Chapter 18
Ruth was frustrated. And to add to her frustration about the situation with Hannah, Millie was driving her bonkers, demanding to know when she could go to the bridge and feed the cat.
She supposed she should be grateful her daughter wasn’t pestering her about Christmas presents or moaning about the fact she only ever got a basic Cadbury’s advent calendar when most of her friends got more expensive ones.
But despite her frustrations, this trip had placed a different emphasis on Christmas – unbelievably in only five days’ time and inescapable with glittering decorations at every turn.
Being on the Ballygowan had lifted them out of the usual festive shenanigans.
The fact that neither child had mentioned they wouldn’t be seeing their father this year – not since Nathan had stropped off when they first boarded the Ballygowan – was a big win.
And Ruth had been convinced it was a cunning plan to suggest Millie and Hannah go to feed the cat. A brilliant way to keep Hannah and the captain in proximity to one another. But now she wasn’t sure what to do for the best.
It sounded like they’d got themselves into plenty enough proximity the evening before, but Louis’ last-minute chivalry, however well meant, had resulted in Hannah retreating into her shell again.
Ruth wondered what might have happened if Hannah hadn’t been so inebriated the night before, if she’d just been a bit tipsy and therefore more than able to decide what she wanted from Louis. Wondered if that would have been better, or potentially even worse.
It was obvious to Ruth that the captain fancied Hannah, and vice versa.
But maybe the timing was too far off. Perhaps Louis’ last-minute retreat had been for the best. Well, obviously it had been in terms of his not taking advantage of Hannah while she wasn’t fully in control of her decision-making faculties.
But perhaps it was bigger even than that.
And maybe it was a sign, a way for the cosmos to tell Ruth to back off too and mind her own business.
Anyway, whatever was destined to happen for Hannah and Louis, there was little doubt that Millie’s life was going to be very much shorter than it might otherwise have been if she didn’t stop going on about the bloody cat.
‘I’m not sure Hannah is feeling well enough to take you to the bridge, Mils,’ she said, for the seventeenth time.
‘She’s not ill, Mum, she’s hungover,’ Millie stated with an expression Ruth recognised from her own mother’s repertoire. Family genes really could be unnerving.
‘Yes, but when you’ve experienced a hangover of your own, Mils, you’ll understand it sometimes feels worse than actually dying, so…’
Millie frowned. ‘That makes no sense. How can it feel worse than dying? Because if you know how it feels to have died, then you’re dead and you can’t feel anything else, so it’s too late to make the comparison.’
‘Oh, Jesus Christ, I’ll take you to feed the damned cat.’
‘And if you’re hungover, you deserve to feel bad anyway because Miss Brannigan, the science teacher at school, says that every time you have alcohol it kills some of your brain cells, so how is that going to feel anything other than bad?’
‘It is possible to damage yourself by drinking too much, of course it is – in lots of different ways. It’s never a good idea.
I had a great aunt who seriously overdid the sherry, and she ended up suffering from a form of dementia as a result, not that it was hugely well recognised back then – they just thought she was getting forgetful.
Kept putting her electric kettle on the hob. Anyway, I’ve strayed from the point.’
‘As usual.’
‘Do you want to go and feed Portus, or not?’
‘I thought you said you were allergic. Strange that you’ve never said anything before – not even when we go round to Auntie Kelly’s and she’s got two Siamese cats.’
Ruth frowned. Cornered, by a twelve-year-old.
Millie arched her eyebrows – looking for a fraction of a second like Ruth’s great-uncle Clive, not that Ruth was going to tell her as much – and then said, with the kind of authority most adults would love to conjure, ‘You just said that so Hannah would get to go to the bridge and see Captain Louis more, didn’t you? ’
Ruth shrugged. ‘Busted.’
And then, like flicking a switch, Millie was a little girl again as she threaded her hand into Ruth’s and squeezed.
‘Well, maybe we should go together today, while Hannah is resting, and then she can take me tomorrow.’
Ruth didn’t think she’d ever loved her daughter more than she did in that moment.
‘Good idea, Mils. Let’s go.’
Hannah might have retreated into her cabin while she recovered from her hangover, but since then she’d made the most of her time in the art gallery.
It was bliss, to be honest, and went some way to quieting the roaring sense of failure she couldn’t manage to ignore.
It felt legitimate, to be able to spend as much time as necessary surrounded by paints. She’d finished the canvas containing the still life. It was, she decided, a bit boring, especially when she glanced across at Millie’s painting, still on the neighbouring easel.
If she was being honest, Hannah was pleased Millie hadn’t returned to paint anything else, at least not yet. It was exactly what she needed: some time on her own, allowing herself to disappear into a creative bubble, the like of which she’d not had the opportunity to experience for too many years.
Life had fallen into a very predictable pattern, if she thought about it, and while planning for the wedding had lifted some of the everyday-ness of her life, alongside the booking of this cruise, she hadn’t truly allowed her imagination to run riot until…
Hannah swallowed. Until she’d met Louis King.
Since then, her imagination had done little else but run riot.
Hence this new painting. The idea was that the painting would appear to be one thing – a piece of botanical art – on one level, but on closer inspection, smaller scenes would reveal themselves.
Hannah had no idea whether she could pull it off, and the challenge thrilled her.
It also gave her something to focus on, something that was completely under her own control.
Whatever the result – good or bad – the journey was hers alone.
She needed to rely on nobody else for a positive outcome. And suddenly, that seemed important.
As she worked on the base colours on the canvas, Hannah thought back to the formal dinner, cringing again at her stupidity.
She remembered almost all of it now, with unwelcome clarity.
Remembered the kiss in the lift, which had felt so damn good and had propelled her into forcing Louis’ hand – unfortunately not in a good way.
Colour threatened her cheeks again at her own double entendre; she just couldn’t seem to think about the bloke without her mind delving into smutty inuendoes…
And although he’d been a complete gentleman in her cabin – Ruth’s term fitted Louis perfectly – and even though he’d told her he wasn’t rejecting her, he hadn’t exactly rushed to make contact again.
They hadn’t even swapped numbers, like she had with Millie and Ruth.
Not once had she or Louis even mentioned it.
Now she wasn’t sure if that had been completely stupid on her behalf, or a sense of self-preservation on his. No doubt the last thing he wanted was to be pestered by some random woman while he was busy captaining the Ballygowan.
‘Hi, Hannah. How are you doing today?’
The voice came from behind, belonged to Millie and showed that she wasn’t too difficult for a pre-teen to find, and yet seemed out of radar for the captain.
She pulled in a breath. ‘I’m all good today. How about you?’
‘Looking forward to getting to the actual Caribbean. I mean, it’s been awesome seeing the whole of the Atlantic ocean – I’m pretty sure I’ve seen lots of whales, even though Mum keeps telling me we’re too high up to be able to tell, unless they break the surface and she thinks the ship is too big for them to want to do that, but still – I really want to see dolphins and Mum promised we can go on an excursion and see them and now I just want to get there so we can. ’
Hannah smiled. Trust Millie to brighten any mood. ‘It’s exciting, isn’t it? I want to go snorkelling.’ She pulled a worried face. ‘I’ve never done it before, and, as you know, I don’t want to go anywhere close to any sharks, but I’m determined to try it.’
‘Ooh, yes. Snorkelling is on my list, for sure.’ Millie frowned, pulling a three-legged stool closer to Hannah and sitting on it. ‘Thing is, I know it cost Mum a lot of money for us to come on this cruise in the first place, so I don’t want to ask for too much extra stuff.’
Hannah leant into her. ‘Let you into a secret, Millie. This cost me most of my money, too. But I’m not likely to do anything like this again, so I’m going to go for it. You can come with me if you like. I’m sure your mum will be fine with it. Just ask her.’
‘I suppose I could have it as my Christmas present.’ Millie peered at her feet. ‘Although I did ask for some trainers, and she might have already got those.’
‘We’ll sort something out, one way or another,’ Hannah said.
‘Do you want to come with me to the bridge?’ The grin on Millie’s face suggested the question was not without guile. ‘To check on Portus, obviously. You did say you would…’
Hannah wondered when in life the simplest solutions to problems turned themselves into insurmountable cliff climbs.
Of course she should go with Millie to the bridge.
She should face up to Louis – why would it be a problem?
– smile and look confident, even if she didn’t feel it, and see what happened.
It wasn’t as though she had anything to lose.
That had already happened. That was why she was here alone in the first place, fretting about the attention, or rather the lack of it, from a man she’d known a matter of days.
She stared at her canvas, as though a way to continue to hide would suddenly present itself in the swirling colours. When nothing happened, Hannah sighed, told Millie she’d wash her brushes out and then they could go.
Just to visit the cat, though. Not for any other reason.