‘Yeah. I, uh…’ Anette is looking at me somewhat coolly. Bianka raises an eyebrow slowly as I glance from Anette to Linda to Bianka, realizing I’m being asked to choose.
‘I should head back to Can Xara with you guys,’ I say. ‘I’ll show you where the first aid kit is at the house. You should probably clean it again before bed.’
‘Don’t feel like you have to on my part,’ says Anette, slowly getting to her feet. Her haughty expression reminds me of when we were children and she’d tell me I had to choose between her and whoever I was playing with. If I wouldn’t, she’d spin around on her heel and stalk furiously across the playground, her long auburn hair rippling down her back like upside-down flames as she went. Now, in this moment, I realize it makes me angry.
‘Okay,’ I say, and give her my best sympathetic smile; gentle and concerned. ‘Then I’ll stay and ride back with Bianka.’ For a brief moment, Anette looks shocked, like she can’t believe I’d cross her, but I don’t back down. We are, after all, in our forties now, and I don’t think I need to feel bad about doing what I’d actually like to do.
‘Come, Linda,’ says Anette, hobbling away from the table, supported by Linda who glances back at us, an uncomfortable and slightly unreadable expression on her face.
*
It’s past one a.m. when I pull off the road onto the track leading through the pine forest to Can Xara. I kill the engine a little distance from the house so we don’t wake Linda and Anette. As if we already agreed it, we walk around the side of the house, onto the terrace and down the steps leading to the olive groves, and the finca, and the beach. I feel as though every sensation is heightened, as though all my cells and synapses have been activated, a feeling I could only compare to the hours after giving birth when I was spent and sharpened in equal measure, when the world looked suddenly and eternally different. I don’t want this night to end and it seems as though Bianka feels the same way; she didn’t hesitate when I continued on the path down toward the beach.
We stand close together and watch little waves surge across the pebbles in the moonlight. There is the pulsating sound of techno music somewhere in the hills, as though it were coming from within Ibiza herself, but it must be coming from the Parisians at the neighbouring property.
I’ve never come down here in the middle of the night before. I try to imagine this moment with Andreas instead of Bianka but it isn’t the kind of thing he’d do; he’s particular about sleeping before midnight so he’s ready to run at seven. And I’m not sure that the silver-speckled sea and the silhouette of the craggy hills and the whisper of a breeze would feel as beautiful to Andreas as it does to me in this moment. My husband isn’t an especially sensitive or reflective man; he’s a pragmatist, a man who prides himself on being straightforward and uncomplicated.
Bianka puts her hand on the bare skin of my lower back, inside my silk dress. She lets it run slowly upwards across my skin until it reaches the metal clasp of my bra, which she undoes smoothly. Bianka moves so she’s standing behind me and now both of her hands are inside my top, cupping and caressing my breasts while she nuzzles my neck. I lean back into her, and close my eyes. Perhaps it’s because I’m wired the way I am, being such a control freak, I can’t quite relax into the moment, just giving in to the pleasure of Bianka’s soft lips and hot breath on my skin. She must sense this, that my mind controls my body, even now, especially now, because she turns me around, her hands still holding my breasts. I lean in to kiss her slightly parted lips and the moment feels too intense unbroken. I need to close my eyes rather than look into hers, but she takes a light step back, making me hold her gaze. Then she drops into a kneeling position slowly, her bare knees finding the soft sand in between the pebbles.
I remain standing in front of her and Bianka’s hand travels slowly up the inside of my thigh until it reaches my underwear. She rubs me through the thin material, making me groan. She slips one finger, then two, past the sliver of cotton, inside me, before slowly pulling my underwear down. I step out of it and kick them in a tangle on to the sand. Bianka looks up at me, a wide smile spreading across her face, then she leans in and closes her lips against me.
And in these moments I feel an intoxicating sense of freedom, a sensation that nothing exists beyond Bianka and me, and beyond Ibiza.
Seventeen
Storm
Everything is neatly boxed and labelled with the shipping company logo that brought their stuff to London. They spend a long while reading the labels, until they come across a few in the far corner beneath the skylight, labelled ‘DIY Cabin’. Storm looks at his dad and slowly raises an eyebrow, but Emil pretends like he doesn’t notice and busies himself opening the boxes. Inside are several shoe boxes overflowing with photographs, as well as a couple of leather-bound albums. Storm swallows hard, and tries to summon that feeling he gets when he stands ready at the top of the run, waiting for the flag to drop; it’s as though a vast cave of steely focus opens up inside him.
Storm sits down on the floor beneath the skylight and his father hands him the first box of pictures. He sifts slowly through them, holding them up to the sunlight in turn. There are pictures of Mia as a child, Mia with Storm, Mia on their trips to India, and on the beach in Santiago de la Compostela. It seems to Storm that she crammed a lot into a short life. Maybe, on some level, she’d always known she’d die young. He considers saying this to his father but then feels ridiculous; it’s not the type of conversation they have. They talk skiing, logistics, school, gaming, pocket money. Storm sneaks a few glances at Emil looking at the pictures – he looks weary and old, quite unlike the young man beaming at the camera in the old photographs.
There’s a picture of Mia with her parents. Storm realizes he looks just like his grandfather. Now’s his chance to gently broach the subject of the letter.
‘What about my mom’s parents? My grandparents?’
‘Uh. What about them?’
‘Why don’t we ever see them?’
‘I don’t know really. We lost touch in the years after Mia died. It was very hard for them. She was their only child.’
‘But didn’t they want to see me?’
‘I’m sure they did. They sent cards and things. Then it stopped quite suddenly. I imagine it just became too difficult.’
‘Where are they?’
‘What?’
‘The cards.’
Emil glances around the vast attic space. ‘I don’t know in this exact moment, Storm. But I can have a look another day, see if I can find them.’
‘I bet Bianka doesn’t know you’ve kept all this stuff and brought it all the way to London.’
Emil shrugs, then nods, rubbing at his puffy eyes. ‘Let’s keep it that way,’ he says, his eyes pleading with his son. ‘It’s just not worth the hassle.’
*
Storm brings two plastic boxes of pictures downstairs to the green bedroom, taking them over to the desk, then drawing the heavy curtains shut as though someone might be standing outside looking in. He looks through every single one of the photographs again, trying to commit his mother’s face to memory, so it might appear in his mind suddenly, taking on a new life. Since the arrival of the letter and the realization that something has been hidden from him, it’s as though Storm’s interest in Mia has been woken up. Until recently he’s not given her absence as much thought as one might have expected; besides, it’s been made perfectly clear at home that there’s no point in dwelling on her death, and bringing her up in conversation has certainly never been encouraged.
He finds the picture of his mother with her parents again and studies it for a long while beneath the bright bulb of the lamp on his desk. Their names are Einar and Frida. There really is a striking resemblance between his grandfather and himself, something to do with the eyes and the deep dimples. Mia looks like her mother, a kind-looking woman with neat, white shoulder-length hair and darker, perfectly arched eyebrows framing a bland but pleasant face. Mia looks absolutely nothing like Bianka, who seems to feel the need to make every occasion about herself. Mia looks natural and a little shy, frequently gazing at Emil or her mom or into the distance, not prone to squarely locking eyes with the lens as Bianka does, evident in all the rows of pictures of her and Emil displayed on every shelf and available surface of the living room.
Storm carefully places all the pictures back in their boxes, besides one, his favourite, a picture of Mia stroking an elephant’s trunk in India. She’s clearly unaware the picture is being taken and is looking into the animal’s huge eye, a look of pure joy and awe on her face. She has an expressive and lucid face, one that seems to reveal something of the soul; looking at her, Storm feels close to her. He places the picture underneath his pillow before leaving the room.
*
He’s so nervous he can barely walk when he leaves the house and walks up in the direction of the village, as directed by Emil, who’d winked at him when he said he’d be meeting Madeleine Vinge. She’s waiting for him on a bench by the lake, holding a cardboard tray with two hot drinks. This makes her seem impossibly sophisticated to Storm, that she’d thought to go and order drinks and bring them here.
‘Hi,’ he says, and an awkward moment ensues when he sits down beside her just as she stands up to hug him in greeting.
‘Hey,’ she says, laughing, and to Storm it seems that as long as he can figure out a way to keep this girl around, everything will be pretty great. Conversation flows easily and Storm begins to relax. It was this he’d feared the most – long, awkward silences – but it doesn’t happen a single time. Madeleine is funny and engaged and as big of a Star Wars fan as Storm, at one point lifting the leg of her jeans to show him her Chewbacca socks. They eat lunch on the pavement of a little Thai restaurant on the high street, before walking down the hill to Wimbledon town, where they catch an early afternoon movie at the Odeon, some Scottish drama Storm couldn’t name if he tried, but which makes Madeleine well up and take his hand in the dark. When they emerge from the cinema, they walk slowly back up toward the village, not wanting the day to draw to an end. In a particularly dark spot between streetlights, Storm musters all his courage and stops walking. Madeleine pauses alongside him, and he can sense her looking at him quizzically. He leans in and kisses her lightly on the mouth, first once, and then again, pausing in between to make sure she’s not horrified, but she doesn’t seem to be. She stands on tiptoes and wraps her arms around his neck, drawing him even closer, and touches the tip of her tongue against his.
When they finally break apart and walk on, Storm feels overcome with a wild energy, not unlike when he’s smashed it in a competition and climbs onto the winning podium, clutching the gold medal.
‘Hey, by the way,’ says Madeleine when they arrive at the gates to her house, ‘I’m coming to Oslo next week. I go every summer for a couple of weeks and stay at my aunt and uncle’s house. So we can hang out there, too. If you want.’
‘Cool, yeah. I have to head to a summer training camp at school, but I can definitely get away for a bit.’
