Malcolm’s eyes had glazed over.
‘It’s sales, basically,’ I went on. ‘Doesn’t matter what you sell, the same principles apply. Except in our case it was high-pressure because we were accessing buyers at boardroom level, and trying to persuade them to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds.’
‘And ninety per cent of the time,’ Lucy chipped in, ‘we were selling to blokes. And the rest of the sales team were all blokes. They try and say that sexual inequality is a thing of the past, but let me tell you it’s alive and well in the world of corporate ERP sales.’
Malcolm had stopped listening, but Joanna was still with us. ‘You were the only two women on the sales team? Out of how many?’
‘Twenty in total,’ Lucy said. ‘And we were the first two they’d ever had. It was like being the first girls allowed to play in the treehouse.’
‘I bet that was tough,’ Joanna said.
‘Still is,’ Lucy said. ‘Except I’m now the only girl in the treehouse, since Genevieve walked out.’
Joanna and Malcolm both looked at me in surprise.
‘I’d had enough,’ I said. ‘All I wanted was to save up the money for the boat. After that I didn’t want to hang around.’
‘Must have been a good job, though, to earn you enough to buy a boat.’
Lucy dived in before I could stop her. ‘Ah, well, Genevieve had two jobs, didn’t you, Gen?’
‘Most of the money was from sales,’ I fibbed.
‘Genevieve worked in a club,’ Lucy said. She was looking directly at me, her expression unreadable.
My face felt hot. Across the other side of the cabin I could see Ben talking to Diane; both of them were laughing. He was so tall that he was almost stooping slightly, even though the ceiling was above six feet. He looked beautiful, and unreachable.
Liam appeared at the top of the steps. ‘Joanna? Where’s that scoopy thing for this cheesecake?’
‘What “scoopy thing”? You mean a spoon?’
‘Yeah, spoon, whatever. You got one?’
She got up from the dinette and rifled through the drawer in the galley, banging things about.
‘There’s a big spoon on that hook there, look,’ I said.
Joanna unhooked the slotted spoon and, wielding it like a weapon, went up the steps to assist with the cheesecake.
‘You worked in a club? What, like bar work?’ Malcolm asked, animated.
I glared at Lucy, but either she didn’t notice or she chose not to.
‘Genevieve used to be a dancer,’ Lucy said, a note of triumph in her voice. ‘Didn’t she tell you? She was really rather good. That’s what I heard, though of course I never went in the club where she worked – more of a men-only place, if you get my meaning.’
Malcolm’s eyes were like saucers. Bitch, I thought. I wished I hadn’t invited her. And Caddy wasn’t coming, clearly, otherwise she’d be here by now. I hadn’t realised until that moment that I’d been looking forward to seeing her more than anyone else. And she would have been a useful ally against Lucy in any discussion about the moral or feminist aspects of dancing – nobody would have argued with Caddy.
‘Do you ever get that feeling,’ I said, more to myself than either of them, ‘I don’t know, sort of like impending doom? Like something bad is about to happen? I’ve had that all day.’
‘I get that sometimes,’ Lucy said. ‘Usually when it gets to after two in the morning and I’m still drinking and I’ve got to get to work by seven the next day.’
It lightened the mood a little, but even so I had no desire to sit here and make small talk with Lucy any more. If she wanted to share any more details about my past, she could get on with it without me. I excused myself and Malcolm moved to let me out of the dinette. Squeezing past all the bodies in the galley, I climbed up to the deck.
I looked across to the car park, half-hoping to see Caddy being dropped off by a taxi. But everything was quiet. Josie sat with her back to the wheelhouse with Roger and Sally and, of all people, Gavin, who had taken off his jacket and his handmade Italian shoes and was sitting barefoot and cross-legged, telling them the story of when he went travelling and accidentally sold his passport in Thailand. They had the keg of homebrew balanced on a bucket in the middle of their circle and were helping themselves to it.
‘Here,’ said Ben, at my shoulder. He handed me another bottle of beer.
‘Oh – thanks.’
The evening was starting to feel a bit surreal. We walked to the other side of the wheelhouse and looked to where the lights from the motorway bridge reflected in the water. The wind had dropped. From the opposite bank, the distant bass beat from the nightclub throbbed.
‘I’ve not been drunk for months,’ I said.
‘I’ve not been drunk for – oh, I don’t know. Days. Hours, more probably,’ said Ben.
We sat on the roof of the cabin.
‘I missed you,’ he said.
I laughed at that. ‘You big fibber,’ I said. ‘You never miss anyone, or anything.’
He looked a little bit hurt, but I knew it was an act. Despite all these people, despite everything that had happened between us in the past, he was just angling to stay the night.
‘You’ve done a great job with the boat,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
‘I like the bedroom.’
Here we go, I thought.
‘I like the skylight. It must be wonderful to lie there at night and look up at the stars.’
I smiled. ‘Actually, it’s more of an orange glow. Light pollution isn’t just confined to London, you know.’
‘I was trying to be romantic.’
‘I know you were, Ben. But you forget I know you too well. It doesn’t work on me any more.’
‘Genevieve! What happened?’
‘You have to ask? I saw you with that girl when you were supposed to be going out with me. Did you forget that?’
The words were easy to say now. At the time it had broken my heart.
Ben shook his head. ‘Christ, you’ve got a long memory. I didn’t mean that. I meant, what happened to you in London? You left so suddenly. Nobody knew where you’d gone. Lucy thought you’d been kidnapped.’
‘Nothing happened. Don’t be so dramatic.’
‘Genny, you quit your job and walked out. You literally walked out.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Who do you think? Lucy, of course. She said it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in your office. She said you marched in to the CEO’s office while he was having a meeting and threw your letter of resignation on the table. Then you just grabbed your coat and left. She said she had to empty your desk for you, and when she took the box round to your flat you were all ready to move out.’
I didn’t speak for a moment. That feeling was back: the sense of disquiet. The tide had started to rise and in another few hours it would be at its highest point. Already the boat was moving, just slightly, the comforting feeling of the Revenge holding me up and cradling me. And yet, with the boat full of people, it didn’t feel quite right.
From the skylight next to us on the roof, I could hear genial conversation coming up from the galley below changing subtly into more heated tones. Joanna and Malcolm, by the sounds of it – and, on the other side of the exchange, Lucy and Simone.
‘All I said was –’
‘I know what you said, and I know what you meant.’ That sounded like Joanna.
‘You lot are all the same, you haven’t got a clue –’ and that sounded like Malcolm, the edges of his words blurred and slurred by cheap beer ‘– you think just ’cause we live on a boat we’re somehow inferior, just ’cause you choose to live in a house…’
‘I didn’t say anything of the kind!’
‘Well, why was you going on about the bathroom, then? I tell you, when this boat’s finished it’ll be palatial, and you lot will all be blinded by jealousy.’
Lucy laughed. ‘I don’t think so somehow.’
/>
On the deck above, I put my head in my hands. ‘Oh, God. I knew this was a mistake.’
Ben took the opportunity and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘They’re just drunk, Genny. It’ll all be forgotten in the morning.’
‘Ben! Where the fuck are you?’ Lucy was coming up the steps into the wheelhouse, stomping with her high-heeled boots on the varnished pine. ‘Gavin? Let’s go to the pub.’
‘Want me to stay here?’ Ben asked me quietly. He still hadn’t been spotted.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You go with them, it’s fine.’
‘I could always come back later.’
His voice sounded so hopeful that for a moment I looked up. It would be so easy to say yes, I thought. It would be easy to have him here, to share my bed with him tonight and put him on the train to London in the morning. Would it hurt, one night with Ben? Five months since Dylan, five long months waiting for him to make contact with me again. He obviously wasn’t missing me as much as I missed him.
‘Where the fuck’s Ben?’ Lucy said.
‘What’s up, princess?’ Gavin asked, getting to his feet.
‘I want to go somewhere else!’
‘Have some of this,’ Roger said soothingly, ‘it’ll make you feel better, I promise.’
‘What is it?’ Lucy sounded suspicious.
‘It’s magic potion,’ said Gavin, giggling.
‘What?’
‘No, seriously, Luce. Give it a try. I’ve never had anything like it, honestly: it’s like drinking the earth and the moon and the stars…’
‘Gavin, you’re so crap, you’ve been smoking skunk again, haven’t you? I thought you said you hadn’t got any left?’
‘Rog here gave me a puff. But I tell you what, lovely Princess Lucy Loo, it’s not nearly as good as this stuff. Here.’
‘Eww! It tastes like shit!’
Laughter from the wheelhouse and the deck.
Ben was kissing me. He’d taken my face in his hands and kissed me, before I had a chance to protest, before I could say no, before I could move away. He was good at it. I could feel my barriers, my resolve and my resistance disappearing. It would be so easy to tell him to come back later on. Nobody would even notice. There was a good chance that the other liveaboards would all just disappear back to their own boats in the next hour or so. Once Lucy and the other London lot had gone to the pub, then on to Rochester or Maidstone or even, if they were desperate enough, back to London, the boatyard would be empty and quiet and nobody would even see him come back; nobody would ever need to know…
‘Ben! There you are!’
The kiss ended abruptly. Lucy fixed me with a hard stare, as though it was all my fault that she had been irreparably insulted by these river people, the man with the mad hair and the girl with the black eye; clearly now to find Ben down here in the semi-darkness, with his mouth on mine and his hand inside my top, was pretty much the final straw.
‘Are you staying here or are you coming with us?’ Lucy asked, her voice chilly.
Before he had a chance to answer, I stood up. ‘You should go,’ I said softly.
‘Why?’
Lucy had gone to herd up the rest of them, including Simone and Carla. Presumably they were expected to fit in the boot of the car.
I gave a little shrug.
‘You’ve got someone else?’
‘I’ve got a different life.’
He tried again, with his best cheeky smile to go with it. ‘I’m not talking about any sort of commitment, Genny. Just one more night. Go on. You want me really, don’t you?’
Despite myself, I laughed too.
‘Amazing as the offer sounds, Ben, I would rather be on my own than have you here, even for one night. But thank you.’
He gave up, at last. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, and turned his back on me to find Lucy.
They left, with promises to text or phone, hugs, professions of what a fabulous night it was and such a shame it had to come to an end, while I hugged them all in turn, and all the liveaboards carried on with the beer and the lively conversation and the last few bits of Liam’s lasagne.
As I waved them off and the motion sensors triggered the lights in the car park, Lucy tripped over something and fell on her face – fortunately on the grass. Malcolm let out a hooting laugh.
Diane and Steve went soon after that. The baby monitor gave every indication that the children had got out of bed and were playing some kind of console game on board their boat – either that, or the boat had been stormed by terrorists who were shooting everything in sight.
Downstairs in the main cabin the conversation had turned to milder topics.
Joanna handed me a beer.
‘Sit down and join us,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry they were such louts,’ I said.
‘They weren’t louts.’
‘I thought they were alright, on the whole,’ piped up Malcolm, who seemed to have forgiven Lucy already.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You lot are lovely.’
‘I think you should have shagged that Ben, though,’ said Josie with a chuckle.
‘What?’
‘You think we couldn’t hear you? He was begging for it. Absolutely begging.’
‘Yes, he was a bit, wasn’t he?’
She gave me a hefty nudge. ‘I wouldn’t have turned him down, if it were me,’ she said.
‘Oi,’ said Malcolm, ‘you old hussy. You’ll end up kipping on the roof if you keep that up.’
I laughed. ‘He’s not all he’s cracked up to be. Ben, I mean.’
‘Ooh,’ said Josie, ‘you’ve been there before, then?’
‘Been there, done that.’
‘And he’s no good at it? Blimey. Who’d have thought? He looks like a right one to me.’
I considered this for a moment. This wasn’t a conversation I’d particularly planned to have.
‘It’s not that he’s no good,’ I said. ‘It’s just that he’s not the sort of person I want any more.’
‘You got your eye on someone else?’ said Joanna.
‘Not really. I just think I’m better off on my own for a bit, you know? Busy with the boat, and all that.’
‘Ah, the boat,’ said Roger. ‘She’s married to the boat already. Happens to us all. You still haven’t shown me the new room.’
‘Help yourself,’ I said. ‘Go and have a look.’
Malcolm took it upon himself to act as a tour guide, taking Roger to see the newly clad room, while I stayed in the saloon and finished off another bottle of beer. Too many, I thought. The woodstove was burning low and the saloon was warm now that the door to the wheelhouse was closed. We all sat with our feet up, feeling the gentle rock of the boat on the water, lulling us to a doze.
I realised that I hadn’t thought about Caddy since Ben had started flirting with me. Where was she? Maybe she’d had to work after all.
‘We should do this more often,’ Josie said drowsily.
‘We always say that,’ said Sally. She was curled like a child into the big, soft sofa, a patchwork blanket I’d bought from a charity shop over her feet.
‘I like your boat,’ said Joanna. ‘Did you know that? You have one of the best boats out of all of us.’
This was a conversation we had regularly – who had the best boat and why. We never seemed to reach a conclusion.
‘The Souvenir is my favourite,’ I said.
Sally laughed. ‘You’re just saying that because you’re sweet and lovely.’
‘I like the Souvenir too,’ said Joanna. ‘I think the Souvenir is the best boat at the moment, but if Genevieve manages to pull off the conservatory with the sliding glass roof then the Revenge will be the best one.’
‘You’re right,’ said Sally. ‘We can’t top a conservatory. All we’ve got is three pots and an allotment in Rochester.’
‘What are you going to grow on your deck, Gen? Have you thought?’
I was wondering whether this was Josie’s roundabout way of a
sking me to grow some cannabis for her and Malcolm, but before I had a chance to answer Malcolm and Roger came back.
‘You do realise Liam’s asleep on your bed, Genevieve?’
‘Shit,’ said Joanna. ‘I wondered where he’d gone. I thought he’d fucked off back to the boat.’
She got up and went to try and rouse her partner from his beer-induced slumber.
‘We should go,’ said Malcolm. ‘Busy day tomorrow.’
‘Oh?’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We’re going to look at dresses,’ said Josie. ‘My niece is getting married soon, and Malcolm’s promised to take me shopping.’
‘And before you ask,’ said Malcolm, although none of us had said anything, ‘I’m having me hair cut before the wedding, alright?’
Four
Not long after that they all went, off my boat and back on to the pontoon, swaying back to their boats and the warmth of their respective woodburners.
I stayed in the saloon once I’d shut and locked the wheelhouse, gazing unfocused at the glow of the fire and finishing off my last bottle of beer. I was trying not to think about Ben. I wondered where they were staying. I didn’t have his number, which was a good thing. I probably would have given in and texted him, and how desperate would that have looked?
The galley was a state – bottles and glasses and dirty plates everywhere. The floor was scattered with crumbs, from the garlic bread. Joanna and Liam’s empty lasagne dish filled the sink, burnt-on bits glued to the edge. I wondered how much soaking it would take before I could present it back to them, clean.
Something was digging in…
I reached into the back pocket of my jeans, and there it was. Dylan’s phone. I went through the menus again to the address book. GARLAND. Why that word, of all words? It was just a word, he’d said. It was supposed to be random. It was supposed to be something that nobody would suspect, if the phone got into the wrong hands.
‘What if I want to contact you?’ I’d said.
‘Why would you want to contact me?’
He had no idea, none at all, about how I felt. I wasn’t even sure of it myself, right then. I just knew that the concept of not seeing him was a difficult one to grasp.