Especially on a cruise ship full of octogenarians.
So, if you're Barry Barnes, you start prowling, looking for victims to fill in the time between thoughts – which in Barry's case can be quite a long time.
It started almost as soon as I came on board.
I was carrying my backpack and my mother's make-up bag, struggling sideways down the narrow passageway on F-Deck.
Luckily, I didn't have to drag the suitcases on too. You just leave them on the wharf, with your name and cabin number on them, and they appear miraculously at your door sometime in the next couple of hours – courtesy of a whole team of men who smile a lot and don't speak a word of English.
For those of you who haven't had the privilege of taking a two-week 'cruise of a lifetime' on The Polynesian Queen, a word of warning.
F-Deck is just above the waterline, and smells like it.
And, of course, our cabin happened to be on F-Deck. When you win your cruise in a Girls' Brigade raffle, you can bet that you don't get to choose your cabin.
Suzi's suite on A-Deck has a little verandah overlooking the ocean, with a small breakfast table, so that, as the brochure puts it, you can eat alfresco – which is a fancy way of saying 'outside'.
But I didn't know Suzi then, and I definitely wasn't on A-Deck.
I was alone in the bowels of the ship.
Alone and vulnerable.
My mother and Adrian had, of course, stopped to watch Aunt Pru ripping into one of the officers because he had made the fatal mistake of offering to help her with her massive carry-on bags.
As I mentioned, the passageway on F-Deck – unlike those on the more 'public' decks – is quite narrow. Which makes it a perfect location for an ambush.
Now I'm not sure whether Barry planned it, or whether it was just a reflex – like when a snake strikes at a moving object without thinking. Knowing him better now than I did then, I'd go with the 'without thinking' explanation. It's much more in character.
He was standing near the junction of two passages, and I didn't see him lurking there. As I reached the junction, he stuck out his foot, and I went sprawling on my face, with my backpack tangled around my neck (cutting off my air supply) and my mother's make-up case flying into the wall. It burst open and spread tiny bottles of Ella Baché foundation and wrinkle banisher, cotton buds and make-up removal pads, and numerous shades of lipstick and nail polish across the floor of the passage.
I know it's only a two-week cruise, but my mother never goes anywhere unprepared. She's read too many self-help books to fall into that trap.
I disentangled myself from the strap of my backpack, took a deep breath and tried to sit upright – which I managed with some difficulty.
Barry Barnes looked down at me, and I knew right then that I was in trouble. Like the rat knows when the snake starts staring at him. I wanted to get up and move away from him as fast as I could, but there were two things stopping me.
Firstly, the passage was covered with the remains of my mother's beauty regime. If I ran away, I didn't know if I'd be able to come back and retrieve them later.
Of course the main reason I couldn't get up and escape was the small matter of his size-twelve foot.
Which was planted firmly in my chest.
He leaned forward, which I wished he hadn't done; partly because it increased the pressure on my ribcage, but mainly because it brought me closer to his breath – an extremely unpleasant combination of whatever he'd eaten for breakfast and whatever it was that gave his teeth their unusual green tinge.
'What's the matter, Miss? Trip over? You want to look where you're going. You might hurt yourself.' He emphasised the word 'hurt' like it was a word that held real meaning for him, which I guess it does. 'And look,' he went on. 'You've spilled your make-up all over the floor. Ugly girl like you needs all the help she can get.'
In the distance, I could hear the others coming – Aunt Pru raving, 'You can't even walk onto a ship without being molested by one of them,' and Mum saying, 'He was only trying to be nice, Pru,' and Adrian saying, 'You can be so embarrassing, Mum,' and Aunt Pru ignoring him, and going on about not being able to trust any of them – 'Ever.'
But none of that was registering at a surface level. I was much more interested in the unusual feeling you get when your ribs have been squashed to near snapping point, and your lungs are being bruised every time you try to catch your breath.
Bury Bones must have heard them coming, too. He removed the offending foot – and the offending breath – stood up, and whispered, 'You can run, but you can't hide,' which I figured was something he'd heard on some second-rate B-grade movie.
Then my sarcasm reflex took over, and before I could stop it, it had doomed me.
'A bit like your nose, you mean?'
Even as I said it I knew it was a suicidal act, but something inside me couldn't resist.
The voices were getting closer. There was no time for immediate revenge, but I knew what was going through what passes for Barry Barnes' brain. And none of it was pleasant.
He stared at me for as long as it took for Adrian to appear around the corner at the end of the passage, then disappeared up the stairs to E-Deck, his whisper drifting down from the gloom.
'Two weeks is a long time. You can run, but you can't hide ...'
He was right, of course.
A ship is a big place, but there are surprisingly few places where you can hide effectively – especially from someone with the predatory instincts of a snake, and the incredible patience that comes from not having any intelligence to get in the way.
4
Scarring
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SUZI
It had to happen eventually.
In fact, it took a day or so longer than I expected it to.
This time, I swore that I wasn't going to react the way I always react when it happens – but, in the end, I guess I don't have as much control over it as I always hope I'm going to have.
Until it happens.
And it definitely wasn't Jules' fault. Not at all.
I mean, he'd known me for a little over two days, and during that time we'd shared a lot of information – including his irrational infatuation with Penny Perfect, and the fact that his unusually well-rounded vocabulary was a result of having been infected, in the womb and beyond, by his mother's addiction to obscure, thick books and polysyllables.
(Mine, on the other hand, is due to the fact that I've spent so much of the past four years in hospital, or at home in bed, and I hate afternoon soap operas and 'trailer-trash' talk shows so much that I've worked my way rapidly through half the library – not to mention the constant stream of books my dad keeps finding for me.)
So it really wasn't at all unreasonable for Jules to raise the topic of my legs.
I may look tough – I know I act it, and I can make jokes about being 'mildly ambulatorially challenged' – but that's just it. It's all an act. Because there's nothing funny about dragging yourself around in a glorified baby stroller while the rest of humanity get on with their lives – on their own two feet – and you feel like it's all passing you by.
And I didn't want to get mad with him. Like I said, he's one of the few people my own age I can have a halfway decent conversation with – and not just on this boat, either. I don't make friends all that easily.
But not wanting to get mad with someone and actually not getting mad with someone are totally not the same thing.
In some ways, I wish he'd just come out and asked. Perhaps I could have handled that. But he didn't.
We were on the running track which circles the Lido Deck, overlooking the pool. I'd just completed my morning five-k circuit (without actually mowing down any of the competitors in the daily Spandex Hippolympics). Jules had managed a pretty respectable kilometre and a half, and he was panting, leaning over to get his breath back, and holding onto one of the railings to stop from collapsing.
I made some comment about the colour red, and he pointed ou
t that he wasn't exactly in training at the present moment, as it wasn't soccer season.
Then, I noticed him staring at my legs.
Normally, I keep them covered. I wear jeans, or, if the night's cold, I wrap a blanket around them. But not when I'm exercising. It just gets too hot. So I was wearing my shorts and a pair of Nikes. Not that I exactly need the air soles – but I do like the look of them.
Anyway, I knew what was coming, and I could feel the defences rising, but he didn't come out with it all at once.
'I had an accident when I was eight,' he said. 'Fell off my skateboard at my grandparents' house, straight onto one of those glass greenhouses. You know the ones they use to grow tomatoes? One of the panes snapped in a point, and it drove right into the back of my leg. I had thirty stitches and I was on crutches for three weeks. It hurt like heck.'
'And the point is?' I could hear the warning tone in my voice, but Jules went on, oblivious. I guess you can't expect anything else from a boy. One-track mind.
'Want to see the scar?' he went on, as if I hadn't spoken.
'Do I have a choice?'
I'm not sure if I actually said the words, or just thought them. Probably the latter, because he didn't pause.
He turned around, and ran his index finger down the thick line of scar tissue that stretched down the back of his calf.
'I was lucky, actually – it didn't cut the main muscles or any of the key blood vessels, or it could have got nasty.'
I could feel the tension building inside me, but he was on a roll. He didn't notice anything.
'The doctor they raced me to was a bit of a butcher, so the scar's quite rough, but at least it healed.'
Here it comes, I thought. By the way, what happened to your legs?
I looked down at the patchwork quilt of scarring that runs from halfway up my thighs to down as far as my ankles. Just waiting.
I didn't have long to wait.
'By the way,' he said, 'what exactly happened to your legs? If you don't mind me asking, I mean– '
He didn't get any further.
'And what if I do mind you asking?' I heard myself shouting. 'It's a bit late to ask permission, after you've already come out and asked!'
Even as the words came out, and I saw the look of shock steal over his face, I was trying to pull back, but it was too late. The fuse was lit, and there was nowhere he could duck for cover.
'I thought you were different, but I guess you're all the same. Check out the cripple. Get the juice on Wheelchair Wendy. Do I ask you about your problems – like how come you're such a total social retard, who can't even talk to the girl you're fantasising about, because you're too scared she might laugh at you?
'Well, do I? Do I?'
He didn't answer.
The attack had caught him totally by surprise – naturally, because there was absolutely no reason for him to expect it in the first place.
Part of me was screaming, 'Shut up, you idiot! Don't blow it again.' But that was a part of me that has no power over whatever stupid craziness it is that causes what happens to happen, whenever someone brings up the subject of my legs.
Jules just stood there, doing guppy imitations – his mouth opening and closing, but nothing coming out. His face went even redder, and he finally stammered, 'I'm sorry. I just–'
'So am I,' I cut in, not sounding the least bit apologetic. 'I really thought that we could be friends.'
With that, I felt my hands on the push-rims, and I swung the chair around, speeding off down the running track, before he could see the tears start.
I know – it was unfair, unreasonable, stupid ... There isn't anything you can say that I didn't say to myself on my way back down to the cabin. Nothing that I haven't said a hundred times before, when something similar has happened.
Like I said, I don't have a lot of friends. One outburst like that, and they pretty much give up on me. Who can blame them?
But I guess that's what makes Jules different. He didn't give up on the witch in the wheelchair.
What he did was to go and see my dad – which was a pretty damned cool thing to do, all things considered ...
5
Survivor's Guilt
JULES' STORY
If there's anyone out there who has the remotest idea what makes girls tick, could you drop me an email? Please?
I mean, there we are, having a pleasantly harmless time, dissing the Special Olympics wannabes, and catching our breath (at least, I was – Suzi can power through five ks without raising a sweat, which is no mean feat in a wheelchair), when I ask a perfectly legit question and suddenly the roof falls in.
I suppose I should be used to it – after all, I've lived most of my life with Aunt Pru as a semi-permanent fixture in my life, and unpredictable is her middle name.
(Actually, it's Celestine, but if she catches you using it, she'll disembowel you, so don't tell her I said anything.)
But the thing is, Suzi isn't an angry, disappointed, frustrated would-be feminist, with serious style issues and the people skills of a rhinoceros with rabies.
Which is the reason I didn't expect what happened to happen.
As I watched her powering off along the running track, scattering mounds of Spandex and cellulite in all directions, I thought of shouting after her, but I knew it wouldn't do any good.
The same way you know (just before it dumps you headfirst into the sandbank) that trying to pull out of the wave isn't going to be a realistic option.
So I just stared after her, trying to go over in my mind exactly what I'd said to turn her from Lassie into Cujo.
(What can I say? Dog metaphors are contagious ...)
In the end, I gave up trying to make sense of it and went to find Dr Quintello. I mean, if anyone could explain it, he could.
'Are you sure you want to know?' He asked the question through clenched teeth, as he pulled down on the handles of the Flexigym 2000 – one of the more major pieces of expensive gym equipment in the ship's fitness centre, which I was about a year and a half too young to use.
I was about to point out that if I didn't want to know, I'd probably be up on B-Deck by now, eating French fries and chicken nuggets from the all-day snack bar, instead of sitting talking to him, in a room surrounded by equipment none of which I would be allowed to touch for another year and a half.
But I didn't point it out – partly because I was always taught not to be sarcastic to people who don't know me well enough to know that my sarcasm is a genetic flaw which runs in my father's side of the family (at least according to my mum), but mainly because I really wanted to find out about what happened to Suzi's legs – and about what had made her so mad with me.
And not necessarily in that order.
As it was, I didn't say anything – which he took as a yes, and proceeded to enlighten me.
'Suzi will never talk about what happened,' he began. 'It's like she's managed to blank it from her memory. And I can't say I'm unhappy about that. You see, when she was almost ten, she was involved in a terrible accident. Her mother died, and it took them over an hour to cut Suzi out of the wreck.
'They operated on her legs, but they were badly cut up. She's had six skin grafts since the accident, but there's really no hope of them getting rid of the scarring completely.'
'I understand,' I said, more for something to say than because I really did. How can you ever understand something like that if you haven't gone through it?
Then I paused. Sometimes the question you want to ask has an answer that the other person doesn't want to give.
I took a breath.
'Will she ever walk again?'
He looked at me for a long time, like he was reading something in my eyes. I didn't know what he was looking for, but I held his gaze, so that he could find whatever it was.
If it was there to be found.
He picked up his towel from the seat beside him and wiped his face.
'She says you're a good kid,' he said, without looking at me
. Then he looked up. 'She doesn't make friends easily, and what I'm about to tell you, no one else knows – except the doctors and me.'
He paused again. I waited. Whatever he was about to say, he would get to in his own time.
Finally, he continued.
'The accident did a lot of damage to her legs, but once the bones mended, and the muscles healed ... You see, the thing is ... Her back wasn't injured, and, well ... As far as the doctors can work out, there's no physical reason why Suzi can't walk.'
'You mean ...' I began, but I didn't have a clue what he did mean, so the words just petered out.
'I mean ...' he went on, 'that Suzi's problem isn't here,' he patted his legs, 'it's here.' He tapped an index finger against his temple. 'She can't walk, because she believes she can't.
'Survivor's guilt, they call it. It's her way of punishing herself for causing the accident and ... You get the idea.'
I got it all right.
'But, surely she didn't really ...' I began, but the words ran out again.
'Of course she didn't, but they were on their way home from her piano lesson when the accident happened, and somewhere, down deep where she can't get at it, part of her blames herself – and no amount of counselling or hypnosis has helped her come to terms with it. Perhaps, one day ...'
I could tell by the tone of his voice, and the way his shoulders slumped, that he didn't hold out too much hope ...
I found Suzi in her cabin.
I knocked on the door, and she took forever to answer it. In the end it swung open, just a crack, and she spoke to me through the gap.
'I'm sorry,' I began.
'I'm sorry,' she began – at exactly the same moment.
Then we both stopped, waiting for the other to speak.
We're not normally that polite, but we were both a bit ... uncomfortable.
Finally, Suzi broke the silence.
'Do you want to come in?' she asked.
'Actually,' I replied, 'I was just in the neighbourhood, selling raffle tickets for the Girls' Brigade, and I was wondering if you wanted any.'
The door swung open, and I stepped inside.
Cruisin' Page 3
