Why is it that free booze leaves you with the worst hangovers?
I hear the suite door opening. Has it always been that loud? I can practically map out every millimetre of the locking system, based on each sound and the order I heard them in (probably not though, I’m just being dramatic).
‘Good morning,’ Eli sings.
‘Leave,’ I insist. ‘Close the curtains and then leave.’
‘You don’t mean that, lover,’ he jokes.
‘Why aren’t you as hungover as I am?’ I ask accusingly.
‘Because I’m twice your size and used to drinking way more than you,’ he replies. ‘I am hungover, just not dying-in-my-bed, wearing-clothes-from-the-night-before hungover.’
Oh, I still have my dress on, that explains why I can’t move.
‘I brought you a coffee,’ Eli says. ‘Sit up and have a little, it will help.’
‘Nothing will help,’ I insist. ‘Alcohol is evil. I’m never drinking again.’
‘OK, let’s not say things we’ll regret,’ Eli jokes. ‘You made enough bold claims last night, let’s not make more big promises today, shall we?’
‘What was I saying last night?’ I dare to ask.
‘Come on, let me help you sit up,’ Eli says as he takes me by the arm. ‘You were almost violently insistent that you could hold your drink.’
‘Oh, God, I can’t hold my drink at all,’ I whine, finally opening my eyes just enough to see Eli, without letting too much light in. Eli looks fresh as a daisy, it’s almost annoying.
‘I know, drink this,’ he says, handing me my coffee. ‘When you started showing your arse, I brought you back here.’
‘Oh, God, did I split my dress?’ I say, trying to roll onto one side so that I can see my bum.
‘Not literally showing your arse,’ Eli laughs. ‘Embarrassing yourself, being too much, too drunk, too wild. I started worrying about what you were going to do next, so I brought you back here and put you to bed. I was going to undress you and put you in something more comfortable for sleeping in, but that felt so weird, and anyway, you flopped straight onto the bed and started snoring your head off, so I thought I’d just leave you in peace.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘You’re welcome,’ he replies. ‘If we pretend you are just a wild drunk, then I don’t suppose anyone has any reason to think you can’t hold your drink, and I won’t tell them otherwise.’
‘Thank you,’ I say again. ‘And thank you for the coffee.’
I feel so sick, but I take a tentative sip.
‘Is that OK?’ he asks.
I nod my head as gently as possible.
‘Are you going to be sick?’
‘I don’t think so…’
‘OK, well, now is your chance to prove you can handle your drink and everything you said and did last night was intentional. We’re going to get you a very small something to eat, just enough to line your stomach so that you can take a couple of painkillers, and then… your mum has been nagging us to go to water aerobics with her and your dad, she says she loved it last time. I know that André and the gang are meeting in the atrium for lunch before their last show of the voyage in the afternoon, so get up, get your bikini on and let’s show them all how great you are feeling, yeah?’
‘Yeah, OK,’ I say, mustering up a little of that Rosie Outlook that used to get me through the day.
I feel like absolute crap, but if pretending to feel fine will make me look better than I imagine the events of last night did, then I’m all for it.
‘Have a quick shower, because you smell like a pirate,’ Eli says. ‘I’ll pop to your mum and dad’s suite and tell them we’re game. OK?’
‘OK,’ I say, although I feel far from OK.
I take a few more sips of my coffee before very bravely pulling myself up and carefully heading for the bathroom. The room is spinning slightly, which makes me think I might still be just a little bit drunk. I’m hoping the hangover doesn’t get worse, although I’m not sure how it could.
I carefully step under the shower and try to blast away all evidence of the night before. It’s just a shower though, not a fairy godmother, so it can’t work miracles.
I just need to show my face, appear to be fine and then I can come back to bed for a bit, until this hangover clears off. Then I’ll be able to enjoy the rest of my final day on board.
Absolutely no drinking today though, under any circumstance. There is no way I am turning up to see Simon, smelling like a pirate, doing… whatever I was doing last night.
One thing I know for sure though is that, whatever I was saying and doing last night, I hope I never find out.
27
You know, I never thought I would struggle to eat a croissant. A third or fourth croissant, perhaps, but never a first one, and absolutely never on an empty stomach.
When people talk about the evils of alcohol, this must be what they are referring to, because coming between a girl and her favourite breakfast food is almost unforgivable.
I don’t suppose I would have tried to eat anything at all, if I hadn’t needed to take painkillers so badly, and taking them on an empty stomach only replaced my headache with stomach ache, so I had to try and force something down.
I had a few nibbles on a croissant with an ibuprofen chaser and, I don’t know, what must have been a gallon of water. I’ve had so much water, I can practically feel it sloshing around inside me.
Speaking of water sloshing around, water aerobics is not a good idea, not when you have a stinking hangover. The last time I did it, to ABBA music, must have been the beginners’ class. Now, much further along in the week, things have been kicked up a notch. Today we are grooving to songs by the Bee Gees, and I didn’t feel any rougher than I did outside the water while we warmed up to ‘More Than a Woman’… but now, picking up the pace with ‘Stayin’ Alive’, the title of the song feels very much like a goal.
‘Is this blowing the cobwebs off?’ Eli asks me. ‘Or, washing them off, I suppose…’
‘I’m not going to make it,’ I insist. ‘Are you enjoying this?’
‘It’s a lot of fun,’ he admits. ‘Not very cool, and not at all masculine, that’s for sure – and I can’t imagine taking this up back home, I’ll definitely be getting straight back to wearing tight vests and throwing weights around in front of a mirror… but here, on holiday, it’s kind of fun… with no witnesses.’
‘Oh, there are witnesses,’ I tell him, subtly nodding towards the table where the band are sitting. They’re not just sitting by us, they’re watching us. ‘When did water aerobics become a spectator sport, huh?’ I ask.
‘When did it become a sport?’ Eli asks. ‘André wanted to watch me – can you blame him? And anyway, I thought you wanted to prove to Amanda that you can hold your drink and handle your hangovers?’
‘What hangover?’ I ask, putting on a brave face, trying to hide the fact I'm struggling to keep my breakfast down.
‘That’s my girl,’ he replies.
Halfway through the session, my dad gets cramp, so my mum helps him out of the pool. If you ask me, they just want to go and get something to eat, because they disappear pretty sharpish. Eli doesn’t make a move, which makes me think he is actually enjoying this. I suppose I’ll stick it out, lest people think I'm making excuses to give up too.
As the Bee Gees medley softens, I feel my body floating into ‘How Deep Is Your Love’. This is more my kind of pace, gentle hip exercises, minimal upper-body movement. All morning I’ve felt this… like… knot in my stomach. Like a big, heavy lump, rolling around in there every time I move. For the first time, I can’t quite feel it as strongly, so perhaps the hangover is starting to pass. Maybe I’m not the hopeless drinker I thought I was – not that I plan on taking it up professionally. I’m not sure I’ll ever drink heavily again, but I suppose this is a lesson that everyone needs to learn once, right? Was anything I drank last night worth feeling like this? Well, I think the fact that I pretty much did it out of spite
, or to prove a point, means that it wasn’t. Last night felt like me finally coming undone, after weeks of crap. The bubble needed to burst so that I could start building myself up again.
I glance over at Amanda, who is still watching me like a hawk. I look at Josh, who gives me a smile and a half-wave. I feel great doing this exercise knowing that, even if I feel like death warmed up, to them it must look like I really have my shit together. Being seemingly right gives me an extra spring in my step. By the time the music shifts into ‘You Should Be Dancing’, the pace well and truly picks up, and I am raring to go.
Eli, a water aerobics convert, gets way into it and his enthusiasm is infectious. Having a laugh with my friend, messing around in the pool, dancing to awesome music – this is what holidays are all about.
I am in my element until something funny comes over me. I’m not sure what it is… the gentle lapping of the water against my body, the almost frantic guitar playing in the song, the bright sunlight pouring in through the glass roof of the atrium… I feel like my own Saturday Night Fever might be catching up with me. And then there’s that lump in my tummy again, that big hard lump… it feels like a cannonball. I thought it had disappeared, but, before I really know what is going on, I feel it hurtling its way from my stomach to my chest to my neck to my… Oh God.
An old woman screams, as though she’s just witnessed a body emerge from the depths of the pool and float towards her. More infectious than enthusiasm is hysteria, and as more and more people realise I have thrown up into the pool, they all freak out and scramble towards the other side.
Eli, my darling friend, is on hand to help me. He pulls me away from the murky water and lifts me out of the pool like I’m weightless. He plonks me down at our table, which is, annoyingly, the one next to where André, Josh and Amanda are sitting. They all stare at me (in horror), and this certainly isn’t a spectator sport. Josh looks concerned, but Amanda looks a combination of smug and repulsed. As horrible as I felt before, I feel even worse now, because she thinks she’s winning this one. Well, I’m not going to let her. I need to try and save face.
The aerobics instructor comes running over to me.
‘Are you OK?’ she asks. ‘What happened?’
‘She got drunk last night and just threw her hangover up into the pool,’ Amanda suggests with a chuckle.
‘No, that’s not what happened,’ I say as I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. ‘I have a stomach bug.’
‘Are you sure?’ the instructor asks me. ‘Are you certain it isn’t just from drinking?’
‘Nope, it’s definitely a stomach bug,’ I insist, very aware that lots of passengers are all staring at me. The last think I want is for everyone to think that this is what a young person is like, crashing their holiday, getting hammered, throwing up in their pool while they are trying to exercise.
‘Rosie, are you sure you have a stomach bug?’ Josh steps forward to ask me.
There’s a weird tone to his voice, like he’s trying to get me to own up to just being hungover – well, I’m not going to do it. ‘Of course I’m sure. I might have had a couple of drinks last night, but this started yesterday lunchtime. It’s just some kind of bug, probably one of those twenty-four-hour things…’
‘OK, if you can just wait here,’ the aerobics instructor says as she backs away from me. ‘I need to go get someone.’
I look back over at Josh and Amanda – why does Amanda still look so smug?
‘Christ, that was a display,’ Eli whispers into my ear. ‘Nicely covered up though, that was a quick-thinking save.’
‘Do you think she bought it?’ I ask.
‘For sure,’ he whispers back. ‘I think she’s gone to get a medic or something.’
‘Oh, Rosie… you should just admit you’re hungover,’ Amanda says. ‘Honesty is the best policy.’
‘I’m not hungover, honestly,’ I insist. I’m rather proud of myself, for my acting skills. I mustered up a ton of faux sincerity there – so much so I almost believed myself.
‘It’s a shame you’re not just hungover,’ Josh says.
‘Why?’ I ask curiously.
‘Because you’re probably going to be stuck in your cabin until we get to New York now.’
28
So, enthusiasm is contagious, hysteria is more contagious still, but you do know what tops the list on a cruise ship? A stomach bug. The most contiguous thing on a cruise ship is a stomach bug, and if they think you have one, they will treat you like an alien.
I’m in quarantine… or is it isolation? What’s the difference? I think I’m technically in isolation, given I am supposedly ill, kept from the well people, to save them from getting ill too. I think quarantine is when you might be ill, or to stop you from getting ill or… I don’t know, the point is, I’m neither ill, nor potentially ill. I’m just hungover and I should have just admitted it, but I was too proud, too scared to be shown up in front of Amanda, unwilling to look bad in front of the other guests.
So now I’m here, in my suite, all alone. Eli knows that I am absolutely fine, of course, but he didn’t want to risk being confined to the suite for the rest of the trip too, so he’s staying with André tonight. I suspect he would have stayed with him anyway, with this being the last night. I think they are in desperate need of a conversation about their holiday romance, and what happens next. Well, you can’t exactly have a traditional relationship with someone who lives at sea for most of the time, can you?
My mum and dad dropped by to check on me too, but I told them to go off and have fun. Well, I don’t want them to suffer being locked away for the rest of the trip either.
As nice as my suite is, the thought of being in here alone until we get to New York is driving me crazy. It might only be another twelve hours or so, but I tell you what, the five-star service soon vanishes when people think you are contagious. My cabin feels more like a prison now – just a really nice one with room service and wi-fi. I’ve spent many a night alone on my sofa with a takeaway and only Netflix for company, so tonight isn’t exactly going to be unusual for me, but perhaps that is the problem. I’ve had a couple of crazy weeks, but, as embarrassing and life-altering as they have been, I can’t say they haven’t been exciting, and I certainly can’t say they have been lonely. I’ve had my mum, dad, Eli and even Josh around me for almost all of it. I guess being alone in here tonight is a glimpse into what my life is probably going to be like, when I finally get back home, if this little trek across the globe doesn’t actually alter anything for me.
There is a knock on my suite door. I carefully climb out of bed – not because I’m ill, but because my painkillers must have worn off and my headache is still very much present.
Standing behind the door is a man with a large box.
‘Hello,’ I say. I look down at the box and then back up at him.
‘Rosie Jones?’ he asks me.
‘That’s me,’ I confirm.
‘Here is your delivery, from the gift shop,’ he says.
He hands me the box, which is actually rather heavy, before hurrying off, which makes me wonder if there is a ship-wide black mark against my name, telling people to keep well clear of me.
I take the box inside and place it down on my bed. Inside is the ‘most expensive thing’ they had in the gift shop. The girl described it as a ‘piece of glass with the ship and the dates we sailed etched into it’ and that is what it is… it’s just that the piece of glass is the size of a large dinner plate, and almost as thick as the length of my thumb. It’s gorgeous, if not a little tacky, but it’s probably way too big for my tiny flat, and it’s definitely going to tip me over my baggage allowance on the way home. I’m not sure what the hell I’m going to do with it… perhaps I could just leave it in here. Well, there’s no point returning it, is there, for what? More gift shop credit. Perhaps my dad would like a few more jackets…
I place it on the sideboard and climb back into my bed. I suppose a night in my bed, in my co
sy pyjamas, will do me some good, especially in my delicate state, it’s just so annoying that it’s the last night of the cruise and I’m stuck in here.
Still, my main holiday starts when I arrive in New York, and there are so many places I want to visit. I’ve been looking into it, while I’ve been killing time in here alone for the past three hours, and there are loads of places for TV and movie buffs to visit. For starters, there is the beautiful white brownstone apartment where Holly Golightly lived in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, as well as Carrie’s brownstone from Sex and the City – in fact, Sex and the City opens up a whole world of locations to visit that will be familiar to fans of the show, especially big fans like me who have watched it time and time again and know it like the back of their hand. There is so much that I want to do, perhaps I can take the time this evening to plan it all out, to try and squeeze as much into my trip as possible.
I grab Eli’s laptop, which he has considerately left for me to use while he’s off having fun with André, and get back to planning my trip. Giving myself something to look forward to will make my evening go much quicker. I’ll be too excited to care that I’m locked away… hopefully.
There is another knock at my door. It’s amazing, how popular I am, given that I’m supposed to be locked away to contain my pretend germs.
Standing outside the door, in his full Michael Bublé get up, is Josh.
‘Well, hey there,’ he says in his faux-Canadian accent. ‘I heard there’s a sick young lady in here who might appreciate a visit from her favourite cruise ship celebrity impersonator.’
Well, he’s not wrong about the title. Then again, when there is only him and Amanda in competition with one another, he’s an easy favourite by default.
‘Hello,’ I say brightly. ‘Are you allowed in here?’
‘Are you actually sick?’ he says with a laugh.
‘Fair point,’ I reply.
‘Can I come in?’ he asks.
I nod and step back so that Josh can follow me in. We don’t mention the kiss and that suits me just fine right now.
My Great Ex-Scape Page 17