‘We’re out of here. There’s cameras. The yacht awaits, get your shit together, son.’ I bridled at being called son, thinking of my dear old Christopher with sorrow, but he was already off, grabbing his suitcase and slamming doors.
The yacht was a monstrosity. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life and hope never to again. A fancy floating caravan, that’s what it looked like, all chrome and glass and nothing like a real boat at all. Thankfully, once on board, Simon seemed to relax and he passed out on the sofa for the entire day, only to wake up when dinner was served. We ate in semi-silence, as he downed glass after glass of wine – ‘Chic Chablis’ from his own vineyard, he told me as I tried to keep the disgust from my face. As if anything could tell you more about a person, right, Grace? My hand started twitching as we ate dessert, and I tried to steady it, alarmed at this new development. Simon noticed, and he laughed. He laughed and told me I was too delicate for a big chap. I said nothing, my heart beating and my ears humming. When it was all over and he was pretty steaming, he yelled for the captain and told him to prepare the speedboat. The man, clearly sensing that Simon wasn’t in a mood to argue, hurried off with no word of warning, but a steward clearing the table raised his eyes in my direction. I tried to distract our father, telling him that I was in no mood for an excursion, but he waved me away in irritation. ‘You’re here on my dime, young Harry. We’re going for a ride.’
And so we did. He took a fresh bottle of Chic Chablis under his arm and staggered down the stairs to the speedboat, as I trailed behind him feeling a bit sick. We roared off into the dark black distance, me holding the seat for dear life, him yelling into the wind as he held the bottle between his knees. After about fifteen minutes, he slowed the boat down and came to a stop. He fumbled his way back towards me and laughed at my expression. I admit I felt queasy. Boats have never really been my thing and his ducking and weaving through an empty ocean had me feeling all kinds of green. Mainly I was just fed up. Of him, of this boat, of my life every day since I had met him.
Simon sat down and thrust his face into mine with a leer.
‘Man up, Harry, this is bonding right here. Act like you’re enjoying it, for fuck’s sake.’
‘I’m not though,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster while trying not to throw up. ‘I’m not enjoying it. I want to go back to the yacht.’
He screwed up his face and mimicked me. ‘I want to go back to the yacht, Daddy, I’m bored of this. How quickly you’ve grown used to my lifestyle and my money, son. You could at least pretend you’re here for the company.’ He belched in my face, and roared with laughter. ‘But you can’t, can you? You’re just like your mother. She pretended to be all pure of heart too, but she was just looking for some rich mark to spread her legs for.’
I stood, pulling him up with me by his shirt, and I grabbed the disgusting wine bottle which sat next to him. I had but one thought in my head: I desperately wanted him to shut up. I smashed the bottle over his head with a strength I can only imagine came from all the pent-up rage I had. A familiar buzzing sound rushed through my ears before being replaced with a loud splash. I could make out an arm in the water and a loud, sickening gurgle. I put the torch on my phone and shone it down by the side of the boat. Simon was holding the side of the boat with two fingers, but the rest of him wasn’t moving. He had blood streaming down his head, pooling below his nose and flowing into his mouth. That was the sound, a wretched sound I can still hear when I think about it. He was trying to stay afloat as he choked on his own blood. I stood there watching him, readying myself to reach down and pull him out. But then an odd thing happened. You came into my mind, Grace. I thought of all you’d been up to, how hard you’d tried to get to this man. I knew how unlikely it was that you’d ever succeed now. I thought about our mothers and what they suffered at the hands of Simon Artemis. And then I thought of how much I was suffering now. If I pulled him out and took him back to the safety of the yacht, he might have me prosecuted. Or worse, he might hold what I’d done over my head for the next twenty years, keeping me close by forever.
It had been an accident. I would never be able to plan something so hideous or carry out violence in cold blood. But I’d been sorely provoked and we all have a breaking point, don’t we? I didn’t know that I was going to let him die, truly I didn’t. It all just sort of happened, as though I was watching it from a slight distance. I bent down towards him and prised his fingers off the side of the boat, before giving him a tiny push so that he bobbed away a few inches. His eyes widened but he couldn’t speak. Then I sat down.