The Ocean Beneath Our Feet

WE HAVE NEVER crossed an ocean before. We have never even taken a shore-hugging cruise. With airplane travel growing ever more hellish, our recent vacation destinations have been places reachable by car. This year, we decided to go for broke. And I do mean broke, as we’ve never spent anything approaching this amount of money on fun before. We have conflicting stories of motivation. Susan insists it was to celebrate our 40th anniversary. I say it’s because we’re at an age at which coevals are dropping dead. I suppose both are true.

Let’s back up a bit to see how we got ourselves on board the Queen Mary 2. The home stretch, so to speak, occurred as we wheeled off the elevator and turned the corner. We faced a long, a very long hallway, although it seemed too small for a hallway, yet too large for an aisle. It was flanked with doors, as you’d expect in a hotel. But this was no ordinary corridor. My wife and I were proceeding to our stateroom on the Queen Mary 2, beginning what would be a month-long getaway. I sat in a transport chair. Susan pushed. We anticipated, correctly, that my weakening legs would be daunted by aspects of this trip. Besides: A chair gets you places denied to those attempting ordinary ambulation.

Check-in. Simple. Our travel agents, Tom Carpenter and Jaime Weinberg – who were kind enough to treat us to lunch at the Red Hook Tavern, mere blocks from Brooklyn’s Pier 12 – dropped us at the embarkation area, a series of sheds, it seemed, where passengers were shuffled through a series of checkpoints. But the chair got us through in no time. Each agent who sought information and then passed us along our way was chatty and delightful. In no time Susan was wheeling me along a series of ramps that culminated in the gangway to the ship.

It’s impossible to appreciate the size of this juggernaut when you’re up close. Large swaths of the vessel come into view as you near the pier, but those are only teases. Once you’re close enough to board, sheds and ramps obscure the view. So it’s really only as you gaze down a corridor or, better still, stand on the perimeter of Deck Seven that at least the length of the ship is revealed. But watch out: that’s the deck where the joggers run, and they don’t tolerate unmoving oafs like me.

Yet for a vessel that carries 2,600 passengers and 1,400 crew, we rarely ran into crowds. There’s a social self-segregation imposed by the nature of the various entertainment options and dining venues. The menu-based restaurants impose a dress code after six p.m., although it’s nothing draconian, asking only for collared shirts and non-raggedy trousers. Two nights a week more formal dress is encouraged, which is one reason that I dragged along a tuxedo.

As I noted in an earlier piece, my misanthropic core was tested by the realization that we’d be dining in a massive room with people far too near at hand. The Queen Mary 2 reminds us that it’s the only ocean-crossing vehicle plying the waters. It was built for luxury, as its art-deco appointments assert, without overlooking the needs of hoi polloi, for whom the self-service buffet area offers nearly endless help-yourself chow. We tried it for lunch one day. It was frightening. Despite the bounty of food on display, food of all kinds – meats, starches, breads, vegetables, desserts, serve-yourself or carved to your liking – despite all this, the impatience was palpable, literally breathing down your neck. Which is why we took most of the rest of our meals in the Britannia Room. 

As soon as we were settled there for our first evening’s supper, Susan introduced herself to the couple at an adjoining table. They were British, probably in their 70s. I searched their faces to see if they were feeling the traditional British annoyance at having Yanks, as we from the colonies are termed, intrude into their space. I didn’t see it. They made polite enquiries about our travel, and Susan happily shared a précis of our itinerary. They, it turned out, were heading home after a quick turn in New York. Their names were Stuart and Jean. He was a caterer, she a teacher, both retired. I played my trump card. It tends to work only with older folks, people who grew up in the 1950s. I explained that I would be seeking fellow Goon Show fans during my travels. Both of them immediately did their impressions of Eccles.

“The Goon Show” aired on BBC Radio from 1951 to 1960, created by and starring Spike Milligan, and it boosted fellow-performers Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers to fame. The three played a variety of crazy characters who were put into hilariously unlikely scenarios – climbing Mount Everest from the inside, flying to the sun to extinguish its fire – and one of the most beloved of those characters was Milligan’s Eccles, who had a voice not unlike Edgar Bergen’s Mortimer Snerd. Hearing our dining-room neighbors trade comments à la Eccles was as effective an ice-breaker as I could have wished. That Stuart had worked in foodservice was another, and it gave us the chance during the rest of the voyage to compare notes on the excellent menu choices.

With my shield of misanthropy thus pierced, I figured that we could check out the evening’s entertainment in the Royal Court Theatre, which presents its shows at 8 PM (for those who opt for the early-supper option) and 10:15, for civilized diners like us. “Chanteuse” was the name of the singing duo, Laura Pavles and Tara Martinez, and their show was titled “It’s Broadway, Baby,” performed at a brisk pace with an admirable group of live musicians behind them. It was a 45-minute show – as we’d learn, all of the shows share that length and pacing – and it taught me that I’m enough out of touch to not recognize all but a couple of the songs that hurried by.

My plan had been to explore the hell out of the ship this first day on board – it’s quite large – but we were too fascinated by our cabin and our private balcony – and the complimentary bottle of sparkling wine in our in-room fridge – to roam very much before supper. And then we slept in long enough to miss any chance at breakfast. As if we might starve on board this ship!

In spite of the annoying Americanness displayed by many of our fellow travelers, the Queen Mary 2 is British. Decidedly. An overweening sense of elegance informs the layout and decor. Carpets. Murals. Odd bits of inlaid sculpture on the walls flanking the planetarium entrance. The formality of dress code, even when rendered threadbare by the sartorial preferences of Yank tourists. And lunch at the Golden Lion Pub, which we enjoyed on Day 2 after sleeping in long enough to miss all breakfast opportunities (except room service, which we eschewed for the entirety of our shipboard time).

Forty pages of drinks (including a few celebrity photos) give you sufficient choices of libation, while the single-page food menu leads, not surprisingly, with fish and chips. Complete with mushy peas, which we would discover is an essential part of that dish throughout the UK, celebrating a time when dried, cellar-stored peas were a vital dietary supplement. It was delicious, and set the stage for a succession of pub visits throughout our travels. Susan enjoyed another typically English dish: chicken tikka masala. And she continued her policy of talking to anyone, this time sweeping down on a young couple who’d brought their carriage-contained baby into the pub. The moms traded oohs and ahhs; I buried my face in my fish.

Into the tux for the first of two formal evenings, and I learned that I take the tuxedo much too seriously. Or, to give me more credit, that I am almost alone in my respect for its tradition. It was born as a semi-formal alternative to the real soup-and-fish (white tie and tails), allowing the wearer some freedom from starched shirt and get-in-the-way coattails. But it’s still supposed to be an ensemble of black and white. No scarlet bow ties or cummerbunds; no crushed-velvet anything. Yet among the contingent who chose to go the full tux (a dark suit is also permitted) were dotted some lamentable lapses of taste. Now will you believe the extent of my snobbishness?

Susan looked gorgeous, of course, in a simple sheath of a gown, and took immediate possession again of the social graces, sweeping our neighboring diners with greetings and insisting I do likewise. Thus we met the family seated at the table to my left – a British gentleman named Alan and his sons James (27) and Sam (15). Somehow it was revealed not only that I sing but also that songs by Flanders & Swann were part of my repertory. “Ah,” he said. “Do you know the one about ... transport?” And so I began singing “Transport of Delight.” And then proved that I also knew “The Gnu,” and “The Hippopotamus.”

I see now that there was no need for me to think I needed to reinforce my Anglophilia cred any more than that, but I let drop that I’d seen Alec Guinness on stage, among other classic British stars, sending us segueing to British movies. Inspiring Alan to come up with a quiz. Did I know a film that starred John Mills and Alec Guinness, one of his all-time favorites? Yes: “Tunes of Glory.” How about the film that won Guinness an Academy Award? Of course: “Bridge on the River Kwai.” I rhapsodized about “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” lauding Dennis Price's performance ... all right, then: What other film did Price and Guinness co-star in? Careful, it's sort of a trick question. I mulled for a moment before remembering: “Tunes of Glory” again. I had mentioned that Jeremy Brett was in the Guinness play I saw, thus question four: What musical did Brett co-star in, singing a well-known solo?

I drew a blank. Failure! Embarrassingly, it was “My Fair Lady.” Which I’d rewatched only a couple of months earlier. Pretty rarefied stuff, I fear, and poor Sam fled from the table as soon as he plausibly could. Even poor James was looking distraught, but this was when Susan’s volubility became a merciful refuge for him. Alan and I, meanwhile, were now the fastest of friends.

More, I fear, will follow.