Chapter 15
15
It turns out that work doesn’t stop just because your boyfriend dumps you.
You have to carry on doing the job he convinced you to take.
The job he sold to you on the idea that you would get to do it together.
And now you’re here together but apparently also apart.
It doesn’t stop, even when that unbelievably now ex-boyfriend is sitting opposite you at a crew briefing an hour or so after telling you he kissed someone else and is deliberately not meeting your eyes.
‘Paul Jennings is a film director,’ the captain tells us.
‘This is an anniversary trip – he and his wife have been married for ten years. His wife Marni is an artist. They have four children.’
‘With them?’ Louise asks, her voice high-pitched, her big eyes widening.
‘’Fraid so,’ Captain Liz says.
‘They really want to just chill out with nice wine, some entertainment for the kids, maybe a beach picnic. They’d like to go to Port de Sóller.
And obviously an anniversary meal.
Paul has requested a recreation of their first date as a surprise for Marni.
It was an Italian restaurant!
’
Carlo sits up straighter, looking delighted.
‘They had rigatoni alla vodka, roasted aubergines, and beef carpaccio.’
‘I can’t believe he remembers what they ate,’ Louise says.
I remember what I ate on my first date with Adam.
We went to Nando’s. He teased me for getting my wings with lemon and herb while he went for hot and tried to style it out as sweat pearled on his forehead and his eyes brimmed with tears.
‘Wait till you hear this next part,’ the captain continues.
‘He says that on the dessert menu was something called Italian wedding cake. He wanted to order it that night – he already knew he wanted to marry her, but he didn’t want to scare her off.
’
‘I love this man!’ Carlo says, craning over the table to look at the information sheet.
‘So, he’d like Italian wedding cake for their anniversary dinner,’ the captain finishes.
‘Do you know it, Carlo?’
Carlo nods enthusiastically.
‘It is a, a millefoglie . . .’ He waves his hands and frowns.
‘In English . . . many-layer cake. Pastry and cream and fruit. It is for hope for the future.’
I am so not in the mood to think about hope.
Even if it does come with pastry and cream.
All the preparation we have to do for a new charter at least works as a distraction from thinking about Adam.
He’s never far from my mind while I clean, tidy, make the beds and ensure everywhere is fully provisioned, but I can’t let myself think about him too much or I’ll lose it completely.
When the guests arrive, they’re friendly and warm and very excited to be on board.
The kids are shy, wide-eyed, quiet, but as Louise shows them all round, I can hear them all exclaiming over everything from the shine on the mirrors to the colour of the carpets.
I set the table with bright rainbow bunches of dried wildflowers – bunny tails, pampas grass, gypsophila – and equally brightly coloured glassware, and it looks like a fiesta.
It’s the opposite to how I feel, but I’m pleased with it and so is Louise.
‘This is fabulous.’ She takes a photo on her phone for the file.
‘Well done! The guests are just getting settled and then they’ll be through.
Can you go and tell Carlo ten minutes?
’
After lunch, we sail to Port de Sóller, where we’re going to anchor overnight.
The guests have requested the water toys for later today, so Adam, Nico and Liam are getting them ready while Berry and I prepare an on-deck picnic area with bright, oversized floor cushions, an adorable wooden picnic basket play kit, a teepee tent and a giant snakes and ladders set.
I’m relieved that I don’t have to work directly with Adam, but it’s distracting knowing he’s around.
I could see him at any time.
The children do turn out to be adorable and it’s lovely to be around little kids again.
Mostly. At one point the oldest gets annoyed when the youngest can’t play the game properly but wins anyway, and when he shoves him, the youngest rolls around on deck, wailing.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Marni, the mum, tells us.
‘He’s overtired.’
‘I get it,’ I tell her.
‘I’ve got three little siblings.
’
She seems hugely relieved.
‘I think people think that’s just an excuse for bad behaviour, but it’s a real thing!
’
‘It definitely is. So is hangry.’
‘Oh god, for me too, never mind the children.’
‘Have you had enough to eat?’ I ask her.
Carlo made the most amazing spread.
Tiny sandwiches, mini quiches, pizza rolls, little pots of pasta and salads.
Even adorable little cucumber boats with cheese-slice sails.
‘Oh gosh, yes,’ Marni says.
‘It was all amazing. Please tell the chef. I’m going to go and put this one down for a nap.
’
The youngest, Noah, is clinging to his mum’s leg, thumb in his mouth and his eyes almost closed.
‘Teddy, do you want to nap?’ she calls over to the second youngest. He shakes his head, frowning, as if offended by the very suggestion.
‘You should,’ she says in a sing-song voice.
‘If you don’t want to be a nightmare later .
. .’
He ignores her and, after rolling her eyes and smiling at me, she takes Noah through to the guest rooms.
The dad, Paul, lies on the bunny pad with the other boys, chatting and laughing.
We bring drinks for him and ice lollies for the kids and tidy away some of the more perishable food.
When Marni comes back out, she crawls into the tent with Teddy, lying down next to him, talking quietly and stroking his face, and soon he’s napping too.
‘Could I please get a French 75?’ she asks me, emerging from the tent and blinking into the sun.
‘I have been dreaming about this trip for so long and all I kept thinking was a French 75 in the sun. With no kids on me.’
By the time the two youngest are awake and Marni has had her French 75, the floaties and slide have been set up and Paul is quick to head down the slide with Scout and Arlo, the older two.
Noah doesn’t want to go on the slide, so I hop into a dinghy with him, Marni and Teddy and we paddle around to the bottom of the slide to watch the bigger boys having fun.
‘Is it scary?’ Teddy asks me, eyes wide, looking up at the slide.
‘I don’t think so,’ I tell him.
‘Not too scary. Doesn’t it look like fun?
’
‘I don’t like the splash in a-water,’ Noah says.
‘At a-bottom.’
‘I don’t like going under the water,’ Teddy tells me, his little face serious.
‘When we go to swimming, she –’
‘Amy,’ Marni corrects, gently.
‘Amy,’ Teddy repeats, ‘Amy is the swimming lady. She maked us go under water and Noah cried and cried.’
‘I don’t yike it,’ Noah tells me.
Marni smiles at them both.
‘But it’s important to learn to swim so you can stay safe, right?
’
‘And!’ Noah says, apparently remembering some more indignities of swimming lessons.
‘We hafta wear a hat and it hurted my ears.’
‘My little sister has long hair,’ I tell them.
‘Down to her bottom. And when she had swimming lessons, we had to pile her hair up on top of her head to fit in the hat and when we pulled it on . . . POP! It jumped right off!’
They both dissolve into giggles.
‘So she didn’t couldn’t do it?
’ Teddy asks.
‘Well, they taught us a trick,’ I tell him.
‘You fill the swimming hat with water and flip it over onto your head and then it doesn’t pop off.
’
‘But the water goes on you?’ Teddy asks.
I nod. ‘It does.’
‘All down-a face?’ Noah asks, looking appalled, and sounding like a tiny Super Mario.
I nod again.
‘Did she cry?’ Teddy asks.
‘She did a bit.’ She did a lot.
‘But then she tried again and she got used to it and then she loved it. One time we went and she didn’t want to take the hat off!
She wanted to wear it home.
’
The boys both laugh again.
‘I’m gonna wear it to school!
’ Teddy almost shouts.
Noah’s laughing so hard he keels over sideways into the bottom of the dinghy.
‘So are you two going to get in the water?’ I ask them.
They’re both wearing life jackets and there are floaties and pool noodles all around us.
‘Can I go on the slide with you, Mummy?’ Teddy asks.
‘I don’t think so,’ Marni tells him.
‘Because what about Noah?’
‘I stay with . . .’ He stares up at me, his forehead scrunched.
‘I forgot-a name.’
‘Hope,’ I tell him.
‘I stay here with ’ope.
And not get wet!’
Marni and Teddy clamber back on board and I wait with Noah in the dinghy.
I can tell that as soon as his mum’s out of sight, he starts to fret a little, so I suggest a game I’ve played with my little siblings – trying to think of rhyming words.
‘Boat,’ I say first.
He shakes his head, eyes big.
‘Goat!’ I throw in a ‘maa’ for good measure and the corners of his mouth twitch in an almost smile.
‘Can you think of anything that rhymes with “boat” or “goat”?’
He shakes his head.
‘No?’ I joke. ‘That doesn’t rhyme with “boat” or “goat”.
How about “coat”!’
He nods.
‘And – ooh! Float!’ I point to one of the unicorn floats tied to the back of the dinghy.
I mentally run through the alphabet.
‘Moat. Do you know what a moat is?’
He shakes his head.
‘It’s water around a castle.
To protect it, if anyone wanted to attack it.
How about . . . vote?
’
He shakes his head again but he’s smiling now.
‘I vote that when we see Mummy and Teddy we give them big waves. What do you think?’
He nods and, just in time, his mum and brother appear at the top of the slide.
Noah and I wave and they wave back, Teddy jumping up and down before apparently deciding the slide is too big to tackle and disappearing behind his mum’s legs.
Noah and I watch as Marni crouches down and chats to him and then sits at the top of the slide, Teddy in her lap.
‘He frikened,’ Noah says in a small voice.
‘I think he is,’ I agree.
‘But I think he’s going to be brave.
’ Marni and Teddy push off and Noah screeches with laughter as they zoom down the slide and splash into the water.
Teddy bobs to the surface, hair all over his face, but he’s laughing.
‘You brave, Teddy!’ Noah shouts and even from here I can see Teddy’s eyes light up.
In contrast, mine fill with tears.
What am I even doing?
I’m just meant to carry on working alongside Adam as if none of this has happened.
No one knew we were together so no one will even know we’ve broken up.
And now I’m playing with someone else’s kids while my siblings are at home without me.
What if Mum has the baby early and I’m not there?
What if she needs me?
I need her.
I wish I could just go home.