Gone Overboard

GONE OVERBOARD

Imagine this. Your best friend invites you to an all expenses paid holiday and you end up in prison for accepting it, admittedly in a very famous one, or more accurately, on a very famous one. I can’t even remember any more why I eventually agreed to her proposal, as I had been very busy sorting out the daily disasters at the bank during the aftermath of the global financial meltdown. Yes, I was in the middle of it and it was not funny, and in the process I lost all my respect for Americans, politicians, stockbrokers, investment bankers and asset managers alike. Not that I had ever been fond of them before the chaos started, but I had accepted a professional necessity for their existence. Somehow I was able to take two weeks off after having explained the once in a lifetime opportunity to go gallivanting with my best friend, for free.
“So, where are we going?” I asked her.
“It’ll be a surprise,” she replied mischievously. “Be in Cape Town on the twenty- third, I collect you from the airport and off we go.”
Unfortunately, on the morning of my first day off, my boss had urgently required my presence at the bank to explain to the board what this new Euro crisis was all about and to what extent we were affected. It was a long and difficult session and I had to admit to a round of nervous and pathetic looking gentlemen who obviously preferred to play golf that although things looked gloomy, it was unlikely that they would need to consider a career change. I had asked for a driver to take me to Oliver Tambo International Airport after the meeting since I had exactly one hour to check in, but luckily the traffic was not too bad and I sat in the classy departure lounge in time to SMS Felicity that I was on my way. This was the first time that I had a minute to give this holiday a thought.
You may wonder why I was at the receiving end of such generosity seeing that I did not need financial support of any kind. Had she perhaps changed her mind about me, after all those years? But then, you must understand, I had been instrumental last year in organizing Felicity a lucrative contract with my employer for the leasing of office machines at our Head Office in Johannesburg. They in fact extended the contract to all Durban and Cape Town branches. I reckon, it was her way of saying thank you. Not that I supported nepotism, not in my wildest dreams would I consider such unprofessional behavior but I brought the right people together to accomplish a good job and in the end, everybody benefited.
After I had collected my luggage I stood there waiting for her to pick me up by which time I was so exhausted that I grumpily sat down on my suitcase. That was one of the personality traits that I did not like about her. She was never punctual. It was beyond my comprehension why a simple appointment with me at the airport was difficult to adhere to. In retrospect, this was maybe the moment when all the trouble began.
Half an hour later I saw her running into the building, her long red hair flying and eyes wide open. She stopped and turned her head this way and that. Then she saw me and smiled.
“Sorry, sorry for being late, the traffic is pathetic, you know.”
Out of breath, she hugged and kissed me and I could smell her expensive perfume, Chanel Chance as usual. My bad mood vanished instantly.
“Now, tell me, what is the mystery destination? I am excited to hear what your plans are.”
“Later. I want to see your eyes when you realize what the adventure is going to be.”
She drove to a small hotel in downtown Cape Town where we changed into a taxi. She collected her belongings at the reception, threw everything in the boot and jumped on the passenger seat. Out of the corner of my eye, when we were already on the road, I saw that a woman with too much make-up drove the other car away.
“To the harbor, please,” she said and looked at me with her irresistible smile.
Believe me, I was very disappointed. She wanted to go shopping at the Waterfront! What a boring start to the holiday. But then I realized that she did not say Waterfront but harbor.
During the trip she explained to the taxi driver on which peer to find the vessel.
You may get excited about a cruise, I was definitely not. The razzmatazz on these cruise liners sailing along the South African coast puts me off. Felicity turned around and saw my long face.
“Don’t worry, it is not what you think. The boat is a mail ship and we are going to … St Helena. Yes, yes, yes!” She clapped her hands several times like a child on Christmas Day.
Oh boy, where on earth was St Helena? We all heard about the island in school during history lessons, I guess, but I had no idea where exactly it was located.
“Felicity, I get sea sick easily. I don’t think this is a good idea. I did not even take tablets with.”
“Don’t panic. It is the calmest time of the year and I have tablets to supply the whole army.”
Reluctantly, I heaved my luggage onto the boat. There was nobody to help us, it was a mail ship, you see, a working ship, delivering vital supplies to the island.
A young man in a starched white uniform ushered us to our cabins. Felicity had booked adjoining but separate cabins for us, which I interpreted as another sign of her generosity. On the other hand I would not have minded sharing a room with her. We were best friends after all.
We agreed to unpack and change into comfortable clothes and then meet for drinks at the bar. I was still in my suit and felt sweaty and overdressed. In the cabin I found a brochure about the voyage on the bedside table. Eventually I learned what I was in for. Five days to St Helena, three days on the island and five days back to Cape Town.
You may be asking yourself what you can do during ten days on a mail ship without the possibility of going on land for an interesting excursion or two. So was I. Would they invite us to scrub the deck or peel potatoes or sort the mail? I wasn’t even sure if they still had mail on board. Wouldn’t they fly the post to the island? Well, as I learned much later to my utter dismay, St Helena has no airport; the only way in and out is by boat.
Conveniently, there was a map on the back page of the brochure. The tiny island was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, sort of half way between Angola and Brazil, one of the world’s remotest islands, it mentioned. Why on earth did Felicity want to go there and take me with on top of it? I had never realized that she was interested in looking at Napoleon’s tomb. In fact, I doubted that she knew about its existence. In my opinion such a trip was a waste of time and money.
I was thirsty and hungry, changed and left the cabin in search of the bar. To my surprise I found a lot more cabin doors like mine in the passages leading to the upper deck. When I noticed that the ship started to pulse I went straight to the viewing deck. Black smoke belched from the funnel, which clouded Table Mountain. Quickly it disappeared in obscurity.
The first couple of days were uneventful and quiet and when I tried to figure out why she had taken me on that trip, Felicity just smiled. I decided to accept her incomprehensible decision-making and enjoy myself seeing that I had no option. Each morning part of the sun deck was converted into a cricket field for an hour or so and the match between passengers and officers was going down to the wire. Both sides were fiercely competitive. The captain, we were told, did not tolerate an officers’ defeat. With hindsight, I should have become suspicious when I noticed that Felicity was actually attentively following the game during her daily sessions of sun tanning on the deck chair reading trashy novels. I cannot recall, that she ever showed interest in sport. When I sat next to her deck chair, not nearly as skimpily dressed, and the cricket was not on, we talked about work, of course, yet sometimes I had the feeling that she was distant.
During those rare tête-à-têtes, my attention was occasionally distracted, as it was difficult not to look at her slim and nicely toned body when she jumped into the pool. Once, I gently stroked her arm, but unfortunately, she showed no reaction to my caress. Now, I must add that Felicity is my brother’s wife.
Honestly, my desire to touch her small firm breasts or shapely legs had vanished years ago and once she was married to my brother Alex, my crush on her had first turned into appreciation and thereafter into pure friendship. She was my brother’s wife and now my best friend, I convinced myself.
After I had overcome a panic attack when I found out that I could not use any of my fancy gadgets to connect with the outside world, I looked for interesting reading matter in the library and discovered an aged coffee table book about St Helena, which I perused from beginning to end in ten minutes. Really, this was not my world. I prefer to read the business section of the newspaper first thing in the morning. Here, I was faced with sitting, eating, drinking day in, day out. As you can imagine, I was bored out of my mind. Most of the other passengers were islanders in pension age returning home and every now and again I engaged in a conversation with an elderly gentleman. But what could he possibly contribute to a discussion having lived all his life on the island?
The first time that I became really concerned was on the fourth day, as Felicity had not shown up for breakfast. We typically met at around nine o’clock and I went down to her cabin. She did not answer. On the other hand, I had observed on previous occasions that she had disappeared for a couple of hours without explanation leaving me to my own devices only to surface happily smiling for the next meal.
During the rest of the morning I spent time playing bingo and –surprise-surprise, I quite enjoyed it and even won two games. And you won’t believe it, but they served cucumber sandwiches while we played, Victorian-style on an antique three-tier cake tray, which was sort of an introduction to the island, which is stuck in a time warp, a last colonial outpost. One of my competitors invited me for a round of black jack in the small casino on the entertainment deck and we agreed to meet an hour before dinner. Aimlessly strolling around, I eventually found Felicity sitting in the coffee shop by herself as if nothing had happened. She had not been feeling well and had slept until late, she explained. To me, she looked perfectly normal and I wanted to brush it off when she turned around and said under her breath: “You know, what I wanted to tell you for quite some time...” She was interrupted by the waitress serving her tea. “Yes, you wanted to say?” I enquired but she waved a hand in dismissal and looked out of the window. “Ag, nothing, don't worry.” She had taken flu medication and was already feeling much better, she added absentmindedly.
I shrugged and reminded her that the officers would entertain the passengers to a cabaret after supper and that she might want to attend a hilarious performance. Felicity promised to join me for the show. But she didn’t. A female officer with too much make-up approached me at the dinner table and whispered into my ear with a very unpleasant and hard accent that Felicity was still feeling unwell and was not coming. I only realized much later that I had seen this woman before.
At night, a storm had developed and I started to feel queasy for the first time. I wanted to take up Felicity’s offer for the tablets and stumbled over to her cabin, which to my surprise was not locked and Felicity was not in her room. The bathroom was empty and her bed neatly made. I speculated that perhaps she also could not sleep and may have started packing because on the next day we would sail into Jamestown but her clothes were untouched in the cupboard.
I am sure that you can picture my getting alarmed. From then on everything went very fast. I rushed upstairs to search for her. I combed the obvious places but could not find her anywhere. At some stage I thought I saw her standing by the railing in the forward section with the cargo and containers. But when I eventually found a door leading there, everything was quiet and nobody was standing by the railing. I then informed an officer on night duty about my concern. The captain was awakened, who grumpily called me in and sent for more officers to join him. The woman with the repulsive make-up, whose name was Elanka by the way, the same one who had spoken to me the night before, confirmed that Felicity had not been feeling well. The captain ordered an extensive search of the boat. The devastating result was that Felicity could not be found on the RMS St Helena.
You should have seen the captain when his big porous nose flared up. If you ask me, he was utterly useless, had it not been for the calm and collected reaction of his first officer who had a message transmitted to Cape Town as well as St Helena that a passenger had gone overboard during the night. A couple of hours later the captain ordered me back into his cabin and together with his first officer, interrogated me. I did not understand what was happening to me. All these inappropriate questions. What kind of relationship did I have with her? Why was she feeling unwell? Did we have a fight? Was she depressed? Did she have problems? All I could state was that I was unaware of any problems other than that she was feeling off the day before yet not mentioning that I had doubts about it. The captain looked at me questioningly and ordered me not to leave his cabin. Elanka was called in and she sat down on the opposite chair, staring at m. When she smiled exposing thick smears of lipstick on her front teeth, I looked the other way and tried hard to ignore her cheap looks.
After we docked in Jamestown, nobody was allowed to leave the vessel. The police arrested me and then they took statements from crew and passengers without much success.
I was escorted to a small police station in Jamestown, as I found out later, the only one on the island. More questions, more accusations, more information. One of the police officers confronted me with the fact that they had found a piece of paper in Felicity’s cabin, which was only used by officers of the RMS St Helena. It had a telephone number scribbled on it and whether I could identify it.
“No! I want to speak to my brother.”
“He is on his way,” they said.
“Excellent, then he will confirm later on, that there was no problem.”
“Later? The ship takes five days as you know.”
“Surely he is coming by plane!”
“We have no airport.”
“Oh.”
This was how I came to spend time involuntarily and much longer than planned on St Helena, the famous prison island. When I phoned my boss to explain the delay, he thought it was the best joke of the century and that he was unaware that I was related to a famed French family to be held in custody because of guilt by association.
The police looked at me, the boring banker with reading glasses, decided to put me under house arrest and booked me into the Consulate Hotel next door. I was to report to the police station twice daily. Now I looked at them. This was absurd! How could I possibly escape? Paddle in a dinghy to Brazil? Napoleon refers!
Due to my personal circumstances being extremely unpleasant to say the least I had no time or energy to give Felicity's disappearance a thought let alone grieve. All I wanted was go back to work. When Alex eventually arrived, pale, very thin and with red eyes, he bailed me out after a long debate. He had to leave dozens of references, a lot of money along with contact details of high-ranking government officials and board members of my bank behind. As an unprecedented exception, I was allowed to depart to South Africa on the next boat. You know, Alex works for the Foreign Office in Pretoria and can pull a few strings if necessary. In the hotel lobby, we fell into each other’s arms, distraught and exhausted.
“I saw it coming,” he said, sobbing uncontrollably. “I think she had an affair.”
I looked at him in disbelief and was about to say: unfortunately not with me, but bit my tongue. Yet on my return to Johannesburg I found a postcard in my letterbox, from Turkey.
Greetings from Istanbul? I frowned, turned it around and my eyes almost popped out. In a very familiar feminine handwriting it read: 'Dear Anna, thanks for everything, you made a perfect chaperon. Please tell Alex that I am alright- and very happy . Love Felicity and Elanka.'