Adrift.

‘Do you get my drift?’

She almost laughed at that one.

‘Yes, I understand what you are saying.’

‘Do you? Do you really understand?’

‘No, not really.’

He was exasperated now.

‘Well why did you say that you do, then? Why say that you understand me when you don't?’

‘To shut you up, you stupid little twat of a man, that's all, just to shut you up. You drone on and on and I haven't a bloody clue what you’re on about and as though it's not bad enough under normal circumstances.’ Her voice had risen until she was yelling, ‘Here we are stuck with each other and with no means of escape and no bloody murder weapons.’ It was a joke but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she caught herself with a gasp.

‘Well really, Helen, you say the most hurtful things. Do keep your voice down; it's unladylike to shout so and such vulgar language, too.

This time she did fling her head back and scream with a cocktail of one part delirium, two parts laughter and three parts hysteria. She nearly over-balanced them and Derek's shocked face only made her laugh louder.

‘Helen, I meant what I said. If we ever get out of this,’ he flung his arm wide to needlessly illustrate their predicament, ‘I want us to try and pull our marriage back on track. It's got out of hand lately and I realise we’ve both been working very hard, but the more we work, the less we work together. This holiday was supposed to be the start of us sorting things out, and now look at the state we're in.’

Helen, with tears squeezing out of the corner of her eyes and stinging her sunburned cheeks, rolled an imaginary tie into a herring mop under her chin. ‘Well Stanley, that's another fine mess you've got us into.’

‘Helen please be serious.’

Serious, she thought, serious! They were never anything but serious. Twenty six years she’d been shackled in holy matrimony to this man and for the last twenty two she hadn't been able to stand the sight of him. She bore it year in, year out for the kid's sake, that worn old excuse for staying somewhere secure rather than go it alone. And then when the kid's had left, one by deserting one, she’d always been waiting for the right moment. It never came.

Now, stuck on this ridiculous bloody rubber dingy, burned to hell and seething mad with his stupidity, she knew that once she hit terra firma, she couldn’t stand another moment in his company. She’d never felt the sun burning down so fiercely on her head. She’d never coldly admitted to herself that he was money and money was everything. But she admitted it now.

'Don't go too far out,' the man said. She hadn't wanted to go out on the ridiculous dinghy and certainly not alone with him, but that was his idea of fun and she wouldn't hear the end of it until she agreed.

She only closed her eyes for five minutes. His company had that affect on her. How was she to know that he’d laid the oars down and gone to sleep as well? Now here they were, cast adrift in the middle of the Mediterbloodyranean sea, waiting to be rescued and burning like skinned rabbits on a skewer.

The sea spread like an endless tablecloth. The horizon shimmered as it clashed in torment with the sky. There was no rescue boat anywhere in sight, no helicopter. And as far as she was aware, no bloody rescue submarine.

As they bobbed, she watched his eyes growing heavy again.‘Take your life jacket off and have a sleep, dear, I'll look out for anyone coming. And don't worry, unlike you, I'll actually stay awake while I'm on lookout.' In her scathing sarcasm, she failed to reason that she’d been the first to fall asleep.

She watched as he struggled out of the tight fitting life jacket. ‘Don't wobble the boat, will you dear. You know I can't swim.’

Ten minutes later he was snoring like a bulldog.

She hated that snore. How many nights had she lain awake listening to him, unable to sleep and trying desperately to keep a safe distance between her silk night-dress and his sweaty body?

It was so easy, he didn't even resist. He was already in the water and spluttering for his life when he woke up. She had the oars in her hands and was pulling hard on them when his bright red, bald scalp broke the surface for the first time. She'd never rowed before in her life but the adrenaline buzz gave her the strength of Neptune as she oared the inflatable out of his reach.

He took longer to drown than she'd anticipated. He went under several times but bobbed to the surface like a cork. When he went the turbulent disturbance his body created would still and the water would be millpond calm, but then he'd appear making her jump out of her skin, thrashing and screaming at her to help him.

She looked nervously around to see if help was at hand. And then, safe in her crime, she donned the character of her mourning widow.

She didn't row for long. Just until she knew that she was nowhere near her husband's submerged body.
And then she drifted towards freedom.