The Odyssey Read online

  Can we start Families now, Ezra interrupted. I’m getting tired.

  Mia turned to stare at him. Sure, she said, drily.

  Families works like this. Someone is the mum. Someone is the dad. Someone is the baby. I don’t know how we came up with it, it just sort of happened, and after a while we formalized it with a name. We’d take it in turns being the characters but we all agreed being the baby was best. If we were feeling tired or uninventive we’d just lay whoever was the baby out on the bed and bring them food and give them a bottle of whatever we had to drink and stroke their hair and whisper reassuring things into their ears. If we were feeling more imaginative we would work out a more complicated scenario. Something like, the dad has recently become aware of the mum’s ongoing infidelity but has decided not to confront her about it, and the mum has found a lump in her left breast which has triggered a latent eating disorder, and the baby has acid reflux and is not sleeping at all.

  We weren’t feeling up to much that evening so we went with the standard set-up. It was my turn to be the baby. Ezra was the mum and Mia was the dad. Mia arranged me on the bed and held the back of her hand to my forehead.

  Mum, she said. I think she’s got a temperature.

  Oh really? Ezra replied. Because she’s been fine with me all day.

  He sat at the base of my feet and felt along my calves.

  I suppose she’s a little clammy, he said. Could you get me a cold compress?

  Mia went into the tiny bathroom and emerged with a piece of muslin cloth, soaked and wrung out with water. She handed it to Ezra, who stood up and blotted my face.

  There there, he said. I didn’t realize you were feeling poorly, little one. He tenderly placed the damp cloth across my forehead. I hope she’s not caught anything. There are some nasty things going around.

  I’m sure she’s fine, Mia replied. We’ll keep an eye on her.

  Can you please keep your voice down? Ezra said. You always do this. Storm in and shout.

  I’m not shouting, Mia said, in a loud whisper. Is this better?

  Much better, Ezra said. Thank you.

  I lay back, enjoying the cool weight of the compress. The ship was gently rocking. I began drifting off. I tuned in and out of a conversation Mia and Ezra were having about how Mia was always taking me out of the house with wet hair.

  I was woken by Ezra running a fingertip along my upper arm. Time for something to eat, he said, holding out a bottle of aloe vera water. Mia placed a hand under my head, which I tilted back, as Ezra fed me the bottle. It was only about a quarter full and I drank what was left even though it was unpleasantly viscous and sweet. After I had finished, Mia dabbed at my mouth with a towel.

  Good girl, she said.

  Good girl, Ezra echoed. He propped me up, rubbed my back in circles. I released a small burp in response. That’s it, he said. Let it all out.

  Shall we try you on some watermelon? Mia said, holding a triangle of pink, wet fruit. I covered my teeth with my lips and bit at it. The juice ran down my chin and neck. Mia used the towel to clean me.

  You silly thing, she said.

  You missed a spot, Ezra said. Here, let me do it.

  He took the towel from Mia and began wiping my mouth more industriously. Then he returned it to Mia.

  Can we finish up now? she said, dropping the towel and breaking character. Pulp Fiction’s on at twelve.

  I had applied to Keith’s mentoring programme after a notification informed me I was eligible. When I saw it pop up on my tablet, I looked around the empty room for evidence of some sort of administrative error, before realizing, yes, I was, and always had been, just a little bit better than my colleagues. Just a little more invested. Just a little more enthused. It was why my cabin had a window and theirs did not. There was no question about it, I was going to apply.

  There were three parts to it. First, an aptitude test. The standard logic and psychometric exercises you might expect. Rows of squares partially blacked out waiting to be put into order. Pretend news articles about the state of the automobile industry or the French Revolution that you had to make sense of. Second, a video portion in which you had to record yourself saying why you wanted to join the programme. Finally, an essay on what wabi sabi meant to you, and how you adhered to its principles throughout your daily living. The first part was tricky. I thought of myself as more clever than most, but so were the majority of the staff on board. The second part was a little easier. I had done all the available customer-service training. I knew how to sound interested in things. I also knew that the final part, the essay, would be what landed it.

  I thought for a long while, moving slowly around my cabin. I considered eating a rotten apple, describing the flavour, the crystalline golden hue. But then I remembered my toothbrush, the bottom of which had snapped off a few months ago. I wrote about how it was somehow more beautiful that way, that its deficits gave it charm, an undeniable kind of grace. I wrote about how I’d broken it by yanking it too quickly out of my mouth, that it had snapped one of my teeth too. How I had studied the scalloped edge of it, a small pearl in my hand. I wrote that it was an accident but look where we are. Once I’d pressed Send I went to the bathroom and threw my toothbrush in the bin. On my tablet, I pulled up the resources tab and ordered a new one.

  The morning after I saw Mia and Ezra, I was given permission to miss my shift in order to attend the initiation ceremony. It was held in Keith’s office, on the top deck. In the waiting room were a handful of other people who I assumed had also been selected for the programme. His receptionist signed me in, offered me strawberry mochi and cucumber water without looking up from her computer. Her uniform was prim and neat, a blank canvas of efficiency. In front of her desk were several rows of straight-backed chairs, and behind them, a ring of flat cushions strewn on the floor. I took a glass of water and a piece of mochi shaped like a kitten and retreated to a cushion, sitting cross-legged and biting off the mochi’s head, its sleeping eyes and inked-on mouth. I sipped the cucumber water. It tasted bitter and old. Fibrous strands of cucumber wrapped themselves around my molars.

  I looked around the room. There were ten of us in total. I recognized two of the women waiting, Madeleine and Kai, plus a man with a mole at the absolute centre of his chin. I had worked with Madeleine in the kitchens and shared a rotation with Kai at one of the lower-deck casinos. I remembered little about Madeleine but could vividly recall the casino. High heels sinking into pile carpeting. Gaudy lighting and men weeping on the phone. The smell of Kai’s hair, acidic, like cheap wine. I couldn’t place the man, though we nodded at each other in mutual acknowledgement. The brief camaraderie triggered a hum deep in my stomach, and I could not determine whether it was anxiety or excitement. I once heard that a good way to cope with anxiety is to just pretend it is excitement. The body’s articulation is the same either way. You can trick your brain into practically anything.

  The receptionist called Kai’s name and she stood up, then raised her shoulders to demonstrate some level of trepidation. Keith’s voice could be heard as the door opened and closed. It made me feel anxious. Or perhaps excited.

  I got up and helped myself to another piece of mochi, this time shaped like a rabbit. I sat back down and put it into my mouth, realizing too late that I had run out of water, that I could not go up to the desk a third time. I kept chewing and chewing as the mochi failed to change in size or constitution. After a little while I gave up and, when nobody was looking, I spat it into my sleeve where it fastened like a living thing to the underside of my wrist. Everyone was either staring at their tablets or closing their eyes as if to meditate and I felt at once relieved that my humiliation had gone unnoticed and entirely alone in dealing with this nightmare. Eventually, Kai emerged looking flush-faced and teary and my name was called. I stood up, taking great care not to let the mochi slip out from beneath my sleeve. Life is hell, I thought, as I entered the room.

  It was quite a small space. Keith was sat behind his desk, which w
as mostly empty, with the exception of two small bowls and a large iron teapot with an indented bamboo handle, arranged on a serving tray made from a sliced-out ring of tree trunk. I sat down like a very sweet girl. Keith loomed over the table, taller than I remembered. My mind immediately went towards thoughts on whether or not I found him attractive, and if I did not, whether that would be enough to dissuade me from having sex with him, should the opportunity ever arise. I hoped nothing could be read from my face. I braided my fingers in my lap.

  Ingrid, Keith said. Please take a seat.

  Thank you, I replied. But I am already sitting.

  I see, he said. Well please make yourself comfortable.

  I rounded my shoulders and arched my back until I felt as close to comfortable as I could imagine. I waited for him to say more.

  I am grateful for this opportunity, I offered, attempting a smile. The mochi pressed moistly against my wrist.

  Grateful, Keith said. Grateful is an interesting choice of word.

  He stood up and lifted the teapot. He made a show of swirling its contents around. He reminded me of my dad post-retirement, clumsily materteral, fussing around the back of the sofa. I gazed up at him as he poured tea into the bowls. It smelled like soy sauce and herbs. He took his seat once again, and gestured for me to take a bowl. I reached forward to hold it with both hands, instinctively blowing on the translucent brown liquid. He took the other bowl, cupping it against his chest, self-consciously cute, the way large men are when they do something girlish.

  You know the etymology of the word grateful, Keith said, comes from the Saxon word grot. And that means large. To be filled up with a feeling of largeness. Isn’t that interesting?

  It is, I said. It is interesting.

  He leaned forward to sniff the tea. The WA was swaying ever so slightly, the room moving back and forth. He lifted the bowl to his lips and took a sip, closing his eyes to savour the taste. He knew I was watching. He opened his eyes slowly, like someone coming round from a deep meditation.

  Something that I like to think about, he said, is the singularity of a moment. Do you ever think about that?

  I don’t, I said, apologetic.

  Well perhaps you should.

  He placed the bowl back on the table and looked at it. It was moss-green, slightly asymmetric. It gleamed when it caught the light.

  This bowl is called a chawan.

  I nodded.

  That’s Japanese, he said.

  Ah, I replied.

  That’s Japanese for bowl.

  He ran his finger around the lip of the bowl, its dips and peaks, like a slowly rotating landscape. Then he tilted it back to show me the matte underside.

  Ingrid, he said. Are you aware of the Japanese aesthetic tradition of wabi sabi?

  Yes, I replied quickly. I am.

  Indulge me, he said.

  I sat up straight. I was attentive and willing to please, and there seemed to me no reason to pretend otherwise.

  Everything is going into and coming out of nothingness, I recited.

  That’s right, he said. He rubbed his face then brought the bowl back to his lips. You know I’ve been to Japan. He paused and looked thoughtfully off to one side. A few times, actually.

  Wow, I said.

  How about you? he asked. Have you ever been to Japan?

  No.

  You really should go, he said. If you get the chance.

  I will, I said.

  He nodded. Drink your tea.

  My eyes fell to my own chawan. It was rain-grey and uneven. It didn’t gleam when it caught the light. I lifted it to my mouth and sipped some of the tea. Fragrant and light on the tongue, with a strange aftertaste. I took comfort in the heaviness of the bowl, like how I’d get my husband to lie on top of me when I was having a panic attack. Keith levelled his gaze at me from across the table, a horizon coming into view.

  It’s strange to think, he said, the same accident of design that led to the creation of this bowl is no different to the accident of you and I being alive.

  I blinked into the bowl, noticed dark sediment pooling at the bottom. I moved it from side to side, disrupting the soft grit, previously still and contained.

  That’s something to think about, Keith said. Isn’t it?

  I smiled at him expansively. It really is, I said.

  A few moments passed and I watched Keith make up his mind about me. He reached over to remove my empty bowl and stacked it within his own, putting them both to one side. Then he smiled back at me, smiling like I was a person who was elusive and vague but who ultimately got it.

  There’s something about you, he said. Though I’m not sure what.

  Thank you, I said.

  You’re welcome. A lot of people wouldn’t have taken that as a compliment.

  I’ll take what I can get, I replied.

  Keith seemed momentarily embarrassed. For the first time it occurred to me that I might be older than him, and I wondered whether that meant I had some sort of duty of care.

  So this is the programme, he said. And you’re in. Congratulations.

  Thank you.

  You’ve already said that. He frowned. And you’re still welcome.

  He extended his hand to me and I shook it. The wet mochi bulged beneath my sleeve. I’d forgotten all about it and was strangely relieved to find it still there, clinging to my wrist like it wasn’t afraid to stay with me. I turned to show myself out, pushing open the door.

  Ingrid, Keith called from behind the desk. Don’t forget to be the best you you can be. OK?

  I turned back towards him and nodded seriously.

  I won’t, I said.

  I was grateful. I really was.

  When I went back to work later that afternoon the gift shop smelled of salt and was rocking forcefully. We were coming out of a period of relatively calm weather but now things seemed always to move. This made me nervous on account of the fact I was not a strong swimmer. Or perhaps more accurately, I had never actually learned to swim. There was only one question about it as part of the application process, and obviously I lied, said I’d spent summers splashing around in hotel pools, went to the seaside every bank holiday. It was not, to my mind, a big deal.

  We had protocols for when the ship was pitching or rolling heavily, but much of it was up to our own common sense. At which point did we consider the choppiness to be a liability, and when were we prepared to address it. By the time I arrived, Zach was already running around gathering small objects into wire shopping baskets. Trinkets! he shouted when he saw me. For Christ sake, Ingrid, help me protect the trinkets! I watched him ineffectually pluck tiny clocks embedded into semi-precious stones and old cans of tuna refurbished into pillboxes from the shelves. He had been on this rotation longer than I had and I found his ineptitude repulsive.

  I kept half an eye on him but didn’t move from behind the register, scrolling through old messages with Mia on my tablet. The shop kept rocking. Zach continued putting things away.

  The glassware, I instructed, coming to. It’s the glassware that needs doing first.

  Oh god, he said. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.

  It’s fine, I said, but I hoped he knew it was not. You do the champagne flutes and I’ll do everything else.

  OK, he said.

  And please remember to handle them by the stem, I said. I don’t want a fiasco like last time.

  Of course not, he replied. I’ll handle them by the stem, I’ll handle them by the stem.

  I stepped out from behind the counter and cautiously approached the rattling glassware. I picked up one of the champagne flutes, holding the stem between my index and thumb.

  Like this, I said.

  Zach half-ran towards me. He picked one up.

  Like this? he said.

  His hand was shaking.

  Very good, I said. Exactly like that. But please don’t run.

  I smiled in a way I found excruciating and began tidying away the whisky tumblers and highball glasses.
We had foam-lined crates to store them in when the ship got rocky. I plucked them from the shelves, slid them into the soft, squeaking gaps. It was work I was good at. I’d attended a workshop called Fluid Movement, which was all about relaxing into the waves and not working against them. It was based on bon odori, a type of Japanese traditional dance. It could increase productivity during storms by thirty per cent. Mia told me about it. She told me it was optional but that considering I would be working in the gift shop it was in my best interests to attend. We were told the ocean was not something we should fight but something we should lean into. We were shown how to do that, how to move with the waves. At the end of the session we were asked to lie on the floor, and feel the sea support us. The sea will always support you, the lady said. It is as solid as the ground beneath your feet.

  Behind me I heard a crash, just a small one. I turned around to see Zach, devastated, surrounded by smashed glass. Blue and green in the light, like the body of a fly. I walked calmly over and helped him collect the larger fragments and put them into the bin. I liked putting things in bins. There! I would think. In the bin! Where bad things go! I liked bins very much, generally.

  We could go quicker if you weren’t shaking so much, I told him.

  Everything took so long. Everything seemed to take an eternity but we had so little time. Why was he still shaking?

  You are shaking too, he said. You know you are shaking too, right?

  I looked at the glass in my hand, vibrating, and realized, I am shaking. I am shaking too.

  I had the evening free and so did Mia. We arranged to eat dinner in the crew mess. I was tired after a sore and slow-moving day. I’d found myself periodically lingering near the miniature bottles of spirits, but I did not let myself think about how much easier the day would be if I was drunk.

  We’d arranged to meet in the queue, whoever arrived first claiming a spot. But when I entered the canteen and saw the huge, undulating chain of people I semi-recognized, I had the feeling of standing on the edge of fast-moving rapids, too scared to jump in.