‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’ He grinned. Sofia felt a flood of relief, and then gratitude, which was almost as uncomfortable a feeling to sit with as the anxiety she’d been harbouring before.
‘Oh, you didn’t...? Thanks, Jack.’ She didn’t know what else to say, but it sounded so half-hearted, she blushed with yet more embarrassment.
Jack seemed unfazed. ‘What happens on the tender, stays on the tender, eh?’
‘Nobody else is doing anything dodgy on the tender apart from you, Jack.’ Petra gave him a playful smack around the back of the head. ‘Enough work chat anyway. Where are we going tonight?’
A few suggestions were thrown around ‘Fernandos’, ‘Ballare’, ‘Oceana Azzurra’. Sofia was preoccupied thinking about whether or not she was going to drink. She was regretting having already said she might. She hadn’t, since she’d left Nakachwa. It was part of her fresh start. Everything had gotten so complicated and so many lines had gotten blurred when there was alcohol involved. But she didn’t want to miss out on the ‘yachtie’ experience and she wasn’t naive; she knew that there was a big drinking culture, and the others had already started to comment on her abstinence; maybe one night of drinking would keep any probing questions at bay.
‘Sofia?’ It was Petra. ‘Let the boys clear up; we need some girls’ time to get ready.’
It wasn’t easy to ‘get ready’ together in the tiny cabins, and the bathroom was even smaller. Sofia had barely bothered with makeup since she got on the boat, partly because the lighting was so bad in her room and partly because she would invariably sweat it all off in the kitchen. Petra seemed to have a system, mascara, eyeliner, brow brush all precariously balanced on various ledges and nooks around the tiny mirror.
Sofia was wondering what to do with her hair. Up until now she’d had it mostly tied up. She let it down and used her afro pick to loosen up the curls that had stagnated in a bun for the past seven days.
‘Wow, your hair is beautiful, Sofia. You should wear it down more often.’ Petra had the starry-eyed look of wonder that Sofia had often encountered on the face of white women. They seemed mesmerised by her hair’s defiance of gravity.
‘Doesn’t go well with kitchen grease, unfortunately.’ Sofia shrugged. ‘And I don’t think Captain Mary would be best pleased to find a strand of it in her dinner’.
For a tense moment Sofia feared Petra might ask to touch it, but instead she said, ‘I have a headscarf that would be great on you.’ That was pretty much the last thing Sofia had expected her to say. Petra riffled through her washbag and pulled out a red and white gingham silk scarf.
‘You know what, I have a really cute red top that might go with this.’ Sofia had planned to wear a black camisole, but she had packed an off-the-shoulder red crop top at the last minute ‘just in case’. It had seen her through dozens of summer nights out in London, and it was always a good look.
Sofia pulled on a pair of black jeans and slipped into the top, self-consciously turning her back to Petra as she wriggled into the tight fabric.
‘OK, I see, you’ve come to play!’ Petra gave a chef’s kiss. ‘I fear you’re going to stop poor young Declan’s heart in that outfit.’
‘Oh no,’ Sofia groaned, heart sinking. ‘It’s that obvious?’
Petra laughed. ‘Don’t worry, it’s just puppy love. He’ll get over it.’ She went back to applying mascara, her face close to the glass. ‘He has to anyway. Captain Mary is not messing around with her “no crew relationships” rule, even if you were interested.’
‘Her what?’
‘Captain Mary doesn’t hire couples, or like if you hook up with another crew member, one of you is getting the chop. She says it complicates “boating dynamics”.’ Petra leant back and admired her handiwork. ‘I think it’s written somewhere in the crew pack, but honestly it’s like right at the end. I didn’t even get to it.’
‘Well, that makes sense to me.’ And it did, though she’d hardly registered it when she’d first read the pack. But with such small quarters, romantic politics would be a nightmare. ‘Well famously Declan didn’t even know who the guests were so I suspect he definitely hasn’t got to that bit.’
‘You’re not interested then?’ Petra flashed an inquisitive raised eyebrow in her direction through the mirror.
‘Oh no, God no. He’s sweet, but not my type, and he’s so young.’
Petra nodded, and Sofia seized on the moment of girlish intimacy to do some probing of her own.
‘And what’s the deal with you and Stuart?’
Petra snorted. ‘Stuart? Are you joking?’
Sofia wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘Oh come on, he’s obviously super into you. I’ve never seen anyone blush that hard.’
‘I think that’s just the Scottish genes.’
‘If you say so. I think he’s really lovely.’
Brow pencil down, Petra had produced a curling wand from somewhere and was sectioning out a length of blonde hair. ‘He is really lovely; sadly that’s also not my type.’
The two of them giggled, and Sofia once again felt a warming glow of budding friendship.
‘Are you seriously done?’ Petra was looking Sofia up and down. ‘How do you look that good? You just changed and let your hair down. If only you had some glasses to take off, we’d have ourselves a classic rom-com makeover scene.’ Petra stood up, half her hair curled, and tied the scarf around Sofia’s head, turning her around to tie a tight knot at the nape of her neck.
