Kitabı oku: «No Escape»

2
THEN

Lana found the sketchbook tucked at the back of the stall between bags of cashew nuts and a stack of sun hats. She eased it from the shelf and wiped the film of dust from its cover. The pages were thinner than she’d have liked, but at least they were a bright, crisp white. She took it to the counter where a Filipino boy with crooked front teeth grinned as he searched for the price.

‘Artist?’ he asked.

She was about to answer, No, when on a whim, she smiled and said, ‘Yes. Artist.’ Why the hell not? She was travelling; no one – except Kitty – knew her over here. She could be whoever she wanted to be.

She left the shade of the stall with the sketchbook under her arm. The streets were busy, the heat of the day stored in the roads which seemed to radiate warmth and dust. Her thick amber hair was piled up in a loose knot, and she used the back of her arm to wipe away the sheen of sweat on her forehead. The heat in the Philippines was like a wall, unmovable and solid, both day and night.

She wove through the crowds, skirting a man who stood in the centre of the pavement wafting a straw fan over the embers of a grill. A smoky charred aroma rose into the air.

Beyond him, a diesel generator whirred outside a stall and she felt the heat kicked out from its exhaust against her bare legs. She dodged two crates of glass bottles stacked on the pavement, then navigated a map of cracks and gouges in the concrete. She was a little disappointed with the stalls, having imagined trailing through them and discovering quirky print dresses or interesting handmade jewellery – but most of the stalls sold the same range of bland T-shirts and sarongs.

On the opposite side of the street a young Filipino boy padded along carrying a cockerel, a dog trotting behind him with a coconut husk in its mouth. Beyond the boy she saw Kitty standing in the queue for the bakery, her dark hair snaking over one shoulder. From behind she could almost pass as a local with her petite figure and her skin tanned a rich mahogany. She was talking to an elderly man with a stooped posture who was laughing at something she was saying. Kitty had a wonderful knack of making friends wherever they went, drawing strangers into conversation with her inexhaustible supply of stories and questions.

Lana slowed to cross the road and meet Kitty, a tide of people moving and bustling around her. The sweet, yeasty smell of bread drifted towards her on a warm wind as she waited for a gap in the procession of brightly painted tricycles. There were no cars in Norappi, only tricycles weaving, racing and beeping their way along the streets. They made her think of the Bangkok tuk-tuks she’d seen pictures of, with their decorated metal sidecars attached to the driver’s motorbike.

Across the street there was a sudden blur of movement and noise. The boy carrying the cockerel gave a high-pitched yelp of surprise as the bird burst free from his grip and made a dash for it across the road. A tricycle coming towards it swerved sharply in a squeal of brakes, and the passenger – a young Western man with large headphones clamped over his ears – was shot out of his seat, slamming to the other side of the vehicle, making it veer further off course.

The tricycle careered onto the pavement, crashing into a street grill, and dragging it along the roadside towards Lana, metal raging on concrete in a hideous cacophony of noise. Stunned by the eruption of chaos, she didn’t manage to move back swiftly enough and the grill caught her foot, pulling it out from under her.

Suddenly the ground was spinning towards her – her bag and sketchbook flying away. She felt the smack of concrete against her palms, the side of her knee, her ankle bone. Her nostrils filled with grit and dust. Beneath her the concrete thrummed with heat.

There was more shouting, and she lifted her head to see the young boy making a grab for the cockerel. He caught a fistful of tail feathers and yanked it, squawking, towards him, clasping it roughly within both arms. The tricycle was now parked haphazardly on the side of the road, and its driver clipped the boy over the head, scolding him demonstratively.

Lana blinked, bringing her gaze back to the ground. She needed to get up, but couldn’t seem to make herself move. She was aware of her belongings tossed aside, the fresh pages of her sketchbook splayed in the dirt.

As she lay there, a young man in a bright T-shirt crouched to the ground and gathered up her things. He came towards her, fanning the dust from the pages, asking, ‘You okay?’

‘Yes,’ she said, finally heaving herself upright. Her head swam and she touched her forehead with her fingertips.

‘Here,’ he said, taking her by the elbow, and carefully helping her to her feet.

As she stood, he kept hold of her, turning his back to the flow of the crowd to give Lana space while she regained her balance. Her ankle throbbed painfully and she looked down and saw a small patch of blood beginning to bloom just above the bone.

‘I was in the tricycle. The driver was trying to miss the cockerel, but …’ He paused, looking at her again. A faint beat of music slid from the headphones around his neck. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

‘I’m fine—’

‘Lana! Jesus!’ Kitty was pushing her way through the flow of people, sunglasses askew on her head, a bag bouncing against her hip. Reaching Lana, she threw her arms around her neck. ‘I heard the noise. Saw you! Are you hurt? How bad is it?’ Kitty pulled away, her hands holding onto Lana’s upper arms as she scanned her. ‘Your ankle. It’s bleeding.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Lana said, wanting to get off the street and sit for a moment. She brushed half-heartedly at the dust on her dress.

‘I think these are yours,’ the stranger said, holding out Lana’s belongings.

Lana thanked him.

‘Take it easy, eh?’

As she turned to move away, her vision seemed to swerve. Everything felt louder and closer: horns honking, quick bursts of Tagalog, the banging of a hammer against metal. She was aware of the hot trickle of blood winding its way down her foot and the sensation made her want to gag. People wove around her, scents of washing powder, food, sweat, rising from their skin. Just walk. Move slowly. Get out of this street.

But as she walked, her legs felt unsteady and her balance seemed to falter. She reached out a hand to find something solid she could rest against, but there was only air.

‘Oh shit!’ she heard Kitty cry, her voice seeming far away.

Then the man was at Lana’s other side, gripping her by the upper arm – steadying her. ‘Here,’ he said calmly. ‘We’ve got you.’

*

They steered her along the street, cutting through a narrow gap between two stalls that led down a shaded alleyway. Chickens roamed and bleached washing was drying stiff in the heat. An elderly woman sat with an empty plate in front of her, watching them through milky brown eyes.

He took a left, crossing a rickety bridge that stretched over a waterway, towards what appeared to be a dead end of rocks. ‘It’s just up here.’

A group of travellers appeared from a gap between the rocks, talking in loud voices, laughing, bashing each other over the shoulders. Lana followed the direction they had come from, hobbling slowly along a cool, stone passageway.

Eventually she found herself standing at the top of a stairway made of hundreds of white pebbles set neatly into concrete. From here a view of a bar opened out below. It was built on stilts over the water, its sides open to the softening blue sky, and almost everything she could see was made of bamboo or driftwood. Backpackers in T-shirts and board shorts, sundresses and colourful tops, lounged in low chairs or on floor cushions, playing cards, smoking, talking. Two girls sat at the very edge of the bar drinking beers with their tanned legs dangling towards the water. The pulse of music throbbed through the space, intermingled with voices and laughter.

The man found them a spot by the water, where a cool breeze drifted in. Lana set her sketchbook on the table, then lowered herself down into one of the wide wooden chairs that sat only inches from the floor. She stretched her legs in front of her, pleased to take the weight off her ankle.

‘I’ll get some ice,’ Kitty said, ‘and drinks. Lana, you need something medicinal.’ Turning to the man, she asked, ‘Beer?’

He held a hand up, saying, ‘You guys go ahead. I’ll sort myself out. I’m meeting some mates here soon.’

‘Just a quick one – to say thanks,’ Kitty insisted.

He hesitated for a moment and then shrugged, saying, ‘Sure, why not?’

He introduced himself as Denny, and when Kitty went to the bar he told Lana he was from New Zealand. He had an even, golden tan, which set off the pale blue of his eyes, and his hair – a bed of tight sandy curls – seemed to grow upwards. She imagined that if she reached out a hand it would feel springy to the touch.

He unhooked the headphones from around his neck and set them on the table beside her sketchbook. ‘You draw?’

‘A little,’ she replied.

‘What type of thing?’

‘Oh, anything really. Whatever captures me.’

‘And what captures you?’ he said, looking at her with interest.

She thought for a moment. In the month she and Kitty had been travelling in the Philippines, she’d already filled two sketchbooks with illustrations. She pictured her most recent sketches – a group of boys sitting on a crumbling wall, legs swinging; a goat tethered in the shade chewing the cud; a doorway shrouded by a sun-bleached yellow sheet; a lone shoe discarded at the roadside. ‘I like to sketch ordinary things that pinpoint a moment.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Something that has a story.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’

Kitty returned with three beers sweating on a bamboo tray, slices of lime sticking out of each bottle neck. She passed them around, then handed Lana a bundle of napkins and a glass of ice. ‘Best they could do in the first-aid department.’

Lana wrapped the ice cubes in a napkin and placed them against her ankle, wincing at the cold.

Kitty used a finger to push the lime into the belly of her beer bottle, then they all clinked bottles.

Behind them there was a crash of wood, followed by the sound of laughter, and Lana turned to see a giant Jenga tower had collapsed. Its builders were collecting the blocks, rebuking each other in Italian. Kitty turned back to the table and said, ‘Great bar. Didn’t even know it was here.’

‘Real nice couple run it,’ Denny said. ‘They’ve definitely picked the right location.’ He glanced out across the water to where the sun was getting lower, painting the water rose-gold. As he turned back, his gaze moved to the entrance. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Here they are.’

Two men in their late twenties strolled across the bar, a younger blonde woman with bare feet walking between them. Denny waved them over and made the introductions.

Aaron, another Kiwi, who was square-jawed and thick-necked, stood with his hands gripped over the back of a chair. ‘I picked up the part,’ he told Denny, ‘but I had to go to the mechanic’s cousin’s brother’s shop.’

Denny rolled his eyes. ‘What did they charge you?’

‘Six thousand pesos.’

‘Pretty good.’

Aaron nodded.

‘No Joseph?’

Aaron raised an eyebrow, communicating something that Lana didn’t understand. ‘Right, I’ll get the beers in.’

Heinrich, a German with even white teeth and a sensible haircut, pulled up a chair for the blonde girl, Shell, and set his next to it.

‘What happened?’ Shell asked, looking at the ice pressed to Lana’s ankle.

‘I got in the path of a runaway cockerel,’ Lana said, lifting the napkin to reveal the swelling skin.

‘Bloody kamikaze cockerels,’ Kitty added.

Shell leant forward and pressed the backs of her fingers very gently against Lana’s skin, a flock of slim silver bangles jangling on her wrist. She drew her fingers lightly around the edges of the swelling. ‘Looks like a sprain. Keep topping up the ice tonight.’

Lana liked Shell immediately, sensing warmth in the wideness of her smile. She tried to decide whether Shell and Heinrich were a couple, but couldn’t tell if their easy manner with one another was familiarity or intimacy.

Aaron returned with the drinks and conversation began to flow. Kitty was entertaining the table with a story of a love tryst she’d witnessed earlier between a slight Filipino woman and an ageing American. Lana was content to sit back and listen, trying to place the accents and dynamics of the friends who explained that they’d travelled through South-East Asia together.

A heady blend of beers and rum on a warm evening meant conversation flowed easily from one topic to another. Lana forgot the pain in her ankle and grinned at the colourful details she learnt about the others: Denny would only fall asleep in a Spider-Man outfit until he was nine years old; Heinrich was so competitive that he used to beg his brother to score him on how long he peed for; Shell’s parents owned a cattle-feed store in Ontario and she used to go sledging on the wide plastic sacks the feed was delivered in; Aaron had once got lost in a rainforest on Réunion island and taken a badly aimed crap on an ants’ nest.

Several more rounds of drinks were bought and drunk. Candles were lit and streams of white fairy lights began to twinkle around the bar as night arrived. When it was Kitty’s round she ordered more beers, with a tray of chasers, and the noise around the table rose even louder.

‘So what made you decide to travel? Why the Philippines?’ Shell asked Lana, the group’s attention turning to her.

Lana glanced down at her drink, her mouth turning dry as she thought about what led to her decision to leave England. She remembered her father’s expression when he’d found her kneeling on the threadbare carpet of his bedroom with a Manila envelope in her hands: his features seemed to slide downwards, as if weighted by guilt.

Later the same night, she’d waited on Kitty’s doorstep, rain dripping down the collar of her coat, her shoulders hunched against the biting wind. At her centre was a hollow, raw feeling, as if her insides had been carved out. Kitty had opened the door, taken one look at Lana and tugged her indoors, saying, ‘Jesus! What the fuck’s happened?’

At the time, Kitty had been renting a poky studio-flat in Ealing above a florist, and she’d led Lana into the cluttered main room where a double bed heaved with cushions and crochet throws. Kitty’s clothes hung on two rails at the side of the room and her shoes were thrown in a trunk at the end of the bed. Her dressing table was covered with make-up, body lotions and bottles of perfume, and the whole place had the feel of a costume department.

Kitty plucked a fleecy dressing gown from the back of the door and wrapped it around Lana, who was trembling all over. She squeezed Lana’s red hands. ‘You’re freezing. What’s happened? Are you okay?’

‘Can I stay?’ Lana asked, her voice edged with tears.

‘Of course! What’s going on? Sorry it’s so cold in here. Pissing landlord hasn’t fixed the heating,’ Kitty said, moving a hand to the plug-in radiator where two thongs and a tea towel were drying. ‘I’ll do us a hot-water bottle. And tea.’

A few minutes later they were sitting in bed with the covers pulled up, a hot-water bottle tucked between their feet. Lana cupped a mug of steaming tea to her chest, feeling her heart pounding against it. A tension headache pulsed at her temples as she began to talk. She told Kitty everything – about discovering the envelope hidden in her father’s room, about the truth it contained, about how her father had no words to deny what he’d done.

Kitty listened with her eyes fixed on Lana’s, her lips pressed together. Neither of them drank their tea.

By the time Lana finished talking, her face was streaked with tears. ‘I’ll never forgive him.’

‘No!’ Kitty had said suddenly, sitting forward. ‘Don’t say that. He made a mistake. A terrible mistake. But you mustn’t hate him. You mustn’t!’ She spoke with such vehemence that her hands shook, a dribble of cold tea spilling onto the duvet.

Lana pushed the memory away now. She couldn’t think about that day. Not out here. When she looked up, she realized everyone was watching her, still waiting for an answer.

‘Spin of a globe,’ Kitty said, coming to Lana’s rescue. ‘That’s how we chose the Philippines, wasn’t it?’

Lana nodded.

‘I spun it – and Lana closed her eyes and pointed.’

Heinrich laughed. ‘Really? That’s brilliant.’

It was true – at least in part. It might not have been why they’d left, but it was how they’d chosen to come here. Lana had been sitting cross-legged on Kitty’s bed with the globe in front of her. She’d closed her eyes and felt the lightest breath of air move against her fingertips as the globe spun. Then, as it slowed, she pressed her forefinger against its cool surface.

When she opened her eyes, her fingertip was placed in the centre of a mass of islands near the equator. She lifted her hand and read the name aloud: ‘The Philippines.’

*

‘More drinks?’ the waitress asked, a tray propped against her hip.

The bar was crammed now, voices clamouring to be heard above the thudding music.

Aaron glanced at the watch on his thick wrist, then pushed back his chair and stood. ‘I think we’re done here, thank you.’

When the waitress left, Aaron turned to Lana and Kitty and said, ‘We’ve got some rum back at ours that needs drinking. Gonna join us?’

*

Lana and Kitty wove behind the others with their arms linked, Lana trying to put little weight on her injured ankle. She’d tugged her hairband free, and her hair fell loose over one shoulder in thick waves of amber.

Ahead of them the group came to a stop by the shoreline. Lana could feel the effect of the beers she’d drunk – had it been five, or perhaps six? In the darkness she watched as Aaron untied a rope from a wooden post. The other end was attached to a small metal dinghy with an outboard engine, which he walked out into the shallows.

‘What are you doing?’ Kitty asked, a light slur to her question.

‘Preparing your taxi.’

Shell, Heinrich and Denny kicked off their flip-flops and waded into the harbour. They climbed into the dinghy, which rocked from side to side, sending small waves rippling to shore.

‘Where are we going?’ Kitty asked, a grin spreading across her face.

‘Back to our place,’ Aaron told her.

‘Your place is … a boat?’

In the moonlight, Lana caught Aaron’s smile.

‘Come on,’ Denny called from the dinghy. ‘You’ll like it, we promise.’

Lana shrugged, then slipped off her sandals. The seabed was slimy beneath her soles and she tried not to think about what could be lurking in the dark, silent water.

It was a squeeze on board and Lana sat on a damp plank of wood, squashed between Shell and Kitty with her satchel and sketchbook on her lap.

Aaron yanked at the start cord and the motor spluttered to life.

The smell of diesel and fish rose from the harbour as they motored forward, clouds of cooler air brushing their skin. With the weight of them all, the dinghy sank close to the waterline, and Lana thought that if she reached a hand over the side she’d be able to trail her fingers across the surface.

The night was still and quiet as they passed fishing bangkas, which looked like colourful dugout canoes, drifting on their anchors. The others talked amongst themselves in an easy rhythm, but Lana and Kitty said nothing. They stared ahead as, through layers of darkness, the shadow of a yacht began to emerge, moonlight illuminating the curve of a dark-blue hull.

Lana widened her gaze to absorb it more fully. The yacht was elegant and long, with two masts standing guard. In the moonlight the name of the yacht, painted in a curling white script, came into focus. The Blue.

Lana turned those two words over on her tongue and, as she did so, a surge of something she couldn’t quite define – excitement, anticipation, fear – pushed through her heart.

*

They were sitting towards the back of the yacht – the cockpit, someone called it, which had made Kitty giggle – drinking tall glasses of rum and Coke. Lana held a joint between her fingers that she couldn’t remember being passed, and music played from a speaker somewhere on deck. The yacht rocked gently, like a lullaby from the sea, and Lana felt her body relaxing into its rhythm.

Shell had given them a tour below deck, showing them the main living area, which she called the saloon, and the narrow galley kitchen that was neatly kept except for a stack of empty beer bottles on the side. There were three cramped cabins at the front of the yacht, which contained bunks, and then two slightly larger cabins at the rear with double beds where Aaron and Denny slept.

Lana liked the simplicity of their living quarters, where everything smelt of warm wood and varnish. She’d never set foot on a yacht before and kept pausing, noticing details she wanted to sketch: the row of salt-curled paperbacks squashed together on a shelf in the saloon, bookended by a sturdy copy of The Encyclopaedia of Cruising; the two small hammocks attached to the galley ceiling filled with fruit; a pile of charts spread out on a table with a beautiful conch shell set on top as a paperweight.

Kitty finished her drink, then set down the glass, saying, ‘I still can’t believe you all live on a boat. Whose is it?’

‘I’m the skipper,’ Aaron said, who was sitting with his feet wide apart, a drink held easily in his large hands. That made sense; Lana had noticed the way he’d run his palm carefully over the wheel when they came aboard, his gaze moving across the deck – as if checking that everything was as it should be.

‘So you just sail around from place to place, deciding where you want to stop?’ Kitty asked.

He nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

From what Lana could tell there were five crew: Aaron, Denny, Heinrich, Shell and then a fifth member, Joseph, who’d been smoking alone at the bow when they’d arrived. Denny had asked if he wanted to join them, but Joseph had waved a hand in the air as he sloped by, saying in a lilting French accent that sleep was calling.

As the night wore on, more rum was poured – and then more still. Lana let the conversations wash around her, hearing bursts of Kitty’s laughter, which had taken on a loose, almost liquid sound. As the yacht turned lazily on its anchor, she watched the lights from the town flickering in the distance across the inky water. She had no idea that this was only the beginning.

3
THEN

Lana woke to the sensation that she was swaying. A deep throbbing resonated through her skull and she lifted a hand, rubbing the heel of it against her forehead. Though her eyes were closed, she could sense sunlight and became distantly aware of an engine running and the sound of water nearby.

Gradually her eyelids peeled open – and she saw not walls or a ceiling, but sky. She blinked, squinting against searing daylight. A breeze brushed against her face and she tried to push herself upright, but everything seemed to move, tilt, swing. She struggled – but it was as if the bed, the very ground, was sinking away from her. Then she realized: she and Kitty were in a hammock. She turned her head, sending a new shock of pain around her skull, and saw sea, sky, the deck of a yacht.

‘Kit …’ she croaked.

Kitty came out of sleep as if she’d been plugged into the mains. She sat bolt upright, her hair wild, eyes wide. ‘Yes? What?’

Lana blinked again, searching out the harbour, the fishing bangkas, the town – but land was just a blur of muted shadows behind them. ‘We’re moving.’

‘Holy fucking shit! What happened last night?’ Kitty exclaimed, half-laughing.

‘Tanduay Rhum happened,’ Shell said, gliding across the deck barefoot, holding out two mugs of coffee.

Lana reached for one. ‘My God, you lifesaver.’

‘Have you kidnapped us?’ Kitty asked, taking her coffee.

Shell smiled. ‘Aaron wanted to sail to a spot up the coast on high tide, so he set out early. You’ll be back at the harbour by lunchtime.’

Kitty ran a knuckle beneath each eye and pulled on her sunglasses, which had miraculously survived a night on the hammock.

‘Were you okay up here?’ Shell asked. ‘I use the hammock when it’s too hot below deck, but it can get a little damp.’

‘I don’t think we’d have noticed where we slept,’ Lana said, looking out to sea as they were motoring forward. Then she manoeuvred her legs out of the hammock, wincing at the hot ache in her ankle as she stood.

‘How is it?’ Kitty asked.

Lana experimented with putting weight on it. ‘Not too bad.’

‘Good morning.’

Lana and Kitty both turned to see the Frenchman, Joseph, approaching. He had a thin, angular face and wore a rumpled shirt over a pair of shorts, his dark hair foppish and uncut.

‘Sorry I didn’t stay and meet you properly last night,’ Joseph said on reaching them. ‘You had a good time, yes?’

‘I think so – from what we can remember of it,’ Kitty replied.

‘We’re still trying to get our heads round the fact that you all live here, on this boat,’ Lana added.

‘Yes, me also.’ Joseph smiled. ‘We’re all lucky to have found it.’

She nodded in agreement. ‘How long have you been on board?’

‘Me – only five weeks. But very good five weeks. The others have been here much longer—’

Joseph was interrupted by a shout from Aaron. ‘Shell! Joseph!’

They all turned. Aaron was standing at the helm wearing a sun-faded cap and polarized glasses. There was something authoritative about his stance, the widely planted feet, the single hand resting on the wheel, the lift of his chin. ‘Let’s get the sails up.’

Joseph turned back to Lana and Kitty. ‘Time to see us at work.’

*

Sound filled Lana’s ears: the wild flapping of the sail as it was hoisted, the creak and strain of the sheets then the rush of wind as it filled the sail, making it snap out full and proud. The yacht heeled to the side and Lana gripped tightly to the wire lifeline that ran around the perimeter of the deck.

A moment later the engine was cut and the noise of the motor slipped away so that all that remained was wind and waves. She craned her neck, mesmerized by the muscular curve of the sail as it stretched into a cloudless blue sky.

Lana had never been on a boat – let alone a yacht like this – and she was awed by the sheer magnificence of being propelled through the sea by the power of wind. There was something so elemental, so stunningly powerful, about it. The wind toyed with the hem of her dress and mussed through her hair – and she breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the warm salt air.

She looked down the length of the yacht, taking in the weathered teak deck where swathes of rope were neatly coiled, and a paddleboard and two surfboards were lashed to the railings with bungee cords. She thought, This is another life – another world.

Denny appeared from below deck wearing a faded grey trucker’s cap, his tight curls pinging out at the sides. His gaze found Lana and he smiled. ‘Joining us?’

‘Looks that way.’

Kitty and Lana watched as the crew moved expertly around the yacht – an effortless dance in which everyone knew their role. Barefoot and tanned, they seemed like an exotic race of travellers blown in from a faraway shore.

They’d been sailing for an hour when Denny pointed towards the front of the boat and said to Lana and Kitty, ‘You two should stand at the bow. We’ll be going close in.’

They picked their way carefully forwards, the breeze gently buffeting them both. Kitty slipped an arm around Lana’s waist, leaning her head against her shoulder. They watched the coast reveal itself until they were sailing towards a towering rocky pinnacle where trees and bushes grew at odd angles from cracks in the limestone.

‘Isn’t this insane?’ Kitty said. ‘Can you believe we woke up on a fucking yacht?’

‘I know,’ Lana grinned. ‘Beats waking up on a bus.’ Last summer they’d gone to a gig in London, and afterwards Kitty had talked their way onto the tour bus. They’d woken eight hours later at Wolverhampton Services with atrocious hangovers and only £23 between them to get home.

Beneath the sun, the sea glistened. Lana leant over, peering down at the shallowing water, which lightened to an aquamarine – coral wavering in and out of view as they glided forwards. ‘God, I’m so pleased we’re not in England.’

Kitty glanced at her sideways. ‘You feeling okay about everything?’

By everything, Lana knew that Kitty was referring to her father. ‘I am right now.’

The nose of the yacht drew so close to the rocks that Kitty suddenly stretched her hands into the air as if she could touch them. The yacht hugged the cliff line, and then it edged around a craggy point.

There, opening up before them, was an emerald-green lagoon framed by dramatic pinnacles rising out of the water. A serene white-sand beach curved between the pinnacles, backed by an impenetrable forest.

Kitty turned to Lana, grinning. ‘I think we’ve just stumbled across paradise.’

*

They anchored in the lagoon, then all crammed into the dinghy to go on shore.

When they stepped onto the beach, Lana dug her fingers through the sand, which was made of thousands of beautiful, tiny shells and fragments of white coral.

Shell lay a blanket in the shade beneath a palm tree, and Lana and Kitty joined her. They were still in yesterday’s clothes and were thankful to have been wearing their bikinis beneath them. Kitty tugged off her shorts and edged into the sun, lying back using her arms as a pillow, her stomach stretching taut. Lana remained sitting, propping her elbows on her knees as she listened to Shell, who was telling them the story of The Blue as she plaited fine strands of leather into a bracelet.

‘The first I heard of it was from a group of travellers in Vietnam. There’d been rumours about this floating commune of sailors, wanderers and adventurers. They said that they’d seen the yacht travelling around, and the crew were stopping at remote bays, anchoring off empty shores, sleeping under the stars, surfing crowdless breaks, fishing for their meals. To me it sounded like heaven,’ she said, her facing blooming into a smile.

‘So I travelled from Vietnam, heading west for Thailand in search of The Blue. I’m not sure I truly believed that it existed – but miraculously, I found her. She was anchored in a quiet bay in the west of Ko Samui. The moment I saw her I knew I had to find a way to get on board.’

Shell put down the leather she’d been plaiting and told them, ‘I swam out to the yacht and introduced myself to this guy sitting in the cockpit mending a sail – who happened to be Aaron. He was making a hash of the sail, so I showed him how to make a stronger pattern of stitches. My dad’s a sailor,’ she added, ‘so I’ve done my fair share of sail repairs. I spent the afternoon helping, and once the sail was fixed, I asked Aaron if I could join The Blue.

‘There weren’t any free berths at the time, but I said I was happy with the hammock. I spent the first three weeks sleeping beneath the stars, waking up covered in dew and mosquito bites – but I loved every moment. Then a Danish guy left and I took over his berth. That was fourteen months ago now.

‘Denny’s been here the longest: he joined Aaron in Australia. After him a couple of lovely Swiss girls joined. They left about three months ago.’ Shell confided, ‘I’m heartbroken. I was rather in love with one of them, Lea. Totally one-sided of course – she had a boyfriend back in Switzerland – but still, she was wonderful. There’ve been a few other crew – some stay for weeks, others for months. Heinrich’s been with us for almost six months now. He’s a good guy. Great to have around the boat. I swear he can fix anything – engine parts, cupboard doors, bilge pumps – you name it. Joseph is our newest crew member. He tends to keep himself to himself, but from what I can see, he loves being out here.’ Shell opened her hands and said, ‘So that’s all of us.’

Lana glanced across at Kitty. They held each other’s eye, a current of excitement firing between them as they both understood: they had to find a way of becoming part of this.

*

Lana fell asleep in the shade. She was awoken some time later by a dig in the ribs from Kitty, who whispered, ‘Where is everyone?’

Lana sat up, rubbing her eyes and squinting against the bright sun. Shell was gone from beside them and, as Lana took in the empty bay – the hard white of the coral sand, the clear blue water fringing the beach – she realized she couldn’t see any of the crew. The shoreline was empty. She and Kitty were on a deserted stretch of coastline, only accessible by boat.

Just as the first sparks of fear were beginning to ignite, Kitty suddenly pointed towards the left-hand side of the cove. ‘The dinghy. It’s still there.’

‘Jesus,’ Lana said, placing a hand to her chest. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack – I thought they’d left us.’

On the far side of the dinghy the crew were gathered in a circle, talking. Lana watched as each took turns to speak, their expressions serious. Denny sat with his arms folded over his lean chest, nodding. When Joseph was talking, Aaron turned to glance in Lana and Kitty’s direction. Lana wasn’t sure if he was looking at them or not, so she lifted her hand in an awkward half-wave. He didn’t acknowledge her, simply turned back to the others.

Shell had described the crew as wanderers and adventurers but, as Lana watched them, she wondered whether it was a thirst for adventure that had brought them out here – or whether they all had a reason for leaving their old lives behind.

‘It was the right thing, wasn’t it?’ Lana said suddenly, facing Kitty. ‘Leaving.’

The night that Lana had turned up at Kitty’s flat in a state of shock about her father, she’d made a decision that she was going to leave England. Kitty had held Lana’s shoulders, looked at her squarely and told her, ‘Then I’m coming, too.’

They’d talked further the following morning, Kitty ladling pancake mixture into a pan of hot oil as she confided, ‘I’ve been thinking for a while of giving up on the acting. It’s getting me down,’ she explained, tilting the pan so the batter spread evenly to the edges. ‘The auditions. The rejections. The bitching. Last week I turned up at an audition for a vacuum-cleaner advert – a fucking advert – and the guy said, “Come back when you’re not hungover.”’ Kitty had snorted. ‘I hadn’t even had a bloody drink! Can you believe that?’

‘What, that you hadn’t had a drink?’

Kitty had flicked out a hand and bashed Lana’s arm. ‘I’m just not sure I can face it any more.’

‘But you’re amazing at what you do.’

‘Am I?’ Kitty had said, loosening the edges of the pancake with a wooden spatula. ‘Maybe I thought I was at school, but in London every attention-seeking twenty-something seems like they’re trying to make it – and believe me, there are a lot of us. It’s hard, Lana. The constant rejections are crushing me. And … well, the thing is, I don’t even know what else I’d do. I’m not good at anything.’ Kitty flipped the pancake and it landed neatly back in the pan.

‘You’re a good pancake tosser.’

‘Curriculum vitae of Kitty Berry – experienced tosser.’

Over that long weekend in Kitty’s dingy studio-flat, while the rain fell in thick sweeps against the window panes, they’d spun the globe and concocted their plan to leave.

Lana had been surprised at how easy it was to dismantle her life. It’d taken a month to work her notice, move out of her shared flat, and sell her car. She and Kitty planned to start in the Philippines, and then travel on from there. They pooled their savings, then drew up a budget to see how long it would last them both, deciding to apply for work visas when the money ran out. They booked travel insurance, bought suncream, flip-flops and mosquito repellent, and had vaccinations for diphtheria and hepatitis A. The frenzy of activity was so consuming that Lana felt as if she hadn’t paused for breath until suddenly they were clanking down the metal plane stairway into the dense Filipino heat.

Now Kitty turned towards Lana, sunlight making her eyes glitter. ‘Leaving?’ Kitty repeated. Then her face bloomed into a smile as she said, ‘Best decision we’ve ever made.’

*

Lana waded into the shallows, feeling the cool grasp of the sea around her legs. Kitty hadn’t wanted to swim, so Lana pushed away from the shoreline alone, marvelling at the incredible feeling of weightlessness. When she was a little deeper, she ducked below the surface letting her body trail close to the seabed until her breath ran out.

She surfaced, then swam hard for a few minutes, feeling the muscles in her shoulders and legs tighten. When she reached a cluster of low-lying rocks, she pulled herself onto them, wrung the salt water from her long hair and leant back against the sun-warmed limestone.

Sometime later she saw a tanned back skimming along the surface, a snorkel pipe in the air. Denny lifted his head and, noticing her, he pulled the mask from his face, treading water.

‘See much?’ she asked.

‘Some amazing brain coral. Plenty of angelfish around, too.’ He clambered up the rock and plonked himself beside her, his shorts sending rivulets of water streaming towards her legs.

Looking down the line of her shins towards her feet, he asked, ‘How’s the ankle?’

‘Pretty good, thanks.’

His gaze shifted to her other ankle and he asked, ‘How long you had the ink?’

Lana looked at the black tattoo of a single wing of long black feathers. ‘Since I was seventeen. Kitty and I were supposed to get matching wings – but she fainted when she saw the tattooist’s needle.’

He laughed. ‘But you had yours done anyway.’

As they’d walked out of the parlour, Kitty had been bouncing around on the spot, saying, ‘I can’t believe you did it! Lana, you have a fucking tattoo! How cool is that? Your dad is going to go ballistic!’ But her dad said nothing. She wasn’t even sure he’d seen it. She went barefoot around the house, putting her feet up on the coffee table, but he either didn’t notice or simply chose not to pass comment.

Denny leant forward and placed his damp fingers on the tattoo. She felt heat spread from the point at which his skin connected with hers, and she stared at the spot as if she’d find it aglow.

‘It’s different,’ he said, looking at her sideways, and she couldn’t work out if he meant different-good or different-bad. She could feel warmth beginning to creep into her cheeks, and scrabbled to think of something to say. ‘Do you and Aaron know each other from back home? You’re both from New Zealand, aren’t you?’

‘New Zealand’s a big place,’ Denny said with an easy smile. ‘I joined The Blue in Australia.’

She nodded. ‘How do you all do this? This lifestyle that you have – sailing around the world with friends, living from one day to the next. It seems so …’ She paused, looking for the word. ‘… intangible.’

‘Intangible?’ Denny smiled, the sun catching in the golden hairs of his eyebrows. ‘I like that.’

‘But how do any of you afford it?’ she asked, then wondered if the question sounded rude.

‘We try and keep costs down, live simply. We all put in a hundred and fifty dollars a week to cover food, water, fuel and marina fees when there are any. If there’s anything left over it goes into the repairs fund. Some people had savings, plus we pick up work where we can. Like Shell – she makes jewellery and sells it in the tourist spots, and when we’re in port she teaches a few yoga classes, too. I know Joseph had some money put aside from before. I’m not too sure what Heinrich’s set up is; he said he’s going to be running dry soon. And then me – I work while I’m out here.’

‘Doing what?’ Lana asked.

‘I’m a translator. Of novels. French into English.’

‘I’ve never met a translator. What an interesting job,’ she said, looking at him afresh. ‘Is there an art to it? I can’t imagine how you go about replicating an author’s meaning in a different language.’

‘That’s what I love – trying to find the author’s voice and then convey it. Humour’s the hardest. It’s all wordplay and timing, which doesn’t always translate so easily.’

‘Where did you learn French?’

‘Went on a family trip to Réunion island as a teenager. It’s French-speaking. Loved it so much that I decided to study French for my degree as I got to spend a year of it on Réunion. After I graduated I worked in-house for a technical firm translating documents, but it didn’t suit me. Too much looking out a window longing to be someplace else, y’know? So I moved to fiction, went freelance.’

Lana nodded, understanding that longing to be somewhere else. She thought of the endless grey days at the insurance firm where she worked following her art degree – any hint of creative ambition stifled by the need to pay rent. She’d lived for her lunch breaks just so she could walk through the park and see daylight.

A loud whistle sounded from the shore. She turned and saw Aaron gesturing to the dinghy.

Denny glanced at her with something like regret in his expression. ‘Looks like it’s time to head back.’

*

It was mid-afternoon when The Blue returned to harbour. There was no mention of the girls joining the crew, and neither Lana nor Kitty felt comfortable asking. Aaron ran them ashore in the dinghy, and they sat together watching silently as the yacht shrank in their wake.

The noise and heat of town seemed to thicken the closer they drew to land, like a gathering thunderstorm. Lana’s earlier ebullience deflated as she thought of the sweltering heat of their guest room and the stringy kebabs they’d probably pick up for dinner in town after fighting their way through the crowds, street dogs and litter.

Aaron tied up the dinghy and held it steady as the girls climbed out. The ground seemed unstable after a night and day at sea and Lana felt as if she were swaying.

She hooked her bag across her shoulders, glancing at The Blue for a final time. The day had taken on a surreal quality – as if Lana and Kitty had swum into a dream from which they were only now waking.

Lana pushed her hands into the wide pockets of her dress and faced Aaron. ‘Thank you. It’s been an incredible day.’

‘Yes!’ Kitty chimed at her shoulder. ‘Amazing. Literally the best day of our entire trip. That beach was just … unreal. We’ll never—’

‘Be back here in two hours with your stuff,’ Aaron interrupted. ‘We set sail at eighteen hundred hours.’

Lana blinked, staring at Aaron. He was leaning back against the nose of the dinghy, arms folded across his chest, his face expressionless. ‘Sorry?’

Beside her, Kitty’s mouth was beginning to split into a smile. ‘Are you saying … we can join the crew?’

‘We took a vote on it and you’re in. Joseph is going to bunk in with Heinrich, so there’s a free cabin if you want it.’

‘Holy shit!’ Kitty exclaimed, clamping her hands over her mouth.

‘Are you serious? We can join the crew?’ Lana asked.

He nodded. ‘But I haven’t told you the conditions yet.’

‘Anything,’ Kitty said.

‘There are four rules. You break them, you’re out.’

They nodded vigorously.

‘One. Everyone pulls their weight – that includes cooking, cleaning, laundry, sailing, night watches – anything that needs doing. Don’t wait to be asked. Get stuck in. I know you don’t have any sailing experience, but I expect you to learn. Fast. Two. All important decisions are made by group vote – where we travel, what we buy, who comes aboard. Once made, the vote stands. Three. No relationships between the crew. We don’t need the complication.’

Kitty arched an eyebrow. ‘You run a celibate boat?’

‘I never said anything about celibacy. I just said no relationships.’

Kitty grinned.

‘And four,’ Aaron continued. ‘I’m not a nanny so don’t expect me to act like one. Everyone’s responsible for their own safety – we’ve got life jackets, harnesses, a life raft, flares and an EPIRB on board. Ask one of the crew to show you how they all work, and wear your life jacket or safety harness whenever you see fit.’

He ran a hand over the back of his head, the stubble of his shaven head scraping against his palm. ‘So what d’you reckon? Still coming?’

Lana turned and looked over her shoulder towards the yacht, a bright, effervescent sensation filling her. She found Kitty’s fingers and squeezed them tightly between her own. ‘We’re coming.’

4
NOW

Lana paces through her apartment, her fingers buried deep in the pockets of her dress. The painting she was working on is drying, unfinished. On a normal day, she would be getting ready for work by this time. But she can’t even think about going into the gallery and making coffees for customers. She can’t think of anything but The Blue.

She knows that the Maritime Rescue Centre, which will be dealing with the rescue of the crew, is only 30 kilometres away – she passes the sign for it each month when she goes to the art supplies wholesaler for her boss. She grabs her mobile and searches the Internet for the number.

When she finds it, she sits on the edge of her bed and makes the call. It takes several minutes to be connected to anyone associated with the rescue of The Blue. Eventually she is transferred to Paul Carter, the Operations Coordinator, who has a broad New Zealand accent and tells her that they are not at liberty to give out any details.

‘Look,’ she says, banging the heel of her hand against the wooden bed frame, making a dull thud. ‘Just tell me if Kitty Berry was on board. She’s British. She’s got no family out here. I can get in touch with them.’

Lana doesn’t know where the authority in her tone has sprung from, but she knows she will not be ending this call until she has an answer.

After a moment she hears the sigh of someone acquiescing. ‘Okay, give me a minute.’

As she waits, she bites the edge of her thumbnail, her skin tasting faintly of turpentine. She finds herself thinking of the first time she met Kitty. They were eleven years old and the summer term had just begun. Lana was grateful for the warmer weather because it meant that at lunchtimes she could sit alone in a sunny corner of the playing fields, and didn’t need to stand around in the courtyard trying to make herself look invisible. She’d take out her exercise book and fill the back pages with wild shapes – swirls of smoke, twisting currents of water, clouds that billowed and bloomed from the pages.

She had seen Kitty around – they lived in the same street and took the same bus to school – but they’d never spoken. Kitty styled her glossy dark hair in a high ponytail, pulling thin wisps of it loose around her temples. She was often followed around by a loud group of boys who wore their backpacks so low that they bounced against their bony arses.

Lana had been sitting cross-legged, watching a feathery seed from a dandelion drifting towards her on a whisper of breeze. She was mesmerized as it turned through the air, daylight catching in its white softness. She wondered what it would feel like to be that weightless. She reached a hand up into the air and caught it gently in the palm of her hand, imagining its tickle against her skin. Then she closed her eyes and made a wish. She wasn’t sure that you were meant to wish on dandelions, but she’d done it anyway.

When she opened her eyes, she carefully unfurled her fingers and – for a moment – it rested right there on the centre of her palm, as if she had tamed it. A few seconds later it lifted off, carried upwards on a current of air.

‘What you doing?’ Kitty was standing nearby, her school bag hanging off one shoulder.

‘Making a wish,’ she said. She felt her cheeks flush, cross that she’d not thought of something better than the truth.

‘What did you wish?’

‘You can’t tell people, otherwise they don’t come true.’

Kitty shrugged. Then she bent down and plucked a dandelion from the long grass near the fence line and held it up to her lips. ‘You can tell the time by blowing a dandelion. Watch.’ She blew with short puffs of air, making the seeds whirl. By her sixth puff there was only one seed remaining. Kitty adjusted her puffs so they became gentle, until her twelfth one – when she blew with all her might, sending the remaining seed dancing into the sky.

‘That was twelve.’ She pushed her wrist in front of Lana to reveal her purple watch. ‘Twelve o’clock. See?’

Lana laughed.

Kitty’s brow dipped. ‘What? It’s true.’

‘All right.’

They were both silent and Lana wished she hadn’t laughed, thinking Kitty was going to leave now. But after a minute or so, Kitty said, ‘So why d’you always sit on your own?’

Lana watched a ladybird crawl up a blade of grass near her feet, making the blade tremble and bend. ‘I dunno. Why are you on your own?’

‘I’m not. I’m talking to you.’ Kitty shook her head a little, making her high ponytail swing. Lana wondered whether Kitty was wearing mascara as her eyelashes looked so dark and long. Lana had her father’s eyelashes – auburn and short – as well as his amber hair. But her long, straight nose and olive skin came from her mother. People often remarked upon Lana’s unusual colouring, and she liked telling them, My father’s a redhead, but my mother was Greek.

‘Anyway, I’m looking for daffodils,’ Kitty announced.

‘How come?’

‘It’s my mum’s birthday today.’ Kitty looked at her from the corners of her eyes, then added, ‘She’s dead though.’

Lana stared back. With their gazes pinned to each other, she found herself saying, ‘Mine, too.’

If Kitty had been surprised, she hadn’t shown it. ‘My mum died when I was seven. Cancer. How old were you?’

‘Three.’

Lana told Kitty about the car accident. Even though she hadn’t been with her mother, the events of the day felt imprinted on her as if she’d lived through every frame. It was a Thursday morning; her mother was driving to the supermarket when a lorry hurtling along in the other direction had braked hard to avoid a car that pulled out in front of it. The lorry began jackknifing across the road. Tons of metal swung into Lana’s mother’s Renault 5, killing her on impact.

When other people heard what had happened to Lana’s mother, their expressions filled with pity and they spoke to her in a soft, special voice. But not Kitty. She listened with her head tilted to one side, her eyes locked on Lana.

After a moment Kitty said, ‘My mum died in a hospice. On her own. My dad was sitting in our car, smoking, and I was trying to find somewhere to change a pound coin so I could get a drink from the vending machine. When I came back to her ward, a bed sheet was pulled over her face.’

The two girls eyed one another in silence. Then Lana stood, picked up her bag and said, ‘Come on. I’ll show you where the best daffodils are.’

*

From the other end of the phone line Lana hears the man speak, the receiver pressed close to his mouth. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Kitty Berry is on the crew list.’

Lana’s heart clenches tight as a fist, her eyes squeezing shut.

So Kitty has still been on the yacht after all these months. After everything that had happened, Lana wonders if Kitty could still enjoy lying back in the hammock, watching the shooting stars blaze across the sky as they’d once done together.

She runs the heel of her hand back and forth across her forehead. ‘What happened out there? How did the yacht get into trouble?’

‘I’m not able to disclose any information just yet,’ Paul Carter says.

Lana grits her teeth with frustration. ‘Have you found her? Found any of them?’

There is a pause in which she hears the man clearing his throat. ‘I’m sorry. The entire crew is missing.’

*

Lana puts down the phone and remains sitting on the edge of the bed. It is almost impossible to picture The Blue somewhere out there in these waters. Sunk.

There was a life raft, she knows. It was stored in a canister at the stern, which she’d sometimes lean against, her legs stretched out in the sun. She wonders when the raft was last checked, and whether the grab bag was properly stocked, too.

She can picture the yacht easily – the teak deck warm beneath the soles of her feet; the white mainsail billowing with wind; the light slosh and draw of waves against the hull as the yacht turns lazily on its anchor. But she cannot bring to mind that same yacht struggling in the ocean as water washes on board, creeping down the hatch into the saloon where they all used to sit together for dinner. She cannot picture the sea steadily rising up over the floor, enveloping the lockers and cupboards stocked with food, blankets, torches and ropes, then creeping higher, bleeding over the photos pinned to the saloon wall and flooding the shelves of well-thumbed books. She cannot imagine the crew wading through salt water, while sodden charts, packets of food, loose clothes and toiletries float around them.

A yacht like that just doesn’t sink. It was built to handle the open ocean, rough seas. What the hell happened?

Lana raises herself to her feet and crosses the room to the window.

For months Lana tried her best to distance herself from the yacht and crew. She closed a door of her mind because behind it lay a beautiful, bright pain – and even opening it a crack seared. In some ways, she’s succeeded. She made a fresh start here in New Zealand, yet there are moments – if she catches sight of the swoop of a sail on the horizon, or hears a wave breaking onto the shore – then The Blue sails back into her thoughts. Sometimes all it takes to remember is a shopkeeper’s lilting accent, which sends Denny spiralling into her mind, or the sight of two friends walking with their heads pressed together, making her miss Kitty with a deep ache.

Now that she has heard this news, it feels as though each of the memories she has hidden away is unwinding, link by link, like an anchor chain dragging her downwards. She feels the weight of each memory pulling her deeper: thick fingers gripped around the pale skin of a throat; Shell’s tear-stricken face as she stepped forward at the bow to speak; dark waves lashing at the deck as the rigging shrieked in the wind; Kitty’s hollow-eyed gaze as she raised her hand into the air; the deep-red bloom of blood that stained the deck.

Back then, if Lana had known everything she does now, she wonders whether she’d ever have set foot on The Blue.

5
THEN

Lana stood at the helm, her hands resting on the sun-warmed wheel. A glowing red sun was lowering itself towards the sea, washing the water pink.

She turned to Kitty, whose skin looked a deep bronze in the evening light, the lenses of her sunglasses reflecting the fire of the sunset, and said, ‘I can’t help thinking that at any moment someone’s going to come along and tell us we’re in the wrong place.’

‘I know,’ Kitty agreed. ‘We’re out here sailing a fucking yacht together! Life doesn’t get much better, does it?’

This would be their fifth night on board The Blue, and they’d both fallen hopelessly in love with every aspect of it: the long hours spent snorkelling over coral gardens and exploring empty coves where wild mangoes grew; learning how to handle the sails and steer a course; cooking meals in the narrow galley kitchen with the view of the sea through the porthole; talking on deck until the early hours with rum warm in their throats.

‘Listen to this,’ Kitty said, lifting her hands towards Lana’s ear and rubbing her palms together. They made a rough scraping sound where the skin had become dry and callused from hauling the ropes – or sheets as Aaron had taught the girls to call them. ‘That’s my body’s way of telling me I’m not cut out for manual work. I’m going to see if Shell’s got any moisturizer.’

Kitty disappeared below deck, and Lana turned her attention to the plotter screen, checking their course and position. They were sailing to a small island Aaron had noticed on the charts, where they planned to anchor for the night. Aaron had a nose for searching out secluded bays and sheltered nooks of the coastline, preferring the adventure of discovering somewhere new rather than mooring up in a marina with the yachting crowd.

Two nights ago they’d anchored on the lee side of a tiny island that had just sixty inhabitants. Almost as soon as they’d dropped anchor, a dozen village kids swam out to the yacht. Aaron invited them on board and they’d stood dripping wet at the stern, smiling shyly and giggling. Denny had fetched a bag of sweets and within a few minutes the kids were exploring the yacht. They were mesmerized by the computer, the array of books in the saloon, and the music that played from Shell’s iPod.

Lana was beginning to gain an understanding of how the yacht moved. It was less reactive than a car, with adjustments taking longer, so when she turned the wheel one way it took a few seconds for the boat to follow. It was a strange sensation to steer from the back of a vessel and she kept pushing herself up onto tiptoes, peering over the bow to check the way was clear.

Aaron came up on deck holding an apple in his wide palm. He stood beside her, slipping a knife from the sheath that was fixed to the console. It was housed there for emergencies, like cutting a trapped line, or to protect themselves should they ever be boarded. Aaron wiped the blade against his shorts, then carefully sliced the first curve of the apple, lifting it to his mouth on the blade edge.

‘How you going?’ Aaron asked, as he crunched through the crisp flesh of the fruit.

‘Good, I think. We’ve been averaging about six to seven knots.’

He nodded, then didn’t say anything for some time. He watched the water, a peaceful expression settling into his features and softening the deep grooves that lined his forehead.

She wondered how old Aaron must be. The rest of the crew were in their twenties – Shell being the baby of the group at twenty-two – but Aaron seemed more life-worn: in his early thirties perhaps. It was still a young age to own a yacht the size of The Blue. Even though the yacht wasn’t one of the modern, expensive new models they occasionally passed, it was sizeable at 50 feet. Aaron had told her it was an ex-charter yacht that he’d bought in New Zealand. It had the feel of a well-loved family home where each corner had a story to tell. She liked the rustic charm of the heavily varnished wood below deck that had turned an orangey colour over the years, and the quirks of how certain latches and doors had to be opened at a precise angle to make them work. He’d set up solar panels on deck, and a wind turbine too, and was eager that their travels left as little wake as possible.

‘Shell was telling me that your first voyage on The Blue was from New Zealand to Australia?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Some journey. Brave to do it single-handedly.’

‘Or foolish.’ He cut another slice of apple, crunching it between his teeth as he looked at the line of islands ahead, which were beginning to reveal craggy rock faces.

‘What made you decide to do it?’

‘Wanted a new experience, I guess.’

Lana thought about his answer: Aaron had bought a yacht, spent six months refitting it, then sailed off single-handedly. There must have been a compelling reason to make him take on such a challenge. Or, she thought, a compelling reason to make him want to leave New Zealand. ‘What did you do before this? Before setting sail?’

Aaron looked steadily ahead. He spoke slowly and clearly as he said, ‘I did a lot of things before this, Lana. But what I do now is sail.’ He cut a final slice of apple, then returned the knife to its sheaf before wandering away to the bow. He stood alone, one hand on the lifeline, his gaze on the water.

The wind continued to blow.

*

It was dusk by the time they’d finally finished anchoring in a spot Aaron was comfortable with. Once everything was done, he called the crew into the saloon, where they all squeezed around the main table.

Aaron remained standing, saying, ‘We need a quick group vote. We’re spending the night here – possibly tomorrow night, too. After that I wanted to find out where people would like to go next. We’ve got a couple of options.’ Flattening out a chart in the centre of the table, Aaron explained how they could tour the islands north-east of here where there were some great surf breaks, but that the sailing might be rough – or they could head south-east into more protected waters, where the snorkelling and diving were meant to be spectacular.

When he’d finished explaining the options, he asked for everyone’s vote, giving his own first. ‘I’m in favour of going north. It’d be good to see if there’s any swell running.’

Shell, who was sitting beside him, voted next. ‘Sorry, but I’m going to say south. I’d rather be snorkelling than wave-hunting.’

Heinrich voted in agreement with Shell, while Denny and Joseph voted with Aaron. Then it was just Lana and Kitty remaining.

‘North or south?’ Aaron asked them.

Lana felt oddly privileged to be included in the voting, as if it made them valued members of the crew. It was a fair and democratic system, and she respected Aaron for implementing it when, as skipper, he’d have been within his rights to make all the decisions himself.

‘Both routes sound amazing, but I’d love to do some more snorkelling, so I’m going to vote south,’ Lana said.

Kitty agreed – and so the decision was made.

‘You ever get the impression,’ Denny said to Aaron as everyone started getting to their feet, ‘that we’re not going to make the pro surf tour after all?’

‘Tough break,’ Aaron said, slapping a hand on Denny’s shoulder.

*

After the group vote, Lana and Kitty made dinner for the crew, stir-frying shellfish that Denny had gathered earlier in the day.

They served the food in plastic bowls and carried them up on deck, where a light breeze stirred the moonlit bay. Lana sat with her back against the lifeline, studying the curved shadow of the island ahead. The island, Topeu, shown on the charts as being less than 0.5 kilometres wide, was reputed to have fantastic rock formations and cliffs, which Lana was looking forward to exploring in the morning.

After dinner, Shell and Heinrich cleared the bowls, rinsing them in a large bucket of sea water and then taking them below deck to finish them off with fresh water. Aaron was fastidious about saving water; showers were a luxury that usually lasted three minutes, and washing up was done in an inch of water. They had a tank on board that was filled up whenever possible, but in the remote areas they sailed through, it wasn’t always easy to find somewhere to do so. Catching rainwater was helpful, but they had a desalinator installed as a backup, though the pump was noisy and drained a lot of energy and the small amounts of water it produced tasted flat.

Heinrich returned to the deck with a bottle of rum and a tray of glasses and, like most nights, the crew talked and drank and laughed as the yacht dozed at its anchor. Lana sat a little way apart from the others, her gaze cast at the sky, which was a deep velvet black, shot through with starlight. The warm breeze, scented with salt and earth, moved her hair against her shoulders, and she could hear crickets calling from somewhere on land.

There was a roar of laughter, and Lana looked around. Kitty was at the centre of the group recounting a story from the last play she’d been in. ‘That,’ she said, pausing theatrically, ‘was when I realized – he wasn’t wearing anything. Stark. Bollock. Naked!’

Shell clapped her hands together. Heinrich snorted.

Denny leant across the table and picked up the rum. He topped up the glasses of those nearest him, then stood and walked over to Lana with the bottle. ‘More?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, holding out her glass.

Once he’d refilled it, he sat down beside her, pressing his back against the guardrail.

Lana turned to him. ‘Does it ever wear off? The beauty of doing this?’

He took a drink and considered the question. ‘Maybe the freshness fades a little – you know, that excitement of the first time you anchor, the first night swim, the first time you’re out of sight of land. But, no, I don’t think the beauty wears off.’

She nodded, pleased with the answer. She tried to imagine being out of sight of land, wondering how many miles you’d need to sail before the coast slipped away completely.

Denny asked, ‘How long d’you think you and Kitty will stay on?’

The Blue was heading for its home port in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, which Aaron wanted to reach by November or December at the latest because of the cyclone season. The loose route they were aiming for was sailing east from the Philippines to Palau. Then they’d head south-east to Papua New Guinea, Fiji and finally New Zealand. Everything was dependent upon the weather, so nothing was fixed. Lana would love to stay for the entire journey, which would take around eight months, but realistically their money would only last another three months or so – and that’s if they were careful. ‘I suppose we’ll travel as far as we can afford.’

He nodded.

Up ahead at the bow, Lana noticed a flicker of light as Joseph lit a cigarette. Most evenings he sat alone, writing in a slim leather notebook that he kept tucked in his shirt pocket. She could relate to his need for some time to himself because, much as she loved being on the yacht, there was almost no privacy: you shared cabins, ate meals as a group, worked together, socialized together, and if you walked twenty paces you’d have crossed from one end of the boat to the other.

She asked Denny, ‘What’s Joseph’s story?’

‘We picked him up on this remote little island, five or six weeks back – it was Christmas Eve actually. There aren’t many tourists down that way and we’d moored at this cove out of town. On the beach was a tarpaulin draped between the trees – looked like a fisherman’s shelter or something. In it, we found Joseph sleeping rough. He was bone thin, didn’t look like he’d eaten properly in days. I invited him on the yacht for some food. Afterwards he asked if he could sail on with us. We voted – and here he is.’

‘What was he doing out there?’

‘The way he was living, we thought he was homeless. But he has money – inheritance, I think.’ He lifted his shoulders saying, ‘Maybe he just needed some space for a while, or wanted to get away from the tourist belt. Who knows?’

Lana watched the beam of Joseph’s head torch moving across a notebook he was writing in. ‘I suppose everyone’s got their story.’

Denny turned to her with a smile and said, ‘So tell me, Lana, what’s yours?’ ‘Mine?’

He nodded. ‘You spun a globe, picked a destination, ended up here. You put your life in the hands of chance. Why?’

An image of her father – shoulders rounded as he stood in the doorway of his room – flashed into her thoughts. She shook her head, pushing the memory away.

‘Why not?’ Lana said, immediately regretting the defensive edge to her voice.

He looked at her for a long moment, then said lightly, ‘I guess then I’ll just be thankful to the gods of Chance – because if it hadn’t been for that globe you spun, or for that kamikaze cockerel back in Norappi – we might never have met.’

She glanced at Denny. He was smiling at her and she felt warmth flood to her cheeks. He took a drink and, as he lowered his arm again, it rested against Lana’s. She became aware of the place where their bare skin met, and felt a low stirring in the base of her stomach.

There was a sudden splash in the water, followed by the sound of laughter. Lana peered over the side of the yacht to see Shell treading water, her blonde hair pasted to her head. ‘Who’s coming in?’

*

Lana slipped from her dress, tightened her bikini, and dived.

She loved that split second before she hit the water when she was falling forwards, completely committed, her hair blown back by the motion, her body straightening out as it plummeted downwards.

She cut through the surface and the sea wrapped around her, bubbled song filling her ears. She didn’t kick or move, just let herself fall deeper and deeper. There was a moment of pause and then the sea began to lift her up, raising her to the surface, to the air, to the night.

She could hear the voices of others already in the water. Only Kitty was still on deck. ‘Lana?’ she called from the bow, where she was pacing in her bikini. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Beautiful. I’ll swim around to the stern. Lower yourself in from there.’

Lana swam with smooth, easy strokes, enjoying the magic of being in the sea at night, feeling the water slip over her skin. Since joining the yacht, they had been in and out of the sea all day and she was finding that her muscles were beginning to tone. When she reached the stern, Kitty was standing there, arms wrapped around her middle. ‘I’ll count you in,’ Lana said.

‘Okay.’

‘One, two, three … three and a half … four—’

There was a splash and suddenly Kitty was in the water too, squealing and laughing and coughing. Kitty had always been a nervous swimmer and she paddled madly towards Lana, looping her arms around her neck whilst she caught her breath. ‘Do you think there’s seaweed and stuff below us?’ Kitty whispered, blinking salt water from her eyes.

‘No, it’s fine. Just clear water,’ she answered. ‘Happy to swim a bit further out?’

‘Not too far.’

They swam slowly, Kitty doing breaststroke with her chin raised above the waterline, Lana keeping level with her. When they were a short way from the yacht they stopped, treading water.

The Blue looked even more beautiful from here, the yacht lights casting a twinkling reflection in the water. There was barely a breeze tonight and they lolled on their backs, watching the stars and hearing birds call from hidden nooks within the island beyond them.

‘This is incredible,’ Kitty said, reaching out a hand and finding Lana’s. They drifted on their backs, hands held, hair swirling around their faces. There was the light sound of splashing as the rest of the crew swam towards them, their voices carrying across the water.

‘Did someone check the steps?’ Heinrich said.

‘Nope,’ Shell said.

‘Me neither,’ Denny added.

‘No,’ Joseph responded.

Aaron spoke then. ‘Are you serious? No one put them down?’

‘What?’ Kitty asked, treading water now. ‘What is it?’

‘You must’ve heard about that couple in the doldrums?’ Heinrich said.

Kitty shook her head. ‘What couple?’

‘They decided to go swimming off their yacht. It was still – like this – and they both dived in. They were messing around in the water, enjoying themselves, cooling off. After a while, they started to get tired, so they swam back to the yacht – only they realized that neither of them had thought to put down the ladder. They couldn’t get back on the boat.’

‘There must’ve been some way,’ Kitty said.

‘No ladder, no footholds, nothing to grab onto except the smooth shining surface of the hull.’

‘But they got back on eventually, though?’ Kitty asked.

In the darkness Aaron shook his head. ‘The empty yacht was found six weeks later – with their fingernail marks scarred into the hull.’

‘But … what … are the steps down now? Someone must’ve put them down.’ Kitty’s voice was cut with panic.

‘Kit,’ Lana said gently, ‘remember you jumped off the swim platform. It’s low enough to pull ourselves back on. They’re winding us up.’

Heinrich and Aaron laughed.

Kitty splashed them both. ‘Arseholes!’

‘Just trying to distract you from the sharks and sea snakes,’ Aaron said, deadpan.

She snorted. ‘I’m swimming back.’

The others joined Kitty, but Lana said she’d catch up, wanting a few moments alone. She floated on her back, letting the dark sea bear her weight. She felt a surge of freedom, a sense of possibility, a feeling that she and Kitty were part of something bold and wonderful that was so much more than the life they’d left in England. She wanted to seal this feeling in her heart. She closed her eyes, suspended in the sea, the voices of her friends slipping further away.

She became aware of a shift in the water, a new vibration in the liquid stillness. There was the brush of something against her skin, as if a hand was sliding down the length of her back and over the rise of her buttocks. She kicked out in surprise, waiting for whoever it was to surface laughing. After a while … thirty seconds, then a minute … there was no one.

She turned in the water, glancing about her, a trail of goosebumps spreading down her neck. It looked as though the rest of the crew had reached the stern and were pulling themselves out of the sea, although she couldn’t clearly make out if they were all there.

Had she imagined it? If one of the others had been fooling around, surely they would have grabbed her ankle or leg, pretending to be a shark – whereas this was insidious, just the breath of a touch, like a dark eel slithering against her skin.

Lana shivered. She swam hard towards the yacht, and scrambled up onto the stern, scraping her shin on the metal edge in her hurry.

Kitty had fetched a towel and, when she saw Lana, she wrapped it around them both so their cool bodies were pressed together.

‘Kit,’ she whispered, ‘did you see anyone just swim over to me?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Just now it felt like … like someone ran a hand along my back underwater.’

‘You sure?’ Kitty said, looking bemused.

Glancing about her, Lana could see all of the crew – Shell, Heinrich, Denny, Aaron and Joseph – drying off on deck. Had one of them managed to swim back here before her?

She looked out across the dark water. But the sea was eerily still, not a ripple in its surface.

6
THEN

‘Some of us don’t have legs that can stretch that far!’ Kitty yelled.

Lana paused, glancing over her shoulder at Kitty, who was standing barefoot on a boulder, arms folded over her chest. Her cheeks had pinkened and there was a gleam of sweat across her forehead. ‘Want a leg up?’

‘No, I bloody don’t!’

Lana grinned. Then she watched as Kitty hauled herself up the rock, puffing and cursing.

They climbed the last part together, finally reaching the others who were at the top of the rocky cliff face, standing on a wide ledge that jutted out above the water. A warm breeze stirred the air, carrying the chalky scent of the rocks.

‘Guess I’d better test out this dive board,’ Denny said, moving to the edge of the cliff face and peering down. A 40-foot drop ended in a still blue lagoon, where he’d been snorkelling earlier to check the depth.

Denny removed his T-shirt and knotted the string on his board shorts. His body was lean and tanned and Lana’s gaze followed the contours of his wiry muscles, imagining how she’d sketch him, where she’d shade, and which lines she’d follow. He was fit and seemed to have boundless energy; every morning he swam before breakfast, and if Lana sloped into the saloon before dawn for a glass of water, she’d find Denny awake, a coffee and his laptop in front of him as he worked on a translation.

Denny turned his neck from side to side, then performed a series of elaborate leg stretches.

‘Get on with it!’ Aaron called.

Denny took a few steps back from the cliff edge and then ran forwards, launching himself into the air. Lana was expecting something impressive, but he bunched his knees up towards his chest and bombed downwards, a boulder of limbs. There was a thunderous white splash as he hit the water. A moment or two later, he erupted through the surface to whoops and cheers.

Lana heard the flick of a lighter and turned to see Joseph smiling in the shade, lighting a roll-up.

‘Do me one, Joe-Joe?’ Kitty asked.

‘Thought you only smoked when you were drinking?’ Lana said.

‘How do you know I haven’t been drinking?’ Kitty said with a wink.

Kitty reached across as Joseph passed her his lit cigarette. ‘Thanks, honey.’

They spent the day hanging out on the cliff top where the breeze was at its coolest. The dives became more ambitious, with Denny and Heinrich trying to outdo each other with somersaults, inelegant back flips, and swallow dives – landing with slaps that seemed to echo off the rocks.

Lana noticed the competitive edge to Heinrich, who sought out the others’ praise when he returned to the cliff top after a successful dive. Shell teased him that his formation was a little off, losing points for bent legs on entry. He looked genuinely disappointed by her verdict, until Shell’s face broke into an easy grin.

When the heat became too much for Lana, she jumped from the ledge too, enjoying the burst of adrenalin that pumped hard through her veins in that moment when her feet left the rock. When it came, the smack of water was an exhilarating white burst that filled her nose and mouth with salt water, and she surfaced coughing and laughing.

Around lunchtime, Shell took the dinghy back to the yacht, and returned with a bag full of sandwiches, fruit, and bottles of chilled water. They ate looking out over the incredible view. Not a single boat was sighted and, apart from a plane flying overhead, they were entirely alone.

As the sun began to lower, one by one the crew made their way back to the yacht, until only Joseph, Aaron and Lana remained on the cliff top. Joseph wandered to the edge with another cigarette, peering down at the drop. The breeze flattened his shirt against his body and Lana noticed for the first time how thin he was. She could see the sharp jut of his shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine.

‘Going to jump?’ Aaron said from behind him.

Joseph just shrugged, his gaze on the water.

‘You’re not going to give it a go?’ Aaron asked slyly.

Joseph turned to face Aaron, his back to the cliff edge. Very slowly he drew the cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag. He blew the smoke upwards to the sky, then he dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his bare heel. He placed his glasses carefully on the ground and took a step back so that his heels were at the lip of the cliff.

‘Careful,’ Lana said.

Joseph crouched down, and then in a shock of movement, he flung himself up and back, his body arching. His arms were outstretched at his sides and he seemed to float silently through an inverse world. His shirt filled with air, rising away from his chest and exposing the pale skin of his stomach. As he neared the surface, he brought his arms together in a neat point, piercing through the blue water.

Lana gasped. White water bubbled on the surface, cloaking Joseph from view. Then suddenly there was a rush of movement as he surfaced.

‘Yeeaaah!’ Denny bellowed from down below, his voice echoing off the rock. The rest of the crew, who were still in the lagoon, whooped and cheered, too.

Joseph trod water for a moment, his blue shirt clinging to his body – and Lana was certain she could see him smiling. Then he turned and swam calmly back towards the yacht.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Aaron said, shaking his head. He looked at Lana for a moment and said, ‘Did that actually just happen?’

‘It did.’ She grinned.

Without another word Aaron walked to the cliff edge, then dived forward, his chest expanded, arms stretched out. It looked for a moment as though he was suspended in the air, offering himself to the sky. When he landed, he didn’t come up for breath but swam underwater, his dark shape visible below the clear surface as he ploughed hard in the direction of the yacht.

Lana picked up Joseph’s glasses from the cliff edge and gathered her things. Before beginning the climb back down, she stood on the cliff edge watching the rest of the crew swimming towards the yacht, Joseph at their centre. She found herself smiling, pleased for him.

Standing there, she felt a strange longing, as if she were watching the scene, not part of it. Somehow she knew these golden moments couldn’t stretch out endlessly. She yearned to press ‘pause’, to freeze this exact point in her life and hold onto it tightly.

*

Later that evening, the crew sat in the cockpit in the glow of a few candles, the cliff casting a dark shadow in the background. The wind had changed direction and small waves shivered through the bay, making the yacht rock. It was a rare, almost perfect evening, conversation moving fluidly from topic to topic and laughter rippling out over the dark water.

Up at the bow, Joseph was sitting alone again, writing in his notebook by head torch. Lana picked up her beer and moved along the deck towards him. ‘Mind if I join you?’

As he turned, the beam of the head torch swung over her face. She squinted, holding a hand up to her eyes.

‘Of course,’ he said, turning off the torch. He closed the notebook and slipped it away into the breast pocket of his shirt.

‘Impressive dive you made earlier,’ she said, lowering herself down beside him. ‘Where did you learn?’

‘Paris. Years ago I join a diving club. Many nights’ practice on the high board.’

‘Do you do any diving now?’

‘No. Not now.’

They sat in silence, the noise and laughter of the others drifting towards them. Lana was comfortable in the absence of words, having grown used to it in her own home. She felt a strange allegiance to Joseph – perhaps because she sensed his isolation from the rest of the crew and knew what it was to be an outsider, often wondering how lonely her teenage years would have been if she hadn’t met Kitty.

She watched the water, noticing how the tops of the waves glinted silver in the faint light of the moon. After some time she turned to Joseph and said, ‘Do you mind me asking what you’re writing?’

He thought for a moment, and then answered, ‘Poetry.’

‘Poetry about what you see, or what you feel?’

It was his turn to look at her. ‘That is interesting question.’ From the pocket of his shorts he took out a tin of tobacco and some rolling papers. His fingers were long and nimble, practised at evenly packing down the tobacco. ‘I write about what I feel.’

She nodded.

‘I see you with an art pad sometimes, yes?’

‘Yes. Sketching, mostly. Out here there’s so much I want to draw.’

Joseph lit his cigarette and took a long drag. As he exhaled, he asked, ‘You have fun on the boat, then?’

‘A lot. We’re very lucky to be part of this.’

‘It is different, to travel by boat. It is freedom, no?’ He took another drag and then offered her the roll-up. Lana hadn’t smoked regularly since university, but she still had the occasional yearning. ‘Thanks,’ she said, lifting it to her lips and inhaling. Nicotine flooded her head, giving her a pleasing rush.

‘Who did you leave behind at home?’ he asked.

She passed the roll-up back, saying, ‘Just my father.’ She pictured him in his worn green cords and a tired office shirt, sitting in his armchair with the newspaper folded at the crossword. She was surprised to feel a stirring of pity as she thought about the lonely routine of his days, wondering who visited the house now. ‘How about you?’

He laughed, but Lana caught the strange, sad note to it. ‘There is no one.’

‘What about your family?’

‘None.’

‘No family? None at all?’

He gave a quick shake of his head. ‘My mother and father are dead. One year ago.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. What happened – if you don’t mind me asking?’

In the moonlight, she saw Joseph’s expression darken. ‘They died in a house fire.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said with meaning. She remembered Denny telling her about how they’d found Joseph sleeping rough on a remote Filipino beach. He must’ve been out of his mind with grief. ‘Is that what made you leave France? Come out here?’

He nodded slowly, eyes on the water. ‘I had some money, so I could be anywhere. Sometimes it is better to go, yes?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Sometimes it is.’

*

Lana went to bed at midnight and lay sweltering on the top bunk in just a pair of cotton pants, her skin clammy with suncream and salt. She wished there was enough space between her bunk and the ceiling to sit up fully. The porthole only opened a crack, barely allowing in any breeze, and she could feel sweat beginning to bead between her breasts.

The peaceful sound of the sea sloshing against the keel did nothing to lull her thoughts: they kept circling back to her father. Since joining The Blue her days had been so full that she could go for hours without thinking about him, yet often at night she’d find herself examining memories from her childhood, searching them for the faint cracks where the lies ran through.

Lana pushed her hand through the slim gap in the porthole to see if it was cooler outside. It wasn’t. She sighed.

From the bunk below, Kitty whispered, ‘You still awake?’

‘I think my organs are melting,’ Lana said.

‘You try this heat with sunburn,’ Kitty said, who’d insisted on the cliff top that she was tanned enough not to need suncream.

Lana rolled onto her front and lay with her head hanging over the edge, her hair trailing down. Below her, Kitty propped herself up a little on her elbows. Lana’s vision adjusted in the darkness so she could see the outline of Kitty’s features.

‘Kit, d’you remember how desperately I used to want to go to Greece?’

‘Course. For an entire term your packed lunches were feta-and-olive pittas.’

Lana’s mother had been brought up on the outskirts of Athens, before moving to England. Lana had only a few wisps of memories of her – like the smell of roasted aubergine and olive oil that filled their kitchen, and the strong angles of her mother’s bone structure that were set in relief by her full lips.

She said to Kitty, ‘My dad always claimed we couldn’t afford the trip, or he wasn’t able to take the time off work.’ She shook her head. ‘Just another of his lies. I keep on remembering all these little things – hundreds of details that were all bullshit. My whole childhood was a fucking fabrication!’

‘Don’t say that,’ Kitty said, pushing herself up as straight as she could within the bunk. ‘Your dad loves you, Lana. I know he fucked up – I know that – but he did it for the right reasons. He was trying to protect you.’

Right now all Lana wanted was to hear Kitty rage alongside her, the way the two of them had always done. Her hurt was too raw, too full, to allow Kitty to see things from her father’s perspective. She sighed. ‘Think I’m going to go for a swim.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

Lana climbed out of the bunk, which creaked and strained beneath the press of her feet. She unhooked her bikini from the back of the door, which was still damp from earlier.

‘You’re really going?’

‘I’ll stay close to the yacht.’

‘But it’s dark.’

‘Tends to happen at night.’

As Lana moved towards the door, Kitty said, ‘Lana, are you all right?’

‘Fine. Sorry. Just overheating, I think.’

‘Okay …’ Kitty said. ‘Just be careful, won’t you?’

‘Course,’ Lana said. As she slipped out of the door and along the passageway, she felt herself thinking of that strange, slithering touch she’d felt a few nights ago and just for a moment she hesitated.

*

Lana crept along the passageway towards the galley, where the lingering smell of their mince dinner still hung. She heard the faint sound of snoring drifting from a cabin somewhere and the hum of the fridge.

Up on deck the air was only marginally cooler, but just being out of the narrow space of the bunk felt good. She was moving towards the stern when someone started.

‘Shit!’ Denny said. He was standing with his back to her. ‘You always creep up on people when they’re taking a piss?’

‘Sorry,’ she laughed, covering her mouth with her hand.

‘And there’s a queue if you’re wanting to use the open-air bathroom.’

‘Think I’ll use the underwater bathroom.’

‘You’re swimming?’

She nodded. ‘Need to cool off.’

‘Fancy company?’

She shrugged. ‘If you can keep up.’

*

They dived from the bow, the cool night sea closing around their bodies. Lana led, swimming away from the yacht and the shadow of the island, out towards the silver pathway of the moon.

They swam without words, hearing only the sounds of their arms cutting through the water, the rhythm of their breathing, the kicking of their feet.

The moon was almost full – a waxing moon. One of Lana’s ex-boyfriends had once explained how you could tell whether it was waxing by looking at the right-hand side of it, which should be full and rounded – whereas the left edge should be flatter, making it look like a ‘D’ shape. When the moon was waning the edgings were the other way around.

After some minutes Lana slowed, treading water. Denny paused alongside her. The yacht floated serenely in the distance, moonlight catching on the curve of the hull and the tall line of the masts. She thought of their friends curled in their bunks, the light lapping of waves rocking them in their sleep.

‘Joseph’s dive,’ she said, trying to shake free of the thoughts of her father that still lingered at the periphery of her mind, and think of something light-hearted to talk about. ‘Wasn’t it brilliant?’

Denny grinned. ‘I love that he’s been on board for almost two months, yet he’s not breathed a word about being some Parisian diving god. He just let the rest of us get on with our hooting and gooning – and then ends the day with that manoeuvre. I was feeling pretty pleased I’d nailed the swallow dive until I saw that.’

‘Nailed?’ she said, an eyebrow arched.

‘Okay. Attempted.’

Lana rubbed the water from her eyes and said, ‘I was talking to Joseph earlier. He told me about his parents. They were killed in a fire.’

Denny nodded. ‘Only last year. There’s no one else either – no other family. I can’t … I can’t even imagine that.’

‘You’ve got a big family?’

‘Not huge. Just my parents and a brother. How about you?’

‘It’s just me and my father.’

‘Are you close?’

She made a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. ‘Not right now.’

Denny waited, saying nothing. In his silence, Lana was horrified to find that tears had sprung up on her lower lids. She wiped at them hurriedly.

Denny swam nearer. ‘Hey, what is it, Lana?’ he asked gently.

She didn’t know whether it was the darkness cloaking them, or the anonymity of being at sea, or the open, intent way Denny was looking at her – but Lana found herself beginning to explain. She told him about the last time she’d seen her father, which was a few weeks before she’d left for the Philippines. She’d been kneeling on the floor of her father’s bedroom, when she heard the front door opening downstairs.

‘Lana? Is that you?’ he’d called.

She hadn’t answered. Hadn’t moved. She’d listened to the slow tread of his feet as he climbed the stairs, sliding his palm along the banister. The floorboards creaked as he crossed the landing to the doorway of his room.

‘Lana, what are you—’

He’d stopped when he saw his old leather suitcase open, and a Manila envelope in her grip. Her father lifted a hand to his throat, pinching at the loose skin around his Adam’s apple. ‘Lana …’

It scared her the way his whole face changed into something blank and fearful, and his voice sounded hollow, as if he were two people: the one she’d always known, and this new version of himself.

‘You … you …’ she began, but couldn’t seem to make her lips work. Her tongue had felt numb and thick in her mouth. She lifted up the envelope, which contained a letter from a Greek solicitor. ‘She didn’t die, did she? Not when I was three.’

Her father had closed his eyes, the muscles in his face slackening so that all his features dragged downwards.

Lana told Denny that she’d always believed her mother had been killed in a car crash – but that the truth was entirely different.

Her mother had walked out on them, returning to her homeland. She had been desperately unhappy living in England, and had found comfort in a Greek doctor who was on secondment at a hospital where Lana’s mother worked. When his contract was finished, she returned to Athens with him, saying nothing of the family she was leaving behind.

‘I tried telling you the truth at first,’ her father had said, his voice choked with emotion, ‘but you were too young to understand. Some mornings I’d wake to find you sleeping on the rug by the front door waiting for her to come home.’

Eventually her father decided they needed a fresh start, so they moved to Bristol, buying a small terraced house on a street that Kitty would move to a few years later. ‘When I took you for your first day at primary school, your class teacher asked that you tell her a little about yourself. Do you know what you said, Lana? You told her you were four, your birthday was in August, and that you didn’t have a mummy because she’d gone away to heaven. I was horrified,’ Lana’s father had said. ‘I’d no idea where you got that from – but your class teacher was already patting you on the arm, saying, “I’m sure your mummy is watching you from heaven.” You’d beamed then, the largest smile I’d seen in months. And so … I didn’t correct you.’ Her father had simply stayed silent, and from there, the lie strengthened and grew until it became so permanent that it seemed to be the truth. Later, when Lana started asking how her mother died, her father had come up with the story of the car crash.

Lana’s mother never wrote or phoned from Greece. Apparently she’d come back, just once, when Lana was sixteen. Lana had been out at the time and her father had explained to his ex-wife that Lana believed she was dead – and that he wasn’t prepared to undo that unless she was committed to establishing a regular relationship with her daughter. Her mother had cried, saying her new husband still did not know about Lana. And then she walked away for a second time.

‘I would never have found out the truth,’ she said to Denny, ‘except I discovered a letter from a solicitor that said my mother had passed away two years ago.’ She paused, shaking her head. ‘All those years I mourned her – but she was alive. And my dad knew.’

When Lana finished talking, her mouth was dry and the muscles in her legs were beginning to ache.

Denny was watching her closely, his expression fixed on her face. ‘I’m so sorry, Lana,’ he said, and she could hear the earnestness in his voice.

The only other person Lana had told the story to was Kitty, and she felt oddly exposed for talking like that in front of Denny. She pulled her gaze away, staring upwards. The sky was an ocean of stars and she felt the inconsequential nature of her existence – just a speck, floating. She allowed herself to be calmed by the idea that all the thoughts that consumed her, looming large in her mind, were – in the end – really nothing.

Gradually her breathing began to settle and she felt the water rise and fall over her chest with each exhalation. She wondered how far down the seabed lay – 100 feet, 200 perhaps? Seaweed and soft corals swaying below in the dark, fish feeding and resting, shells closing for the night.

When her gaze returned to Denny, he was still watching her, his hair flattened to his head. Moonlight glistened on his arms as they stirred the surface, his eyes on her.

‘Well, that’s my story,’ she said with a forced brightness. ‘What’s yours?’

A fleeting tightness passed over his face. Then he rolled onto his back, spread his arms at his sides, and let the sea bear his weight. ‘I don’t have one,’ he said to the sky, matching the brightness of her tone.

Lana pressed her lips together as she watched him, a strange feeling ebbing through her as if she’d just lost something that she hadn’t quite found.

7
NOW

The Maritime Rescue Centre is set at the edge of a commercial port, and Lana drives in behind a container lorry. She parks in front of a squat, flat-roofed building, but doesn’t get out immediately. Her wrists ache from where she’s been gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

She’s not sure what she’s doing here – what she expects to happen next. All she knew was that she couldn’t wait in the apartment any longer. So she scribbled a quick note of apology to her boss, which she left downstairs in the gallery, and then drove with the radio on hoping for a further update.

As she sits in the car now, she thinks there’s something soothing about a stationary vehicle, the wind locked out, the warm air trapped inside, and the feeling of being sealed off from the rest of the world. Being on the yacht was different; you felt the world and the elements in all their rawness – each gust of wind hitting your face, the roll and rise of swell surging beneath you, the heat of the sun searing across your skin. The sea demanded your constant attention.

Beside her on the passenger seat are a stack of old sketchbooks and three blunt pencils. Sometimes at weekends, Lana will get in the car and drive along the coast without a plan or a specific destination, simply pulling over whenever the desire to do so takes hold. Then she’ll climb into the passenger seat, prop a sketchbook on her knees, and draw for hours and hours.

It takes her back to the long afternoons in the school art room where she would sit with her elbow on the paint-stained desk, her hair falling down one side of her face, the sun slanting in through tall sash windows. The art room was a refuge from the rest of school life, which seemed drab and predictable. Apart from Kitty, Lana struggled to make friends. The other girls teased her for her quirky shoes, her thick amber hair, and the bright woollen tights she wore on home-clothes day. Her father had little money, so Lana’s wardrobe was comprised of odds and ends she’d pick up from charity shops on their monthly visit to town.

In the art room Lana felt comfortable. It was a place of colour and noise and warmth, where the radio played constantly in the background, and the air smelt of turpentine, coffee and the chalky scent of cheap paint. She sat next to Kitty on a high wooden stool, enjoying her constant chatter as Kitty made swirling patterns with a palette of pinks and purples.

Lana was fourteen when her art teacher, Mrs Dano, called her back after class. She’d spent the lesson scrawling a stub of charcoal across an A3 page and ignoring the still-life display of weighing scales she was meant to be drawing. She screwed up each piece of work, lobbing them all in the bin and, when the bell went, she’d slung her bag over her shoulder and started lumbering from the room.

‘Lana?’ Mrs Dano had called as she stood at the sink washing up paint-streaked jam jars. ‘A word, please.’

Lana had rolled her eyes at Kitty, then hung back, leaning a hip against the wall.

Once the room had emptied, Mrs Dano set aside the jam jars and wiped her hands on her apron, then went to the corner of the room, returning with three balls of screwed-up paper. She placed them on the desk in front of Lana. ‘Please would you open these?’

Lana’s jaw tightened as she picked up the first ball. The paper felt as crisp as dried leaves as she unscrewed the picture. It was a drawing of the windows of the art room, with an angry slash of charcoal across the centre that had torn the page.

Mrs Dano placed a finger in the left-hand corner, her amethyst ring catching in the sun. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘The light. You’ve got it just right as it cuts through the glass. And here, too,’ she said, sliding her finger lower. ‘Hmm, no, this bit isn’t quite right. The perspective is off, but if you just—’ Mrs Dano pulled a piece of charcoal from the pocket of her apron – ‘put the line this way,’ she said, dusting the charcoal across the page, ‘and applied a lighter pressure to shade it, you’d be there.’

With a change of stroke, the drawing had been transformed.

Mrs Dano rested her hands on the edge of the table. ‘I don’t want any more work going in the bin, Lana. There is beauty in imperfection. Remember that.’

Lana nodded. Then the wooden legs of her stool scraped across the floor as she stood.

‘And Lana?’

She turned.

‘If you ever want to use the art room in your lunch breaks, I’m usually in here.’ Mrs Dano held her gaze. ‘You’ve got talent. I’d like to see it grow.’

Lana had left the room, pleasure blooming hot in her cheeks. Outside the door, Kitty had been waiting, listening. She reached for Lana’s hand, their fingers threading together. ‘I knew it!’ she whispered. ‘I knew someone would notice your talent.’

*

Lana cannot delay going inside any longer. She takes a deep breath and opens the car door, stepping out onto concrete that shimmers with spilt diesel. The wind teases her dress around her thighs, making it seem as though the white sparrows of the pattern are fluttering and flying across the powder-green fabric.

The air is tinged with fumes and the scent of brine washing in from the water as she walks towards the main building. She comes to a reception desk that is unmanned and waits for a moment, peering into the back office – but the place is empty, computer screens off.

She moves beyond it, following a long corridor of rooms, all with their doors shut. She pauses outside a door that reads ‘Operations Room’ – then knocks.

The door is opened abruptly by a tall man with a thick black moustache, who introduces himself as Paul Carter, the man she spoke to on the phone. He wears hiking boots with brown socks pulled halfway up his calves. He strikes her as the sort of bloke who probably likes to spend his Friday evenings at one of the municipal beach-barbecue areas that are popular in New Zealand, although now his expression is strained, his brows heavy.

Behind him Lana can see a woman working in front of a computer screen. To her left is a noticeboard covered with maps, charts and printed weather reports. In the centre a sheet of white paper has been pinned, headed with the title, ‘The Blue: Crew List’.

Lana’s insides tighten. The names of the crew have been written in thick black marker pen and she scans each of them, her fists balled at her sides, palms sweating.

Each and every one of those five names dredges up memories that come flooding to the surface of her thoughts. Her heart pounds. It is only when Paul Carter takes a small step to the side, blocking her view of the noticeboard, that she looks up.

‘Can I help you?’ he asks coolly.

She swallows. ‘I’m Lana Lowe. I called earlier about The Blue.’

‘You shouldn’t be in here.’

‘There wasn’t anyone on reception,’ she tells him.

‘I’m afraid you need to leave—’

‘I know the yacht,’ Lana says desperately. ‘I used to sail on it.’

That catches his attention. ‘You did? When?’

‘Earlier this year – from January to March.’

‘Are you familiar with what safety equipment and communication devices they had on board? We’ve only had limited contact with them.’

She thinks for a moment, sweeping her mind over the yacht. ‘There were just the standard things – a life raft, life jackets, a grab bag, flares, an EPIRB. There was the VHF radio, and maybe another type, too.’ She can’t remember the names of things any more – the details of the yacht that were once so familiar are now beginning to slip away.

‘What about a satellite phone or personal locator beacons?’

‘No, not that I know of. None of those.’

Paul Carter nods, taking this in.

Lana asks, ‘What happened out there?’

‘I’m afraid I need to get back to my desk now.’

‘Please,’ she says. ‘My friends are on board.’

Paul Carter looks at her, then across at his female colleague. ‘All I can say at the moment is that the crew got into difficulties and had to abandon the vessel.’

‘Is there any news? Are the crew safe?’

‘Search and Rescue are doing everything they can, but no, there’s no news yet. A distress broadcast has been put out to all the vessels in the region, and a sailing yacht and merchant ship are diverting course to approach the search area.’

‘Approach? No one is even there yet?’

‘Both vessels were over forty miles away at the time. The Search and Rescue helicopter is already in the search area and we’re expecting more news soon.’

‘Did the crew make it onto the life raft?’

‘We have no information about that, I’m afraid.’

‘So … they could be in the water?’

‘It is possible, yes.’

*

Lana is desperate to remain in the Operations Room, knowing that Paul Carter will be the first person to receive any news, but he tells her, ‘One of my colleagues has organized a waiting room for relatives. Other family members are on their way here.’

Who, she thinks? The only crew with family in New Zealand are Aaron and Denny. She imagines Denny’s parents would want to be here; she remembers him talking about how much he missed them. It would be over two years since he saw them last.

‘I’ll take you there now.’ He looks over his shoulder. ‘Fiona, which room have they allocated?’

‘I think it was Twelve A,’ she says, hands poised above a keyboard.

Somewhere in the office a radio begins to beep. Paul Carter moves towards a desk where a large monitor is mounted. He picks up a hand-held device attached to it. A voice at the other end is saying, ‘Maritime Rescue, Maritime Rescue, this is Team One, this is Team One. Can you hear us?’

Paul Carter holds the radio handset to his mouth. ‘This is Maritime Rescue. Go ahead, Team One.’

‘We have been tracking the EPIRB for The Blue and have now located it.’

Lana holds herself still, hope rising in her chest. Denny once explained that an EPIRB is a device that is set off in any rescue situation. It is registered to a vessel and gives off the precise position via GPS, and then continues to transmit its position until the device – and hopefully crew – are located.

‘Go ahead, Team One. What is the current position?’

‘The position is 32*59.098′S, 173*16.662′E. I repeat, the position is 32*59.098′S, 173*16.662′E.’

Paul Carter leans over his desk, typing the coordinates into one of the three screens that are set up on the main desk. ‘Copy that. Do you have a visual? Is the EPIRB aboard the life raft?’

There is a delay, then the rush of static.

Lana looks at Paul Carter’s expression. His brow is furrowed and his mouth is fixed in a serious line. ‘I repeat, is the EPIRB aboard the life raft?’

The reply comes over the radio, filling the room. ‘There is no life raft in sight. The EPIRB is attached to a body.’

8
THEN

The Blue turned lazily on its anchor, a light breeze stirring the water. On deck Heinrich was fiddling with a radio that he’d taken apart, the innards laid out on a tea towel, and beside him, Shell was sitting forward writing a postcard to her parents.

Lana had her sketchbook balanced on her knees, and was leaning close to the page, the tip of her tongue pressing against her front teeth. She moved the pencil in short, quick strokes, sketching a coil of rope that lay on deck in front of her. Looking at the page, she could see that the detailing at the end of the rope – where it trailed out of the coil and across the deck – wasn’t quite right. She tore the edge from the rubber she held and rolled it into a sharp point so she could erase with precision.

She spent a few minutes re-drawing until she was satisfied with it. Then she lifted the sketchbook from her knee and held it at arm’s length. Closing one eye, she studied it. The detailing in the curve of the rope was pleasing. She liked that the image spoke to her of order, things coiled tight, yet she’d also captured the weave of the rope where the threads had come loose – giving the suggestion of it starting to unravel.

Lana closed the sketchbook, setting her pencil on top. When she looked up, Joseph was storming down the deck, his face set in a heavy frown, his lips pinched. He came to a stop in front of Heinrich, casting him into shade.

‘Hello, room-mate,’ Heinrich said with a false smile. It was no secret that the two of them disliked sharing a cabin; often one of them ended up sleeping in the hammock on deck to have their own space.

‘Have you been through my backpack?’ Joseph demanded.

‘Your backpack?’

‘It is not how I left things! Someone has been through it!’ His fingers clenched and unclenched around his loose shirt sleeves.

‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ Heinrich asked leadingly.

‘Have you?’

Heinrich rolled his eyes. ‘You really think I want to read those special stories you’re always busy writing?’

‘Heinrich!’ Shell chastised.

‘Course I haven’t been through your things,’ Heinrich said in a more conciliatory manner.

Joseph drew air deep into his lungs, steadying his breathing. After a moment he conceded, ‘It must be my mistake,’ although Lana noticed that his gaze lingered on Heinrich.

Eventually he turned away, took a tin of tobacco from his pocket, and swiftly made a roll-up. With his back to the others he lit it and inhaled, the tension in his shoulders beginning to soften.

In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, Lana asked Shell, ‘How’s the postcard writing going?’ Any time they were in a town, Shell would scour the market stalls in search of postcards to send home to her parents.

‘Sometimes I feel like I’m writing a tourist brochure rather than sharing anything about how it actually feels to be here, you know?’

Lana nodded – although the truth was, she hadn’t been in touch with her father since coming away. Kitty had sent a couple of emails home, and Lana imagined that the news would gradually filter through to her father. ‘Your parents must love getting them.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Shell said, lifting her shoulders. ‘I never hear back from them. Not a single email. I don’t even know if they read my letters.’

Lana was taken aback. ‘Why wouldn’t they?’

‘We weren’t on the best terms when I left. They didn’t like my … life choices.’ She laughed as she said, ‘When I told them I was a lesbian, it was like there’d been a death. They grieved – actually grieved over the news.’

Joseph exhaled a drift of smoke into the clear blue sky. ‘Why do you still write?’

Shell turned and looked at him. ‘Because I want to at least try. They’re my family.’

‘Parents are not God. They are people. People who can be … fucking assholes, no?’ His voice was breathless with a sudden anger. ‘If they do not like who you are, then, so what? Yes?’

Shell’s eyes widened.

‘This – this is a waste!’ Joseph said, gesturing to the postcards with the roll-up.

‘Joseph …’ Heinrich said, and Lana caught the warning in his tone.

‘It is true, Shell. I just tell you truth. You are very nice, very kind girl. You waste your time thinking of them, if they do not think of you!’

Shell’s eyes turned glassy. Slowly, she gathered up her postcards and left the deck without a word.

Heinrich got to his feet too, glaring at Joseph. ‘Why the fuck did you say that?’

‘I only say what I think.’

‘Next time, don’t! Shell’s had a hard time of it, okay?’

Joseph drew on his roll-up. ‘Better to hear the truth, than live in dream, no?’

‘You,’ Heinrich said, pointing, ‘can be a little prick.’ He disappeared below deck after Shell, leaving the pieces of the dismantled radio gleaming silver in the sunlight.

Looking at Joseph, Lana could feel the bitterness and hurt locked away with his grief. She wondered what had happened between him and his parents.

He brought the roll-up to his lips, but before he inhaled he said, ‘I do not mean to make Shell cry. I like her very much. But I also believe when parents tell us, “We do this for you, because we love you,” they are not always right, are they?’

Lana contemplated this, thinking of her own father. ‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘They’re not.’

*

Lana returned to the cabin, where Kitty was lying in her bunk recovering from a hangover. She hadn’t made it up onto deck before mid-morning all week.

‘He didn’t mean to upset her – it’s just his manner,’ Lana was saying, filling Kitty in about Joseph. She knew he sometimes acted in odd ways, but she also knew he wasn’t cruel. ‘But I don’t think Heinrich saw it that way.’

‘When it comes to Shell, Heinrich does have a tendency to be a little overprotective,’ Kitty said, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.

‘You’ve noticed, too?’

‘Noticed?’ Kitty said. ‘He follows her around with his tongue hanging so far out that I’ve almost skidded over in his drool.’

‘Shhh!’ Lana said, laughing.

‘Trust him to fall for a lesbian. The ultimate challenge!’ Kitty said, taking off his accent perfectly.

Lana laughed again.

‘Hey, you know what Heinrich told me last night?’ Kitty lowered her voice and said, ‘Aaron used to be a barrister.’

‘Aaron? Seriously? How does Heinrich know that?’

‘When they were moored up somewhere in Thailand, this huge motorboat – a gin-palace type, owned by a Swiss guy – reversed right into The Blue. Put a hole in the stern. Then motored off.’

‘Aaron must’ve lost it!’

‘Apparently not. He caught up with the boat a day or two later. Heinrich reckoned he was lethally cool when he confronted the owner, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t get angry. Just told this bloke that, unless he sorted out the repair bill, Aaron would be going to the police, and started spouting all this legal speak about operating a motorboat under the influence, endangering lives, leaving the scene of a crime. Afterwards, Heinrich asked how he knew all that stuff and Aaron told him he used to be a barrister.’

Lana pictured him in a courtroom, chest puffed out, arguing his case – and found that the image came to mind easily. If he’d been a barrister, it probably explained how he could afford to buy The Blue in the first place. ‘Wonder why he gave it up.’

‘No idea.’

There must have been some reason. Barrister to skipper was some career swerve. She mused on this as she picked up her sketchbook and slipped it under the mattress of her bunk to keep it flat.

‘What’ve you been drawing?’ Kitty asked.

‘Just a coil of rope up on deck.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

Kitty was one of the only people Lana was happy to show her sketches to. The tutorials during her art degree had left behind a residue of fear – all those panic-inducing moments of standing in front of her peers, trying to put into words what she’d been hoping to capture in a piece. Even now she’d break out into a sweat when she had to speak to a roomful of people. Lana slid out the sketchbook and opened it at the image of the rope.

Kitty studied it carefully. ‘Lana,’ she said, looking up. ‘This is beautiful.’

‘It’s just a rope.’

‘But look at the detail! It’s amazing. It’s how you’ve captured it.’ She shook her head thoughtfully. ‘I can’t wait to see your work hanging in a gallery one day.’

Lana laughed. ‘You’ve got a high opinion of me.’

‘Yes,’ she said seriously. ‘I have.’

Lana was reminded how – even when they were teenagers – Kitty had always encouraged Lana’s passion for art. ‘Do you remember how we used to make that tepee den in my back garden and hide out in it over summer?’ she said, thinking about how she’d draw in the shade, while Kitty filled the space with her chatter and the smell of drying nail polish.

Kitty said, ‘We’d tie a piece of string between the shed and rotary dryer and drape a sheet over it, pegging the corners out wide. Then we’d bring out all the blankets and cushions we could find, and camp out there for hours.’

Hidden within the folds of the sheets they’d talk as if they were invisible to the rest of the world. ‘We’d spend hours and hours imagining what our mothers would be like if they were still here, the things that we’d do together.’

‘Think we decided they’d be best friends so they could take us on holidays together,’ Kitty said with a smile.

Lana nodded, but she couldn’t match Kitty’s smile. ‘All that time I was imagining her – fantasizing about what a perfect mother she’d have been, thinking about how deeply she must have loved me – she was alive. She was living a new life in another country.’

‘Oh, Lana,’ Kitty said softly.

‘I just … I still can’t get my head around it,’ she said, the familiar anger rising inside her. It was always there, hovering just beneath the surface. ‘Aren’t mothers supposed to love their children unconditionally? Yet she … she just left. Fucked off. All those tears I cried for her over the years – imagining the car crash, wondering whether the medical team had arrived quickly enough, picturing the driver who caused the crash. But there was no driver, no accident, no medics – just a woman who didn’t love her family enough to stay.’

‘That’s not true,’ Kitty said.

‘Isn’t it? And him,’ she said bitterly. ‘He lied about it all. If I’d known the truth I could have at least tried to get in touch with her – had the chance to ask why she left. But he robbed me of that. And now it’s too late. I don’t think I can ever forgive him for that.’

‘You mustn’t say that. He was trying to protect you. He did what he thought was right.’

Lana rolled her eyes. ‘Kit, sometimes you sound like him.’

‘I just … I don’t want you to lose him. He’s your only family.’

Lana shook her head. ‘No, you’re my family. You always have been.’

Kitty put her arms around Lana. She smelt of rum and stale cigarettes.

‘What a fuck-up,’ Lana said, her mouth against Kitty’s hair. ‘I drag you halfway around the world to get away from my father, and here I am – on a yacht in the middle of the Philippines – still talking about him.’

‘Dragged me?’ Kitty said. ‘You just try leaving me behind.’

*

When Lana climbed up on deck later, Denny was returning from a swim. He pulled himself onto the stern, water pouring off him. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

‘Oh?’ Lana said.

‘It’s on the island. Wanna swim over there?’

Lana looked across to the island. It was probably about a ten-minute swim, easily manageable when there was little wind. ‘Sure,’ she agreed, thinking she could use the exercise to clear her head.

Since their night swim together, Lana had found herself waking early and joining Denny in the saloon, where he’d be working. He’d close his laptop, make a fresh pot of coffee, and the two of them would sit up on deck talking as dawn broke. Those early mornings – before the rest of the crew rose – were becoming her favourite part of the day.

Together, they swam to the island. It took longer than Lana had thought but Denny stayed at her side, never overtaking her, and they covered the distance easily.

On the shoreline she rubbed the salt water from her eyes and wrung out her hair, then followed Denny along the beach, water dripping from the ties of her bikini. They kept close to the treeline where the sand was cool enough to walk on. ‘Where are we going?’

He didn’t answer, so she continued following him until they came to a halt by some rocks. ‘Here,’ he said, pointing towards a craggy gap, no larger than a cupboard door.

‘A cave?’

He scrambled over a boulder, then carefully lowered himself into the dark space between the rocks.

‘What can you see?’ she called as Denny disappeared from sight.

There was no answer.

‘Denny?’

She clambered onto the boulder and slipped her legs through the gap as he had done, feeling the scuff of rock against the backs of her thighs. She waited, gripped there until her eyes adjusted.

Below she could see the ground only a few feet away. She jumped, landing with a thud. ‘Denny?’

His name came back to her, reverberating off the cave walls. She crept slowly forward. ‘Where are you?’

‘Over here,’ he whispered. ‘Come and see this, Lana.’

She moved slowly, her lungs filling with the cool, dank air.

Gradually her vision began to adjust so she could make out the shapes of the cave. There was a brighter patch of light further ahead where daylight was spilling in.

Denny was standing on top of a wide boulder in a stream of light. He turned towards her and held out his hand, helping her up onto the boulder. Standing beside him, she gasped.

Jagged arrows of limestone rose from the ground, stretching hundreds of feet upward. They reached towards the sky like cold fingers, wanting to touch the sun. Daylight beamed in through the gaps, illuminating the incredible dusky grey and earthy shades of the pinnacles, making her feel as if they’d wandered into an ancient cathedral. All she could hear was the faint drip of water from the rocks, the beat of her heart in her chest, and the shallow draw of her breath.

Her thoughts slipped to the warmth of Denny’s grip and the heat of his body at her side.

Out of the sun and in the damp half-light of the limestone cave, Lana shivered.

Denny drew Lana in front of him and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin lightly on her bare shoulder. It was the beautifully easy motion of old lovers, their bodies settling against one another as if moulded together over time.

Lana’s gaze wandered over the hidden grandeur of the cave, absorbing the natural arches and sculpted grooves. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ he said, his lips at her ear.

She felt her heart rate increasing as desire pulsed through her, sure and absolute. She turned within the space of his arms and felt the brush of his shoulder against hers. She raised her eyes to his.

The pale blue of his irises deepened as she looked into them. She became aware of the cool air at her back, and the warmth of Denny in front of her.

‘You know that we shouldn’t …’ he said, but there was little conviction in his voice.

She thought of Aaron’s rule: No relationships between the crew. But those words diffused like smoke as she lifted her face, placing her mouth against his.

There was a moment – before their lips began to move together – when time seemed suspended. Their eyes were open, fixed on each other, lips touching; it was like standing on the edge of a cliff the second before diving in – the heady anticipation, the inevitability of what was coming next. Then their lips pressed deeply together, Lana’s tongue sliding into the warmth of Denny’s mouth. A low sound of desire came from his throat. She felt his fingers at the base of her neck, running through her hair, tilting her head back as he kissed her more deeply.

Something tight inside Lana began to loosen and melt away. His skin was hot against hers and the heat seemed to spread through her.

Later, a lifetime later, they pulled apart and Denny rested his forehead against hers, his hands still holding her close. She could hear the raised tempo of his breathing.

‘Wow, Lana Lowe,’ was all he whispered.