Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
“I genuinely don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” Ade says when he gathers us all together in the lounge. We’re just metres away from where Mick overdosed, and I keep thinking, What if? What if? What if?
What if I’d done the neighbourly thing to my shipmate and called in to see him last night instead of thinking only of the memory-foam super king mattress that was waiting for me?
What if I’d asked Ade why Mick hadn’t come to dinner or taken the slightest interest in the guy who’d kindly shown me around the ship?
“We’ll have to turn back, won’t we?” Sasha’s tone is unusually innocent. There is normally a worldliness to everything she says, but she seems as lost as the rest of us. Lost or putting on an act because she knows I saw her last night. It’s hard to say which.
Standing in front of the dull black TV wall, Ade shakes his head in bewilderment rather than denial. “I don’t know what’s best. I’m waiting for the captain to decide.”
It’s easy to think that we are the ones in charge, but it’s clear that’s not the case. I’d really bought into the idea that this was our playground, and we could do whatever we liked, but there are always adults around to tell us what to do – real adults like teachers and sea captains.
If one nice thing has come out of this tragedy, it’s that Tom and Sasha are on better terms than they were last night.
Tom has shaved. His clothes are fresh, and he looks smart and in control as he holds his wife close against him.
Sasha looks tiny in his arms, but she clearly wants to be protected, and I wish that someone would do the same for me, even if it is just for a few minutes.
“What’s the range of the helicopter you borrowed yesterday?” Tom is still no saint and can’t resist a dig at Ade.
There’s a pause before every response. It’s almost as if he’s being fed the answers through an earpiece and his manager or publicist or whoever has to talk before he can.
“I think it’s about two hundred and fifty miles.
This yacht has a cruising speed of twenty knots, which is about twenty-three miles an hour.
We left Mauritius at four yesterday, and it’s just gone twelve. ”
I wait for someone else to work out this equation because my brain isn’t in the mood for anything taxing. Actually, it’s not that difficult. It’s just 20 x 23, which is clearly more than two hundred and fifty.
“That’s four hundred and sixty miles,” Jake mumbles. He’s been quiet since we found Mick. I don’t know whether they left the poor guy where he was, as I didn’t stick around to watch.
“Wait, are you suggesting that we call a helicopter to pick him up like a courier collecting a package?” Clara makes this sound dreadful, which, of course, it is.
“Well, that was the idea,” Tom replies without remorse.
“It’s either that or we turn the ship around.” I say this despite myself. The idea of doubling back makes me feel even sadder, but I understand it might be necessary.
“Of course we’ll have to go back,” Ryan says. He has quickly become the conscience of the group. “We’re not going to keep going with a body on board. Right?”
“Why not?” I’m surprised to hear Ade respond. He’s done a good job of acting like a sympathetic person until now. Not the kind to suggest we ignore the fate of his friend in favour of sunning ourselves a day or two longer on holiday. I know he has a darker side, but he hasn’t let it slip.
“I would think it’s obvious.”
Much as when Ryan had arrived on board the day before, Ade now looks at him with a glimmer of anger.
“Who are you to say that?” He waits for an answer that no one will provide.
“We’re in international waters, and we’ll hand over the body to the authorities as soon as we come into port.
We’re not concealing a death from anyone. ”
It’s strange to hear him refer to Mick as “the body”. He’s already lost his identity, and it feels wrong that Ade would be the one to set that in motion.
“Come on, mate,” Jake pleads. “This is Mick we’re talking about.”
“He was your friend.” Clara is just as indignant as she was at dinner last night. “You’ve got to do right by him.”
“That’s what I was trying to do!” he replies in such a cold, harsh voice that I lean back on the sofa to remove myself from the conversation by a few centimetres.
“Why do you think I brought him out here with us and made sure there was no drink or drugs for him? I thought I could take him away from his troubles. He promised he wasn’t carrying anything.
I even checked his bags before he boarded. ”
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Ade so emotional. This is a man who appeared at the Grammys with a tear rolling down either cheek as he performed, but that was for the stage, and whatever is simmering beneath the surface right now is different. I feel that he wants to scream, but he holds it in.
“If we keep going, we’re only a couple of days from the Maldives. I don’t see that one day or two makes a great deal of difference.”
I look at Clara because she’s the sensible one among us, but she can only shrug. When no one else presents a valid reason to turn back, Ade nods as though everything is decided.
“I’ll talk to the captain. Unless he or the authorities tell me otherwise, we’ll keep on.”
He puts his arm around Clara to comfort her, and I look at Sasha to see whether she’ll react. She does, but only to place her darling husband’s hand on her cheek.
As he marches from the room, Ade is soldierlike and perhaps a tiny bit mechanical. You don’t get to the level he has without being ruthless. I have to wonder whether this part of his character was always there, and I was blinded by the brightness of his talent.
“That was brutal,” Jake whispers to Ryan, but we all hear.
“There’s nothing to be gained from being miserable.” Oddly, Tom isn’t as keen to go home as he was at dinner last night. Perhaps the initial impact of going without booze has worn off. Or perhaps he’s just really good at faking it. “I mean, I’m sorry that the guy’s dead, but it wasn’t our doing.”
I wish that Sasha would disagree with him, not because I think it would change his mind or I want to see them argue again, but for the fact that a detached pragmatism has taken over everyone, and I don’t like it. The sunspot of Mick’s limp, lifeless form remains in my vision.
Sasha says nothing. Tom pulls her into him, and she wiggles her shoulders to and fro, like a baby bird trying to get closer to its mother.
“How many of you even want to keep going?” Jake walks into the centre of the room to ask. “Clara fell overboard, and now Mick is dead. It’s hardly conducive to chatting over old times and doing cannonballs off the ship.”
“The problem is that nobody is sure how we feel,” Clara says quite reasonably. “It’s not that we want to be insensitive, but I didn’t know Mick very well and can’t decide how I should react to any of this.”
Jake sends a look across to me, and I know he needs my support, but Ryan answers before I can. “It’s pretty clear that what we think won’t change anything.”
Jake just shakes his head. “This is all wrong. How can any of you think otherwise?” He goes to the bar, which I now see contains a massive selection of soft drinks and alcohol-free spirits.
He looks at the bottles, which are illuminated by a forever modulating coloured light.
Like a little kid on his first trip to the children’s section of a library, he scans the shelf before selecting what he wants.
He reaches for a blue glass bottle then sends it spinning through the air to smash against the back of the door.
The muscles in his neck flex as he releases it, and he curls his lips like a dog waiting to attack.
“I’ll see you all later, yeah?”
He follows the bottle’s path to leave the room, and I watch him go, knowing that I should have said something.
I should have fought to find my voice, but it’s all too much.
New waves of sorrow and distress crash over me, and some instinct from deep within the shady caverns of my brain tells me that we’re making a mistake.