Swimming at Night: A Novel (22 page)

“Exactly! You—”

“I had sex with Ed.”

“What?” he said, sitting up. “When?”

“A month or so before we left.”

“Did you . . . do you care about each—”

“No!”

“Does Katie know?”

She shook her head.

“Will you tell her?”

Mia sat up, too, and her head spun. She pressed a hand to her forehead as if to hold her thoughts still. “She loves him.”

A pause. “So why did you do it?”

“I was angry.”

“Angry?”

“At Katie. At you.”

“Why, Mia?”

She could feel the anger simmering inside her, bubbling into her throat. “Do you know what it is like having Katie as an older sister? It’s like you’re always standing in the shade. Every guy in school was in love with her. She was the popular one, the smart one, the one who made the right choices.”

“Come on, that’s not—”

“Do you remember Mark Hayes from school? He was two years ahead of us and got the sports scholarship to Ranford Manor?”

“Yes.”

“He went out with me for four weeks just so he could come around to our house to gawk at Katie. And I let him.”

Finn said nothing.

“You were the only one who looked at me first when you entered a room.” The wind snaked in from the sea and lifted the ends of her hair. “And then suddenly you were with Katie.”

He looked down at his hands.

“You are my best friend. She’s my sister. But neither of you told me. Not for a month.”

“I’m sorry, we didn’t—”

“I hated her for it. That’s the truth.”

She remembered sitting on the plaid sofa in their family home
after learning their mother had cancer. Katie was crying heavy tears that soaked through the packet of tissues she carried in her handbag. Mia’s eyes remained dry. When Finn arrived, he stood by the wood burner, the third corner of their awkward triangle, his foot jigging up and down as he listened to the prognosis. There was a moment when everything fell silent and his eyes flicked between them, not knowing who to comfort first: Katie, with her tearstained face, or Mia with her flint-hard stare.

In the end he didn’t have to choose: Mia had left the house, slamming the door so hard that the paintings rattled in their frames.

Now, Finn turned towards her. “Mia, when I walk into a room, it’s always you I see first.”

She could tell from the seriousness of his tone that he meant it. Meant something far more than she’d let herself see.

It wasn’t Katie he saw first. It was her. Finn had always seen her, she realized.

Looking into his eyes she felt a dizzying rush of nostalgia, as if she were standing on the edge of their childhood and she could reach out and touch it—run her fingers through years of shared memories, feel that easy happiness.

She could hear the waves breaking, see the glitter of the stars. The world was spinning and sliding away and she reached her hand to his arm, holding on to what was solid and firm. Then she leaned towards him and placed her lips to his.

“Mia . . . ”

She heard it in his voice—he wanted this, had imagined it before. She kissed him again, deeply this time, as if she’d know herself better by sinking into him.

They lowered themselves onto his sleeping bag, the stars on her back. Her hair fell over her shoulders, brushing his face. She
ran a hand towards the waist of his shorts and Finn caught it, lacing his fingers with hers. “No, Mia. Not if you’re unsure.”

There was rum warm in her stomach—she knew that—but there was something between them, too. She didn’t know what it was, she just knew she wanted it.

(Western Australia, June)

K
atie read with her head bent over the journal, her right hand pressed to her mouth and her left hand gripping the table. She read what happened between Mia and Finn on a smooth, red rock where the waves growled through the night and the stars hung like golden orbs overhead. She read of an intimacy shared on a single sleeping bag that changed the shape of a friendship.

When she glanced up, she saw that the café was empty save for a waitress checking her phone with a private smile. Katie reached for her cappuccino: cold. Up at the counter, a coffee machine with gleaming silver knobs had stopped whirring and beyond the café window the rush of traffic had slowed, and everything seemed changed. She looked back at the journal and understood now the depth of Mia’s anger at her. But she couldn’t regret what had happened between her and Finn. Not when those few months with him were among the happiest of her life.

Katie leaned back in her chair, wondering,
Was I that happy with Ed?
He had returned to England three weeks ago, calling her
several times a day to leave apologetic voice mails. Twice she had found herself dialing his number, lonely enough to want him back, but both times she had made herself ring Jess instead, who didn’t hesitate in reminding her why the engagement was off.

Katie thought she’d been in love with Ed, but now she wondered whether what she had loved was actually the idea of their relationship. Ed was intelligent, charming, and successful, but he had never surprised or challenged her. He’d never stayed up talking with her through the night. He’d never made her laugh so hard that her stomach ached.

She realized there was only one person who had.

Reading Mia’s intimate journal entry about Finn had pried open Katie’s own memories, which she wore pressed to her heart like a locket. Now she found herself slipping back in time as she let herself remember . . .

*   *   *

Katie opened the lid of the cooling barbeque, then juggled the charred tinfoil packages onto a spare plate. Peeling back an edge, she saw that the glossy kernels of corn had turned a rich gold. She offered one to her mother.

“I couldn’t,” her mother said, placing the flat of her hand to her stomach.

“Mia?”

Mia shook her head as she sat cross-legged, dark glasses shading her eyes from the sun, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. The tea bothered Katie. Their garden table was still filled with homemade chilli burgers, chicken and cherry-tomato kebabs, crisped rosemary potatoes, and half a jug of Pimm’s. Their mother had spent the morning cooking to celebrate having both her
daughters home for the weekend. If she was disappointed that Mia hadn’t changed out of her pajamas, she didn’t show it.

Katie spread a knob of butter over one of the corncobs and bit into it, her mouth filling with the sweet, nutty taste.

“How is your head?” their mother asked Mia.

“Still there.”

“Where were you and Finn?”

“At the old quarry. Cliff party.”

“Ah,” their mother said, nodding, for cliff parties were known to involve a few hundred people, generators and decks, beer by the crate, and a beach stroll home at dawn. “I wish my headache was because of a cliff party, but I think I must be fighting off a bug. I’m going to lie down.”

Katie only managed half the corncob and then wiped the butter from her lips with a napkin.

Mia reached across the table and took Katie’s left hand, pulling it towards her to inspect her nails. “Have you had a manicure?”

“I was given a voucher.”

“It suits you,” she said, and Katie couldn’t see her expression beneath her sunglasses.

Mia uncrossed her legs, rolled up her pajama bottoms, and stretched her long legs across the picnic bench. “God, it’s good to feel the sun at last.”

Katie had a sudden desire to strip down to her underwear and lie in the spring sunshine with her sister, getting giddy on cocktails. It felt as though it had been months since they’d found the time to talk.

She fetched a picnic blanket from the porch and put it down on the grass. “Why don’t I make us mojitos? Mum’s got a bottle of white rum and there’s fresh mint in the fridge.”

“I’ve got to drive back to school soon.”

“You’re going? You only arrived last night. It’s a holiday tomorrow. I thought you were staying for the whole weekend.”

“I’ve got finals.”

“You’re going back to study? On a Sunday night?”

“I’m going back for a gig.”

Disappointed, Katie began clearing the plates, scraping the leftovers into a bowl, and piling the cutlery on top.

The noise and activity seemed to aggravate Mia, who slipped from the table onto the freshly laid blanket. She rolled up her T-shirt and flung her arms out at her sides.

“It’d be nice if you helped clear up.”

“I’ll dry later.”

“You’ll be gone later.”

“Before I go.”

“No, Mia. Now.”

She sat up. “What is your problem?”

“Mum’s been cooking all morning when she’s not feeling—”

“I didn’t ask her to.”

“It would be nice if you offered to help occasionally.”

“I can get you a badge that says
PERFECT DAUGHTER.
Will that help?”

“Maybe you’ll get a discount if you order yourself
SHIT SISTER.
”

They glared at each other. Then Katie noticed Mia’s lips turn up at the corners. “You’ve got corn in your teeth,” Mia said, and they both laughed.

Katie put down the plates and moved over to the blanket. Mia scooted over and they lay together. Katie could smell wool and damp earth. Rolling onto her side, she bared her teeth: “Gone?”

“Gone.”

Clouds were starting to break up the wide expanse of blue and she imagined that in another hour the sun would be swallowed. “Are you coming home for the summer, after finals?”

“My housemates are doing their master’s. I may stay on, too.”

“To do what?”

“Drugs. Prostitution. Theft.” She sighed. “I don’t know, Katie. There is no grand master plan.” She ran her fingers through her hair and Katie caught the smell of woodsmoke in it.

“If you want me to look for vacancies on our system, I can do. They’d be in the city, though.”

“Christ, the thought of London in the summer—suits, office blocks, and clammy Tubes—I’d go mad.”

“Seven million Londoners manage.”

“Maybe I’ll spend the summer in Europe.”

Katie laughed.

“What?”

“How are you planning to pay for it? You’re at your overdraft limit and you still owe me £500.”

“Thanks for the financial advice.”

“Really, though, Mia, I would like my money back soon.”

“What, that big salary of yours just isn’t enough to keep you in calendars and highlighters?”

A cloud passed overhead, blocking out the sun. “You can be so sharp sometimes.”

“And you can be so predictable.”

Katie stood, smoothed down her dress, and crossed the lawn. She gathered the stack of plates in one arm and picked up the tray of potatoes in the other.

“And now you’re going to do all the clearing up, so I look like the asshole.”

With a hangover, Mia was most often sullen, but occasionally
vicious. Katie wouldn’t rise to it. She moved indoors, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. The kitchen smelled of garlic and rosemary and a play was in full swing on the radio. She scraped the leftovers into the composter and then searched beneath the sink for the dish soap.

Mia stalked in, setting down a serving dish with a clang. She snatched off her sunglasses and then yanked open the dishwasher and began forcing the plates into the rack.

“That’s clean. It needs unloading.”

With a sigh, she dragged the plates back out and banged them down on the counter.

“Mum’s asleep.”

“There I go, fucking up again.”

Katie ran hot water into the sink and added a squeeze of dish soap. “We’re getting too old for this, Mia.”

“For what?”

“For this—fights over nothing. We’re only together a handful of times a year—I just don’t need it.”

“And I don’t need you telling me what I should be doing with my money, and how I should be living my life.”

Katie laughed, shaking her head, and the gesture only enraged Mia further.

“You think you’re so fucking superior, don’t you?”

There was a knock at the back door and Finn walked in with a cheery, “Hello!” His arrival did not deter Mia, who blazed on: “You must love hearing about my overdraft and my ‘aimless’ future. But fuck, Katie, you know what? I don’t want your corporate bullshit job, your big paycheck, or your pretentious London dinner parties. I don’t want to be anything like you, because I look at you and think one thing:
Safe.
”

The word wounded her with its connotations of cautiousness, predictability, and conservatism.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Mia goaded, eyes dancing. “Tell me what a bitch I am?”

Katie turned off the tap and faced her sister. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

Mia glared at her, then pushed through the back door, letting it slam behind her.

Katie could feel tears beginning to prick her eyelids and she turned back to the sink, slipping her hands into the soapy water.

“I’m sorry,” Finn said behind her. “She doesn’t mean it.”

“No?” At the edge of the kitchen, Katie heard the washing machine click into its spin cycle, a button or a zipper striking the drum with each rotation. “I love her,” she said quietly, “but sometimes I don’t think I know her. That’s a terrible thing to admit, but it’s true. I honestly don’t know my own sister.” She looked up at the ceiling but couldn’t stop the tears spilling onto her cheeks.

She felt Finn’s hand on her shoulder as he gently turned her towards him and wrapped his arms around her.

She had known Finn since he was eleven; they’d hidden in the boiler cupboard together, crouching on a mound of warm towels waiting for Mia to find them; he had given her a piggyback home when she’d sprained her ankle chasing Mia’s runaway kite; they’d kissed cheeks when she’d arrived at Mia’s twenty-first birthday; but Finn had never held her in his arms like this. She had always thought of him as a boy, her little sister’s friend, but as she let her head rest against his chest and her soapy hands lock over the hard muscles at his back, her perception began to shift.

She felt his heart beating against hers and wondered if he was attracted to her. She imagined Mia walking into the kitchen and
witnessing this moment—and the thought thrilled her. She breathed in the warm smell of his skin and then, very slowly, she lifted her face towards his.