t thank me. Thank God’.
The British Isles’ cruise is another story …
PS I know what ‘English surgeon’ is in Italian now.
Creative Ink classes/Tuesdays – full – Thursdays – some places – beginning September 17th for 5 weeks. Email me for a syllabus.
‘Writing Your Life Story’ Marlow – Day Workshop – Monday 27th July. Email me.