Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Ryan waits for permission to answer, even though the ungrateful rock star was just screaming in his face and accusing him of murder.
When Ade turns away in apparent resignation, Ryan begins.
“I used to run an Adesina fansite and, because of that, I ended up writing a piece for a newspaper about the band’s fanbase.
His manager messaged me through the website to offer to set up an interview, and it was a dream come true.
I’d met Ade loads of times when the band were starting out, but not since he’d blown up.
There was a secret gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, so they gave me a backstage pass. ”
“And we did the interview and got on very well.” Ade still won’t look at anyone. “There’s really very little else to say.”
The pendulum swings, and now Ryan is the indignant one.
“But there is. Because after that, we went for a drink across town. We talked about the music we both loved and what inspired us. I left the pub on an absolute high. You had to make a call, and I ended up waiting for a taxi as a gang of drunk lads came over and started pushing and jabbing and calling me gay. I mean, we were in Soho, so it wasn’t exactly a stretch of the imagination that I might be.
They got nastier and more violent, and just when I was really starting to worry, you appeared, and I thought everything would be okay. ”
Ade’s lips are shaking as he breathes in and out.
He clamps them together, but he can’t hide his emotion entirely.
“I admit… I should have done more, and there’s no excuse.
” He looks across at the man he let down.
“That scummy little bunch of ratboys recognised me. When I stepped in to help Ryan, one of them whipped his phone out and filmed everything. His mate got right up in my face and went, ‘Are you like him too? Is this your little boyfriend?’”
He breathes slowly in and back out again.
“And because I was a total coward, I backed away and said, ‘Nah, mate,’ trying to sound cool like that. ‘Nah, mate. I barely know him.’ I watched as they pushed Ryan to the ground. If the bouncers hadn’t run over from the club across the road, it could have got really nasty, but I still wouldn’t have done anything to stop it because I cared more about the damage it could do to my reputation than I did for Ryan. ”
I can’t say what hearing this does to the man who lay frightened on the pavement, because he tamps down all the emotion and stares resolutely back at his former hero.
This isn’t enough for Ade; he needs to suffer his punishment a little more.
“The bouncers sent the boys packing. Ryan got into a taxi, and we didn’t see each other again until yesterday.
And afterwards, instead of trying to make it up to him in some way, I acted as if it had never happened.
” He turns to look at the rest of us. “It was the same with all of you. I could have been your friend. I could have held on to the people who mattered, but I did what was easiest and pretended not to care.”
Tom falls back onto the bed again. This isn’t his moment, and he’ll have to wait his turn.
Clara holds me tighter, like she’s praying for calm, and just when it seems that the discussion will die down, Jake returns to an earlier topic.
“That still doesn’t explain what you were thinking, Ade.” He keeps his voice low, but there’s a persistence to him that is out of character. “You haven’t told us why you let Ryan get on that helicopter if he wasn’t invited.”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” Ade replies.
“I remembered exactly what I did to Ryan, and when the driver called to tell me who had turned up at the airport, I thought it was fated. I thought he’d been sent here to help wash my slate clean.
But there’s a difference between wanting to make amends and actually doing it. ”
“That’s you all over, Okojie. You’re selfish.
” Tom is a yapping dog. He will make a lot of noise but achieve very little.
“You brought us out here for your own sake, and now people are dead. It wasn’t to give us little folk a holiday.
It was to make us so grateful that we’d have to forgive all the obnoxious stuff you’ve ever done. ”
This is when the whole thing falls apart. It’s unclear who’s accusing who of what, or whether anyone seriously believes that there’s a killer among us, but every man in that room is suddenly shouting as Clara puts her head in her hands.
“What you don’t understand…” Ade begins.
“This is the kind of…” Tom says at the exact same time.
“I never wanted…” Ryan complains as he turns away.
Jake is taking this seriously and wants us to know that “no one is paying attention to the most—”
“Enough!” I scream, because I suddenly hate every last one of them. “Sasha is missing, and Mick is dead; his body is just a few rooms away. So what good is arguing going to do us?”
I don’t know why, but this is what makes me start crying.
“Don’t attack one another when things are already bad enough.
” I’m aware that I sound terribly preachy, but then I’ve shut my mouth rather than stand up for my beliefs my whole life.
“Ade, we forgive you. We all forgive you. Now get over yourself and be a better person by using your millions to save the planet or looking for a cure for cancer instead of buying ridiculous toys like the monstrosity we’re floating on. ”
I sit here sobbing, which serves to make a bad situation just plain awkward. Everyone looks at me with pity in their eyes. Even poor little Clara looks sorry for me, when all I wanted was for people to stop shouting.
Jake still won’t give up on whatever he wanted to say. “Mick’s death could have triggered everything else, even if it was just an overdose.”
Tom huffs like a grumpy boar. “A minute ago, you said he might have been murdered. So now you’re suggesting that Sasha simply fell off the boat in the storm?”
My well-meaning ex-boyfriend closes his eyes for a moment and shakes his head. “No, I’m saying that, if you wanted to get rid of her, this was the perfect moment to do it.”
A roar goes up, and I have a feeling that Jake is about to get punched.
I don’t stay to find out what happens next.
I launch myself straight at the door. My eyes still blurry, I’ve forgotten that it slides open, and I almost bang straight into it.
I doubt that any dramatic exit in my life has gone to plan, so this hardly surprises me.
Outside, the wind bats me about to bring me back to my senses.
The air on deck feels like it’s laced with some exquisite fragrance.
Perhaps it’s the smell of the sea or the rain, but I breathe it in and feel more human.
I’m relieved to have escaped from all that anger, but the storm doesn’t want me to remain outside.
The front of the boat tips up at an unsettling angle and then drops dramatically down again.
I wipe a combination of saltwaters from my eyes and take the hint to chart the now familiar path back to my cabin.
My sobs sound louder inside my bedroom. They echo off the walls as if to taunt me, and I half consider pressing the button that opens up the wall onto the balcony.
The thought of lying on my bed with a front-row seat of the surging sea is both tempting and terrifying, but I have no desire to go sliding off the balcony to join Sasha on the ocean floor.
I also have no wish to be murdered, and consider going to sleep in the locked bathroom, but I figure it’ll be more bearable to put the mattress against the door.
At least that way, if there is a killer stalking about the place and they try to come in, I’ll hear and be able to retreat.
It weighs a ton, and I almost give up a couple of times, but I finally manage it.
Then I’m free to lie down on all the cushions and covers on the floor, like a kid having a sleepover.
I lie there, unable to believe the nightmare we’re in, but I know I won’t sleep, so I take the bottle of vodka from my bedside table and swallow all I can in four long chugs.
I never normally drink alone, but the oblivion it offers is too tempting.
It burns as it goes down, and it doesn’t taste how I was expecting, but it feels better than what came before.
I take my bedtime pills like a good girl, and that’s when I’m sure that something’s wrong.
The pain isn’t just in my throat but throughout my body.
I’m desperate for sleep, but it won’t come.
Instead, my heart feels like it’s running the hundred-metre sprint.
I swear it’s twice as fast as normal and, when I tell myself to get up and do something about it, my muscles don’t react.
My body is slow, but my brain is busier than ever.
I’m scared in a way I’m not used to. I miss everyone I love.
I miss Clara and Ade, and my mum back at home.
And somehow, most of all, I miss the boy that a major part of me still loves.
Jake’s only fifty metres away, but I can’t go to him.
My limbs feel impossibly heavy, and there’s nothing I can do to move them.
I spent the last ten years thinking that there was nothing good in my life, but now that I know I’m dying, I even miss my stupid job and my ugly office.
I miss the view from my window of the car park outside my flat.
I want to claw at my skin and thump my heart to make it work as it should, but all the synapses in my body have been disconnected.
I try to call Jake’s name, but I can’t make a sound.
I see him rushing through the door to save me, and for a half-second, I fail to realise that it’s only a fantasy.
My head swims, and for one heart-stopping moment, I’m Sasha fighting against the storm.
I can’t hold on to my thoughts long enough to know how I feel about them.
I see image after image – a flashing reel of incongruous scenes from my life before my eyes finally close and whatever I’ve just drunk does its worst.
No one is coming. No one knows I’m about to die. So I lie on the floor until the lights inside my head turn off one by one.