by Sarah Lotz
‘He says it is in case we are stranded for a long time and they have to send tugs. Pepe says they’re preparing just in case it takes as much as two days to get back to port.’
‘It will not come to that.’
‘You don’t know that. It is lucky that we’re stocked for the next cruise.’
‘Mirasol says that you’ve been gossiping again.’
‘What else is there to do?’
‘She does not need to hear your ghost stories.’
‘Whatever.’ Angelo smirked. ‘Perhaps Rogelio will get more information from his boyfriend.’
‘Damien is not his boyfriend.’
Angelo pursed his lips and cocked his head on one side. ‘Believe that if it makes you happy. But someone is.’
‘I don’t have time for this, Angelo.’ She stood up, dumped the remains of her food in the recycling bin and headed back towards the service area. Unable to use the elevator, she would have to heft the bags up the stairs. She collected a pile and clunked up towards her station.
She would start with Mr Lineman, who would be the worst by far to deal with. Holding her breath, she knocked on the door. No answer – the angels were on her side this morning. She propped the door open and slapped the bags down on the couch. The suite wasn’t its usual pigsty, their belongings were packed away; their luggage piled neatly next to the closet. She straightened the bed, brushed away a stray grey pubic hair – she wouldn’t bother changing the sheets – and then wiped a cloth over the TV stand.
She heard them before she saw them: the slam of the bathroom door, followed by the liquid spatter of vomit and groaning. Mr Lineman’s wife, a woman with a dumpling face and quick little eyes, barely glanced at Althea. ‘Jonny?’ she was saying to the bathroom door. ‘Jonny, you okay in there?’
Althea shuddered. She hoped there wasn’t a virus going around. Perhaps Trining was telling the truth after all and really was sick. ‘May I do anything to help?’ she asked Mrs Lineman.
‘We were in the queue when he said he felt bad. It can’t be something he’s eaten, we didn’t even get a chance to get to the buffet.’ The lavatory whooshed. The woman eyed the bags. ‘What you got there?’
Here we go . . . Althea put on her most innocent expression and explained what they were for. While Mrs Lineman stared at her in undisguised horror, Althea briskly opened one of the bags and slid it inside the metal trashcan.
‘I will not take a . . . take a . . . you know what in a bag. I’m not an animal.’
‘It is just in case, Mrs Lineman. You are fortunate, the conveniences on this floor are still working.’
‘I should think so. These are the VIP staterooms. We were upgraded on account of our stateroom was smaller than advertised.’
‘Mrs Lineman, as I say, as of now your deck has not been affected—’
‘You people won’t hear the last of this.’
Althea put on her best smile. ‘Is there anything else you need?’
‘Just give us some more water and towels.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Lineman.’
Mrs Lineman harrumphed.
Althea scurried past her, had almost made it when Mrs Lineman called her back.
Shitballs.
Althea turned, readying herself for a volley of abuse, but Mrs Lineman was now looking contrite. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m sorry for shouting at you. I’m just rattled, is all.’
For a second, Althea was worried the woman was about to start crying. She was not in any mood to put on her sympathetic act. ‘There is nothing to worry about, Mrs Lineman. It will all be fine, you will see.’ The lavatory flushed again, making them both jump. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.’
Mrs Lineman nodded distractedly, and Althea slipped away.
Her favourite two seniors, Helen and Elise, were absent, and she was gratified to see that their beds were made as usual. She left the red bags in their room, along with an extra bottle of water. She wouldn’t charge them for it. Her radio buzzed, and she was tempted to ignore it – it would only be Maria, checking up on her. She clicked on receive, expecting to hear the usual gush of static, but Maria’s voice came through clear and strong. ‘Althea, come in, Althea.’
‘I’m here, Maria.’
‘Get to my office now, over.’ There was a slight wobble in Maria’s voice. Althea attempted to radio a response, but found she was talking to dead air once more. She would have to go all the way down to find out what the stupid puta wanted.
She bagged the dirty towels, and hauled them down the service stairs, cursing at the lack of an elevator. Her shoulder muscles would be burning by the time the day was done. Raised voices drifted towards her as she neared the alcove at the bottom, a popular gathering spot. Paulo and a couple of other stewards were huddled together in the corridor. ‘What is happening?’ Althea asked.
‘It’s Mirasol,’ Paulo said. ‘She was attacked by a passenger.’
‘What? When?’
‘Not long ago. I was the one who—’
‘Where is she?’
‘Maria has taken her to her office.’
Althea hurried along the I-95, and flew into Maria’s office without knocking. Mirasol was sitting in front of Maria’s desk with her head back, pressing a ball of tissues to her nose. Maria was standing over her, and on any other occasion, Althea would have relished the disconcerted expression on her usually smug supervisor’s face.
‘Is it true?’ Althea asked. ‘Did a passenger attack her?’
Maria looked up. ‘Yes. It is true.’
‘Why is she not in the medical bay?’
‘No one is there. They are dealing with the passenger.’
‘What happened?’
‘He went to attack her when she walked into his stateroom to clean it.’
‘He was crazy,’ Mirasol said. Her voice was muffled. She hitched a breath and took her hand away from her face. ‘Is it bad, Althea?’
Apart from the bloody nose, Althea could see no other injuries. ‘It is not bad. You will live.’
‘Can you look after her, Althea?’ Maria asked. ‘Security is dealing with it, but I need to inform the hotel head, the staff captain and Guest Services.’
‘Of course.’
Althea noted that Maria’s hands were trembling. She was bad in a crisis. This was useful information. A rare smile, and then Maria clacked her way out of the room with obvious relief.
Althea crouched next to Mirasol. The girl’s eyes were bloodshot. ‘Where did this happen? Trining’s station?’
‘No. It was at my station.’ Mirasol sniffed again, and Althea grabbed the box of tissues from Maria’s desk. She always kept it full. People did a lot of crying in this room. ‘Before . . . before I opened his door, already things didn’t feel right. I felt all the time like I was being watched.’
‘I know that feeling, Mirasol. It is the security cameras. It takes a while to get used to them.’
‘No. That isn’t what I meant. I had to keep checking no one was coming to sneak up on me. All of my staterooms were empty and some of the mattresses were gone. People had moved out because of the smell. Have you been down there, Althea? It is becoming worse. Some of the carpets are wet, and there are blockages so that the toilets are overflowing. They must send Maintenance down there soon.’
‘And the man who attacked you?’ Althea tried not to show her impatience.
‘I knocked on his cabin. There was no answer, so I walked in and . . . I could not see his face, but he was screaming and crying. He hit me, but I think that was an accident, I don’t think he even saw me, and then I ran. He was scared, Althea. Something had scared him very badly.’ She paused and wiped at her eyes. She really was very pretty. Althea would have to be watchful to ensure that Angelo didn’t ruin her.
‘Go on.’
‘I think I know what it was. I saw something as I was running away, Althea.’ Mirasol crossed herself.
‘What did you see?’ Althea felt another twinge in her stomach. ‘A boy?’
<
br /> ‘A boy?’ Mirasol shook her head. ‘No. I saw her, Althea. The Lady in White.’
‘You couldn’t have seen her, Mirasol.’
‘I did, Althea. She smiled at me. She was—’
‘There is no such thing as the Lady in White, Mirasol,’ Althea snapped, her voice sounding harsher than she meant it to. Mirasol looked down at her hands. ‘I am sorry. But it is just your imagination. Angelo put the idea in your head, and when you were frightened that’s what you thought you saw.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. There is no Lady in White, Mirasol.’
Just like there were no duwendes, or evil spirits, or witches.
Just like there were no ghost boys.
The Suicide Sisters
Damien the cruise director’s announcements were coming thick and fast, each one more inane than the last: ‘The shower is fun if you need a number one, and the red bags will do for a number two.’ Helen suspected he might be enjoying the situation for some warped reason of his own. And she hadn’t missed that there was a lack of real information – no message from the captain yet, or an explanation as to why no one from Foveros had come to rescue them, or tow them back to shore. She eyed the pile of red plastic bags that had been left while she and Elise were out. Thankfully their lavatory was still in working order, but it had made an alarming grinding sound the last time she’d flushed it.
‘Helen?’ Elise called from her bed. ‘Could you get me some water?’
‘Of course. How are you feeling?’
Elise gave her a brave smile. ‘Better, thanks. It was just the heat getting to me.’
They’d been on the Lido deck queuing for breakfast when Elise said she felt faint. Helen had helped her back to the suite and encouraged her to lie down for a while. She didn’t look well; her face was flushed and she could barely keep her eyes open.
‘You sure?’
‘Uh-huh. Think I’m gonna take another nap for few minutes. That okay?’
‘Of course.’ Helen poured her a glass of tepid water – their bar fridge was no longer working – and placed it next to the bed. Restless, she straightened up the room, then took her laptop and Kobo out onto the balcony. It was a couple of degrees cooler out here than in their stateroom; a slab of heat had hit them when they’d returned from the main deck. Still, they were among the lucky ones. At least their balcony suite – albeit with the view partially obscured by a lifeboat – provided them with a modicum of fresh air. The ship was still listing, and they didn’t appear to be moving at all. The ocean was utterly still, the water coated with a greasy skin that reminded her of the top of a discarded cup of tea.
She sat and fired up her laptop. Her suicide note was still on the screen, waiting to be copied and pasted into the body of an email. It had taken her weeks to write the three lines, intending to send them to her friends and Graham’s nephews who kept her up to date with their lives on Facebook. She supposed she could always just change her FB status to ‘dead’ instead.
Not funny.
I have decided I don’t wish to live anymore. I am of sound mind. Please do not feel any guilt about my decision, it was not made lightly.
A lie of course. She wasn’t someone who did anything lightly, but that decision had been . . . she searched for a way to describe it – almost flippant.
It had struck her randomly on an unseasonably humid day in June. She’d been gardening, talking to Graham in her head like she always did. She’d clipped a stem, and then thought, why bother? Who cared if the hedges were trimmed or not? The rest of the day loomed ahead of her, planned with military precision so that she wouldn’t have too much time to think. Gardening from ten to twelve, then a drawn-out trip to Waitrose, a meeting with the local Save the Badger society for which she acted as secretary, then she’d read from three to five p.m., watch a couple of hours of television, cook herself a lonely dinner for one, take a sleeping pill and do it all over again the next day. She was tired of living from hour to hour, trying to fill the chasm. She had her friends, of course, but she was intensely conscious of not being a burden, and they were busy with their own lives and grandchildren. Filled with a peculiar sense of elation, she’d brushed the dirt off her hands, hurried inside and switched on her laptop. She was staggered by the amount of information available for the potentially suicidal. There was Exit International and Dignitas of course, scores of counselling services and hundreds of websites listing the top ten foolproof ways to do the deed. She’d stayed up for twenty hours straight, eventually landing on Bettertogether.com, a forum for ‘those who don’t want to die alone’. A message from ‘Recently Widowed’ caught her eye, a bittersweet account of how the poster attempted to fill her days: finding novel ways to extend her shopping trips, volunteering at every local charity she could find, signing up for correspondence courses to learn Spanish and French. A kindred spirit. It had taken Helen hours to frame a reply, and she’d refreshed the page every thirty seconds in the hope of a response. It had come ten minutes later: ‘How lovely to meet a fellow swan!’ That was what Elise called the pair of them: swans. Forever locked in the limbo of mourning their other halves.
They’d chatted online every day for weeks – discussing everything from the minutiae of their daily lives to long, frank exchanges about why they’d both ended up on the site. Curiously, although they now had each other in person, she missed receiving Elise’s emails, and Elise admitted that she missed her messages, too. There was an intimacy in writing that was somehow absent from personal interactions, although she couldn’t complain. Strange to think how nervous she’d been about meeting Elise for the first time. They’d planned on spending a couple of days together at a modest hotel in South Beach before the cruise, and as she waited in the bar for Elise to arrive, her stomach had fluttered as if she was about to meet a lover. Which, in a sense, she was. What could be more intimate than dying with someone? She’d come to rely on their daily exchanges, and she feared that in person, things would change. After all, on paper, they couldn’t be more different: Elise, the Pennsylvanian housewife; Helen, the retired tax lawyer. Helen: British, bookish and reserved (she knew she’d been nicknamed the ice-queen in her firm); Elise: open, warm and unashamedly addicted to confessional magazines and the soaps. Helen the lifelong atheist; Elise the regular churchgoer. Neither had children, but unlike Elise, who she knew mourned this aspect of her life, Helen had never seen the point of passing on her genes. Really, it was a wonder they had anything to talk about at all. But the second they met, they immediately fell into the easy camaraderie they shared online – proof that opposites could balance each other out.
She let her cursor hover over the delete button.
Yesterday – eleven hours ago – she was supposed to be dead. She flexed her fingers. She was now officially living on borrowed time.
I want to die holding the hand of a handsome ship’s doctor while eating a poisoned grape.
How could Celine possibly have known that Helen had been thinking about that quotation earlier that evening? She hadn’t brought a copy of A Streetcar Named Desire with her, and she always kept her e-reader with her in her handbag. That whole night had been disturbing. The music they’d heard in the bathroom, and the shadows she’d seen in the balcony glass. It could all be explained, but that fear she’d felt – a primitive, powerful sense that she should run – still made her uneasy. She closed her computer, fanned herself, then tried to lose herself in Persuasion again. It might be her last chance to read it, and she was hit with a pang for all the books on her e-reader that would never be read. She spent a few minutes deleting the more embarrassing selections – amongst her Graham Greenes, Jose Saramagos and David Mitchells lurked a thriving nest of bodice-rippers. Unable to settle, she went back into the room.
Elise murmured something in her sleep, twitched, and then opened her eyes. She looked around blearily as if she was trying to figure out where she was.
‘How are you feeling?’ Helen smiled down at her.
/> ‘Helen . . . I was dreaming of him. He was talking to me.’
‘Peter?’
Elise nodded and drew breath. ‘It was so real, Helen.’
‘I know.’ But Helen didn’t know. She didn’t dream of Graham, but sometimes, just sometimes, she thought she could smell his scent on her pillow in the mornings.
‘He said I should stop feeling guilty.’
‘Guilty? About what?’
‘Stepping out when he died. I wasn’t there.’
Another thing they had in common – Helen hadn’t been with Graham either when he drew his last breath. ‘That’s not your fault.’
‘I know, hon. Helen . . . you still want to do it?’
Did she? Again, Helen searched inside herself. Her only other choice was to go home. She’d turned off the immersion heater, emptied the fridge and the freezer. She imagined catching a taxi from Heathrow, arriving at her door on a drizzly evening, placing her keys on the hall table where Graham used to keep his secret stash of cigarettes, walking through to the cold kitchen, stripped of any personal touches; stripped of any traces of his presence. ‘Yes. I still want to do it. Do you?’
‘Yeah, hon. I do.’
Elise was in a far worse place than she was in many ways – Peter’s medical bills had wiped her out. Helen would gladly have helped her if she’d ever asked, but she never had. And why would she ask? It wasn’t as if Elise had to worry about falling further into debt. They’d been resolute about their plans. As for Helen, with no children or close relatives alive, she’d considered leaving her substantial savings to charity – a cats’ home, maybe – but was there such a thing nowadays? It was at moments like these that she could hear Graham’s voice clearly – almost as if he were standing right there, talking to her. Don’t be so bleeding daft, girl.
‘Going to sleep again, Helen,’ Elise said, her eyelids already drooping. Helen held Elise’s hand until her breathing steadied. Love. That was what she felt for Elise. And she knew it was reciprocated. They’d once discussed moving in together, living out their days in a Florida condo, perhaps, or a cottage in St Ives. But that would only be putting off the inevitable. Rather do it now while they were both mobile and fully compos mentis.
