Chapter 28
28
I can’t believe this charter is our last. It’s gone so quickly.
I’m dying to get home – to see Mum and everyone – but I’m not ready for this to be over.
Adam and I have stopped avoiding each other – it’s almost impossible when we’re both working deck anyway, particularly when he’s working even harder, trying to make up for his fuck-ups – but I’m still pissed off at him.
But first: our last guests.
‘Kent Hogan and his wife, Babs, are celebrating selling their jewellery business,’ Captain Liz tells us at the preference meeting.
‘They’re also bringing Babs’s brother Marc and his wife Jenny.
Marc is a gynaecologist and Jenny has a boutique in Los Angeles.
She’s also an influencer with over four million followers on TikTok.
’
She pushes the bio pages across the table and I scan the photos.
The primary, Kent, is good-looking with a swoop of greying hair and a salt-and-pepper beard.
His brother-in-law, the gynaecologist, looks similar but less handsome, like if you ordered the primary from Wish.
His hair isn’t as full, his beard a little stragglier, eyes a bit too close together.
Babs is blonde and glossy with a wide smile.
Jenny, the gynae’s wife, has a brown bob with caramel streaks and a lot of filler in her face.
‘They want to go to Deià,’ the captain tells us.
‘And they’re looking forward to trying out the water toys.
The men both want to try waterskiing.
They like all kinds of food,’ she tells Carlo.
‘Love steak. Hate sushi. Would like to be low-key drunk the whole time.’ She rolls her eyes.
‘Not while waterskiing they won’t be.
’
The guests arrive looking rich and being loud.
‘Everyone’s so gorgeous!
’ Jenny exclaims, stepping back and gesturing at us all lined up in our whites.
‘This is going to be fun!’
Berry gives the guests the tour while the rest of us bring their luggage on board.
We’re sailing as soon as possible, so I go back to the deck to release the lines and then we’re on our way.
I’m washing the stern when Marc comes out and leans against the railing.
‘Is everything okay?’ I ask him.
‘Do you need anything?’
He smiles.
He’s got a drink in his hand – short, brown, looks like whisky.
‘Just admiring the view.’
I look out over the ocean.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It’s beautiful.
’
But he’s not looking at the ocean; he’s staring at me.
‘Don’t let me disturb you.
’ He gestures at the squeegee in my hand.
I don’t know what else I can do but carry on working while he watches.
‘Did you get changed?’ he asks after a few minutes.
‘You weren’t wearing that when we arrived.
’
I look down at myself, even though I know what I’m wearing – my uniform polo shirt and a skort.
‘We greet the guests in our dress uniforms,’ I tell him.
‘But then change into this for work.’
‘It’s nice,’ he says.
‘But aren’t you too hot?
’
‘It’s not too bad,’ I tell him, even though sweat is pooling in the small of my back.
‘You don’t need to dress up on my account.
’ He drains his drink.
‘Feel free to work in a bikini.’
I laugh.
Even though it’s not funny.
‘I’ll suggest that to the captain,’ I tell him.
The creep.
On my break, I’m hiding out in our cabin when I get a text from Mick asking me to call when I can.
I call immediately, my stomach twisting with anxiety.
‘Mick? Is Mum okay?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.
’ He turns the phone and I can see my mum in a hospital bed.
‘Oh my god! Mum! Have you had the baby?’
She shakes her head and it’s only then that I can see how red her face and sweaty her hair is.
‘I’m only six bastarding centimetres,’ she says.
‘They’ve given me two paracetamol.
And someone forgot the bloody Bluetooth speaker, so I can’t even listen to my playlist.’
‘I offered to go and get it!’ Mick says.
‘And miss the birth of your child?’ Mum says, appalled.
‘Can you talk to her?’ Mick asks me.
‘While I go and try to find original Lucozade in the shop downstairs.’
‘He bought me an orange sport one,’ Mum tells me, as if he’d presented her with a bag of dog pee.
‘Wow, what an idiot,’ I say, smiling.
‘Thanks for that,’ Mick says, before passing the phone to Mum.
‘And get me a Snickers as well,’ she tells him.
‘You’re not meant to have peanuts,’ Mick says.
‘Bloody hell, it’s nearly out!
I’m not going to give it an allergy now, am I?
’
Laughing, Mick kisses her on the forehead and says ‘good luck’ to me.
‘I’m so sorry I’m not there,’ I tell my mum.
She shakes her head.
‘Don’t be daft. How’s it going?
What are you up to today?
Distract me from the literal human trying to crawl out of me.
’
I tell her we have new charter guests, but they’ve only just arrived and we don’t know yet what they’re going to be like, but first impressions weren’t great.
‘How’s Adam?’ she asks me.
‘He’s okay,’ I lie. ‘Busy. It’s really hard work.
’
‘Yeah, his mum said that when she popped round with . . .’
She makes a sort of keening sound and for a second the phone swings and I’m looking at the ceiling – tiles, an extractor fan, strip lighting.
‘I’m okay!’ she says, before reappearing.
‘How bad is it?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head.
‘The anticipation is almost the worst part. Like I can feel it building like a wave and each time I think I’m going to breathe through it, but then the wave hits and I forget to breathe and then it goes and I have, like, a minute to relax before I start worrying about the next one.
Well, as relaxed as you can be when strangers keep coming in to look up my chuff and there’s a cardboard hat full of pee on the floor next to me.
How much do you bet Mick steps in it before someone remembers to take it away?
’
Between pauses for pain and breathing, she brings me up to date on everything the kids have been doing – Riley won Star of the Week at school and it gave her airs; Alfie fell out with one of his friends because he called him a ‘shitcake’; Mae is insisting the new baby is going to be a penguin and they need to build him an igloo.
Mick comes back – he couldn’t find an original Lucozade, so he’s got her a Cherry Coke and two Snickers to be safe – she gives him the phone while she swings her legs out of bed and leans forward with her elbows on her knees.
‘She’s tried to book me in for a vasectomy,’ Mick tells me.
‘Literally asked at the desk when we came in.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not doing this again,’ Mum says without turning round.
‘And if they can’t fit you in, I’ll give you the snip myself.
’
I have to get off the phone when a doctor arrives to examine Mum, but I ask Mick to keep me updated.
It’s hard to be so far away, but it’s not for much longer.
Soon I get to go home.
And I don’t know how I feel about that.
Over dinner, the expensive wine flows and the guests get louder and rowdier.
There’s no way to avoid Marc on a boat this size and with a relatively small crew, but he seems to be on his best behaviour in front of other people.
It’s a warm night and the darkness is velvet soft, the sky a deep cornflower blue.
Carlo has made a seafood banquet with oysters and shrimp and a centrepiece of lobster, deep red and glistening with melted butter.
I’m topping up Marc’s wine when I feel a sharp pinch on my hip.
I flinch, stepping away, unsure at first what it even was; it felt a little like a bug bite.
Marc is looking up at me, laughing, his face flushed from the alcohol, from showing off in front of the others.
He holds up a lobster claw and clicks the pincers together.
‘Snap, snap!’
I blow a breath out through my nose, not sure of how I’m meant to respond.
Do I have to laugh? Can I tell him not to do it again?
Berry appears and briskly snatches the claws from Marc’s hand, dropping them on the pile of plates she’s already cleared to take back to the kitchen.
‘Didn’t anyone teach you not to play with your food?
’ she asks him, lightly.
Marc stretches back in his chair, looking between me and Berry.
‘You two a couple?’
I scoff again.
‘What? No!’
I sense rather than see Berry turn to look at me.
There’s no way I’m planning on telling this particular guest anything personal.
‘Shame,’ he says.
Oh my god. Gross.