Fergus and Sylvie recognised this for the tactic it was and, while they would have preferred to eat in peace, neither blamed the couple for seeking respite from their noisier neighbour. Richard, they discovered, was a retired diplomat and, to their surprise, they both found themselves genuinely interested in his and Cressida’s (probably oft told) stories of various postings to unusual capitals around the world. They both had engagingly mischievous senses of humour, cutting through the froth of the Diplomatic Service and telling tales on the all too human ambassadors, consuls, (often aptly titled) vice-consuls and even Foreign Office ministers, that lay beneath. Fergus and Sylvie laughed along easily, both worrying their own simpler stories were inadequate by comparison, even though Richard and Cressida listened with apparent fascination, perhaps a skill picked up during the course of their long careers.
Later in the meal, they also got to know their very different neighbours on their other side, Henry and Tabitha, who were elderly, sweet-natured and desperately missing their ‘boys’, who turned out to be two King Charles Spaniels left behind in kennels for the duration of their holiday. This was their first cruise too and Fergus felt sorry for them, being exposed to such a vulgar neighbour at dinner, though from a greater distance. Still, they seemed to take it in their stride.
“We were wonderwing,” the elderly man said, continuing with a slight lisp: “thath’s to say Tabths and I were wonderwing, whether perhapths, perhapths, you jussst might, might, jussst perhapths, be from the clergy?”
Fergus and Sylvie both smiled, stifling a not unkind laugh.
“No, I’m afraid not,” Fergus answered.
“Exssthrawdinawy,” said the man, “we could have thworn.”
Henry and Tabitha, it emerged, were a retired vet and veterinary nurse, quietly enjoying their holiday while constantly fretting over Basil and Bugsy back home. Fergus and Sylvie found them delightful in their gentle charm. The arachnid lady, meanwhile, had focussed her attention for the first time on the unknown couple her other side and, sneaking a glance, Sylvie thought she could see despair etched across their faces as she inflicted on them another loud, soulless anecdote: they were trapped and they knew it, as if flies caught in her web, at least for the duration of the meal. Sylvie shuddered – it could so easily have been them.
The Show Troupe were back performing in the Poseidon Theatre later that evening, and a self-conscious Fergus tried harder than ever to look anywhere other than at his graceful dancer, only succumbing occasionally. Perhaps it was because he was trying to look elsewhere, that his attention was drawn to one of the female singers, who was of a similar age, but taller and with long auburn hair. Somehow she had a profound sadness in her voice, as well as the most sorrowful eyes. Then, as the song reached its climax, she lifted up her arms and Fergus was shocked to see that one of them was badly deformed. He instinctively looked away, only to find himself staring straight into the face of his dancer. A brief panic seized him as he wondered where to look next, but she quickly spun off and he could breathe once more.
Ashamed at his reaction, he gazed back at the auburn haired singer, who was now harmonising a backing vocal, and he concentrated on her voice, following it as it weaved around the main melody sung by a colleague. It struck him as intensely beautiful and, even though he wasn’t with the clergy, he said a little prayer that she might be happier than her soulful eyes and singing portrayed.
“Did you enjoy that?” Sylvie asked as the curtain came down.
“Yes, I thought they were pretty good,” he replied with understatement.
“Pretty good or just pretty?”
“Please give me a break Sylvie!” He pleaded, suddenly feeling very tired.
“I’m sorry, I’m just teasing. I want you to relax and enjoy yourself, but I wouldn’t mind it if you found me a dashing young man to admire too!”
“The showmen do nothing for you?”
“Hmm…” she responded, unimpressed, “perhaps you can find me a mechanic from somewhere deep in the Engine Room!”
“I’ll do my best.”
They made their way out of the theatre, down the stairs and along their corridor. On reaching the cabin Fergus fumbled to find his key card, searching his pockets with increasing agitation. Sylvie played distractedly with the blue jewel hanging around her neck and watched affectionately, remembering he had put it in his wallet for safekeeping. Still he looked, patting his body ever more randomly for any tell-tale sign as to where it might be. Who knows why she didn’t tell him, or why she didn’t use her own key? Perhaps she was teaching her husband a gentle lesson – he could be so disorganised – or maybe she just wanted to stretch out a final few moments of the evening with him before they went to bed.
“Bingo!”
He held the card up to her in triumph and then inserted it in the lock, opening the cabin door to the inviting light of the desk lamp glowing softly between their crisp, freshly turned down beds, each with a small chocolate on its pillow.
“Worth the wait?” he asked confidently as he let her through, but she just smiled. Not all questions require an answer.
8
London – Late June 2006
Nicole was already finishing her breakfast when her brother, Dylan, finally made his way downstairs and into the kitchen. Summer Martins was playing on the radio:
“It’s just five years ago and you think with a sigh
How she left you that morning, no final goodbye,
And life still feels so empty, ‘Please why did she die?’
You ask for the ten thousandth time.
And a world rich with such beauty when she was near,
A world once filled with joy but now frozen in fear
Has lost what was precious because she’s not here:
A planet that’s now past its prime.
In the mountains she’s absent
And she’s not out at sea,
She’s not lost in a forest,
Nor in the city,
And you know that you may as well roam,
’cos she’s not coming home.”
Of course, Hannah Webster loved both her children, but telling Dylan to do anything was trying, including getting him out of bed and to school every morning. Fortunately, Nicole was much better organised, already stacking her mug and plate in the dishwasher, singing along to the song, even emulating its steps as she danced across the kitchen floor to kiss her mother goodbye, before disappearing upstairs to see her dad. Then, she tore back down, grabbing her bag from the hallway with her good arm and slamming the front door behind her as she left the house.
Hannah turned the radio off.
“Come on Dylan, we should have left by now!” She could feel the stress building up inside her. The effort required to get her son out of the house had exhausted her almost before her day had begun; worse than that though, today she had an important presentation at nine-thirty and she was already running late. Finally, Dylan finished his cereal, gave her a weak hug and sloped off – he might still make his bus: somehow he always did.
Hannah rushed upstairs to her husband, treading the same path her daughter had taken just a few minutes earlier:
“Will you be OK?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll be fine… I’ll make myself some breakfast and then go for a short walk. Go, you’ve got to get to work!”
She hesitated – he really didn’t look at all well – but her need to leave was pressing, so she turned reluctantly and headed back downstairs. A few moments later, he heard the front door close behind her too, leaving him in the now deathly quiet of their home, after its frantic start to another day.
Hannah was thirty-nine. She had met Paul when she was just twenty-one and they had married three years later. Nicole had been born on their first wedding anniversary and her brother had followed almost exactly two years after that – in terms of presents, it had bec
ome an expensive time of year, but Hannah loved the life they had built together. Although her office-based marketing job wasn’t one of the exciting careers she had imagined having as a child, she felt it was secure and the money it brought in, together with Paul’s Civil Service salary, meant that they were comfortable enough. As a result, they could afford the mortgage on their three bedroom terraced house without losing too much sleep, even if it was a little cramped.
Perhaps she appreciated her situation all the more because her own childhood had been very different. She had two older brothers – Sebastian (known as Bastian) and Norris (nicknamed Nu) – and they had grown up together in a house even smaller than the one she was living in now. Her father would disappear from time to time to escape the chaos but her mother repeatedly took him back, more because she desperately needed him than because she particularly loved him. When she was fourteen he had finally left for good, to Pentonville Prison, following a brawl outside a pub. She, her mother and brothers had been obliged to downsize still further, this time to a damp high-rise flat overlooking the motorway and railway lines, just west of Central London.
Hannah had always got on well with Bastian, but it was with Nu that she felt the closest bond. He was just a year older and used to tease her that she had only been born because he himself had not been the girl their parents had hoped for. They both suspected there was an element of truth to this, but in fact her conception had been down to a ‘family planning malfunction’.
“It’s nice to have been wanted!” she complained when, in her mid teens, she finally found this out. Despite everything though, she knew she was loved, both by her mother and by her brothers and, when first Bastian then Nu left home a few years later, she felt a surge of nostalgia for their shared childhoods: it was the end of an era.
The family came together one last time to attend Hannah’s wedding in 1991. Even her father had been there, though she had only seen him a few times since, most notably at her mother’s funeral in 1995, following her short battle with cancer. Hannah, Bastian and Nu had tried to support her as she declined, but it had all been very sudden and there had been little they could do. It was a consolation to her that she and her brothers had all been there at her mother’s side when she had died and that those final hours had been pain-free.
Hannah kept in touch with Bastian, but she saw much more of Nu. He taught art in a school in Tooting, south London, and they spoke every week by phone, catching up in person almost as often. Sometimes he visited her, but more usually she would make the trip to his Clapham flat, either on her own or with some of her family in tow. Secretly, she preferred visiting him alone: it was like taking a step back to the best moments of their past, a brief respite before returning to the fray.
This is not to say that Hannah was unhappy, it was just that life could be very hectic. Her marriage, in fact, had been consistently good: Paul was loving and reliable, both as a husband and as a father. Recently, however, she had been worried by how tired he seemed, even culminating in him taking his first ever days off sick from work. Knowing he wouldn’t, Hannah had booked him a doctor’s appointment, but he needed to wait until the following week to be seen. She hoped by then he would be better anyway, but being ill was so unlike Paul and, as she rushed out of the house, a nagging fear played at the back of her mind. Perhaps this was a semi-conscious premonition of what was to come or maybe – mindful of her difficult upbringing – a foreboding that she was an imposter in her good fortune and that her luck would one day change.
With these anxious thoughts in mind, she unchained her bike from the side of the house and headed off on the five mile ride to her office near Paddington station. It had been a hot and sticky month to be commuting by bike, but the weather had finally broken a couple of days previously. This morning the sky threatened rain, but it was at least dry as she left. The traffic, however, felt worse today than it had recently and she manoeuvred her way cautiously between the frustrated drivers and their menacingly revving engines. Riding a bike in London was dangerous: a human being, protected by nothing more than a white cycle helmet, versus lorries, buses, cars and motorbikes thundering by. Two years earlier, her daughter, Nicole, had been knocked off her bike, in the relative safety of their own street, by a driver who had been distracted trying to change radio channels. She had first been flung on to the bonnet and then hurled into the road ahead as he braked, only for him then to run over her left arm as he came to a halt. Hannah was proud how her daughter had adjusted to her injuries and she thanked God because she knew it could have been horribly worse. Overall, the accident had left Hannah in no doubt as to the perils of cycling in a busy city, but it saved money, and her journey was faster than a rush hour bus and more civilised than an overcrowded tube.
Today though, the road seemed extra threatening and she was not enjoying the ride, not helped either by the pressure of running late. She hit the brakes hard, her back wheel skidding beneath her, as a white van with a ladder on its roof pulled out in front from the left, accelerating away and pouring black diesel smoke into her face. She coughed and spluttered, while on her right a large lorry drew alongside her, its engine rattling noisily and its air brakes hissing deafeningly into her ears. Emergency vehicle sirens wailed around her, adding to the noise and confusion and, as a motorcyclist shot past with an inch to spare, she felt panicky and stressed. She needed to find an escape and, on reaching the congested Marylebone Road, she succumbed and did what she had never done before, cycling a quarter of a mile westbound along its wide pavement to avoid the worst of the traffic. She then wheeled her bike across a Pelican crossing and, remounting on the other side, cycled towards the Edgware Road and on down Sussex Gardens, finally reaching Praed Street, and a minute or two later, the safety of her office.
The last part of the route had been better, she had made up the time and had recomposed her thoughts, though she was cross with herself for having ridden that short stretch on the pavement: it had been irresponsible. In fact, in swerving to avoid a sign placed on the pavement, she had nearly ridden into a woman who had stepped out suddenly from behind a corner. She had distinctly felt her body and clothing brushing against her own and had needed to put her foot down to avoid losing her balance. She had wondered whether she should stop to apologise, but, by the time that question arose in her mind, she was already across the next street. Neither wanting to be later than she already was nor to find herself in a street row, Hannah had kept going, confident the woman wasn’t hurt. But the incident had shocked her because, undeniably, it had been an extremely close call: she vowed to stick to the road in future, no matter how awful the journey.
At work, she quickly got changed and by quarter past nine was sitting in front of her computer screen. She had always been proud of her punctuality and kicked herself that today she had arrived late. Nobody had been in the office to witness her tardiness, but to her that wasn’t the point. After a few minutes, her boss, Stewart, put his head around the door:
“Ready for ‘Coding Tigers’?” he asked enthusiastically.
“As ready as I’ll ever be!” she replied, seeking to emulate his keenness. Just before turning her mind to her imminent presentation, she made a second vow, this time swearing to herself that from now on she would get Dylan up earlier, even if she had to drag him out of bed and dress him herself. Not noticing her distraction, Stewart picked up some papers from his adjacent office and then headed down the corridor to the meeting. Hannah followed, her stressful journey finally receding from her thoughts.
The presentation went well, but by evening it was raining heavily, pouring down in a summer shower which showed no sign of easing off. Hannah, not fancying a soaking, decided to brave the Underground home rather than cycling. She ran into Paddington station, stopping to catch her breath once she was safely under its enormous canopy. There were people rushing around everywhere and barely understandable announcements boomed across the concourse. She stared up at the departure
board and read where the trains were headed: Oxford, Swansea, Cheltenham Spa, Reading, Plymouth. She rarely found herself in mainline railway stations and, for a few moments, there felt something magical about a place from which trains rushed to the distant most corners of the south west and Wales, an appreciation she suspected its regular commuters might not share. She tore herself away from the spell the station had cast upon her and rode the escalator down into the heaving Underground system. Forty minutes later, having changed lines at King’s Cross, she emerged gasping for air. The rain had finally stopped and the pavements shone in the early evening sunlight, as she walked the last half mile back to the house.
Already home, Nicole and (to Hannah’s astonishment) Dylan were both sitting at the table doing their homework.
“Hi Mum!” they both said in unison, without looking up.
“Hi there, is your dad upstairs?”
Hannah hardly waited for the reply but made her way to the bedroom where Paul, having heard her come in, was slowly sitting up in bed.
“Oh, how are you sweetheart?” she asked anxiously, pleased to be home and putting her arm around him.
“Don’t worry,” he replied with a smile, “I’ll live.” It didn’t turn out to be a good prediction.
9
Eastern Atlantic –
Friday 25th to Sunday 27th November 2016
When they woke up the next morning, they were deep out at sea once more, with no land or other ships in sight. Fergus rolled out from his duvet and caught himself singing again as he shuffled to the bathroom – he looked back anxiously at his wife but she appeared undisturbed, still at least half asleep in bed. So he was up, washed and dressed first and, while Sylvie later did the same, he went out on deck with his phone and earphones. He found a chair overlooking the sea, in a small alcove of deck between two lifeboats, and sat down with his feet up on the lowest rung of the railings. He stared out towards the horizon, uplifted by the awe of being in the Atlantic, and then began to meditate… he felt it went better today, his mind less distracted and he a little more skilled at noting and observing it when it was.
Times and Places Page 7
