Chapter 5
FIVE
“I’m sure that you’ll enjoy your time on board the Tanis,” Sendilen tells Sasha as he helps her from a very expensive boat onto an impossibly expensive one.
“You mean you’re not staying?” There’s a hint of alarm in her voice, and I wonder what she was hoping would happen. Had she set her heart on leaving her husband and enjoying island life with the handsome Mauritian driver?
“I have to meet more of your friends at the airport, but I’ll see you again.”
There are two staircases that sweep down from the deck above and a low platform at the level of the water for people to board. Sendilen offers me his hand next, and I lunge across the gap.
The yacht’s name is printed in large black letters on the hull.
‘Tanis’ means nothing to me, but then I haven’t seen Ade for a decade, so that’s hardly surprising.
It could be the name of his girlfriend or his niece, and I’d be none the wiser.
The papers – and yes, I have read practically every article ever written about him – always describe Ade as a perpetual bachelor.
Rumours of links to a tennis player and a couple of famous actresses came to nothing, but it wouldn’t be a total shock if he’d called us here to meet his smoking-hot fiancée.
I don’t know why I’m crossing my fingers that this isn’t the case. I swear I’ve never dreamt of becoming Ade Okojie’s wife. If anything, I think it’s the potential awkwardness of having to watch my friends’ reaction to such a scenario that makes me cringe.
Either way, there is no terrifyingly lithe Swedish supermodel here to welcome us as we look up those shiny black stairs. Instead, an approximately teenage waitress in an anonymous white blouse and black skirt stands at the top with a tray of drinks.
Tom sees his prize and pushes us out of the way to thunder towards her. It’s almost comical, but for the fact the man is clearly a mess. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something so much in my life as he wants a helping of wine just a few hours after his last glass.
“Tom, would you give it a break?” Sasha begs.
“We’re on holiday,” he shouts back over his shoulder without looking.
“Yeah. Holiday…” His wife shakes her head, and this time I can’t help it. I put my arm around her and guide her up the opposite staircase to the one Tom just mounted.
“Don’t worry, Sash,” I tell her with a smile. “It’s a big ship. If he keeps getting under your skin, we’ll divide it in two. You can have the top decks, and we’ll lock him downstairs.”
Like the sun coming out from behind the non-existent clouds, Sasha’s face brightens. She doesn’t say anything but squeezes my hand as we walk up the stairs.
“Sparkling wine, ladies?” the girl asks in a South London accent. I’m still not used to being waited on like this.
“It’s not even champagne?” Tom complains because, apparently, that is what he does these days. It doesn’t stop him pouring the drink down his neck. “Where’s Ade?”
The poor girl – I now feel sorry for anyone who interacts with Tom – doesn’t look like she knows what to say, and so I step in to make it better.
“Thank you so much for the wine. I’m Bridget.”
“Phoebe,” she hesitantly replies, but I have a feeling this will be the extent of our interaction.
Tom huffs and puffs his way up another flight of stairs.
I hadn’t noticed it before, but his whole frame is bulkier than when we were younger.
He was always a big guy, but there’s an extra broadness to him now.
I guess traders sit at a desk all day, and he’s clearly not the type to spend his free time sweating in a gym.
There’s a flat section on the main deck where the helipad is located.
Towering over it are the four raised levels of the ship with the control tower at the top.
At the front, each deck is a little longer than the one above, but at the rear of the boat, they end quite suddenly to give the currently absent helicopter room to land.
“Welcome aboard,” a man whose manner is uncannily similar to Sendilen’s says in a soft voice.
He stands in the middle of the large white H on the deck and holds his hands out as if to say, This is your home for the week.
“My name is Shabeer. I am the chief steward, and anything I can do for you while you are here, I will.”
His sentence is a little wonky, as though he wasn’t certain what he wished to say when he started speaking.
I know from Wikipedia that, if he comes from Mauritius, he’s likely to speak multiple languages, so who am I to complain?
I got a B in my school French exams, and the only thing I remember how to say is “What a beautiful bookshelf, madam. Where did you get it?”
“Hey, Shabeer? Get us a—” Tom begins, but Sasha elbows him in the guts before he can make a very obvious pun on the man’s name.
“Is Ade on board?” she asks. “We’re all eager to see him.”
Shabeer’s smile tells us that everything is fine and there’s no need to worry. “Mr Okojie is being a little busy at the moment, but he will come to find you forthwith. Perhaps if you’d like to see your cabins, you can follow me.”
Before I can ask whether anyone brought our possessions on board, a figure wanders over from the side of the yacht. There’s a half-second’s excitement before I realise that it isn’t our host.
“I’ll look after our guests, Shabeer,” the shabby character exclaims before turning to us. “I’m Mick.”
The newcomer definitely thinks we should know who he is, but Sasha and Tom don’t have a clue.
He does the same arms-apart welcoming gesture as Shabeer did, but his eyes never quite settle on us.
He’s wearing a yellow sleeveless vest and brightly patterned shorts.
His beard is unkempt, his arms covered in tattoos, and he isn’t the kind of person I expected to meet on a luxury yacht.
“Mick!” he says again and then he pretends to play the drums for us. To be fair, he does a pretty good job of it.
“Mick.” It finally clicks, for me at least. “We met once. It was backstage at the Astoria.”
“The Astoria! That takes me back.” Mick claps his hands, and I notice that there’s something not quite right about them. They’re darker than the skin on his face and legs, as though they’ve been trapped in a door. He’s about ten years older than the rest of us, but I doubt that’s the reason.
He stands there, frozen for a few beats longer than normal.
I guess we’re both thinking back a decade.
Ade put me on the guest list to meet him after the show, at which point he ignored me entirely and made a big deal of hanging out with his far cooler friends.
He looked at me like a stalker when I told him that I had to go home.
For a long time after that, I just about hated him, and I wasn’t the first to feel that way.
“Mick is the drummer in Ade’s band,” I explain to the others in case they’ve failed to work this out. “You’ve been with him since he got big, right?”
Mick’s jaw juts out proudly and he nods. His wild, curly hair bobs as he does so, and we wait for him to say something more. There’s clearly a delay somewhere. Everything with Mick takes that little bit longer than you would expect.
“Yeah. It was me, Ade, and Jake when we signed with the label. We’ve got a whole different crew now. You wouldn’t believe it.” I think he must realise that he’s kept us waiting long enough, as he points to go. “Shall we…?”
Sasha looks relieved that this conversation has concluded. She was never one of Ade’s groupies – never a rock chick. They used to hang out despite his music, not because of it. She walks alongside Mick as he crosses the helipad and starts to describe the features of the yacht.
“I’ve only been on board for a few days, but I love it here.
There are three different jacuzzis that I know about, so I’ve spent most of my time in there.
” He holds his discoloured hands up to show that his skin is still wrinkled from his last dip.
“Then downstairs there’s a gym and library.
The bar is amazing. Wait until you see that.
And there’s all sorts of fun and games hidden about the place. ”
He stops as the walkway we’ve navigated ends, and we come out on the sun deck. The jacuzzi is surrounded by a white padded bench for lounging on, and the floor is made of glossy wood.
“All the wood here is the finest teak,” Mick announces, as if this is just as impressive as the fact our friend owns a ship with its own gym and library on board. “And up there is Captain Andy. Give him a wave.”
Dutifully, if hesitantly, Sasha and I wave up to the bank of windows on the second staggered deck above us. We see a shadow move on the ceiling, but little else.
“Where is—” The question we all want to ask forms on Tom’s lips, but Mick cuts him off.
“I’ll show you to your cabins. Prepare to have your minds blown.”
We turn back on ourselves to reach the main salon, which I would tell you was bigger than my flat at home, but I’m growing tired of that comparison. Mick chatters as we go, talking of the main deck, bridge deck and upper deck as if they were terms he’d always used.
I feel like we’re walking through a show home.
As I peek into a huge lounge, with its TV wall and bar, I have that same feeling of mild disgust that I’d had when I boarded the plane.
I can’t help wondering whether, if I had fifty million pounds, or however much this stupid, beautiful ship cost, I would blow it on a floating hotel.
I like to think I’d buy a huge swathe of the rainforest to protect it for future generations, but I’m probably more selfish than I know.
“There are three suites on this floor and four smaller ones on the deck below.” Perhaps Mick is no longer a drummer and now works as a yacht salesman.
He points to the next windowless door we come to.
“This one is mine, and the one we just passed is the master suite where our mutual friend is having a lie-down.”
This news sets my teeth on edge. We’ve come all this way to see Ade, and he hasn’t bothered greeting us because he needs a nap.
Is that the behaviour of a normal person?
And for that matter, does a normal person send his friends plane tickets rather than just picking up the phone?
I know rich people have a special licence for being eccentric, but the same question keeps throbbing in my head: why did I ever think this would be a good idea?
“This one’s for you two,” Mick tells my companions with a smile as he bangs on the next door.
Tom puts his arm around Sasha, who is so excited that she doesn’t even mind.
She darts forward to push the sliding door aside and practically falls into the room.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a big space with lots of expensive stuff in it.
The bedside lamps look like antique silver candlesticks.
There are two crossed oars above the bed, and I’m pretty sure that a concealed television will rise up from the floor if you know which button to press.
None of this changes the fact that much of the decoration is decidedly tasteless.
There are three prints in Day-Glo colours with ridiculous slogans on them.
One says “21st Century Chastity Belt” on a plain blue background.
Another has a picture of Salvador Dali grinning with the words “All men are legends, but not all legends are men” painted over him, and the third is just the word “Art” with an upside-down question mark on either side of it.
All in all, they make me feel empty and a little bit sad. Is this soulless hotchpotch of styles really the best that money can buy? I’m tempted to rip the prints off the wall and throw them out to sea, but I’m not that bad a guest, and Tom stands nodding as if he finds them thought-provoking.
“Come on, kid.” Mick pokes me in the shoulder for some reason as Sasha copies the expression of the grinning artist on the wall. “I’ll take you down to your cabin.”
He walks off before I can say anything, so I leave my friends in their room and scamper after him.
“I’ve spent most of the last decade touring. I’m glad of the break.” He sighs the sigh of a truck driver who has just completed a round trip to Mongolia. “You know how it is.”
His beard obscures half his face, but I try to work out how much older he is than me.
I remember that Ade met him gigging in London rather than through the university, and he’d already been in a load of bands that never made it big.
As he rattles on about his time as a famous drummer that no one has heard of, he gives off those old-man-who’s-seen-it-all vibes.
I get the feeling that, if he hadn’t fallen in with Ade, he’d be propping up a bar somewhere, thinking back on the glory days that never were.
“This is yours,” he says as we reach the deck below and he opens the first door on the right. “Not too bad, is it?” Before I answer, he hits his forehead with the ball of his hand and begins to walk away. “Sorry, I’ve forgotten something I have to do… Shabeer? Shabeer?”
He goes off, shouting the name over and over, though the chance of the steward hearing him on such a big ship is surely very small.
Once I’m alone, I look around the room, which is a slightly smaller version of the one I’ve just seen.
It’s all black and white and ever so plush, but I’m tired of artificial neatness, and wish it was more lived-in.
The only real thing in here is my tatty suitcase, which has already been delivered by some unseen minion.
The whole room is unbalanced; the bed is too close to the door, and there’s a wall giving onto the side of the boat that is strangely free of decoration.
For some reason, I have a burning desire to know where the TV is hidden. If there’s one thing I know about rich people it’s that they love hiding their TVs, so I grab the two remotes from the nightstand and click the buttons like crazy.
Just before another ugly painting retracts to expose the telly, the big blank wall slides away and there’s the ocean, right in my bedroom.
Well, there’s a swish balcony with seating for six, but the water is just beyond it.
There’s even an extendable diving board you can jump off, which reminds me of a pirate story that used to scare me when I was a kid.
My nerves haven’t exactly settled when the whole ship shudders. The sound of a lifting chain clanks across the bow, and we start to move.
I’d say there was something magical about this, but that would be inaccurate.
There’s something mechanical about this.
The change from stillness to motion without a single person appearing before me is proof of just how much is going on out of sight.
I suppose I’ll have to get used to the fact that I am no longer a cog in a machine. I’m a passenger on one.