by C. J. Skuse
The children were the most enjoyable company, as ever. Jayde allowed me to feed Sansa and get her out of the high chair because she wanted a cuddle and me and Ty were having a funny conversation about what shoes would sound like if they had voices.
‘So all trainers are cockneys, of course,’ I told him, ‘so Daddy’s feet would sound like, “Awright, geezer, how’s yer father and all that malarkey, awright?” And Nanny’s shoes would sound all hickory-smoked and Karen-esque like, “I was at this here McDonald’s and I was just disrespected. I said, ‘I want the McRib meal’ and this bish looks me up and down and says, ‘Well, it don’t look like you need it.’ ‘McScuse me, bish?’”’
Ty chuckled. ‘What do my shoes sound like?’ He pulled his leg out from the table and stuck it out to show me – a little black-and-white Nike high-top.
‘Oh, well, you have the coolest shoes in the world so they’re like…’
And what followed was the world’s worst impression of Stormzy, from which I will spare you. Still, Ty thought it was hysterical and I had to draw on all my shoe knowledge and perform every accent I’d ever done to keep the laughs a-coming. Gareth butted in, trying to engage him in peekaboo behind a menu – a pathetic attempt to cash in on my blinding limelight but Ty was having none of it – he knew where the real comedy gold was. So did Sansa. We had this little game where I’d pretend I had too much air in my cheek and she was the only one who could puncture my bulging cheek with her tiny fingertip. She laughed her arse off when the noise came out.
‘You’re going to make a brilliant mum someday, Hilary,’ said Jayde, beaming at her little girl’s smiling face.
That pulled me up sharp – I laughed it off before teaching Sansa how to stack her sandwich squares into a little house where her peas could live.
‘Did you get yer bum pinched in Barca, girls?’ asked Dennis, apropos of nothing, clanking more nasty gold than Post Malone, sawing through his T-bone and our innocent merriment.
‘No, actually,’ I replied. ‘Did you?’ My food arrived – Hilary had opted for a shredded kale power salad with a lemon and tahini dressing. Rhiannon had wanted a double cheeseburger.
‘You wanna watch them Latins. Most of them are sex pests,’ he said with some authority on the matter, it seemed. ‘Our Kelley got fingered by some Arabs when she went to Morocco. In one of them souks.’
‘Well, you know what they say – get fingered in a souk, your bad louk.’ It was such a shit joke but I was in the saltiest mood and well up for pushing the envelope till it cut someone. Rhiannon was slowly bleeding from all my pores. This was dangerous territory – everything was ripe for the joking.
I caught sight of my room steward, the angel Gabriel with the ridiculous biceps too big for his uniform, walking across the dining room with a tray of empty glasses. We locked eyes and I got another wink for my efforts.
Incredibly, something stirred south of the border.
He was around AJ’s age, 19, and I was reluctant to go for a teenager again. It’d be all skateboards and Fortnite dances and hours of ineffectual clit play. Actually, I take that back – AJ was pretty good at sex for a 19-year-old, both dead and alive. And I wondered if Gabriel could be the missing link in terms of refreshing the parts serial killing couldn’t reach.
‘What’s Bruce up to today, Hilary?’ asked Gloria.
‘Oh, catching some zees mainly, I was saying to Jayde – he’s a bit crook, think he had a bad prawn for room service last night. He could do with a couple of days rest and relaxation. Been working so hard. Poor fella.’
Ugh. I resented every beige word coming out of my mouth. I wanted to stand up and scream THERE IS NO BRUCE. HE HASN’T GOT THE SHITS AT ALL, I MADE HIM UP! I’M HERE ALONE, ON THE RUN, HAVING CHOPPED A WHOLE-ASSED WOMAN TO PIECES. AND SHE AIN’T THE ONLY ONE!
But I didn’t, obvs. Or this would be where my story would end.
Gabriel started laying the table nearest us, sex vibes coming off him in waves. It was a boost to realise I could still have that effect on a guy – I’d figured after childbirth nothing would want to come near my vajoodle again, even doctors. But now the after pains had subsided and my tits no longer felt like pulsating zeppelins, a new vista had opened up. I hadn’t had a crumb of dick in months and it felt like feeding time.
‘You wanna stick close to yer husband when you go on these excursions, Hilary,’ interrupted Ken, meaty clods between each of his lower bicuspids. ‘Especially the closer we get to Africa. Who was that lass we know, Glo, who ran off with a porter at that hotel?’
‘Oh yeah, Dick and Daphne’s daughter. Went to Ibiza on holiday, met this chappie, never came home. Got trafficked. Last Dick and Daphne heard she were living with a tribe, wearing togas and drinking ox blood.’
Lynette sniffed. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? Women aren’t safe these days.’
‘I think you’re pretty safe,’ I said but she pretended not to hear me.
Gareth and Bardot weren’t riveting company either. He was clearly a former incel, liberated from his mother’s spare room, who looked like the kind of guy who’d give you some depressingly vanilla sex but you could always rely on him to put the bins out. He’d look at Bardot every time he offered an opinion, conditioned to check what he’d said was OK, like she was some kind of human autocorrect. I imagined her as Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt and him as one of her lowly servants, covered in honey to keep the flies away from her. They’d been on my bus to the Drach Caves – the awful day I shat myself and killed that skinny bloke. I wondered if Gareth needed liberating. Perhaps it was time to jump into my phone box and twirl into my blood-stained cape. I tested the water.
‘So tell me, Gareth, have you done any of the shows yet?’
Bardot answered for him, of course. ‘Yeah we’ve done Cats and the Anchors Aweigh pirate show on deck the other night, that was good.’
‘Have you been on any excursions, Gareth?’
‘Oh yes,’ answered Bardot. ‘We did the light show in St Michael’s Cave on Gibraltar and the walking tour of Cartagena and the Drach Caves. We didn’t get off at Cadiz cos we wanted to stay on board for the art auction.’
‘Have you used the spa facilities yet, Gareth?’
‘He’s not allowed,’ chuckled Bardot. ‘Not until I can trust him with the Visa again.’
‘Oh, you should,’ I said. ‘They do leg waxing, teeth whitening, arsehole bleaching. I’m think of having either a Brazilian or a Clit-ler – where they leave a little Hitler moustache above your slice. And my arsehole needs bleaching. Do you bleach your arsehole, Gareth? Or do you pour it straight down her neck?’
Neither of them got the joke, which was fine by me but it did create another awkward silence. I decided to perform a little Bard-ectomy – going straight for the tumour. ‘Bardot, remember when I asked for your fucking opinion? No, neither do I!’
Within seconds, she had flushed hot red all up her scrag neck, gathered her bag and coat and flounced out, as well as she could flounce in the vertiginous heels she’d shoved her trotters into. And Gareth, being Gareth, made his apologies to the others and scurried after her like the mouse who would never roar.
I looked at Jayde, expecting her to be laughing, but she was looking down, avoiding my gaze. She didn’t look well at all. Pretty soon she made her excuses that Sansa needed a sleep (she didn’t) and she and the kids got up, with much argument from Ty.
‘No, Mummy, I stay with Hilly! No, Mummy, I not going, get off me!’
‘Ty, NOW please, we’re going, stop it.’
And he was hitting her and kicking for all he was worth but Jayde was having none of it and off they marched on a lingering echo of his piercing screams and kicking Stormzy feet. There was nothing I could do because Jayde was his mum and I was just a tourist, in every sense of the word.
That left me with concentrated Gammon extract – I silently hoped the ceiling above them all would cave in and Dennis would get the jazz bar piano implanted in his skull.
But of course
nothing happened. Nobody got crushed, there were no sudden piano entrances or vomitus bleeding from the mouth like on Downton. Nothing ever happens unless I make it happen.
Gabriel appeared again, walking back across the dining room with his massive biceps and his third fuck-wink so far. And I winked back.
By two o’clock, we were in my bed, going at it like a rodeo. I had been concerned that my foof wouldn’t be up to the job since giving birth but Gabriel made all the right noises and I’d felt all the right inches so maybe there was life in the old girl yet. Once I’d cum for the second time, I lay there on his thumping great chest as his cock pulsed against his leg and the last trickles of spooge left him.
‘Woof! That was awesome, thanks, darlin’!’ he said, and once he’d got his breath he bounced out of bed and climbed back into his uniform.
‘Oh, you’re not staying then?’
‘Nah, I should be working. It was good though.’ He reached inside his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone. He showed me a picture in his album of some woman asleep with her arse out.
‘I did her on the last cruise. Recognise her, from that girl band?’
‘Uh no, I don’t,’ I said, squinting.
‘She used to be in that group. Five girls. She was on here touring her solo stuff. I had her every which way but loose.’ He shoved his feet into his shoes without untying the laces.
‘Oh right,’ I said, handing back the phone. ‘So your thing’s been up her as well as me. Delightful.’
He guffawed. ‘She preferred it in the ass.’
‘Even better.’
He kissed me again when he had his shoes on and as he pulled away, I held onto him.
‘What’s up?’
‘Hug.’
‘Baby, I have to go.’
‘I know, I know. Just hold me for a couple of seconds. Please.’
And he did. I saw Craig in my mind. I breathed against him. I’d missed it. The closeness of another body, dead or alive. Someone with heat and a heartbeat and regularly inflating lungs. But he pulled away. He didn’t get it.
‘See you later,’ he said.
‘You will?’
‘Yeah. I clean your room once a day so I’m bound to,’ he laughed, striding across the carpet without another look.
The bed felt cold but not because of his lack of warmth. Gabriel wasn’t what I’d wanted, but I was getting closer to it. Whatever ‘it’ was.
I washed and changed into my virginal broderie anglaise vest top and shorts and went up on deck to watch the ship pulling out of port, heading for the next stop: Genoa. Seven days remaining. I breathed in, breathed out. I checked the cracked iPhone 4 – still as silent as the grave, but there was one bar of signal remaining. I chanced a call Dannielle Fairly. Good or bad news, I had to know.
There was no answer. I left a message:
‘Hi, it’s Hilary. Just wondering if there were any developments, anything at all to report. I need… something. Anything. Please.’ I hung up.
Caro wasn’t back at her cabin yet and the upper deck was fairly quiet with most people having hit the dining rooms or catching a show. A message bing!ed through around two minutes later, straight to voicemail.
‘Hiya, love,’ came the Mancunian caterwaul. ‘Yeah, I found Dad’s file with the information in – I’m waiting to hear back that the fella’s expecting yer – he’s got a bad connection where he is. Bit remote. Give me a few days and I’ll let you know the address—’
‘What address?’ I shouted down the phone. ‘Where am I going? Aren’t you even going to tell me which fucking country?’
No, she didn’t. She warbled on and on about how hard it had been to find the envelope Bobby had hidden, how they still hadn’t released his body for cremation yet and how she’d never known such admin when a person dies.
‘Oh cry me a fucking river, I don’t care, just tell me WHERE, Dannielle?’ I cried. ‘WHERE AM I GOING?’
‘You’ve lucked out though – Dad’s done all right for yer. Place looks reet nice. So yeah I’ll call yer as soon as I’ve heard back and let you know when he’ll be expecting yer and all that, all right, love? You take care now.’
I called her back immediately but the ship was already fully at sea by then and all signal had been lost. I walked a lonely, uncertain circuit right around the top deck, chewing it over, trying to pick the bones out of what she’d had said. A ‘reet nice’ place but a ‘bit remote’. Where could it be? South America, like Bobby had said originally? Afghanistan? Australia?
I found the longer I walked, the less I wanted to leave. I wanted to stay on the ship, in the cabin, in my little bed. Sightseeing with Caro. Playing with Ty. This was the only home I had. The angry bubbles popped and fizzed in my stomach. Everything felt wrong – bowling shoes wrong. Point Break remake wrong. Bounty-in-the-God-Tier-of-Chocolate-wrong.
And you know what that means.
The only other person about on deck at that time was The Man Who Walks. He was leaning against the railings like I was, newspaper tucked under his arm. Wrong place, right time.
‘Hello,’ I said, leaning on the railings next to him.
‘Oh, good evening,’ he said, with a polite nod, and he attempted to step past me but I blocked him. He wore a lemon shirt with a glasses pocket, tucked into white trousers and his shoes were grey and neatly tied with bowed laces. Everything about him was clean and pressed and even. Including his face.
‘You were thinking about your wife, weren’t you?’
He frowned. ‘Sorry, do I know you?’
‘No. I heard you lost your wife, though. I lost someone too.’
‘Did you?’
‘A baby.’
‘Oh. I am so sorry,’ he said, relaxing his stance. I copped a glance at the paper – an English one, a few days out of date. ‘Was this recently?’ He didn’t seem to know where to look but at least he’d stopped trying to leave me.
‘Few weeks ago. I came on holiday to perk myself up. It’s scary and painful but we must go through it, mustn’t we? It’s OK to grieve.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to see your wife again?’ I asked.
‘Someday. I know I will. Does that seem silly?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Good.’
‘That day could come sooner than you think.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘None of us know when we’re going to die. All you have is today.’
‘Wise words from someone so young.’ The newspaper relaxed in his grasp, fluttering on the sea breeze. ‘I’m John, by the way.’
‘Oh,’ I said, shaking his extended hand. ‘Hi, I’m Rhiannon.’
Wednesday, 9 January – Genoa
People on Twitter who dog whistle for sympathy with ‘I’m not going to tweet for a while’ posts because of their mental health then forty mins later respond to a shortbread showstopper on the series opener of Bake Off.
People who climb cliff faces with no safety equipment. Oh, fucking fall off already. Your only skill is not dying.
Social media feministas with husbands giving it the full Burn Your Bra act in public while maintaining the safety net of a traditional patriarchal relationship. Oh yeah. I see you.
Dead Boy in the Sand, tra la la la la.
Conan’s body had been found, according to a Spanish news channel. There was footage of the stretcher being wheeled out of the woods near the Drach Caves. No link to me thus far. Olé, olé, I get my way.
Caro came calling first thing with an opening gambit that usually set the cat chasing pigeons around my ribcage – ‘Would you like to join me for breakfast? I’d like to talk to you about something.’
This kind of request was usually followed by Do you know anything about this bleach in my water bottle? Or, Any idea how the fire started? Or, Is that you covered in blood in that news bulletin? but I was strangely serene that day. Almost balanced. Dead calm, like the sea.
We were in the lift on the way up to Diamond De
ck – Caro in her gold kaftan and sandals, me in my hot pink shorts, virginal white daps and floaty florals – when she elaborated.
‘It’s about this meeting Beatrice in Rome…’
‘Oh,’ I said, with more than a hint of relief. ‘Yeah, Enzo suggested 2.00 p.m. in a café by the Pantheon—’
‘—I don’t think I can go,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can meet her.’
‘Why not?’
‘I never asked you to arrange a meeting, Hilary.’
‘I know you didn’t.’
The lift doors opened onto the main deck. There were loads of people hanging around the railings, as usual, waiting to see the ship come into port.
‘We can cancel if you want but I don’t know why you would want to. She’s not going to reject you, you know.’
‘How do you know that? How do you know she isn’t having the self-same conversation with her grandson that we’re having now?’
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘I just hope.’
‘Those days with her – they belong in my head. It’s the place I go to when I need it. It’s my paradise. And I don’t want it to be sullied by modern let-downs and grief.’ She caught sight of herself in the window, but quickly looked away. ‘This is not how she knew me.’
‘What do you expect me to say? Do you want me to blow smoke up your arse and call you young and vivacious and still bearing a passing resemblance to Kaia Gerber in a certain light?’
‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Who’s Kaia Gerber?’
‘Oh, some foetus with no tits and famous parents, it’s not important. What is important is you meeting Beatrice. Could be your last chance. You don’t want to be a painting in a museum that people feel sorry for, do you?’
‘No, but—’
‘—right, so shut up moaning, get your knickers on and let’s go into Genoa shopping and we’ll buy Beatrice a nice gift. Maybe even find you an old Italian apothecary who can cast an anti-ageing spell on you or something.’