Dead Head

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘There you go, Caro,’ said a waiter, placing a fresh piña colada on her table and removing the empty glass. They shared a conversation where I learned that she knew most of the staff by first name and they all knew her.

  ‘Been coming on this ship a long time?’ I asked when he’d gone.

  ‘I never leave,’ she said. ‘I’ve been on here for eleven years.’

  ‘You live on the ship?’ She nodded, her wattles quivering. ‘Why?’

  ‘Can you think of a better place to live? All you can eat and drink, 24-hour entertainment, medical care, a new vista every morning.’

  ‘What about your home?’

  ‘This is my home.’

  ‘No, your house, your family?’

  ‘I don’t have any.’ She picked up her book from the table.

  I’m normally wary of older people in case they start having a stroke or need something wiped but this one looked safe-ish. Maybe I could become her companion, like the granddaughter of the old bag in Titanic. Cue the ‘It’s been 84 years’ GIF. My parasitical suckers twitched.

  ‘I’m Hilary,’ I said, remembering my Aussie accent and phasing it in. I read the cover of her book – The Countess’s Courtesan by Vaughan Dempsey-Newhall. ‘Why do you never get off the ship?’

  ‘I don’t need to,’ she replied. ‘There’s nothing to be seen that I haven’t seen a hundred times before. Things don’t tend to improve with age.’

  Maybe I could do that, I thought, cruise forevermore. Maybe the crew could become a family of sorts. But I remembered my tumbleweedy bank account and shot that particular thought owl out of the sky.

  ‘How much does it cost to live on a cruise?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘You must be loaded.’

  ‘I am. And I don’t need a lady’s companion if that’s what you’re thinking so if you’ve somewhere else you have to be—’

  ‘No. I’m only… killing time,’ I said.

  ‘Until what?’

  For the first time in a long time I told the truth. ‘I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.’ And all my thought owls flew to Ivy. That day marked her week-old birthday.

  ‘Just enjoy your holiday then,’ she said, focusing on her book, mouthing the words as she read them.

  ‘Read a bit out to me,’ I said, lying back on my lounger.

  She flattened the pages and cleared her throat. ‘Her love ignited a fire inside me,’ she read. ‘I’d never beheld a countenance as bright as hers, and in that moment the Earth slipped away and my body took flight as her hungry fingers penetrated my sex.’

  ‘Whoa,’ I said. I looked at the cover again. ‘Is it lesbians?’

  The woman smiled broadly. ‘Oh yes. It’s marvellous. He doesn’t usually write for lesbians, this chap. He does these awful romance novels for bored housewives about a haddock fisherman-turned doctor who fucks all his patients. But this series is his best by far. It’s Downton Abbey but with lesbians.’

  ‘Are you a lesbian?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am. Though I did love my husbands too.’

  ‘Husbands?’

  ‘Well, I loved four of them. One and three were shits. Five was a shit without me realising he was a shit. Two was a Nazi spy so he was a shit to everyone else. Four was gay himself. I think it’s called bisexual. That’s probably what I am.’

  There was a red calla lily on the front of the book, looking unavoidably vaginal. ‘May I?’ She handed it to me and I thumbed through the dog-eared pages. ‘You’ve read this more than once, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course. What else do I have? I’m too bloody arthritic for physical pleasure and I haven’t got the patience to keep learning the WiFi password.’

  ‘Big print,’ I said, gesturing to the pages.

  ‘I’m losing my sight,’ she murmured, closing her eyes towards the sun.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  She grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. The grin was catching.

  ‘It’s more than that though,’ she said. ‘It’s full of that passion, the ardour one doesn’t experience often when one gets to a “certain age”. It captures that febrile intensity of reconciling with the yearnings of one’s body.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘I had that once. For real.’ She picked up her drink and sipped half of it away. ‘It’s terrible in one way, once you’ve had it, because nothing ever matches up to it. The rest of the time you’re… treading water.’

  ‘Who with? Which husband was this?’

  ‘Oh God, no, not a husband. A waitress. On Capri. I met her on my second honeymoon.’

  ‘You had an affair with a waitress on your honeymoon?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘And a rather torrid one at that. We were there for a month. My husband was working in Naples.’ She set down her glass and made a face. ‘Jordan’s a dear chap but he never puts enough rum in these.’

  ‘So tell me more about this waitress.’

  ‘Beatrice,’ she smiled, like she could still taste her. ‘Beatrice Genovesi. I knew it the moment our eyes met, she was it. You hear young people talking about “it” all the time – The One. Well, she was my One. And I was hers.’

  ‘So why didn’t you ditch the husband and run off with this Beatrice?’

  She looked at me as though I’d spat in her eye. ‘Because it was 1955. And I was married with two children by then. You didn’t just leave. You didn’t do whatever you wanted and fuck the consequences.’

  ‘I’d have fucked those consequences till the cows came home,’ I scoffed.

  ‘Yes well, different times. We quickly became best friends, then lovers, then soulmates. But I went home with Geoffrey and that was that.’

  ‘You never saw her again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you seeing her when we go to Naples? There’s a Capri excursion, I think.’

  ‘No,’ she repeated, picking up her drink. And she left it at that.

  ‘Is she the reason you drink piña coladas for breakfast?’

  She didn’t dignify that. I went back to the book. It was only when her glass clinked against her ring I realised she’d fallen asleep. The page had fallen open on one of the hot bits, the horny housekeeper talking about the Countess being ‘the most sumptuous oyster she’d ever cracked open.’

  … she was naked with herself when she was with the Countess. Shame had fallen from her shoulders like a silken robe… a gorgeous new thrill rippled inside her, a hot, molten feeling of utter serenity.

  Ooh.

  … like her body was a dolphin shooting into the sky. The excitement. That silver thrill of knowing one had that power: to have conquered oneself. In finding the Countess, she had conquered the living death that was life.

  That’s how it feels, I thought. To kill someone. I know it wasn’t the point of the plot – to put a serial killer in touch with her murderous lust – but that’s the effect it had. It was describing how I felt when I took someone’s life. When I sensed their last breath leave them. Caro telling me about her first love had inadvertently brought me back to mine. Killing was my The One. It was how I’d felt after suffocating Derek Scudd. After knifing Gavin White. After mounting Troy Shearer and stabbing him through the heart in that alleyway. After slicing Sandra Huggins to bloody bits.

  … she was a better person with her love beside her. With her skin on hers. When she was her own true self. Happier. Settled. And her rage and her fretfulness quelled to a calm, undulating sea.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I said. I’d missed that feeling. I wanted it again. I didn’t want to be numb anymore. Treading water. Scared. When I was Rhiannon, nothing scared me. Nothing could. I wanted that back.

  And I thought: if I could control it this time, I could have the best of both worlds: Hilary for business, Rhiannon for fun. My heart started thumping. I headed back indoors and got the lift down to the Business Centre. I bought another twenty-four hours of internet and logged onto PlentyofCatfish.com.

  It w
as like coming home – even if home was a cesspool of mansplainers, swipe rights, dick pics, DM sliders, thirst traps, leave-on-reads, slow fades, foot fetishists, golden showers, garage flowers and over-proteined poon hounds with ass acne and Harley Davidsons wanking themselves blind over Top Gear. But home has always been where my heart is.

  Friday, 4 January – Cartagena

  Kris Jenner – aka the queen who spawns the silicone eggs

  Ken and Gloria – the couple who’ve been everywhere, done it all and know everything. Except that their shipmate is a serial killer.

  Parents who allow their toddlers to shriek at random intervals

  Parents who bring all eight children on holiday with them and hog the mini golf course. Why do people keep on having kids anyway? The last one not pulling in the followers on Instagram like she used to?

  Parents in general

  Fuckboyee: Are you in Alicante?

  HillsHaveEyes69: No. Am in Cartagena. Come to me, baby.

  Fuckboyee: Where dat?

  HillsHaveEyes69: Get a map.

  Fuckboyee: OK I’ll see wot I can do. Won’t be til late afternoon tho. Can’t wait to see you. I rly enjoyed last night.

  HillsHaveEyes69: Yeah, it was great wasn’t it?

  Fuckboyee: Can’t wait to be inside you for real!

  HillsHaveEyes69: Mmm. Me eiths.

  I waited an age for a response. Watched a YouTube video of two men attempting an enormous fry-up in a hollowed-out loaf and did a Buzzfeed quiz to pass the time – Which Member of BTS Is Mostly Likely To Help You Change A Tyre Based on Your Krispy Kreme Preference? (Jungkook, obvs.) Anyway, eventually I got a bite. My old hunting ground – PlentyofCatfish – was its usual cavalcade of incels and desperados, lots of whom were married and at least one of whom was in prison but would still ‘blow my back out’ given half the chance.

  Ahhh, so many Mr Darcys, so little time… *smitten blinky eyes gif*

  The little fishy that bit was a loathsome patch of cunny fungus called Liam or ‘El Fuckboy’ as his profile suggested. He was on a stag weekend in Alicante, along the coast from Cartagena, and looked like a younger, gone-wrong Lewis Capaldi. His photos were the usual – one in sports gear before a big mirror, one astride a garish red motorbike, one with a drugged-up tiger cub in the Far East and one in a suit at a party, probably his own wedding.

  According to his profile, he was 25, from Chepstow, and a Sagittarius. We chatted back and forth, at first sober, testing-the-water messages like Where are you from? and What box-sets have you binged recently? but before long he was asking me my bra size and sending videos of him water-skiing with a Go-Pro attached to his cock. I didn’t send anything back – he had to make do with words for the time being.

  Nevertheless, within hours, he was ravenous for me.

  Fuckboyee: Babes we need to hook up. I’m gonna bury myself in you.

  I had no intention of sleeping with him – my foof was still the last battered cod under the heat lamp – and though my soreness was subsiding, I’d apparently waved my libido goodbye at Southampton Docks. I just wanted Liam to test out a theory, the way Einstein needed chalk and a blackboard.

  And the theory was this: if I could kill again, I could feel like my old self again. I’d get that familiar rippling inside, like Caro’s book had said. That dolphin-surge thrill of removing life from another’s body. If I could kill again, I could handle all the other stuff – the boring saddo fluffy pink Hilary stuff. I could make my heartache disappear.

  Liam texted me at first light on the iPhone 4. At least some fucker was:

  Fuckboyee: Good news, babes! I got two hours free this arvo. Where we meetin so I can sex u up? *tongue out emoji*

  HillsHaveEyes69: Laguna Rosa? It’s pink – my fave colour!

  Fuckboyee: Lol. Where dat?

  I’d seen it advertised at the Excursions Desk and I knew it would be a good spot – a large pink-coloured lake, the kind of place Instagrammers go to risk their lives getting selfies. It looked romantic, quiet, and better still, unpoliced. I booked one of the last tickets for the afternoon tour.

  HillsHaveEyes69: Torrevieja? Be so romantic *heart eyes emoji*

  Fuckboyee: Ah yeah cool I heard of that. Be good for The Gram. I’ll GMap it. All rightee, see you there ’bout four-ish?

  HillsHaveEyes69: Can’t waiteeeee *open-mouthed smile emoji*

  Fuckboyee: Wait, have you got skins?

  HillsHaveEyes69: I’m on the pill. U can cum as U are *blush emoji*

  Fuckboyee: Fuck, I’ve got a semi on thinkin bout u! Can’t wait to smash that pastie! Catch u later baby *six lines of kisses* *aubergine emoji* *peach emoji* *heart emojis agogo*

  HillsHaveEyes69: Catch u later babeee *smiling devil emoji*

  I planned to stay on the ship until my excursion was called, maybe catch a morning stretch class, try out the zip wire or join in with the bean bag toss. Unfortunately, Fate had other plans again.

  There came a knock on my cabin door – it was Gloria Prosser.

  ‘Hiya, you coming out to play? Jayde and Ryan have taken the kids to the water park so us oldies are hitting the shops. You’re welcome to join us.’

  I couldn’t think of any excuses. Not a single one. So cue the boo-boo. ‘That’d be ripper, thanks, guys! I’ll go grab my bag.’

  In the absence of Jayde and Ryan, the Prossers had invited their cruise chums along – Lynette and Dennis Hall, two dehydrated ex-farmers from Devon, and Eddie and Shona Callahan, retired firefighters from Orange County. Brexiteers and Trumpians alike – they were people I’d normally cross motorways to avoid. As it was I was stuck in Gammon Central. I had to go Full Throttle Hilary.

  ‘That’s a brilliant observation, Dennis. I agree, totally!’ I found myself saying when he went on some rant about migrants paying for healthcare.

  ‘You’re so right!’ I beamed at Eddie. ‘Mexico should pay for the wall!’ He high-fived me with his sweaty paw. I wiped it on Gloria’s cardigan, mid-cringe.

  ‘Oh, I hear you, Shona, I hear you,’ I said with an Amen hand as she started on about how we should all be doing our bit to reduce plastic and save the planet. She’d already fucked the planet by birthing five kids so it didn’t actually matter how many times a day she swilled out her tampon. Still, Hilary earned their trust and that was all that mattered.

  I had vowed to take a bag full of the essentials whenever I left the ship, on the off chance I got the call from Dannielle while the phone had full signal, but the call didn’t come in Cartagena. The screen remained blank all day.

  The town was a searingly hot but tranquil little place, filled with old buildings, marble streets lined with palm trees and a marina of bobbing boats. Everything smelled like sun cream and the heat deepened my tan as we walked around, touring Mercia Cathedral before Gloria dragged everyone shoe shopping.

  It was a dull but fairly relaxing day – until I saw the five police officers gathered outside the Punic Wall museum. Policia Local Cartagena written on their blue-and-yellow jackets, dicing bands on their hats, guns poised. Mirrored sunglasses so nobody could see who they were looking at. They didn’t seem to be interacting, just waiting. Waiting for me?

  Any second I expected that tap on my shoulder and the inevitable ‘Disculpe señora, está bajo arresto’ but the moment never came. They didn’t pay me much mind at all. Still didn’t stop me stressing about it and looking at my phone every five minutes.

  I took the opportunity to text Dannielle Fairly. She didn’t appreciate it.

  I said don’t hold your breath. I’ve got 99 problems here, Hilary. Hold tight.

  The Gammons didn’t pay me much mind either. They never looked behind to see if I was there or asked what I wanted in the coffee shops, or offered to pay – I wasn’t the little girl on the pool noodle being reminded to keep my water wings on anymore. As far as they were concerned, I was there but not there. Like the sky. Or the third Jonas brother.

  After our third ‘little rest stop’ of the day for refreshments
and a slice of pizza so dry the point had curled up like the end of a Turkish slipper – we nipped into a supermarket for room provisions – six cans of Spanish lager and Gloria’s Valium from her handbag while she was in the loo. I deposited The Gammons on hired beach-loungers and once they were safely all asleep, I gave them the slip to catch the 2.00 p.m. minibus to the Pink Lake.

  The ride there was torturous, as is always the case when I’m crammed into a clanky, moving box loaded with dickheads and their hot farts. There were fourteen of us – three pensioners, three Fiat 500 Twitter types, two sets of couples in their 30s, three of the loudest children I’d ever met and me – the serial killer. The kids had the worst names – Kasidy, Braxxton and Swayze, and they were so dosed up on Haribo Tropifrutti that sitting down was an impossibility. I like children normally, but I didn’t like them. If the bus had crashed and I was the only one conscious, I resolved not to help.

  Our rep Chrys with a ‘y’ – like ‘y’ can’t anyone spell their fucking name anymore? – informed us along the way of what we could expect from the Pink Lake – information the guy who sold us the tickets hadn’t.

  ‘Now Laguna Rosa is a salt lake so although it might look like a giant milkshake, it’s not nearly as inviting and is actually full of bacteria which gives the lake its pink hue. So sadly you can’t go for a dip, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What?’ said a pensioner with flip-top glasses. ‘Not even to paddle?’

  ‘‘Fraid not, no. You can sit beside it and have your picnics, take as many pictures as you like, or do a mud pack – the mud on the banks is great for your skin actually – but no swimming. It’s pretty lethal.’

  Great, I thought. So we’ve driven nearly an hour to sit by a salty pink puddle covering ourselves in muddy pathogens? Ugh.

  It looked like something out of a science fiction movie but was still kind of beautiful. This huge pink pond, surrounded by long grasses, stretched as far as the eye could see, rippling on the breeze. All around the edge, deposits of salt had stacked up like drifts of warm snow and after making some salt castles I discovered it stings like shit so I had to wash my hands in lager – the only liquid I’d brought with me. I located a space in the long grass, away from the throng, and texted El Fuckboy to let him know I’d arrived.