Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
When I wake up the next morning, I spend a few hours alone on the balcony in my room.
I take my morning pills and try not to think dark thoughts.
I fail, of course. My head is full of old friends and old hurts, the sort of thing that, for a while, haunted me so much I went to see a doctor to get something to make them go away.
Right now, I feel simultaneously guilty and disappointed in just about everyone and everything.
I would never have admitted it when we were at uni, but I was always jealous of Sasha and Tom’s plush existence.
The fact I barely make ends meet doesn’t stop me from dreaming of the house they have or the cars they drive.
And for all my pearl-clutching over whether I would buy a superyacht if I had a spare fifty mil, I’d still like to face that dilemma for myself.
I lie on my lounger thinking of what I saw in the candlelight. I think of Sasha with her hands on Ade. I think of his expression and wonder what it meant. He looked kind of surprised at what was happening, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t grab her and kiss her as soon as I left.
In a way, that isn’t even the most relevant thing.
I remember the tragic story that Sasha told us and all the times I could have been nicer to her and Tom.
It’s like a switch has been flicked, and I’m left questioning whether I was the mean one all along.
I play through a blooper reel of clips from our friendship.
I used to think they were lauding their wealth and success over me, but maybe they were just trying to make me feel included.
I think about her invitations to cocktail parties and nights out with the girls – “It’s on me, Bridget, I know you can’t afford it” – and I wonder if I was a complete and utter cow to her.
I see what good their wealth actually did them, and my guilt hardens within me.
“Bridget, are you in there?” Jake calls through the non-existent keyhole.
I’m still trapped in a thought and, before I can answer him, Ade dances back into my head like he’s putting on a show for me.
I suddenly need to know whether he’s any happier than the rest of us.
He’s about a thousand times richer than Tom, so if he isn’t content in life, who is?
The lithe Scandinavian fiancée I imagined him having hasn’t appeared and, from what I can see, short of a hairy, drug-addicted drummer, he’s on his own out here, floating around the world on a hollow tin can.
“Bridge, can I come in?”
“Okay. Come!” I shout back, a little too dictatorially.
He puts his head around the door, and I realise for the first time that it doesn’t have a lock – or perhaps there is one and I don’t know how to use it.
“If you’re here trying to seduce me again, I think it’s a bad idea.” Who am I? This sounds terrible, and I wish I’d just waited to see what he wanted like any normal person.
He sneers at me, as he has every right to.
“It’s not that, and I’m sorry if I was in a silly mood last night.
I just…” Thankfully for both of us, he decides not to explain.
“I was supposed to meet Mick this morning in the cinema. He’s producing a concert film from Ade’s last tour and wanted my opinion on it. ”
“There’s a cinema?” I practically yell at him. “Why did no one tell me?”
Admittedly, I knew about the video wall and the various giant TVs, but I was severely missing cinema-style seating (and popcorn).
Jake looks annoyed and returns to his point. “We were supposed to start half an hour ago, and he hasn’t appeared.”
“Is that surprising?” I ask, a little bemused that I would be the one he comes to ask about this. “He didn’t strike me as the reliable type.”
“You don’t know Mick like I do. He was pretty keen.”
I can see he’s nervous and try to sound more accommodating. “Tell me what I can do.”
“You’re good at this sort of thing.” He sighs and walks past the bed to stand beside me. “I just want you to be there when I knock on his door in case, in case… I don’t know what.”
If yesterday hadn’t happened, and I wasn’t now worried that I’m a terrible person, I would probably have made a joke of this.
I would have laughed aloud and told him not to be such a drama queen.
But I don’t sigh or roll my eyes as I get up to search for the white cotton kimono that was in my cabin when I got here and will not be after I leave.
“Do you know which cabin is his?” Jake steps outside and I follow him.
I’m about to ask why he would imagine such a thing when I realise that I actually do. “Yeah, it’s one of the three big rooms upstairs. It’s next to Tom and Sasha’s.”
We accelerate along the corridor and up to the main deck. He points to the first door we come to and, as if I’m joining in with his mime act, I signal to keep going.
“This one?”
I nod and feel nervous without knowing why.
“Mick, are you in there?” Jake taps ever so softly on the metal door, which really defeats the point of what we’ve come to do. “Mick?” He calls more loudly this time, and when that doesn’t elicit a response, I lean past him to bang on it.
No sound comes back to us, and we look at one another.
“Perhaps we should find Ade,” I suggest, but his suite looked dark when I saw it, and I’m afraid that Sasha was in there with him. As far as I’m concerned, the fewer people who know what I saw last night, the better.
Before I can think what to do, Jake pushes his long hair back off his face, knocks once more and then slides the door open.
The darkened room beyond smells of cigarettes and sweat and something else I don’t want to identify.
There’s no sign of Mick, and I’m almost grateful.
There was one obvious thought in my mind, and I’m so relieved that it hasn’t come to pass.
“Is Mick a heroin addict?” I ask when I spot a syringe on the bedside table, and it fits with everything else I know about him.
Jake is looking about the room and hesitates for a moment. “Among other things, yes. Though I haven’t hung out with him for years, so I don’t know what he’s been up to recently.”
He runs to look behind the grand piano in the corner of the room. Oh, yeah, there’s a grand piano. I should probably have mentioned that. This cabin is pretty much the same as mine, but twice as big and with a giant musical instrument taking up the extra space.
There’s another obvious place that we haven’t searched, and sadly it has fallen to me to do so.
I move slowly towards the door to the bathroom in the hope that Jake will notice and take over.
I put my hand on the handle and feel the tension that was bubbling up moments earlier now return.
I’m just about to enter when I hear a voice behind me.
“What are you doing in here?”
I want it to be Mick’s, but I know that it’s not.
“Why are you in here?” Ade demands, and Jake pops up from behind a sofa to explain.
“We were supposed to meet Mick in the cinema, but he didn’t come.”
“Yeah, he’s like that.” Ade’s face has none of its usual light and magic. He has the look of a man with a hangover that won’t leave him, though presumably that’s impossible if there really is no booze on board except for my 75cl of vodka.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer but muscles me out of the way.
He gets straight to it rather than putting off the inevitable, as I was.
The door goes swinging away from us and, though the boxed-in shower is empty, there’s a glass partition which hides the toilet, and I can see the hazy outline of a figure propped against it.
“No, Mick,” Ade says in a low, plaintive tone that reminds me of one of his songs. “Oh, mate. What have you done?”
He hurries forward as Jake runs past me to help, so I just stand there for ten seconds, watching their silhouettes.
Ade kneels down, but Mick still doesn’t move. “You bloody idiot. What were you thinking?”
There’s no reply. Ade slaps his friend’s cheeks, but I can see from the look on Jake’s face that it won’t help.
“He’s dead, Ade. Look at him. His face is literally white.”
I can’t say why this is the moment I decide to join them, but that’s what happens. I walk into the grey-tiled bathroom and, when I stop, there’s a dead man in front of me with a needle sticking out of him.