The Sea Sisters (19 page)

She remembered discovering Ed flicking through Mia’s travel journal in London. At the time she’d thought he’d been checking there was nothing in it that would upset her – but now she began to question what his motives really were. ‘Before I walked into this room, yes, I trusted you. But right now? No. No, I don’t.’

‘You’ve already been through enough.’

‘You’re right, I have. So I’ll ask you one more time: give me the journal and whatever you’ve torn from it. ’

He hesitated.

‘Now!’

Reluctantly, Ed passed it to her.

Her heart cracked at the sight of Mia’s careful script ripped from the journal. It was as if Ed had yanked the hairs from Mia’s head. ‘What have you done?’ she asked, her voice stretched thin.

When he didn’t answer, she lowered herself onto the bed and brought the pages into her lap. Very carefully, she smoothed them out.

‘Please,’ he begged. ‘You don’t want to read that.’

‘M
erry Christmas!’ Mia said, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder.

‘Mia! Thank God, I didn’t miss you! I was literally walking out the door. Hold on a sec,’ she said, and then called out, ‘Ed! It’s my sister. Come back in – I’ll be a few minutes.’ There was the tread of feet and the click of the door closing, followed by Katie’s whisper, ‘Will you let your mother know we’ll be late? I don’t want her to think we’re being rude.’

Katie: considerate, organized, punctual.

Mia heard Ed’s footsteps move along the hallway and into the lounge. Another door closed. She imagined him wearing a dark overcoat over a V-necked sweater by a quality label, Ralph Lauren or John Smedley perhaps, dressed ready for Christmas lunch with his parents. She hadn’t been to Ed’s family home, but from Katie’s accounts she imagined a holly-and-ivy wreath hung on a solid oak door, a table already laid with a silver dinner service and three sets of cutlery, and bottles of red wine warming on a hearth.

‘Where are you?’ Katie asked.

‘Margaret River. It’s on the west coast of Australia.’

‘And right now, this second? I want to picture it.’

‘In a phone box outside a hostel. You’ll laugh – it’s actually a red English phone box. The colonial thumbprint still holds strong.’

‘What can you see?’

She glanced through the weathered glass panels. ‘Blue sky. Eucalyptus trees.’ She stretched away from the phone to stick her head out, looking towards the branches of the trees. ‘And two kookaburras.’

‘The birds that laugh?’

‘Yep.’

‘I can’t even imagine. Are you having a wonderful time?’

Mia pushed her hair away from her face. She thought of Maui and the cold truth that’d sunk to the pit of her stomach, and the brooding month that followed when she was listless and swollen with inertia. But she also thought of skydiving, of swimming in the Pacific, of making love to Noah beside a beach fire. ‘It’s more than I could have imagined.’

‘Good. That’s really good.’ Then, ‘Oh, Mia, it doesn’t feel right being apart at Christmas. I miss you so much!’

She smiled, warmed by the way Katie’s thoughts always tumbled out so openly. When Mia was younger she had been embarrassed by her sister’s earnestness; now she admired it. ‘I miss you, too,’ she managed.

‘Where are these stacks of postcards I was promised?’

‘I’ve bought them. Well, two. One in California and another last week in Perth. I just haven’t written them.’

‘Well, hurry up. I love getting post from you.’

Each time she’d sat down to write them, she’d found her pen hovering over the blank space, unsure where to begin. There were a thousand things she could tell Katie about her trip so far, but it was the things she couldn’t say that filled her head.

‘What time is it in Australia? Have you had Christmas lunch?’

‘It’s six. And lunch was a burnt sausage in a bap.’

‘No? Mia! It can’t feel like Christmas at all.’

‘It doesn’t.’ Which was exactly what she wanted. Christmas had always been a huge occasion in their family. Last year had been the first without their mother. Katie had foregone Christmas with Ed’s family to spend it in the flat with Mia. She put on an apron and an air of determined optimism, and did her best to conjure a festive atmosphere. Despite her efforts, grief clung to them both, exacerbated by the wine they washed back to fill the silences. After lunch an argument erupted, and they spent the rest of the day in separate rooms.

‘Finn still insisted on swapping stockings,’ Mia offered.

‘Tell me it was a clean sock this year?’

‘He claimed so, but he only packed two pairs and he hasn’t done any laundry for a fortnight. The jury’s out.’

Katie laughed. ‘What was in it?’

‘He couldn’t find any satsumas, so he wedged a banana at the bottom, which meant I got a banana-flavoured pack of cards, a banana-flavoured travel book about Samoa, and a banana-flavoured bangle.’ She lifted her hand and admired the chunky sea-green bracelet circling her wrist.

‘How is he?’

Katie rarely asked about Finn, but perhaps the distance made it easier. ‘He’s good. Making friends wherever we go. On Wednesday he had everyone at the hostel drinking homemade punch and limboing beneath a belt he’d tied to two poles.’ She’d arrived as everyone was dispersing and was sorry to have missed the fun. When Finn asked where she’d been, a flush crept up her neck as she answered, ‘With Noah.’

‘I can’t be too much longer as Ed’s waiting,’ Katie said, ‘but I’ve got news!’

‘Okay…’

‘On Friday, Ed and I went for dinner at the Oxo Tower. Do you remember it? We took Mum there for her fiftieth.’

‘With the waiter who thought the three of us were sisters.’

‘So Mum left a 20 percent tip.’

‘He’s probably tried that every night since.’

Katie laughed. ‘It was a different waiter this time – but he got an even bigger tip.’

‘Why? Did he say you look like Scarlett Johansson?’

‘Even better: when he brought out dessert my plate was decorated with these beautiful swirls of melted chocolate – and in the centre was a ring box. Mia, Ed proposed! He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!’

Sunlight fell through the glass panels of the phone box, illuminating Mia’s fingers as she pressed them to her mouth. Katie and Ed were engaged. Heat prickled across her skin. She wedged her foot in the door to get air.

Her response was important – every moment she hesitated would be counted. Her silence stretched out. A taut wordless void opened up between them.

It was Katie who spoke first. ‘Mia?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m engaged.’

‘Yes.’

A pause. ‘That’s all you’re going to say?’

‘No … sorry … I was just thinking of what to say.’

‘ “Congratulations” is common.’

‘Of course! Congratulations!’

‘I wanted you to be a bridesmaid.’

She swallowed. ‘Great…’

‘You’re not happy for me?’

‘I am – yes. I am.’

‘That’s odd, because it sounds like you’re disappointed.’

‘Sorry. It just took me by surprise. I didn’t realize things were so serious.’

‘You wouldn’t since you haven’t called in seven weeks.’ Her retorts were whip-like in their speed and sharpness.

Mia forced the door wider, jamming her knee through the gap.

Katie’s voice became a low whisper as if her mouth was pressed close to the receiver. ‘You’ve never liked him, have you?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

‘It seemed to when it came to my last boyfriend.’

The lash of the remark struck hard. ‘That was completely different!’

‘How?’

‘You were deliberately trying to hurt me.’

Katie sighed. ‘Everything will always be about
you
.’

‘No—’

‘I just want you to be happy for me. Can you be?’

She wanted to share her sister’s happiness and tell her that she loved her, but the memory of what she’d done caught in her throat, blocking her words.

‘Merry Christmas,’ Katie said, and then the line went dead.

*

Mia remained in the phone box. She felt a familiar tightening in her gut, a cold twist of guilt. Katie had always dreamt of getting married – and now she was engaged. For most sisters that would be cause for celebration and breathless questions about the engagement ring, the wedding date, plans for a venue. But Mia did not think to ask any of those things; she thought only of what had happened in a darkened corridor with the bitter taste of vodka lining her throat.

A group of travellers, ebullient and tanned, passed the phone box. Finn was in the centre of them, the white pompom of his Santa’s hat bobbing as he laughed.

‘Finn!’ she called, pushing through the door.

He stopped immediately. ‘What is it? Are you okay?’

The crowd paused, turning to look. She suddenly felt foolish, the urgency of a moment ago shrinking beneath their curious gazes. ‘I’ve just spoken to Katie.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘Yes, fine. She and Ed are engaged.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Right. That’s great news. Isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘So, when’s the wedding?’

‘Oh. I didn’t ask.’

He studied her for a moment. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re going to the pub for dinner. Come? We can have a celebratory drink.’

She’d love to lose herself amongst the easy smiles of the travellers, drink schooners of beer, shoot pool, dance to eighties rock on the jukebox – but she knew her heart wouldn’t be in it. ‘I don’t think…’

‘Come on, it’s Christmas! We haven’t had a drink together in ages.’

The criticism was implicit. Her time had been absorbed by Noah. She rubbed her arm; sunlight caught the curve of her new bangle and it glittered like the sea. ‘I’d love to have a drink together – but I’m not in a pub mood.’ She hoped he’d infer that she wanted to spend time with him. Just the two of them.

‘Fair enough.’ He shrugged. ‘See you later.’

*

Mia returned to her room, slipped her journal and a slim package into her bag, and left again in search of Noah. She passed Zani, one of the group he and Jez travelled with, sitting cross-legged outside the hostel, smoking. She had a bleached-blonde crop and wore wide rainbow-coloured trousers that were trodden down at the heels.

‘Do you know if Noah’s at the beach?’

‘They’re all surfing Reds.’ She proffered her joint.

‘I’m good, thanks,’ Mia said, and then moved on.

Crickets and cicadas hummed in the scrub-lined track that led to Reds. The beach took its name from the plateau of red rocks that lay like huge beached whales, now baking under a lowering sun. She slipped off her flip-flops and picked her way across them. The air was moist with a briny vapour lifting from the sea. Great lines of swell were breaking, the white-water re-forming into smaller waves that crashed against the rocks.

Her conversation with Katie drifted from her thoughts the moment she saw Noah. He was standing a few paces away from the edge of the rocks, his surfboard underarm. The sun was sinking to the west and golden streams of light gilded his silhouette. Years of surfing had honed his physique to a lean structure of muscle. Unable to see his expression, she imagined him looking serious, his gaze fixed on the water. She’d come to understand that for Noah surfing was a need, as basic as hunger or thirst.

She wondered if it was his passion for the sea that drew her to him with such unnerving force. There’d been other boyfriends – mostly brief and unremarkable relationships that passed with the seasons – but she’d experienced nothing like this.

‘Hey,’ she said, announcing herself.

He turned. Smiled.

‘I was just looking for you to say Merry Christmas.’

He loosened his grip on his surfboard, but didn’t put it down. ‘Merry Christmas, Mia.’

She hadn’t seen him all day and wanted to place her lips against his bare chest and feel the heat of his skin. ‘I’ve something for you,’ she said, feeling her bag at her side, which contained his present. Realizing that he’d have nowhere to put it, she said, ‘I’ll give it to you later.’

‘Sorry. I haven’t got you anything. I didn’t think…’

‘This isn’t a Christmas present, just something I found.’ It was a Hemingway book, her favourite:
The Old Man and the Sea
. It had been on the swap shelf at the last hostel they’d stayed in, so she’d traded it for her Lonely Planet, and had inscribed on the inside cover: ‘
To Noah, the freshest words about the sea … with love, Mia xx.
’ She’d wrapped it in pages torn from a magazine and tied it with string.

‘Let’s catch up later, then.’ He leant forward and kissed her. When he pulled away, his gaze darted back to the surf where the breakers rolled in, smooth and powerful.

‘You should get out there.’

He moved back to the edge of the rocks, waiting for a lull between sets. When one came he launched the board into the water and then dived after it, cutting through the back of a wave. It took several powerful strokes to reach the board and then he slid onto it and paddled determinedly through the seething wash.

Mia gathered her hair from her face and tied it into a low knot at the base of her head, then sat, hooking her arms over her knees. She enjoyed watching him surf; she’d spent enough hours on Cornish beaches to recognize his talent. He had an easy, fluid style and she noticed how he hung back from the other surfers who bobbed like seals in the line-up. He’d wait on an outside section, hitting a wave where it broke at its steepest or picking off the set wave that the other surfers chose to leave. She knew the risks he took, but he trained hard for the hold downs. He’d told her that spear fishing helped his agility, and he did other exercises, like carrying rocks underwater to build up lung capacity and strength. She held an image of him gliding along the seabed, his hands wrapped round a boulder, a stream of silver air bubbles floating from his lips.