LITMIR.BIZ

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dull grey sea.

      “What do you know about Terry’s trial?”

      “Don’t tell me you don’t know?” Duncan said. “Where were you when that happened? It was in all the papers.”

      “I can’t remember. I must have been out of town,” I said, somewhat defensively.

      “She killed a friend of hers named Michael in her sleep.”

      I stared at him as I thought about all the implications that simple sentence embodied. “And was acquitted?”

      “Yes. They determined that she didn’t know what she was doing, and based the case on several others where sleepwalkers were acquitted of violent crimes.”

      We talked some more about the case and I wondered how easy it would be to fake walking in your sleep and killing someone. But I was beginning to feel unwell and didn’t feel like pursuing my thoughts.

      I left Duncan and sought refuge in my room. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew Mar–tha was prancing in, carrying a vermilion and bilious green bathing suit draped over her shoulder and par–tially hidden by a multicoloured towel covered in teddy bears. Where she ever got her sense of colour I didn’t want to know.

      “C’mon, Cordi! It’s sauna time!”

      Sauna time. I groaned.

      “C’mon, it’ll do you good. Where’s your bathing suit?”

      I waved in the direction of the dresser, or whatever it’s called on a ship.

      Martha began fishing out everything until there was nothing left. She looked at me questioningly.

      “It’s the navy blue thing right there.” I moved towards her to get it when she pulled it out and waved it around.

      “There’s hardly anything here, for god’s sake. Where do you put yourself?”

      I grabbed the bathing suit from her and went into the head to find a towel. The sauna was right down at the end of my corridor — aft of my cabin in nautical terms. The change rooms were big enough for five peo–ple, but the sauna could have held ten because it lay mid–way between the men’s and the woman’s change room so that both could use it.

      I changed into my bathing suit and opined that it had to be a coed sauna. Martha took an inordinate amount of time changing into her suit and while I was waiting for her I started counting the blue flowers on the wildly floral wall–paper. I got to three hundred when Martha emerged from her cubicle and I was very proud of myself for not leaping backwards in shock. She was wearing the most amazing bathing suit. She looked like a ballerina with a little skirt that refused to sit tight to her hips but stuck up, making her look even bigger. Colourful little fish were flitting to and fro, their eyes glittering with multicoloured sequins, and at discrete locations there were clear circular discs exposing the skin beneath. It was definitely not the type of suit some–one of her ample size should attempt to wear.

      I guess I didn’t hide my reaction very well after all because Martha’s face caved-in. “I bought it because I thought everybody would be so busy looking at it that they wouldn’t notice how big I am.”

      I felt about two centimetres tall.

      She turned from me and as she opened the sauna door a voice squeaked out, “You just have to bide your time, Sal. Be patient. But I still don’t understand why you have to do it at all.”

      The voice stopped as our eyes met. She was a woman of curves, like a Reubens, with raven black hair and burnt umber eyes. She instinctively hunched forward as if to protect her body from a blow and then relaxed.

      “Hello, I’m Sandy.”

      I nodded my head at her. She’d been in the writing class. I turned to look at the only other person in the sauna — the redhead.

      Martha waded in and introduced me to Sally as we found our spots on the benches. She really was a big woman — not fat but big boned. Her luxurious, curly, red hair billowed around her face, making her watery blue eyes look like an afterthought.

      “I was just telling Sally here,” said Sandy, “that she’s got to be patient. She’s frustrated that she hasn’t seen a polar bear yet.”

      I smiled and said, “Hard to see anything in this fog.”

      Sandy and Sally exchanged glances. Maybe I’d been too flippant?

      “Did you know they are the largest land based carni–vore in the world and their hair is actually translucent so the sun will go through it to the skin beneath?” I pushed on. “Their skin is black to absorb the sun and the fur is like a wetsuit when they swim.”

      No one said anything after that nice little piece of didactic information.

      “Your lecture was fun,” said Sandy suddenly. Fun was a strange word to use and I just nodded.

      “Did you really solve a murder?”

      I nodded again.

      “It sounds fascinating, all the clues and sleuth work that you had to do.”

      I thought about the state the body had been in and involuntarily shivered.

      “Lord love you, Cordi. How can you be shivering in a sauna?” Martha asked.

      “Maybe someone stepped on her grave thinking it was mine.” I swivelled my eyes over to look at Sally. That was a funny thing to say. These were a rum pair.

      Martha jumped into the silence and changed the subject rather too abruptly. “Sally is part of our writing group and rumour has it she’s a dynamite writer.”

      Sally, who looked as though she had been crying for twenty years, waved away the compliment.

      “I just wish you’d read some of your novel to us in class so we could enjoy your talent.”

      “Sorry, it’s just something I never do.”

      “Couldn’t you hand out a copy, or even just an excerpt? Anything?”

      Sally mournfully shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t do that because …”

      Sally was interrupted by Sandy, who said with the finality of a full stop period, “Sally doesn’t like crowds,” and again they exchanged glances.

      “But that doesn’t mean she can’t …” Martha started, before thinking better of it when she caught sight of Sally, who had large tears pounding down her face. For a while I thought that maybe it was just a whole lot of sweat and we could ignore it, but then she started to gurgle a bit.

      Martha and I looked at each other and then at Sally.

      “You know, it’s okay to cry,” said Martha. “It helps the pain.”

      “How would you know what kind of pain I’m in?”

      “Sweetie, we’re on a boat. There are only a hundred and ten or so of us and the rumours have been flying. You haven’t exactly kept your sorrow to yourself. You’ve been moping about the ship for all to see.”

      “What rumours?” she asked.

      “Take your pick. For example: you just lost a child in childbirth and are suffering from postpartum depression.”

      Sally gave a weak smile and shook her head.

      “How about: your business just went bankrupt and you are in debt over your earlobes?” Where did Martha find these metaphors?

      Sally slowly shook her head.

      “Okay then. You’re a murderer, intent on revenge.”

      Sally suddenly covered her face and shook her head.

      Sandy squeezed her on the shoulder, in an attempt to comfort her, but Sally shook her off.

      Martha caught my

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