Chapter 12
TWELVE
It’s not clear what comes next. No one knows how to return us to the carefree atmosphere of that afternoon at the back of the boat or even fifteen minutes earlier.
I really hoped that Ade would continue with what he was saying.
I want to hear about that period from his perspective.
I want to know about the argument between him and Dawn that meant we didn’t move in together in the third year as we’d planned.
I want to know why Clara quit her degree, but Ade sits back in his place, and an ugly hush consumes us as we pick at the meal.
A single, large ravioli sits looking lonely in a red sea.
The flavours are unplaceable, and not the reassuring comfort food that we need at this moment.
I would honestly prefer baked beans after all.
I was hoping that Ade’s guitar was near and he could play us another of his hits, but before anyone can rescue the conversation, poor Sasha decides she has to unburden herself.
“You probably realise that Tom’s drinking is out of control, but you mustn’t blame him entirely,” she confesses, looking at me over the candles. “He’s had a hard year.”
“You really don’t have to tell us,” Jake replies under his breath.
I know why he’d say this. His own story is about as transparent as the teak floor.
He’s hinted at scandalous details, but he isn’t the kind to bare his soul.
I don’t know why he ever left Ade’s band.
I can’t imagine how he ended up in prison, and I wonder if he really has a kid who was born while we were dating.
I still look at him as the kind, complicated boy I loved, but I don’t know a thing about him.
“I want to,” Sasha counters. “Not just for all of you, but for my sake too.” She takes a deep breath and, when that is not enough, she has a gulp of her drink. “You see, I lied to you all.”
My skin tingles as the wind kicks up. It’s not actually cold, but the sudden sensation – like fingers walking across my body – combines with a brief buzz of excitement that we might finally get some answers.
“Tom isn’t some high-flying trader… not anymore, at least. He lost his job a few months ago, and our lives have been pretty close to hell ever since.”
When Sasha and I used to talk in private, I could never forget that she was a drama student through and through.
Even during her most intimate late-night confessions – when she’d find me in my room after she’d been out on a date with her moneybags boyfriend – even at her most vulnerable, she came across as a girl running her lines for her next play.
I don’t get that now.
“It really wasn’t his fault…” she begins again and then realises that she is speaking to a group of people who only know fragments of her story.
“You see… I quit acting because his job paid so well. I had an agent and had done some TV work, but there was far too much uncertainty for my liking. It was a choice between switching to theatre or being a housewife, and I decided that the latter would require less heartache and rejection.”
I look down the table at Clara, whose cautious expression presumably mirrors my own. I have a feeling that this might not be what the Sasha of tomorrow morning wants us to hear, but it would be callous to interrupt.
“I always knew that what I wanted more than anything was to be a mother. I might have told you that I wouldn’t be happy in life if I never saw my name in lights, but there was something I needed even more.
The idea was that I would pump out the babies while Tom made us rich.
He held up his side of the bargain, but my body was having none of it. ”
Ryan peers down at his now empty plate, and I doubt he’ll look up again for some time.
He’s always had the air of someone who has ended up at a party without being invited.
This is only amplified when a pretty girl with perfect skin starts tearfully confessing her every fear and failure.
And there are tears already. Sasha’s dimpled cheeks glimmer with the shine of freshly applied saltwater.
“We tried everything.” Her voice breaks, and I wonder which part of this story hurts the most. “We had cycles of artificial insemination, IVF and PGD. I took every kind of supplement, memorised the most ridiculous old wives’ tales as if they were scripture and added everything from black garlic to chia seeds to my diet in the hope of solving whatever the problem was. None of it did any good.”
I’m suddenly aware of music piping out of a speaker in the floor beneath the table. It’s only faint, and the sound is slow and maudlin, but I’m fairly certain it’s an ill-chosen piano version of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”.
“The worst thing about it was that we never discovered what was wrong. Not one doctor could find a reason for why we hadn’t conceived.
We’d been trying for years. And I think it’s safe to say we’d both given up and settled into a dull, dependable life together when the floor was pulled out from under us.
” She tips her head back, closes her eyes, and I want to run to comfort her, but I don’t move an inch.
“The truth is that trading is a cut-throat world. The companies take people young, then work them dry, and Tom wasn’t suited to it from the start.
He likes to pretend he’s this tough, steady guy, but he has a very soft underside that he spends all his time trying to hide.
In his job, there was so much money to be made, and he was supposed to set everything else aside to pursue it. ”
Another half-sob, another crack in her voice, and I feel it too now. I can see how deep the emotion goes.
“He was never strong enough for that. It’s not just that the work takes so much from you. There are a thousand rules to follow and expectations to meet.”
She talks of Tom’s occupation as though it is her own, but I guess they had to be a partnership for him to do such a demanding job.
“Underperformance can get you fired in weeks, whereas one of his colleagues had a cocaine habit, and no one gave him any trouble because he made the company millions every day. He was a high-functioning addict, and I doubt he was the only one there.”
In awkward unison, three of us around the table drink at the same time as she searches for what she’s trying to say.
“What Tom did could have happened to anyone. If there’s one thing that his company cares about, it’s not staff doing lines in the bathroom or after-hours drinking.
They honestly couldn’t care less about interns getting felt up by senior colleagues so long as no charges are brought against them, but the second that there’s a whiff of irregular trading, you’re out. ”
Ryan inhales a bit too loudly, and we all turn to look at him. “Sorry,” he mutters, but Jake is bolder than him and asks what we’re all wondering.
“You mean he used knowledge that he shouldn’t have? He cheated the system?”
Sasha’s pace increases as she explains herself better.
“No, he would never do that. Not only is it illegal, the risk of getting caught is too high. He was in charge of selling some high-value shares to a colleague in another company. When the transaction didn’t go through, he messaged his contact, who turned out to be on holiday and had forgotten to do her job.
To stop her from getting in trouble, he messaged her directly, which is against company rules.
The terrible thing is that she was the one who told Tom’s employer that he’d been communicating with her during a sale. They fired him the same day.”
“Is that it?” Jake is rarely the most discreet individual and delivers this remark with an unimpressed huff. “Why would that lead him to drink? He can get another job elsewhere.”
“No, he can’t. It doesn’t matter that he had no intention of breaking any rules, and it was the woman he was trying to help who messed up.
Tom is untouchable now. No one will employ him.
He’ll be lucky to get a job teaching economics, if that’s what he wants, because he’s broken a fundamental rule.
He gave his company years of his life, and then they snipped him off like a deadhead on a rosebush. ”
“Was that when he started drinking?” my stupid mouth asks without my permission.
Sasha’s piercing green eyes flash in my direction.
“He’s always been a heavy drinker, but before then it was social.
We’d go out with his colleagues on a Friday night, and he would blast the week out of his head with ten pints and whisky chasers.
Weekends were spent nursing a hangover, and then he’d gear up for the week again. ”
She pauses, and it’s clear that none of this is easy to say. “When he was fired, the weekends bled into the week. As he has no reason to stay sober, he doesn’t.” She shakes her head, and a tear falls from her cheek into her bowl. “I truly don’t think he can stop.”
For a moment, I wonder if this is the reason there’s no alcohol on the boat. Has Ade been watching over us like a guardian angel? Did he know about Tom’s situation and bring him here to go cold turkey?
It falls to Ryan – the outsider, the hanger-on – to comfort her. “That’s so difficult, Sash. But we’re here for you. We all are.” It occurs to me and surely everyone around that table that, until now at least, this simply wasn’t true.
The atmosphere never recovers after this. Subdued conversation fills the gaps between silences. The servers return to deliver the fish course, and we eat because there’s no other option. I wish with all my might for the meal to be over, but they keep bringing more food.
I don’t know how we get through the evening.
I am the first up from the table as soon as my dessert bowl is empty.
I don’t wait around to flirt with Jake or quiz Ade.
I run straight to my room and sit on my balcony, feeling grateful for just how vast and lonely the ocean in front of me is.
I want to cry for Sasha, but the tears don’t come.
I want to jump into the water, but I would be left behind and drown, so I decide that there’s nothing left to do but go to bed.
I want to drift away on a dream, but I realise that I’ve left my phone up on deck. The phone which has no coverage, no internet and no real use drags me back to the world against my wishes.
The ship is dead again, and the only people I pass are workers washing down the decks we’ve barely dirtied.
These are new faces I haven’t seen before.
The night people, who hide away in their dark cabins when the sun’s out.
I nod to them and scurry past on my way to the upper deck, where there are still candles burning.
“I’d leave him for you. You know that,” I hear Sasha say as I reach the top of the stairs.
For a moment, as she moves to straddle Ade, I’m a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights, unable to back away.
Every instinct I have tells me that I shouldn’t be here, but it takes me five whole seconds to break from my trance.
Stuff the phone, I think as I dash away down the stairs. I make it to the main deck and around the master suite before crashing straight into someone coming the other way.
“Sorry, Bridget,” Tom says with his hands out in front of him. There’s none of the gloom or rage that he showed at dinner. He’s an entirely different person. “Sasha didn’t come back to our room. Have you seen her?”