Lucy arrived back from Durham for the Christmas break and Arnold resigned himself to the fact he wouldn't be seeing Hermione, so he busied himself with some background reading in preparation for the cruise. First thing he did was go into Bath and spend some time at an internet cafe where he looked up the cruise company and took marvellous virtual tours through the cabins and the areas of the ship they were travelling on. He printed out maps of the ship and familiarised himself with its layout so he'd feel comfortable whilst he was on board, as he always liked to know where he was. He also got a detailed itinerary of the places they were due to visit so he could go to the Corsham library and find out about Knossos, Leptis Magna and the other sites. The more he found out, the more excited he became and the last two weeks flashed by. Stan seemed to be busier than ever, ferrying people up to the airports for their escapes away and Arnold realised they would need transport to whichever airport they were leaving from, and he made a note to ask Hermione. He saw Stan perhaps three times over the next ten days and their life continued uneventfully. Neither of them referred to what had happened, but Arnold did notice that the tapping on the door had stopped. Either that or he'd got used to it. Hermione rang to go over the arrangements for their departure and she had, of course, organised a pick-up from her house early on the morning before Christmas Eve. He got Stan to take him over on the way to another booking in Trowbridge. It was dark and crisp when they met downstairs at five that morning and Stan gave him a hug before they got in the car.
'You look after yourself, Arnold, in that Africa place. I don't wants nothing to happen to my patron saint, like, while you be away. Tomorrow night I'll be going to St. John's and saying a prayer for you. It'll be the first time I'll have been to church since I were a nipper and I'm looking forward to it. I got me frozen Christmas turkey dinner ready to have, so don't you worry about me. I'm looking forward to putting me feet up and watching a bit of telly, to tell you the truth. You just make sure you have a wonderful time.'
All too soon they were outside Hermione's front door and Stan was lifting Arnold's suitcase out of the car boot for him. Arnold got his purse out but Stan stopped him.
'You put that away, now. Merry Christmas to you, Arnold. I'll see you next year.'
And off he went, leaving Arnold feeling alone on the pavement, staring after the car as it disappeared at the end of the road. It was empty and still and Arnold could see his breath clouding in front of his face. He picked up his suitcase and opened Hermione's garden gate, which made a loud metallic squeak in the chill quiet of the morning. When he reached the door it magically opened and Lucy was standing in front of him smiling.
'Hello, Arnold. Seems cold out there, you'd better come in. Mum's making us some bacon sandwiches and a cuppa before our cab gets here.'
He followed her into the hallway and closed the door behind him. He liked the way she was shepherding him around rather like the way her mother always did, and he felt content and safe to be part of their family group. The smell of grilled bacon wafted from the direction of the kitchen and Hermione got them both to sit down at the table while she waited on them.
'I'm so excited, Mum. Athens is supposed to be pretty warm this time of year,' Lucy said as she poured them all cups of tea, 'Is this your first time abroad?' she asked Arnold.
'Indeed it is,' he stammered, 'I can't believe it's really happening.'
Lucy was keen to see Arnold's new passport and thought he looked very distinguished and rather handsome in the photo. He'd had it taken in the photo booth at Morrisons in Chippenham while Hermione had waited outside in her car. The photos were barely dry as he'd put them in the envelope together with the completed forms. They'd only just finished their bacon sandwiches when they heard the doorbell. Lucy jumped up, saying:
'That'll be the taxi. I'll go, mum.'
Whilst Lucy was out of the kitchen Hermione came up behind Arnold´s chair and put her arms around his shoulders and massaged his hair with her fingers. He wasn't expecting this and it gave him an immediate erection. She kissed him on the ear, then whisked his plate and cup away to the sink.
Half an hour later they were in the taxi speeding along the M4, Arnold in the front with the driver. They spent the journey talking about the trip and Arnold was surprised at how knowledgeable Lucy was of the various places they would be visiting. Part of her studies at Durham involved taking a course in Anthropology and she'd taken the opportunity to do a bit of background reading about the places they were going to. She was especially interested in Nauplion, the ancient capital of Greece before Athens and she told them about the 'Valley of a Million Olives' on a byroad on the way to Delphi.
They arrived at Gatwick and it was the busiest place Arnold had ever been to in his life. Although it was only 7am there were thousands people milling around in and out of the queues, trawling their luggage along behind them. He felt bewildered by it all and found the level of noise disturbing, and, not being a lover of crowded places, he was happy for the women to take control. Hermione led the way through the crowds with their bags on a trolley with Lucy in the middle holding on to her and Arnold's hands in pursuit, and gradually they edged their way towards the check-in desk for the flight to Athens. Arnold had carefully followed Hermione's instructions about packing and had made sure his hand baggage obeyed all the new security regulations. He was shocked to discover he had to take off half his clothes before passing through the security check, together with his shoes. Of course, he'd forgotten to take off his belt and set off the metal detector. When he did take it off he had to hold up his trousers as he tiptoed through for fear of them falling down. It all seemed very pedantic, he thought, especially when he saw people could take bottles of duty free spirits that were flammable on board the plane, and also sharp pencils and pens. There was a slight delay to the flight but finally they boarded the plane and took off. He enjoyed the sensation immensely. It was like no other experience he'd ever had, but much as he wanted to, he had difficulty looking out of the windows, as they were seated in the middle section of the plane. The aircraft settled into its flight path and he realised both Lucy and Hermione had their heads resting on his shoulders as he was seated between them, and they were fast asleep, so he spent most of the flight desperately trying not to move for fear of waking them up.
He must have fallen asleep, as the next thing he knew a voice was telling everybody to fasten their seatbelts in preparation for landing in Athens. He had to admit he didn't like the landing experience as much as the taking off, but then nobody likes coming back down to earth, he thought, so that sort of made sense. He looked down and noticed both Lucy and Hermione had one of his hands tightly grasped in theirs as he felt the bump of the wheels on the tarmac and heard the high pitched whine of the engines going into reverse thrust to slow the plane down. It seemed to him a far cleverer device to slow the plane down than using brakes, and avoided the possibility of skidding, although it used far more petrol of course. The first thing he noticed when he got off the plane was the heat of a warm day in Athens, and he could hardly disguise a chuckle in his voice as he turned to Hermione and said quietly to her:
'Thank you so much for this.'
Then Lucy half turned her head and smiled at him and he knew she'd heard what he'd said too, and he felt embarrassed. They both grabbed his hands again and steered him across the runway and into one of the coaches for transfer to the arrivals terminal and into line to pass through immigration. Hermione was back in charge of things and with their luggage claimed from the carousel they emerged from Customs. She spotted the sign for the cruise company being held up in the air by a smartly dressed Greek man in sunglasses. It seemed almost as busy as Gatwick to Arnold, only smellier and warmer, and soon they were being led with about fifty other people along the front of the terminal building to a waiting coach. Once fully loaded, the coach set off and he looked out of the window he was next to, and he tried to imagine what it all would have looked like when it was new. Perhaps like Milton Keynes, he thought. It puzzled him why people were fascinated by old buildings, rather than new ones. Was it because they all had imprints of past lives embedded in their fabric, like Stan's house had in Colerne? Then he wondered if Milton Keynes would ever inspire the same sort of awe in visitors there, in five hundred years time...
After about an hour's drive, they entered what looked like a port and Arnold saw a sign saying VOLOS on the side of the road. They rounded a bend past some warehouses and he saw the ship in front of them, glinting white in the afternoon sunshine. Arnold was aware that Volos was where Jason had set sail all those years ago to discover the priestess Medea, whom he brought back to Greece and married. As the coach got closer the boat grew and grew as if it had come out of Alice in Wonderland. They climbed out of the bus onto the quay and his head spun as he looked up at the side of the boat towering next to him, and found he had to hang on to Hermione for support. He had no idea boats this big existed anywhere and the pictures he'd seen hadn´t conveyed the reality of its size. It was as tall as any church spire he knew of and its smooth surface was peppered with rows and rows of tiny windows, and he was put in mind of Moby Dick. He started to imagine the ship as a living and breathing organism, which, indeed, it was. Their luggage was unloaded and pounced upon by an army of Asian crew members, but it had all been properly labelled by Hermione so there was no fear of any of it going missing. The passengers lined up and slowly walked up the gangway into the ship's side where, after a passport check, they were issued with a ship's identity pass. A young Indian boy called Sachin greeted the three of them and offered to escort them to their cabins. Once on board, it reminded Arnold of a hotel, and of course being moored it was stationary, so there wasn't really anything to make him aware it was a ship at all. They followed Sachin along a narrow corridor and around a corner to an area with several lifts. After entering one they went up a few floors, before trooping out and down another corridor after Sachin, who finally opened two doors to adjoining rooms.
'Miss Cartwright? Please, you have room 111 161. Just here. And Mr. Drive, you are here, right next door, room 111 163. Please, may I have your attention for just a few minutes? I must show you the location of your life jackets. They are here. Thank you. And this is your cabin boy, Charlie. He can help you during your stay on board with anything you may want.'
And out of thin air an even smaller, smiling Asian appeared, and Arnold was convinced he must have been standing in the wardrobe outside the bathroom door to have appeared quite so fast. And that was that. Sachin melted away followed by Charlie. Hermione closed the door to their cabin and they were instantly alone, looking out at a beautiful azure sea from the doors of a balcony at the end of their room, and at that moment Arnold was convinced he'd been transported to Heaven.