The Sea Sisters (34 page)

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 email, 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 round.

‘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 email.’

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 torchlight; 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.’

M
ia 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 email a second time.

Then she blinked, which seemed to release her from the stillness, and suddenly she was moving, pushing back the chair, grabbing her bag, and bursting from the Internet café.

The night was balmy, the street lined with tourists and Balinese stallholders selling their wares. Mia wove through the crowds with her eyes down. A tight wheel of anxiety was beginning to spin deep within her. With every step, Finn’s email rotated in her thoughts, gathering momentum. She did not see the stride of each of her tanned feet, a delicate silver chain dancing on her ankle. All she saw, as if scorched onto the insides of her eyelids, were his words: ‘
If you’re not careful, Mia, you could end up alone, wondering what happened to everyone in your life. Just like your father.
’

Her breath felt short, harder to grasp. Traffic fumes and the heavy sweetness of rotting fruit filled her throat. A man passed, smoking a clove cigarette, and she swerved away from the cloying smell, the pavement seeming to tilt beneath her. She knocked into a thin boy spinning a yo-yo from a finger, who stared at her through large, curious eyes.

She began to run. The road was uneven, a deep rut jarring her pace. A pair of feline eyes watched suspiciously from the bonnet of a parked car as she raced on, skirting broken pot plants and sagging bin bags. She ducked into a side street leading to the hostel. She flew in through the entrance, past the reception desk, and along the darkened corridor.

She reached her room and stopped. Her stomach was knotted tightly, her pulse skittering with anxiety. She realized that she couldn’t go in; she couldn’t be alone.

She retraced her steps and found herself in front of Noah’s door. It was unlocked and she slunk into the warm darkness, trying to steady her breathing.

His voice, sleepy and questioning, asked, ‘Mia?’

‘Yes,’ she told him, gently pressing the door closed with her fingertips. ‘It’s okay. Go back to sleep,’ she whispered, slipping off her clothes and sliding into bed beside him. Her heart was racing. She wanted to press her body into the warm curve of his and let her heartbeat slow into his rhythm.

But she lay still, her arms tucked at her sides like wings, her ankle lightly touching his leg – just enough to connect them. He murmured something – a question perhaps, or a reservation – but she made no response and simply waited until she heard his breathing shallow as he was drawn back towards the comfortable folds of sleep. She sighed, relieved. Above, the ceiling fan cut through the warm air, and she began counting the strokes to stave off thought.

By the time she’d reached thirty-two, Finn’s email had clawed its way back into her mind and settled there. She imagined him typing the message, the pale light of his computer screen bleeding the warmth from his eyes. He had chosen his words carefully, stripping her down to her bones to reveal what she feared most: ending up like her father.

Mia could taste the bitter truth in his warning. She felt the symmetry of her and Harley’s lives running through her veins like blood. He had been caught in a spiral of self-destruction, driving away the people who loved him – just as she was. She bit down on her lip as she thought of the hurt she’d caused Finn. It was cruel of her to have left him for Noah, but unforgivable to lie that she was coming back. She wanted to put her face next to his, nose to nose, and tell him how sorry she was. But she knew it was too late for that. Through the open window, she could hear traffic and voices, and beyond that she caught the faint rhythm of waves breaking.

She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d drifted into sleep, but she woke to a sharp blow across her chest. She lurched from the bed, winded. Noah was flailing, his powerful body thrashing beneath the sheet like a trapped animal.

‘Noah!’

A string of mumbled, unintelligible words spilt from his mouth as he writhed, caught in the grip of a nightmare.

She backed towards the wall and groped for the light switch. The fluorescent bulb fizzed into life and she shielded her eyes from the glare, blinking.

He seemed to shake himself awake, yanking the sheet from him and staggering to his feet. His body glistened with sweat and he was breathing hard. He spun round, his eyes wide and startled. ‘What did I do?’

She was pressed flat to the wall. ‘You had a nightmare.’

‘Did I … did I hurt you?’

There was a dull ache in her chest where his arm had swung out. ‘No. I’m fine.’

‘What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.’ He turned away from her and moved towards the window. He placed his palms at the edges of the glass, like a prisoner desperate to leave. She saw that the dressing on his upper back had ripped off and his wound looked pink and tender.

She crossed the room slowly and placed her hands on the base of his back, just below the smooth cleft of his buttocks. His skin was burning.

‘Noah?’ she said, but he would not turn and face her. Whatever the nightmare was about, it still clung to him. She thought of his protests that she could never stay the night: ‘This happens often, doesn’t it?’

His jaw tightened and she saw from his reflection in the window that his eyes were screwed shut. There was something desperately vulnerable about the thin trail of blood that was beginning to seep from his wound. Placing her hand on his forearm, she stroked her fingers back and forth, skimming the dark edges of his tattoo. ‘It’s okay,’ she told him softly.

The gesture seemed to undo him. His shoulders started to shake and he hung his head.

‘Oh, Noah,’ she said, threading her arms around his waist. She held him close, felt his sweat cooling against her skin. It scared her to see him like this. ‘What was the nightmare about?’

She felt his body tense.

‘Noah?’

He didn’t answer.

‘It was about Johnny, wasn’t it?’

He pulled away.

‘You can talk to me.’

He said nothing and she saw how similar they were then, each weighed down by their private grief. They could help each other, she believed that. ‘I know you lost your brother. Tell me about him. I want to help.’

‘Please go.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t deal with this.’

‘Noah, I only want—’

But he had already crossed the room and started picking up her clothes.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, anxiety spreading like a dark kiss along her chest. ‘Noah, please—’

‘You’re pushing me, Mia. Trying to get inside my head. I can’t do it. I should never have started this. It was a mistake. I’m sorry, Mia, but it was a mistake.’

He passed her clothes back to her and she put them on, leaden. As she turned, she saw his backpack propped against the desk. It was packed. ‘You’re leaving?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Were you going to tell me?’

He looked at her, the darkness of his gaze concealing so much. Then he opened the door onto the corridor.

She moved through it.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all he said.

K
atie stepped out onto the balcony. A bird nesting in the hotel gardens flew off, startled, its dark wings lapping at the night sky. She wrapped her hands around the wooden railings and inhaled the smells of frangipani and cooling earth.

Finn joined her. Neither of them spoke. She listened to the far-off call of the surf and the breeze stirring the trees. She hadn’t yet read on in the journal as he’d asked her to do. Everything was rushing forward, pulling out of her reach. She needed to centre herself, to think.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice having lost the intensity of earlier. ‘I should have told you about my email sooner. I was ashamed.’

She understood a lot about shame; it lived within her like a second heartbeat. She had told no one about Mia’s phone call. Instead, she had lived with the shame of that conversation, feeling its inky guilt sliding through her veins. ‘I haven’t been completely honest with you either.’

He turned towards her.

She could feel his gaze on her, but she wouldn’t look up. She stared into the darkness as she told him, ‘Mia called me. It was the day before she died. We hadn’t spoken since Christmas when I told her I was engaged. Three months – that’s how long it’d been.’ She sighed. ‘When she finally rang, it was to ask for money.’

‘Because I hadn’t given it to her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you lend it to her?’

‘I didn’t even consider it.’ Katie closed her eyes and felt the night press against her skin. She thought of their conversation, the one she had been playing back in the bottomless depths of grief ever since.

‘What did you say?’

She glanced over her shoulder towards the lit room where the journal lay. ‘Do you know why I didn’t read her journal when I first found it in her backpack?’

‘You said you wanted to keep Mia’s memory alive.’

She laughed a single sharp note. ‘That’s what I told myself. It’s funny what you can make yourself believe. But the truth is, Finn, I’m a coward. I’ve never sat down and read it in one go because I didn’t want to know what Mia had written about our last conversation.’