Zeke
Zeke
I’m watching the darkness out here on the deck, and I’ve got this weird ominous feeling. Like something bad’s coming, maybe because actually today hasn’t been bad, except for that swollen stitch, and at times I’ve felt genuinely happy. Chatting to Lexi on the deck with a coffee felt kind of perfect. And out here, perfect can never last.
I pull my blanket closer around my shoulders, my eyes gritty with tiredness. It’s so cold at night—I’m wearing all three of the pairs of socks I packed, and a jumper of Lexi’s under mine. It smells of her, lemony and sharp. I wonder if I could capture that in a lemon tart, a meringue pie, even a zingy, fresh dressing for a rocket salad.
I’ve enjoyed cooking here. Davide’s kitchen has a great atmosphere, and I’m so lucky to have got that job, but somewhere over the past year I’ve lost the excitement I get from conjuring up something beautiful with whatever I find in the fridge. Most nights I just eat at the restaurant, or get takeaway from whatever kebab shop’s still open. I’ve not cooked my own way for too long, and it’s been nice reconnecting with the part of me that just loves to play around with food. I’m getting to know Lexi’s palate a little, and I like that, too. Cooking with her in mind, seeing her love the food I’ve made her.
I take a clear, cold breath of night air. I need the toilet, and to check the corgi clock. Not having a clue of the time is so annoying, though otherwise I’ve got pretty used to not having my phone. I don’t like to look at it much anyway, back home. A couple of days ago, if she saw me sitting and zoning out the way I do, Lexi would say, You bored? Want to read the logbooks? And I’d smile about it, laugh it off, but it made me feel like a coward, because no amount of boredom would be enough to make me take that leap. She’s stopped asking now, so I guess she’s figured that out.
The miniature torch from the first aid kit in the bathroom is beside me. I grab it and head inside to the bathroom, though I hardly need the light now. I reckon I could find almost anything on this boat blindfolded.
It’s not until after I’ve used the manual pump to flush the toilet that I realize my left sock’s wet.
Really wet.
The floor’s covered in water.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”
I kneel. My knees are instantly cold. It’s wet all over the floor by the shower, and my torch beam catches the way it’s darkened the bottom of the shower curtain, too, how it’s filling the base of the shower enough to overflow. I dip a finger into the cold water and press it to my tongue. Salt.
Seawater.
Lexi bursts into the bathroom, slamming the concertina door into the frame.
“What? What’s shit? Are you OK?”
She’s breathing hard, and her bun has slid all the way to bob down by her left ear. And…she’s…uh.
She’s wearing nothing but a pair of black knickers.
“Oh, fuck,” she says, eyes rounder than ever. She clutches her hands to her breasts and spins around.
“You sleep…like that?” I say.
My voice is suddenly very high-pitched. Like thirteen-year-old Zeke. I should be thinking about the water, but for a second, right now, I’m really, really not.
“It was hot in the bedroom. I was going to put a T-shirt on when I heard you coming in. You always get yourself a glass of water first, so there’s usually time, but…”
She reaches to grab her towel and wraps it around herself.
I’ve seen Lexi naked before. I’ve touched her almost everywhere. But I didn’t know her then like I do now. And somehow it makes her nakedness…different. She’s so gorgeous, every bare curve, and it’s Lexi , not just a beautiful woman, but the one who made us sterilization espressos and who feeds Eugene on the sly. I’ve never looked at a woman naked and known that she cares about an injured seagull even though she pretends she doesn’t, and turns out it makes a hell of a lot of difference.
“Why did you shout?” she asks.
I avert my gaze—maybe a second later than I should have—and keep the torch shone down at the water on the shower tray. Before I can explain, Lexi’s clocked it, and she’s swearing, too.
She steps into the wet shower, patting down the walls, looking for a leak. I’m crouched here on the floor—there’s not much room, and there’s a lot of towel in my face. She’s very close, and it’s really not been long since I saw her topless, so this is…distracting.
“I was wondering if maybe the showerhead’s leaked,” I begin, straightening up just as she turns. “But…”
Her towel slips. She grabs for it as I stand, her elbow flying up—and she knocks the shower handle.
Whoosh . Just like that, the shower’s on.
It’s only a few seconds’ worth of water—I guess whatever’s trapped in the line, since the shower’s not actually working. But the water’s freezing, and the blast of cold makes us both cry out.
I step backward out of the shower, get tangled in the curtain, almost trip. It wrenches my cut, and the sensation’s like someone taking a hot poker to my skin. I breathe in sharply between my teeth. Lexi’s hand is on my back in less than a second.
“You OK?”
“Fine. We need to find the leak,” I manage, leaning back against the wall, breathing hard. My trousers are sticking to my thighs and my hair’s dripping down my neck. My wound throbs with my heartbeat. “What I was going to say is, it’s not from the showerhead, because it’s salty. It’s seawater, not fresh water.”
She assesses me for a moment, scanning me over. I can see her deciding that the bigger threat right now is the water, and it freaks me out that she even hesitated to check on me. We can’t afford to think that way out here.
That said, I know if she was hurting, I’d be exactly the same.
“Now everything is all wet, we’ll never be able to tell where the water is coming from,” she says, her voice shaking. “Why isn’t the shower draining?”
She’s right—the water’s still just sloshing in the base of the shower. I remember from staying here as a kid that there’s an automatic pump that drains the water out, but it won’t work without power.
“What if—could that be how the water’s getting in? Up the drain?”
My heart beats faster. I’ve no idea how the drain works, but eventually that water must end up out in the sea. There’s a freshwater tank under the bed, and the toilet waste collector’s built in under there, too, but there’s no tank for used shower and sink water that I’ve seen, so it must be getting pumped out. What if that system’s gone wrong? What if—what if it’s letting water in?
“We should bail it out,” I say, my mouth dry. “All this water. Dry it as best we can and then see…if it comes back.”
“Good idea.” Lexi breathes out shakily. “OK. OK. Well, if it was a really bad leak, surely we’d have doubled the amount of water or something by now, and even with the shower coming on, I don’t think there’s much more.”
She turns, and my torch catches her straight on. Hair damp, bare shoulders dewy with droplets. We pause for a second like this, her eyes wide with fear, her skin glowing, her face so beautifully familiar to me now. I want to fix this for her. I want her to be safe.
Lexi bites her lip and turns her face away from the glare of my torch.
“I’ll get dressed,” she says, “and then let’s start bailing.”
It takes us a while—the last dregs of water are trickiest to get rid of, but when we’ve finally dried the shower base, it’s obvious we’re right about the issue. The boat dips slightly and as it tips back, a little slosh of seawater comes over the edge of the drain.
Lexi lunges for the water with the corner of a towel, as if she’s swatting an insect, then she hesitates, leaving the towel there.
“Can we block it?” she asks.
“Cut-up fabric, maybe,” I say, already moving away to head for the bedroom.
“Tarp on top,” she calls after me. “It won’t soak through that so easily.”
In the end, stuffing the hole is the easy part—the hard part’s fixing the tarp in place. We end up using clothing tape—tit tape, Lexi calls it—from her makeup bag.
“I knew something in here would come in handy,” she says triumphantly, smoothing the last piece down. “This won’t hold for long, but…”
I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. Lexi saw that light blinking on the tank system monitor yesterday—she knows we’ve already used three-quarters of the fresh water we have on this houseboat. She knows we won’t hold for long, either.