Dastardly Deeds (21 page)

I was wrapped in a doona, feather-light and fluffy. Wrapped in semi-slumber, sleep beckoning lazily from the corner. Everything was languid, flowing in and around, with all the time in the world. Except that I wasn’t and I hadn’t. I jerked awake, yet again. This had been the pattern for the last few hours. As always, Phoebe was watching me. Her eyes glittered in the darkness. She was waiting until I gave in all together and slipped from the buoy. She knew she had more staying power than I did and it was just a matter of patience. This time she wouldn’t need to do anything at all.

Leaning forward, I dipped my face into the sea and then shook my head. Phoebe flinched as she was sprayed with water. There was no horizon any more, the sea and the sky a meld of inky darkness. Stars studded the sky like shards of diamond. I couldn’t quite see Tessa but thought she might be dozing also. There was little danger of her slipping as she was held tight around her chest. Big breasts had their benefits.

I was cold, colder than I had ever been before. Every few minutes my teeth would break into a paroxysm of chattering. This would have been useful if it had also kept me awake, a sort of five-minute alarm, but it was no match for a weariness that liquefied my bones. My eyes were like sandbags, filled with lead. Once, when Scarlet was a baby, I had contracted the flu. Everything had hurt, even my hair. This was one hundred times worse. But I also knew that the next stage was numbness. I felt a wave of regret for never having learnt to mediate. Even yoga might have been useful.

A wave drifted me around so that I momentarily faced Phoebe. We stared at each other. ‘I didn’t flirt with them, you know. I wasn’t interested at all.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘No, you
can’t
believe me,’ I replied tiredly. ‘Otherwise all of this would have been for nothing.’

‘Liar.’

‘I’m in love with Ashley,’ I said, mouthing the words but not letting them loose. I thought it might be true. I yearned for him, the touch of his hand, his gaze, his presence. The solidity, the security of him. I couldn’t remember why we had ever broken up. I was glad he was on the ship. Between him and Petra, and Darcy, my girls would be taken care of.

I estimated that it was probably around midnight. By now there would be no doubt that all three of us were gone. Phone calls would have been made to Australia. Scarlet would have rushed around to Lucy’s house, or vice versa. My mother may well have joined them. On the ship, they would be sitting together, perhaps even on the upper deck, staring into the darkness. Trying to calculate how long we could survive, but not verbalising the answer. Every now and again the security staff might come over to ask a few more questions, just for something to do. Ashley would be like that as well. Chafing against the inaction, trying to piece together what had happened.

It suddenly occurred to me, with dull organic awareness rather than a flash of brilliance, that they wouldn’t know that it was all because of Phoebe. The truth, which had victims and perpetrator all tumbling overboard, was just too bizarre. Instead, they would jump to the conclusion that somebody
else
had thrown the three of us over. And they would be looking straight at either Donald or Scott.

‘Swap places,’ said Phoebe. ‘Just for half an hour. I promise I’ll give it back.’

‘No.’

‘I can’t hang on much longer.’

‘Tough.’

Tessa moaned. Ripples arced from her lifebuoy. Phoebe bobbed, still staring at me. She reached out a hand slowly, her gaze steady, and took hold of the rope looping around my buoy. I didn’t even think, just formed a fist and drove it into her temple, in much the same spot as she had hit me. It didn’t have a lot of force but she yelped, letting go immediately.

‘Nell?’ whispered Tessa. She followed with a groan that was threaded with pain. ‘I think I’m losing the baby.’

‘Oh, god.’ I stared at her helplessly.

‘I didn’t want it but now I do.’ She began to cry. It soon fused into another groan that stretched through the silence, bouncing off the waves. I tried to move my legs but they hung like slabs of meat. I used my arms instead, paddling around until I could reach out to take her hand. She gripped it tightly, a ring cutting into my skin. It was probably one that Darcy had given her. I was floating in the middle of the sea with two women, one mad and the other losing a baby who had been fathered by my ex-husband.

‘Just ten minutes,’ begged Phoebe, her words a slur of sound. ‘I can’t hold on.’

‘No.’

‘Please. I’m going to die.’

‘Good.’

Tessa’s face shone greenly. Her every groan was accompanied by a rigidity that I could feel vibrating through her hand. It would last, like labour, for a minute or so, before gradually loosening off. Her fingers would soften as she began to cry quietly instead. The pattern became familiar, almost hypnotising. After a long while, the sounds petered into silence, leaving just the gentle lapping of waves against the lifebuoys. My eyes felt heavy. I leant back, staring at the sky. Star light, star bright, I wish I may I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. That I could pull my doona over my head, close my eyes and curl into the foetal position. Let myself sink into the soft, comforting embrace of nothingness.
Woman dies. The end.

I woke from darkness into sheer, floundering panic. Gasping for air, I swallowed water as I fought for the surface. I rose into the centre of the lifebuoy, spluttering as I flung my arms over the sides. It was like moving body parts that didn’t belong to me. Water streamed down my face. Several long minutes passed before I had enough control to look around. Tessa was laying back in her own lifebuoy, bobbing gently some distance away, her eyes closed, but Phoebe was gone.

I stared numbly at the rope, now drifting loosely in the water. She had been there, and now she wasn’t. A part of me knew that if she had been, then my descent into the water might have been my last. It was difficult to really care. There was no energy for emotion. At the same time, sadness was like concrete.

But there was something else different as well, something that teased at the edge of awareness. It took me a while to realise that it was the lighter shade of dark. Everything was a little bit clearer. Tessa, the rope, the glistening ripples of water. I lifted my head to stare towards the horizon. It was trimmed with pearl-grey. We had made it to dawn.

I heard a noise that sounded like a sob, and realised it was mine. Tears rolled down my cheeks. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Not just because night, that endless stretch of unfathomable desolation, had been banished, but because it simply
was
beautiful.

For the next hour I watched as grey graduated into a ribbon of silver and then gold. It scattered crystals across the water, crowning the waves with brilliance. It was so wondrous, so filled with hope and renaissance, that I was not at all surprised when I first heard the helicopter. As it came closer, the throb became almost impossibly loud. It churned the water around me. I lay back, lifting my face as I closed my eyes. And then there were voices, shouting instructions that I did not have the energy to follow. Minutes later, I felt myself being strapped into something and pressed against a strong, male body. It was quite pleasant. I wanted to tell them to take Tessa first, but the thought of being left behind reawakened my fear. Instead I wrapped my arms around the body as we were lifted into the air, higher and higher. I kept my eyes closed. I did not like chairlifts.

The voices exploded into babble as I was wrenched into the helicopter itself. There were hands everywhere, all over me, and I didn’t want to open my eyes lest the owners not be equal to my imagination. And now I was lying down, being wrapped in something that crinkled noisily. A mask was slipped over my face and I felt a needle slide into the vein of my arm. I could hear my teeth chattering but it was a sound I was well used to. I let it carry me off to sleep.

When I came to, I was sheathed in light. The babble of voices was still there but now there were female ones also. They swirled melodiously around me, unintelligible, bouncing back and forth. The crinkly material was silver, like aluminium foil, and I knew that it was supposed to increase my body heat. I still felt cold though. A policeman was there, asking me a series of questions in stilted English. I answered croakily as best I could until he was chased away. Another face loomed, murmuring soothing words that I didn’t understand. She adjusted an IV that hung near my head, and seconds later I drifted away once more.

And now it was silent, even the noisy foil was gone. I stared at the white-tiled ceiling for a few minutes and then twisted my head to take in my surroundings. My head throbbed. I knew instantly that I was in a hospital room. There was a chair in the corner and a window with the blind pulled down. Light glimmered around the edges. On the other side of the room was an industrial-looking bedside cabinet with a lamp. The door was closed but an inset window reflected fluorescent light from the hallway. I could also see an IV stand with tubing snaking all the way down to a bandage around the crook of my elbow. I was wearing a soft, white gown but felt weighted down, like I had been tucked in too tight. There was a buzzer lying next to one hand. The other was firmly fixed beneath the blanket.

I had survived. I had been flung off a cruise ship, fallen god knows how many storeys into the sea, where I had remained for an entire night, alongside a murderer, and I had survived. I was more surprised than relieved. My eyelids drooped and I wallowed in the pleasure of letting them fall, not fighting the feeling. I dozed off and on until the sound of a rattling trolley in the corridor woke me more fully. I suddenly realised that I was ravenous.

One push of the buzzer summoned an efficient nurse with a broad smile and limited English. She bustled around the bed, checking my blood pressure and pulse, before opening the blind. Light streamed into the room.

‘Where am I?’ I asked, making a sweeping gesture with my loose hand.

She smiled and then uttered a series of words from which only ‘Kalamata’ was distinguishable. It also sounded like there was an Eskimo in there but I was discounting that.

‘Kalamata?’ I repeated questioningly. My voice was like dry gravel.

‘
Nai
,’ she said, nodding. ‘Ellada. Greece.’

‘Ah.’ I was in Greece, home of Athena. It seemed fitting. ‘Do you know what happened to my friend? Tessa? Is she all right?’

The nurse frowned for a moment, and then her face cleared. She adjusted my bed until I was semi-sitting. Now I could see that there were three plastic sandbag-like contraptions lining either side of my bed, securing the blankets all the way to my neck. They radiated heat. The nurse readjusted the bags to allow for upper body movement. She held up a finger and then left the room, reappearing moments later with a platter of sandwiches and a cup of tea. I had never seen anything so delicious-looking in my life. Whatever had happened to Tessa had already happened; it was out of my hands. I filled them with sandwiches instead, eating steadily as I stared out the window at the rooftops.

The nurse came back as I finished. She checked my vitals again and then collected the crockery. ‘Good?’ she asked, in accented English.

‘Delicious,’ I said, rubbing my stomach. Even my headache had settled. ‘Ah, is there any chance I could borrow a laptop? Or an iPad?’

‘Laptop … iPad?’ she repeated. She grimaced and then shrugged unconvincingly before holding up her finger once more. This time she was gone a long while and I had almost given up when she returned with a beaming smile, iPad in hand. ‘Mine,’ she said. ‘
Na prosecheis
. Be careful.’

‘Thank you!’

‘
Eucharistisi mou
,’ she said, before holding up both hands with her fingers splayed. She either meant stop right now or in ten minutes. I opted for the latter.

As she left, I flipped the iPad open and noted that it was currently 3 pm. I found the icon for Safari. Everything was in Greek but I typed in a few keywords, including
Australian newspaper
, and a screen full of options in English appeared. I clicked on the first.
Hope fades for three Australian women who plummeted from cruise ship
. I wasn’t sure I was that fond of the word ‘plummet’, with its inference of weight. The article itself offered little further detail, having been published only a few hours after we fell. I checked the timings and found one that had come out that morning.
Search resumes for Australian women who fell from cruise ship.
This article included our names and even a photograph of me, the publicity one used for my column. I was described as a ‘noted columnist’. Clearly my editor had contributed. I approved.

I had seven minutes left from my allotted ten. I took a deep breath and logged into my email account. By now everybody would have been notified of my rescue, but this was still not going to be pretty.