Deceived wives and widowers, men who’ve never been loved and don’t know why, Russian crew forced to leave their children behind for years at a time, grown women who’ve just buried a beloved parent, people with cancer travelling to the cold before they die. They say people come here looking for ‘solace’. And then there are the married couples: how calm the old ones, how eager the new! – but isn’t a couple the greatest mystery of all? The hats. Oh, they’re terrible. One woman broaches the deck pulling on a thing shaped like a sponge-bag, made of purple polypropylene. A little old lady is wearing a grey wool bonnet straight out of a Brueghel painting. A young bloke in spectacles sports a cap of multi-coloured segments, topped with a twirl and several small silver bells. My own headgear, a hideous borrowed job featuring red earmuffs and a peak, is still stuffed into a corner of my suitcase, down in cabin no. 521 which I’m to share with a perfect stranger called Robyn (and I’ve forgotten my earplugs).
