Chapter 19
NINETEEN
The problem with revisiting the past is that you see just how little resemblance it bears to what has replaced it.
After dinner, someone puts on a playlist from when we were teenagers, and it almost sets us right again.
It’s all cheesy pop and indie rock, except for the odd clubby track which does nothing for me.
Ade and Clara dance like an elderly couple at a wedding, regardless of the soundtrack.
Ryan and Jake prove they are music nerds by reeling off facts about each song, and I hang around wondering whether I am the one who should have been left off the guest list.
I go to watch the storm again, and though the lightning appears to be retreating, the movement of the boat is more violent.
If there’s such a thing as sea legs, then I haven’t found mine yet, as every dip and lurch increases the feeling inside me that Mick was the lucky one, and we’re all going to drown.
I see the Tanis lying on the ocean floor and divers searching for our remains.
I tell myself it can’t happen to a ship like this, but we are so alone out here, and the sea is so wild, that I know we’re not truly safe.
Ade must feel sorry for me, as he stops dancing and comes over. I catch a flash of his reflection in the window before he arrives, and the image is so bleak and ghostly that it almost makes me jump.
“Are you all right, Bridge?”
“Me? I’m fantastic.” My response sounds uncertain, and I try to recover. “Is this what you had in mind when you mysteriously sent out plane tickets to people you hadn’t seen for years?”
He smiles on one side of his mouth, which causes a large dimple to form. “Not exactly like this, but there’s plenty of fun still to be had.”
“I missed you,” I tell him before I can chicken out. As soon as I say it, I realise that this is what’s felt so wrong since I’ve been here. “I missed our friendship.”
A bolt of lightning bright enough to light the dim room shines back off one side of his face. “So did I. And that’s the apology I owe you. It’s really simple in fact; I’m sorry for being a useless friend.”
I don’t know what to say to this. The overly polite part of me wants to insist that I could have reached out to him, but it’s not true. He was removed from my world, and any attempt I made to pull him back into it would have felt like I was trying to jump on his fleet of world-touring bandwagons.
“The last time I saw you…” He pauses and I become aware of Jake and Clara singing along to a dreadful Black Eyed Peas song. “The last time I saw you, I already wasn’t myself. It was after our gig in the Astoria.”
He doesn’t need to remind me. I’ve been thinking about that night all week. Thinking of the way he looked at me as if he barely knew who I was. The way he laughed when I tried to talk to him as if I meant nothing to him.
“It’s okay. You were busy with other friends. I shouldn’t have expected you to abandon everything because—”
He takes a deep breath, and I can see how difficult this is for him.
“We both know that’s not true. I was a stuck-up brat.
I’d got it into my head that I was some kind of legend.
That’s how it felt at the beginning when everyone was calling my name.
I felt superhuman, and I had all the arrogance to go with it. ”
“You don’t have to explain,” I say in a why-worry-about-little-old-me sort of voice that makes me sound all the needier.
“Yes, I do. When I invited you to the concert, I wanted you to be there. You were my best friend, and I wanted you to be proud of what I’d become. But on the night, I was instantly afraid that you’d see what a phony I was.”
“I would never—”
“I know.” He turns away for a moment to find the right words.
“I’m not saying you would be cruel, but I was aware how artificial my life was, and you’ve never had any time for fakes.
I was sure you’d tell me to snap out of it and throw off the leeches.
It was exactly what I needed to hear, and it terrified me. ”
“It’s okay, Ade. To be honest, I thought I was the one who messed things up.” I put my hand out to take his, and he looks at it as if the very gesture is foreign to him.
He speaks more quickly now. “You mustn’t think that. I insulted you in front of everyone. I introduced you to the girl I was with, then made it sound like you were just some nobody who went to my uni. The truth is, I don’t even remember what her name was.”
I don’t know if he wants to feel sorry for himself, but I won’t let him. “We all do things we regret.”
“But I should have been better. I’m trying to be better.” He says this like it’s another mantra, and I can see that he means it.
“There are probably other people you should worry about before me,” I reply and, when the wretched look remains on his face, I pull him closer.
It’s pretty difficult to be nurturing when a guy is a foot taller than you.
All I can do is place my head against his chest and pat his back in a slightly patronising fashion.
We stand like that for a long time, and when we pull away, the others have all slunk off somewhere. The music still plays, but the dancers have gone. It’s half past nine, and the evening is dead, so there’s only one thing left to do.
“Thanks, Bridget,” he says a little formally when we reach the door. “Thanks for coming and listening to me. That was all I could have hoped for, and you’re kind to see it through.”
I squeeze his hand again and want to ask what made him like this.
I think of talking to him about Dawn or Sasha, but I know he doesn’t want me to.
He needs to have a similar conversation with every last person here.
As much as I’d like to know what triggered his soul-searching, it’s not my place to ask.
We stand in the doorway for a few moments, then head out into the storm.
When the door opens, it feels like a bubble has been popped and my fear of the furious ocean grips me once more.
The storm is far louder than I had imagined.
The no doubt triple-glazed glass in the lounge cut us off from the world.
Hearing the rain attacking the yacht and the waves crashing against the hull makes me more aware of our endless seesawing.
Ade walks off to his cabin, and I head to the deck below, but I have to hold the handrails and pause every few steps to stop from falling over.
I’m surprised no one has come to warn us of the danger of being out on deck, but then the crew clearly have their orders to be neither seen nor heard.
I make it back to my cabin and, even though I was under cover for most of the way, I feel like I’ve just walked through a carwash. My clothes are so drenched I have to wring them out in the sink before I warm up with a shower.
I’ve had my closure tonight. Ade said the exact thing I wanted to hear, yet it’s only made me more worried for him.
I’ve been robbed of the idea that his superstar life was perfect; the reality is far bleaker.
He’s like Robinson Crusoe out here, and now even his Man Friday has gone.
He’ll go on tour again before long, but nothing he said made it sound like that’s a better option.
There’s a lump in the middle of my chest as I lie down and think about the channel of sadness that runs through my friend’s life.
Ade may well be the most eligible man on the planet, but I get the sense that he can’t trust a single person.
Maybe that’s why he’s desperate to relive our student days.
Perhaps he feels that people who knew him before all this might understand – the ones who were around before the private helicopters and all that bloody teak.
Assuming we don’t sink in the night, I will do all I can to help him.
I’m in that happy space, between the waking world and whatever we get a glimpse of in our dreams, when angry knocking pulls me back out again.
“Who is it?” I shout, but they obviously can’t hear me as the sound continues.
I force myself to roll out of bed and grab the kimono, as if my blue pyjamas that say Anyone for a nightcap? are so revealing that I have to cover up.
The knock, knock, knock has become a bang, bang, bang and, when I open the door, I see Tom’s haggard face looking back at me.
“Is she here?” he demands.
His insistent tone hits me as the rain runs from his hair in a seemingly endless stream. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“It’s Sasha. She’s gone.”