The Hidden Beach

by Karen Swan

  ‘What?’ She looked stunned as Bell held it out to her.

  Linus dropped his spoon in his cereal bowl excitedly. ‘Mamma’s been looking for that all weekend!’

  ‘Where was it?’ Hanna croaked.

  ‘In your bedside drawer. I was just returning the inhaler, and –’ She shrugged.

  ‘It was never lost at all, Mamma!’ Linus laughed.

  Hanna blinked at him as though she couldn’t quite understand his words. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she managed. ‘I’m so silly. I must have put it there and forgotten all about it.’ She slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘I must be getting old! How could I be so forgetful?’

  ‘Wait till we tell Pappa.’ Linus began eating again.

  ‘Bell, thank you. I can’t believe I did that. I’ve worried myself stupid all weekend, for no good reason.’

  ‘I’m just glad it’s found,’ Bell smiled, although technically, it had never been lost. Merely forgotten. It was a funny thing to forget, though.

  She watched as Hanna slid it onto her finger again – I never take it off – a question running through her mind.

  So why had she?

  Sandhamn, 3 August 2009

  It had been a long day and his feet burned as he jumped onto the old boat, already late for dinner. The stock-take had taken twice as long as it should have done when the bakery’s cat had leapt from its sleeping perch on the very top box and sent the whole tower crashing to the floor. Some of the tin cans were dented but otherwise fine, but half the tubs of herring had exploded on impact and he’d had to mop three times to get rid of every last speck, else the smell would quickly become unbearable once the temperatures rose again tomorrow.

  He couldn’t wait to get back home and swim. The stench of fish sat on his skin and his whole body ached from shifting boxes all day; his lower back was stiff from manning the tills, which were set too low down for someone of his height.

  All around him, the marina hummed to the low buzz of life as the boat owners went about enjoying their summer on the high sea – some catching the last of the sun on deck, or sitting chatting in foldaway cabin chairs with a glass of rosé; others hosing the waterproof cushions, polishing the bowlines or checking the sails. He unwound the mooring rope from the low bollard, ready to sink onto the bench and putter out of the marina and into the sound. Another day done . . .

  A pair of soft, pretty feet with pink-painted toenails stopped in front of him, and he looked up. But there was no surprise in his face. He already knew to whom they belonged.

  They stood in silence, as though they already knew each other well, and he had a strange sense of time collapsing in on it itself in her presence – the future; the past. It all dovetailed into the present. This moment right now. Nothing else mattered.

  ‘You haven’t called,’ she said, but there was no smile in her eyes today, and doubt chimed through her voice. She wasn’t used to being resisted, he could tell.

  ‘No.’ He blinked, but kept his gaze steady, hating the visceral shock that came with connection with her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘. . . Your boyfriend is my friend.’

  Her eyes narrowed, not liking the reply. Sensing judgement? ‘We’ve only been together a few weeks. It’s not like I’ve married the guy.’

  He shrugged. ‘He’s my friend,’ he repeated.

  She scuffed the ground with one of those pretty pink toes. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t sit with us?’ She could be tart when it suited her.

  ‘I told you, I had to get back to work.’

  She took in the old, patched-up boat: the blue baling bucket with string on the handle pushed under the bench seat; his father’s yellow oilskin rolled up at the back, home-made mackerel nets slumped in a heap. ‘And have you finished work now?’ She looked back at him with open interest, dazzling him with the full wattage of her sparkling blue eyes.

  ‘Yes. But I’m late.’

  She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘For what?’

  ‘Dinner.’

  Her mouth parted. ‘. . . With your family?’ Her eyes gleamed mockingly but he could see the hurt she was trying to hide. She kept dangling bait, but he just wouldn’t bite. ‘You are just so very . . . good, aren’t you?’

  He inhaled, wishing he wasn’t, not understanding what this was between them. They had barely shared five minutes of conversation together and yet they agitated something in the other, something restless.

  ‘Bye, Hanna.’ He unwound the final coil of rope and tossed it onto the jetty, letting the boat glide away from her and everything she promised.

  And everything that that threatened.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Bell, can we talk?’

  Bell hesitated at the door, hearing the tension in Hanna’s voice. ‘. . . Sure.’ They’d been tiptoeing around one another for the past few days, with cringing politeness and bright smiles that bordered on lunacy.

  It was late and yet again, the children had only just gone to bed. Another day that had started early and finished way past their bedtimes had left them all feeling exhausted, the unsetting sun less of a friend to her mid-week.

  ‘Here.’

  Hanna was holding out a glass of red wine to her. ‘Oh. Thanks.’ She wandered over and took it, sitting politely on the edge of the sofa seat.

  ‘Fun day today.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Hanna curled up on the armchair beside the sofa, tucking her legs up, her scarlet nail polish winking in the shadows of the cushions. ‘The girls are loving that water pistol you bought them!’

  ‘Oh, it was just a cheapie; they had them on offer in Westerbergs when I went to get the milk.’

  ‘Well, anyway, it was thoughtful of you – as usual.’

  Bell gave a stiff smile. Compliments and wine were nice, but she would rather have been enjoying what remained of her evening in solitude. By contrast, she suspected Hanna was lonely without Max here, that she craved some adult company.

  Hanna stared out into the night: the sun was bouncing along the horizon like a golden balloon, darkness a slow bleed that trickled like a stain from the higher reaches of the sky. She smacked her lips together and looked back over. ‘Bell . . . I hope you know how much you mean to us all. Not just the children, but . . . to Max and me, too.’

  Odd thing to say. ‘I think so,’ Bell nodded, waiting for a ‘but’.

  ‘And you know you are absolutely pivotal to how we . . .’ She frowned, straining for the right word. ‘Well, how our family works.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And I’m very aware that you go above and beyond in helping us, really I am. Far beyond what your contract stipulates, and I probably don’t tell you enough how much your flexibility and . . . forbearance helps us –’

  Bell held her breath. Whatever the hell was coming, it surely couldn’t be good if she was being this nice.

  ‘– especially when we’ve had so much change to deal with lately.’

  Where was the damned ‘but’?

  ‘As you are no doubt very aware – but far too polite to mention – we’ve had a difficult few months. You saw at first hand how the, uh . . . miraculous news about my husband’s recovery and our subsequently disastrous visit to Uppsala threw me into a tailspin.’

  Had it? Yes, Hanna had lost some weight, and she and Max had been more snappy with one another recently. But apart from last Thursday night’s freak events, everything had been business as usual. No mention of the Uppsala trip was ever made; the family seemed to have unilaterally agreed to a pact of silence on the incident, and it hadn’t been raised (at least in her earshot) since. Bell was a little ashamed to admit that she’d all but forgotten the poor man. Life had carried on for the Mogerts, with only a tiny stumble on their otherwise smooth path.

  Hanna gripped her wine glass with both hands, the aquamarine ring gleaming under the lights. ‘I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t handled things very well. And I
know I haven’t been . . . the easiest person to be around lately.’ She looked away again, embarrassment and something else – guilt? shame? – forcing her to avert her eyes. ‘I’ve been under a lot of strain, you see, trying to do the right thing by my ex – as you can probably imagine, there’s a lot of admin and practicalities, as well as all sorts of legalities that we need to sort out now that he’s recovering so well.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, well, I assumed –’ She wasn’t sure what to say. ‘But it’s great that he’s getting better.’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t recognize him as the same man,’ Hanna said, with what seemed like reluctant admiration. ‘He went to a specialist clinic in Switzerland and they’ve worked miracles with him. Honestly, he’s almost back to normal again.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘Well, the physical recovery is surprisingly quick, all things considered. It’s the mental and emotional aspects that are hardest to conquer. He’s not always . . . rational.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Which makes negotiating with him tricky.’

  Bell watched her. ‘What do you have to negotiate?’

  ‘Our divorce, for one thing.’

  ‘He must have known it was coming, surely?’

  ‘No. He didn’t know about Max and the girls.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bell bit her lip, thinking back. It had been, what, six months months since he’d woken up? Six months that Hanna had kept her new family a secret?

  ‘Yes. I only told him last week. I kept putting it off, you see; I could never find the words to tell him.’

  Bell blinked. Much the same as she hadn’t been able to find the words to tell Linus, either. ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘Terribly.’ Hanna scrunched her eyes tightly at the memory. ‘That was what Thursday was about. I had had a few glasses of wine here, and I suddenly screwed up the courage to go and see him and just do it.’

  ‘But it didn’t go to plan?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think he could tell I’d had a few drinks to steady my nerves; he offered me some more, and I accepted – I wanted it to be a civilized discussion, I thought we could deal with it as friends. We ended up wandering down memory lane, reminiscing about the good times – about Linus as a baby, our honeymoon, how we met. But then . . . then he kissed me.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bell stared back at her, hearing what she wasn’t saying. ‘And you kissed him back?’

  ‘At first, yes.’ Hanna nodded, biting her lip. ‘It’s just all so difficult and confusing.’

  Bell felt a bolt of concern for Max. ‘. . . Well, it’s understandable,’ she managed. ‘You were married to him, there’s bound to be lots of deep emotions between you both still. And as you said, you don’t have to be enemies just because you’re not together any more.’

  ‘That was what I hoped. But when I stopped . . . it,’ Hanna stammered. ‘And I blurted out the truth about Max . . . I think he was so shocked and hurt; I think he felt humiliated.’ She sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead. ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. He’s a good man who had a bad thing happen to him, and then I had to sit there and explain to him what he’s really woken up to – that the life he left behind no longer exists. The wife he left no longer exists.’

  ‘His shock must have been immense.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look in his eyes.’ Hanna splayed her hands questioningly. ‘I tried telling him that I had had to make the best decisions as things were presented to me at the time. The doctors had said there was almost no hope that he would recover, so, for Linus’s sake, I had to move on with our lives. But he just won’t accept that I’m with Max now, that we have the girls. He refuses to even hear their names.’

  Bell winced. ‘God, Hanna, I’m sorry, that’s awful.’

  Hanna looked back at her with a hopeless shrug. ‘Awful for me, but worse for him. He’s not a bad man, he’s a sad one. He’s been through so much and suffered so unfairly. It feels like the ultimate betrayal for him to endure all that, only to come through it and find we’d left him behind.’

  Bell nodded sympathetically. ‘I can see that, but there’s no villain in this. You are not a bad person, Hanna. You made the best choices you could, in incredibly difficult circumstances. You’re all in an impossible situation. You, Max and him.’

  Hanna looked back at her gratefully. ‘You know, I travelled up to that clinic every single month for those seven years. I’d tell him about how Linus was doing at school, and I would read his school reports. I’d tell him about how tall he was getting and how lucky we’d got finding you. And in all that time, there was never once a sign that he heard any of it. Nothing. Not a finger twitch or a flutter of an eyelid.’ A sob escaped her suddenly. ‘I tried to do my best by him, but now . . . now I think it would have been better if he hadn’t woken up!’

  ‘Oh Hanna, you don’t mean that,’ Bell hushed.

  ‘I do, Bell, I do. He won’t accept our marriage is over. Even after I told him the truth, he kept saying things could get back to how they used to be now that he’s back. Like Max and the girls don’t even exist! He said he had based his entire recovery on getting back to being the man he was before, for our sakes, and he won’t give up on us now, even if I have.’

  ‘Well, that’s . . . just the shock talking. It’s a blow for him, clearly, if you have been his main motivation to recover; but he’ll come to terms with the new reality, painful though it may be. You did the right thing telling him. He had to know sooner or later.’

  ‘You don’t understand. He’s angry and hurt, so now he’s lashing out.’ Hanna looked back at her, eyes red-rimmed and watery, and Bell suddenly knew this wasn’t the first time she had cried today, or even in the past hour. ‘When he finally realized I was serious about staying with Max, he turned on me. He’s saying he wants joint custody.’

  ‘Of Linus?’ Now it was Bell’s turn to be shocked.

  ‘Yes.’ The word came out as a sob.

  ‘But he . . . he can’t! He’s been in a coma for seven years. Even if he knew his son – which he doesn’t – how would he be fit to look after him?’

  Hanna fixed her with a steady stare, and something in her eyes made Bell feel a tremor of alarm. ‘Because his family are powerful, Bell, and incredibly wealthy. Even in the coma, he had the best care money could buy – all the best surgeons, experimental treatments, pioneering drugs. And from the moment he woke up, they threw another fortune at his rehabilitation – he spent eight weeks at that specialist clinic in Switzerland basically being . . . rebuilt.’ She stared bleakly into space. ‘He’s normal now – he can walk, talk, run, lift, carry, you name it, there are no physical impediments to block his claim . . . And there isn’t a judge in the land that would deny him access, or even dare to try.’ She sank further back into the chair, as though there was safety in the cushions.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Bell murmured, feeling waves of panic beginning to slap against her insides. ‘Does Linus know about this?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Hanna shook her head wildly. ‘I’ve been trying to keep it from him till I had, I don’t know, control of the situation? After the hospital visit went so badly, and that stupid doctor –’ Her voice snagged on the words, tearing and becoming ragged. ‘I could have had her licence for that.’

  Bell swallowed, remembering the immediate fallout only too well. She could see why Hanna hadn’t gone near the subject with her son again.

  ‘But I’m going to have to tell him now. Tell him everything,’ she sobbed, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘I have no choice. His father wants access and if I don’t grant it, he’s said he’ll take it to court. He’ll have the top family lawyers in Europe, and I won’t stand a chance. It’ll all get into the press.’

  ‘Surely if his family are that powerful, they’d get some super-injunction or something?’

  ‘On the contrary, he’ll want it out there. He’s the victim in all of this. Imagine how the narrative will rea
d – the scion to Sweden’s Camelot wakes from a tragic accident and coma to find his wife shacked up with another man. They’ll dig up my life with Max, go through our tax returns, our bins, our social media . . . They’ll paint me as the bitch who didn’t wait.’

  Bell winced. It was an intimidating prospect. She closed her eyes, thinking fast, remembering Linus’s terror at the hospital. How would he react to being told that the wild man he’d seen raging and screaming obscenities in that hospital bed was his real father? That that same stranger wanted Linus to go and live with him for half the time? ‘Okay, well then, you need to find a compromise. Clearly, as his father, he does have rights – so Linus needs to be told the truth, and they need to be reintroduced to each other. Properly.’

  ‘That was my plan too, and I thought he was on side with that. He knew that after the hospital visit went so badly, it was going to need to be handled better the next time he met Linus. He was the one putting off their meeting; he said he wanted to be strong for him when they met properly. He wanted to be the father Linus might remember.’

  ‘But Linus doesn’t remember him, does he?’

  ‘No. But he doesn’t believe that.’ Hanna looked straight at her. ‘But then, I don’t know – something’s changed this weekend – Midsommar got him all revved up. He texted me this morning saying he’s been deprived of his son for long enough. He’s lost over seven years already. He wants him with immediate effect.’

  ‘What?’

  Hanna inhaled deeply, swelling herself up with disbelief and despair as she shook her head. ‘He wants Linus to go and stay with him – from tomorrow.’

  Bell gasped in horror. ‘Tomorrow? But he can’t do that! No way! The man’s a stranger to him!’

  ‘I know. I know. That’s what I told him, but he won’t listen to me. He says he may not have rights over me, but he does over his son.’

  ‘But –’ Bell spluttered, the thoughts rushing too fast to form words. ‘He’s only thinking about himself, not what’s best for Linus.’

  ‘I know that, you know that – but he doesn’t! He thinks because he can walk and talk again, that that’s enough. I’ve told him it takes more than that to be a father to a child who doesn’t remember him – who, who doesn’t even know about him.’ She began sobbing again. ‘Oh God, how am I going to tell Linus about all of this? What can I say? I panicked that day in the hospital, and I lied.’