I wonder how my mother saw me; I remember how she’d always try to encourage me to think bigger, step outside my comfort zone, dare to dream. All of the beautiful things in the whole world are inside of you, Charlotte, she used to say to me when I was little. I take a few deep breaths, watching my bare chest rise and fall, my skin feeling slick with sweat away from the bedroom’s air-con. My lips are red from all the kissing. I close my eyes, then turn out the light.
I slip back into the bedroom and when I get back into the bed, Bianka’s moved to face me, her eyes open and shining in the soft light, and I let myself be drawn into her embrace. It feels so good, better than any other. Her small, warm hands touch the sides of my face, then travel around the back of my neck into the moist tangle of my hair, slowly working through the knots, then across my collarbone and close around my breasts. Her lips touch mine. I reciprocate the kiss hungrily and any confusion is gone. I pull her on top of me so every part of us is touching.
Afterward, Bianka sleeps in my arms and I lie awake, watching the first pink rays of the sun pierce the morning sky. When the sun itself appears on the horizon, casting slivers of pale golden light onto the smooth, whitewashed walls, I gently untangle myself. I pad across the room and grab the wetsuit from the bathroom before walking quietly through the house and outside onto the terrace. I stand facing the sun, feeling its faint warmth, then I head down toward the sea.
I swim fast, nudged by the current toward the cape, and even though my arms ache and my body feels a little slow from lack of sleep and alcohol and all the sex, I can’t stop smiling.
*
The four of us do yoga on the platform in the late afternoon when the air begins to cool. I’m conscious of my movements and expressions, as though Linda and Anette can guess just from looking at me that Bianka and I spent last night passionately making love in my bedroom. I’m noticing things I wouldn’t usually, as if my senses have been magically heightened; the countless nuances of the sea leaping onto the rocks across the bay at Punta de Sa Creu, the way the air sweeps across the bare skin of my arms, the loud chirping of birds rarely heard in Oslo or Wimbledon. I have the strange feeling, sitting here in the lotus position, closing my eyes, succumbing to the calm of yoga – something my mother loved – of the distance between us being bridged, that I might embody more of her than I thought, and that that could be something beautiful. I open my eyes and meet Bianka’s who is sitting across from me, looking straight at me. When our eyes meet, she smiles a suggestive little smile just for me and a current of electricity shoots up my spine.
‘Namaste,’ says Linda, standing up slowly, a serene look on her face. She puts the incense burning on the brick wall out with her fingertips and turns to the sea. ‘Now let’s start drinking.’ We all laugh and roll up our yoga mats. We’ve managed to secure a reservation at El Cielo, apparently one of northern Ibiza’s coolest beach restaurants, just a quick Vespa ride through the hills to Port de Sant Miquel. I’ve been wanting to go there for a long time, but now I feel as though all I want is to stay at the house with Bianka, to return to the intensity of last night and this morning. I can’t quite believe everything that has happened since yesterday, and throughout the day I’ve repeatedly ignored thoughts about home, consciously wrestling my mind back to the here and now. I have the rest of my life to worry about real life and we only have a few precious days on Ibiza.
On the way back up to the house, I fall into step with Linda, and have the sudden strange sensation of finding nothing to say to her. We’ve known each other for so many years and though ours might not be the most profound chemistry, it’s always felt easy between us, nice. And now she feels like a stranger, someone who knows nothing about me or who I actually am, that there is a huge gulf between us that can never be crossed.
‘Isn’t it funny,’ she says, wiping at perspiration dotting her blond hairline as we climb the path from the platform toward the terrace, ‘that every time we come here, it feels fundamentally different from the last? How many times have we done this now? Seven, at least? And every trip is easily discernible from the others. Do you remember that year when Anette’s kids were being particularly full-on and she just slept the entire time? Or two years ago, when we managed to squeeze it in between all the restrictions? It just felt so amazing to get away then, like I couldn’t quite compute that all this was still here and had been all that time when the whole world just shut down…’
Linda keeps talking and I’m pleased she doesn’t feel what I felt, that there’s nothing to be said between us, and I make myself nod and laugh as she recounts memory after memory we’ve built at Can Xara over the years.
I shower and change into a dusty-pink halter neck silk dress that has hung in my closet here for years, unused. It has never felt like it’s me, but tonight it does. I coil my clean hair into an updo, securing it into place with a long silver hair dagger my mother gave me the last Christmas she was alive and which I instantly loved. It still feels too warm to wear my hair loose, even in the evening. I apply some discreet makeup, too, wanting to look enhanced but not overdone. I tan easily, probably thanks to my mother’s Spanish genes, and already have a golden glow after a couple of days in the sun. When I’m done, I stand in front of the mirror like I did in the middle of the night, again trying to read the woman in front of me. Who is she and what does she want?
An image of Bianka immediately appears in my mind; the way her expression seems to change and deepen when it’s me she’s looking at. The way she maintained eye contact with me as she inched her way down my naked body, kissing and rubbing and sucking as she went, her blond curls tickling the skin on the inside of my thighs.
Yes, I think to myself. I want Bianka.
*
We order oysters and sashimi and tiger prawns and when the food arrives it’s artfully displayed on ice in towering trays. The restaurant is on Platja d’en Bossa, one of three similar establishments, all popular places to go in summer, when the sand becomes a dance floor after dinner. It’s packed though it’s still early, just past nine, and the loud lounge music spreads out on the warm air that carries the scent of sea salt and pine trees. Out in the bay, some big yachts are moored, their lights undulating across the darkening surface of the sea.
We sit on low sofas built around a table with a glass fire pit feature in its middle and because Bianka sits across from me, next to Linda, I can barely see her through the tall flickering flames. I feel frustrated and on edge; I don’t really want to be here, I want to be back at Can Xara, alone with Bianka, and I find it hard to fully engage in the conversation bouncing back and forth across the table. I just want to stay close to that feeling that has been awakened in me, the feeling of being young again, that anything is possible.
‘Told you this place is insane,’ shouts Anette to Bianka, as they turn to watch a man who has climbed onto a podium at the far end of the restaurant, from where he sprays the cheering crowd from a magnum bottle of champagne.
‘That’s the biggest cliché I’ve ever seen,’ says Linda. ‘I’d go so crazy if some guy ruined my dress with alcohol.’
‘Clichés become clichés because they’re true or fun, though, right?’ says Bianka. She leans forward a little so we can see each other clearly through a patch in the fire feature. She smiles, then lifts an oyster to her lips and sucks its flesh from the shell, her eyes locked on mine. I look away, take a sip of my mojito, and feel myself grow instantly aroused. It feels strange and somewhat frightening that Bianka suddenly holds such visceral power over me, that a single suggestive glance can produce an immediate physical response. I glance at Anette next to me, but her eyes are glued to the cheering crowd gathering at the fringes of the beach, drifting onto the sand from all three restaurants, bodies pushing up against each other and breaking into dance.
Bianka stands up. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s join them.’
‘What? Bianka, no, look, they’re all practically kids. They’re all in their twenties,’ says Anette.
‘So?’
‘So, we can’t just, like, go out there and start dancing in the middle of dinner.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’
‘Come on, Anette,’ says Linda, her face lighting up at the realization that if you feel like getting up to dance in the middle of dinner, you can actually just go ahead. ‘Let’s do it.’
I stand up too, because Bianka has already disappeared into the crowd and I want to be where she is.
‘Yeah, Anette,’ I shout over the increasingly persistent beat. ‘We’re not that old. And we’re in Ibiza.’
Anette reluctantly follows, keeping her heels on – even though they sink into the sand and the rest of us have kicked ours off – and smoothing down her structured designer skirt, glancing around as though someone might lurch at her and drench her with champagne. Linda, Bianka, and I start to dance, feeling the upbeat music pulsate through us, laughing at the energy and exuberance of the crowd, letting ourselves be bumped and jostled and drawn into the spontaneous movements of other groups. Finally, Anette joins in too, kicking her shoes off and unleashing her beautiful auburn hair from its sleek chignon, inspiring the admiration of several young men around us. She realizes this and feels empowered, and I just love watching her let go of rigidity and perfection and that cool detached persona she’s honed, probably much like myself. I sidle up to her and put my arms around her from behind and she twerks against me, lapping up the attention and making a couple of guys whistle.
After several songs we let ourselves drift to the periphery of the crowd and back toward our table. A sudden, loud scream cuts through the music and I turn around to see Anette crumpling to the ground. I’m the person closest to her and I rush over to her and take her gently by the arm and she looks up at me, face twisted in a grimace of pain and fear.
‘I stepped on broken glass.’
‘Oh, my God. Oh no,’ I say, helping her sit on one of the sofas as blood gushes from her foot onto the sand. I angle her foot up to the light as Linda and Bianka rush off to get ice and bandages, and there is a big triangular shard of glass wedged deeply into the space between her big toe and its neighbour.
‘Seriously. For fuck’s sake,’ she whispers through gritted teeth.
‘I know. I’m so sorry this happened. I’m going to try to gently prize it out, okay?’
She nods, face still pale with pain and shock. Bianka and Linda return, pushing their way through the crowd, carrying a champagne bucket and a first aid kit.
‘Why did I agree to something like that?’ says Anette. ‘It was a really fucking stupid idea to dance barefoot in the sand when we’ve just watched people like that idiot on the podium.’ Bianka says nothing, just hands me the ice, and I press it against Anette’s toe, then swiftly pull out the shard, making her gasp. I clean the wound, spraying it with antiseptic, then cover it with three plasters. The crowd has long since lost interest, gathering around a couple of South Americans playing drums further down by the water.
‘Time to go home,’ says Anette when I finish. Linda nods. I nod, too, assuming that we’ll all head back to Can Xara together. ‘Unless you guys want to stay behind, of course.’ It feels like there is a slightly challenging tone in her voice and I’m sure Bianka and Linda hear it, too, but Bianka smiles and nods.
‘Yeah, I mean, I’d be up for staying a little longer.’
‘I think I’m ready for bed,’ says Linda, probably quite aware that as she drove the Vespa with her and Anette here, she’ll need to drive it back. Linda isn’t drinking much at all on this trip due to the hormonal injections she’s taking for IVF.
‘Charlotte?’ Bianka and Anette say my name at exactly the same time.
