Chapter 9
NINE
As I hear calls from up on the boat, I take a deep breath and plunge beneath the water. The hush down here is soothing. For all his talent, Adesina Okojie will never write anything quite so beautiful.
It doesn’t last long. As soon as I get hold of Clara’s arm, it jolts her into life, and she starts thrashing and fighting against me. I can see traces of blood in the water, and I know that, if I don’t calm her down, she’ll keep falling deeper.
I let go just long enough for her to look at me. It works. To my genuine surprise, it works, and she sees that I’ve come to help. Before she freaks out again, I put her arm over my shoulder to pull her up towards the surface.
When the silence breaks and the noise comes rushing back into my ears, it feels impossibly loud.
Clara is still panicking between coughs, and I do my best to support her.
There are voices from on high, but I can’t make sense of them.
After a few moments of disorientation, there’s a splash just behind me in the water, and I know what to do.
“Are you all right?” Ryan shouts down, but I’m still catching my breath and can’t respond. “Is Clara okay?”
I grab her by the collar of her T-shirt and manoeuvre the life ring over her head so that she can do the rest. She pushes her arms through the hole, and she is safe now. We both are. I hang on to one side of the ring, and we fall silent to find the calm that we both need.
I hear someone splashing towards us through the water, and Jake works his way over to us from the dive platform. As soon as I see him, I feel better, and I’m so glad that he’s the one to come out to us.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” he calls from ten metres away, and I turn to Clara because I really don’t know what to tell him.
There’s blood running down her face. She must be aware of the pain too, as she clutches the top of her head to stem the flow. Despite the warmth of the air and the sun beating down on us, she’s shaking. So instead of answering Jake’s questions, I pull her back to the ship directly.
Ade is standing with Ryan, and I assume that he was one of the people I heard calling down.
They’ve stopped now, but the way they watch as we drift back to the platform sends a chill through me.
They look like pedestrians gawping at a ten-car pile-up, and I can’t help but wonder whether they’re a little disappointed that everyone is okay.
When we’re sitting in the beach club – now without the unnecessary DJ – Ade rushes down to us with an ice pack.
He wraps a towel around Clara’s shoulders and kneels in front of her before asking the inevitable question. “What were you doing in the water?”
“I…” She looks at me for support, but I can’t answer for her.
The blood that is already staining the fluffy white towel makes the question mark on the end of his sentence all the heavier.
“I was just standing at the side of the boat, looking down into the water. I felt myself keel forward. I don’t… I really…”
I hadn’t noticed him until now, but Ryan is standing on the staircase peering into the room. “Was anyone up there with you?”
In a frightened, birdlike movement, Clara turns her head to look at him. She is more agitated now than when she was underwater, and I’m surprised she doesn’t take the towel and hide beneath it.
“I can’t remember. I think I hit my head as I fell.” She glances back at me as her ally – she doesn’t know that Ryan did his best to help her too. “I remember being on the deck below the helipad, and then I was in the water. All I know is that my body tumbled forward, as if I was…”
She doesn’t finish her thought. Perhaps it’s the way that Ade is looking at her or something in Ryan’s question, but she suddenly becomes defensive. “I didn’t jump, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’ve probably always seen me as a neurotic little weirdo, but no one is—”
“So you fainted?” Ade suggests, and every word he says seems to push her away from us.
I decide to stop the questions before they make her more anxious. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? The important thing is that Clara is okay.”
I rise to look at the top of her head, and even through her long, mousy brown hair I can see the cut.
“It doesn’t look too deep,” I say, based on my complete lack of medical knowledge, before Ade finally leaves to get help.
“I’ll fetch the first-aider. Do you think you can walk to your cabin?”
Clara doesn’t answer, but he heads back to the staircase and disappears regardless. She waits for Ryan to do the same before saying anything more, and I feel I have to reassure her.
“I was talking to Ryan when we heard you fall. He got back on the ship and threw down the life ring.”
Clara pulls her hair together at the back of her head to tie it in a loose knot before taking the towel and pressing it against the wound. The trickle that had previously promised to become a stream seems to have dried up, but I can only imagine how frightened she still is.
“You must have fallen about ten metres before hitting the water.”
“I didn’t fall.” Her tone is curt, her expression fierce, and I don’t know how to respond. “I mean… Oh, Bridget. I don’t know what I mean.” Her breathing becomes louder, and I move to put my arm around her.
“I don’t blame you, sweetie. No one does.”
There are tears in her eyes, but she doesn’t sob or cry out.
What I haven’t said is that she came seconds away from dying, but I don’t want her thinking about that.
She was the innocent, slightly vulnerable one in our group of friends, and all that matters right now is that I get her checked out.
The thought that she could survive nearly drowning but end up with a dangerous concussion enters my mind, and I push it back down.
“Come on. You’ll be more comfortable upstairs.” I realise for the first time that the boat has started moving again, but not before I mistime my step and have to grab hold of the wall to get my balance. “I’ll stay with you for as long as you need.”
It’s wrong to say that she starts smiling, but the fear on her face diminishes somewhat, and I help her to her feet while she has the courage.
Ryan is standing at the top of the stairs. I can tell there’s something he wants to say, but, just like me, he puts on a brave face for Clara as he accompanies us through one of the yacht’s countless lounges towards the central corridor where our cabins are located.
When we get to Clara’s room, Ryan makes the universally recognised flicking-eyes gesture to show that he wants to talk to me alone, but I can’t just leave her. I wave him away and help Clara through the door as he looks on, bemused.
When the man who’d taught us to shoot the crossbows comes to the room a few minutes later, he has a small red bag with bandages in it and a skinny torch for shining in Clara’s eyes. His name is Steve, and he certainly acts like he knows what he’s doing.
“I know what I’m doing,” he says to confirm it. “I’m a formally qualified medic and worked as a nurse before changing career.”
He’s apparently multi-talented, but it would be frivolous to point this out with Clara still lying on her bed looking shaken. I became less worried about her as soon as he turned up, so he’s already made me feel better.
“I’m glad to say there’s no sign of concussion,” he tells us, and even Clara smiles. “But if you have any dizziness or you just don’t feel like yourself, ask Shabeer or one of the staff to send for me.”
I now realise that this was the likely outcome. We’ve squeezed a lot of drama into one day. Any more would have been unrealistic.
Once bow-firing, head-checking Steve retreats with a confident smile, I have some more fun hunting for the television.
It’s in the ceiling this time, so that’s exciting, but when I put on what I thought would be a nostalgic cartoon from our childhood, it doesn’t have the effect I wanted.
Instead, Clara looks at me like she can’t understand what I was thinking, and the comical violence feels insensitive.
She grabs the control from me and the screen turns blue. “Sorry, I’m just not in the mood.”
“No, I’m sorry for hijacking the TV.” I take her hand in mine. “This is much better.”
For a moment, I feel like I’m at home in my bedroom with my best friend. I’m thirteen again, dreaming about three different boys who I’ll never date.
“What did you think would happen when you got here?” she asks in as inquisitive a manner as someone can adopt without finishing the sentence with, hmmmmm?
“Nice food?” I answer at least half truthfully.
Soft giggles overtake her, and I remember why I’ve always liked her so much.
“No, I mean it. What did you imagine this would be like?”
“I don’t know,” I reply as my mind sets to work. “I had a million thoughts about it, and many of them were probably far-fetched. I suppose what I really hoped was that everything would be the way it was when we first met.”
“It’s not though, is it?”
She sounds a little sad again, and so I try to cheer her up. “Do you remember what it was like the first month we lived together? Back before there was any drama, and we all just got along?”
My dreaminess has spread to her now. “Yeah… yeah, I do.”
“I think that was the best time of my life. I know that sounds sad, but it was so exciting living with Ade and Dawn and… well, all of you. Jake was very sweet when we first spent time together. You were finding yourself through your painting, and Ade was full of grand, beautiful ideas. Getting to know him felt like meeting John Lennon or Freddie Mercury when they were just starting out.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I woke up every morning thinking I was in a movie.” She smiled cautiously. “I was excruciatingly shy when I got to university, but you were all so nice and included me in everything you did. For that whole first year, I felt totally at home.”
I thought back to the very beginning. “We used to sit in that ugly, sterile kitchen in our flat and talk for hours. I think we all found our places in the group on the very first night in halls.”
“I probably wouldn’t have said a word if it weren’t for you and Dawn.”
An almost silent laugh escapes my lips. “I don’t know what good I did, but Dawn couldn’t resist organising everyone.
From the moment we met, she started planning excursions and activities like a primary school teacher.
” My voice dies for a moment. “I wish she were here now. It feels wrong without her.”
Clara squeezes my hand, and we lie in silence for a second. I almost ask her why Dawn rejected the invitation, but she’s more important right now.
“And I wish you’d become really famous for your art. You’re so good,” I tell her when the quiet gets too much. “It would prove that you don’t have to be one of those instantly noticeable extroverts to make it.”
She sighs and I realise that I’ve phrased this all wrong.
I should have spoken more sensitively, seeing as Clara had a problem with her course in our second year and didn’t finish.
She never explained what it was, but I always assumed she was depressed or lonely in London.
She was back living at home when the rest of us graduated.
“The truth is…” she replies with great hesitation.
“The truth is that I found it all too miserable. When I went back to Chichester, I still wanted to make something of myself. I really believed I was talented enough, but I hadn’t met the right people in London and, short of tiny gallery shows near me, there was no way of showing my work to anyone.
The whole thing made me feel like a failure – that I’d been wasting my time.
And that’s why I eventually gave up and found a proper job. ”
I squeeze her hand a little patronisingly as I watch the digital screensaver on the TV going round and round and morphing through various shapes and colours.
“Look at it this way. Of our group of ultra-talented individuals, one of us is unemployed, one of us is a kept woman, and one of us is a day trader with a drinking problem. Jake’s been to jail for…
some reason, and Ryan says his work in the music industry isn’t as interesting as it might sound.
You could probably say that Ade compensates for the rest of us, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about my non-starter literary career, or the mind-numbing job I’ve done for the best part of a decade. ”
“Are you saying that we’re all failures, so it doesn’t matter?” That giggle of hers ignites once more and I can’t help but smile at her.
“I’m saying that we defined success all wrong if the only way for any of us to be happy was if we won an Oscar or the Turner Prize.” I pause to think about this and realise that this is exactly what I wish someone had told me many years ago. “I’m saying that failure isn’t what it’s made out to be.”
These words ring around my head, and I study her face again.
I always thought it was sad that Clara was so shy.
When we were alone together, just like now, she would poke her head out of her shell.
She could be funny and silly and wild, but as soon as there were a few people about, she disappeared again.
I always assumed she had a weird upbringing, as she’s not even unattractive, with her pale skin and striking grey eyes.
I’m not saying that looks are everything, but they can still shape our experiences.
As she never mentioned her family, I figured that her parents had suffocated her, and she never got over it.
“It’s a real shame…” she says, but I don’t ask her to elaborate.
There are so many questions I could ask, but I don’t. We lie here, both busy with our own thoughts as the boat carries us across the ocean. The time passes serenely, and when my eyes grow heavy, I know I won’t open them again for some time.