The Woman in Cabin 10(53)
But fear because the longer the Internet was down, the more I was starting to think that someone was deliberately trying to stop me from accessing the Web. And that was starting to make me feel very worried indeed.
The door to suite 1, Nobel, was the same anonymous white wood as the rest of the cabin doors, but you could tell from the fact that it was by itself in the prow of the boat, with a blank expanse of corridor stretching away behind us, that it must be something pretty special.
I knocked, cautiously. I’m not sure what I expected—Richard Bullmer, or perhaps even a maid, neither would have surprised me. But I was thrown completely when the door opened and Anne Bullmer was standing there.
She had clearly been crying, her dark eyes rimmed with red and circled with deep shadows, and there were traces still on her gaunt cheeks.
I blinked, completely losing the thread of the carefully prepared request I’d rehearsed in my head. Phrases skittered through my mind, each more inappropriate and impossible than the other: Are you okay? What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do?
I said none of them, just gulped.
“Yes?” she said, with a touch of defiance. She brought up a corner of her silk robe and wiped at her eyes, and then put her chin up. “Can I help you?”
I swallowed again, and then said, “I, yes, I hope so. I’m sorry for intruding, you must be tired after the spa morning.”
“Not particularly,” she said, rather shortly. I bit my lip. Maybe referring to her illness hadn’t been tactful.
“I was actually hoping to speak to your husband.”
“Richard? He’s busy, I’m afraid. Is it something I can help with?”
“I—I don’t think so,” I said awkwardly, and then wondered whether to make my excuses and leave, or stay and explain. I felt bad disturbing her, but it seemed equally wrong to knock and then leave so abruptly. Part of my discomfort was the tears—pulling me in two directions, to go and leave her to her private grief, to stay and offer comfort. But it was also because I found her gaunt, smooth face so unsettling. She seemed so unassailable in every other way. To see someone like Anne Bullmer, so privileged, with every advantage that money could buy—the latest medicine, the best doctors and treatments available—to see her fighting for her life like this, before our very eyes, was almost unbearable.
I wanted to run away, but that knowledge forced me to stand my ground.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps it can wait until later? Can I tell him what it’s about?”
“I . . .” I twisted my fingers together. What could I possibly say? There was no way I was spilling my suspicions to this frail, haunted-looking woman. “I— He promised me an interview,” I said, remembering his throwaway words after dinner. It was kind of half-true, after all. “He told me to come to the cabin this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Her face cleared. “I am sorry. He must have forgotten. I think he’s gone to the hot tub with Lars and a few others. Hopefully you can catch him at dinner.”
I had no intention of waiting that long, but I didn’t say that, just nodded.
“Am I— Will we see you at dinner?” I asked, and cringed at the way I was stumbling over my words. For God’s sake. She’s ill, not a leper. She nodded.
“I hope so. I’m feeling a little better today. I get very tired, but it seems like a capitulation to let my body win too often.”
“Are you still undergoing treatment?” I asked. She shook her head, the soft silk scarf around her skull rustling as she did.
“Not at the moment. I’ve finished my last round of chemotherapy, for the moment, anyway. I’ll undergo radiotherapy when we get back, and then I suppose we’ll see.”
“Well, best of luck,” I said, and then winced at the way the innocent remark seemed to make her survival into a kind of game of chance. “And, um, thanks,” I finished.
“No problem at all.”
She shut the door and I turned to walk back towards the stairs to the upper deck, feeling my face burn with a kind of shame.
I had never been to the hot tub, but I knew where it should be—on the top deck above the Lindgren Lounge, just outside the spa. I made my way up the thickly carpeted stairs towards the restaurant deck, expecting that feeling of light and space that I’d had before—but I’d forgotten the sea mist. When I got to the door that opened onto the deck, a wall of gray greeted me behind the glass, blanketing the ship in its folds so you could barely see from one end of the deck to the other, giving a strange, muffled feeling.
The mist had brought a chill to the air, fogging the hairs on my arms with drizzle, and as I stood uncertainly in the lee of the doorway, shivering and trying to get my bearings, I heard the long, mournful boom of a fog horn.
The whiteness made everything seem unfamiliar, and it took me a few minutes to work out where the stairs to the top deck were, but eventually I realized they must be to my right, further up towards the prow of the boat. I couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying a Jacuzzi in this weather, and for a moment I wondered if Anne Bullmer had been mistaken. But as I rounded the glassed-in tip of the restaurant I heard laughter and looked up to see lights glowing in the mist above my head, coming from the deck above. Seemingly there were people mad enough to strip down, even in this cold.
I wished I’d brought a coat, but there was no sense going back for one, so I wrapped my arms around myself and climbed the slippery vertiginous steps to the upper deck, following the sound of voices and laughter.