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