Blood Cruise Read online

  She giggles. The little piggy is falling over himself to impress her.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asks with a smile.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Someone pushes at her arm and she turns around, annoyed. A balding man in a suit that reeks of sweat glares back at her.

  ‘Would you mind pulling your tits in so people can get past?’ he shouts.

  ‘God, calm down, will you?’ Madde tells him.

  ‘Yeah, calm down,’ Lasse says.

  ‘It’s not my fucking fault she’s so fat her tits take up half the bar,’ the man bellows.

  Madde bursts out laughing, spilling her new drink. ‘Why are you so bloody obsessed with my boobs? Is it because you know you’re never going to touch them in a million years?’

  She can sense Lasse watching them nervously.

  ‘You’re just begging to get slapped about, aren’t you?’ the man says. The stench coming from his jacket almost suffocates her.

  ‘I never beg,’ she replies.

  ‘Are you telling me you’d hit a girl?’ Lasse manages behind her.

  The man’s eyes narrow and Madde is suddenly scared. Lasse is trying to make out like he is going to defend her honour, but she senses he wouldn’t think twice about using her as a human shield.

  ‘She’s not fucking worth it,’ the man hisses.

  Madde shrugs. ‘That’s what cowards tend to say,’ she calls after him as he lumbers off. She leans back against the bar, sucking hard on her straws.

  ‘I hope he didn’t upset you,’ Lasse coos in her ear.

  ‘Why would I be upset?’

  He hesitates. ‘Because he called you … fat.’

  Madde runs a hand through her hair. ‘Well, I am,’ she says without looking at him.

  ‘Maybe according to current norms,’ he says. ‘But that’s only because we have twisted notions about the female form.’

  She swallows another mouthful, feeling his hesitation. Little Piggy is rooting around the dirt for the right words.

  ‘You’re really … wow,’ he says finally. ‘You really stand up for who you are.’

  ‘And who am I?’ she says. ‘I mean, according to you?’

  He licks his front teeth. ‘You are who you are, you know. You don’t apologise. You wear sexy clothes and demand respect; you’re kind of like, Take me the way I am or get lost. You really own your body. Know what I mean? You don’t apologise.’

  He looks like he has just bestowed a marvellous gift and can’t comprehend why she isn’t over the moon. But she doesn’t need validation from Pig Face. She needs to have fun, and she bloody well isn’t having fun any more. Madde puts her glass down and pulls the strap of her purse up over her shoulder.

  She is just about to announce that she is leaving when Zandra appears with her face sucker in tow.

  ‘Let’s all go and do karaoke!’ she squeals.

  The whole stag-do gang cheers, Pig Face too, and Madde realises that if she wants to see Dan Appelgren tonight, she won’t be able to shake him.

  Tomas

  He notices that the people walking by the bench he is on are keeping as far away as possible, virtually pressing themselves against the railing as they pass. He doesn’t look at them. Doesn’t want to be looked at. He just hears their footsteps, hears their conversations die when they draw level with him.

  He can’t move. Can’t scream. His body has shut down. The only thing left is his heart, pounding against the bench underneath his chest, and a crunching sound that fills his head. Hard things that crack as other hard things push up beneath. Soft parts that are torn apart with a wet sound. It hurts. So bad. Like needles, no, like awls, drilling through his skull. He tongues the roof of his mouth; the surface is hard now, like cartilage.

  His teeth shift when the tip of his tongue touches them, wobbling back and forth in their sockets. He can’t keep from touching them again. One of his front teeth falls out. A trickle of warm blood seeps from the hole in his gums and down his throat.

  More teeth come loose. Some are cracked; they fill his mouth like sticky gravel. He sucks the blood and pulp off before opening his mouth, letting the teeth fall out. They land on the wooden bench with a hollow rattle. Some fall onto the floor below.

  The molars are the last to go. They take with them clumps of mangled gums that he swallows along with the blood. When he spits them out, it sounds like he has thrown a handful of dice.

  Blood. So much blood. It is threatening to start leaking out of his mouth, even though he keeps swallowing it down. The tip of his tongue roves across his gums, touching the even rows of deep holes. He sucks harder. Suckles the blood out.

  Something sharp in one of the holes nicks the tip of his tongue. Just a splinter, a tooth fragment? No. The sharp thing is moving. Growing. And now he can feel it in several places: new teeth, replacing the old. Every corner of his skull is creaking, but the worst of the noise has subsided. The path is clear in his gums.

  And then everything is quiet.

  He can still hear people at a distance. The deep sound of the ship’s engines is ever-present; it feels like a part of him now. But inside him, it is quiet, quieter than it has ever been.

  He swallows, but there is barely any blood coming out now.

  He can no longer hear his own pulse in his ears. And he suddenly realises what the silence means. The blood has stopped pumping through his veins.

  His heart isn’t beating.

  What an emptiness they have left in his chest, his heartbeats.

  The thought is distant. Fascinated.

  And then the next wave of pain crashes over him as his body begins to die.

  Calle

  The tiny vibrations in the floor, the familiar sensation in the pit of his stomach when the Charisma changes course are reminders that they are not on dry land. Soon they will reach Åland.

  The whisky no longer burns Calle’s throat but slides down like soft, liquid velvet. He closes his eyes, tries to focus on the sounds to keep from thinking about what Vincent might be doing at this moment, somewhere on the ship. He hears a glass shatter, the laughter coming from the dance floor, the singer who is making a painfully corny dansband classic sound like something from a film noir despite the jaunty accompaniment, the clattering of a cleaner clearing glasses from a table.

  Calle opens his eyes and downs the last of his whisky. The beams of light flash across the dance floor in the same patterns as always. Even the voices around sound the same. And behind the bar Filip is pulling pints with the well-practised movements Calle knows so well.

  It is as though he just imagined quitting his job on the ship. As though everything that has happened since was a dream. He is suddenly struck by a crazy feeling that the Charisma has sucked him back into his old life. He managed to get away from her once, but the ship lured him back with the moronic idea of proposing here, and he stepped right into the trap.

  Calle raises the glass to his lips before realising it is empty. Filip gave him at least a triple. His second one of the evening.

  He looks at the dance floor. The group of girls who were in the bar before have formed a circle and are singing along with gusto. A couple are necking gratuitously, open-mouthed, violently kneading each other’s buttocks. A bloke in a cowboy hat is standing alone with his arms raised, rocking like a child who has just learned to stand up unsupported. Calle hasn’t seen any of them before, yet he has seen them all.

  ‘Why are you sitting here all by yourself?’ someone with a Finnish accent shouts in his ear, making him jump.

  When he turns, a woman is standing right next to him. She is wearing a sparkly top that ends just above her bellybutton. Her white-blonde hair falls in soft curls around a cute face with a pointy nose. She looks like someone who has lived a hard life, but there is something regal about her. It is the woman who always used to say she wanted to live aboard the Charisma, one of his classic anecdotes.

  But she doesn’t recognise him.

  ‘Come on, let’s dance!’
she shouts, snatching up his hand. ‘I love this song!’

  ‘No thanks,’ Calle replies, ‘not tonight.’

  ‘What do you mean, “not tonight”? All we have is tonight!’

  She grins, but he knows she can turn at any moment, become aggressive. He shakes his head.

  ‘I can’t,’ he says.

  ‘Sure you can,’ she says, pulling on him so hard he almost falls out of his armchair. She bursts out laughing. ‘Oops! Come on then!’

  ‘Just leave me alone!’ Calle says, and immediately regrets it. ‘I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘Why the fuck are you here if you don’t want to dance?’

  ‘I’ve had a really bad night,’ he says, trying to look apologetic.

  ‘I can make it better. I promise.’

  Her grip around his arm tightens. Her nails are chewed down to the quick.

  ‘Thanks,’ Calle says, ‘but no thanks.’

  ‘Oh come on now, don’t be so bloody boring!’

  He pulls his hand, which is getting sweaty, back from her.

  ‘Not happening,’ he says. ‘I think you should walk away.’

  A long tirade in Finnish. He recognises a handful of the curse words.

  ‘You think you’re better than me, is that it?’ she says finally.

  He doesn’t have it in him to try to get through to her again. She is so drunk she is nothing but a jumble of emotions and no impulse control. She collapses heavily into the chair next to his; he can’t be sure if she fell or meant to sit down.

  ‘No,’ Calle says wearily, ‘believe me, there’s no one I feel better than right now.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with me then?’ she says in an accusatory tone, tossing her hair. ‘You can tell me, I can take it.’

  Calle doesn’t know what to say to that. And what difference does it make? She won’t remember this tomorrow anyway. He spreads his hands.

  ‘Fine, suit yourself, your fucking loss,’ she says. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  She shakes her head derisively at him and looks away. Calle is just about to leave when he spots Vincent at the bar.

  Calle can only see his neck, a glimpse of a shoulder, but that is enough.

  Vincent says something to Filip, who shakes his head, looking consolatory, just like he promised he would.

  Calle stands up and realises that he is drunker than he thought. He moves behind an octagonal column covered in mirrors reflecting the dance floor spotlights. It is a pathetic hiding place. He is pathetic. He is standing here, hiding from the man he thought he was going to marry.

  The woman who wants to live aboard the Charisma has nodded off in her chair.

  Madde

  ‘How are you doing, ladies?’ Dan Appelgren says. ‘Are you having a lovely cruise so far?’

  The spotlights are hot on Madde’s face. Beyond them, the room is a dark haze. And Dan has put his arms around her. He smells so good, just the way she imagined: spicy perfume and warm skin. An undertone of sweat. He smells like sex. Like the morning after sex. Before more sex. And his body is so hard against her soft one. His muscles feel like they are bolted tight to all the right places. The top few buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned; she can see soft little hairs climbing up his chest. She wants to feel them against her fingertips. She wants to sniff his neck.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Zandra replies.

  As always when she feels stressed, her accent is more pronounced.

  ‘Great, great,’ Dan says. ‘And where are you from?’

  ‘Boden originally,’ Zandra says, and someone howls in solidarity in the dark. ‘But now we live in Stockholm.’

  ‘Excellent. So what are you going to sing for us tonight, ladies?’

  ‘ “You’re the One That I Want”,’ Madde says.

  ‘Blimey,’ Dan says, and winks at her. ‘Is that a come-on?’

  Madde can hear laughing in the audience but it takes her a moment to get the joke. Zandra giggles shrilly, on the verge of turning into the screeching seagull.

  ‘Maybe,’ Madde replies.

  Dan gives her a warm smile. ‘Which one of you is doing Sandy then? And who is doing Danny?’

  Zandra looks hesitantly at Madde. They have sung the song lots of times, ever since there was a bit of a Grease revival when they were in secondary school. But they have never divided the song up between them. They have both sung both parts.

  ‘Zandra can do Sandy,’ Madde says. ‘She’s the good girl out of the two of us.’

  More laughing in the darkness. A few people whistle.

  It is so easy to talk to Dan. It feels incredibly natural. It is not just that he is funny. He makes her funny.

  ‘All right then,’ Dan says, and she can tell he is feeling the same way. ‘Let’s get this show on the road!’

  The audience is with them from the first note. They start clapping to the beat as soon as the music starts. Madde takes a deep breath. Stares at the lines of lyrics on the screen. Waits for them to change colour. She feels like a sprinter in the starting blocks.

  Zandra giggles again.

  And then it is time to sing.

  The last of her nerves fade. Madde can sing. No one can take that from her. She is a sprinter extending her stride. Unleashing her power. And she can feel the energy in the room change.

  Whooping and whistling.

  And Dan is standing next to the stage, watching her, stunned.

  Marianne

  Marianne and Göran step out into the hallway, leaving Charisma Starlight and the dansband music behind. They walk past the casino, the pub, the café. Poseidon is already closed, its tables neatly set for the next day. They continue forward until they are back outside the dark buffet restaurant where they had dinner. They get into a lift next to the stairs and Göran pushes the button for deck five.

  A laminated picture of a woman wrapped in a bathrobe is posted on one of the mirrors. She has cucumber slices on her eyes. A bright-green drink is within easy reach. Treat yourself to luxury at the Charisma Spa & Beauty, the romantic font urges. Marianne sees herself in a mirror and is shocked. She is shiny; her face is flushed, her hair is wild. She starts running her fingers through it.

  ‘You look good just the way you are,’ Göran says.

  She lets her hand fall. He bends down and kisses her gently. The stubble on his top lip scratches a little against her mouth. A muffled exclamation of surprise escapes her and she can feel his lips stretch into a smile before they leave hers.

  She already misses them.

  The lift stops; she looks down at the floor and realises the tips of her shoes are in a puddle of sick. She glances up again. Göran takes her by the arm; he hasn’t noticed. They step out on the fifth floor. Straight ahead is the steel door they boarded through earlier tonight. Göran leads her left, but Marianne stops when she spots a young woman passed out on the floor next to the lift. A strand of her blonde hair is stuck to her cheek and there can be no doubt that she is the source of the vomit on the tips of Marianne’s shoes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Marianne says tentatively, but the woman shows no reaction.

  ‘Come on,’ Göran says.

  ‘Shouldn’t we help her?’

  ‘She’s just had a bit too much to drink. She’s fast asleep, by the looks of it.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Security will take care of her.’

  Marianne nods, unsure, as Göran leads her away. In the long corridor, Marianne tries to drag her feet discreetly, scraping as much of the vomit as possible off on the carpet.

  They walk past row upon row of cabin doors. Music can be heard from behind several of them, hooting and laughing, unmistakeable moaning. At the end of the corridor is a large glass door. When Göran opens it, an icy gust of wind hits Marianne, immediately chilling her damp blouse. At least it has stopped raining, for now.

  She follows him onto the large bow deck, walking through a toxic cloud emanating from a group of smokers. They walk to the railing by the prow. Göran cu
ps his hands around a cigarette. The wind tousles Marianne’s hair and she takes a few deep breaths, grateful for the fresh air. When Göran takes a clearly gratifying drag and holds the pack out to her, she just shakes her head. Lights glitter in the distance. The white foam rushing along the hull of the ship almost hypnotises her; the enormous power of the movement, the lulling roar. Somewhere beneath the surface is her windowless cabin, where she changed her clothes before dinner. She shivers in the wind. Göran pulls her closer.

  The drone of the engines changes. The vibrations under her feet intensify.

  ‘Can you feel us slowing down?’ he says, pointing to the lights ahead of them. ‘We’ll be docking in Åland soon.’

  ‘But the cruise is for Åbo,’ she says. ‘Isn’t Åbo in Finland?’ She bites her lip. She sounds like an idiot.

  ‘Stopping for a bit in Åland is what lets them sell things tax-free. Something to do with the EU and all their red tape, I’d wager,’ Göran says. He pulls so hard on his cigarette it crackles. ‘Though it’s good business for the islanders. They make obscene amounts of money off it, since thousands of ships dock every year. And lots of the locals work on the ships as well. I think there’s hardly a person on the island who’s unemployed.’

  Marianne is quiet for a moment, realising how little she knows about Åland. She has barely ever had a single thought about the island before. It has always seemed a little bit made-up.

  ‘Isn’t it strange,’ she says after a while, ‘that there always seem to be loopholes to avoid rules, if you look hard enough?’

  ‘True. But money’s not the only thing the ships bring with them. If people get up to shenanigans on board they’re dumped on the Åland police, so they get some of the drawbacks too.’ He chuckles. ‘A mate of mine was thrown off here a year or two after the Estonia sank. He thought it’d be funny to joke around … so he got in the shower with his clothes on. Then he ran into one of the night clubs, soaked to the bone, shouting that the bow visor was open. People were terrified.’