yawn, I went out to the balcony, hoping the fresh air would help me wake from the creeping fog of exhaustion that seemed to encroach every time I stopped moving or talking.
The veranda was as delightful as one would imagine a private balcony on a luxury cruise ship to be. The barrier was made of glass so that sitting inside the suite you could almost imagine there was nothing between you and the ocean at all, and there were two deck chairs and a tiny table so that one could sit there on an evening and enjoy the midnight sun or northern lights, depending on which cruise one had booked.
I spent a long, long time watching the little ships toiling in and out of Hull harbor and feeling the salty wind in my hair, and then suddenly something about the feel of the ship changed. For a minute I couldn’t think what it was—and then I realized. The engine, which had been purring discreetly for the last half hour or so, had gone up a notch, and something about the boat had shifted. With a grinding roar, we began to inch round, away from the quayside, to point out towards the sea.
As I stood and watched, the boat edged out of the harbor, past the green and red lights showing the mouth of the safe passage, and I felt the change in its movement as we left the shelter of the harbor wall and entered the North Sea, the smooth lapping waves giving way to the great, rolling swells of the deep ocean.
Slowly, the shoreline slipped away, and the buildings of Hull dwindled into ridges on the horizon, and then into a dark line that could have been anywhere. As I watched it disappear, I thought of Judah, and everything I’d left undone. My phone was heavy in my pocket, and I took it out, hoping for something from him before we left the range of the UK transmitters. Good-bye. Good luck. Bon voyage.
But there was nothing. The signal dipped by one bar, and then another, and the phone in my hand was silent. As the coast of England disappeared from view, the only noise was the crashing of the waves.
From: Judah Lewis
To: Laura Blacklock
Sent: Tuesday, 22 September
Subject: Are you ok?
Hey honey, I haven’t heard from you since your e-mail on Sunday. Not sure if our messages are crossing. Did you get my reply, or the text I sent you yesterday?
Getting kind of worried, and hoping you don’t think I’m off somewhere being an asshole and nursing my wounds. I’m not. I love you, I miss you, and I’m thinking about you.
Don’t worry about what happened back home—and the tooth is okay. I think it’ll re-root like the doc said. I’m self-medicating with vodka anyway.
Let me know how the cruise is going—or if you’re busy, just drop me a line to say you’re okay.
Love you, J
From: Rowan Lonsdale
To: Laura Blacklock
CC: Jennifer West
Sent: Wednesday, 23 September
Subject: Update?
Lo, could you please reply to my e-mail sent two days ago requesting an update on the cruise? Jenn tells me you’ve filed nothing, and we were hoping for some kind of copy by tomorrow—a sidebar piece at the least.
Please let Jenn know ASAP where you’re at with this, and cc me to your reply.
Rowan
- CHAPTER 6 -
Even rich people’s showers were better.
The jets buffeted and massaged from every angle, numbing in their ferocity, so after a while it was hard to tell where the water started and my body ended.
I soaped my hair, then shaved my legs, and finally I just stood underneath the stream, watching the sea and the sky and the circling gulls. I’d left the bathroom door open and I could see across the bed and out to the veranda and the sea beyond. And the effect was just . . . well, I’m not going to lie, it was pretty nice. I guess you had to get something for the eight grand or whatever it was they were charging for this place.
The amount was slightly obscene, in comparison to my salary—or even Rowan’s salary. I had spent years drooling over the reports she sent back from a villa in the Bahamas or a yacht in the Maldives and waiting for the day when I, too, would be senior enough to get those kinds of perks, but now I was actually getting a taste of it, I wondered—how did she stand it, these regular glimpses into a life no regular person