‘No, really. If I told you what I used to do all day, you’d fall asleep right here.’
‘Try me. I want to know about you.’
‘Okay, so I basically worked in the B2B marketing department of a German white goods company. Much of what I did was pitch their products toward various institutions, like old people’s homes, schools, hospitals—’
I mime falling asleep. Bianka laughs and so do I. She’s beautiful this evening, more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her before. She’s wearing a plain white shirt and cut-off denim shorts, the only one of us who hadn’t dressed up for dinner. I must have forgotten to tell her that we tend to be quite over the top when away together – I think it’s true what they say, that women dress for other women, not for men. She didn’t seem at all bothered that the rest of us were in heels and dresses while she was casual and barefoot, her hair swept back in a ponytail, face bare of makeup, and this is what I find so fascinating about Bianka – the innate self-confidence she seems to possess. ‘Okay, I’ll hand it to you, that does sound pretty boring. Have you thought about doing something new now you’re in London?’
‘Yeah. I just don’t know what yet.’
‘Well, what’s your passion?’
‘This feels like a job interview now,’ says Bianka, and we both laugh again. ‘What’s your passion, besides keto?’ she asks. She’s good at deflecting but I don’t want to return to me yet. I want to know about her. I just can’t quite picture someone as exuberant and charismatic as Bianka Langeland selling dishwashers to retirement homes. I try to picture her sitting in an open-plan office, sticking out like a sore thumb in a row of tired-looking men in blue shirts, but find that I can’t. If I’d observed Bianka in a social setting and then been asked to guess what she does for a living, I would have guessed she was an actress, or perhaps a used-car saleswoman or a nightclub hostess; definitely a profession where her luminous personality would take centre stage, unlike what I imagine to be the case in the marketing of white goods.
‘Control,’ I say, and smile. ‘Back to you. What did you want to be when you were a kid?’ I ask. Bianka stares into the distance for a long while with a frown on her face, as though she could see a younger version of herself out there.
‘I wanted to be a writer,’ she says. ‘But I wasn’t exactly encouraged.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ I feel a stab of grief, unexpected and sharp, at the memory of how my mother always encouraged me to trust myself and find magic in every day. You can be anything you want, Charlotte, she’d whisper into my ear, night after night. ‘Do you mean after you’d lost your mother?’
Bianka nods, then tilts her head up to the stars and doesn’t meet my gaze for a long while.
‘And my father,’ she says, softly. I feel a twinge of shock at this information. I wait for her to continue but she doesn’t and I don’t want to push her to embellish. I can’t imagine losing both parents in childhood, or maybe I can. In many ways I did. My father stayed behind, of course, but only in body. His mind and thoughts and love never seemed to belong to me.
‘By the way, I googled “Xara” earlier. It means to set free in Basque. Isn’t that lovely?’ I’ll allow her the change of subject, considering, but she’s caught me off guard and I swallow hard a couple of times, and look away. Of course it does. It was the thing my mother loved the most besides me: freedom. I nod and smile, perhaps a little coolly, and Bianka seems to pick up on the shift in mood and falls silent. I light another menthol cigarette and draw the smoke deep into me, trying to let go of what Bianka said about Xara. There is something about it that niggles me, like I knew this already but can’t say how or from whom.
‘I sometimes feel like I’ll never be happy,’ I say, surprising myself and probably Bianka too. ‘I work and work and still nothing ever feels enough. I achieve something, and then I just move the bar. At first, all I wanted was to publish a keto cookbook. Then, it was to have my own TV show. Then it was to create own-brand products. And now, five books down the line, a primetime TV show, and a whole range of own-brand products and I feel backed into a corner, uninspired and unfulfilled, you know?’ I pause for a moment but decide to keep going because it feels overwhelmingly good to say something that is actually true out loud, to stop pretending and performing, if only for a moment. ‘I feel like all the dreams I had have just disappeared, the ones I must have had as a child. I remember a very intense feeling of aliveness back then, like I was fully alert and in the moment, all the time. I never feel like that anymore. I feel disconnected and light-years away, going through the endless motions in the suburbs. I feel like I’m acting out a marriage that isn’t mine and that I have no idea who I am anymore.’
When I stop talking, Bianka looks stunned and impressed at the same time.
‘Oh, Charlotte,’ she says, and I close my eyes, feeling her hand close on top of my own and I decide to just allow myself this moment of feeling taken care of. ‘You don’t have to live like that,’ she whispers.
*
It’s almost three a.m. by the time I get to bed but I feel wired and happy, like I could put on my running gear and go for a long, gruelling run into the southern hills, the only sound in the night my sneakers pounding the dry, crumbling path and the crash of waves far below. Instead of actually doing it, I close my eyes and try to bring the nighttime run to life as much as I can by inventing minute details – the silhouette of the mountains as I head toward Port de Sant Miquel, bats tearing across the sky, the waves slapping against the black rocks of the cape, my heart pounding in my chest like a bouncing ball. I try to evoke the exhaustion I’d feel when I round the final bend in the track leading back up to Can Xara, how I’d stand a while, doubled over, catching my breath, snapping at the fresh cool air. I’m still not tired, though it’s been a very long day, and it’s like I’m filled with thoughts and impressions that demand to be processed before my mind will shut down.
I think about Bianka sleeping in the guest room across the hallway, her hair fanning around her head, her pretty, animated face peaceful. I smile to myself at how impressed she was with Can Xara; it’s really nice when people show appreciation rather than behave all blasé like Linda and Anette, though I suppose to them, this place is beautiful but nothing that special – I am only one of many friends with impressive second homes abroad. It seems like the thing Bianka loves the most about this place is the natural setting and Cala Azura – my favourite aspects too. Though the new house is spectacular, the main event here really is the coastline and the mountains. My mind returns to the moments Bianka and I stood on the pebbled, narrow beach earlier, watching the sun lower itself into the Mediterranean. I felt wired, then, like now, as though all my senses were heightened and every single detail was seared into the pathways of my memory. It’s as though Bianka has that effect on me; that being in her presence returns me to a way of being I thought was lost to me – the intense aliveness of childhood we talked about earlier.
I feel my muscles begin to relax and my eyelids feel a little heavier. I can hear the hoot of an animal through the open window and the surge of the waves. I feel a visceral aloneness but also like I’m part of everything, as if my existence was essential and woven into the pattern of the universe. Bianka would like that notion; she likes to talk about things like that, and I’m discovering that so do I. I make a mental note of telling her about it tomorrow and picture the animated glint in her eyes as I speak, how she’ll fix me with that clear blue gaze that seems to look through me completely.
As though my body answers not to my conscious demand, but to itself, my hand travels across my collarbone and my breasts, then down the concave curve of my stomach and into my underwear. I can’t actually remember the last time I did this, but my touch feels good, just what I need, and as I keep going I grow simultaneously tense and relaxed until wave after wave of total release crashes over me.
Twelve
Bianka
She wakes to the sound of waves crashing onto the rocks far below. The air is cool and fragrant, carrying that scent which by now is both familiar and exotic – thyme, lavender, frangipani, the ocean. At first, she feels disorientated, the sparse and bright unfamiliar room taking a while to register in her mind, then she remembers: Ibiza, the night before, the conversation with Charlotte that went on long into the night. Another Charlotte had emerged from the contours Bianka had built of her in her mind; it was the sensation of unpeeling something and finding something other than what you’d expected underneath. She pictures the vibrant, juicy flesh of an orange emerging from a banana peel and feels instantly unsettled by the image.
I feel like I’m acting out a marriage that isn’t mine, she’d said.
Bianka takes a deep breath, clears her mind and places her bare feet on the cool marble floor. The room has nothing in it except the bed, a white minimalist leather chair, and a sleek built-in wardrobe that runs the entire vast length of the wall. Bianka slides it open and there is nothing at all inside. She can’t imagine a life without clutter, without odd socks and out-of-season clothes shoved into closets. She supposes that because this is a second home, things wouldn’t amass as easily as in a family home, and feels another bolt of jealousy at Charlotte’s life. She thought they were the same, comfortably well-off with high-earning husbands; Bianka’s is Charlotte’s husband’s boss even, but she didn’t realize Charlotte was clearly next-level rich until she arrived at Can Xara.
She steps out onto the balcony that is constructed entirely from glass to give the sensation of floating in thin air, and though it isn’t the first time she’s stood here, she feels a deep thrill in her stomach. She squints in the sharp sun, shielding her eyes to try to make out what looks like an animal swimming across the tightly curved bay far below, weaving in and out of the water, dragging up a line of white froth. It moves fast and for a moment Bianka thinks it must be a dolphin, but its movements are too conscious and symmetrical. It reaches the cape on the far end of the bay and Bianka watches as it hauls itself from the sea, its black body glinting in the sunlight. Now there is no doubt that it’s a human, a woman in a wetsuit – Charlotte.
Bianka moves quickly around the room, slipping out of her pyjamas and into her bikini, covering herself up with an Ibiza-style fringed white linen kaftan. She hurries downstairs, hoping not to bump into Anette or Linda, but they are there in the open kitchen-dining area, laughing and fiddling with a professional-looking coffee machine. The room is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows and has a large skylight, giving the effect of being almost outside, a medley of Mediterranean blues reflected in the glass and metal surfaces of the kitchen.
‘Good morning, Bianka,’ says Linda. ‘Can we make you a fancy coffee? An oat milk turmeric macchiato, perhaps?’ They laugh.
‘Thank you, I’m okay for now,’ says Bianka, though she usually maintains she can’t function without the first caffeine hit of the day. ‘I thought I’d head out for a walk.’ Coffee can wait – she wants to get to Charlotte before she comes back up to the house. She wants time alone with her, doesn’t want anything to get in the way of the growing intimacy she shares with Charlotte.
She slips outside and heads to the stone steps that lead from the terrace and down onto the winding, narrow path, cooled by dense pine trees reaching across it as if to keep it secret. Bianka half runs on bare feet, past the guesthouse, past the yoga platform, down through the first terraces of olive groves and almond trees, past the clutch of citrus trees that hide the finca from view. She pauses for a brief moment as the path divides into two, one leading to the coves and one to Charlotte’s mother’s house, its ancient stone visible through the waxy verdant leaves of the citrus trees only when you know where to look. Bianka wants to see it from the inside, and finds it interesting that Charlotte never goes in there and seems to keep it as a shrine.
She continues on the uneven path, her feet aching from stepping on an occasional sharp stone, and pauses again when the path emerges from the wooded patch and turns sharply down the steep hillside on the final stretch leading down to the sea. She has an uninterrupted view of the bay, from the rocky promontory that separates it from the azure calas to the north, past the little boat whose tin roof glints in the morning sun, to the cape where Charlotte emerged from the sea. There is no sign of her now and Bianka feels a pang of disappointment as she descends the several flights of stone steps that run from the end of the path down onto the rocky beach.
She quickly scans the shore but sees nothing but the sharp rocks rising from the sea glistening in the morning sun and the Mediterranean pines scattering the hillsides towering above the narrow bay. Could Charlotte have made her way back another way? Bianka looks back up toward the house. There are no other properties visible except for one further along and higher up from Charlotte’s, but there is no sign of any other point of access to the beach than along the path and stairs she came on. She looks out at the sea again and then she sees it, a pair of black-sheathed arms slicing the water far out, almost by the lighthouse at the end of the cape.
Bianka shrugs out of the kaftan and lets it drop to the pebbled beach. Then, on an impulse, she unties the strings of her bikini and lets that, too, drop to the ground. It feels empowering and the exact opposite of revealing, to stand there naked. She wades into the sea, which is surprisingly cold considering how warm the air already is. She feels her skin pucker into goosebumps but wades further out before throwing herself all the way in, head first. The water is even colder than it felt at first and she emerges, gasping, before propelling herself forward in the direction of Charlotte. Bianka’s a fast swimmer and after a few minutes she crosses her trajectory and heads toward the cape, directly intercepting Charlotte, who’s making her way back to the shore.
‘Hey,’ she shouts when Charlotte is within earshot. She turns around slowly as though she isn’t sure she really heard someone speak. Before it fully registers that Bianka is out there, right in front of her, kicking the clear turquoise water and laughing, she looks tired and drawn, almost unrecognizable from the groomed and perfectly made-up Charlotte who smiles so confidently at her audience from the TV screen. When she realizes that she’s not imagining things, she too laughs.
‘Charlotte, hi,’ says Bianka, flipping over onto her back and floating. ‘I didn’t realize you were out here, too.’
‘I always swim first thing in the morning when I’m here. Even in winter. God, you must be freezing; you’re not in a wetsuit.’ Bianka feels Charlotte’s gaze on her body and relishes the little moment of shock when she realizes she’s fully naked.
‘How funny. Me too, whenever I can. I love to swim in the sea. And yes, a little chilly this morning. Excuse the nudity; I thought I was alone.’ Charlotte laughs and they swim slowly side by side back to the shore. Bianka can tell by Charlotte’s red, splotchy cheeks and jagged breath that she’s nearing exhaustion. On the beach, they flop down side by side on their fronts on a narrow sandy patch. Charlotte tactfully avoids looking directly at Bianka, and Bianka wonders whether Charlotte has actually seen another woman completely naked this close before.
‘How is it possible that we didn’t even know each other six weeks ago,’ says Charlotte, angling her beautiful face toward the sun.
‘I know,’ says Bianka. ‘It really does feel like we’ve always known each other.’
