by Karen Swan
‘Nervous?’ Jacqs asked, tapping lightly on her shoulder.
‘You could say that,’ Cassie confessed with a shy smile, twisting in her seat slightly. ‘Is this an important race?’
‘North coast friendly,’ Jacqs said with a dance in her hazel-green eyes. ‘Of course, we say friendly. What we mean is, a fight to the death.’
‘Oh yikes,’ Cassie managed to grin.
A bell rang somewhere and everything suddenly fell quiet, like the sky emptying of birds in the moments before a storm. The yells from the spectators stopped and Jacqs gave her a fist-bump. Cassie took a deep breath, her hands tingling from the adrenalin. This was it, then . . . The crews in the eight gigs all assumed identical positions, heads tipped down slightly, arms poised to pull.
The tug gave a long blast of its horn and suddenly the girls were rising and falling again in perfect synchronicity, Cassie a half-beat behind, as the gig began to move through the water to the cheers and toots of the supporters. At first the boat felt heavy, as though tethered to the seabed beneath them, but repetition rapidly brought momentum and within a minute the boat felt if not quite powered under its own steam, at least like it was rising out of the water and skimming across the surface.
Cassie kept up the pace, concentrating on the twist of her wrist as she realized she still had no idea exactly where they were rowing to. There was a huge rock at the mouth of the estuary, but they wouldn’t be going all the way there and back. Would they?
It was probably better she didn’t know, she decided, having to put all her concentration into just keeping up.
Debs was shouting instructions at them – ‘Heave’, ‘Aft’ – but before they’d even reached the distinctive hump of Brea Hill, at the near end of Daymer Bay, her arms were already beginning to burn. Usually, the most exercise her arms ever got was lugging heavy picnic hampers up and down her stairs, but this was a different kind of pain, the muscles burning but not seizing as they contracted and released over and over again.
She had no idea where they were in the race, only that she could see two other gigs from her back-facing position. That had to mean they weren’t last, right?
‘Speedwell!’
‘Go, Cassie!’
Cassie turned her head only fractionally as she pulled back, but it was enough to see Suzy and Archie waving dementedly from a yellow water taxi as the gig cut past, Cassie beaming back with . . . exhilaration, she realized.
She had forgotten all about the cold wind as she took huge, deep breaths, trying to power her body on, and she knew her face must already be pinker than their crew tops. She stared grimly at Sall’s back, barely aware of the way her right wrist instinctively twisted on the push forwards now or of how she clenched her core on the roll backs.
The first she knew of their route was when the rock island came into her peripheral view on the left-hand side of the boat – her worst fears confirmed.
‘We’re at Newlands! Starboard double up! You can do this!’ Debs hollered, the rock staying to their left as they coursed round it. The waves grew bigger in this expanse of open water and a shot of alarm jangled Cassie’s nerves as the rough sea slammed into the sides of the gig and sprayed high into the air, drenching them all, but there was barely time to process it. They just kept on rowing, the rock staying to their left and then beginning to pull forwards in her vision until eventually she was staring straight at it, its bulk receding as they made their way back into the protected waters of the estuary and towards the finish.
Her muscles were screaming now, the fibres tearing minutely with every stroke, and her heart felt like a jackhammer. Every stroke hurt; she couldn’t think, could barely see beyond the pain, but she knew they were getting close, as the number of taxis and boats around them increased again, short horn-blows bursting over the wind in encouragement alongside the cacophony of shouts and yells and cheers.
Cassie wasn’t sure she had enough left for the finish. She had moved past exhaustion long ago, and yet somehow she kept moving in time, her body overriding her conscious controls like a computer outsmarting the technician; she groaned with every stroke, desperate to keep the pace, not to let down the team.
Behind her, she heard the long toot of a horn, followed by several shorter ones and a crescendo of cheers. The first boat had to be over the line. Was it much further? Could she keep going long en—
The blue tug shot past them, Cassie staring at it with a removed sense of recognition, her stomach taut and arms syncopated. It was a moment before she realized everyone else had stopped rising and falling and was slumped forward and back in their seats like felled skittles, that Debs had stopped shouting and was punching her arms in the air.
She wanted to ask if it was over, but there was no breath left in her to do it and she dropped her head onto her lap, her cheek by her knees and her eyes closed as she luxuriated in the exquisite feeling of not moving anymore. She felt her heart in her chest in a way she never had before. It pounded wildly like a boxer’s fist, as if trying to show her not just that she was alive but so alive.
Henry’s message was clear; she got it now: if she wanted to drift through her life – half asleep, uncommitted – she was with the wrong man.
Chapter Twenty
Date: 09/7/15
From: Haycock, Neil
To: Fraser, Cassie
Subject: Message In a Bottle
Hi Cassie,
Thanks for your message for Henry, which we forwarded on 08/7/15. He has responded that he is very well and enjoying the views.
Conditions are set fair and they are proceeding at 34 knots. If you would like to track their progress on radar, they are 9°26’S; 159°59’E.
Kind regards,
Neil
Communications specialist,
Message In a Bottle Project,
Inmarsat
Cassie turned the page over, her elbows red and sore from lying on them so long, but she had to finish this chapter while she could. Suzy’s incessant talking about Gem and Laird every time she sat down meant she hadn’t got past Chapter Four and she was determined to finish a book on this holiday. This was a precious window of opportunity – last night’s exertions had bought her a grace period from the list, as there were no surf lessons for her today (although Archie had disappeared off with Laird), but Gem had stopped by at breakfast, wondering if they could ‘chat’ later about food for the wedding, and Suzy and Velvet would be back from the shops any minute.
She bit her lip, engrossed and swinging her leg idly in the air behind her, only vaguely aware of the feeling of the breeze on her bare skin. She certainly wasn’t aware of the sound of footsteps over the stile at the bottom of the garden, or the soft crush of grass as someone approached.
It took a small cough to achieve that.
She looked up in surprise to find Luke standing with his board watching her.
‘You always did that,’ he smiled, setting the board down on its end.
‘Did what?’
‘Swung your leg about when you were reading. I used to have to clear a swat zone when you were reading the papers.’
She laughed lightly, wishing he’d put a T-shirt on with his rolled-down wetsuit, but it was too hot for clothes today. In fact, she was in her full bikini today, for the first time, no wetsuit to protect her modesty (or hide her wobbly bits) because she’d assumed she had the place to herself.
‘Are the others still down there?’ she asked, politely turning down a corner of her page and closing the book.
He nodded. ‘Arch managed to stand.’
‘No way!’ she gasped jealously. ‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No,’ Luke laughed. ‘Although, you’d probably feel better if you’d seen it for yourself. I use the word “stand” in the loosest possible sense.’ He indicated to sit down. ‘May I?’
‘Sure,’ she shrugged. ‘Where’s Amber?’
He pulled a face briefly. ‘Promise you won’t laugh?’
She shrugged her acq
uiescence as he leaned back on straight arms, his torso long and perfect. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for five days, his stubble denser than usual. It suited him. A beard would suit him, she thought idly.
‘She and Gem are having their cards read. Some woman in Tintagel apparently.’
Cassie laughed.
‘You said you wouldn’t!’
‘I’m laughing at how you pronounced “Tintagel”. It’s “Tin-taj-el”,’ Cassie corrected.
‘Right, that’s what I said,’ he protested. ‘Hey, look, I’m American. What’d you expect? Besides, you’re a fine one to talk. You can’t say “Chance”.’
‘Oh, don’t start that up again,’ she groaned, still convinced that they’d only seen so much of his friend Chance in New York because it made them all crack up to hear her pronunciation of his name: they used the flat ‘a’ of ‘apple’, whereas she used the ‘ah’ of ‘aria’. ‘At least I—’ She stopped herself abruptly. What was she thinking, falling back into their past jokes?
‘So where’s Suzy?’ he asked, after a moment that felt considerably longer.
‘Wadebridge. We were out of nappies and muesli.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Poor Arch. I think he’d sell Velvet for a bacon butty right now.’
He smiled and she wondered where he’d been for the past few days. She hadn’t seen him since he and Laird had surprised the girls at the bridal boutique, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether his absence had been deliberate. She remembered the shock on his face at seeing her in the dress. Had it bothered him, seeing her dressed as another man’s bride? Or was she, as Suzy had said, reading too much into it, unable to accept that he had moved on, once and for all?
She shook the thought away. No, Suzy was wrong. Cassie had Henry. She didn’t need her ex to bolster her ego.
‘He looks good on it, though. Arch, I mean,’ he said after another pause. ‘He’s caught some sun and shifted some timber, to use his words.’
‘Yes. He’s looking much healthier.’ She sighed lightly, wishing she could get up off her elbows and move to a sitting position – her arms and shoulders were tender after last night’s brutal exercise – but her bikini suddenly felt too much like a bra and knickers in his company and she kept herself shielded instead, with only her back and calves on display.
She knew it was stupid to be so coy. What would he care to see her in her bikini? He did swimwear and lingerie shoots in his sleep. And besides, nothing he had done in all the times they had seen each other here had betrayed anything other than genuine contrition and what seemed to be a certain nostalgic fondness. But even knowing all that, she couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t seen her naked or forget that he knew what she liked in bed, and she felt that knowledge run like a current between them at all times.
‘So . . . I heard you had a fun night,’ he said, yet again trying to ignite the conversation, and she nodded brightly, knowing she had to at least try to help them move on. ‘You came fourth, was it?’
‘Yes, unbelievably – given that they were effectively a man down . . . or girl.’
‘Archie said you were brilliant. Determined, I think was the word he used.’
‘Well, I’d never hear the end of it if I failed at something on the list.’
Luke’s mouth parted in surprise. ‘Oh, I see. This is another of Henry’s famous lists, is it?’
She smiled and gave an awkward shrug, knowing they both recalled how the list for New York had brought such tension into their relationship – the Christmas present on it, particularly, had almost led to a fight between them.
‘Good to hear he’s still going strong with that.’
Cassie looked at him but couldn’t read his tone and she started studying a blade of grass instead, wondering how to change the subject. ‘Anyway, it was great fun. I may even try it again.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, they have training sessions on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, so if I do stay here . . .’
‘You mean you might be going?’ he asked, shocked.
‘I . . . don’t know. Maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘Work. You know . . .’
The truth was, she wasn’t sure now about whether or not to stay. Last night had changed things. Working that hard had felt cathartic somehow, like she’d sweated some of her restlessness out of her system. Did it matter if she was in Cornwall or London? Gil was still going to remarry on Saturday; Henry was still going to be in the Pacific on a bottle-boat.
‘Well, that would be a shame,’ he said quietly, looking out to sea.
Would it be? she wondered. She stared at his profile, so handsome, and wished he’d never stepped back into her life. Could she really stay down here, with the possibility of seeing him round every corner? She never knew when, or where, she was going to see him next, or whether his intentions were benign or not, and she felt unsettled and jumpy.
Cassie looked away and picked at the grass. It was no good. As they sat there alone, just the two of them, the tension between them crackled. They didn’t even need to look at each other to feel it. It didn’t matter that they had moved on to new relationships, they were never going to be able to do the ‘just good friends’ gig. They could be polite, civil, but they had never been friends in the first place; the chemistry between them didn’t allow it. They had a past that meant they could have no future, no matter what shape it took.
‘Oh my God!’
The voice at the gate made them both turn.
‘You are not going to believe what we’ve just seen!’ Gem said, shooting through the gate like she was jet-propelled. ‘Oh no, Luke, you can’t hear this. You’re a boy.’
‘Where’s Amber?’ Luke asked, sitting straighter.
‘She’s gone to have a shower. It’s so hot!’ Gem puffed, pulling her T-shirt away from her neck and blowing air on her own face.
‘I’ll go join her,’ Luke said, before freezing momentarily as he realized how that had sounded.
‘I bet you will!’ Gem gave a dirty laugh, smacking him on the bum as he got up and passed by, his eyes meeting Cassie’s in the briefest of glances as he nodded his goodbye.
‘So,’ Gem said, falling into a lotus position. ‘Can you guess?’
Cassie shook her head, her mood soured by the conversation that had just passed, and she wasn’t sure she had the patience to indulge Suzy’s hyperactive, self-obsessed little cousin right now. ‘Nope.’
She watched as Gem reached into the back pocket of her linen shorts and pulled out a flyer: ‘Rock Oyster Festival, Diningfold Hall, 11–12 July.’
‘What is it? A festival?’
‘Duh! That’s what it says, doesn’t it?’ Gem laughed. ‘Look, it’s music, food, circus acts . . .’ She clasped Cassie’s hands. ‘Have you ever been to Glasto?’ she asked Cassie with the earnestness of a discussion about organ donation.
Cassie shook her head again, now violently wishing Suzy would come back.
Gem looked at her with sudden pity. ‘Oh, you really must! You haven’t lived. It’s a rite of passage, Cass, and I mean that.’
‘Well, I—’
‘Which is why this is so great.’ She stretched out ‘so’ like it was a limo. ‘It’ll be Glasto but smaller. Way smaller. More intimate. Which I prefer.’
Cassie also violently wished Gem wouldn’t speak in bullet points. ‘I take it you and Amber are going, then?’
‘Me and . . . ?’ Gem gasped, eyes burning. ‘Cass, you don’t get it! Of course me and Amber are going. We all are. This isn’t just going to be any old festival, you know.’
‘What’s it going to be, then?’ Cassie asked carelessly, picking up the book again and looking for her page.
Gem leaped up and did a perfect cartwheel, finishing with an extravagant showgirl flourish of her arms. ‘My hen night!’
Cassie walked out of the village store, confused. She could have sworn Archie had said he’d picked up his emails from the Wi-Fi cafe at the back of the shop, but the two tables and chairs that passed for the c
afe had only laminated menus to their name – sadly there was no Wi-Fi here, like the rest of the village – and she had had to buy a cobbler loaf, just to mask her confusion.
She threw the bread into the basket and her leg over the bike frame, staring unseeing down the lane towards Polzeath. The tide was way out, the exposed beach glimmering in the sunlight, the die-hard surfers but coloured dots. If Archie hadn’t picked up his emails from here, then how had he received Henry’s list? Henry hadn’t known she was coming down when he’d left for Australia, so he couldn’t have written it in advance. It begged the question . . . No, two questions. Where had he got it from? Suzy had banned all gadgets from the house and Cassie wouldn’t put it past her to have done spot checks. And if Henry was getting emails out from the boat, why wasn’t he sending any to her?
Her phone buzzed in her shorts pocket and she took it out, amazed to see that she had four bars of mobile signal – the advantages of stopping on a hill – and a new text message. From Brett. Instantly, her heart dropped to her feet.
‘Hi, Cass. Have u heard from Kelly? She went to the Hamptons while I was out of town but was supposed to get back today and is not answering her cell. Prob nothing but unlike her 2 b uncontactable like this. Am trying everyone. Call me if u know anything? Thanks, Brett.’
Call him if she knew anything? Of course she knew something. She knew everything; way more than he did! Was this it then? Had it happened? She felt her pulse quicken, the first shoots of panic beginning to spur through her. She tried to think rationally. She couldn’t call him first. No way. Not yet. Kelly’s disappearance may not be down to the miscarriage – it could be something far more innocent, completely innocuous – and Kelly would never forgive her if she spilled this secret on a false alarm. No. She had to get hold of her first. Kelly – if she’d tried to get hold of Cassie – would have probably called her on her BlackBerry. Kelly was always in ‘work’ mode and assumed everyone else was too. Plus it got better signal.
