Wednesday 7th May 2014

A stalwart Scottish lady said this morning at breakfast: ‘They come here to die. It’s cheaper.’ Cruise to die. The boat is a showcase for the old of a certain Nation. I’m here for Dainty Lady TV.  ‘It’s not worth three steps,’ the wife snaps at the shuffling husband with cane, so he shuffles away, never to see the admittedly not spectacular store room at the top of the three steps in the Schloss, where we are taking a guided tour. ‘Now we will visit the backside…. Now we will have an inside visit…Next is the music room. This one is a very beautiful room.’

One mustn’t mock the elderly and infirm but one does hear the canes and sticks clanking down the corridor from inside one’s cabin. It’s the skin colour of the men I can’t get over. I’m so worried about their state. It’s a grey base with broken veins and yellow patches, overall a livid, seething effect. How could they have got like this? Can nothing be done? Quite a few of them, and the women too, just stare ahead, with lower lip hanging.

Val failed to board, owing to sauce. He also missed the Claridges Party for the Photo Multi’s 50th Birthday last Thursday. Val is in a bad way. On Saturday I went to his flatti to collect him for the airport. He didn’t answer but could be heard shouting within. So now I am alone on board.  The Americans are friendly, but you can tell they can’t make me out. ‘He’s with a women’s TV Channel,’ they bellow at each other. Even so, it’s hard to get anything done with all the chatting. Where exactly is Ann Arbor? What was Bill’s business? Have you made a Living Will? Did you fight in the Korean War? Dinner is the hardest because I just have to hurl myself at any random group. They’re all in couples. The tables are arranged in rows, with six on either side. Last night both men next to me had deaf aids. One was not particularly old. I think he has Parkinson’s. He showed me a video of his son, only about twenty and hot, playing in a rock band. The other was the one who had managed to get a desk job during the Korean War. The younger men at the table quite freely admitted they’d done all they could to get out of Vietnam. They loved the British NHS and Obama, couldn’t bear Bush. So that was nice because I thought they’d be hard-line from the look of them.

But really something isn’t right. ‘He used to be a doctor,’ one old man says of another. In Britain, we’d say, ‘He’s a retired doctor.’ They live in retirement complexes, not in their own homes. They’ve moved about all their lives and then they make the final move to the twilight zone. It’s supposed to be a glorious existence, well-padded with money and unlimited cruising. But somehow they seem to be alone, in couples, driven back on each other, with nothing to do. They ought to be on committees, doing consultancy work, lobbying, in campaign groups, arranging flowers in the village hall, doing a bit of baking like Jill Archer. But there’s no village hall, no bring-and-buy – just endless apartment buildings idealised for the elderly.

View of River from River Cruise in Germany

The Lounge Area on Board

We See a Stork: Great Excitement