Swimming at Night: A Novel (31 page)

“Yes.”

“You must be desperate to read it,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll give you some space.”

She nodded. Even before the door closed behind him, she was pulling herself onto the bed, drawing the journal into her lap, and opening the intimate cream pages.

(Bali, March)

M
ia reached the cliff top and planted her hands on her hips while she caught her breath. Sweat beaded between her breasts and at the waist of her shorts and she was grateful for the breeze funneling up from the sea.

Noah was sitting in the shade cast by a granite boulder, his knees drawn towards his chest. She knew he’d be here. The lonely ocean view drew him daily to the cliff’s crown to watch the waves peeling below. He did not turn at the sound of her footsteps, nor as she lowered herself beside him, pressing her back against the cool boulder.

From a canvas shoulder bag she took out a bottle of water and a sandwich. “Thought you might be hungry.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking them. His eyes briefly met hers and she saw the hollow rings beneath them. Week-old stubble grazed his jaw and the cut on his forehead had healed over with a brown scab.

After his surfing accident three weeks ago, Noah had driven himself to hospital, leaving a ragged bloodstain on the driver’s seat.
The doctor, who wouldn’t examine him until he’d returned with proof that he could pay the final bill, told Noah he had an acute tear to the rotator cuff muscles in his shoulder and a three-inch laceration on his upper back that would need stitches.

“I waited for you back at the hostel. How did the checkup go?”

His gaze was on the sea where lines of swell, smooth and glassy, rippled beneath its surface.

“The cut on my back’s infected.”

Yesterday she’d seen the wound as she’d helped him change the dressing. The jagged mouth of it was raw and pink, but in the center she’d noticed a paler tinge to the flesh and had worried then about infection. “Have they given you antibiotics?”

He nodded. “Anyway, they reckon the muscle damage will keep me off the water for at least three months. Maybe six.”

“It’ll be sooner,” she promised, placing her hand over his and squeezing it.

The morning following Noah’s accident, she’d found him at Nyang beach, using his good arm to launch sticks into the rolling surf.

“I need to know,” Mia had said, coming to stand at his side, “why you put yourself in such danger.” All night she’d replayed the image of him staggering from the surf. “You could have been killed.”

Noah had stared at her, the flatness of his expression unreadable. “I know I could have.”

Since then he’d taken to spending most days alone on the cliff top, watching the peeling waves and listening to the far-off hoots and cries of the surfers who rode them. In the evenings he’d come to her room and he’d make love to her with a desperate urgency. Afterwards they’d lie together beneath the whirling fan, before Noah returned to his room to sleep alone.

“I was thinking,” she began, forcing her voice to sound bright, “that we could do something different tomorrow. You said Ubud is beautiful. I’d love to visit the temples and water gardens. We could spend a few days up there—stay in one of the lodges where it’s cooler.” She imagined a small place set in the foothills, embraced by brilliant tropical plants that perfumed the air. Away from the dusty heat of town she’d draw Noah out of himself. They’d take early-morning walks through dewy grass, spend the afternoons in bed making love, and talk late into the night.

“I’m thinking of leaving Bali.”

“What?” She felt a pressure expanding in her chest. “Why?”

“I came here for the surf.”

“I came here for you.” The words were out before she could stop them. She thought for a moment of Finn and all she’d sacrificed. The image of him was like a fist squeezing tight around her heart. “What about us?”

Noah withdrew his hand from beneath hers and she felt the gesture was something larger than that. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know.”

Her happiness had become measured with a ruler notched by her interactions with Noah. She’d read books in which characters described themselves as being
“imprisoned”
by love, and had dismissed the term as melodramatic. But now she could think of no better way to describe what it was she felt: she was trapped by the intensity of her feelings for Noah.

“I love you.” The words slipped out unbidden and immediately her cheeks flamed. She looked at her hands, shaken by the enormity of what she had declared. It was the first time she’d said those words to a man.

Silence swelled around them. She waited, willing him to speak.

When he said nothing, she felt her eyes pricking with tears.
She glanced up, setting her gaze on two gulls wheeling on the air currents, the undersides of their wings sharp white.

Mia stood and began moving towards the cliff edge, breaking away from his silence. The breeze was stiff against her cheeks and she squinted into the sun as she tracked the gulls. They glided down the cliff face, dipping low to the sea where waves hummed and rolled. She envied their freedom: she wanted to dive from the cliff, fly through the air, and drift above the ocean.

She stepped forward, placing her toes right at the edge. It was a 400-foot drop onto angular slabs of rock, which waited like tombstones. The breeze wound around her fingers and she began to lift her arms like wings, the cool air stroking her skin, soothing her. The lure of the ocean, liquid and glinting, beckoned her and a dizzy rush filled her head.

Suddenly Noah was beside her, grabbing her arm and yanking her away from the edge. “What the fuck were you doing?”

“I . . . I was just . . . ” she stammered, shocked by herself.

“You were right out on the edge!”

“I wanted to feel the breeze.”

He released his grip and his fingers left a red imprint around her wrist. “Jesus, Mia, I thought you were . . . ”

“I’m sorry.” Tears stung the back of her throat and she couldn’t meet his eye.

“Hey,” he said more softly now. “It’s okay. I overreacted.”

She felt his hand on her lower back and stepped towards him. He folded her into his arms and she pressed her cheek to his chest. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, her hands clutching his cotton T-shirt.

As she listened to the fierce drumming of his heart, she realized that they were no longer hugging: she was holding on.

*   *   *

Mia drifted along the corridor towards her room, her mind heavy. Noah had offered no time frame of when he would leave, or explanation as to what would happen between them, but deep within her she already knew: it was ending.

She unlocked the door and stepped into the stagnant heat. She’d forgotten to leave the window ajar, so the sun had been blazing in, cooking the dust motes that hung in the air.

“How’s it goin’?”

She turned in the doorway to find Jez approaching. “Fine,” she replied, ducking inside, desperate to be alone. All she wanted was to stretch out on her bed, close her eyes, and sleep.

His shoes squeaked across the linoleum floor as he followed her in. She hadn’t seen him in almost two weeks and knew he was here to collect the money she still owed. Yesterday she’d visited the bank and had been surprised to learn that her overdraft was already at its threshold. She knew things would be tight after splurging on the flight to Bali, but had been blithely unaware how desperate her finances were. When she and Finn had drawn up a budget for the trip, they’d built in three months working in New Zealand; now that that was out of the equation, she had no idea how she’d survive.

She dropped her bag on the desk and pushed open the window to encourage the air to circulate.

“You’ve got a burn,” Jez told her. He was leaning against the wall with his hands slung in his pockets, the way a bored teenager might stand. A pair of wraparound sunglasses was pushed back on his head, the lenses cloudy with salt.

“Have I?”

“On your shoulders.”

Mia angled a shoulder towards her face and prodded the skin with a fingertip. A white imprint was left behind.

“Been on the beach?”

“No, I’ve just come back from the cliffs.”

He must have known her reason for going there, but he didn’t ask about his brother. Instead, he said, “Thought I’d let you know that there’s a reggae band playing at Loko’s tonight. A few of us will be heading down. Fancy it?”

The simple friendliness of his request threw her. She wasn’t in the mood for loud music and Bintang beers, and yet neither did she want to break such a newly built bridge. “Sounds good. I’ll see how I feel later.”

“Just knock if you wanna walk down together. Band’s on at eleven.”

Having not expected visitors, she glanced around the room and saw she’d left a set of underwear at the foot of the bed and a sleeve of contraceptive pills on top of her toiletries bag. When she looked up, Jez was watching her. He smiled lightly, then looked away. Did she imagine it, or did he seem nervous?

“Noah had his appointment today at hospital.”

“Right,” he said, absently scuffing the heel of his shoe across the floor in a small arc.

“The cut on his back’s infected. They think he’ll be off the water for at least three months.”

He nodded.

“I’m worried about him. He seems, I don’t know, depressed.”

“Right.”

“I thought you’d want to know—have a chat with him or something.”

Jez scoffed. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but me and Noah
aren’t exactly the kinda brothers that sit around chewing the fat about our feelings.”

“Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Act like you don’t give a shit about him. I saw you in the water, Jez. You risked your life for him.”

He glared at her, the same penetrating dark look as Noah. “I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?”

“He’s your brother.”

“You’ve got a sister?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe you’ll know a bit about love and a bit about hate, too.”

Mia’s mouth opened to say something, but then closed again. Jez was right: sometimes the line between the two was so fine it was difficult to see which side you were standing on.

“He’s thinking of leaving Bali,” she said eventually.

“Course he is. That’s what Noah does. When he can’t handle something, he runs from it.”

“What’s he running from?”

“You haven’t worked it out yet?”

She held his gaze, waiting.

But he didn’t give her an answer. “I guess you’ll want your passport back so you can follow him. Got the rest of that money you owe me?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s been two weeks.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m not a rich man, or a patient one, either. I need that money.”

Mia hadn’t seen exactly how much money had changed hands between Jez and the police, and a niggling doubt made her ask, “How much was it again?”

His mouth tightened. “You know how much. Ten million rupiah.”

“I’ll need my passport to withdraw it.”

He pushed away from the wall and crossed the room. He stopped in front of her and their faces were only inches apart. His eyes were narrower than Noah’s, she saw, and his lashes were sun bleached at their tips. “Don’t treat me like an idiot, Mia,” he said slowly, his mouth clenched tight around his words. “You don’t need your passport to get cash out.”

He turned as if to leave, but then paused by the table where her bag was. From it he took her wallet.

“What are you doing?”

He pulled out the strip of notes inside and counted them. “Two million rupiah.” He tucked the money into his pocket. “Another eight million to go.”

“That’s theft!”

“No. It’s debt collection.”

“I said I’d pay you back. You don’t just go through people’s wallets.”

“Thanks for the moral lesson. Here’s one for you—if you treat someone like an asshole, they’ll act like an asshole.” He closed the door with a smack.

She stared at the wallet sprawled open on the desk. The reality of her situation suddenly hit her: she had no money and no passport. She was trapped here—and soon Noah would leave.

Pressing the heels of her hands to her temples, she tried to think. She had no way of repaying Jez and it’d take months of working on a Balinese wage to gather enough money. She didn’t
report her passport lost or stolen since the police still held her details. If she talked to Noah about it, she’d have to explain why she didn’t tell him about the bribe in the first place, and she was ashamed by the whole incident. She had no idea what to do.

She took out her journal and sank down onto the bed with it. Turning to the clear space of the next blank page soothed her a little. She plucked off the pen lid with her teeth and began to write . . .

Noah is going to leave. The thought of losing him is unbearable, literally unbearable. He’s unhappy, I see that, but I’ve no idea how to help. He doesn’t let me in. It’s lonely standing on the outside.

When he’s gone there will be nothing here for me. But I’m stuck. I’ve got fifty quid in my backpack, that’s it. I’ve fucked up. I’ve completely fucked everything up.

(Bali, August)

K
atie pushed aside the journal and stood. Her knees felt stiff and her neck ached from being hunched over. Glancing towards the balcony, she saw that dusk had crept into night. She slowly rolled her head to loosen the muscles in her neck, thinking over all she’d read about: Mia’s arrival at the Nyang Palace; Jez’s odd remarks in the darkened stairwell; the feel of rain against Mia’s face as she watched Noah staggering injured from the surf; the hot stab of fear as she sat in the back of a police car. Reading about the bribe she’d had to repay to Jez, Katie now understood why Mia had rung, asking for money, and her face grew hot with the shame of their final conversation.

She’d also read about Mia’s visits to the sea cliffs. She memorized the details of the lower path that climbed to a lookout point and the tough scramble through dense bushes to reach the very top. From her bag she took the map Richard Hastings had given her and slipped it into her dress pocket. She pressed her fingers against it and heard the crinkle of paper.
I will go there, Mia. Soon. I promise you.