He had to admit he was almost happy. It was nice and private, and there was even a respectably large LCD television in the room, already switched on and displaying information about the ship. According to the text on screen, the Spirit of Kirkpatrick weighed 40 Tonnes and was powered by two Sulzer LB66 diesel engines. Its top speed was 22mph, which seemed slow compared to other methods of travel. Many more facts and figures also popped up on screen, but they weren’t interesting enough to prevent Jack from turning off the set with the small black remote he found on the bedside table.
The bed itself was what truly interested him. It was a double and looked indulgently comfortable. He intended to spend at least the next twelve hours there. Even before he had boarded a plane at 8AM, flying two-and-a-half-hours from Birmingham Airport before taking a forty-minute coach ride from Palma airport, he had been weary. Two years now since he’d last slept through the night, and he was hoping with every scrap of soul that if he could gain anything from his enforced holiday, it would be a small amount of sleep. He didn’t hold up much hope, though. Even now, as tired as he was, he knew the nightmares would not let him sleep. All he wanted was to get through the week as easily as possible. No thrills, no excitement, no anything. Then he would go back to the miserable life he was used to. The life he was already missing, for it was his.
Ironically, despite everything he had just thought, Jack fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Day 2
Jack awoke with a start. The fuzziness, that filled his head and covered the back of his eyelids, was a feeling he’d not experienced for some time. It was the feeling of a deep sleep being exited. It must have been a very deep and embracing slumber because it had somehow left him feeling more exhausted than rested. His throat was dry and sore.
He sat up in bed, blinking his eyes. The room was dark, all light from the cabin’s porthole blocked by a thick curtain. There was an alarm clock on the bedside table, shaped like a cube, and it displayed the time in glowing red numerals. It read: 14:00.
He had slept for twenty-four hours.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Jack pulled back the duvet and dumped his sweating feet onto the floor. He stood up and shimmied around the edge of the bed carefully, mindful of the darkness of an unfamiliar room. The main light was likely by the cabin’s exit, so he headed over there now. In the dark, his probing fingers eventually found a set of knobs and he turned on the light.
The room lit up and everything came into colour. Jack’s eyes were still fuzzy, and the sudden onslaught of light made them ache. His luggage lay sprawled against the wardrobe door and must have been what had woken him. It probably tipped over when the ship crested a high wave. As if to confirm his suspicions, the ship listed suddenly and the luggage bumped against the wardrobe doors with a bang!
With the mystery solved, Jack stretched his arms above his head and let out a long, overdue yawn. He had to admit he felt better, almost as though a storm cloud had lifted from his mind. The world’s colours and smells had become more lucid. If not anything else, then at least the cruise had given him a brief respite from insomnia. Maybe his bosses at the police force had been right about him needing a change of scenery in order to relax. Who’d have thought it?
He pulled aside the curtain separating the bedroom from the lounge and padded over to the porthole. Outside, a lifeboat obscured his view to the left, but he could see the Promenade Deck beyond and the blue-green Mediterranean Sea stretching out in the distance. The water was vast and endless, every inch of it shifting and rolling with a life of its own. Jack knew little of the ship’s itinerary, but he supposed that today would be a day at sea. Which meant all the passengers would be onboard, reducing the amount of area for some quiet time. Hopefully tomorrow they would hit the coast of France and the passengers would disembark.
Something struck the porthole.
Jack leapt back, his breath catching in his throat. He ended up laughing to himself, though, when he realised it was just a seagull, come to perch on the ledge. The mottled bird stared in at him with beady black eyes, then flew away to pursue adventures elsewhere. Maybe he was just trying to tell Jack that waking up at 2PM was unacceptable, even for a grown man on vacation.
Jack let out one final yawn and decided he would indulge his sleepiness no more. A shower was the next order of business. The small bathroom was cooler than the rest of the cabin and a breeze seemed to enter from somewhere and skim across the tiles. Jack hadn’t unpacked his things yet, so he was pleased to see that, with the exception of a toothbrush, everything he needed was supplied. There was soap and shampoo in the shower cubicle and a roll of non-branded toothpaste sitting in a glass jar at the rear of the sink. He reached over into the shower and twisted the knob jutting out from the wall and the showerhead immediately hissed, a freezing cold jet of water coming out of it. Jack yanked his arm back and tried to keep from cursing. His temper was part of the reason he’d been sent on the cruise in the first place, so he intended to try and gain some control over it if he could.
After a few minutes went by, during which the use of the toilet had become necessary, Jack reached back into the shower to test the water. It was warmer now, so he stripped off his clothes and stepped inside. The soothing heat immediately caressed his body and made him shudder. It lulled him back into a sleepy daze, so he turned the temperature down a little and made the water lukewarm, cold enough to bring back his focus. He took a few minutes to wash his aging body, getting soap into places he had forgotten he had. Then, once clean and sufficiently refreshed, he turned the shower off, stepped out carefully, and dried himself with one of the plump towels provided.
He crept, naked, back into the bedroom, where his clean clothes were still in his luggage. He hoisted his bag up onto the bed and pulled out a pair of long khaki shorts and a nondescript red t-shirt. For footwear, he chose a pair of white tennis pumps. Once dressed, he found himself reluctant to leave the room. Rather than exploring the ship, he could just as easily spend the day reading in bed and swigging from the unopened bottle of Glen Grant he had in his luggage. He’d prefer it, in fact, but it would be ungrateful seeing as he wasn’t the one paying for the holiday. Like it or not, he needed to make the best of things.
He grabbed one of the books out of his luggage – an Andy McNab Thriller – and prepared to leave. As he reached the door, he noticed that a piece of paper had been slipped underneath it. He bent down to pick it up and saw that it was the ship’s newsletter. Printed in cheap black ink, as though from a photocopier, it was headed by the day’s date – 14.10.2012 – and the name of the ship in bold, SPIRIT OF KIRKPATRICK. Jack scanned the page and saw that it was indeed a day at sea as he’d earlier surmised. The afternoon activities included, amongst other things, afternoon bingo, a five-a-side football tournament, an ice sculpting display, and an audience with a magician. The evening was scheduled with a production of Half a Sixpence followed by a comedian he’d never heard of. Jack didn’t fancy any of the activities, but when he looked at the lunch options he was pleased to see that there would be hotdogs served on the Lido deck at 3PM. His stomach rumbled at the thought of food, and rightly so. It’d been over twenty-four hours since he’d last eaten.
He folded the newsletter into a square and placed it in the pocket of his shorts. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
A pair of elevators lay a dozen yards ahead and Jack decided to choose a deck at random, pressing the buttons without really looking. His blind selection brought him out on the Broadway Deck. It was much brighter than B Deck, with natural light flooding in from an exit at one end of the corridor. Jack’s view of the opposite end of the corridor was obstructed by a large room-service cart crammed full of stripped bed sheets and pillowcases.
He decided to head for the exit, the glow of sunlight beckoning. Just before he got there, though, the floor rolled beneath his feet and sent him crashing against the wall. He swore loudly and was glad no one was around to hear
him. The rocking lasted five seconds or so and made his empty stomach churn terribly.
“God damn it.”
Once he was sure the rocking was over, Jack peeled himself away from the wall and carried on down the corridor towards the exit. He pushed open the heavy, glass door and stepped out onto the Promenade Deck, but was immediately forced back into the doorway when a pair of giggling boys hurtled past like Olympic sprinters. Jack was about to shout after them but stopped himself when he realised there was no point. The two boys were already disappearing around the corner.
Jack took a breath. Keep calm. Not worth it.
The boys turned a corner up ahead and disappeared from sight. Jack took in a lungful of sea air and forgot about them. The fresh, unpolluted oxygen soothed his nerves. The feeling of saltwater on his face was invigorating as he strolled to the railings and leaned over. His experiences of being aboard a boat were few, yet he was surprised to find that the rhythmic swaying of the water had a placating effect on him. Looking out across the Mediterranean, he felt completely alone, as if society and all its wretched ills were far far away. The sea was so calm that he almost felt the urge to jump in and disappear beneath its waves.
It could be finally be over.
Jack stepped back from the railing, unsettled by the urges his brain was sending him. While he’d contemplated suicide many times over the last two years, drowning was way down his list of ways to go. Struggling desperately for oxygen and swallowing lungfuls of stinging salt water was not a good death. No, if he were to ever kill himself, drowning would not be the way.
A little disorientated, he headed in the direction that the two boys had run in. It led him to the rear of the ship where the Lido Deck was located. It was a large, rectangular area spread over two tiers. On the bottom was a modest swimming pool inhabited mostly by children, while the top level seemed to be a sun deck full of sunbathers and chairs and tables. Jack chose to head for the latter.
When he got up there, he saw at least two-dozen people. Some lounged, while others sipped pints of beer and cocktails at the plastic tables. Jack’s fondness for alcohol made itself known as the thought of a scotch and coke made his stomach flutter. While his meals were paid for, his drinks were not, so he intended to take it easy, but with his lack of hobbies and not being a smoker, there would be enough in his bank account to go wild if he felt like it. Whether or not he did, however, would be the true test he faced this week. To get shitfaced, or not to get shitfaced, that was the question.
Jack wanted to read his book and enjoy what was left of the sun so he glanced around for a lounger. There were none free, of course, and it was hardly surprising considering the late hour. He was just about to resign himself to one of the hard-backed chairs, when somebody spoke to him.
“You can have this one.”
Jack looked down at the young woman. She was a teenager, with blonde curls framing a Nordic face. She was pointing to the lounger beside her and smiling.
“Isn’t it taken?” Jack enquired, nodding at the bright green beach towel that covered it.
“I haven’t seen anyone use it for hours. Someone must have forgotten their towel and left it here.”
Jack nodded his thanks and flung the ownerless green towel onto the deck before plonking himself down. He let out a sigh of pleasure as he eased into the backrest.
“The sun’s not that warm now,” the girl told him, “but it’s better than being in England.”
“Where abouts are you from?”
“I’m from Leeds. Can’t you tell by my accent?”
“It’s not that thick for a northerner.”
The girl laughed, her eyes seemed to sparkle and there was a glow about her. “Yours is pretty thick, though. Birmingham, right?”
“Good guess,” Jack admitted. “I try to hide it. Being a Brummie isn’t the most sophisticated thing in the world.”
“Neither is being a northerner.”
The conversation seemed to fade out then, as it often did between two strangers making polite chitchat. During the silence, an attractive brunette with striking, dark features came by to take their drink orders. Jack requested a cold beer, while Claire said she was good. He shuffled on the lounger until he was comfortable then opened the cover of his novel. Before he started to read, he gave his surroundings a cursory glance, more out of bored interest than anything else. An elderly couple kissed and cuddled nearby like lovers half their age. It was romantic in many ways, but Jack couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable all the same. Some things were better kept in private. Perhaps he was just jealous of not having someone to grow old with himself.
He turned his mind to other things and looked down at the pool below. The water was still crammed with splashing children. It now appeared that one of them – a young boy – had slipped while exiting the water. The boy’s mother was currently nursing an injury on his knee, rubbing at it vigorously, which only seemed to make him cry even harder.
“Were you in the army?”
Jack looked around and saw that the teenage girl was talking to him again. “Huh?”
“Were you in the army?” She pointed to the Andy McNab novel in his hands. “Your book looks like it’s about war.”
“It is, and, yes, I was in the army once. Six years in the Signals.”
“I bet you saw some nasty stuff. Were you in Iraq?”
“No. That was after my stretch. I was still in my twenties when I left the service. The army wasn’t really for me.”
“Don’t blame you. I wouldn’t be able to hack it, being screamed at all the time by some dickhead sergeant.”
Jack was silent.
“Oh God,” she said, putting a hand to her embarrassed face. “You were a sergeant, weren’t you?”
Jack allowed himself to laugh. “By the time I left I was, yes.”
“Sorry. What did you do when you left?”
“I joined the police force. Been an officer ever since.”
The girl’s eyes widened at that. People were always shocked when they found out they were talking to an off-duty police officer. It was as though they didn’t expect police officers to be actual human beings.
A third person arrived and stood between them. It was the lad Jack had seen the day before, queuing at the pier; the one with all of the lines and squiggles buzzed into his hair. He was currently topless and displaying a perfectly carved set of abs right in Jack’s face.
The lad tilted his head suspiciously. “How you doing, mate?”
“Good,” Jack replied. “I was just chatting to your friend…”
“Claire,” the girl on the sun lounger replied. She sounded a little nervous now.
“She’s my bird, not my friend.” The lad extended his hand out to Jack. “My name’s Conner. Who the hell are you?”
Jack ignored Conner’s offer of a handshake. “I’m Jack,” he said flatly.
“Jack was just telling me he’s a police officer,” Claire explained.
Conner took a step back, then crudely snorted back a wad of snot. He moved his attention to Claire, suddenly acting as if Jack had ceased to exist. “Come on, babes. They’re about to start serving hotdogs. The lads are already down there.”
“I’m not really hungry.”
Conner clicked his fingers in her face. “Get moving.”
Claire got up reluctantly and seemed to flash an awkward glance over at Jack. She reached down and pulled on a long t-shirt that covered her down to the knees. Then she shuffled into a pair of pink, jewelled flip-flops. She stepped up beside her boyfriend, ready to go.
Conner sneezed. Sneezed again.
Claire put the back of her hand against his forehead. “Your cold still bad?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m starting to feel well rough, innit. Steve and Mike have got it, too. We haven’t stopped sneezing for the last hour. That’s why I need you to stop lazing your fat ass about, so you can look after me.” He went in for a kiss but Claire dodged it.
“Don’t give it
to me, babe!” She planted a kiss on his forehead instead, before wrapping an arm around him. “I’ll look after you, honey. Let’s go get some hotdogs inside of you.”
“Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.
They both glanced down at Jack as they walked away; Claire with a warm smile on her face, Conner with an aggressive scowl. Jack kept his own expression plain. If the lad wanted to treat his girlfriend like shit then that was his business. She’d dump his sorry ass eventually.
He lay back and closed his eyes for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. Then the smell of cooking sausage meat wafted up onto the sun deck and he was powerless to resist his growling appetite. He closed his book and hoisted himself up off the lounger. He was so hungry he could eat a whole pig.
Heading down the steps back towards the Lido Deck, Jack couldn’t help but notice something a little bit odd. It appeared that Conner and his mates weren’t the only ones with colds. Several other passengers were sneezing and coughing, too. A nasty bug was obviously going around. Jack just hoped he didn’t catch it, too, but by the time he joined the queue for hotdogs, his only thoughts were about food.
***
The hotdogs had been good and plentiful, and once Jack had filled his belly with three or four, he decided to explore the ship. He was surprised to find out that there was a sports deck and casino. His initial plan was to find somewhere peaceful to read his book, but somehow he’d found himself unable to settle anywhere in particular. He visited the ship’s five bars, speaking briefly to Joma at the Voyager’s Lounge and ordering a double bourbon whisky at an American-style pub called Columbia.
He’d eventually ended up at a place called High Spirits and that was where he was now. The barroom was immediately next to the sun deck, but it was also, more importantly, right above the Lido Restaurant where they served a twenty-four hour buffet. It would not be long before he wanted to eat again, and when he did all he would have to do was descend a short flight of stairs to find a wide array of snacks waiting for him. Drinks upstairs and food below. Perfect.
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