Blood Cruise

by Mats Strandberg

  She grabs another towel, the perfect level of rough, and rubs herself dry. The intro to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ starts playing on the other side of the door. Madde smiles and throws the towel on the floor. How many times have the two of them listened to this song? It was one of the first albums Madde bought: they lived on Solgatan in Boden, they had just started fourth grade and they had just discovered makeup. Zandra still spelled her name with an S; they were both in love with Jon Bon Jovi and they both thought the song was about living on a prairie.

  Zandra opens the door without knocking and hands her a bottle of super-strength beer. ‘I saw those four Italian guys again,’ she says. ‘In the tax-free. God, they’re so fit, even though they’re so short.’

  ‘If they’re too small, just grab ’em all,’ Madde says, and takes a swig from her bottle. After the sweet strawberry cocktails at the terminal the beer tastes bitter and boozy.

  ‘So long as they’re not too small where it counts,’ Zandra replies, and holds out her own bottle. ‘Cheers, you old slut.’

  ‘Cheers, you toothless slag.’

  The bottles clink and Madde pours more beer down her throat.

  ‘I’m, like, drunk already,’ Zandra says, leaning against the doorpost.

  ‘Then slow it down. We have to last all night.’

  ‘We will, don’t worry. We’re not that old.’

  ‘No, but you know how it goes sometimes,’ Madde says, and puts deodorant under her arms. ‘We don’t want to peak too soon.’

  ‘Sure thing, Mum,’ Zandra replies with a grin.

  ‘Oh my God, I need to have fun tonight. Otherwise I’ll go out of my mind.’

  ‘You know we’re going to have fun. We always do, right?’

  Madde starts rubbing on body lotion. The specks of gold in it make her skin shimmer faintly.

  Zandra disappears from the doorway and Madde turns to the mirror. Her reflection slowly emerges from the glass, like a ghost out of mist. She takes a few more swigs of beer. The glugging of the bottle is very satisfying. The roar of the hairdryer drowns out the music, but she still sings along while the smell of conditioner and warm hair fills the cramped space. She sprays her blonde curls into place, finishing them off with a second spray that also contains gold glitter, until it looks like her hair is made of spun gold. She does her makeup as quickly as she is able. She kills the bottle once her eye shadow is in place. She has already started sweating again after the shower.

  ‘I need a smoke,’ Zandra calls.

  ‘Me too,’ Madde says. ‘I’ll be done in a second.’

  ‘Hurry up. I’m going stir-crazy just sitting here staring at the walls.’

  Madde refrains from reminding Zandra that she was the one who booked a cabin with no window. Their cabin is on deck nine, off the central hallway. A tiny shoe box, jammed in between other shoe boxes. But Zandra had pointed out that the only time they would be in their cabin was when they were sleeping. If then. And Madde had reminded herself that she had to get better at saving, on account of the thing she isn’t supposed to be thinking tonight.

  ‘Go on ahead if it’s so bloody awful,’ Madde calls, and studies her face in the mirror.

  Every part of her glints and sparkles. The soon-to-be-unemployed admin assistant has been completely erased.

  When she steps out into the cabin she bursts out laughing. Zandra has put up a string of bright plastic flowers around the mirror by the desk. Inside each flower is a little light.

  ‘You’ve made it so pretty,’ she says.

  Zandra turns the TV on. Switches channels until they can see the Club Charisma dance floor. Still empty. But not for long. Madde feels a fluttering of anticipation.

  ‘Here,’ Zandra says and hands her a shot of Minttu.

  The smell of mint in Madde’s nostrils is refreshing.

  ‘Cheers to tonight,’ Zandra intones solemnly. ‘May it end any which way.’

  ‘Any which way!’ Madde echoes, and downs the shot.

  The cruise is officially under way.

  She squats down next to her suitcase, rummages through the clothes inside and pulls out her short black dress, which is so transparent it is barely there.

  When she is dressed and has put in her big gold hoop earrings, she sprays a dense cloud of perfume in the air in front of her and does a little pirouette to help the scent get to every part of her. Zandra coughs theatrically.

  ‘How do I look?’ Madde asks.

  ‘Fat but hot,’ Zandra replies, and disconnects the speaker from her phone. ‘Just like me. Now let’s go.’

  Madde stuffs the essential makeup things into her purse. Zandra wraps her feather boa around her neck and adjusts her tits in her bra. They step into the corridor. The door proves difficult; it refuses to lock until they slam it shut with a loud bang. An old man who is closing the door to his own cabin studies them, amused. His eyes wander up and down their bodies.

  ‘Did you forget to put clothes on, girls?’ he says slimily.

  ‘No,’ Madde replies. ‘We forgot to take them off.’

  Zandra giggles and takes her hand.

  Marianne

  Marianne reaches the eighth floor and steps into a spacious hallway with floor-to-ceiling windows running along its left-hand side. The lighting is warm and not too bright. It is flattering to the people moving about. A young couple passes, hand in hand, beaming with infatuation. A group of women her own age laugh loudly. Marianne walks on. Passes Poseidon, a restaurant with white linen tablecloths. She walks past a café and a pub, turns around and spots the restaurant she has been looking for at the end of the hallway, right next to the stairs she just came up. Charisma Buffet’s large, smoked-glass doors are open. But no Göran. Didn’t they say to meet outside?

  Marianne takes up position by the windows. The dusk has sucked the last juicy morsel out of the dying day. She pretends to gaze out across the water, but in reality she is studying her spectral reflection. She could really do with a glass of wine. She runs her fingers through her hair. Sniffs her wrist discreetly and wonders whether she poured on too much perfume before leaving her cabin.

  People pass behind her; she studies them in the window. Everyone seems to know exactly what they want, where to go. She has no idea.

  She runs her fingers through her hair again, suddenly feeling a creeping sense of unease, like ants under the skin of her back. She realises she feels watched. Marianne furtively glances this way and that. No sign of Göran. But the feeling is growing more intense. She becomes aware of the piano music trickling out from Poseidon. Vaguely Irish rock music from the pub.

  Further down the hallway, a couple of dishevelled old men have parked themselves in front of some kind of games machines with large screens. Beyond them, in a little booth, she spots the woman who took their picture when they boarded. Marianne peers into the pub, which is depressingly dark. There are shamrocks on the mirrors behind the bar, adverts for the kind of dark beers that taste like wet bread. A green neon sign informs her the place is called McCharisma. The clientele is predominantly male, and none of the guests is Göran. The only woman is sitting at the far back. Her hair is dark, dull. She has wrapped a cardigan around her and looks cold. Despite the gloom, the furrows underneath her heavy makeup are clearly visible. Her eyes lie in shadow. A glass of beer sits untouched on the table in front of her.

  The ants under Marianne’s skin multiply and march up to her scalp. Suddenly she is sure the woman in the pub is the one watching her.

  There is something about the woman’s face: something wrong. It’s not as it should be.

  It must be a trick of the light, she tells herself. The unfortunate makeup reminds Marianne of that old film with Bette Davis. And why would she be sitting there staring at me, of all people?

  Two men with babies strapped to their chests pass her. Marianne glances at the infants, the plump cheeks, the kicking legs, the happy, toothless mouths.

  ‘There you are! My little mint sweet!’

  Göran is hur
rying towards her. He takes her by the arm like it is the most natural thing in the world and leads her to the buffet restaurant. She shoots McCharisma one last look. The woman is studying the table top. Her hair is hiding her face. Now all Marianne sees is a vaguely tragic character, alone. Not unlike herself.

  Göran’s friends are waiting outside Charisma Buffet. The man behind the pulpit inside the glass doors gives them a business-like smile and shows them where their table is located on a stencilled seating chart.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Göran asks as they proceed inside.

  The wall of voices and clattering cutlery nearly overwhelms Marianne, as though she is on the brink of dissolving into atoms and disappearing. She realises she has to give Göran some kind of answer. The smell of warm food fills her nostrils. She nods. And then she spots the buffet tables. Row after row of different dishes.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ she hears herself exclaim. ‘Where do you even start?’

  Göran chuckles, pleased by her surprise. She looks at him and is unexpectedly struck by the crazy notion that by the time they disembark, she might be in love.

  Calle

  Unobtrusive piano versions of Frank Sinatra hits provide the acoustic backdrop at Poseidon. There are only a few guests, and it is still early enough for most of them to be talking quietly.

  Calle and Vincent’s eyes meet across the enormous shellfish platter that has just been set down on the white tablecloth: a mountain of lobster, langoustine, crayfish, fresh prawn, smoked prawn, clams and crab claws on glittering ice.

  ‘Bon appétit!’ says the server, whose gel-infused spiky hair has been meticulously combed every which way.

  ‘This is actually kind of sick,’ Vincent opines with a laugh once they are alone again.

  ‘I told you,’ Calle says, and raises his champagne flute. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Yes,’ Vincent replies, ‘cheers to me finally seeing this part of your life.’

  They both sip their drinks. Calle is so nervous he can barely get his down. He looks at his hand, surprised it is steady.

  He was on the brink of outright panic when they changed for dinner. He stared at the outfits he had packed. Whatever happens, they are both going to remember tonight, and he wants to look as good as possible in Vincent’s memories. He settled on a black jacket and a white T-shirt, his oxblood Dr Martens.

  ‘So how does it feel to be back?’ Vincent asks. ‘Does it look the same?’

  Calle nods. It does. When they boarded, the smells that somehow always clung to the ship hit him. The sweet, sickly hangovers and old beer, the vinegary carpet cleaner. It was like being thrown eight years back in time. But it wasn’t just the memories from the Charisma that resurfaced, it was the memory of who he was back then. He hadn’t seen that coming. That was when he realised this might not be such a good idea after all.

  ‘It’s a lot more run-down,’ he says. ‘And there are fewer people. I guess the Charisma’s not quite keeping up with the competition these days. The new ships are bigger and have more bling.’ He tries to sound casual, but he had been sad to see the wear and tear. Or maybe he was simply seeing her with fresh eyes.

  ‘Our suite’s pretty damn swanky, though,’ Vincent says with a grin.

  ‘That’s because it’s almost always empty,’ Calle replies. ‘Not a lot of people are eager to spend that much for one night on a cruiseferry.’

  ‘How much is it then?’

  ‘No idea. Filip sorted me out with a discount.’

  Filip, who might be in the suite with Pia right now.

  He watches Vincent reach for a crab claw and break it open.

  ‘Are you not having anything?’ Vincent says, and dips the meat in aioli before shoving it in his mouth.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Calle says, doing his best imitation of someone who is not about to have a nervous breakdown. ‘I’m just not that hungry.’

  ‘You can’t leave me with all this,’ Vincent says.

  Calle picks up a prawn and clumsily peels it. It tastes rubbery; he focuses on chewing.

  ‘It’s so gorgeous out there it’s almost ridiculous,’ Vincent says, gazing out of the window. ‘We have to go outside and have a look later.’

  The skerries are darker shadows in the blue-tinted gloom. Here and there, lights twinkle between the trees. Calle murmurs agreement, studying Vincent’s profile: his slightly bumpy nose, his dark hair, his superhero chin. His moustache accentuates the full middle part of his lips. The blue of his eyes always seems to shift with the light, just like water. His face is so alive. How many times has he looked at Vincent and felt like it is the first time he sees him?

  ‘It’s hard to believe the Baltic is so polluted when you see it like this,’ Vincent says.

  ‘Yes,’ Calle agrees and stares at the shellfish, none of them fished from the waters outside the window. ‘If Poseidon were real he’d probably have moved away.’

  Vincent laughs, picks up a prawn and peels it.

  It has been five years since their first date and it took Calle a long time to get past the feeling of not deserving Vincent, not deserving that kind of blessing. They are settling into their new flat and every morning Calle wakes up in their bedroom with its tall white walls, wondering how it all came to be. It is still hard to believe sometimes that he and Vincent finally found their way home.

  And now he is about to ask for an even bigger blessing.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Vincent says.

  Calle shakes his head. ‘It’s just so weird being back on the Charisma.’

  He spots a woman wearing a security officer’s uniform approaching their table. Her dark hair is tied in a bun in exactly the same way as always. But there are grey roots in it now, which give the impression that it is thinning. Her uniform is a few sizes larger than last time he saw her. And she looks tired, despite the big smile on her face.

  ‘Calle!’ she says. ‘I heard tell you might be sailing with us today! It’s so good to see you!’

  Her voice sounds the same: raspy and warm and close to laughter. A voice with a magical ability to calm drunk and disorderly passengers. A voice that can take on a steely edge when required. How many laps around the promenade deck have they walked together, just talking, talking, talking?

  ‘Hi, you,’ he says, and gets to his feet. ‘You look the same.’

  ‘And you’re still a bad liar,’ she replies, giving him a warm hug. ‘But you look so handsome these days!’ Pia takes a step back, looking him up and down, then runs her hand over his shaved head and grins. ‘I think success suits you,’ she says. ‘And the beard does too.’

  ‘This is Vincent,’ Calle says. ‘My boyfriend.’

  Vincent gets up, shakes Pia’s hand. They eye each other curiously.

  ‘Sweet ink,’ she says, nodding to the tattoos covering his arms. Classic Japanese style but with Swedish motifs. Cloud-berries and elks. Salmon instead of koi.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ he says, sitting back down. ‘Maybe you can tell me about what Calle was like eight years ago?’

  ‘Lost,’ Calle says, too quickly, and smiles, too big.

  ‘He wasn’t that lost,’ Pia says. ‘They would have made him retail manager if he hadn’t quit.’ She looks almost proud as she says that.

  ‘Pia’s on-board security,’ Calle adds.

  ‘I gathered from the uniform,’ Vincent says with a smile. ‘So, good gig?’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘something’s keeping me here. I suppose it’s because I like the people I work with. Most of them anyway. There are almost two hundred crew members on the ship every time we set out.’

  Vincent gives a low whistle.

  ‘But the passengers’ll drive you insane,’ Pia continues. ‘Sometimes I feel like I’m working at a big playgroup for adults.’

  Vincent laughs. ‘Things look surprisingly serene to me,’ he says. ‘These boats are pretty infamous, after all.’

  ‘We’ll see how you feel when we’re closer to midnight,’ Pia says, looking at
Calle. ‘But it might be quite a calm night. It’s almost fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Fifty-fifty?’ Vincent asks. ‘Of what?’

  ‘It’s pretty common to have a disproportionate amount of men,’ Calle explains. ‘And that almost always means a lot of fighting.’

  ‘Yep. If they can’t get laid, they need something else to do,’ Pia says, and puts a hand on Calle’s shoulder. ‘But tell me, what do you actually do these days?’

  Calle looks at her and thinks what a good actor she is, but then he realises she really doesn’t know. They never got that far on the phone. They had mostly talked about Vincent, and about what Calle has come here to do.

  ‘I’m a landscape architect now,’ Calle replies.

  The title makes him hesitate; he still isn’t used to it. He feels like a fraud every morning when he steps into the plush office by Skanstull.

  ‘So you do flowers and stuff?’ Pia asks.

  ‘No, not quite,’ he says. ‘I guess you could say a landscape architect does the same kinds of things a normal architect does, apart from the actual buildings.’

  Something in his tone jars. Does he sound like he thinks he is better than her?

  ‘I see,’ she says slowly.

  ‘You design landscapes,’ he continues. ‘Everything from which trees to plant in a park to how to plan a city square …’

  ‘It never occurred to me that that’s someone’s job,’ Pia says.

  ‘Well, that’s not unusual – most people don’t realise,’ Calle says. ‘It’s the kind of job where, you know, if a landscape architect is good at their job, you never even notice.’

  He wonders if what he said makes any kind of sense, because he feels muddled.

  ‘That sounds really cool,’ Pia says. ‘I always knew you’d make something of yourself.’

  ‘And you? How are you?’ he asks to change the subject. ‘Your kids must be grown now.’

  ‘Twenty and twenty-one,’ she says.