*
It’s late when they pull back up to the house in Dunstall Road. Storm feels exhausted, even more so than after a day of training – it’s as though his body doesn’t know how to cope with a few days off.
He bids his father goodnight and slips upstairs, finding his way in the dark without switching the lights on. He’s gotten to know the house now and knows how many steps he needs to take before feeling for the door to his bedroom. He slips into the unmade, cool bed and is drifting off when he’s brought back by the buzz of the phone on his nightstand. He grabs it and peers half-heartedly at the screen, probably just yet another inane Star Wars Snap from Albert, but as he takes in the words he sits up straight, blinking at the text.
Hey you. When can we hang out? I’ve missed u, from Madeleine Vinge.
Storm pretend-punches the air in the dark room, lit only by the glare of the screen, then he falls asleep smiling.
Fourteen
Charlotte
It’s late afternoon and we’re drinking wine by the pool, when we hear the sound of drums climbing the hillsides around Can Xara.
‘What is that?’ asks Bianka.
‘It’s, like, a weekly thing, I think – a bunch of people gather on the beach down at Benirràs at sunset and play drums. There’s a pop-up mojito bar and it tends to get a little crazy,’ I say.
Bianka sits up and cocks her head to better catch the sound. ‘Sounds fun. Can we go?’
‘We went once, years ago, and honestly, it’s a bunch of weird, stinky hippies worshipping the moon. That kind of thing,’ says Anette.
‘Just my vibe,’ says Bianka, and we all laugh, but I don’t think she’s joking.
‘I’ll go down there with you if you want,’ I say.
*
Down by the coves, a giant bonfire has been built, ready to be lit when the sky is properly dark. The atmosphere feels electric, with hundreds of people laughing and swaying to the rhythmic beat of the many drums playing. It makes me feel suddenly emotional to be here, like my ties to the island are deepening and I’m inching closer to who I really am. Or maybe it’s because I’m here with Bianka and her very presence makes everything feel heightened and different. Since we’ve been in Ibiza, this has intensified even more and I’m realizing that I want something more from Bianka than just friendship. But what does that mean for my marriage and for my life? Since Anette shared the news of her divorce and dismissed the way she – and by extension I – live, there is a part of me that feels like it’s waking up to the possibility of other ways of living. Could I, too, be free? And what does it mean that I find myself this attracted to a woman? I thought I knew everything about myself. I thought I was in control. When I try to think whether I’ve ever experienced this kind of attraction to a woman before, I realize that I’ve never really stopped to consider how I feel at all. Besides, does it even have to matter that much? After all, we are in Ibiza, worlds away from real life. Perhaps I could allow myself to just have a little fun. And Bianka is my idea of fun.
‘I’ll get drinks,’ says Bianka, slipping into the throng of people standing between us and the mojito bar. I watch her walk over to the pop-up bar and she is instantly drawn into conversation with a couple of guys as she waits. She says something animatedly, then throws her head back, laughing, her distinct voice slicing through the incessant thud of the drums.
One of the guys who is standing with his back toward me seems to explain something to her, gesticulating enthusiastically, his thick, dark hair flopping around with the effort, and I watch Bianka follow his pointed finger across the bay with her eyes. It’s obvious the men are enchanted with her and I feel a twinge of jealousy. Bianka laughs some more, then returns with two huge mojitos.
I take the drink and inch closer to Bianka, wanting to show the guys, and the world, that she’s here with me, then feel instantly ridiculous. Bianka is obviously entitled to engage with other people in whichever way she wants. But every time she looks at me, or leans in to whisper something in my ear, or places her little warm hand on my wrist to iterate a point, I feel something deep inside, something I don’t quite understand, both frightening and irresistible at the same time. Fun, I tell myself. That unfamiliar feeling is fun. And maybe I just need to let go and allow myself to have some without overthinking it.
I reach out and take Bianka’s hand. She laces her fingers through mine and we stand like that for a long while, swaying to the beat with the crowd that is made up of people from all over the world, mostly young and beautiful and rich, drawn to Ibiza not just for her beaches and parties and drugs, but for her mythical and deeply spiritual core. As I stand here on this beach, a small part of a human horseshoe curved around the roaring bonfire they’ve just lit, watching the last rays of the sun bleeding into the sky, listening to the drums, Bianka’s hand snug and somehow inevitable in my own, I feel what my mother must have felt: a homecoming, an undeniable connection to something bigger than myself. I’ve always avoided that kind of thing, the suggestion that life could be about more than what we can see and touch; it reminds me too much of Ximena and her spiritual quest, which ended in tragedy.
We ride the moped home on the narrow road rising and falling through the dark hills, the scent of verbena and wild rosemary permeating the humid air, my arms tight around Bianka’s waist, the soft sound of my laughter swallowed up by the drone of the Vespa’s engine. Bianka drives deliberately slowly, and by the time we reach Can Xara, it’s late, past midnight, and Linda and Anette are nowhere to be seen.
It’s me who stops on the path up to the house, it’s me who softly whispers ‘hey’ into the dense air that’s alive with the chirp of cicadas and frogs, and it’s me who steps closer, then closer still, then leans in to softly kiss Bianka on the lips.
Fifteen
Bianka
For Bianka, being in bed with Charlotte feels like travelling back through time, to when she wasn’t broken and empty. To the only time she felt whole.
She’s just like Bianka expected, beautiful, a little shy, playful.
The moment they kissed felt inevitable, like it had to happen, and yet Bianka was impressed that Charlotte actually went ahead and made a move. Since the moment they met, a fantasy of kissing Charlotte and discovering every single part of her has played in a constant loop in Bianka’s mind. And yet Charlotte has been hard to read and Bianka couldn’t quite tell if she was just elated to have a new, close friend, or if their intense connection merged into sexual attraction the way it did for Bianka. As Charlotte releases Bianka’s breasts from her bra and begins to kiss them softly and enthusiastically, it’s very obvious to Bianka that it does and she has to pace herself, manage the wild beat of her heart, because she is both intensely here in the moment with Charlotte, and suddenly back in the past, in the only space she has ever truly felt something. She closes her eyes and lets herself just breathe and live and enjoy.
*
She wakes with a jolt and for an instant she fears that it was all just a dream, that Charlotte could only be hers in a fantasy world. But she’s here, sleeping softly beside her. Bianka moves away from her a little to get a better view in the shaft of moonlight shining into the room from the huge windows. She sits up, drawing the bedsheet up to her chin, and watches Charlotte. She can’t help the tears, then. It’s too much, too overwhelming. Her thoughts race, image upon image settling on top of each other, blurring reality and fantasy, past and present. Charlotte is so still that for a moment Bianka imagines that she’s dead, that Bianka has killed her in her sleep without remembering. Would she perhaps even be capable of such a thing? She fixes her gaze at a spot on Charlotte’s bare chest but in the meagre light she can’t be sure she’s breathing, or if she’s even alive.
‘No,’ she whispers. Bianka reaches out and lightly places her finger against Charlotte’s neck just beneath her jawline and instantly finds a throbbing, strong pulse.
Charlotte shifts in her sleep at Bianka’s touch, and Bianka’s heart is thundering in her chest. She moves closer to Charlotte; so close, her features grow blurred, and then she wraps herself into her arms in a tight embrace, chasing away disturbing thoughts of death, focusing on the steady, calming thud of her lover’s heartbeat.
Sixteen
Charlotte
I wake in the night and the air is cool, the fan whispering from the ceiling. There is another sound, a rhythmic beating sound, and I remember last night, the magic of the drums reverberating around the bay at Benirràs, the blood-coloured sky and lavender sea; it’s as though its sounds and moods have been trapped inside me. I turn toward the windows to see if I can make out whether it’s dawn or still the middle of the night, and it’s only as I move my head that I realize I’m not alone. Moonlight spills into the room and illuminates the woman in my bed. Bianka. She’s naked, with a sheet draped across her waist, her unruly blond curls fanning out around her head like a halo, her puffy lips open as she sleeps, her teeth glinting in the moonlight like a string of pearls, and behind them, a sliver of wet, pink tongue. When I slept, my head must have been pressed up against her bare chest – the sound I heard was her heart beating. I sit up slowly, careful not to rouse her.
I feel panic starting up in the pit of my stomach, then spreading through me at the sight of her in my bed. My palms are slick with sweat and the fine hairs at the back of my neck prickle and stand up, my breath coming short and fast. I think of Andreas in this moment, peaceful and unknowing in our bed at home, our children asleep in their rooms above ours. What have I done?
My heart starts racing as memory returns to me through the lingering haze of all the alcohol, in little pieces that slot together to form a series of images. Panic gives way to a deep thrill as I remember the way I took Bianka’s hand and we pressed up against each other in the throng of people at Cala Benirràs, feeling bold after several mojitos. And when we kissed… The kisses quickly deepened from careful and soft to intensely passionate so that I was pushed up against the whitewashed wall of Can Xara, my shoulder chafing against the concrete, before we quietly slipped upstairs into my bedroom.
I leave the bed and cross the room to the bathroom. I close the door, then switch on the light. When my eyes have gotten used to the glare from the spotlights, I stare at myself in the mirror. My whole life, I’ve felt as though I had a solid grasp of who I am, and it always seemed to me that we mould ourselves into who we want to be. It was important to me to be predictable and calm, the kind of person who runs through all the potential pros and cons before making a decision. The kind who creates a good life for herself and works hard at sustaining it. I’ve never believed that we just wake up in the perfect circumstances; we have to plot and plan and create them, and then, once we’re happy, we have to do everything we can to hold onto it.
I eat carefully, to maintain that level, empty feeling that makes me feel safe. I do everything one should do to run a successful business; I treat people fairly and with kindness, and pay my taxes on time. I take my role as a mother seriously, trying to be an example for my children to follow. I invest in my marriage, ensuring Andreas gets enough care, enough conversation, enough freedom. I’d make sure he got enough sex, too, if only he wanted it. And then Bianka walked into my life and threw all of it up into the air. I suppose I could go back out there and speak to her gently and clearly, explaining that I got carried away, that what happened shouldn’t have and never can again. She’d understand, of course she would, because what choice would she have? She probably feels exactly the same; after all, Bianka is happily married, too. We got carried away, that’s all. These things happen. I’ve heard similar stories of holiday escapades and much worse from my wider circle of friends and acquaintances. Not ideal, of course, but one might be forgiven an indiscretion or two after what feels like one thousand years of marriage.
I think about what Andreas would feel if he knew that I have slept with someone else, and it’s the realization that he probably wouldn’t care that much that brings tears to my eyes. I watch a teardrop run slowly down my face, followed by another, and another. Of course I can’t know if that’s how he would react; it’s possible he’d make a huge deal out of it, especially as he might worry about his job, but I don’t think he’d care on an emotional level, and it’s this distance that hurts me. It’s also this that stops me from feeling that bad.
I wipe away the tears and stand another long while in front of the mirror. I force thoughts of Andreas from my mind. I try to see myself as Bianka does, because it seems that she sees something other than what everyone else does, even me. But I can’t imagine what that is, I only see myself as I always have: a little bland, much like most people, not someone worthy of any particular attention, let alone deep interest and adoration.
