“Oh, hiya Charlie,” she said, wrapping herself round Daz’s arm like she was staking a claim on the alpha male and I’d have to make do with pickings lower down the food chain.
“Hello Tess,” I said, adding dryly, “I’m glad to see you’re coping so well with overcoming your grief.”
“Yeah well.” She pouted. “Life goes on.”
“You’re certainly proving that,” I said, watching Daz’s obvious uneasiness with some amusement. “I must admit I’m surprised to see you here, though.”
That injected a new smugness to her smile. “Well, this trip
“She was fast enough,” Paxo said shortly. It was a testament to his dislike of Tess, I reckoned, that he’d felt inclined to jump to my defence.
The ferry was out of the lee of the land now and pushing up towards its maximum cruising velocity as it struck out across Morecambe Bay. At that kind of speed the gentle swell had lumps in it like concrete sleeping policemen. As soon as we got into open water it had also begun a perceptible cindering motion, a slight corkscrewing, that always seems to come with a following sea.
I noticed Jamie was gripping the edge of the table like it was a designated flotation device. He had a sheen of sweat across his pale skin and when one of the cabin crew approached to ask if we’d like anything to eat, he actually took on a greenish cast.
“I’m just going outside for a bit of fresh air,” he managed, lurching to his feet.
“Remember to throw up on the downwind side, mate,” Paxo suggested helpfully.
“We’re doing forty knots,” William pointed out. “It’s
Jamie just gave them a panicked look and fled. Tess took his vacant seat, seeming pleased with herself. I wondered if I was going to be able to stand a whole weekend of her like this.
“So where are we going when we get in to Belfast?” I asked Daz.
“Nice little hotel I found up on the Antrim coast,” he said, prompt but almost deliberately vague. “Then tomorrow morning you have to suffer some culture by looking at the Giant’s Causeway. Your reward is a trip round the distillery at Bushmills afterwards.”
“I’ll try to contain my boredom,” I said.
The others slipped into a discussion on the merits of Irish whiskey versus Scottish single malt but I let it flow over me. Through the tinted windows I could see Jamie standing at the railing, hunched over like a man who knows his digestive system is about to suffer a violent inversion and there’s nothing he can do about it.
Most of the other people on the outside deck correctly identified the signs and steered well clear of him, but one guy strolled over to stand alongside him. He was dressed in plain black bike leathers, with a cotton scarf round his neck to keep the draught and the bugs out. Jamie glanced up sharply, recognised the figure and seemed to relax a little. The newcomer turned sideways to speak to him and then, with a jolt, I recognised him, too.
“Excuse me a minute,” I muttered, getting to my feet. “I’m just going to check on Jamie.”
Paxo groaned. “Not you as well,” he said, leaning back in his chair to call after me. “Well don’t come back in here if you smell of sick.”
The other occupants of the lounge stared fixedly at their newspapers and their laptops and tried to ignore him.
Outside, the wind whipped through my shirt and made me wish I’d put my jacket back on, despite the gorgeous weather. Jamie was still clinging miserably to the railing and there, alongside him, was Sean.
Sean turned to meet me as I approached. He smiled, and I wanted to run and throw myself into his arms. Aware of the audience from inside the lounge – not to mention Jamie – I contented myself with an answering smile.
“Surprise, surprise,” I said with admirable cool. I nodded to the leathers. “I didn’t know you still had a bike.”
“I don’t, but one of the guys who works for me does and as a) he’s out of the country at the moment, and b) I’m his boss,” he said, counting the points off on his fingers, “he’s generously agreed to lend me his Super Blackbird for the weekend.”
“Wow,” I said. “He must really like his job.”
Sean grinned. “Yeah, he does.”
Jamie chose that moment to start to heave and Sean and I both instinctively stepped back. “Unless you really want to watch the kid trying to turn his stomach inside out, I would suggest we take a walk,” Sean murmured. “Where are the others?”
“First Class lounge,” I said nodding to the windows as we moved round the corner, more towards the side of the boat. “William wangled it or I’d invite you in.”
“Madeleine sorted my ticket,” Sean said, smiling. “I’m already in.”
I waited a beat. “What are you doing here, Sean?”
“Watching your back,” he said. His eyes flipped down to my thin shirt. “Although, in this breeze, your front looks pretty good, too.”
I folded my arms across my chest, defensive. “Be serious.”
His face sobered. “I am being serious – about your back, I mean,” he said quietly.
He glanced across but Jamie was out of sight and undoubtedly too preoccupied to be even thinking about
