The Sea Sisters (27 page)

‘Yes.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

His face bloomed into a toothy smile. ‘Yes, very beautiful. Thank you. Shells from Bali beaches.’

She remembered beachcombing with Katie when they were girls, searching for shells and sea glass. Autumn was the best season, when the big storms would stir up the seabed and wash in limbs of driftwood, bleached rope and stones polished smooth by the waves. On cold evenings when the light had been swallowed by four o’clock, they’d sit cross-legged in front of the wood burner, making necklaces from their loot of shells. Whenever she had worn one of those necklaces – even if it were tucked beneath a scarf and coat – it would feel as though she was carrying the sea with her.

‘How much is it?’

‘Fifteen thousand rupiah.’ He smiled again and nodded.

It was the equivalent to £1. ‘I’d love it.’ She pressed double the amount of notes into his lined palm, then said, ‘Have a good evening.’ She walked into the hostel with the necklace swinging from her hand.

The reception was a scratched wooden desk in front of the entrance to the owner’s lounge. ‘Hello?’ she called out.

A side door opened and a woman in a worn nightdress sloped out.

‘Sorry it’s late. Do you have a room?’

She was shown to a poky room furnished only with a bed, mosquito net and frail bamboo desk. Before the woman left, Mia asked, ‘Is there anyone staying here called Noah?’

‘Terrace,’ she said, pointing her finger to the ceiling. ‘People party on terrace. Or beach. Lots of beach fires for travellers.’

Mia dumped her backpack down. There was no mirror, but she ran her fingers through her hair, working out the tangles. She hadn’t any make-up on, so licked her lips and blinked several times to moisten her eyes, which felt paper dry from the flight.

She left her room and followed the windowless corridor to its end, where a heavy fire door led to an outside staircase. The metal steps clanked as she climbed and she held on tightly to the railing.

Music and laughter rose from the terrace and she paused, listening. It was difficult to tune in to the wash of voices, but she was certain Australian accents were among them. Her pulse quickened at the thought of seeing Noah. Despite her hurt at the way he left –
Mia, it was too easy for him to leave
– she hoped he’d be pleased that she’d come.

She’d been careful not to let Finn enter her thoughts, but now the image of him waiting for her at the airport rushed forward. She had heard him call out her name and she’d turned, seen him standing with a hand half lifted in a wave. She knew she should have said something, at least tried to explain, but everything she felt was knotted so tightly that the words became lodged in her throat. Instead, she had smiled with her lips pressed together, her eyes stinging with tears. Thousands of smiles must have passed between them over the years – smiles of joy, of collusion, of encouragement, of relief – and she knew Finn understood the meaning of this one: it was an apology for what she was about to do.

All the muscles in his face had loosened, fallen slack with disbelief. She had made herself turn and walk on. If she had glanced back, even for a second, she could never have left him.

Now she took a deep breath and climbed the final steps, which delivered her to the edge of a cramped roof terrace. She could smell coconut oil and marijuana. An old stereo was balanced on an upturned crate, blaring Bob Marley into the night. A group of people were crowded round a low table covered with beer bottles, a splayed deck of cards, tea lights and an overflowing ashtray. Surfboards were propped against metal railings, beyond which Mia could see the headlights of cars several streets away. She imagined that if she turned, the sea would be behind her, dark and watchful.

A man with thinning dreadlocks was saying, ‘They’re clamping down. That Kiwi did three months, no shit, for weed.’

Opposite, a girl with a bare midriff was arching backwards, laughing at something the person beside her was saying. When the girl straightened, Mia saw that it was Zani.

A voice snapped her attention to the edge of the terrace. ‘Look who it is.’ Jez was leaning against the railings, one ankle crossed in front of the other. He was holding a bottle of beer loosely at its neck. ‘Come to find lover boy?’ he said, stepping forward and drawing everyone’s attention to Mia.

A flush crept up her neck. She forced herself to look him in the eye as she asked, ‘Is Noah here?’

He glanced around the terrace. ‘I don’t see him.’

The flush spread into her cheeks, turning them deep red, which she hoped would be masked by the darkness. ‘Is he
staying
here?’

‘How about I take you to his room?’ Jez said, crossing the terrace towards her. As he passed, they stared at each other for a moment and she was disarmed by how similar his dark eyes were to Noah’s. She tried to read his expression – resentment? anger? – but he moved past her.

She hovered for a moment, reluctant to go with him, but the thought of seeing Noah pushed her to follow.

Jez ran his beer bottle along the handrail as he clunked down the steps. At the bottom of the stairway he stopped and turned to face Mia. It was dark away from the lit terrace and there was no space to pass him.

‘Tell me, Mia,’ he stretched both syllables of her name, as if the word were a kiss. ‘Why are you here?’

‘To see Noah.’

He took a slug of his beer. ‘You’re what, in love with him?’

‘That’s none of your business.’ The track that had been playing on the terrace must have ended. Silence expanded between them.

‘I’m going to offer you some advice because I like you.’ He leant close to her ear and she could smell beer on his breath. ‘Walk away.’

‘I’d like to, except you’re in my way.’

He laughed.

A new song drifted down the stairway, pulsing into the night.

‘If you don’t, Noah will. Maybe not now, maybe not for months, but eventually he will. He’s good at leaving.’

Yes,
she thought.
I know.

Jez opened the door into the corridor and they were flooded with light again, the conversation finished. She tried to imagine Noah and Jez as young boys kicking a football on a beach, or skimming stones over the backs of waves. She wondered, had a football ever been angled at a face or a pebble raised in anger? She didn’t understand their relationship. It seemed as if neither of them wanted to travel with the other, yet something was binding them together.

Over his shoulder, Jez said, ‘I’m guessing he doesn’t know you’re coming.’

‘No.’

‘It’s a helluva long way back if he doesn’t like the surprise.’

‘He will,’ she said with more certainty than she felt.

‘You’re about to find out.’ He stopped outside a door and rapped hard with his knuckles. ‘Special delivery.’

As he left, he whispered, ‘I warned you, Mia.’

*

She had forgotten the impact his physical presence had on her. He was taller than she remembered, his broad frame filling the doorway. His face looked deeply tanned against a white T-shirt that was threadbare at the collar. She wanted to place her mouth on his neck, taste his skin.

‘Mia?’ He brought his hand to his jaw, the dark tattoo stretching over the veins on the underside of his forearm. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was in Bali. Thought I’d look you up.’ She smiled casually, but her stomach was dancing with nerves.

‘Where’s Finn?’

She shifted in the corridor. ‘I came on my own.’

She saw his Adam’s apple move as he realized the enormity of her action: she was here for him.

He stepped aside to let her enter, careful not to touch her. She felt the heat of his body as she passed.

A small lamp lit the room and a ceiling fan whirled, circulating warm air. She recognized his belongings: a tired green bag at the foot of the bed, a pair of dark board shorts drying on a curtain rail, a surfboard leaning in the corner with a leash wrapped around its fins. She saw the imprint of his body in the creases of the bed, and a book face down on the pillow. She tilted her head to see the cover:
The Old Man and the Sea.
He was reading it.

There was nowhere to sit except the bed so she moved to the window and looked through her reflection to the dark alley below. She heard the click of the door shutting and then the low thud of his back leaning against it.

When he spoke his voice was low. ‘This is a mistake.’

She turned. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Finn knows it. That’s why he’s not with you, isn’t it?’

Tears stung the back of her throat. She couldn’t bear to think about what she’d left behind; she could only focus on what she’d come here for. She lifted her chin. ‘You emailed me, Noah.’

‘I shouldn’t have.’

‘Then you think it is okay to just disappear one morning without even saying goodbye to the girl you’ve been making love to for the past ten weeks?’

‘We hung out. We slept together. We weren’t a couple.’

‘It was more than that.’

‘Not to me.’

‘Don’t sling around words so casually. You’re better than that.’

His gaze was dark. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’ She took a step towards him. ‘Why did you send that email?’

He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have.’

‘But you did.’ She took another few steps until she was standing in front of him, close enough to reach out and place her fingers against his cheek. The fan stirred wisps of her hair against her shoulders. ‘Why did you send it?’

‘Please,’ he said faintly, ‘you should leave.’

There were only inches between them. ‘Why did you send it?’

He fixed his gaze on her. His words were clear: ‘Because I hoped you’d come.’

She had known this the moment she read his email. There was something between them, a connection she’d felt that first night in Maui, and she knew Noah felt it, too.

Slowly, she brought her hand to his cheek, his stubble rough against her palm. She felt the flicker of her pulse in the tips of her fingers where their skin touched. She sensed a sadness in him that she didn’t yet understand. Then she placed her lips to his and kissed him. The rush of longing was so intense that she gasped.

He reached for her, folding her into his arms as if he never wanted to let her go.

*

Desire, which began somewhere deep inside of her, rippled outwards. Sweat glistened on their backs; slid between their thighs. His breathing quickened. Her teeth pressed into his shoulder. She shuddered.

He expelled a long, low groan and then sank down onto her, his face buried in her hair.

She lay listening to his breathing and the fan whirring above. She could feel his heartbeat in her chest.
It was worth everything,
she thought,
if only for this
.

Noah pushed himself up onto an elbow and looked at her. The intensity of his gaze made her feel as if he were searching her face for something lost. With his thumb he smoothed a damp strand of hair away from her temple. ‘I’m sorry, Mia, for the way I left.’

He said nothing more for a time but she waited, sensing he wanted to continue.

‘The forecast looked good, Jez found us some flights and we just left. I should’ve looked for you. Told you myself. But I didn’t know what to say.’ His gaze left hers. ‘Or what I wanted.’

She swallowed. ‘Do you now?’

He rolled onto his back, stretching so that his stomach flattened. He made a pillow with his arms and said, ‘This, what we’ve got … it’s a lot for me.’

She understood. On the flight to Bali she had flicked back in the journal to reread some of her father’s song lyrics. Many of his later songs were about the powerlessness of being in love and she’d found herself rapt by the lyrics, as if he’d opened a door into her own mind and shown her exactly what it was she was feeling. The songs weren’t maudlin romantic ballads, they were filled with imagery of both tender ecstasy and emotional imprisonment. They’d become etched in her mind and she felt the symmetry of their lives running like parallel railway tracks.

‘It’s a lot for me, too,’ she said. Yet here they were. In quiet moments, she tentatively pictured a future with Noah: travelling through Indonesia together, walking on empty beaches with their fingers interlaced and, later, a trip to England, to Cornwall, to show him her sea.

‘All I know,’ he said, ‘is that I’m pleased you’re here.’

She smiled and tucked the comment away, knowing it would have to be enough for now.

She turned on the bed and lay with the back of her head resting on his stomach. She watched the blades of the fan rotate. Beyond the swirl of air she heard the hum of a generator and the low bass of a song pulsing from the terrace. ‘So tell me about Bali,’ she said.

He drew a breath and her head rose with his stomach. ‘The water is incredible – clear and glassy – waves peeling right in from the Indian Ocean. It’s busy, now. The surf is overcrowded and there’s a load of attitude at the main breaks.’

‘You’ve been before?’

‘I lived here for a year.’

‘When?’

‘At 16.’

‘With your family?’

‘No. On my own.’

She tried picturing herself at 16 living in a foreign country, alone. ‘Why?’

‘I wanted space. I wanted to surf,’ Noah said.

‘That was brave.’

‘It didn’t feel that way.’

‘How did it feel?’

‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. That was all.

‘Has Bali changed a lot?’ She was eager to keep the conversation going.

‘When I first came here the surf scene hadn’t fully taken off. The beaches were still quiet. There’s a break called Seven Point that’s really well known – it’s in all the surf movies so everyone wants to ride it. A decade ago the only way to reach it was by paying this local guy to take you on the back of his scooter across a dirt track on his land. You had to climb down a sketchy rope ladder and he’d wait with any gear you’d brought until you paddled in. Now a tarmac road runs right up to the point and there’s a café on the top selling surf DVDs and ice cream.’

‘The locals must hate it.’

‘Some were pleased. Tourism made them a quick buck. But yeah, a lot of them resent the changes. It’s such a beautiful island but it’s been disfigured by developers.’