by Nick Lake
The leader laughed, said something in Somali.
— He says that you are the valuables, the younger man said. As if to illustrate this, he took the Rolex off his wrist, sneered at it, then threw it in the bin under the table. Ten thousand dollars is not what we have come for. Try ten million, maybe.
— You’re insane, said Damian.
The leader shrugged.
— Last month, man in our village get two million.
He nodded to the younger man, the translator, who took a smartphone out of his pocket. I stared at it, amazed, because it was super-expensive, better than my own. But the pirate wasn’t looking at me – he flicked something on the screen and held the phone up to each of us in turn, then to the console, then to the front deck of the yacht. Then he turned so that he was facing the leader. Only then, I realised he was filming.
— The time is . . . 12:43, he said, checking a digital readout on the console. We have taken command of the Daisy May, a luxury yacht. He turned to Damian. Captain, please confirm our coordinates.
— Uh . . . latitude 11.933263, longitude 44.344254, said Damian.
— Those are our coordinates, continued the pirate. We do not intend to hide. We wish you to know where your people are. If our demands are not met, though, everyone on board will be killed.
The way he said this, it was so casual and business-like, a statement of a fact, simply a consequence.
Oh god, I thought. This is bad. This is really, really bad.
I should have known that before, you’re thinking, and I guess I did, but there’s knowing something and then there’s knowing something, and when he said in that cold voice that we would be killed, that was when I truly knew the danger.
We were hostages now.
He tapped the screen to stop recording, took out a cable and connected the camera to the laptop on the console that Damian used. I couldn’t get over this; there was something so weird about this guy, whose gun was tied on with string, who was barefoot under his trousers, producing a smartphone and then using it, like he did it every day.
— You will tell us the name and email address of this yacht’s owners, he said. So that we can send the video.
— I – began my dad, but this time it was Tony who interrupted him.
— It’s Goldblatt Bank, he said, his voice strained with pain. I’ll give you the address.
Smart, I thought straight away. If the pirates knew it was Dad who owned the yacht, then they would negotiate with him directly. Or they could torture him into revealing how much money he had and giving them all of it. Tony was buying us some time. Dad had clearly twigged this, too, because he was silent, just staring angrily at the pirates.
At that moment, the stepmother was brought in. There were tears running down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem harmed.
— There are pirates, she said, her voice breaking. On the yacht! Pirates.
Jesus, I thought. I wish it didn’t have to be her. I wish my mom could be here instead.
But then I thought, no, I wouldn’t want my mom to be in this position, to be in this danger, to be scared like I was.
And did that mean I did want the stepmother to feel those things? I wasn’t sure.
The only thing I knew?
I didn’t want to be on that yacht any more. I mean, obviously I hadn’t been concentrating on my future, otherwise I wouldn’t have screwed up my A levels, but I wanted to have a future.
You have to understand, it wasn’t all bad with my mom. The thing that made her terrible was also the thing that made her amazing. So there was my fifteenth birthday, for example. She knew I wanted to go out with my friends in the evening and she was OK with that, so long as I had breakfast with her. Dad was on a business trip somewhere made-up-sounding, like Uzbekistan or something, talking about bank loans.
We were living in London by then. This was a Friday in October, still in term time, so of course I had to go to school after breakfast with Mom. I got up and did the usual, got dressed, did my make-up – not that I ever spent long on it, just put on some eyeliner and mascara, a bit of lipgloss. I don’t do lipstick. Then I went downstairs, where Mom was already sitting at the table, which was piled high with croissants and pains aux raisins – my favourite – as well as all kinds of fruit. There was a bottle of champagne, too, which she popped the moment I walked into the room, like she’d been waiting, ready to do that exact thing, and poured into two glasses.
My dad would never let me drink – he hated it – but he wasn’t there, so I took the glass that was proffered and sipped it. Bubbles, tasting like croissants smelled, went up my nose.
— Happy birthday, beautiful, she said. Here. I made coffee, too.
— Wow, Mom, I said. You didn’t have to. I was confused: it wasn’t even like it was my sixteenth or anything. Maybe that should have been my first warning. Maybe she knew she wouldn’t be there the next year.
I sat down, and she gave me my present, a sort of shy expression on her face. A small blue box, like the ones jewellery comes in, no fancy logos on it. I had an idea what it was before I opened it. I cracked the box like an oyster and I think I probably screamed. I definitely jumped up and gave Mom a kiss.
— You remembered! I said. Thank you, thank you.
Inside the box was a vintage Chanel watch, the leather of the strap scuffed and the face scratched, the dial an elegant oblong, kind of art deco. I put it on. I’d seen it in an antique shop in Richmond a few months before. I’d loved it at first sight. It wasn’t that expensive or anything. I mean, maybe it was. It’s hard to know what is and isn’t when you grow up with money. You lose perspective. Anyway, something about the watch reached out through the glass of the shop window and tapped me on the shoulder. It was old, yes. But it had charm.
I started to clear up after breakfast but Mom put a hand on my hand.
— You’d better change out of your uniform, she said.
— What?
— Get changed. You’re not going to school today.
— I’m not? Where am I going, then?
— You’ll have to wait and see.
— What about your work? I asked.
One of the weird things about Mom: she was totally awesome at her job. I don’t think anyone there even knew about her being ill, apart from maybe her boss, and only because Mom sometimes had to take time off for appointments and stuff. I could never understand it, the way she was so flawlessly good at that bit of her life. But apparently it’s common with people like her. Dad called it compartmentalisation. Me, I mostly called it unfair. It wasn’t like Mom to just call in sick.
— I took the day off, she said. I’ve been planning this for a while. She winked and smiled.
— Er, OK.
Mom flapped a hand at me.
— Come on! Get moving.
I started up the stairs.
— Oh, and wear something warm, Mom called after me.
When I came back down, we left the house and started walking. I thought maybe we’d get in the car, which was parked just down the street, but we didn’t; we walked right past it. We crossed the common, passed the duck pond, then went along the cycle path by the Wilderness. Eventually we got to Richmond Park and then carried on towards Roehampton along the bridleway.
We walked past the Long Water, along the path that crosses between Ham Gate and Roehampton Gate, the red deer grazing beside us. A stag stood up out of the heather, huge antlers prehistoric against the high-rise apartment blocks.
— Where are we going? I asked. It wasn’t like Mom to go for walks for no reason. I mean, she walked, of course she did. She was a person, not a bird, or something. But she didn’t do hiking or rambling. She only walked to get somewhere.
— It’s a surprise, she said.
She winked at me and led me up the hill towards the Royal Ballet School, where there’s a bench that looks out over the ponds, the heather-covered ground, the backdrop of trees, and you can imagine you were in Scotland, or something. When we got
to the crest of the hill, I saw something that, if I was in a cheesy old TV show, would have made me blink and take a step back, like, really? It was a table, a dining table, with a white cloth on it, set out with this incredible lunch, all on china plates, with wine glasses, everything. I could see a roast chicken, chocolates, salads, cheese, quiches.
— I wasn’t sure what you like now, she said. Your taste is always changing.
— I . . . I . . . Jesus, Mom.
— You don’t like it.
— Of course I like it, I said. It’s amazing!
This is not what I should have said. What I should have said was, I love you. You are amazing. But I didn’t, and now I can’t.
Still, she was pleased that I liked it, I could tell. And it was amazing. It was a bit chilly to be eating outside, I was aware of that, even though it was the kind of thing Mom would never think of. But it didn’t matter. There were no people around, apart from a couple of guys on rollerblades who had stopped to stare at the table, which was set about three metres away from the main path. I couldn’t work out how she’d done it, how she’d pulled it all off.
— How did –
She held a finger to her lips.
— A magician never reveals her tricks, she said.
So, we sat down and ate this astonishing lunch in the middle of Richmond Park, with all these different foods, and wine, so that by the time I went out with my friends that evening I was already tipsy. That was OK, though, because Mom said she’d pick me up from the pub at 11 p.m. exactly, and I’d better be there, otherwise she was taking back the watch. That was another great thing about Mom: I was way too young to drink, but she was cool about it.
After a while, a park warden turned up in one of those green Land Rovers they have. He parked up and got out.
— I’m sorry, he said. You can’t just . . . I mean, the table. You can’t do that.
— Oh? said Mom. Funny. We just did.
After that, we had to leave. But that didn’t matter because I remembered every minute before they made us go. I remembered eating and drinking while the stags wandered below us, and the sun was shining, and there was a smell of leaves and fire in the autumn air, and birds were calling, and no one ever, ever died.
The pirates gathered all of us on the sofas and armchairs in the cinema room. I was sitting next to Dad and he was holding my hand.
— It’s OK, Amy, he whispered. We’re worth more alive than dead.
How reassuring, I thought. Then I looked at him.
— Wait, I said. You’re worth more alive – you’re rich. I’m just your daughter.
— Don’t be silly, said Dad. We’re all valuable here.
— Are we? Felipe said. I don’t have any money.
— That’s not the point, said Dad. It’s simple economics – if any of us dies, the pirates know they won’t get their ransom, no matter who’s paying it.
Again, not very reassuring. I still wondered, and I caught Felipe’s eye and I could see him wondering, too, was there a point where what Dad said stopped being true?
Say Felipe died. Or Tony. Wouldn’t Dad still have to pay to get the rest of us out of here?
But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think it would be very good for morale.
I wasn’t scared any more, though, not precisely. I was feeling kind of numb. Shock, I suppose. Or maybe it’s me. I mean, I’m kind of a numb person. Empty, like a hollow chocolate bunny. I’m not saying that in some, like, self-pitying way. It’s true.
Tony was stretched out on the biggest sofa, the leather one. One of the pirates had lifted him up and deposited him there. I wasn’t really paying attention to the differences between the pirates at that point – I didn’t even know for sure how many there were – but something about this one creeped me out immediately. I saw that he had a red bandanna on, a weak chin and hard eyes. Flat eyes. Dead eyes. The cabin walls had more emotion in them than those eyes.
The younger one came in with a kind of bandage made out of cloth and tied it expertly round Tony’s leg. I hoped the bandage was clean – it looked like it was. He gave some sort of order, by the sound of it, to the cold-eyed one, then he left. The other pirate took some kind of chewing tobacco or something – khat, I found out later – and put it in his mouth, began chewing it. He went over to a chair in the corner, sat down and closed his eyes.
After he did so, Tony turned to Damian with a wince.
— Did you alert anyone? he asked softly.
— Yep. The navy and SSAS.
— Good.
— And your leg? Are you in a lot of pain?
— A little, said Tony. But the bullet just scratched the flesh. I was lucky.
— When they get our money and our stuff, they’ll leave, right? asked the stepmother.
— I’m afraid not, said Dad.
— Why not?
— They want a ransom.
— Then pay it! Pay whatever they want!
— Yes, said Felipe. Please pay them. I want to go home.
The bandanna pirate’s dead eyes flickered open. He grunted, shook his gun a bit and closed his eyes again. Already I definitely didn’t like this one.
— It’s not as simple as that, said Tony. There’s insurance. The navy. We need to sit tight for a bit. Wait and see what they want.
— For god’s sake! said the stepmother. She started to cry again.
I caught Damian’s eyes. He smiled thinly, those Irish dimples flicking on like a light.
Shortly after, the leader came in. He indicated his face.
— Ahmed, he said, introducing himself.
I saw now that he had a scar that went all the way from the corner of his left eye to his chin, skirting his mouth. It looked like someone had tried to cut his face in half. But there was some quality about him – his eyes, mainly, which were clever and bright. You could see why he was the leader, is what I’m saying.
Then Ahmed pointed to the younger guy, the English speaker.
— He is Farouz. I am the boss, Farouz is translator. OK?
— OK, said Dad. My name is –
— No. You have no name. You Hostage One. Her, Hostage Two. And her . . .
He went round all of us, gave us our new names. I was Hostage Three, you know that already. At the time it was pretty chilling. I mean that literally: I know it’s a cliché, but this cold feeling, fluid, rolled down my back. Because it was obvious why they were giving us numbers. It’s much harder to kill someone once you know their name. They went on and numbered Tony, Damian and Felipe. Felipe got the last one, number six, and I was pretty impressed, despite myself, with how the pirates had seen the pecking order, just like that, even knowing that although Damian was the captain, Tony basically outranked him.
— Now, said Ahmed, you take me safe with ten thousand dollar.
— Bring it to you? asked my dad.
— No. You take me.
He gestured with his AK-47 for Dad to go out of the door in front of him. Dad looked at all of us, shrugged and led the way. Ahmed followed him out.
When they had gone, Farouz looked over at Tony. Anger flashed on Farouz’s face and he went over to the other pirate, the scary one who was chewing – who had bothered to open his eyes at least since Farouz had arrived. Farouz started shouting at him. I heard the word biyo repeated several times.
The dead-eyed pirate with the red bandanna sighed, got up and left the room. Farouz tapped his foot impatiently. A minute later, the other man came back with a couple of bottles of water. He gave one to Tony and put the others on the glass coffee table, before sitting down again.
— Thank you, said Tony.
— You are welcome, said Farouz. You should have had it sooner, he added, with a glance at the other man, who sneered back at him.
I noticed that. Him being kind, I mean. I was also considering, in some distant part of my mind, the way the other pirate had curled his lip at Farouz, thinking that if the pirates ended up fighting each other, that could be good f
or us. It’s the fact that I was able to think about things like this, strategically, that tells you I was in shock, I guess.
I was in shock, but also hyper-aware. The walls seemed to be pulsing, alive. I was very conscious of the details of everything – the brush strokes on the generic English countryside watercolour on the wall, the flecks in the cream carpet. It was as if someone had suspended the whole room under water, and it acted like a lens, that water, magnifying everything, and at the same time it made the sounds that reached me echoey and far away.
— How long are you going to keep us in here? asked the stepmother.
Farouz looked surprised.
— In this room? I don’t know. An hour? We are only searching the boat. Then you are free to do as you wish.
— We can go where we want? asked the stepmother.
— Why not? There are guards everywhere, so you can’t escape, but you can move around. You all sleep together in this room, though. OK?
— OK, said Tony, who obviously wanted to show some kind of authority, not that Farouz could care less about that, judging by his expression.
No one said anything for quite a while after that. Finally, Ahmed came back in, Dad behind him. Ahmed was carrying wads of banknotes, and smiling. He threw one of them to Farouz and laughed. Then he jerked his thumb for Farouz and the other guy to head out.
_______, Dead Eyes said in his language, which was all harsh throat sounds and squelchy Ls, and sounded like the person speaking was trying to swallow every second letter as if it were food. Then he laughed long and hard, and left the room.
— What was that? said the stepmother. What did he say?
— Nothing, said Farouz.
And I thought, he’s the one with the gun – he doesn’t even have to bother with lying.
For all that, though, nothing too scary happened to begin with. True to his word, Farouz let us leave the cinema room later that afternoon.
We went out and on to the rear deck – I think we were all heading towards sunlight without realising it. Seeing the changes that had already taken place on the yacht was weird. One of the pirates was wearing my Superdry hoodie. All of them had on new clothes of some kind – jeans, trainers, even a raincoat. One of them was wearing a parka that the stepmother had bought for Patagonia, which was where we were originally meant to be in six months’ time. Somehow, seeing a pirate strutting around a luxury yacht in a parka in thirty-five degree heat made all of them seem a little less intimidating because it was so ridiculous.
