Chapter 17
17
Having four small children on board is exhausting.
We’re obviously all on high safety alert all the time, plus they need to be constantly entertained.
Every bit of me is aching.
One upside is that they all, including Paul and Marni, go to bed early.
I’ve barely seen Adam.
He’s avoiding me. And I’m avoiding him right back.
I cry quietly in the shower each morning and then make myself get on with the day.
It’s the only way I can deal with it.
‘My lower back is killing me,’ I groan that night, trying to get comfortable in bed.
Berry sings it back to me to the tune of ‘. . . Baby One More Time’.
‘It’s not funny!’ I say, but I’m laughing.
‘Teddy had me pretending to be a horse for hours.’
‘You’re right,’ Berry says, deadpan.
‘That’s very serious.
’ She grins, her tongue between her teeth.
‘You know what you need? Yoga and then a hot shower.’
‘I think I’m just going to sleep.
’ I’ve put a pillow between my knees and that seems to be helping a little.
‘No, don’t – you’ll seize up.
Come on.’
She reaches out and, when I take her hand, hauls me out of my bunk.
The two of us head up to the sun deck where it’s quiet and Berry puts down a yoga mat for me, saying she can manage fine without.
She leads me through some poses – triangle, forward bends, extended child’s pose, which makes my hips and shoulders complain and then almost relax.
We do cat-cows and pigeon, downward dog and sphinx, and end by lying on our backs looking up at the darkening sky.
‘Corpse pose,’ Berry says.
‘Wait, really?’
‘Yep. Savasana. It’s really good for you.
Relaxes every muscle.
The first time I did it in a class, I fell asleep.
’
I snort. ‘Did they just leave you there or . . . ?’
She laughs and out of the corner of my eye, I see her turn her head to look at me.
When I turn mine to look back, my neck pops audibly.
She lifts one leg and then the other, pointing and flexing her toes.
I do the same. She crosses her right ankle over her left knee and then pulls her legs in towards her chest. I copy her again and actually moan at the relief of the stretch.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘This is a good one.’
‘Thank you for making me do this,’ I tell her, as we change legs.
‘I don’t think I can get up, but I’ll just sleep here.
Throw a waterproof over me.
’
‘We don’t need to get up yet,’ she says, pointing up at the sky.
‘Look. Orion’s Belt.
’
I squint. ‘Is it?’
‘No idea. Could be.’
I smile.
‘We should have an app or something.’
‘Nah. We don’t need one.
See that row of stars and then there’s two underneath?
That’s a cock and balls.
’
I snort. ‘Ah yes. I’ve heard of that one.
Cass—’
I start laughing at my own joke and the more I try to say ‘Cassiopenis’, the more I laugh.
Berry laughs too and I don’t know if she knows what I was about to say or if she’s just laughing at me laughing, but soon tears are streaming down both our faces and I can’t catch my breath.
‘Oh god, stop,’ she hoots.
‘My ribs are hurting.’
She sits up, reaching a hand out for me again.
I let her pull me up, still giggling.
It feels really good.
It feels like a release.
‘What were you gonna say?’ She’s grinning at me, her eyes bright.
I manage ‘Cassiop—’ this time before I’m laughing again.
‘Oh god,’ she says. ‘I know it now.’
It takes another couple of minutes for us to get ourselves together before Berry squeaks out, ‘Cassiopeen—’
‘Don’t,’ I gasp, trying to catch my breath.
‘Gives new meaning to the Plough,’ Berry says and then we’re both cry-laughing again.
‘God,’ I say, lying back down on the mat.
‘I’m surprised no one’s come up to check on us.
We must sound deranged.
’
Berry lies down too and I turn to look at her.
I think about rolling onto my side to face her.
What would it be like to lie like this in a bed?
To know I could touch her?
Reach out and pull her over to me.
I wonder what she’d do if I did that now.
My stomach lurches at the thought of it.
She’s staring back at me, eyes wide in the dark, and I wonder if she’s thinking about it too.
She could do it. She could reach for me and pull me in.
I’d go so easily.
I’m back in bed and texting my mum when Berry comes in with a cup of sleepy tea she’s made herself.
‘I feel like Elvis,’ she says, as she climbs up onto her bed.
‘Sleepy tea to get me off at night and coffee to get me going in the morning.’
‘Just don’t eat squirrel burgers on the loo and you’ll be fine,’ I tell her.
She laughs, then says, ‘Oh shit!’ as hot liquid sloshes onto my bed.
‘I knocked my tea over.’ She jumps down.
‘Did it burn you?’
‘No, don’t worry.
’ I clamber out of my bed, wadding up my blanket to catch the still-dripping tea before piling it onto Berry’s bed to soak up the rest.
‘Wow,’ Berry says.
‘That was quick thinking.’
‘Three little siblings,’ I tell her.
‘I have dealt with so many pee accidents.’
‘Ugh, I’m so sorry,’ she says, moving next to me to reach up to her bed.
‘I’d only had one tiny sip to see if it was one of the disgusting ones.
I dropped the full cup!
’
‘It might not have gone through,’ I say, hopefully.
We pull the bedding off her bed and ball it up, ready to take down to the laundry, but her mattress is soaked.
‘Damn.’ She pulls it towards her.
‘Are there spares downstairs, do you think?’
I shake my head.
I just did inventory a couple of days ago.
‘They’re on the list of things we need.
’
We have guests on board so there’s no way she can sleep in any of those cabins.
‘Nico’s bunk’s free, right?
’ She pulls a face.
That would mean sharing with Adam.
And as much as I want to find out what’s going on with him, there’s no way in hell I’m willing to spend any more time with him than I absolutely have to.
‘You could just bunk in with me for the night,’ I suggest to Berry, my belly fluttering with nerves.
‘Yeah?’
I don’t look at her.
‘Yeah. I know it’ll be a bit of a tight squeeze.
’
‘It’s not too bad,’ she says.
‘Your bed’s bigger than mine.
’
I nod. It is. A bit.
‘And it’s just for one night,’ she adds.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I agree.
While Berry drags her bedding and mattress down to the laundry, I grab another blanket from the cupboard, pee again and climb back into my bed.
The bed that I’m going to be sharing with Berry.
Another terrible idea.
The lights are off, the room lit by the fairy lights along my shelf.
I hear Berry come back into the cabin, and I shuffle over in my bunk until I can’t go any further.
I’m pressed against the wall.
The mattress sinks as she slides in next to me.
I can feel the warmth of her body, smell her cherry scent and the almond oil she uses on her hair.
‘I was thinking,’ I tell her.
‘Did you ever see the gardening Bake Off?’
‘Gardening Bake Off ?’ She pulls the covers up over us both.
‘Yeah. It’s not called that, but it’s another of those shows.
Like Sewing Bee . But for flowers.
These huge, amazing arrangements.
’
‘Sounds good. You wanna watch one now? What’s it on?
’
We bring it up on the TV at the foot of the bed and watch until both of us are drifting off to sleep.
I wake up to darkness and my body wrapped around Berry’s.
My leg thrown over her thigh, arm wrapped around her midriff, face pressed into the side of her neck.
She’s breathing slowly and deeply, still asleep, thank fuck.
I jerk myself away so fast that I hit the back of my head on the wall.
I think the sound it makes will wake her, but it doesn’t seem to.
I lie on my back for a while, staring blindly up at the underside of the top bunk.
I knew this was a terrible idea.
I check the time on my phone, shielding the screen so the brightness doesn’t wake her.
Only 2.30, so I can’t get up.
But how would I get up anyway?
I’d have to climb over her and that’s not happening.
I roll onto my side with my back to her and try to will myself back to sleep – relaxing all my body parts one by one, counting backwards from a hundred while breathing slowly – but it doesn’t work.
All I can think about is Berry in my bed and how it felt to be pressed up against her, curled around her, the bare skin of her belly under my hand, my lips grazing her neck.
I must drift off eventually, because I’m woken again by Berry pressing up behind me.
Her boobs against my back, arm thrown over my waist. I hold my breath and wait for her to speak, but I think she’s still asleep, her body soft and relaxed where I’m now stiff and frozen.
What if she really is awake and waiting for me to respond?
I whisper her name and she huffs out a sound, shifts on the mattress, the hand draped over me curling and releasing, but then nothing more.
She’s asleep.
Heat pools in my belly as I make myself relax.
There’s a throbbing between my legs and there’s no way I’m going to be able to fall back to sleep.
I don’t know how long it takes, but eventually I feel Berry start to wake up.
Her breathing changes and one of her knees brushes the back of my thigh as she stretches her legs, chest brushing over my back.
And then, like me, she must realise what she’s doing and, unlike me, rolls away smoothly.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut.
Force myself to keep my breathing slow and steady, hopefully fooling her that I’m still asleep and haven’t been lying here for hours thinking about all the things I’d like her to do to me.
The mattress dips as she slips out of bed, and I hear the click of the bathroom door and then the shower running.
There’s no way I want to still be here when she comes out.
I shuffle across the mattress, letting myself pause for just a second in the warmth her body left behind, and then I pull on my leggings and a hoodie and leave.
I climb up to the sun deck – the lightening sky is frilled with orange clouds, the water gleaming almost gold – and Adam is sitting by the railing, staring out to sea.
I sit next to him and he turns to look at me.
He looks exhausted, dark smudges under his eyes, his skin pale and pillow-creased.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
My heart lurches. If nerves and excitement are the same emotion, I think the same must be true of falling in and out of love.
I’m still aware of him all the time.
I get butterflies when I catch a glimpse of him.
But now none of it feels good.