The Hidden Beach

by Karen Swan

  Finally, they told him they were going for an exploration of the island, to ‘get their bearings’ before dusk. It had been an exhausting, anticlimactic day, and although everyone had been kind, Bell knew they both needed some time away from strangers’ eyes before the ritual of going to bed in this foreign house. Linus’s mood was beginning to deteriorate, and who could blame him? He was frustrated and angry about his father’s unexplained disappearance – as was she. It was bad enough for him to be dragged here against his will, but to then find his father wasn’t even here . . . it wasn’t just arrogant, it was insulting.

  They left the garden at the front of the house, dipping into the trees and onto the narrow pebble path that seemed to trickle in curving loops around the property. After a day in the sun, with no swimming, it felt good to wander in the shade, and they walked at a slow pace through the trees, ears pricked as tiny creatures rustled in the undergrowth, both of them lost in their own thoughts.

  The sea glinted through the trees, growing ever bluer as they ambled, pushing away branches from their heads until eventually they were at the shore again. They were looking east, having crossed the width of the island; Krokso was visible beyond the body of water, and behind that, Sandhamn – her only point of contact with the outside world. It seemed hard to believe that over there ferries were arriving and departing, taking people back to the capital, selling newspapers, boasting wifi, serving porn star martinis and beers, having sex on boats . . . It felt like a whole other world, not a mere ten-minute boat ride away, and she felt a sudden, fierce pang of longing for the carefree summer that was going on without her. She hadn’t even had a chance to contact Tove and the others yet and apprise them of her changed circumstances.

  They carried on walking in silence, Linus’s anger growing as he beat a stick against the tree trunks and kicked out at nodding flowers. The landmass curved away, bearing right. They had only been walking for fifteen minutes or thereabouts, but they were facing the lagoon again now. They stopped on the rocks and watched a man dive from the prow of his boat, which had dropped anchor in front of Dead Man’s Bones. They could hear the splash clearly across the water, watching as he surfaced and tossed his head back with a joyous shout. But it wasn’t him Linus was watching. Behind the boat lay Summer Isle and, somewhere on it, his family.

  ‘Fancy a swim?’ she asked him, laying a hand gently on his shoulder.

  He shook his head fiercely. ‘. . . No.’

  He moved off again and continued stepping over the smooth, humped grey rocks with angry, silent, gigantic strides. The ground was generally flattish with various dips and rises, but there was a steeper slope on the lagoon side, taking them high enough to get something of an aerial perspective. She stopped to take in the view, but Linus sank to his haunches on the warm rock once again and looked back towards Summer Isle, like an old lost dog trying to get home.

  It broke her heart to see it.

  ‘Wow!’ she breathed, trying to engage some interest. At this height, maybe seventy feet up, they were above the canopy of most of the trees. The roof of the orange house could be clearly seen from up here, and the clearing for the garden was like a dimple. The shape of the island was just about discernible as well – it was a ragged, almost rectangular sheet of land, with numerous nips and pleats, tucks and inlets, like a rag that had been burned. She calculated the perimeter had to be about a mile and a half, maybe two miles long. Positively gargantuan! She pivoted on the spot, taking it all in, her –

  ‘. . . Linus, come look at this.’

  Her tone was enough to stir Linus from his resentful reverie. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come and see.’

  ‘Why can’t you just tell me?’

  ‘Because I think you’ll like it.’

  He got up, giving an exasperated sigh that would have made any self-respecting teenager proud. ‘What is it?’ he asked, standing by her. His expression changed as he caught sight of what she was staring at. Perhaps a hundred feet inland, a crescent of blue could be glimpsed through a crater. ‘That’s the sea.’

  ‘Right?’ She grinned.

  ‘Do you think that’s . . .?’ He looked up at her, mouth agape. ‘The hidden beach?’

  She winked at him. In all their miserable resentment, they had both completely forgotten about it. ‘There’s only one way to find out. Come on, let’s find the way in.’

  Together they scrambled down the incline.

  ‘Right, you go first,’ she said, pushing him ahead of her.

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you’re faster, and if this is where Dr No keeps his sub-atomic testing facility, then I’m going to need a head start for getting out of here.’

  Linus laughed, shooting her a look that wouldn’t have been quite so wry a year ago. He was growing up.

  They climbed, ran and scrambled over the rocks and through the trees, the sea at their backs, until the crater suddenly opened up at their feet. Absolutely huge, perhaps fifty metres across, it was an almost perfect circle blown in the rocks. The force of the bomb had set the beach ten metres below ground, the grooved granite walls scooping away beneath them. Three quarters of the basin floor was covered by sea, with a shallow beach that could only catch the sun through the middle of the day.

  ‘How do we get down there?’ Linus asked in amazement.

  ‘Maybe we don’t,’ Bell said, puzzled. ‘Your mamma didn’t say anything about swimming down there. Only that it was there.’

  ‘But I want to swim down there.’

  Bell rolled her eyes. Of course he did. Now he wanted to swim. ‘Well, it’s too far to jump down, and we’re definitely not going down if we don’t know if we can get back up again,’ she said, seeing the sharp concave angle at which the rocks were cut away.

  ‘There has to be a way down,’ Linus murmured, beginning to walk around the perimeter. ‘Maybe there’s a rope.’

  ‘Oh yeah, because I could definitely get myself back up again on that!’ Bell guffawed.

  ‘Look!’ He pointed to something halfway round. In one spot, perhaps a seam of thicker rock, the wall hadn’t been blown back quite as far as elsewhere and the cliff kicked into the basin, like a stray pleat. A narrow channel ran down the centre of it, rainwater running through like a rill. It was about a foot’s width – depending on the foot.

  ‘Linus, those are not steps,’ she protested as he tore ahead and skittered down it like a mountain goat. ‘Linus!’ she called, seeing how he held his arms out wide, stepping confidently, jumping onto the sand a moment later.

  ‘Bugger,’ she muttered, knowing she’d have to follow suit. Carefully she scrambled down, with significantly less stealth and flair, cursing under her breath. And then, as her feet touched the sand, not under her breath, ‘Holy shit!’

  If looking down upon it had been impressive, standing down and looking back up again was awe-inspiring. The cliff walls swooped around them like a vaulted hall, the walls scooped back as if by a melon baller, the late sun a smear down the far side and throwing a golden sunspot onto the calm, shallow body of water that rocked and shushed gently onto the beach.

  ‘This can’t be for real,’ she whispered. ‘Linus, are you remembering to breathe?’ she asked him, perfectly serious. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d forgotten to inhale and exhale when he’d been surprised. He’d once fainted when he’d thought he’d seen Lionel Messi walking past his school window. ‘. . . Linus?’

  But if he was breathing, he certainly wasn’t listening; he was staring at something. She followed his gaze to find a man sitting on a rock at the far end of the beach, staring back at them.

  No one spoke. It was perfectly obvious who he was. Hanna’s husband. Linus’s father.

  She felt her heart rate trip and quicken as he got up and began walking towards them.

  The man who had screamed from that hospital bed. The villain of the piece, putting his needs first.

  Silhouetted, he raked a hand through his hair. The hair that her own finge
rs had combed. A baseball cap in his hand.

  He stopped in front of them. The very last person she had wanted to see again. To see here.

  Here.

  Bell realized she was the one forgetting to breathe, her body reacting to the sight of him with a visceral shock. This was a disaster – it couldn’t be him. He couldn’t be Hanna’s ex. Linus’s father.

  His eyes cast lightly over her with the same surprised zip of recognition, but then something else too, something she couldn’t quite grasp . . . But he looked away in the next instant; this moment wasn’t about her, or their stolen night together. His gaze settled heavily on Linus, weighted like an anchor.

  She felt the moment swell and tighten as father and son looked at one another, both so changed and grown even from their last, disastrous meeting. She saw Linus’s shock at his father’s altered appearance. Gone were the shaved head and withered limbs, the sunken eyes and papery skin. The man before him now was tall and lithe; he had muscles and a suntan; he even had a few freckles on the bridge of his nose – like Linus. His trousers were rolled up at the ankles, but they were still wet, showing off brown feet. He looked well. He looked normal, nothing like the half-man, half-beast in that hospital bed.

  A look that could only be described as wonder bloomed on his face. His eyes were shining, his mouth parted as he scanned his child almost like a robot, taking in all the changes, developments, likenesses, differences . . . His right hand was hovering forwards slightly and she knew he wanted to reach out and touch him. That he did not dare.

  ‘You’ve grown, Linus.’ His voice was hoarse.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Linus sounded almost apologetic for the fact. Was it a betrayal to have grown – grown up – whilst this man, his father, had been sleeping? ‘. . . So have you.’

  A half-smile cocked Emil’s mouth. ‘I’ve been trying.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I heard you were a fast runner, so I thought I should train.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Your mamma. Is it true?’

  Linus gave an embarrassed shrug and kicked at the sand.

  ‘Absolutely it is,’ Bell interjected, putting a hand on Linus’s shoulder and squeezing it. She could tell he was overwhelmed, now that the initial adrenaline burst was diffusing. ‘He’s the fastest boy in his year.’

  Emil’s eyes narrowed with pride, never lifting off his boy as she spoke. As though she wasn’t really there. ‘You must get it from me, then. I was always the fastest boy in my year too.’

  Linus glanced up at him, but instinctively stepped back. His interest was piqued, but Bell knew it was still far too soon, too hard for him to fathom that he ‘got anything’ from him, was biological kin to this stranger; that it was this man here that was his father and not Max, the only one he had ever known. The child had had only a day to absorb that fact, thanks to Emil’s bullying tactic to be reunited as soon as possible, whatever the fallout. They all needed to remember that. She did. Behind those good looks and that diffident, reserved charisma was a man who Hanna had warned her always got what he wanted.

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  Linus nodded, looking even more uncertain. ‘In the hospital.’

  ‘Oh.’ Emil frowned. ‘I’m afraid . . . I don’t remember much after I woke up. No, I meant . . . do you remember me from before?’

  Linus shook his head. ‘No, sir.’ He looked anxious again, as though his negative answer was the wrong one.

  There was a pause and Emil seemed to shrink a little, as though he’d been pushed.

  ‘Well, you were very little,’ he said after a moment, staring at his own feet half buried in the sand. He looked up suddenly with a lit expression. ‘You were obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. Remember that?’

  ‘A little bit.’ From his tone of voice, Bell knew that meant ‘no’. He just didn’t want to say it again.

  ‘Gordon was your favourite engine. He was the fastest one on the island. Maybe that’s why you liked him so much. You were both speed machines.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Bell saw the excitement leave Emil’s body, the conversation dwindling in the face of his son’s evident wariness of him. Emil glanced at her, as if for help, and she forced a smile; but he surely couldn’t be surprised that things were playing out this way? What had he expected? That Linus would run into his arms and they’d start making sandcastles? He had rushed things, forced this meeting by beating down his child’s mother to impose his will, no less.

  Even so, as their eyes met, she felt that strange invisible pull towards him pick up the slack again, and she looked quickly away. He seemed to snag on something deep inside her, catching on a tiny hook buried away that she hadn’t even known was there.

  He looked away too, his attention back on his son. ‘Did Måns tell you I was here?’

  ‘No, sir. He didn’t know where you were.’

  ‘Oh. Was he kind to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Måns is very kind. He has worked for our family for a very long time now. Since before I was born.’

  Bell saw again how Linus flinched at the words ‘our family’, and how Emil seemed oblivious to the impact it had upon his son.

  ‘Do you know what we call this place?’

  ‘The hidden beach.’

  Emil arched an eyebrow. ‘Your mamma told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Mmm. She’s one of the very few people to have been here. It is a rare privilege, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘People around here, they talk about the Hidden Beach – is it real, isn’t it?’ A hint of a smile climbed into his eyes. ‘We never tell, and you, now you’ve found it, you mustn’t either. Can you imagine how many people would sneak onto the island to come and see it otherwise?’

  Linus shook his head, awed. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘It would be a lot. And obviously for our family, that could be a security risk and we wouldn’t want to have to get to a situation where we had to have guards and dogs, or electric fences, or anything like that.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘That’s why we try to dispel the rumours about this place. No one can see it from the water, and we don’t even take our guests here.’ He looked up and around at the open-topped vaulted cavern. ‘It’s for family only.’ He blinked. ‘And you are family, Linus.’

  Bell stepped forward slightly, resting a hand on Linus’ shoulder. Emil looked back at her, sensing a warning in the gesture even though she had slapped a bland smile on her face. He bristled, not getting it at all, not understanding his words were threatening to his son – each comment attacking and dismantling the notion of the only family unit Linus had ever known. How could he not see this was too much, too soon?

  ‘Are there any pebbles in the water?’ she asked, throwing him further off guard.

  Emil frowned. ‘. . . Why?’

  ‘We could do some stone skimming. Linus loves that. He’s insanely good.’ She looked down at Linus. ‘Do you want to see if there are any good ones?’

  ‘Okay,’ he nodded, eager for something to do, and for an excuse to get away.

  Emil watched his son run down to the water’s edge, out of earshot, before looking back at her. His eyes were cold. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘What?’ She looked back at him, confused.

  ‘You’re my child’s nanny?’ he hissed. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know!’

  ‘How could I possibly have known who you were? You told me you were a widower!’ she hissed back. ‘That you had lost your wife and child!’

  ‘No, I never said I was a widower. I told you there’d been an accident and that I lost them! But I was the one in the accident – and when I woke up, they had moved on.’

  She stared at him. ‘Well, you didn’t exactly make that clear, did you!’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to get into it with you!’

  ‘No, you just wanted to get into my pants!’ she hissed furiously
.

  He blinked but didn’t deny it. ‘What happened to me now defines me. It’s all people see when they see me. I didn’t want that, just for once.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, it worked, because I didn’t know. I had no idea! Do you really think I would have slept with my boss’s ex-husband if I’d had the faintest clue?’

  ‘Well, what the hell am I supposed to think, when I find you standing here with my son?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, probably the same as I thought watching you walk towards me just now! It’s just a peachy situation for us both!’

  His eyes narrowed, the two of them back to the scratchy antagonism of their first meeting. ‘. . . And I’m her husband, by the way, not her ex. We’re not divorced.’

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘Yet.’

  ‘That won’t be happening. Hanna still loves me.’

  ‘She loves Max.’ She saw the words strike him and she could see, then, how hard it must have been for Hanna to tell him the truth. His expression changed, hardening, and she saw all their former passion and playfulness of that Midsommar night curdle and sour. ‘And besides, what was the other night with me, if you’re still so in love with Hanna?’

  He glowered at her. ‘Opportunity? Lust? Relief? Take your pick.’ Her mouth opened in outrage, but he stopped her. ‘And don’t say it wasn’t the same for you too. You’re still in love with your fiancé, and you didn’t want any more from me than I wanted from you. We were consenting adults, both lonely and drunk on Midsommar’s night. That was it.’

  His words might be true, but they were still like body blows, leaving her breathless. Her world had just turned inside out in the space of five minutes.

  He frowned again, as though just her presence, the mere sight of her, upset him. ‘Why are you even here? I told my wife, he’s a ten-year-old boy. He doesn’t need a nanny.’