Julia Stiller opened the door to her cabin. The room seemed alien. No, she felt alien inside it. She didn’t belong in this environment. Not in the cabin, nor on the ship. Not even in her own body.
She opened the cupboard and with the tips of her fingers touched the sleeves of her neatly arranged clothes that she’d never wear again. Like the travel bag on the suitcase rack. Her inseparable companion on every journey, she’d never hold it again.
When she disembarked from the Sultan she’d leave it behind, like everything else that had once had meaning in her life: her keys, ID cards, photos, money, love of her life, hope, future.
Lisa.
Julia went into the bathroom and smelled the bottle of expensive perfume she’d bought specially for his trip. Its fragrance now made her sick.
She sprayed it on, as nausea was easier to bear than impotence and grief.
As she looked in the mirror, she saw for some reason the image of her sick three-year-old daughter, when Julia had been obliged to swap shifts with a colleague because she couldn’t send Lisa to kindergarten. Lisa had a temperature of forty degrees, a ‘snotty nose’ and a hacking cough. With a brittle voice that sounded as hoarse as that of the wicked witch Ursula, who Julia always had to imitate when she was reading. At the time Lisa had lain in bed and asked her, ‘Do I have to die now, Mama?’
Julia had laughed and wiped away the sweaty hair from her brow. ‘No, my darling. People don’t die that quickly. You’re going to live a long, long time.’
Another twelve years.
Julia pressed both her hands firmly on her forehead, eyes and cheeks. So firmly that she saw stars.
For a while she remained motionless in that position, before filling a glass with water from the tap. She brought it to her lips, but then didn’t see the point any more so tipped it down the plughole.
One of many pointless actions that would follow on from each other in her life from now. Useless activities such as thinking, feeling, breathing.
I have to call Max.
It was the first time she’d thought of her ex-husband, since Lisa…
She left the bathroom.
Someone had made the bed. A small bar of chocolate lay on her pillow. One on each side. Two bars too many.
Julia looked for the note Lisa had left for her – ‘I’m sorry, Mama’ – but it wasn’t on the cupboard any more. She’d probably given it to Daniel; she couldn’t remember.
She shook the connecting door, but it was still locked on Lisa’s side.
Perhaps it’s better that way.
If she’d had a key she’d have entered Lisa’s cabin and gone through her things.
What difference would that have made?
Julia pushed open the balcony door. Fresh wind blew through her hair.
Given where they were in the Atlantic, the sea was astonishingly calm, the water almost still in contrast to this afternoon. The biggest waves were being made by the ship itself.
The evening air had a soft tang of salt and diesel. Laughter washed down from the upper balconies. In the distance she could hear pop music mingling with the swishing of the sea. The ship’s programme had announced a karaoke afternoon.
‘Why?’ Julia thought, shaking the railing she’d climbed over the night before. ‘Why did you have to hold onto me, Daniel?’
She leaned over the railings and looked down. The sea no longer looked menacing, but enticing. She heard a whispering in the gentle whooshing of the waves. It sounded like her name. Enticing.
People don’t die that quickly!
‘Lisa?’ she wanted to shout out, but her voice failed.
Why didn’t I insist?
Why didn’t I force Daniel to stop the ship and turn around so we could go overboard?
I knew about the video, didn’t I?
Full of fury and self-hatred, she kicked the screen between the balconies. Hammered on it with her first. And kicked again. Once. Twice.
On the third occasion her foot went right through the plastic wall.
Without destroying it.
It felt as if she were kicking into thin air. Julia had gone at it with such momentum that she almost slipped and fell, only staying on her feet because she was holding onto the railing.
What the devil…?
She stared at the door that her foot had kicked in the screen. It looked like the cat flap in a back door, except that large dog could have got through this. Or a human being.
Julia’s pulse started to race. She bent down and looked through the flap onto Lisa’s balcony. The hairs on her forearms stood on end. She felt electrified by an intuition.
The door was fastened shut. Normally you’d need a tool to open it, to make maintenance easier or speed up transporting things between cabins. But the lock seemed to have been unfastened.
By Lisa perhaps?
Julia took off her dressing gown and, dressed only in panties and a bra, slipped through the flap in the screen. She scraped a knee and shin, but she was no more aware of this than she was of the chilly wind that could now assail the entire surface of her body.
Is this what you did too, my love?
She tried to peer through the glass into her daughter’s cabin, but the doors were locked and the curtains closed. With both hands she shielded her head from external lights, but still couldn’t see anything.
Did you lock the connecting door from your side, Lisa? And put the chain on afterwards?
She turned back to the flap.
Did you creep through there to vanish through my cabin?
Julia felt her heart beating faster. Had it been the breath of wind when the balcony door was opened, or the sound of a door snapping shut that had woken her from her sleep?
The door by which you left my cabin, darling?
Julia knew she was about to fall into the worst state of grief possible, in which relatives try their best to deny the truth and cling to any theory, however absurd, that offers hope. But what else could she do?
She struck her fist against the glass, kicked the sliding door with her bare foot, rammed it with her knee, yelled Lisa’s name… and got the fright of her life, when the curtains opened.
To reveal her daughter’s face.