It’s not a boat, it’s a ship. And you’re not —definitely not — taking a cruise. You’re on a crossing, sailing a great circle route between Southampton and New York, or vice versa. You may have embarked in Hamburg, Montreal or points further afield, but the Atlantic crossing is the thing, your manageable taste of oceanic voyaging. Freighted with ghosts of empire, huddled immigrants, torpedoes and “Abide withMe”, this is home and transportation combined, ferrying you between Old and New worlds.
Perhaps I was always going to end up here. When I was younger, I was nauseated by every car and plane I met. But I was mystifyingly immune to mal de mer. My mother was expecting me as she travelled home from Australia aboard the SS Himalaya. Now I’m a water addict. Ro-ro ferry in a gale? I’d grin all the way — even to Stranraer, once mankind’s most depressing ferry port. I stopped flying. The pollution, the security checks, the armrest-clenching claustrophobia— I’d had enough. Pledged to promote my books in America, I was also certain that, even tranquilised and crated, I couldn’t take off again. So I begged a travel agent to find a sea passage to New York. I ended up on the maiden transatlantic crossing of Cunard’s Queen Victoria. Accompanied by the retiring Queen Elizabeth and dogged Queen Mary 2, we had magnificent gales all the way and skies like a Turner painting most evenings. I was hooked. I’ve become a regular on the QM2, transatlantic workhorse and arguably last of the ocean liners.
It’s a bit overwhelming at first. It’s meant to be. Liners were, and are, destination events. And here’s scruffy little me in the grand lobby with towering artwork and double staircase — like the set of a disaster movie, apparently full of extras from Cocoon. Afternoon tea is still a thing and formal occasions involve cummerbunds. There are yards of Art Deco, the style forever associated with sexy, grand old vessels like the SS Normandie, the RMS Mauretania, the RMS Olympic... It’s what happens when a grand hotel loves a steam ship very much and they have a 1,132-foot baby, complete with room service, funnels, bellhops, emergency drills, and facials. These days, the crossing commits you to seven or eight nights’ accommodation with unlimited food. I save up, visit the US for fewer, longer stays and write as I go. A balcony cabin isn’t cheap, but gives you, occasionally howling, fresh air. Inside cabins are OK until day four or so, when you begin to feel you’re sleeping in a Norwegian prison. Unlimited funds? Book a duplex suite with bath and butler. Quite how your bath operates in a 40-foot swell, I can’t imagine, but I like to assume your butler might hold you in place.
Cunard has its eccentricities — a love of queues, expansive bills, and arcane communication systems — but it’s all so dangerously painless. Your cabin key card magically drains your credit card to buy everything from toothpaste to whatever “investment art” is, though the moonlight charges nothing for laying paths to the horizon. And you’re wonderfully looked after. Largely from the seafaring Philippines, staff are tireless and bafflingly patient. Some passengers go full Downton Abbey and throw their weight about. (I recall one complaint about the loudness of waves against the hull.) But travellers are largely happy. Older ladies, travelling alone, find attentive surrogate offspring in their cabin stewards.There’s an entirely platonic concern in the little gentlenesses provided — another biscuit, a smile.
Passengers do skew older. A QM2 trip may represent a retirement ambition achieved, or an anniversary marked. Of an evening, silver couples stroll and get portrait photos taken, and if anyone can tell hired finery from heirlooms they’re not saying. Some passengers are risking a last hurrah before terminal illness bites in, even if emergency evacuation can be days away.
I opt out of the after-dark glitz and dine with no dress code in the buffet. I look disturbing in a ball gown and my luggage is always geared towards hiking. The nocturnal glamour has such a shimmer of frailty about it. That may just be me — show me a feast and I’ll be your spectre.
A velvety night in the cloudy mid-Atlantic beguiles. In daylight, gannets fold themselves into the sea, while I sit in a deckchair, reading the ship’s copy of Moby-Dick. Melville afloat is the only thing better than Melville ashore. As he put it, meditation and water are wedded forever, and rocking in the ocean’s vast paw rightsizes everything while Ahab pursues his doom. I pray for gales, not least because watching dolphins use waves like rollercoasters enlarges the soul.
Atlantic conditions can be tough. During storms, Do Not Disturb signs swing queasily from stretches of cabin doors. Oh, and don’t forget, the more acclimatised you get at sea, the more horribly everything static will writhe when you’re home. (Watching dogs, for whom onboard kennels are provided, get reacquainted with solid ground suggests they experience this, too.)
Who are your fellow passengers? Often ex-naval personnel, who gleefully worry civilians with lifeboat yarns. Fellow air-phobics join those with conditions preventing air travel. I once made the mistake of attending a solo-passengers’ social and it made me want to drown myself, but there are now programmed get-togethers for every orientation actually seeking love. Dance fanatic? There’s hardly a style you can’t try if you’re happy to battle the pitch and roll. Gamblers have a casino, nature lovers have an ocean, and for music enthusiasts there is hardly a nook, a venue or an hour without at least a harpist.
The ship is a strange bubble of privilege and nostalgia. Quiz nights and bingo, variety shows, and food and food and food. I assume the blizzard of ship’s activities harks back to the days when idleness at sea led to mayhem and mutiny. I mostly hit the gym, where it seems one bald older man will forever do indefatigable things with a medicine ball. In the spa, I join more glamorous pool-dippers trying to stay poised as they’re swashed about like Missoni flotsam.
As sea levels rise, the cruise sector is balloon-ing. Perhaps consumers are pondering Noah and his ark. The industry’s contributions to climate change are longstanding, but many lines, including Cunard, are exploring green technology. Still, experiments with a return to wooden cargo ships and sail are unlikely to affect the cruise scene. The trend is towards vessels like Allure of the Seas, a vast nightmare accommodating almost 7,000 passengers. It looks like a city block slapped on a resentful hull. Me? I’ll continue exploring water-shaped vessels. And I’ll always love a liner.
This piece appears in the summer issue of Esquire, out now. AL Kennedy is a performer and writer, most recently of the short story collection We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time.
