The Hidden Beach

by Karen Swan

  Her frown puckered as she scanned and looked and searched. Where were they? There were dozens of children here, but Tilde and Elise were still so small, she would expect to see them on their parents’ shoulders in a crowd of this size. They should be easy to spot.

  ‘Oh God, they’re off!’ Tove laughed, beginning to film on her phone as Marc dragged Kris into the dancers’ circle and they began galloping one way, then the other. ‘I’m going to blackmail them with this later. I reckon I can probably get Marc to give me that denim jacket of his in return for not showing this to his boss.’

  ‘Ha.’

  Tove glanced down at her, hearing her distracted tone. ‘Who are you looking for?’

  ‘The Mogerts. I thought they’d be here.’

  ‘Oh, they will be. They’re always here. That little girl, the feisty one –’

  ‘Elise.’

  ‘Yeah, Elise. She stung me for double-scoop ice creams last time.’

  Bell chuckled. ‘Don’t mess with Elise. She’s fierce.’

  Tove threw her head back and laughed at a memory. ‘Do you remember last year when we saw them on the boat just as I did my streak down the jetty?’ She gave a cackle of laughter.

  ‘Oh, I remember all right,’ Bell groaned, but grinning too. Poor Max had almost fallen overboard, and he still looked terrified anytime he and Tove met. Her smile faded again. ‘Hmm, it’s odd, I just can’t see them. Maybe we missed them.’ But a kernel of worry was worming into the pit of her stomach. It was highly unusual that they weren’t here. ‘I’m just going to look over there. I’ll be right back.’

  She pushed slowly through the crowd, looking out for the easy clues – Max’s heavy-rimmed ‘nerd’ glasses, Hanna’s bright hair, Elise’s shouts. There were dozens of other children running about; it was a child’s paradise, with apple bobbing, horseshoe tossing, potato-and-spoon races, a tug of war . . .

  ‘Nope. They’re not here,’ she said as she met up with Tove again several minutes later. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Well, don’t let it ruin your day,’ Tove mumbled, still filming the boys. ‘You’ve got the weekend off, remember? Stop worrying about work for once. They’ve probably had a better offer to go . . . potato printing, or something.’

  ‘You’re right. That’s highly likely,’ Bell quipped, swigging her beer.

  Tove brought her phone down from her face and squinted at something. Then she put it back up again. ‘Babe, I think your luck might be in.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘No, don’t look at me – don’t look over there –’

  ‘Where the hell can I look, then?’ Bell chuckled. ‘And what am I not supposed to be looking at?’

  ‘Not what. Who. Now act natural. I’ve just watched some guy watch you go all the way round the crowd just now, and now he’s looking right over again . . .’ She applied the zoom. ‘Oh my God, and he’s shit-hot!’

  ‘Who? Where? Lemme see him,’ Bell laughed, scanning the crowd opposite out of curiosity rather than any real interest. But for all the faces over there, none of them appeared to be looking in her direction.

  ‘He’s over – oh. Oh no, wait . . . scratch that.’ Tove gave a disappointed sigh. ‘Dude’s married. Kids too, it looks like.’

  ‘What? How’d you know?’

  Tove pointed. ‘See him? Guy in the cap?’

  Bell looked over. The only man in a cap she could see had his face turned away as he listened to something a very sleek, very sharp-looking brunette was saying in his ear. ‘Oh God,’ she said with a groan, looking away immediately. ‘Him? Ugh!’

  ‘What do you mean, ugh? He is very definitely not ugh. Who is he?’

  ‘The guy I told you about last night? The one who made a right bloody fuss about letting me use the trike, until I almost had to beg him for it?’

  Tove pulled a face. ‘Oh. Jerk.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She carried on staring at him. ‘Ugh. Hot but married, and an asshole. Shame.’

  ‘I thought your man-radar was better than that, to be honest.’

  Tove made a disappointed tut. ‘I know. I just got distracted by his jaw. That’s a good jaw.’

  ‘With a bad personality. And a wedding ring.’

  The song ended and Kris and Marc staggered over, arms slung round each other’s shoulders, both out of breath. ‘That was so great!’ Marc gushed, reaching over and slapping a huge kiss on Kris’s cheek.

  Bell looked back at them both, loving their happiness but sensing something too. Their unusual exuberance, the way they kept sharing loaded looks . . .

  ‘What’s . . . going on with you two?’ she asked them slowly with a curious grin.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kris was all innocence, but she knew him too well.

  She gasped. ‘You’re up to something, I can tell.’ She pointed a finger playfully at them.

  ‘Us? No.’

  ‘Come on, tell. You know I won’t shut up until you do!’

  Tove was looking between the three of them, equal parts excited and intrigued.

  ‘It’s true, she won’t,’ Marc shrugged to Kris, who gave a tiny shrug back, his eyes on Bell.

  ‘Well . . .’ Marc said slowly. ‘We weren’t going to tell anyone yet, because we wanted a little time to just keep it as our secret. But seeing as you’re, like, a damn spy or something . . .’

  Both girls’ hands flew to their mouths, already knowing what was coming.

  ‘. . . Kris and I have decided to move in together.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Tove yelled, shooting her arms in the air jubilantly, unwittingly spraying beer everywhere, before flinging her arms around the boys’ necks. The three of them began excitedly jumping up and down in a circle, but Kris pulled away seeing Bell’s expression.

  He held out his arms to her and she stepped in for the bear hug, the same thought running through both their heads. Because if Marc was gaining a live-in partner, she was losing a flatmate. Everything was changing again, Life shifting its cogs beneath her feet.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you like this, I’m sorry. The whole thing took me by surprise too.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she whispered into his neck.

  ‘I know you are. But I’m going to miss you, Hell.’

  ‘Not as much as I’ll miss you. You’ll have Marc.’

  ‘You’ll always have me,’ he said, clasping her head between his hands and kissing her right between the eyes.

  ‘Oh god, I’m so drunk,’ she laughed, as happy tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

  ‘And about to get drunker!’ he cried, just as the fiddles started up again. ‘But first –’ His eyes widened with devilish glee as they heard and recognized the first few chords.

  ‘Oh no!’ she cried, as they all circled around her and hustled her into the centre of the dancing ring. ‘No, no no!’

  ‘Yes! First, we’re gonna dance like frogs!’

  It was midnight but still the sky burned, a red smoulder that looked like the heavens were on fire. Trees and houses were silhouetted into inky shapes, but by the water’s edge, all the way round the island, small fires flickered on the beaches, and the marina glowed with cabin lights as people held parties on their boats. The bass of distant music was stippled with groups bursting into rousing choruses, shouts of laughter rising into the night like vixens’ barks.

  Bell staggered out of the Yacht Hotel, where the dancing was only just really getting going, and tried to get her breath back. She was hot and sticky, her heart pounding, the flowers on her crown wilting but somehow still on her head.

  She turned her face to the sky and breathed in deeply. The longest day of the year. The shortest night. She could never decide which was the more optimistic description. Either way, these were the times – day or night – when she missed him most, when it felt most unbelievable that Jack was no longer a part of this. Her loneliness had been a shadow chasing her all day, especially with Kris and Marc’s happy news, and so far she had outrun it, bu
t there were moments when she turned the wrong way and walked straight into it. Like now. As she looked back through the many windows of the grand hotel, watching the people inside dancing and laughing and bloody living, it shrouded her like a veil.

  She turned away, needing more than air now, but space too. She wouldn’t be missed. Tove was getting hot and heavy on the dance floor with a guy who had introduced himself by pouring a drink over his head to cool down; Marc and Kris had gone home, no doubt to make their own noise. She didn’t want to go back in there, but she couldn’t go to bed either; she felt caught between worlds, as she so often did, present but somehow not fully involved. An observer, perhaps, doomed to watch from the other side of the glass.

  The boardwalk was sandy, grains kicking up and rubbing painfully against her sweaty feet as she walked, and she took off her Vans, holding them in one hand as she rubbed her neck with the other. The wooden planks rattled softly underfoot as she padded along in silence, listening to everyone else’s fun and glancing across at the people dancing on deck, demurring with a smile as various drunken invitations were issued for her to join them. It wasn’t the Cannes super-yacht league, by any stretch, but the boat party scene tonight could have rivalled any of the European hotspots. No one would be getting much sleep, whether they wanted to party or not.

  The lights were on in almost every berth, except the last two moorings of the final jetty before the ferry docks. Down there, in that one small pocket, the boats sat in darkness and relative – very relative – seclusion. She turned in and walked to the end, peering down into the dark water for a moment before sitting down and swinging her legs off the edge.

  She sighed heavily. Sometimes, in moments of dislocation like these, she wondered where she would be right now, if things hadn’t unfolded the way they had. Was she supposed to be somewhere else? Or had she always been destined to end up here?

  She wondered what Jack would make of her life now, so different to theirs together – suburban city life, looking after other people’s children, her new friends, nights like these . . . He would be surprised, she imagined, possibly even disappointed. She certainly couldn’t imagine him in this version of her life being lived here. He would have called this ‘settling’ and maybe he’d have been right, but settling was precisely what she had needed when she found herself in the gaping hole of losing him. He hadn’t been the one who’d been left; she had. Not once, but twice now, and there had even been times when she’d felt he’d been the lucky one . . .

  She sniffed and pressed her index finger to her nose, trying to stop the tears from falling. She knew what was happening. She was drunk and getting emotional, feeling lonely. It wasn’t an unfamiliar scenario to her, although she hid it well from her friends and she knew perfectly well what she had to do – go back to the hotel and start dancing again, hide the tears with laughter, blot out the pain with booze. Tomorrow would be a new day and she’d feel brighter about things again, once the hangover had passed. She just needed a few more minutes here first, alone, in the darkest, quietest spot on the island –

  ‘Would a beer help?’

  She gasped, almost screamed, her body immediately tense and primed to run as she looked in the direction from which the disembodied voice had come. It took her a moment to find its source – a man, lying on his back on the bench of the boat to her left. All the lights were off, no signs of occupancy. She had just assumed no one was on board.

  She stared down at him. He didn’t look threatening. His ankles were crossed and he had one hand clasped behind his head, the other resting a beer on his stomach.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she whispered, mainly to herself, her hand pressed over her heart as though to still it. ‘I nearly died of fright. I didn’t know you were there.’

  ‘Well, clearly. I wasn’t going to say anything, but you looked upset, so I thought . . . beer’s often the answer.’

  ‘Or in my case, the problem right now.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m a bit of a maudlin drunk.’

  ‘You looked to be having a high time earlier.’

  ‘Earlier?’ She frowned, peering to try to see him better, but he was largely in shadow. ‘Sorry, do I know you?’

  There was a hesitation and then he slowly swung himself up to sitting. She felt herself take a shallow breath as the borrowed light from the other boats revealed his face. His bone structure spoke to a type – finely carved, well bred, privileged – but there was something particularly singular about his gaze. His eyes were a thick, almost creamy, pale green, circled with a darker ring and fringed with thick lashes. The effect was startling.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve –’ she murmured, knowing she would have remembered that face. In fact, it would be a problem to forget it. He was mesmerizing to look at.

  He reached to his side and held up a battered, sun-bleached baseball cap.

  ‘Oh.’ Oh no.

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘Hello again.’

  ‘I . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you without the cap.’

  ‘Generally I prefer it when people don’t recognize me with the cap.’

  She smiled politely. It was clearly a joke, although she didn’t quite get it, unless he fancied himself as a bit of celebrity (which, given those looks, was fair enough really).

  ‘I almost didn’t recognize you with your hair down. I wasn’t sure. I saw you earlier at the maypole.’

  ‘That’s right. You were with your family.’

  ‘Yes, it was fun.’

  ‘Yes.’ Confirmation he was married then. In spite of the fact that she disliked him on a personal level, the reflexive twinge of disappointment in her gut told her she’d still been rather hoping he was single. She didn’t need to like the guy; one night staring into those eyes would have been just the kind of comfort she needed. ‘Midsommar’s for families really, isn’t it?’

  He paused. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘If ever there’s a time to be with the ones you love, it’s tonight,’ she murmured, feeling her loneliness wash over her again, taking her away from him, here . . .

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘So, do you want that beer?’

  She looked back to find him holding out a bottle for her. ‘Oh, I should probably be getting back . . .’ But her gaze met those eyes again. Even if she could only look at him . . . ‘But I don’t suppose one would hurt.’

  She took it, and self-consciously adjusted her floral crown. Suddenly it seemed a ridiculous thing to wear, even though she’d had it on all day with no embarrassment at all.

  ‘Are those the flowers you had in the basket yesterday? They look good.’

  She touched the crown uncertainly again. ‘Oh, well . . . it all seems a bit silly when you’re nowhere near the maypole.’ She swigged the beer and felt him watch her.

  ‘I’m Emil, by the way.’

  ‘Oh. Bell.’

  He arched an eyebrow. ‘As in . . . ding-dong?’

  ‘Yes,’ she chuckled. ‘As in that. It’s short for Isobel. With an “o”.’

  ‘Boll.’

  She laughed at the joke, feeling the awkwardness of yesterday’s encounter begin to dissipate. He might have been a reluctant hero, but she supposed she’d hardly been the sympathetic damsel in distress either, indignantly demanding he give up the trike as her arms almost gave out.

  A breeze rippled over her and she shivered, her little sundress not such a great idea after midnight.

  ‘You can come and sit in here if you like,’ he offered, nodding towards the bench opposite his. ‘I promise I’m not a serial killer. It’s a lot warmer down here, out of the wind.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ she asked, deliberating for only a moment before getting up and jumping onto the boat. It was one of the less glamorous ones in the marina. Most were navy-bellied gin palaces with white leather and drinks cabinets. This was an early eighties cabin boat with yellowing paint, upholstered in a shocking green-and-white zig-zag cloth that seemed to have been inspired by Culture
Club, and it would be good going if it had a first aid kit on board. ‘Keeping down, out of the wind?’

  ‘I’m keeping my head down in every sense.’ He drank some more of his beer.

  ‘Oh dear. Did you upset your wife or something?’

  His gaze was direct, flashing on her like a torch beam. ‘My wife?’

  ‘Yeah, the dark-haired lady I saw you with earlier . . .? You said you were with your family.’

  ‘I was.’ A small smile flickered on his lips. ‘She’s my sister.’

  ‘Aaah!’ She couldn’t quite contain the happy relief that statement brought her – he wasn’t married! – and she quickly drank some more. There was nothing else to do, and she needed to distract herself from that face.

  He watched her fidget nervously. ‘You’re not from here.’

  ‘Nope. I’m English.’

  ‘Your Swedish is excellent.’

  ‘Thank you. Swedish grandmother.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ she asked.

  ‘Only when I’m trying to impress beautiful English girls,’ he said in faultless English, no trace of an accent.

  ‘Oh my God, you speak it better than most of the English!’ she laughed.

  ‘As I understand it, so do most Swedes . . .’

  She laughed. ‘Hmm. You’re not afraid to be controversial, I see.’

  ‘It would be very dull to be otherwise, don’t you think?’

  Her eyes met his for a moment, and she felt a charge between them. There was definitely something there, a chemical attraction that seemed to have ignited a spark. ‘So have you ever been to England?’