He Said/She Said(26)

I’m not close enough to touch her but I can see the droplets that sit on top of her hair like tiny pearls. Move, I tell myself. I breathe in just as a huge wave hits the liner’s prow and inhale deeply the spray of brine as it hits me in the face. It’s up my nose and in my throat, making me splutter out loud. Beth whips around to see what the noise is. She’s been soaked, too, her hair flattened to her head on one side. It takes a second to understand that it’s not her, not at all. This woman looks my age from behind but she’s got to be nearly sixty. The hair is dyed, it’s obvious now; it’s as dull as boot blacking. Her jawline is loosening and there’s a Mr Punch hook to her nose and chin, nothing like Beth’s silent-movie cupid’s bow and arched eyebrows.

‘That’s what you get for standing too close to the edge!’ she says, laughing and wringing her sodden curls. I return a watered-down version of her smile, and raise my empty bottle to her. I’m psyching myself up to make small talk when an announcement comes over the public address system. It’s a different voice; female, nasal, more suited to a department store than a ship full of astronomers.

‘Please make your way to the ballroom for welcome drinks prior to this evening’s entertainment.’

‘Can’t miss this!’ says my new friend. ‘Although I’d better go and towel off first.’ I wave her off, knowing from all those years working on Laura’s hair that she’ll have her work cut out with those tangles later.

It’s only after she’s gone, and I’m alone on the deck again, that I look down and see my Swiss Army knife in my fist, the longest blade extended, almost as though someone has put it there without my knowing. It starts to tremble in my hand. I have absolutely no recollection of taking it out of my pocket, let alone pulling out the blade.

I learned a long time ago that the moment you start to think about the logistics of an act – even if you’re only daydreaming ways you might go about it – you’ve already crossed a line. This, though, is different. This time action has preceded thought.

My heart runs at full pelt.

‘Chris!’ Richard calls from the deck below.

I fold my knife carefully back into my pocket. The dark-haired woman can’t have seen it, or she wouldn’t have been so friendly, she would have run screaming down the deck. ‘I’ll catch you up!’ I shout back. I don’t want to miss the introductory lecture but I need to let my pulse return to normal before I go back in among the crowds. I roll the bottle across my forehead from side to side, pressing it against my temples.

I have carried my Swiss Army knife on every trip since I was twelve, but it is only now I recognise it as a weapon rather than a tool. It’s the loss of control – of awareness – that frightens me most. Perhaps I have always had a plan, only I never dared admit it, even to myself. In one involuntary action I have unlocked the fear that’s been dogging me since I left London. Maybe it’s not Beth I need to fear but what she might unleash in me.

On the upper deck, I squint at my phone until the Wi-Fi signal appears. I hit the tiles on my phone one by one, checking for updates on the blogs and chatrooms. Even as I scroll through the Facebook page I wonder what I’m doing. I don’t really think Beth would be mad enough to post anything online – after the drubbing she had on the internet, she’s hardly likely to court publicity, and in any game of cat and mouse both must be silent – but it’s possible that someone’s caught her in the background of a photograph. I don’t know what I’m doing: only that I am compelled to do something.

ShadyLady on Facebook has written a three-word update: Touchdown in Tórshavn, accompanied by a photograph of the red house in the harbour that’s no use to me. It probably isn’t Beth, but I wish she would post just one selfie so I could stop the constant checking.

The remaining posts are all about the weather, and nothing has changed on that count.

I swipe as fast as the connection will allow. At last, on a blog so obscure I nearly didn’t bother to add it to my list, a picture catches my eye.

On the Faroes, toasting the gods of sunshine with friends old and new, says the caption, beneath a photograph of six men and women sinking tankards of beer in a darkened bar. Their faces are hidden by the bases of their glasses, six frosted circles obscuring identity. The youngish woman on the edge of the shot has white skin and black curly hair tied in a topknot.

It is impossible not to sketch Beth’s face in the blank.

In the comments someone anonymous has written

Same time, same place tomorrow night?

There’s a thumbs-up emoji in reply, and below that, the blogger says

And every night till totality! followed by a row of little tankards and cartoon suns.

I stare deep into the background of the photograph. There’s distinctive stone cladding around an open fire and on the wall, a huge watercolour of some kind of elk. It’s not the kind of interior you’d find more than once.

I could find that bar, I think. The knowledge that, if I wanted to, I could sit there and wait for her, gives me a sharp tingle, like I’ve tested a battery with the tip of my tongue. As the shock recedes, the practicalities present themselves. Do I really want to spend the next two days haring around from bar to bar? I’m acting as though the mere opportunity, combined with Laura’s absence, obliges me to confront Beth. Exhausted, I shut down the picture and close my eyes.