Benjamin, Carol and Sally raised their hands.

‘A little too keen to wiggle out of dealing with the public, I think.’ William’s face was as pinched as his tone.

‘On the whole, William, as you well know, the public are pure hell.’ Benjamin raised a challenging eyebrow.

‘The customer is always right.’

‘The customer is usually wrong, and not only that but ignorant and rude.’

‘I always drive the van. So I can drive the van and the boat to do the deliveries.’ Sally could see that this was quite a clever way of edging out of the actual restaurant while still being part of the team and doing her bit.

William gazed at her for a few seconds, then agreed that that was a good plan.

Theresa felt rather pleased that she would be in the kitchen, doing what she always did, even though she would be having to provide twice or three times as much.

She was keen to get on, to move things along.

Yawning, she glanced at her watch. ‘Almost the witching hour. Come along, folks. We’ve got to be up early tomorrow to get all these plans started, so I, for one, am heading home to bed. See you early in La Mosaïque.’

FOUR

The more Sally knew she had to get up, the more she wanted to remain snuggled up in bed, watching the clouds as they cast navy-blue shadows on the turquoise sea.

The whole atmosphere of doom had got Sally thinking. She thought about her dead mother, and how much she missed her. She thought how lucky she was to be alive after the atrocities of the terror attack of 14th July. She added up her years and realised that if she was lucky she’d have at most fifteen good years ahead. She recalled the past and felt disheartened by how much time she had wasted over trivia: the years spent pining after her no-good husband, wishing she’d kept her career going after she married, wondering why she hadn’t held on to her self-respect when her husband’s infidelities ground her down, regretting the hours she’d spent worrying over her kids.

Sally turned over and pulled up the covers.

It was all too depressing.

Then the phone rang.

She answered it.

‘Hmmmmm?’

‘Hangover?’ It was William. ‘No excuses. We have our first Shore-to-Ship order.’

‘How come? We only came up with the idea last night?’

‘No idea. Perhaps it was the advert Carol craftily managed to drop when she phoned in to the English-speaking radio station this morning, pretending to answer some quiz question.’

‘Oh.’ Sally wasn’t sure why she felt so disappointed that things were already so quickly on the move.

‘Chop-chop! You’d better get that brigantine of yours bobbing along on the bubbling briny asap. Theresa is already in the kitchen, and Carol is tying everything up in pink ribbons. All we need is Able Seaman Sally to climb out of her pit and get behind the steering wheel of that boat of yours.’