16 - Whose doing who

Whatever happens there is always work to be done. It’s nearly midnight when eight officers in their formal jackets appear by the entrance. The light behind them against the darkness of the room makes it difficult to focus on who they are. They take two tables in the near corner of the room. Ian is doing the clean up tonight, so I tell him I will take their order and then go. It’s usually a novelty when the officers or other crew come in, as they’re always more fun than the passengers. Tonight I’m less happy to see them, my mind is busy milling over the day’s events. My legs are aching and I am anxious to finish and have a shower and get to the crew bar before it closes. As I near the table I can see Alessio. He hardly ever comes out on passenger decks. I register that he is looking extremely sexy in his formal uniform, but am too caught up with everything else to give him too much thought. They’re all babbling away in Italian when I walk up. They stop talking and look up at me.

I don’t recognise all of them, but perhaps its because they have just come off night shift allowing them out at nights or maybe they just joined today? I ask them what they would like to drink and they all blabber away until they decide they want Grappa and Campari. One of the Officers tells me that it is Alessio’s birthday and wasn’t I going to give him a birthday kiss. The others all laugh as the translation of what he’d said is passed around the table.
“Is it your Birthday?” I ask Alessio, trying to remain composed as they are all staring at me waiting for a reaction. The others again are whispering the translation.
“Yes, it is,” said Alessio, straight faced.
“Happy Birthday,” I say, turning on my heel and taking their order to the bar. The officers all groan disappointed that there was no kiss and therefore no birthday shag for them to gossip about later.

Allison was sitting on my bunk when I got back to the cabin. Vanessa was sitting in front of her on the chair, both are drinking wine. I felt an unexpected feeling of betrayal. Why are they sitting and drinking together?
“Hello,” I say, trying to keep the bitterness out of my mouth.
“I’ve been waiting for you," said Allison. "What about Greg then, have you heard?”
I start to take my uniform off and open the wardrobe door to use it as a screen.
“Yeh, I reply, not sure I know what its all about though. I can’t believe that he’s just gone, just like that.”
Vanessa joins in the conversation.
“I was just telling Allison that Greg had apparently filled a condom with Paul’s pee to try and pass the test, but Paul had been smoking dope or something and the urine test came up positive.
“What do you mean Paul’s pee?” This is getting a complicated.

I come out from behind the screen and tighten my robe around me. Allison hands me a glass of wine and Vanessa hands me a cigarette while stubbing hers out, just like the old days, one at a time.
“Helena, Greg’s hairy girlfriend told someone who told me, that Paul had convinced Greg to use his pee for the drug test. Greg uses this body building formula stuff and Paul had persuaded him that the formula contains steroids or something that can read positive on the urine test, thus, she adds like Sherlock Holmes uncovering the plot, Greg accepted Paul’s pee.
“They used a condom, interrupts Allison, Paul peed in it and Greg took it to the test with him," he was totally set up by Paul.”
I picture the events in my mind and shudder at the thought of Paul’s penis doing anything.
“I was there, at the test, I said. Greg was really weird, you’d have thought he was on drugs if you’d seen him earlier. He must have been nervous at the prospect of getting caught. Paul really screwed him didn’t he?”

We sat in the cabin drinking and catching up with the gossip. I didn’t mention Neil, I still wasn’t ready, and either was Allison, to discuss anything personal with Vanessa. It was good to talk though.
“Well all bad things happen in three’s," I say. "One, the ship hit the dock, two, Greg gets sent home and three, Jo fell over pissed and gets sent ashore to hospital."

We drank to it all being over for the day and sit in a minute’s silence reflecting on events. I am the first to move. It’s nearly half midnight and I must get down the bar to see if Neil is there. Allison is ready and waits while I have a quickly get dressed. We didn’t invite Vanessa to come with us, but she started to get ready anyway and is all of a sudden talking in plurals. We leave the cabin together and Vanessa locks the door, saying that we must all go ashore in Ketchikan together. I glare at Allison who shrugs her shoulders.

As usual music is blaring and bodies are pushing against one another. I say hello to a couple of the lads from the Casino. I’m pushing my way through when I come up against someone who wont move. I look up into Neil’s face. I move to the side and so does he.
“Can you just move Neil,” I say, praying that he wont, yet wishing he would.
“I’m coming to your cabin later." he slurred? He is totally drunk. He staggers off causing people around us to spill their drinks. I am just about to put my arm around him to give him some support and take him to his cabin when a girl appears. She’s short with black hair and freckles. She puts Neil’s arm over her shoulders and puts her arm around his waist.
I haven’t seen her around before and want to shout at her and tell her to get her hands off.
The girl looks at me and then to Neil.
Neil has lost all sense of practicality and is trying to light his cigarette almost strangling the girl with his arm.
“Sorry," she shouts, "don’t mind Neilly, we’ve been celebrating," she said, lifting her hand up and stroking his face. "I should introduce myself, I’m Fran, Neil’s fiancée, just joined today," she says. "I better get him out of here before he upsets even more people," she adds, arranging his arm around her.

They stumbled off to the door her small frame supporting his large one through the crowd.
Allison and Vanessa are behind me.
“Did you see Neil?” Shouts Allison. Vanessa is standing behind her looking at me.
I look at them both and tell them I’m leaving and push past them and everyone else. I’m sure that everyone knows, of course they know, they know everything. I feel like I’m trapped in a fishbowl. I gasp for a breath of fresh air as I reach the stairwell. I don’t remember getting to my cabin, but the next I know I’m on the bed, fully clothed and The Songbird is plugged in my ears, drowning out my thoughts. It’s the wrong thing to listen to, it was the same song I was listening to the night Neil first came to my cabin, but it helped me cry.

I woke up in the middle of the night. Kenny G is on repeat and is still playing. I need something to drink. I rub my eyes and reach for the light above my bed. I fumble for a few minutes for the switch and then I find it and turn it on. I pull the headphones out of my ears and reach for my bottle of water on the floor. It is so hot and sticky, I must get out of these clothes. Just then I hear something. At first I thought it was the noise of the ship. I am still half asleep so I sit up in the bed and take another sip. There, I can hear it again.
The cabin is dark except for the light above my head, but even that is not bright enough to light the cabin. I sit still and wait for the next noise, I didn’t have to wait for long.
Ahhh, mmm, comes the noise from above my head followed by an unfamiliar voice.
“Turn over,” the voice whispered loudly. The bunk starts to move, the springs are sqeeking noisly then come to a stop. Then they start again and don’t stop for a good fifteen minutes. I’m not sure when I took my last breath so I exhale quietly. I look up at the bunk above my head and wonder who it is up there. I presume that one of them is Vanessa, but who is he. Why is she bringing back someone to our cabin and having sex where I can hear everything? I grab the bottle nosily and clear my throat. It doesn’t make any difference they are going for it harder and harder. I hope they fall off the bunk.
I wriggle out of my clothes and stick Kenny back in my ears. It feels better without my clothes as the air hits my skin. Only then do I remember Neil. I pull Kenny out again and turn over in the bunk. I can’t get back to sleep especially now with people having sex above me. It’s not as if I can get up and go for a walk or anything. Where can I go?

The wind hits me as I push the door onto the deck. It’s nearly three in the morning. I couldn’t put up with the groaning and moaning from the top bunk any longer. It felt almost perverted to stay and listen especially when I had hinted with various noises that I was awake. I’m on deck seven outside on the promenade deck where I work and where the lifeboats are. I’ve heard of crew sneaking into the lifeboats with passengers but doubt as if that is the case tonight as there is a sharp bite in the air and none of these passengers would survive the climate let alone the climb up into a lifeboat. I go down to the very end where there is no window for anyone to see me. The sailors are constantly on patrol. Even now I had to sneak up onto the M1 and had to pass them to get up here. Instead of taking the elevators by the fire station where they were, I had to walk all the way down to where Debra’s cabin was to take the crew lift up here. If anyone is interested they will let him or her know that I was going somewhere.

The deck was lit but beyond the rail of the ship it was dark except for the full moon that has lit the sea in the distance and the odd wave bringing white foam to the surface. It’s quite windy tonight. The wind and the odd creaking noise from the ship were now normal to me. I was lucky that I was never bothered with seasickness like some people were. I sat and thought about Neil and ‘Fran’ his ‘girlfriend’. I thought that anyone and everyone would be capable of lying but not Neil. Perhaps that is why he’s been so different recently, maybe he was trying to distance himself because he knew she was coming on the ship? How could he have known, Sue just found out today that the other Photog didn’t turn up? And how could he say he was coming to my cabin when his girlfriend was right behind him. Up until I walked in that crew bar tonight I was his girlfriend.

What I thought was just a phase we were going through turns out to be a break up. Where did that come from? We can’t go from spending every night and every spare minute together to him having another girlfriend. Taking another drag on my cigarette I exhale and watch the smoke disappear into the night. This is turning out to be another Giles. Since when did I become a lamp that you could switch on and off whenever they felt like it? What would Iona be telling me right now? I think about it for a few minutes. First of all she would ask me on a scale of one to ten how good-looking is he? I think about it and decide that he is probably about a seven, which is average. My answer surprises me, up until now I was sure he was a nine. Then she would ask if I would fly to the other side of the world just to be with him and I answer to myself that yes I would do, well, maybe. Then she would ask if I would donate a kidney and I am surprised to hear myself think, ‘don’t be ridiculous.’ I can see Iona sitting in front of me telling me that I have my answer. I know myself that he’s been a distraction. I’ve always known it, but I needed it to be more, to somehow justify going out and sleeping with someone that at home I would probably never even give a second thought to. Am I that desperate, I ask to myself, but quickly remind myself that Neil isn’t that bad and that the last couple of months were made better because of him. Not necessarily thanks to him but because I threw myself into him in order to escape from life on this bloody ship. Even if I accept that he isn’t the ‘one’ I still have a big empty gap that needs to be filled and that is what hurts.

I briefly re-think Iona’s Kidney question and shake my head, dismissing the thought forever.
I light up another cigarette and watch the ship move up and down to the motion of the sea. I remembered the conversation that I’d had with Mark up on deck that day when Jo had sent me up to bear the elements on deck. I asked him why people work on cruise ships and why anyone would ever even think of coming back after their one contract. He told me it was addictive.
“The tax free income, accommodation, the fact that you don’t have to drive to work, free food even if it’s crap, cheap drinks, seeing the world, sex on tap and a built in social life, what more could anyone want?” He had said.
He also said that everyone onboard is escaping from something and that life onboard gave them security. I reassured him that I would never come back.
He looked down and smiled at me, as we huddled under the bar together, and replied, “We all say that, Ginny.”