We have to fill in our time until midnight. But, boy, is it ever a wonderful feeling to be so free on the ship again. We can go wherever we like, eat in any of the ten restaurants, swim in the pool, and best of all not be stuck in the cabin all day! Sheryl and I venture out onto one of the decks to see if we can see the islands we have just unknowingly visited. Large ships are scattered around the ocean, some not far away and others distant hazy images on the horizon. So many ships! Maybe they really are evacuating the entire population.
Already the land is just a few low humps in the ocean, with no distinguishing features from so far away. To think I’ve been there, in Levy Archipelago, and wasn’t even aware of it. The whole time we’ve been kept in the theater, the ship was slipping farther and farther away from shore. And what really freaks me out is, the way they’re talking, it won’t be that many more years before the whole place is underwater and I’ll never get to see it.
This is the first time the reality of rising sea levels actually hits me, and it hits me hard. I feel a lump in my throat as I watch the distant humps disappear over the horizon, knowing I will never, ever go there in my lifetime. That one day the islands won’t be there at all. They’ll be totally submerged.
I’m not the only one feeling emotional. As I look around me, I see people fixedly watching the land slip away. That is their home, and they’re seeing it for the last time. Some are holding on to others as if trying to stay upright. Some sob loudly, while others wail. Many just stare, soundless.
I realize I’ve only ever thought about tropical islands as places to visit on vacation. Not as real people’s homes. I’ve been living under a selfish first-world rock and feel ashamed.
After that gut-wrenching experience, I really want a swim. By chance we run into Gavin, who says he’ll push Sheryl around for a while. I don’t argue.
The pool looks tantalizingly clean, as no one has been swimming in it for days. Mounds of striped pool towels overflow from the towel-borrowing station, and there’s not a towel attendant in sight. I presume they’ve had to take on other duties with the huge number of passengers now apparently on board. My bathers are back in the cabin, as we had no prior warning about our sudden shipboard freedom, but I’m wearing my good matching undies bought especially for the trip, so I think they won’t look too different from a bikini. I’m not going to let that stop me going in after so long without a swim.
Pulling my dress and money holder quickly over my head in one go, I secrete my valuables in the crumpled folds of my dress on the deck. I wrap the towel around me so no one will have much of a chance to notice I’m in my knickers and bra rather than bathers. I walk to the edge of the pool and sit down. Quickly flicking off the towel, I slip in. Bliss!
I’m the only one in the pool, and it feels so good causing the first ripples to flow across its surface. Suddenly I’m deliriously happy on a day I’ve been so troubled. My mood has swung from dark despair to euphoria. For a few moments, I just feel free. Being out of the cabin and in the fresh air in the sun again—instead of only having our monitored evening promenade walks to look forward to.
The euphoria increases when the apple girl hobbles over to the pool and looks in. She obviously has the same idea and tears off her red T-shirt and pulls down her denim shorts in one quick move.
Wow! What a figure. She’s got great legs and full boobs….
“It looks like I’m wearing a bikini, doesn’t it?” she asks and, without waiting for an answer, hops in the deep end. When she surfaces, her long, curly brown hair is now pulled straight, hanging wet from her head. She flicks it over her left shoulder.
“Let’s make the most of it before the hordes arrive,” she says. She has a friendly smile, and I notice again that intriguing little gap between her top front teeth.
I’ve got a boyfriend. What the hell am I doing thinking a girl has a cute smile and a great body? Am I actually attracted to her?
I didn’t know I could get attracted to girls….
We chat, speculating on what’s happening. And we finally have a chance to introduce ourselves properly. Her name’s Jade and she’s from Kissimmee, which she tells me is in Florida. At first I think she’s teasing me with a place name like that, but she assures me it’s a real place and teaches me how to put the stress on the second syllable, not the first one, which I was doing when trying to repeat the name of her town. Her parents work for Disney World, which she says isn’t that far away from their hometown. They, too, got off in Fiji for an excursion, while she stayed behind nursing a twisted ankle, which took several days to heal. That explains the lack of promenade walks and her current limp. I tell her about Mum and Dad and Rosa, but for some reason I just don’t want to mention Zac. Not yet, anyway. I feel like his name would suddenly spoil this magic moment. I change the subject safely away from families and relationships and home.
“The pool will probably go downhill fast when all the new passengers find it. Let’s enjoy it while it’s as clear as it will ever be,” I say.
“And hang on to our towels. I doubt we’ll get another clean one again.”
Even as we swim, more and more people come onto the pool deck. People of all ages—young parents or older siblings carrying babies, children through to teenagers, younger adults, the middle-aged, and the elderly. Some seem quite infirm and frail. Jade and I start to talk numbers. By the sound of it, there are about six thousand of us now, and considering there are some remaining crew members as well, the ship must be expected to carry even more than that. Unbelievable. But then I tell Jade about what I saw on my sneak trip to my family’s suite. The extra two mattresses mean six people can be in our suite at the same time with two on the floor, two in the king-size bed and two on the sofa bed, and with three shifts it means eighteen people can be accommodated in that one cabin alone.
“I wonder if they’re putting more mattresses in all the cabins?” speculates Jade.
“In that case, we’re talking way more than six thousand passengers. Say they double the number that normally sleeps in each cabin by adding mattresses, like in my previous suite? Could we be going to carry twelve thousand? Plus the crew?”
“So at any one time, there would be four thousand in cabins or suites, and eight thousand wandering around! And as you say, there’s the crew too.”
“And he said ten ships. If they’re all as big as this one, that’s… that’s… a total of more than one hundred and twenty thousand!”
We stare at each other in horror and amazement. The man said the population of Levy Archipelago is over 120,000. That’s more or less the population of a third of Hobart. And on only ten ships. The weirdest thing about it all is that it’s suddenly sounding just so possible.
The numbers are driving us crazy, so we just muck around in the water to take our minds off the brain-boggling figures popping around inside our heads.
Eventually, but reluctantly, I’m ready to get out. I swim to the edge and hoist myself up over the lip of the pool in one swoop. I’m so glad Mum bought us new underwear for the trip. I hadn’t expected hundreds of people to witness me getting out of the pool in my undies, but that’s what happens today.
I’m glad Jade’s in the same situation as I am. I see the dark triangle through her wet lemon-yellow knickers as she pulls herself up over the pool edge, and quickly look away before she catches me. I drape the towel around me while I dry off a bit in the warm sun, put my money holder around my neck again, then slip my dress back over my head to look a bit more presentable. I don’t feel that confident in my skin. Jade doesn’t seem to be such a prude as I am and waits till her underwear is completely dry before tugging on her shorts, patting her pockets to check her valuables are still safely there, and pulling on her T-shirt. It gives me more of a chance to look at her.
I can’t believe I’m checking out another girl’s body. Rosa and I are comfortable sitting round in our underwear, but we’re so used to each other and have done it since we were kids. Plus she’s my sister. But look
ing at Jade is something very different. I try not to stare.
She sits and chats to me all the while, and I’m so happy to have someone almost my own age to talk to again.
But it’s starting to feel like something else as well. Something I didn’t expect to feel. Ever.
We promise to meet at the pool at the same time tomorrow, and I can’t wait to get my new birthday bikini out of my bag and give it its first wearing. I really want her to see me in it. I think I want her to see me in it even more than I want Zac to.
Will she think I look good in it?
I hope she does. Suddenly I almost don’t care about the scary situation we’re in, as it’s given me a chance to meet Jade.
Finally it’s dinnertime, and the corridors are choked with people. All the restaurants are packed to overflowing, even though they put on two sittings in each restaurant. We only have a choice of two dishes for the main meal—either vegetarian or nonvegetarian—no starter, and dessert is just pieces of fruit. And I don’t mean cut-up pieces of fruit either. I mean whole fruits like watermelon, rockmelon, pineapple, or papaya that we have to slice up ourselves unless we want something individual like an apple, mango, peach, or orange. There is a large jug of water and glasses on each table for us to help ourselves to.
After dinner we wander around, but it’s like constantly walking through a crowd at the Saturday Salamanca Markets or at the showground on People’s Day, being jostled all the time. And Jade is still hobbling a bit, and nervous of people knocking her sore ankle.
Most of the new passengers look stunned and in total shock. Some are crying, some are angry, and some are just staring around in disbelief. None of them look like the happy tourists we all were when we first got on the boat, dressed in our holiday gear and posing for photos. Some still have their bags with them, as they haven’t been allowed into their cabin yet, so many of them are just sitting on their luggage, heads in their hands, waiting. Parents try to pacify misbehaving children or crying babies.
We realize this is no pleasure cruise for these poor people. They have had to leave their homes, and for good. I can’t imagine what it would be like to know that your island home is slowly drowning and that one day you’d have to leave. And now they finally have left. Did they feel forced to leave against their will, or did they accept the inevitable? Do they know where they’re going? We certainly don’t. I ask some of them, but they don’t seem to know either. How could they have gotten on board not knowing their final destination? Or maybe that shows how desperate they are.
Jade and I finally go our separate ways after arranging to meet tomorrow. I’m so glad she wants to spend time with me again. I find Sheryl back outside our cabin at midnight, as the previous shift has just left, sitting calmly in her wheelchair. We’ve been separated ever since I went to the pool. Luckily Gavin had looked after her all day.
As soon as I open the door, I notice different odors. It doesn’t smell like our cabin anymore. Other people have definitely been staying here in our absence. Four suitcases and some hand luggage that don’t belong to us line the walls, with wet towels hanging over them. There is still steam on the bathroom mirror from a previous occupant’s shower, and smatterings of talc cover the floor tiles. But they’ve cleared away all their personal items from the bathroom, as we also have been told to do.
Sheryl is shocked to find there are two extra mattresses on the floor, but I’ve been half expecting that. Our little oasis of privacy is gone, and our cabin is becoming remarkably cluttered due to all the luggage, towels, and bedding. I figure after the next shift comes in, there will be twelve bags plus assorted hand luggage in total. Sheryl’s and my bags are still in the wardrobe where we’d left them, and we can still use the safe as only we know our password.
Soon another woman arrives to share our cabin. Her face falls when she sees us. This is the first time she’s come to the cabin, so she has her luggage with her. She’s horrified to see the mattresses on the floor.
We discuss who will be sleeping where. In our absence, the two king singles have been pushed together into one king-size bed to save floor space, and my bedside table has been repositioned. Stacks of clean bedding and fresh towels for our shift are there as promised, but we will have to make up our own beds. Upon closer inspection, we realize the sheets we have been given are one set of king-size sheets (so the beds will have to stay together now) and two single sets for the mattresses on the floor. Sheryl, being older and a bit incapacitated, really needs to sleep in a bed, but I can easily sleep on the floor. The trouble is, Sheryl says she feels uncomfortable having to share the bed with a stranger, and the young woman—who introduces herself as Simone—says she’s happy to sleep on the floor. It seems our problem is solved. I’ll sleep with Sheryl.
But when our next cabinmate arrives, with her worried-looking husband just behind her juggling all their gear, we realize there is no choice but to change sleeping arrangements.
The other woman to occupy our cabin is heavily pregnant, so she’ll have to share with Sheryl—you can’t expect her to lever herself down to the floor, and then it would be very difficult for her to get back up again. So we agree Simone and I will sleep on the mattresses on the floor.
“Come and lie down on the bed with me,” says Sheryl kindly to the pregnant woman, whose husband has reluctantly left to find his own cabin he’ll be sharing with other men on another floor. “You won’t be lonely here.”
After brief introductions, the pregnant woman, Marta, takes a pretty little pink shell from her pocket and places it lovingly on the bedside table on her side of the bed. I don’t have the heart to tell her she’ll have to pack it away tomorrow for when the next shift comes in and takes over our cabin. She carefully lowers herself onto the bed, one hand supporting the small of her back, then lies down and drifts off to sleep there and then. She must be exhausted from the strain of the day.
Trying to keep as quiet as possible so as not disturb Marta, we open our suitcases on our respective beds and mattresses and take out our nightwear and wash bags. We decide to leave our toothbrushes and other necessities on different parts of the bathroom basin and allocate rungs for the towels. At least that way they’ll get a bit of a chance to dry off after our showers before we have to stash them away for the next shift. I suggest to Sheryl that when we have to leave the cabin, maybe she and I can hang our towels over the wardrobe door handles instead of over our cases, so at least they’ll get aired, but not mixed up with the others’ towels.
We can explain all the details to Marta in the morning.
All of this is really irritating, and I almost scream with frustration. But it isn’t their fault, it isn’t Sheryl’s, and it isn’t mine. All of these decisions have been made by the powers who have us in their control for the time being. I realize there will have to be very strict rules to ensure this huge number of passengers on board stay in some sort of order. And I feel sorry for the people who have had to leave their homes forever, with just a suitcase and small bag each. How unbearable it must be for them. How could you choose what to take from a lifetime of possessions?
We take turns having quick showers while Marta sleeps on, then finally all settle down for the night. We know we only have about six hours left now until we have to be up again, dressed and packed, ready for the next shift to move into our room. It is so weird sleeping with two strangers. Sheryl and I have almost become friends, or at the very least become very used to each other, and have kept each other good company during the previous confusing days. Now that everything is much more out in the open, it all makes more sense, but there is still a lot we don’t know. Like where the hell are we all going? And what is going to happen to us after we get there? These thoughts swirl round and round inside my head, until finally the land of nod claims me once again—but my final thoughts before I fall asleep are of Jade climbing out of the pool, droplets of water sparkling on her skin.
Chapter Seven: Day Six Ship
WHEN I push Sheryl to breakfa
st today, we talk about our new cabinmates. Sheryl appears concerned, saying, “That baby is going to be born any day now.”
“You told me you were a midwife back in the days when you were working,” I say.
“Yes, that’s how I know it will be really soon, and that’s why I’m so worried.”
“But you’ll know what to do, won’t you? You can’t have forgotten.”
“I certainly haven’t forgotten, which makes it worse. Things are far from ideal here to have a baby born into this situation. There should be a doctor on board, and maybe a nurse, as cruise ships are supposed to carry those in case of medical emergencies. But I don’t expect they normally have to deliver babies on a cruise ship.”
“Well, she’s lucky she’s got you on hand, then.”
“Doesn’t feel like luck to me,” says Sheryl. “More like fate.”
“Well, I think it’s lucky you’re on the same shift as she is. Imagine if she was on a different shift, sleeping with people who didn’t have a clue what to do.”
“It will keep me on edge, that’s for sure,” says Sheryl. “Even less chance of getting a decent night’s sleep than before. And even more reason to hope this ship comes into a port soon, so she can have the baby ashore, somewhere with proper facilities.”
I haven’t noticed Sheryl having too much trouble sleeping. Once she puts her CPAP machine on, her regular breathing soon fills the cabin. But I don’t think it’s a good time to mention that. Nor to question why she would assume wherever we land will have a decent hospital.
“Should we do anything to prepare for the birth?” I ask, secretly hoping I won’t have to be too involved. It all sounds quite scary really.
“We need to find out about the doctor, where she or he is, so we can quickly call them if the baby does start coming.”
Jilda's Ark Page 5
