by C. J. Skuse
I tore back inside the ship like I was a crying toddler myself and the cabin was my dad’s open arms. But I got lost. I must have gone to every deck but they all looked the same. I got so confused I couldn’t even remember my room number. All I wanted to do was collapse onto my bed and scream.
Chest thumping, mouth dry, legs drained, piles stinging, I gave up and sat as gently as I could on a sofa beside the elevators in the Entertainments Quarter. I was opposite a small cinema – The Classics Lounge – open twenty-four hours. I went inside the empty theatre and settled into a seat at the back. It was Kevin Costner films all night long. Waterworld had just started.
I woke up as some wolf was shot dead. Totally different movie.
The sleep did me good. I was at least level enough moodwise to blend into a snaking line of tourists who were headed up to the main restaurant. There’s no such thing as a good time to hit the buffet on a cruise, I learned. There’s always an assortment of besandalled old funts coughing around the pancake station, jostling for the strips of bacon that have actually seen an oven and the corners of French toast that don’t look like they’ve been gang-banged.
There were so many people – I wasn’t more than an arm’s length away from anyone at all times – and yet I’d never felt so alone. Luckily, this feeling of loneliness never lasts long for me because human beings are, basically, cunts. All of them. Eventually. They are. You wait.
I must have walked through at least three farts and saw an old man eating half a grapefruit like it was a vagina. It totally curbed my appetite. I found a table to myself, as out of the way of the throng as I could get, and I watched the families congregating.
A man I’d seen walking around the top deck a few times, who I’d dubbed The Man Who Walks, was sitting alone, shaking pepper onto eggs and sausages, gearing himself up for another exhausting day of ambulation. He glanced up at me before looking away.
Misery loves company. But this old misery thought he was a prick.
I was interrupted by a Breaking News bulletin on the TV wall opposite.
TENERIFE PLANE CRASH LATEST: Over 200 feared dead
The tickertape along the bottom of Sky News spat out various titbits of information – how the passengers were mostly British and the British Embassy was helping to locate families.
Nothing about Sandra Huggins. Nothing about me. Nobody gave a shit. I watched the other passengers, enjoying their waffles, sipping their coffees, admiring the dolphins.
And I thought: why the hell was I running? What was there to run to?
Keston Hoyle had been right: Ivy was my future. And I had given it away to spend a lifetime on the run, killing people who didn’t even matter. I had a mouthful of pancake and I couldn’t swallow it. I took it out and placed it on the side of my plate. I wondered if I’d have the courage to jump overboard. To dive down into that freezing blue mass and call time on this waste of a life.
But on Day Four the sun rose and the engine shuddered as we pulled into the port of Madeira and dropped anchor. I’d made it to Bobby Fairly’s island. Sanctuary. A chance of a future, however alien it felt. And I had already paid him so I at least had to find out what I’d bought, didn’t I?
I probably should have topped myself when I had the chance.
Tuesday, 1 January 2019 – Madeira
Couples who indulge in gross amounts of PDA
People who say they genuinely prefer Scandi Noir to normal Noir. No you fucking don’t.
Influencers. Do I need a reason?
People who aren’t ready to order/pay after a longassed wait in line
Pushy bellhops – I’ve carried my own bag across the continent. Why do you get £20 for carrying it up one flight of stairs?
The entire British government
I packed my rucksack, made myself as plain as possible in my white-and-navy holiday shorts and T-shirt combo, brown contact lenses and Sally Bowles wig, which was growing ever more ropey with the salty wind, and headed outside my cabin to whatever life Bobby Fairly had bought me.
The corridor was deserted but for my room steward, Gabriel, folding towels on a cart. He was from Austin, Texas and called me ‘Darlin’’ a lot which I kinda liked. Time was if you called me ‘Darling’ or ‘Sweetpea’ I’d have held a knife to your carotid, but it didn’t bother me so much at that moment.
‘I’m from Brizzie,’ I said, trying out my best Australian accent when he asked me where I was from.
‘Brizzie?’ he replied.
‘Brisbane, Straya?’ I said, and his gaze lingered a mite too long. I couldn’t tell if it was a Christ what a terrible Australian accent gaze or if he’d seen me on a news bulletin.
But then he said, ‘Well, have a nice day, Hilary from Brizzie.’ And he winked at me. A definite fuck wink.
He was built like Anthony Joshua and ordinarily, I’d have invested in some shameless flirting, but on this occasion there were no gussy flutters to speak of. My piles were throbbing and I’d had a terrible night’s sleep. When I had managed to lose myself I’d dreamt about Ivy as a tiny pink butterfly I couldn’t catch.
I walked with my head permanently tilted through the corridors, going over my new identity in my mind in the best Aussie accent I could muster.
Hilary Sharp, pleased to meet ya. I’m a ditsy, gym-obsessed clean-living Australian gal born on a sheep farm in Coober Pedy in South Straya. My folks are Moira and Alf Stewart, my brothers are Chris and Liam and I love surfing and barbies and we have a pet kookaburra called Chook…
I didn’t even believe me. I just had to get to Bobby and everything would be all right.
But as the lift doors opened on Deck 7, I bumped straight into the couple I’d spoken to when I first came aboard – Ken and Gloria Prosser from Yorkshire. I’d even had my photo taken with them on the gangway. I had hoped that the sheer size of the ship and the number of passengers meant I almost certainly wouldn’t come across them again.
Clearly, Fate had other plans.
‘Oh hello, petal!’ shrieked Gloria, tottering into the lift towards me in her white-and-gold strappies. ‘We thought you’d gone overboard!’
‘I’ve… been in the gym, mainly,’ I said, phasing in the Aussie accent and affecting my most angelic Bindi Irwin smile. ‘Toning myself up so I can load up on the old carbos.’ I was thankful for the sunlight streaming in which meant I could reasonably put on my sunglasses to hide my lying bitch eyes.
‘Frightened your husband will have gone off you?’ Gloria chuckled.
It was only then I remembered what I’d told them – that I was meeting my husband in Madeira. I couldn’t even recall if I’d given him a name.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He works out a lot too. We’re both real gym… kangaroos.’
‘You’d get on with our Ryan,’ she said, rolling her eyes as they stepped into the lift beside me. ‘Our son lives in the gym, don’t he, Ken?’
Ken was studying the day’s itinerary, half-moon glasses perched on his nose. ‘Yeah, he can’t get enough of it. Got muscles like the Statue of David! He’s in there now, in’t he, Jayde?’
I noticed the woman who’d got into the lift behind them, holding a sleeping baby and gripping the hand of a young boy in a dinosaur onesie picking Smarties from a tiny box. Jayde had black skin, a sparkling, Beyoncé-esque smile, and she wore what I would have worn as Holiday Mum – grey bandeau maxi dress that waterfalled where it didn’t cling. She was fucking stunning but I couldn’t help staring at the baby in her arms, whose chubby cheek she was stroking. Jayde was everything I wanted to be and everything I wasn’t.
‘Who’s this then?’ I said, desperate to seem like the least freaked-out woman around children ever, gesturing towards the baby in her arms.
‘This is Sansa and Tyrion,’ she replied, scruffling the Smartie boy’s hair.
‘Pleased to meetcha,’ I said, wincing at my own shite accent. ‘Game of Thrones fan, are ya?’
Jayde rolled her eyes. ‘Not me, my husband.’
In t
hat parallel universe, there was me saying, ‘Mine too! Craig watches it all the time. Fancies that redhead bird married to the Jonas brother.’ I’d be nursing our infant daughter and bemoaning my hella predictable spouse and we’d have compared tit milk or something. As it was, the only thing I was nursing was the prize for Worst Australian Accent Ever.
Ty shook his empty Smarties box. ‘Grandad said I’m being a little shit.’
‘Nice,’ I laughed. The lift took an arrogantly long time, collecting people on all different floors, but eventually stopping at Deck 16 and the Caravel Breakfast Room. The buffet was already at full steam ahead.
‘You coming, luvvie?’ said Ken, stepping out.
‘Oh, I wasn’t going to breakfast. I’ve had a protein shake instead. Toning up,’ I said, patting my sucked-in belly. ‘I was heading down to the gangway.’
‘You won’t be able to disembark yet, love,’ said Gloria taking Ty by the hand. ‘Might as well get some proper scran inside you. Or steal a couple of croissants at least to have during the day. It’s all free.’
‘Pre-paid,’ laughed Ken, jingling his change in his trouser pockets.
‘Why can’t I disembark?’
‘They’ve got to get the OK from the port authority to get people off and even then it’ll be the excursions first. Are you on an excursion today?’
‘Er, no.’
‘You’ll spend hours in’t assembly point queue if you go now.’
Ugh, I thought. Fuck My Fake Life.
‘Best stay with us, Harriet,’ said Ken. ‘We’ll show you what’s what.’
They couldn’t even get my fake name right. ‘It’s Hilary,’ I said. People don’t fucking listen, do they?
Anyway, I was stuck there until the Deck 3 gangway was opened so I decided that I could do worse than have the Prossers for an invisibility cloak.
‘Fair dinkum, that’d be ripper,’ I said, stepping out of the lift before the doors could clang shut behind me.
I Purelled my hands at the hand-wash station and followed Jayde’s shining back towards a newly cleared window table with a high chair at one end. ‘Glo said you were meeting up with your husband today, is that right?’
I heard the question but I was too fixed on the baby watching me over her shoulder to answer. Eventually, it filtered through. ‘Yeah. He’s been working out here. I’m meeting him in Madeira and we’re travelling round for a bit before we go to the UK. His parents live there. We’ll stay with them a few months before going back home to Brizzie.’
It was less an answer, more an alibi.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Bruce,’ I said, as she deposited Sansa into the high chair. I’m amazed I didn’t say Mick Dundee. Thank God she didn’t ask what he did on Madeira cos I couldn’t think of anything other than ‘wine.’ He was a ‘wine thing’.
‘I’ve really missed him,’ I said with a meek Princess Di head dip. ‘He works so hard, so I don’t have to. He likes a more traditional home life.’ I shrugged, happy-go-luckily.
Ugh, I hated ‘Hilary’ already. I wasn’t a Hilary. Hilarys are small and cute and do Pilates and volunteer at Cats Protection. They wear ‘pinnies’ and have Cath Kidston purses and won’t suck a cock in case it smudges their lipstick. I hated this Hilary with her ‘gym kangaroo’ ebullience, over-toothy grin and homogenised homelife.
And it was only going to get worse. Bobby was going to have me under the knife so I would look even more like someone I wasn’t.
The price for freedom is everything you once were, Rhiannon.
Gloria returned with the cutlery and glasses of orange juice, taking her seat opposite me and she couldn’t help a cursory look down my front – ketchup stain. Bit of string cheese. Dried-on chunk of onion, all from room service bar snacks from the past few days. This was not chiming well with the gym bunny health freak Hilary lie. I had to do better.
‘They’ve got a nice salon on here,’ she informed me. ‘You could… freshen yourself up for yer fella.’
I gazed at Sansa who was dipping her doll’s leg in her yoghurt. She was so beautiful. She had her mum’s eyes. I wondered if Ivy had mine.
‘Yeah, good idea. I’ll get my hair done, I think.’ And a whole new wardrobe. And personality. And face.
Three-year-old Tyrion was a rebellious delight. He was the spiller of salt, the tapper of cutlery, the toucher of what he wasn’t supposed to and the asker of questions.
Mummy, why has that man got such a big belly?
Mummy, who is the lady sitting with us?
Mummy, why is the water wet?
And on and on and on. For some reason he took to me, moving my face around every time I tried to talk to anyone else. Sansa sort of stared, half-asleep but taking everything in including occasional slurps of doll-leg yoghurt. She was fascinating. It got easier to be around her the longer I had to be. As long as she didn’t squawk or cry, I was good. Mood = level.
Ken brought me back scrambled eggs on toast and an orange juice, not that I’d asked for them, and I had to hear all about Gloria’s cruise exploits – Zumba classes, the new gel nails that kept coming off, the massages and a flower-arranging class where she’d tried making a ‘double-ended feminine spray’. I didn’t do the obvious joke because I was Hilary now. The words ‘double-ended feminine spray’ held no meaning for straight-laced frilly vanilla-y Hilary at all.
‘You done any classes yourself yet, Hilary?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, resisting the urge to shudder. ‘I’m hoping to, though.’
‘There’s a line dancing class tonight at eight if you’re interested.’
Rhiannon was figuratively vomiting into a bucket – Hilary was smiling inanely. ‘Do you know, I’ve always wanted to try that,’ I beamed.
When she wasn’t extolling the virtues of cruise life, Gloria was pecking at Jayde – She doesn’t need it at the table, love. She’s not strapped in properly, love. Ty, you don’t need any more jam, petal, that’s quite enough isn’t it? Jayde barely said two words until Ken and Gloria went up together to get teas and coffees. Rhiannon wanted a coffee – Hilary opted for green tea. Ugh.
‘It were a Christmas present, this holiday,’ Jayde confided in me. By the look on her face she might have said I want to fucking die.
‘Crikey. You’re four days in. Think you’ll survive three weeks of this?’
She laughed, ruefully. ‘Well, there’s always overboard, isn’t there?’
‘Them or you?’
She laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t tempt me, please. So what’s Australia like? I’ve never been.’
Thankfully there was a PA announcement about excursions so sadly I couldn’t regale her with tales of a country I knew nothing about.
‘Are you doing an excursion today?’ I asked her, inhaling the hum of cooked egg from my plate and trying not to vom as the thought of aborted chicken babies on toast flitted into my mind.
‘Not by choice. They want to do a walking tour through the “mosaic-patterned streets of the old town”. Kids are gonna love that, aren’t they? Ken wants to do the Valley of the Nuns this afternoon, whatever the fuck that is.’
‘Might be fun?’ I said, giving my untouched plate to a passing waiter.
She eyeballed me. ‘I’m dying for a smoke. It’s not worth it with her watching me like a hawk.’
‘Where’s your husband?’
‘Where he always is, in the gym. He’s coming out with us today though.’ She painted on a smile. ‘It’ll be a lovely day, I’m sure.’
The tannoy called out, ‘Excursion Groups A to F to your Assembly Points, please.’
‘That’s us,’ said Jayde and set about getting the kids’ things together. ‘Might see you tonight in the dining room?’
‘Yeah!’ I said spryly, handing her Sansa’s floppy bunny, like Ivy’s pink bunny I’d nicked from her incubator, only grey. Another dart to my chest. I couldn’t get off that boat quick enough.
Bobby’s place was ‘within walking
distance’, according to a map, so I walked to the Hotel Extasis, which was perched in the foothills of Ponta do Sol. But it took me over an hour to climb up there, encumbered by my bag and baby-belly-sans-baby and I was sweating cobs and panting like a bloodhound.
The hotel had a beautiful frontage, covered in a kaleidoscope of African daisy, bushes of camellias and blinding yellow mimosas swaying in the warm breeze. For a split moment in the time/space continuum, I thought everything was going to be OK. I was going to be OK. Sanctuary at last.
I crossed the cobbled courtyard on the shrieks and giggles of two little girls running around the pool up on the terrace. The noise chilled me – it was me and Seren, years ago. Same ages. Same colour costumes. I wondered if it was a sign that everything was going to be all right.
I soon learned it was a sign that everything was about to turn very bad indeed.
I was ushered into an office behind the Reception to wait for a woman called Dannielle and within moments, a 50-something perma-tan on vertiginous heels in a too-tight business suit tottered in. Her name badge read Dannielle Fairly-de Souza, General Manager. She was Bobby’s daughter.
‘Hiya,’ she sighed, plonking herself in the swivel chair behind the desk. She looked pissed off, like I’d dragged her away from something important, but as it turned out, it was her permanent way. ‘You’re Hilary, are you?’
‘Yeah. Bobby said to meet him here. Where is he?’
‘He’s dead,’ she replied, no fanfare. She sat back in the chair with a mechanical creak and folded her arms as best she could in her too-tight jacket, her face working on the prize for Least Grieving Daughter Ever. ‘Sorry to break it to you ’n’all that.’
I couldn’t catch my breath so I held it where it was. ‘Dead?’
She nodded. ‘New Year’s Eve. It weren’t a shock. Best medics in Portugal been telling him to change his lifestyle for years. Cut down on’t smoking, boozing, the 10 gram of coke every day. Didn’t listen though, did he? Still, he went happy. Face wedged between the buttocks of an underage whore.’
My bowels nearly fell out. ‘Oh. My. God.’
