Who was I kidding? I’m too arrogant to kill myself.

The dulcet sounds of an old posh woman bollocking two kids drifted down from the upper deck – the Diamond Deck.

‘Do you see any Giant Jenga up here? No. So go back down to the youth area. This is for Diamond Class passengers only and your parents are not Diamond Class. I can tell by your mother’s leggings.’

Two boys loped down the small stairway, past the ‘Private’ sign, and disappeared inside the ship. I set down my crumby plate on a sun-lounger and climbed the steps. There wasn’t much up there – a grass-roofed cocktail bar, a few sun-loungers and a hot tub shaped like a Martini glass.

‘This is for Diamond passengers,’ said the same bored drawl.

A dumpy old woman with a stern expression lay on a sun-lounger, draped in chiffon, piña colada in hand. I flashed my pass like a homicide detective, covering the gold bar with my thumb. That was the only difference between the classes – her pass had a diamond, mine a gold bar. ‘I am Diamond Class,’ I said. She closed her eyes and gave herself to the sun’s rays.

‘Not a fan of kids then?’ I said, perching on the lounger next to her.

‘Can’t stand the little fuckers.’

‘You not seeing Gibraltar today?’

‘No. Once you’ve climbed a chunk of granite in the battering wind and had your nuts pinched by an ape, you’ve seen all Gibraltar’s got to offer.’

Her face bore the expression of someone who’d lived a thousand years and was half past give a shit with it all, like the old Countess in Downton. Like every wrinkle was a folder full of memories. There was a wheelchair parked beside her lounger and a gold sequined scarf hanging on the back.

The Man Who Walks appeared at the top of the steps. He opened the gate, closed the gate and kept on walking past.

‘Ugh, I can’t stand that guy,’ I said, eyeballing him.

She saw him too. ‘Why? What’s he done?’

‘Nothing. He just walks. I’ve never seen him sitting down, even in the dining room. He circumnavigates this bloody ship like a hamster in a wheel.’

‘He’s lost.’

‘Buy a fucking map then.’

‘Without his wife, I mean,’ she added, sipping the remains of her drink. ‘They’ve been coming on this cruise for years. She died last summer. Aneurysm.’

‘Why does he still come on the cruise?’

‘Doesn’t know what else to do, I presume. He’s grieving.’

‘We’re all grieving. We don’t all lap a ship fifty times a day like a prick.’

‘Oh dear, we did get out of the Mediterranean on the wrong side this morning, didn’t we?’ I hadn’t realised I was being myself – and my un-Australian self at that – until she’d called me on it.