'Where the Hell am I?'.

'This is not my Apartment'.

'Oh, my god, it's an earthquake!'

I had been shouting this in my head for the past 30 minutes. I broke out of my sleep and sat up in my bed. I wiped my sleepy eyes, stood up and turned to the bunk above me and shook Luc.

'Uh, Daveen? What is it?'

Just to hear Luc's voice stopped my alarm. I was on the Queen Mary on my way to New York, I was swaying side to side because of the ocean; I was ok, I was safe.

'I love you'
'I fell asleep 3 hours ago!' Luc said with squished, frowning eyes peering above his tightly gripped cover.
'I'm sorry, my darling. It's just, you know, so different.'
'Yes. Goodnight.' Luc rolled over.

I chuckled and danced wobbily upstairs to the bathroom. My feet made a great tapping noise on the marble floor, People had clearly been and showered before me. The early morning sun was shining through the window and blinding my eyes open. Combined with the strange noise the shower was making, it was like it was pouring energy into my body and my brain opened its curtains and I was waking up increasingly fast. I came back down to our cabin, took off my night gown and put on my red rose, flowery white dress and went up to get breakfast as i opened our brown cabin door to leave.

'I'll see you up there.' Luc shuffled in his bunk. He did come, but just as I was finishing mine.
'Stay, my sweet,' Luc said while pointing at the table.
'No. I'm so full I need to go get some fresh air. Try the grapefruit though darling, they are superb.'

I went and sat on what I now called "My Seat" on the promenade, while Luc went to "his" smoking room. People were still walking past high-nosed at me again. They were just jealous because I was in my pretty dress with a great seat.
'Bonjour...Bonjour,' I said, waving with a big sarcastic smile.
'You're from France!' A large American lady next to me burst out with.
'Oui,' I said
'Oh, what part?' as she looked up and down me.
'Paris, but I...uh....was born in Troyes.'
'I was just there.'
'Troyes?'
'No, Paris......I'm an American,' she smiled.
'Paris is nice,' I said.
'Yes.' She then nodded and turned round, as if to headbutt the end of the transaction.

I started to feel quite sea-sick at one point and so I went to the ship's hospital. It was just a moderately clangy room with a few people coughing.
'Mrs Babin?' the doctor said
'Oui.'
'How pregnant are you?'
'Um, I think about 5 months.' I was trying to remember but all I could think of was the breakfast I had had in England; the noise of the cutlery scratching the plates, and the strange buttons the woman in the hotel had on her jacket that matched the brown mosaic carpets. Then, quick as a flash, Luc walked in the room with a panicked look on his face.
'Daveen. No!'
'It's ok, sir. She feels a bit sick that is all. Maybe it was the buffet. It's quite common with the swaying boat. How pregnant is your wife, sir?'
Luc confirmed 5 months. 'I remember it well, uh,' lifting his heels and leaning towards me with a smile.
'Right you are sir,' said the doctor, whose uniform looked like it had never seen a day's work. He turned to me and said, 'You should be fine. Just take things easy.'
Everyone smiled. Luc breathed a sigh of relief and we walked out of the room. Luc wrapped his right arm round me; sleeping in bunk beds had disallowed this daily affection.

That evening I didn't eat much at dinner.
Luc took the opportunity to discuss the hospital visit. 'Daveen, uh, how do you feel now?' He looked up at me while the rest of his face concentrated on his plate of noodles.
'Hmm, so so,' as I crunched down on the prawn cracker I was waving in my hand like a teacher's cane.
'You think the, uh, "ship's mechanic" knew what he was talking about?'
'Ha-ha, oh, my dear Luc, of course. The Queen Mary would spare no expense on a doctor! Just look around you!' We were surrounded by white waistcoated waiters, and plenty of suits and dresses from all around Europe, swaying like chameleons in this multi coloured room.

'Oui, Daveen, I just hope our baby is ok with his diet of...uh...grapefruit and Chinese food!' He smiled, thinking he was a very succesful comedian.
'I'm sure there is nothing to worry about, my sweet. It is my stomach doing the crying not our child.' The prawn cracker was now dust and I wanted to lie down.
'Shall we?' I said
'Yes, darling.'

We came back down to the cabin and read our "Learn English" books and did impressions of Americans all night long.

'What do you want, Mary? You want the moon?'
'No, I don't want the moon, silly. It's there, look!' I pointed out of our cabin window to the cloudless night in which the moon was conquering.
'I want New York!' I said dramatically.

Luc grabbed me by both arms and said, 'We will always have New York.' It was without a doubt the best impression of Humphrey Bogart I had ever witnessed. I clapped and clapped until my hands could clap no more. My bad stomach day was now forgotten and I was a Hollywood actor's wife on a ship in the middle of the atlantic. We laughed for a while before going to sleep.

I barely slept that night. Thousands of things were going on in my head and the food I had eaten was having a wonderful time bouncing around my insides to the rhythym of the ocean. I started to dream. I was in a world made of Luc's arms and moons walking along tightropes....ZZzzz.