Grandma talking about her brother Jack, who died as a prisoner of war. The radio message she’d received while on the ship, and how she’d wanted to return home.

The captain telling a story about an outbreak of gastro that caused the evacuation of an entire cruise ship of passengers on a small Pacific island. How the local hospital couldn’t cope.

Alex’s leg pressed against mine beneath the table.

Grandma tipping her head back to laugh, the silver flash of her fillings, the quiver in the hand that held her glass. An image of her hurting herself, pulling out her own hair, but I don’t know where it came from. A story she told? Does she know how physical pain can save you—can make the real pain disappear?

I remember the textures of the crème brûlée—the crunch of the toffee, the smooth sweet butteriness inside. I must have eaten the entire thing.

Walking Grandma to our room. The three of us huddled together with laughter. Alex waiting outside while I helped her find her nightgown. Her toothbrush. While I kissed her goodnight.

‘I’m going to stay up a little later with Alex,’ I must have said, and Grandma smiled, her eyes already closed.

‘Have fun,’ she murmured. ‘Stay out as late as you like.’

Walking the length of the ship on the promenade deck, the sky clear, the challenge of another race. Holding the dress at my waist, him beating me, blaming the dress.

The stumble of a kiss, my balance uneven from wine, his breath sharp-tasting and the skin of his back soft beneath my fingers, covering ribs and muscle and the knobs of his spine. The different smell of him: chemical smells I don’t recognise and, beneath, the earthy smell of his sweat, sweet-musky, like when you strip the bark from a tree.

His room somehow—I can’t remember how we ended up there—and our bodies without clothes, the bones of them bumping together, the skin rubbing and stickiness and latex smell. I remember the feeling of sex, that wonderful drunk sense of being obliterated by it. There but also gone. Also elsewhere, and the caught gasp of it. The fucking beauty. Ridiculous.

Now it is just four-in-the-morning slide and sorrow. How could you let him, Hannah? Why would you do this to someone you love? How could you do this to Ash? How could you let him see your ugly body? How could you lose control like that? Berating myself all the way back to the cabin—so stupid; how could you be so stupid—and then pressing the handle quietly, pushing open the heavy fireproof door. Slipping off my shoes, dress, underpants and bra. Beneath the pillow my PJs. Not even brushing my teeth. The bump of my elbow against the nightstand, muttering, ‘Fuck,’ and Grandma turning, waking or half asleep still but hearing.