I can’t stop looking at you was the first thing he ever said to me. I liked that. He could have mumbled something about buying me a drink or awkwardly asked my name, but instead he went for the adult, confident approach. And Andreas was adult and confident, even back then, and though he was only a couple of years older than me and my student friends, he was already working and exuded an air of maturity. He felt like coming home.
And now… I glance around at the young crowd exuberantly bobbing around the dance floor, at the inky Ibiza sky pulsating with stars, at the woman in front of me who is saying something to me, her hand warm and firm on the bare skin of my lower back, and I realize I have no concept of home anymore. Andreas, Oslo, Wimbledon, my house, even my children – they all feel light-years away.
‘What?’ I say into Bianka’s ear. I didn’t catch a word of what she said.
‘I said, check out those guys over there. To the left of the pool, on the white lounge sofa. Yeah, those ones. They’re beckoning us over.’ I glance at the guys, and they are clearly talking about us, one of them raising his champagne glass to us in a toast. They look like they’re in their mid-twenties and are all dressed head to toe in white linen, with soft leather moccasins. Bianka throws her head back and laughs loudly as though I’d said something far funnier than ‘what?’. Then she leans in and kisses me on the lips, her hand slipping into the tangle of hair at the nape of my neck, slick with sweat. I’m shocked by the sudden public display of affection and feel a tremor of annoyance that she’s only kissing me like this to impress these men. When we break apart, I feel a stunned shift in the atmosphere from the crowd. Bianka keeps dancing, pulling me very close, and it’s as though our display gives the crowd a surge of energy because there is a tangible shift in the air, and others too start dancing more closely and suggestively.
She kisses me again and again, so hard that my lips hurt and there is a new aggression in her embrace. She’s clearly excited by being watched and as her tongue slips deep into my mouth, I realize that so am I. Nobody here knows who I am, something that no longer happens to me very often, especially in Oslo. I get stared at and approached every time I go to a restaurant or a party, mostly discreetly, but still, the feeling of anonymity is long gone. It’s one of the things I’ve come to appreciate the most about living in London as my profile in Norway grew bigger and bigger. It’s easy to forget how much of our freedom is lost when we’re known everywhere we go, when a presumed version of us enters every room ahead of the real person.
‘Hi, ladies,’ says a voice. It belongs to the man who raised his glass in a toast at us. ‘Why don’t you come and join us for a while?’
‘Sure,’ says Bianka, before I even have a chance to think.
‘I’m Max,’ he shouts over the music, and we follow him through the crowd back to the lounge area where several bottles of champagne are cooling on ice in silver buckets. Max pours us each a glass and hands them to us, smiling widely. He seems completely sober, unlike his two friends who have the glazed eyes of the very inebriated. There is something vaguely familiar about him and I wonder if he could be a C-list reality star or something, glimpsed on the cover of a trashy weekly magazine, perhaps; I wouldn’t be surprised, he certainly looks the part. The friends are wearing matching pink Versace polo shirts, apparently in a non-ironic way, and they both have neck tattoos of interlinking ‘o’s.
As I sit down on the soft white leather sofa, I feel a wave of exhaustion and annoyance wash over me. I could be at home by now in my own bed, not gate-crashing the Dubois-Josephs’ rave party and drinking champagne with this sleek man child with whom I’m apparently expected to make small talk. I sip the champagne and feel myself zone out as Bianka talks to the guy, only picking up snippets of the predictable conversation. So, have you been to Ibiza before? Have you tried the new place at d’en Bossa? Where are you from? How long are you staying?
‘So, are you guys a couple or what?’ asks one of Max’s friends, who was introduced to us as Ruben, and I realize how stoned he is when he speaks – he can barely string a sentence together.
‘Yeah,’ says Bianka. ‘We’re engaged, actually.’ She holds up her left hand and shows off the ring on her finger, a large sapphire haloed by pinprick diamonds. An image pops into my head of Emil sinking to his knees in front of Bianka, asking her to be his wife, slipping this same ring onto her slim, pale finger. The thought makes me feel uncomfortable.
‘Really?’ asks Max, touching his glass to Bianka’s then mine, eyes glinting in the low light. ‘Well, congratulations to you two beautiful ladies.’ Max is old-school handsome with longish dark hair and a deep shadow of facial stubble, with a charming white smile. Another image appears in my head, of Max pinning me down in bed, moving hard but slow inside me, rubbing the skin on my face and chest raw with his stubble. I blush and while I’m sure he would have given me palpitations back in the day, at forty-one I’m sooner seduced by a soft bed and a solid night’s sleep than the mere fantasy of bedding a good-looking guy half my age. At least before this trip. I feel disturbed by the image, though; it’s as though a part of my mind keeps conjuring up all these scenarios that I can’t control.
‘What about you guys?’ asks Bianka, motioning to the two similar-looking men on the sofa. ‘Are you a couple?’
‘Ha-ha,’ says the especially stoned one. ‘You’re a funny one, aren’t you?’
‘Marco and Ruben are brothers,’ says Max. ‘Silly rich brothers from Sicily. Bad boys.’
‘Shut up,’ says the same one that spoke before; his brother still hasn’t said a single word. ‘We’re businessmen.’
‘By that he means second-generation mafioso boys who haven’t ever gotten their hands dirty but like to pretend like they’re tough like their old dead daddy. But these guys are more into tattoos and fast cars than knowing where the money that bought them came from. Isn’t that right, Marco?’ Max refers to the unspeaking brother, who nods earnestly, a blank look on his face.
‘So, whose party is this?’ I ask, glancing around again, still half fearful I might come face to face with my difficult, persistent neighbours.
‘Just some kids’,’ says Max, and laughs. ‘You know the type. Obnoxious billionaire playboys from Paris and Palermo who can rent out a place like this on a whim.’
‘Mmm,’ says Bianka, as though she knows plenty of kids like that, as though her circle of acquaintances aren’t mainly middle-aged Scandinavian bankers in Wimbledon. Bianka and Max keep chatting and I hover at the edge of the conversation, fighting back another wave of tiredness – it’s almost one a.m. She makes up one lie after another, seemingly completely effortlessly. I’m both fascinated and unnerved. She tells him that we left our husbands for each other last year, that we live together in Copenhagen, that she’s an architect and I’m a chef, and that neither of us have children. She says she’s half American and that her mother is an opioid addict living in Fort Lauderdale. Max hangs on to her every word, laughing in all the right places, smoothly refilling our glasses. Marco appears to have fallen asleep, and the other one, whose name I’ve already forgotten, sits scrolling on his phone.
I’m a little unsettled by the ease with which Bianka creates an entirely new universe, seemingly out of the blue. My thoughts dart to my husband and children at home, as though to reassure myself that they really do exist. Suddenly they don’t feel far away or hard to conjure up in my mind, and I am overcome with gratitude and yearning for them. Soon I’ll be home. But will it be the same? I drain my champagne glass and place it on the glass table with a loud clang.
‘Come on, Bianka,’ I say, standing up. Enough fun for one evening. Bianka is in the middle of a made-up anecdote about coming out to her parents and stops mid-sentence, visibly annoyed.
‘Charlotte, don’t be such a party pooper.’
‘I want to get back to the house.’
‘Where are you guys staying?’ asks Max.
‘Charlotte owns the fancy pile next to this place,’ says Bianka. I pick up my purse from the table and am already walking away from them, a vein of fury throbbing in my head, pushing my way through the crowd when Bianka catches up with me, grabbing me by the arm.
‘Seriously, what the hell was that?’ She must see that I’m upset because her expression softens and she gently strokes my arm, but I pull away from her, hugging myself and rubbing my upper arms as though the puckered goosebumps that have appeared on my skin were from cold.
‘Bianka, it’s past one a.m. I need to get back. Feel free to stay.’
‘I thought we were in this together.’
‘In what?’
‘Charlotte, we’re just out, having a fun time, talking to some guys, drinking champagne. It makes me feel young again. You know, like all the doors are still open and we can just go anywhere and become anyone. You don’t have to get all Aunt Edna on me.’
‘Aunt Edna?’
‘Yeah, old and uptight.’
‘Bianka. Look. I just found it a little weird. You know, that you just invented all that stuff.’
‘It was just a bit of fun. We’ll never see them again. Who cares? Maybe let’s allow ourselves to be those other people, just for one night. Think about it. Me and you, engaged and free of all ties, living in a cute little apartment in Copenhagen…You have the rest of your life to be a high-strung perfectionist in London.’ She very lightly runs her fingertip across my collarbone and fixes me with those clear blue eyes.
I laugh in spite of myself. Maybe she’s right; it might be good for me to let go a little.
‘Come on. Dance with me. Please.’ Bianka smiles her wide, irresistible smile and holds her hands out to me, her feet doing little salsa steps. Maybe I’m just being silly. Though I don’t want a divorce and I am starting to miss my family at home, it has been unanimously agreed that I need to learn about fun. Maybe Andreas wouldn’t mind what’s been happening between Bianka and me. In fact, I might even tell him someday, and it might inject some new passion into my marriage; I’ve heard this kind of thing can have that effect. Or not. After all, it’s also been agreed that what happens in Ibiza stays in Ibiza. And I’m provably good at compartmentalizing.
I take Bianka’s hands and she pulls me out onto the dance floor and very close to her. When she kisses me again, it’s softly and gently and I feel the familiar pang of desire in the hollow of my stomach. Before the song is even finished, Bianka takes my hand and we meander through the crowd, across the vast terraces and into one of the several cottages at the edge of the property. Inside, the air is hushed and fragrant, bearing the scent of fig and firewood.
‘What… Where are we?’ I whisper, my eyes slowly adjusting to the near darkness, broken only by occasional strobing neon lights from the party.
‘Shhh,’ she says. ‘Max said this room would be empty.’
