by Nicci Cloke
A Party Boat rep picks me up from the sand. ‘Time to go,’ he says, and I pout at him. ‘There’s cocktails on board,’ he says, and when I skip in the direction of the boat, he pats me on the bum. I link my arm through Logan’s and we join the queue.
‘Is it late?’ I ask. ‘It feels late.’
‘It’s just the start,’ Logan says, and he laughs.
The queue is long and the people in it don’t really want to get on the boat at all.
‘Hey, that’s Nate,’ Logan says, and I look up and see the crowd in front of us moving, pushing. People are shouting.
Logan tugs me forward and then Rachel is there, a hand over her mouth. ‘That guy is a dick,’ she says, and I tell her no, but then I see where she is looking.
The guy in the vest top from the woods before is pushed up close to Nate, getting right in his face. He’s saying something but it’s dark and people are pushing and I can’t see.
‘Oi!’ Zack’s voice is loud enough for everyone to hear. He puts a hand on the guy’s shoulder, pulls him away. ‘Leave it out, yeah? Everyone’s having a good time, no need, eh?’
The guy looks at him. ‘Fuck you,’ he says, and he shoves Zack, hard, so that Zack stumbles into Rachel and me. People around us laugh and the guy is gone.
The queue starts to move again and I tell everyone who will listen that there shouldn’t be fighting. There’s no need for fighting.
We’re all having a good time.
WE’RE BACK ON the boat, its lights flickering across the black water. The stars are out and the moon is big and yellow and cheese. Everyone is my friend and I have so much to say. I dance with the stag party and I wander around the deck, saying things to people and looking up at the stars and the big yellow moon. The music pulses through my feet and a breeze drifts in from the water and lifts my hair from my face. I can’t stop smiling.
I’m downstairs, sitting in a cosy little knot with my boys again, with my boys and with Ness, all of us slumped on beanbags and playing Twenty-One, which is supposed to be the easiest drinking game of all but somehow all the numbers are getting muddled up in my head and I keep saying the wrong one or speaking when it’s not my turn and I can’t stop laughing and everyone else is laughing too and I have to drink, drink, drink. I rest my head on JB’s shoulder and he smells of aftershave and barbecue and ouzo and everything feels so nice.
Time jumps again and I’m back up on the deck, with a drink I don’t remember getting. I’m on the other side of the boat to the dance floor and it’s quiet here, no flashing disco lights or Party Boat reps with water guns. There are two boys leaning over the railing, but they’re too far away and it’s too dark for me to make out their faces. One of them is being sick over the side while the other rubs his back. I want to help but I can’t seem to make my legs do what I want them to, and before I can, they’re gone.
I am dancing, whirling, my glass is empty but people offer me theirs, people pour bottles into my open mouth. I spin round and round and the lights hit their eyes as they watch me. Hands touch mine and touch me and everyone is laughing, I’m laughing. The beach gets closer and closer.
‘IS SHE OK?’
I turn onto my side, trying to burrow back into sleep. I’m dreaming that I’m walking across a bog, my feet sinking. I don’t know why but I know I need to get to a ruined cottage on the other side. The bog is full of weeds, but when I look down I see they’re hands, pale and grey, stretching out of the mud with their fingers curling.
But one is attached to me. Its fingers lock on me and I know it’s going to drag me down with it, suck me into the ground.
‘Hello? You all right, mate?’
Hang on.
The voice is not a dream.
The hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me, is not a dream.
It all comes to me gradually; the sun on my skin, the sand underneath me. The pain in my head. The slow, horrible wave of dread rising up inside me.
I open my eyes.
I’m on the beach.
The weirdest thing is that at first I feel relieved. I’m just on the beach, I’ve just fallen asleep. That’s embarrassing but it’s OK.
But then, my stomach dropping, I take in the fact that it’s daytime, not night – and that there are two guys I don’t recognise leaning over me.
And my dress is up around my waist.
I sit up, scrambling to cover myself. The two guys back off immediately, their eyes wide and concerned. They’re a bit older than me, but not much, both of them in swimming shorts, one with a cap on and the other with long, shaggy hair.
‘You all right, mate?’ the one with the cap says again. Scouse.
‘Bit of a heavy night?’ the other one asks, offering me a bottle of water.
I look around, frantically trying to piece everything together. We were on the boat. We were on the boat. Then what?
‘What time is it?’ I ask, my voice coming out all scratchy and slurred.
‘Nine, mate. Do you want us to walk you somewhere? Where you staying?’
Where are my friends?
I feel terrible, my stomach churning, the first scrabbles of panic in my chest. ‘I’m OK,’ I say, standing up and wobbling. Where’s my bag?
‘This yours?’ The guy with the cap picks up my little blue handbag, brushing the sand off it. It’s all squashed; I must have slept on it.
‘Thanks.’ I take it and I notice that my hands are shaking. I still feel drunk; hammered really. Nothing seems real.
My phone is still in my bag but the battery’s dead. There’s a creased-up receipt but no sign of any of the euro notes I remember putting in there. I look around again. There’s the boat, docked where it was yesterday, the shutters on the ticket office being pushed up by a guy in Hawaiian shorts. On the deck, someone else is mopping. The boat shines in the sun.
Where are my friends?
‘Seriously, you OK?’ The boys are still standing in front of me, looking at me. ‘You want some money for a cab or something?’
I need to get away from here. I need to get away from these feelings, this panic. I need to be back with my boys, for this to be over and done and just a thing we can all laugh about round the pool.
‘I’m all right,’ I say, because if I say it out loud, if I say it enough, it’ll surely be true. I turn around before they can say anything else. I walk as confidently as I can towards the road, but my legs are wobbly and the toe post of one of my flip-flops has worked itself loose, the strap baggy and too big to hold my foot.
I make it to the edge of the beach, a patch of spiky bushes with bottles and plastic bags marooned between their fronds, before I throw up.
WHEN I GET back to the hotel, the building swims in front of me. My stomach feels empty and raw and everything seems distant, like I’m watching myself walk towards the automatic doors in a film or a computer game. Nothing seems real apart from the feeling that I might be sick again.
I shuffle past the reception desk, my broken flip-flop clacking against the tiles. The cleaner has just bleached the floor and the smell burns the back of my throat. I feel like the receptionists are looking at me funny.
They must see people in some pretty awful states round here. But they’re looking at me.
The first time I get a glimpse of myself is in the lift, its fingerprinted metal walls and the big mirror at the back reflecting my face, over and over. My eyes are wide and intense, make-up smudged under them but mostly dissolved – sweat and sea spray from the boat, the hours wiping it all away. I’m pale but also sunburnt, random patches of red blotchy against the rest of my sickly, sweaty skin.
All of this is far away.
All of this is just background noise while somewhere inside my head is a voice I can’t shut up: What happened?
What happened what happened what happened
I’m not ready to answer that voice, not ready to realise that I don’t have the answers, and so I keep looking at my face. I look at the sunburn around my hairline, the stick
y patch of something matted near one ear. I look down at my hands and see the torn nail, the usual night-out mystery crud underneath the others, the stamp from the boat fading on the inside of my wrist. I wait for the lift to ping.
The doors slide open on the third floor and the bleach smell is still there. I am still here.
My flip-flop finally gives out halfway up the corridor, the strap popping free. Sole left behind. I scoop it up and carry it the rest of the way. There’s a fresh stain on the wall outside our apartment; a brownish spray near the floor. Someone dropped a kebab or a burger, I guess, sauce and grease splashing up. The food, whatever it was, has been removed by the cleaners but the marks are still there. Something to remember us by.
I feel in my bag again, afraid that I imagined it the first time. But no, my key, with its little plastic tag, is still there, jangling around with a lone euro. I slot it into the door and, for a minute, I just stand there.
Then I hear someone laughing inside.
And I remember.
I remember that I just woke up on my own on the beach and I am angry.
Angry feels a lot better.
I storm into the apartment, barely registering that Dev, Logan and Zack are sitting in the main room. I let the rage take over. I let it spill out and splatter.
‘What. The. Fuck, you guys? Where the fuck were you?’
Dev, who looks like he was about to laugh when I came in, and is still not sure whether he should, gapes at me. Logan looks bewildered.
But Zack? Zack just jumps right in.
‘Here she is, boys,’ he says, grinning at me. ‘Look what the cat dragged in, eh? Who was the lucky boy, Hopey? You were a right handful last night.’
I stare at him, too sick to process his words properly. ‘You left me,’ I say. ‘You all left me.’
Logan stands up. ‘Left you where?’
‘I don’t know!’ I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Breathe.
Breathe.
‘I woke up on the beach,’ I say, trying to keep my voice normal and low. ‘And none of you were there. I can’t –’ I’m too afraid to admit what I can’t; what is still missing.
‘Shit, Hope, you OK?’ Dev comes towards me, a T-shirt flung over his bare shoulder, shorts chilli-sauce-stained. ‘I’m sorry, I was messed up.’
‘You guys left me,’ I say again, without meaning to. It’s all I can say. I say it again because anger felt better and I’m scared of feeling scared. ‘You left me. What the hell?’
‘What’s your problem, Hope?’ Zack says, both hands held palm out, like Whoa whoa. Relax. ‘You’re on a lads’ holiday, you want to be one of the lads. We’re not gonna babysit you.’
I stare at him. My stomach twists and dips and all I can think about is that boy shaking me awake. The way I sat up and expected it all to still be there: the boat, the music. My friends.
‘You left me,’ I say, because those are the only words I have. And then I turn and walk away.
I slam into the bedroom, yanking the flimsy door closed behind me. I still can’t quite catch my breath and fear is flickering in my chest, tiny wings beating against my ribs. I sit down on the bed, the thin sheet still rumpled from where one of the boys slept in it last night. They noticed my bed was empty but only for long enough to steal it. My head is pounding, an actual pulsing pain at my temples, and my mouth is sour and dry. I take another mental inventory of my body. Feet dirty, a small cut from my flip-flops between my toes, but otherwise OK. A bruise on my shin and a sticky splash mark on one calf which I hope is some kind of cocktail and not puke this time.
I feel like heaving again. Up, up, up. My thighs feel stiff, maybe, but that could be from the dancing?
The hem of my dress is a little torn. I try not to think of the way it had ridden up, right up, over my hip, when I woke up on the beach.
There’s a knock on the door; gentle, three little taps.
When I don’t respond, it creaks open a little.
‘Hope?’ Logan. He pokes his head into the room. ‘Can I come in?’
I shrug. I still don’t have the words.
He comes in and sinks down onto the edge of the other bed, where the pillow has a yellow dribble stain on it. What looks like ketchup is smudged across the sheet. He leans forward, resting his elbows near his knees, and looks at me. ‘I’m really sorry about last night,’ he says. ‘I was wasted. No way I’d have gone home if I’d known you weren’t with the others.’
I try to swallow but my throat feels sore. I still don’t feel like I’m getting quite enough air.
‘It’s OK,’ I hear myself saying. ‘Everyone was a mess.’
‘It’s not all right,’ he says, frowning. ‘We’re your mates. We should’ve been looking out for you.’
I have to turn away because the tightness in my chest, the fluttering panic, has solidified into a terrible pressure, a pressure I’m suddenly sure is tears.
‘You OK?’
I pick up one of my T-shirts from the floor, fold it and then, not really sure where to put it, I just hold it and look out of the window at the pool below.
‘Hope, your arm’s bleeding.’
I glance down and notice that my hands are still shaking, just a little bit. I need to eat something. Drink some water. Lie down maybe.
I stand there, still staring at my arms.
What happened what happened what happened
‘Here.’ He stands up and comes closer, tentative like I’m a tiger in a zoo. ‘Your elbow, see?’
I turn my arm, see a smear of drying red, sand stuck in it like glitter.
‘You should wash it,’ Logan says, reaching out as if he might touch me. He seems to change his mind when he sees my face.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. I drop the folded T-shirt into my case and turn away again. ‘So what’s going on today?’
‘Hope.’
I can’t. I can’t look at him.
‘Did something happen?’
I pick up a towel from the wooden chair by the window. ‘God, I feel like shit,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna get in the shower.’
I can’t look at him.
You might think that I still want to remember. That I lie awake at night and try and try to conjure those missing pieces. That word you whispered or the moment your hand closed around my arm.
But I don’t. Not any more. Those memories can just be yours.
You can keep them safe.
You can let them fester.
I’LL NEVER FORGET the way she looked that day. The way she looked at all of us. The way, when it was just the two of us alone in that room, she couldn’t look at me.
When she said she wanted to have a shower, I just nodded.
God, I’m ashamed of that now.
When I went back into the living room, the others were quiet. Except for Zack, who was acting like nothing was wrong – and doing it loudly.
‘Right, it’s our last night, boys,’ he was saying, boiling the kettle but then checking the fridge and taking out beers. ‘What’s everyone want to do?’
‘Who was with her last?’ Nate asked, ignoring Zack. ‘JB?’
JB shook his head. ‘I … I wasn’t with any of you. I was chatting to some people and couldn’t find you so I went to the strip with them. I thought maybe I’d bump into you lot there.’
‘I was with her for a bit,’ Dev said. He was looking down at his hands, like he didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. ‘Me and Ness, we got off the boat with her. But I’d left my phone in that beanbag bit so I went back on to get it – and then I went home with Lucy.’ He looked up then and grinned.
‘For fucksake,’ Nate said. ‘This doesn’t make any sense. We were all right there. How did no one see her?’
‘Oh, bore off,’ Zack said, putting beers down on the table. ‘You couldn’t see six fucking inches in front of your face last night, Nate-Dogg. This isn’t some kind of murder mystery. Hope got absolutely twatted and fell asleep on the beach. Boo-hoo. Why are we even still talking about
it?’
I didn’t say anything.
And yes, I’m ashamed of that now too.
WHEN HOPE CAME out of the bathroom, she went into the bedroom without saying anything – without even glancing in our direction. I wanted to go in there again. But also I didn’t.
Dev glanced at his phone and then stood up. ‘I’m going to meet Lucy,’ he said.
Zack gave him a wolf-howl, which was exactly what he wanted.
‘You guys can come if you want,’ Dev said. ‘We’re going for food down the Red Lion – you know that place at the end of the strip? They’re showing the new Jack Reacher this afternoon, rooftop cinema thing.’ He glanced at me and then at the closed bedroom door. ‘I mean, if you want to.’
‘Nah, you go,’ Zack said, even though I could tell everyone was thinking it was tempting. ‘We won’t crash your date, Dev-Dogg. You gotta meet us later though – last night on tour!’
Dev nodded and then left. The bedroom was still silent.
‘Well, we’ll go down the pool after these,’ Zack said, looking at his beer. He was the only one who’d started drinking his. ‘No point sitting around in here all day, eh?’
He stared at me hard until I took a sip of mine. The fridge was broken and it was warm and tasted metallic in my mouth, like blood. I put it back down on the table.
JB glanced at the bedroom door. ‘Maybe I should …’
But before he could finish his sentence, the door opened and Hope came out in shorts and a T-shirt, her wet hair combed back from her face.
‘Beer, Novak?’ Zack asked her. ‘Hair of the dog?’
I expected her to tell him where to go. But she just took the beer and sat down.
‘Thought we’d go down to the pool after this,’ Zack said.
Hope took a swig of her beer. ‘Cool.’
‘Hope, we’re really sorry –’ Nate started, but Hope just cut him off.
‘It’s fine.’ She took another, longer drink of her beer. She’d cleaned the sand from the graze on her arm and there was a plaster on one of her feet too. ‘So, what’s the plan for tonight?’