by Lucy Clarke
*
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.
25
Katie
(Bali, August)
Katie 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 Has
tings 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.
There was a knock at the door. She moved across the polished wooden floor and opened it to find Finn holding a tray of food and a bottle of red wine. “Thought you might be hungry.”
The smell of steaming rice and fresh spices filled the room. “I’m starving.” She made space on the dressing table and he set down the tray.
The wine glugged as he poured it. He handed her a glass. “So how’s the journal going?”
“I’ve barely stopped reading.”
“What did Mia make of Bali?”
“She thought it was beautiful. Loved the beaches. The people. The food.”
“She’d always wanted to go to Indonesia.”
Had she? There was so much she didn’t know about her sister. Would never know.
“Was Noah pleased to see her?”
“Surprised, I think. And maybe concerned at first that she’d come for him. But yes, he was pleased, too.”
“Did she seem happy?”
She thought for a moment. There were clear flashes of happiness as intense and bright as the sun, like when she was describing an afternoon spent sitting in the shade of a palm tree with Noah, eating ripe mangoes, the sweet juice dripping down their chins. But there was a distinct shift in the pages following Noah’s surfing accident, as if her thoughts had become a mirror to his darkened outlook. Many entries seemed overshadowed by her anxiety about their relationship. Wasn’t that the way with love: the intense highs of being adored and adoring someone, followed by the aching lows of self-doubt?
“It’s difficult to answer that until I’ve read it all.”
“How far have you got?” Finn asked.
“I’m only a week or so away … ”
He nodded and she thought she glimpsed something concerned in his expression, but he turned and began laying out their plates. “I got us nasi goreng. Hope that’s okay?”
“Perfect.”
“They’ve forgotten cutlery,” he said, lifting up a napkin. “I’ll grab us some.”
After the door shut, Katie moved to the bed and pulled the journal onto her lap once again. She flipped through the pages. Yes, there were only a handful left. She took a sip of wine and began reading, unable to wait.
I’ve done something terrible. I was desperate; there was no other choice. I couldn’t ask Katie for the money as there’d be too many questions—so I emailed Finn. I asked to borrow a grand. I said it was to pay for a flight to come and see him, so we can sort things out. And, Jesus, I really want to sort our shit out. I’ve hated being apart. It feels like part of me is missing. And there’s so much I need to explain.
If he sends through the money, I can get my passport back. And then I hope, HOPE, there’s enough left over for a flight to find him.
Katie closed her eyes. Oh, Mia. How could you? After everything you’d already put him through, you then asked this of him. And what about me? Somehow it manages to sting that you went to him first. What happened: Finn said no and that’s when you called me? Your second choice?
She jumped when Finn returned, holding two sets of cutlery. “A waiter was coming along the corridor with them.” He moved to the dressing table and picked up a plate. “I’ll serve before it gets cold.”
She wondered why he hadn’t told her that Mia had emailed him asking for money. Perhaps he was embarrassed that he’d refused her.
“Here,” he said, passing her a plate.
She took it and felt the give of the bed as he sat beside her, drawing one knee up. She watched him scoop forkfuls of rice and vegetables into his mouth. “Finn?”
He looked up.
“Did Mia contact you when she was in Bali? About borrowing money?”
He stopped chewing, swallowed. “Yes, she did.”
“But you didn’t lend it to her?”
He put down his fork. His expression grew serious. “She told me she wanted the money for a flight. She wanted to meet to sort things out. So I booked her a ticket myself.”
“Oh, Finn!” Even after everything Mia had done, he had still extended his generosity, offering her a second chance. “You were so good to her.”
He rubbed a hand back and forth across his brow. “That’s the thing, Katie,” he said in a flat tone that frightened her. “I wasn’t good to her at all.”
*
The room felt too hot. His T-shirt clung between his shoulder blades. He stood and moved to the balcony doors, flinging them open. The warm evening breeze rushed in, lifting the edges of the curtains. He drew the air deep into his lungs, tasting the sea in it.
“Finn?”
Slowly, he turned. Katie was sitting on the edge of the bed, her feet pressed together. Her plate had been pushed aside and she was staring at him with wide, watchful eyes. He ran the heel of his hand over his forehead again, not knowing how to begin. He needed to be honest with her. The journal was back in her possession; she would find out anyway.
“I got Mia’s e-mail,” he began. “It was obvious things in Bali weren’t great and that’s why she was coming back. But I didn’t care: I just wanted to see her. It’s pathetic how much I wanted to see her,” he said, shaking his head. “I was worried she’d change her mind, so, instead of sending her the money for a flight, I booked the ticket myself.”
“But she never got on the plane,” Katie said.
“I waited at the airport for six hours. There was some holdup with the flight.” He remembered buying an Australian newspaper and reading it cover to cover, testing himself on facts about cricket and the discovery of a new site of Australian rock art dating back 15,000 years. He had wanted to think about anything except for the niggling doubt that she wouldn’t come. When the delayed flight finally arrived, he’d scanned the weary crowd, but she wasn’t amongst them.
“I checked her details with the airport staff. They told me she’d never boarded the flight. I wanted to believe there’d been a mistake with her ticket, so I went to one of the Internet pods in the airport to see if I could get in touch. There was a message from her. Just a sentence. That’s all she’d bothered to write. ‘Finn, I can’t come back just yet. Sorry.’ ”
He shook his head. “She used me, Katie.”
“She couldn’t fly. Jez had her passport.”
“Jez? Noah’s brother?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“There was an incident over here with the police. I’ve just been reading about it. She was caught with marijuana on her. Jez bribed the police so they wouldn’t arrest her.”
“Shit.” He ran a knuckle beneath his chin, back and forth.
“It was a lot of money. He kept hold of her passport until she could pay him back.”
“That’s why she needed a grand?”
“Yes, but she did want to meet you, too. She wrote that. She hoped there’d be enough money left over for a flight.”
Finn felt the blood drain from his face. “God, that makes it worse.”
“What worse?”
“When I knew she wasn’t coming, I was furious. I emailed back. I should have waited. Cooled down.” He recalled the way his fingers bashed at the keys like a storm being unleashed.
“What did you say?”
“When Mia found out Harley was her father, she was completely spun out.”
“I know,” Katie said, “because she was scared she was like him.”
He fixed his gaze on her: “And scared she would end up like him. I tried reassuring Mia that she was her own person, nothing like Harley. But there were all these traits Mick described that she was convinced she shared.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“In my e-mail, I wrote … ” He hesitated. His jaw felt tight and there was a hard pulse in his head. The dark, barbed thing that had been buried deep in his chest felt as though it was clawing its way into his throat. “I wrote, ‘If you’
re not careful, Mia, you could end up alone, wondering what happened to everyone in your life. Just like your father.’ ”
His fists hardened, like two stones. “Then two days later, she’s dead! She’s fucking dead! Suicide. That’s what they said. And all I could think of were those fucking words: ‘Just like your father.’ ” He pressed his fists hard into the wall, feeling the tension in his forearms. “I never got to tell her how sorry I was.”
“Was it you?”
He dropped his hands, looked around.
“Was it you,” she repeated, “who sent the moon orchid to Mia’s funeral?”
“What?”
“Somebody sent a flower to her funeral.”
He looked blank.
“There was a note with it. All it said was, ‘Sorry.’ ”
He shook his head. “No. But I am sorry. I am so fucking sorry about it all. I should never have let her go to Bali alone. I should have told you where she was. And that money she needed—I should’ve given it to her, not bought a fucking plane ticket!” He squeezed his head between his hands. “What I wrote—God, it was callous—I hate to think that she believed it … or that she was thinking about those words when—”
“Don’t! Don’t you dare say it!”
Finn hung his head. He’d been carrying this guilt for months and it had grown into something larger than him. “Katie,” he said, his voice quiet now. “I need to know how Mia felt when she got my e-mail.”
He crossed the room and picked up the journal from the bedside table. The sea-blue fabric glimmered beneath his fingers. He thought of all the times he’d seen Mia writing it: the journal balanced on her knees as they drove through California; spread out on the floor of their tent as she wrote by flashlight; her blowing sand from the spine after writing it, propped on an elbow on the beach.
“It’ll be in here,” he said, offering it to her. “Please, Katie, I need to know what she wrote.”
26
Mia
(Bali, March)
Mia sat very still. Her back was rigid. Her hair hung in front of her shoulders like a dark scarf, and her bare feet were resting on the low wooden bar that ran beneath the computer desk. Only her eyes flickered across the screen as she scanned Finn’s e-mail a second time.
