Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
I find my way back to the corridor and realise that I’ve hardly been on this deck before.
There’s a gym, a poorly stocked library and a bunch of cupboards, but nothing to keep me down there, so I return to the main deck.
Ryan is standing vaping at the side of the boat, but he doesn’t notice me as I pass.
The others are back at the jacuzzi at the front of the ship, and I get the sense that, if nothing had happened to Mick, this is what we’d be doing anyway.
The floating island we’re on is luxurious and beautiful, yet also rather tedious.
Even the best prison in the world is still a prison and, on a long voyage, that’s what this place becomes.
As soon as I sit down, the waiter from last night comes to ask what I’d like for my late lunch.
The question is so broad that I struggle to answer.
Thoughts of cheese soufflés and beef Bourguignon run through my head, but I can’t settle on any of the elaborate dishes that come to mind – nor would I really expect the chef to whip one up for me – so I reply in a weedy voice, “I wouldn’t mind a cheese sandwich. ”
Tom sneers at this, and I bet he thinks that such bland, proletarian fare sums me up perfectly. I suppose he’d be right, but when my snack arrives ten minutes later, it’s tastier than anything I’ve eaten in days.
Ade is sitting on a sun lounger at the prow of the ship, staring at the horizon. I don’t know whether he’s mourning his friend or his plan for the week, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even laugh at me when I keep expressing how delicious my meal is.
“Seriously, you should all order some,” I insist. “They must use a different kind of cheese than we have at home. Or perhaps it’s the bread.”
“Well, it would be one of those things, as they’re the only ingredients.” Tom looks very smug considering his display last night. No matter how good it tastes, I’m tempted to take some cheese out and throw it at him.
He’s still not himself. He wades through the immense jacuzzi in circles but occasionally stops and becomes frozen. His mind in these moments is clearly somewhere far away, and I feel that he is not just on edge, but on the edge of his next meltdown.
Clara sits reading a holiday thriller under the parasol. She occasionally looks up and offers a sad smile to whoever’s eyes she catches, but she stays quiet, and I decide not to bother her, even to ask whether she’d recommend the book.
“Make the most of the weather,” Ade eventually says kind of wistfully. “There are reports of a storm coming, but I doubt it will cause too many problems.”
Tom instantly looks petrified. “Isn’t that what they said in Jurassic Park?”
“It’s the tail end of the cyclone season,” Ade ignores him to tell us, but this is far from reassuring.
When he says nothing more, the tension remains.
Sasha is in a different bikini from yesterday.
It is bright green and equally noticeable, but not even her husband gives her the attention she deserves.
I notice that Ade never looks at her directly.
Does that mean he rebuffed her yesterday?
Or they rehashed their old fling and he’s trying to keep a low profile?
I don’t know whether I still feel bad for her, or I’m desperate to have some sense of what I oversaw, but I engage her in conversation.
“I don’t miss the acting,” she says in the middle of a discussion of her home life.
“It’s the kind of thing that, as soon as you’re away from it, you see all the drawbacks.
When you’re stuck inside that bubble, you think it’s what you need.
You think, If only I could get one amazing part, everything else will come good.
Then you get the part, nothing changes, and you’re back to wanting more.
It’s like gambling. You always believe the next bet will change your luck. ”
Another bubble, I think but don’t say.
I can’t quite remember how we got onto this topic, and I struggle to respond, but Sasha’s happy to keep talking.
“I left all that behind me a long time ago. I’ve no regrets.
” She glances at Tom, and I remember her tear-stained confession after dinner.
I remember the intensity of her words and the feeling that, if she didn’t share her story with someone, she might just implode.
Polite, well-spoken women like Sasha are far more prone to implosion than to the noisier alternative.
“When we’re back in London, I’ll come round to visit,” I tell her because I’m not a cruel person, and I feel worse for Sasha with every passing minute.
Did she throw herself on Ade like any number of women before, or is he stringing her along?
These are the only possibilities I consider.
“It’s silly that we live in the same city and never see one another. ”
Sasha lifts her hands out of the water to clap in excitement. I’m amazed to see that, though she’s been floating about in the jacuzzi for half an hour, they’re not even wrinkly. Is there a special rich person’s treatment that pre-emptively removes water wrinklage? Botox for the fingertips, perhaps?
“I’d love that!” she exclaims with another clap. “And now that you’ve ditched your job, I can coach you into writing the novel that’s trapped inside you.”
“No, I don’t think—”
“There’s no such thing as no, Bridget. No is a four-letter word.
” Even she realises this is nonsense, and she laughs at herself.
“We all know how good your writing was at university. You got higher marks than any of us, which empirically proves that you are a better writer than Ade was a musician. And look at him.” She does just this, and there’s a noticeably lustful curl to her lip.
“You’re certainly a better writer than I ever was,” Tom mumbles from his new spot in the centre of the jacuzzi. I’m a little surprised he was able to pay attention to our conversation. He looks pale even after a day in the sun, and his eyes have a haunted sheen to them that wasn’t there before.
“A dead rabbit could write better than you, Tom,” Sasha tells him with no small amount of snark. Whatever calm there was between them after Mick died has surely shattered.
He freezes again and shows no emotion. It’s hard to say whether it was her remark that bothered him.
“Say you’ll do it,” Sasha begs me, as though any change I make will enable her own. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
I don’t answer, but I think about her offer. Could this be my turning point? I want to tell her that I have nothing to write about, but maybe that isn’t true anymore. Maybe I just needed the next stage of my life to begin.
“All my writing back then was for assignments. Fulfilling a task that a teacher set is hardly proof I’m a good writer. I just did what I’d always done at school and followed the instructions.”
Sasha’s suddenly more energised. She’s the person I met on my first day in London thirteen years ago.
“Then I’ll give you assignments.” She sways with the bubbling current as she explains her plan.
“We’ll start off small. I’ll say, write me a character who is currently unhappy in life but sees a path to change.
And then you can put her in the first chapter of a book.
One chapter will become two, and so on and so forth until you have a novel. Please say you’ll do it.”
She’s imagining herself as the Ezra Pound to my T.S.
Eliot. And because (unlike either of those men) I am a born people-pleaser, I say, “Sure. Why not. I have approximately enough in savings to survive for six months. I’ll write a book for you, Sash, and the rest will take care of itself.
” She laughs at this, but not because of my overly optimistic response.
The possibilities of the plan have given her energy, and I’m glad that I didn’t reject the idea out of hand.
It reminds me that I still care about these people.
I actually want us to get along as we once did.
And the even stranger thing is that I’m excited too.
I want to write the book I’ve never even started.
I want to make my living as an author and never set foot inside an office again.
But most of all, I want to believe in myself the way Sasha does.
Ade sits up in his chair and turns to us with his famous smile.
It’s the same look he wore when he met the Prince of Wales at the Royal Variety Performance after his first album went platinum.
I’ve seen it looking out at me from a hundred magazine covers, and it used to greet me every morning when I rolled out of my room bleary-eyed.
Before he can say anything, there’s that same soft bing I heard the night before, and he looks up at the dark windows above us. He raises one hand to say, Sorry, I’ll be right back, and then jogs off to see what the captain wants.
I think I might already know what it is.
While I’ve been sitting here, our smooth ride has become noticeably rockier.
The sky is still blue up above, but the horizon is black, and the meteorologist who lives in my head has noticed that the atmosphere is changing.
Even the water in the no-longer bubbling jacuzzi is restless as the ship rises and falls more dramatically than before, and I have the definite feeling that a storm is on its way.