Chapter 5
5
I wake up alone.
The cabin is pitch black and I have no idea what time it is or what I did with my phone.
I grope around the bed for a while, finding my abandoned T-shirt and the knickers Adam pulled off me, but no phone.
I eventually find it on the floor just under the bunk.
It’s out of charge.
I yelp as someone knocks on the door and immediately pushes it open a few inches.
‘You’re not up?’ Louise says, as I squint in her general direction, the light from the hallway hurting my eyes.
‘What time is it?’ I croak.
‘Sorry, my phone . . .’
‘It’s eight fifteen,’ Louise says.
‘Captain’s waiting on deck. ’
‘Shit.’ I’m about to push the covers off but remember I’m naked.
‘Sorry. I’ll be five minutes. ’
‘No longer,’ Louise says and closes the door.
When I get up on deck – I washed my face, cleaned my teeth, pulled my hair back into a ponytail and hoped for the best – everyone’s waiting.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell Captain Liz.
‘My phone didn’t charge and –’
She holds a hand up to cut me off.
‘It happens. But don’t let it happen again. ’
I glance at Adam, who gives me a sympathetic smile.
And then I notice someone new: a short, curvy girl with light brown skin and deep red curly hair piled up on top of her head.
She’s wearing silver Birkenstocks, cut-off jeans and a T-shirt with an illustration of what looks like the cover of a children’s book from the seventies of children sitting around a boy lying in the middle of a pentagram and the title ‘Let’s Summon Demons! ’
‘Now that Hope has joined us . . .’ the captain says and I wince, ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that I found a replacement for Kelsey.
Berry’s been working as a tour guide in Barcelona but kindly agreed to come and help us out in our staffing crisis.
She comes highly recommended by Louise and Nico. ’
‘Not by me,’ Nico jokes.
‘I found her annoying.’
‘I can’t wait to get started,’ Berry says, giving a little wave before twisting her hand to quickly give Nico the finger.
‘But is there coffee? And can I get a shower?’
‘Of course,’ Captain Liz says.
‘Hope, can you show her to your cabin?’
Berry smiles over at me and her face is so open that I instantly feel like we’re going to get on.
‘Follow me,’ I tell her and turn towards the salon doors.
‘This boat’s awesome,’ she says in the salon.
‘It’s amazing,’ I agree.
‘I saw it online before we came but it didn’t do it justice. ’
‘So shiny!’
‘I have done so much polishing. I think my fingerprints are starting to fade.’
Like Adam, Berry’s brought a backpack and it bumps against the narrow walls of the stairs as she follows me down below deck.
‘So you’re new?’ she asks me on the way.
‘I am. Me and my friend Adam started a couple of days ago.’
‘You came here together? That’s cool.
Enjoying it so far?’
I glance back at her over my shoulder.
‘We did, yeah. And I am, thanks. There’s a lot to learn though, so it’s a bit intimidating.
And we haven’t even had guests yet. ’
‘Yeah,’ she says.
‘You need to jump in at the deep end really.’
‘This is what everyone keeps telling me. Where are you from?’
‘LA originally, but I’ve been working in Europe for a while. ’
I show her into the cabin and she drops her backpack on the floor, pressing her hands into the small of her back and stretching.
‘You’re on the bottom bunk already? ’
I nod. ‘Kelsey had the top bunk.’
‘Oh, sure. And is that okay? You want to stay there? I don’t mind swapping if you do. ’
‘No, bottom bunk’s fine with me. ’
‘Great.’ She beams at me and then says, ‘Sorry, I just need to get out of this.’
She pulls her top over her head, revealing a lacy black bra along with watercolour tattoos all over her shoulders and arms. ‘It’s hot as balls out there. ’
As Berry rummages in her bag, I stare at her tattoos.
There’s a sprig of lavender that looks almost three-dimensional on the back of her neck.
To the left of the lavender at the top of her shoulder there’s a tiny shoal of fish, peach and pink and blue, and a cresting wave between her shoulder blades.
They’re so beautiful that my fingers are almost itching to touch them.
‘Your tattoos are amazing.’
Berry glances back at her over her shoulder.
‘Yeah? Thanks. I sometimes forget about them. You got any?’
‘No. Not yet. I want one, though.’
‘Do you know what you’d get? ’
She unzips her bag and pulls out a washbag.
It’s bright green and printed with the words Pickle Slut .
‘No. Not really. I used to think I wanted a palm tree, but people keep telling me they’re basic. ’
Berry laughs, unzipping the bag and taking out a couple of bottles.
‘You get what you want and don’t worry about what’s basic.
Look.’
She pulls down the front of her shorts to reveal a tiny Dory from Finding Nemo just above the line of her knickers.
‘Don’t get much more basic than that.
I love her though. Sorry, I’ll get my shit off your bed and then I’m going to hop in the shower. ’
‘God, yes,’ I say.
‘Sorry. I’ll make coffee.
How do you have it?’
While Berry showers, I make lattes for us both.
When she comes out to join me, she’s wearing the crew uniform.
Her feet are bare, her toenails are bright pink, her wine-red hair is wet and curling round her shoulders.
‘This uniform clashes with my hair,’ she says, taking her coffee from me.
‘Thank you for this. I’ve been awake since four. ’
I’m grateful for my coffee too, since I didn’t get a chance to get one, thanks to oversleeping.
We take our coffees up on the deck and it’s only then that I realise I have no idea what I’m meant to be doing.
‘I made myself one automatically and I should be working,’ I tell Berry, as she curls up on the sofa at the back of the boat.
‘I think they can spare you for ten minutes to bring me up to speed,’ she tells me.
‘I guess so,’ I say.
‘So you were a tour guide in Barcelona?’
She nods.
‘Wine and tapas tours. So everyone would get steadily more drunk and rowdy and by the end of each one I felt like a kindergarten teacher. Stone-cold sober, hungry and pissed as hell.’ She grins at me.
‘Sometimes it was fun. But, yeah, it got old fast. Lot of British stag parties.’
‘Oh god,’ I say.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Right? Your people can drink!’
‘So had you already quit when Captain Liz called?’
She shakes her head, a curl bouncing against her cheekbone.
‘I was thinking about it. But I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, whether I was going to go home or stay in Spain .
. . My original plan was to save enough to go travelling round Europe, but it hasn’t worked out that way so far.
I had been wondering if anyone was hiring .
. . someone I’ve worked with before and liked.
I didn’t want to just go on any programme, so it was perfect really. ’
‘You’ve worked with Captain Liz before? ’
She nods and swallows some coffee before answering.
‘Briefly. She’s great.
Kind. And fair. Which is not as common as you’d hope. ’
‘And with Louise and Nico?’
She nods.
‘But not at the same time. Louise acts like she’s got a stick up her butt, but it’s more that she takes the job real seriously.
She’s pretty cool once you get to know her.
And Nico, well . . . ’
She rolls her eyes.
‘He’s great. Most of the time.
Your friend is Adam, right? ’
I nod. ‘We’ve been friends since school. ’
‘That’s cool. It’s good to have someone to talk to when you’re new. ’
‘Yeah. He was the one who suggested doing this and I didn’t know at first – I’ve got a big family and help out a lot at home – but I felt like it was time to get away for a while, so he wore me down. ’
‘But you like it so far, right?’
I smile at her.
‘So far.’
Captain Liz appears and tells us, laughing, to stop chatting and get to work, so we do.
I spend the morning in the pantry cleaning all the shelves, cupboards and drawers.
Huge bags of rice and pasta, sugar and salt need to be decanted into plastic tubs and I have to update the inventory of all the food, along with expiration dates.
I also need to check the cupboard on the aft deck where all the bottled water is kept.
It’s a tiny cupboard, fitted into an awkward space, so I have to crawl inside, and haul the cases of bottles behind me to crawl inside further and reach the rest. I worry briefly that someone will casually close the door and trap me in here, so I work fast, scraping my arm on the door hinge as I drag myself out.
Because we don’t have guests on board yet, we’re all able to eat lunch together on deck.
Carlo makes a tortellini and tomato salad with artichokes and olives with vanilla panna cotta for dessert, and everyone raves about every bit of it.
‘Did you all know this is Carlo’s first job on a yacht? ’
Captain Liz says.
‘Where did you work before?’ Nico asks him.
‘I was the private chef for a very rich man in New York,’ Carlo tells us.
‘He live alone and I stay there and only see him when I cook. So it was lonely and I was very bored.’
‘I can’t even imagine that,’ I tell him.
‘Did he have friends round ever?’
Carlo shakes his head.
‘I think he is a lonely man and I feel bad for him, but there is nothing in common. Sometimes we try to talk, but . . .’ He shrugs.
‘So I look for other job and think I need job with many people and not so quiet.’
‘You’ve come to the right place,’ Liam says.
I notice that he’s eaten his panna cotta but left the strawberries.
Carlo dips his head and lowers his voice.
‘I worry this is too much the other way.’
Everyone laughs and Carlo grins.
‘You definitely won’t be lonely,’ Louise tells him, smiling.
‘No,’ Carlo says, still beaming.
‘I might die of tired, but I won’t die of lonely. ’
After lunch I’m on break – thank god, I’m exhausted – so once everything’s cleared up, I go up to the sun deck and call Maddie.
‘Oh my god,’ she says.
‘Show me everything. Is it amazing?’
‘I can’t show you everything because everyone else is working,’ I tell her.
‘But I’m on the sun deck and look. ’
I turn my phone so she can see the bunny pad – the huge comfy seating area – the hot tub and the ocean beyond.
‘I am so jealous,’ she says.
‘I’d show you my view but it’s literally a grey wall with a hand sanitiser dispenser on it. ’
‘Mum says she saw you at the hospital.’ I sit on the bunny pad, curling my legs up underneath me.
‘The less said about that the better.’
‘Oh my god, I was mortified. When we said we knew each other, I thought the doctor would say I had to step out, you know? But she asked your mum if it was okay and she said fine. Next thing the doctor’s pointing stuff out to me .
. .’
‘Please don’t tell me what stuff. ’
‘Everything’s fine though.
Your mum is incredible. ’
‘I know she is. I feel bad – that I’m not there. ’
Maddie huffs. ‘You’ve done plenty.
It’s your time now. Is it really exciting? ’
‘It’s a lot of work and it’s going to get worse when the guests arrive. ’
‘Do you know much about them? Are they super rich? Ooh, are they famous? If it’s a Kardashian you have to tell me. ’
‘Obviously rich,’ I tell her.
‘But not famous. Not knowing what they’re going to be like or what they want is pretty intimidating. ’
‘You can do it,’ Maddie says.
‘You’ve got a lot of common sense. ’
I laugh. One of my teachers wrote that on my report in sixth form and it became our catchphrase for whenever one of us does something stupid.
I tell her about Kelsey and she tells me that our friend Molly’s mum saw Molly’s boyfriend on Tinder and Molly confronted him at his work in front of everyone and one of his mates said her mum had messaged him and it was a whole thing.
‘How’s Adam getting on? ’
Maddie asks once I’m up to date on the local gossip.
‘He’s okay,’ I tell her.
‘Same as me really. In at the deep end, trying to swim. You know.’
‘That’s good.
And how’s the sexy sneaking around? ’
‘Pretty good so far.’
‘Ugh. Why don’t I have your life? ’
‘Because you’re training to be a doctor so you can actually save lives?
Bit more important, Mads. ’
She huffs. ‘I’d much rather be on a superyacht right now, thanks very much. ’
‘If it helps,’ I tell her, ‘after my break I have to go and descale all the loos.’
‘And I’ve got a colonoscopy to observe. ’
‘Okay,’ I tell her. ‘You win.’