“There’s no right or wrong, Meera,” Captain said, trying to steer the conversation out of dangerous waters. “The thing that makes ethics interesting is that no two individuals see things the same. We all have our own internal barometer of what’s right and wrong.”

  “Nonsense,” she said with a hand flick that nearly knocked over Jonathan’s cocktail. “We all know what is right and wrong. Some people just know how to spin things to suit what works for them.”

  There was a short silence as even Captain seemed at a loss for how to respond.

  “If that’s the case,” Ella said after a moment. She spoke softly, but one of the benefits of appearing articulate and intelligent was that when she spoke, people tended to listen. “Who is right in this situation? The person who honours the sacred vow of marriage but spends her days making money for organisations that devastate the lives of problem gamblers and smokers? Or the person who had a relationship with a married man but in her role as a paediatric nurse, cares for our most vulnerable citizens on a daily basis?”

  Everyone was quiet now, even Captain. As they continued to wait for an answer that wouldn’t come, Ella considered how good it felt to speak her mind. She was so used to letting Mac take the stage, happy to have the spotlight on him, rather than on herself. Now she understood that there was something about speaking her mind that made her . . . feel alive.

  Maybe this would be her epiphany?

  Ella and Mac had booked the VIP cabin. It had been an off-the-cuff decision—a Why not?—and they’d justified the expense by the fact that it was their ten-year anniversary in a few months’ time. Now, as she looked around the backlit panelled room, with its full-size Calcutta marble bathroom and plush white bathrobes, it felt incredibly decadent.

  Outside Ella’s cabin, the hallway was quiet. Her response to the ethical dilemma had done a good job of dispersing the guests to their cabins, which she suspected Captain was grateful for, even if he wasn’t grateful for the comment itself. It was strange, the way different people brought about different responses. The guests of the charter hadn’t known Meera for twelve hours, and yet they’d come to accept her comments as expected. But Ella made a similarly direct comment, and everyone scurried back to their rooms to take shelter. How funny that was.

  If Mac were here, he’d certainly have had something to say about her comment. Reflexively, she reached for her phone to text him, forgetting that they’d decided not to text each other. Reception was patchy on the Lady, and it would be good for her to detach and have a proper holiday rather than be trying to get in touch with him, Mac had said. She’d agreed that it was a good idea, but in practice it felt strange, given that she was so used to Mac coming back to the cabin with chatter about who he’d met, what they did for a living, anecdotes he’d learned.

  He was the social one, and always made a point of making sure he talked to everyone. He wasn’t a social climber, just one of those rare people who was genuinely interested in everyone. Ella was also interested; it was just that she was interested quietly, reflectively. In a way, it was quite nice to come back to the room and have silence.

  Nice, but also . . . a little eerie.

  Ella often felt like this when Mac wasn’t around. Just a little off, a little anxious. She was, Mac said, a victim of too many scary movies and novels. Her fears were illogical at the best of times, and even more so on a boat, with the door locked, but fears, as Ella knew, thanks to years of therapy, weren’t logical. To take her mind off it, she got into the king-size bed and pulled the covers up.

  Her mind turned to the not quite truth that she’d told.

  It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. Mac was married when she met him. He was a client at the accounting firm where she worked. Not her client—she was always quick to point out. He had come in to see one of her colleagues, Samantha, to organize life insurance and financial affairs when his wife was diagnosed with a terminal heart condition.

  When his wife passed away, Ella had attended the funeral, along with the rest of her colleagues, and like everyone else, was moved as Mac eulogised his spouse as only he could—with respect, dignity, and love.

  Six months after the funeral, Ella ran into Mac again, outside a fish-and-chip shop. It was a scorching summer day and Mac was at the end of a very long line.

  He’d called out to her as she strode back to her car.

  “What time did you get here?” he said.

  “Five minutes ago. I preordered.”

  He sighed. “Smart.”

  “Practical,” Ella corrected, because the two, she’d found, were actually quite different. “How are things?”

  It was the best question she could come up with on the spot, preferring it to the more obvious and pitiful How are you? that she knew grieving family members tended to hate.

  “Things,” he said, “have been better. But nothing fish and chips can’t fix.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m having a rough day.”

  He nodded. “Less side effects than Zoloft.”

  Ella laughed. That might have been the end of the conversation if there hadn’t been a commotion in the line ahead. After a second or two, people started to disperse, huffing.

  “They’ve run out of fish,” someone said.

  Mac looked despondent. “Might have to get that Zoloft after all.”

  “Or you could just share my fish and chips,” Ella suggested.

  They wandered to the beach and ate fish and chips together on a bench, as seagulls crowded around them like an angry mob. Conversation flowed easily. Mac, she realised, had a gift for setting her up for conversation. She was better when he was around. Funnier. Happier.

  Afterward Ella committed the cardinal sin of asking him to look at a red dot that had recently appeared on her forearm. A burst capillary, he said, and offered to laser it off for her in the office.

  Three days later, she took him up on the offer. A year after that, they were married.

  So, strictly speaking, he was married when she met him. And yet, Ella knew she’d misrepresented this.

  She still wasn’t sure why.

  She rolled over in bed, and that’s when she saw it. A shadow at the base of the doorway. As she watched, a small white square appeared, like the edge of a note being pushed under the door.

  Ella sat up and turned on the light. She reached for her dressing gown and pulled it around herself. By the time she got to the door, though, the white square was nowhere to be seen. Bizarre. She pulled open the door and glanced up and down. The cabin doors were all closed and in darkness. She had most likely imagined the whole thing. And yet, the hallways pulsed with the energy of someone who had vacated in a hurry.

  “Name something that scares you,” Captain said the next day. “Ella? Chloe? Anything at all.”

  They’d anchored an hour ago, and Magnus and Karl were on the Jet Skis. Vanessa and Stephanie were snorkelling. Joyce was explaining to Meera how she could re-create last night’s meal at a dinner party. Ella and Chloe lay on loungers by the pool on the sundeck, each with a novel in her lap. When they appeared confused by Captain’s question, he pointed to the blackboard, which displayed the daily quote and the daily challenge.

  Life is like a boat—you move when you paddle, and you drift when you don’t.

  Challenge: do one thing that scares you today

  Ella sighed. “I don’t know. Climate change?”

  “The rise of technology?” Chloe suggested.

  “No, no,” he said. “Something that affects you!”

  Ella wanted to point out that, in fact, climate change and the rise of technology affected them all, but she suspected he wouldn’t appreciate it.

  “Sunburn,” Chloe said. “Speaking of which, I need to reapply my sunscreen.”

  Captain rolled his eyes as Chloe started applying sunscreen to her legs.

  “You know what I mean. A fear you can face. A way you can challenge yourself.”

  The handsome steward from the night before walked past, carrying an elaborate cocktail for Meera, who somehow had managed to avoid Captain’s pestering about the challenge.

  “I’m not mad on heights,” Ella said, when it was clear he wasn’t going away.

  Captain beamed. “Right then. You can jump from the upper deck.”

  Ella instantly regretted her comment. They were on the upper deck now, the highest of the four decks. Even so, she knew, logically, that it wasn’t particularly high. Guests had been jumping off all morning. Even Stephanie, a sixtysomething cancer survivor, had done it. But . . . Ella actually was afraid of heights. Why hadn’t she said she was afraid of public speaking? Or elbows? (Once Mac had operated on a patient with an elbow phobia. Ishicascadiggaphobia, it was called. They’d had to google it to check that it was a real thing. Indeed it was.)

  She must have looked nervous because Chloe touched her arm. “I’ll do it with you if you like.”

  “Wonderful!” Captain said, clapping his hands, and stood to retrieve his good camera and to fire up the guests into an awful sort of cheer squad. Ella knew this was what he was doing, because she’d been part of this cheer squad in the past. Every year there was a guest who had a fear of heights and was cajoled into jumping from the upper deck. It was a party favourite of Captain’s. Probably because it looked better in the photos than the ones of people public speaking.

  Ella stood and looked over the rail. As she saw the distance down to the water, she started to feel queasy. She wondered why she had opened her mouth, knowing this was where she’d probably end up.

  “Wait! Can you do my back first?” Chloe said. She held out the bottle, and Ella walked back and took it, noting it was a good-quality, broad-spectrum variety. Mac would have been impressed, she thought as she lathered Chloe up. Nothing looks better in your fifties than good sunscreen in your twenties, he always said.

  “Don’t skimp on the lotion,” Chloe said. “It’s important to be thorough.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Ella said. “There. All done.”

  She tossed the bottle onto a nearby lounger, and they walked together to the edge of the boat.

  “He was a dermatologist,” Chloe said as they stood side by side on the edge.

  Ella looked down at the water, feeling her crab benedict breakfast curdle in her stomach. She tightened the knot at the neck of her bikini. “Who?”

  “The guy. The married one. If nothing else, I’ve learned about the importance of good sun protection,” she said.

  They were balanced on the edge of the ledge now. Captain stood on the deck below, looking up through his lens. From the water, Ella could hear other guests cheering.

  “He had this catchcry,” Chloe said. “Nothing looks better in your fifties than good sunscreen in your twenties.”

  It took a beat, and then Ella’s world began to shift. She opened her mouth, started to step back, but it was too late. Chloe grabbed her hand and they both went over.

  Ella had often wondered what it would feel like to drown. When she watched Titanic, mostly. People always talked about drowning as peaceful, but Ella had often had her doubts. Indeed, it appeared she was right—there was nothing peaceful about it. Her chest was bursting. Her head pounded. Her lungs screamed for air, but she couldn’t seem to break through the surface of the water.

  Nothing looks better in your fifties than good sunscreen in your twenties.

  She wanted to tell herself that it was a common phrase. And maybe it was. But what about the rest of it?

  Mac was married. A dermatologist. A man who loved this particular charter.

  Ella recalled suddenly that, during introductions, Chloe had called him Tom.

  Dr. Thomas McAllister.

  No one called him Tom, except his parents. His school friends called him Macca. Most people assumed Mac was his given name. When he and Ella got married and Ella’s surname also became McAllister, she wondered if she would stop calling him that. But she didn’t. It felt too strange.

  Ella couldn’t help but suck in a breath. Salt water filled her nose, her throat, her lungs. Was this it? Was this how her life was going to end? Was she going to drown while ruminating on her husband’s betrayal? The horror of it burned inside her, just like her lungs.

  Hands circled her waist, and she was travelling upward. As she burst through the surface of the water, she tried to suck in air, but her lungs were still full of water. She was hoisted onto something, and she felt a sharp thump on the centre of her back. She began to cough, then vomit.

  Mac was the married man whom Chloe had come on the charter to recover from. Ella knew it with a bizarre certainty, the way that one knew, the moment their phone rang, that they were about to receive news that would change their lives. What she didn’t know was what to do with this information.

  Or what Chloe planned to do with this information.

  She was, she realised suddenly, lying across the seat of a Jet Ski. After another seawater vomit, she finally managed to suck in some air.

  “I’ve got you,” Chloe’s reassuring voice said in her ear. “It’s okay.”

  It’s not okay, Ella thought. You had an affair with my husband.

  “That was one hell of a belly flop,” Magnus said, from somewhere nearby. There was a hint of amusement in his voice that irritated Ella, but there were too many thoughts, too many questions going through her mind. It had a paralysing effect.

  Chloe was looking down at her. Ella’s brain felt foggy and swollen; her throat and lungs still felt scratchy and wrong.

  What is going on? she wanted to ask. What do you want from me?

  “Let’s get her back to the boat,” Chloe said.

  “I feel awful,” Chloe said. “I should have let you jump, not pulled you in. I knew you were scared but . . . have you had a panic attack before?”

  Back on the boat, Ella was lying on a white lounger, her head supported by a blue-and-white-striped cushion. Someone had brought over a blanket, and everyone hovered around worriedly. Captain and Joyce had found a medical kit somewhere and were staring into it as if it might know what to do. Chloe covered her with a towel, a second after Ella realised her bikini had become askew.

  “A panic attack?” Ella said.

  “You thrashed about on your own for a few moments before Chloe got to you,” Joyce told her, holding up a blood pressure cuff, then discarding it. “Lucky she pulled you up when she did, before you swallowed any more water.”

  Chloe took a seat beside her. “A panic attack can be disorienting at the best of times, let alone underwater,” she said gently. “Give yourself a minute to make sense of things.”

  The fact that Chloe was a nurse fluttered back into Ella’s consciousness. She seemed like a nurse, the authoritative way she disregarded Ella’s personal space, the intimate way she took Ella’s wrist between her slender fingers and looked at her watch. She smelled, Ella noticed, of mango and coconut.

  “Things make sense,” Ella said weakly.

  But they didn’t, of course. How could they? She’d just very nearly drowned, her husband had had an affair, and she was spending the next five days adrift at sea with his mistress, who may or may not know this.

  Ella looked at Chloe again. She tried to see her, really see her, in light of what she’d learned. Her face was the image of desperate concern.

  Which meant Chloe truly had no idea who Ella was . . . or Ella was spending the rest of the week at sea with a sociopath.

  “Happy hour!” called the handsome steward, whose dreadlocks were now held back with a navy scrunchie. He was holding a tray of frothy drinks—chili-lime margaritas, he informed the group. Magnus and Karl snatched one each as the rest of the guests appeared as if called by a whistle—first Stephanie and Vanessa, then Jonathan, and finally Meera, still in her bikini with a sarong around her waist, loudly asking for a strawberry daiquiri. “But with fresh strawberries, not a mixer. I know the difference.”

  Captain and Joyce, seemingly satisfied that Ella was not in imminent physical danger, had returned to their duties, leaving Ella on the deck, shell-shocked and in the care of the one person who may wish her harm.

  Ella was digesting all of this as the steward made his way toward them with the cocktails.

  “Ladies?”

  Ella shook her head. He held the tray toward Chloe, and she waved him away while looking at Ella. “You okay?”

  Ella was still staring at her, wondering how on earth to answer that, when Chloe held up one hand, five fingers outstretched. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Five.”

  “Do you feel drowsy? Groggy? Confused?”

  “I’m . . . not sure. I do feel thirsty.”

  Chloe nodded. “Okay. I’ll get you some water.”

  And off she went. It was too bizarre. Was Chloe the enemy or her nursemaid? Friend or foe? Even if not for the “panic attack,” she would have had trouble unscrambling it. The only thing she knew for certain was that Mac had had an affair with Chloe. It felt so cliché that the question on her lips was . . . why?

  Why?

  She and Mac were happy. Ella searched the corners of her mind for evidence to the contrary, but she didn’t find it. It wasn’t that her marriage to Mac was perfect. They had issues. Their communication, for one, could have used some improvement. It drove her crazy the way he never said what he wanted for dinner, forcing her to dream something up, night after night. She hated the way he let his mother manipulate him into answering medical questions for her friends in his time off. And she knew it drove him crazy that she left her shoes all around the house; that she bought takeaway coffee even though they’d spent a fortune on a coffee machine; that after ten years of marriage, she still didn’t know how to stack the dishwasher “properly.”

  But they weren’t unhappy. Were they?

  They still had sex. Not as often as he would have liked, probably, but more often than most of her friends did. More importantly, Ella enjoyed the sex. She didn’t do it out of obligation the way her friend Susan had proclaimed every wife should do. “They’re like dogs! They need to get out the pent-up excitement or they’re a nightmare to live with!”

 

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