The Hidden Beach

by Karen Swan

  Bell was quiet for a moment, digesting the news. ‘Hanna’s never mentioned anything about that to me,’ she said uneasily, trying hard to remain loyal to her boss. Whatever difficulties they had endured recently, whatever conflicts of interest they unwittingly shared on a private level, she had been a good employer for the past three years; they were friends, of a sort. ‘She never mentions money.’

  ‘No need to when it’s being pumped in,’ Nina shrugged.

  ‘Well, if you think she’s all about the money, then why hasn’t she left Max already? It’s been six months since Emil woke up.’

  Nina looked thoughtful, her gaze still pinned to the twins. ‘That’s what I can’t quite figure out.’

  ‘You just don’t like her.’

  ‘No, there’s something else too, I know there is. I just can’t put my finger on it. She’s been keeping him close –’

  ‘Yes, because they share a son.’

  ‘But not so close that she had to make any difficult decisions. She’s kept her options open all this time – until he got hurt again. But she’s been all over him like a rash ever since his concussion.’

  ‘Maybe it helped clarify things for her, being confronted with the possibility of losing him again.’

  Nina glanced at her. ‘Doesn’t she strike you as . . . jumpy?’

  ‘I think you make her nervous.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nina laughed, flashing a sudden smile. ‘But then I always did . . . No, this still feels like something more.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Hanna’s up to something.’

  Bell remembered them in bed together, skin on skin, limbs intertwined, and she inhaled sharply. ‘It’s the guilt. She still loves Max and she feels torn, she’s been trying to do the right thing by them both, but I think she’s made her choice.

  ‘Emil certainly has,’ Nina muttered.

  ‘Whatever happened in their past, things are different between them now and I think the accident has, in some perverse way, saved their marriage – if, as you say, it was previously failing,’ Bell said. ‘Hanna told me herself Emil’s a different man to the one she married; in the process of dealing with his recovery, it seems they’ve fallen for each other all over again.’

  Nina dismissed her theory with a horsey toss of her head. ‘He’s fallen for you, Bell, he’s just too pig-headed to face it because you don’t fit into his “masterplan”.’ She made quote marks with her fingers. ‘And you’ve fallen for him too. There’s not many other reasons to be sitting crying on the stairs.’

  Bell looked away, not wanting to hear it, other words still echoing in her head. It can’t be you. Nina tutted disappointedly. ‘You should be fighting for him.’

  I want my family back. I don’t want to want you. ‘He wants Hanna,’ she said flatly. It was a simple and undeniable truth. ‘Hanna and Linus, and nothing – and no one – will stop him from getting them back.’

  Nina fell quiet, distracted. ‘Hmm. Actually . . . that may not be strictly true,’ she murmured. ‘There’s likely someone who knows more than he’ll tell.’ She was watching something further down the long hall, and Bell followed her gaze. Måns was watering a pale peach potted rose.

  ‘You think Måns . . .?’ Bell looked back at Nina, wondering why she was so determined to believe there had to be another reason for Hanna being with Emil. Why couldn’t she accept that if they’d fallen in love once before, it could have happened again?

  ‘He knows something, possibly.’

  ‘Then speak to him.’

  Nina gave a frustrated exhale. ‘He’d never tell me something about my brother’s private life.’ She gave a mirthless bark. ‘Ha, he’d only tell Emil himself if Emil actually asked the right question.’ She shook her head. ‘Like I said, discretion’s such a fucking pain.’

  They watched Måns carefully tend to the plant, both of them seeing different things – to Nina, he was a keeper of secrets; to Bell, he was just an elderly man dead-heading with gentle fingers.

  ‘I should go,’ Nina sighed after a moment. ‘I don’t want Hanna relaxing too much in my absence.’ She rose, giving a sharp-eyed smile. ‘I may not be able to stop this fiasco but I have to be allowed my sport at least.’

  Bell watched her go, feeling a stab of pity for her boss. But it seemed to Bell that beneath the sleekly threatening exterior, Nina was more Labrador than Doberman. And she loved her little brother, that much was undeniable.

  She dropped her head in her hands, dreading going back out there too and rejoining the macabre party, all of them waiting for the moment Emil came back down and finished what he’d started. Finished, once and for all, the love triangle between him, Hanna and Max.

  She watched Max, grey-faced and sitting stiffly at that table as his daughters enjoyed the private fairground set up on the lawn; keeping a dignified silence as he was forced to accept the hospitality of the man he knew wanted to rob him of his family.

  Rob him back, Emil would argue.

  She sighed, exhausted by the circular argument. There were no villains to rail against, no fair way out of this. Max wasn’t the bad guy here, but neither was Emil and when all was said and done, he had lost more and been hurt more than anyone. Forget what his family and connections and wealth could get for him; surely the universe owed him some sort of recompense? Who could possibly deserve a happy ending more than him?

  Max knew he deserved it, it was why he was here, and she knew it too. It was why, in that bedroom, against all her instincts, she had walked away. It was why she was going to walk out there and do it again, hand in her resignation with immediate effect. Because what was best for Emil was worst for her. She couldn’t stay. Working with or for him simply wasn’t an option, they both knew that; it didn’t even need to be said. He needed a clear run at his future with Hanna if they were going to make it work this time round.

  And she needed a clean break. She knew what it was to be alone, to have her heart broken. She had lost love before but she had survived it, and now she would do it again. The roots that had grounded her after Jack’s death now felt tight and constrictive. She had to break free. Be free.

  Drawing a slow, determined breath, she stood, her gaze steady upon the small group outside, fidgeting and pretending to be at home. Then she walked back out to the garden to do what had to be done – unaware she was being watched.

  Ingarso, Stockholm archipelago, 25 June 2012 – dawn

  He walked through the trees, twigs snapping underfoot, the sea an inky ribbon glimpsed in snippets. It was not yet five but the moon was dipping, and across the calm waters of the lagoon, an elk was swimming between the isles. He could see the rowboat bobbing on a slack line, the jetty a shadow on the silvered surface.

  He stepped onto the beach and over the weathered boards, their rattles percussive in the silence. Nothing had changed, and everything had. Four years of walking the wrong path had been corrected, and he felt a solidity within his body he’d never known before. He inhabited himself now; his soul had settled like a weight, anchoring him to the ground, the earth, this life. Her.

  He approached the boat, squinting as he drew nearer and caught sight of something white on the bench seat. An envelope.

  He looked around him in alarm but no sound came from the dark woods, no eyes flashing from the shadows. He stepped down and picked it up. Inside was the receipt, crumpled yet with a precise fold line across the middle. She must have dropped it – and someone else had found it.

  Someone who knew his writing.

  Because written on the front was a short-three letter word.

  His name.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ‘You’ll be pleased to hear my headache has cleared.’

  The conversation stopped and they all turned as one to find Emil standing at the doorway to the terrace. Bell looked up from her spot on the steps with Linus and the twins. They were eating off their laps as a treat, too excitable to sit at the table today, even for ten minutes.

  The sky had clouded over in his absence, thi
ck clouds stealing shadows off the ground, an ominous wind ruffling their hair and shirts.

  ‘Good!’ Hanna said, sounding pleased. Relieved. There was an edge of mania to her brightness. ‘Come and quickly have some birthday lunch, then. I’m afraid we had to start without you. The children were getting restless and it’s trying to rain, so we might need to move indoors shortly.’

  He walked over, Nina catching his eye. ‘You do look better,’ she said, regarding him almost suspiciously. ‘I told you you needed to lie down.’

  ‘You are always right. I should listen to you more.’

  His sister frowned, puzzled by his rare obedience as he sat down in the chair beside her. ‘Have I missed much?’ His eyes flickered over the group – Hanna, Max, her . . . Quickly back to Nina again.

  Bell felt herself flinch. She was cast out already. Here but not.

  ‘We were just discussing the European elections,’ Nina said in a sangfroid tone that came with an invisible eye-roll.

  ‘Ah.’

  The conversation resumed, Hanna seeming particularly engaged on the topic – Nina significantly less so – as Måns came over with a plate of poached salmon and cucumber salad and set it down before him. Bell watched Emil eye it without appetite, knowing that even if he could taste it, none of them were here for the food. He picked up his fork but held it limply in one hand and she could see the words building up inside him, like steam in a kettle. His eyes kept darting between Hanna and Max as they all tried to eat, and Bell noticed how the Mogerts didn’t make eye contact or address each other in his presence; there were none of the intimacies or endearments, touching hands or shared laughs that characterized their home life. Was it out of courtesy to Emil? Or because it was all over? Bell couldn’t tell. Everyone was on guard, playing games . . . They might as well have been strangers, and she realized that the last time the three of them would have eaten a meal together, Hanna would have been Emil’s wife and Max their guest. But now, the cards had been shuffled, the deck rearranged . . .

  Emil ate a mouthful of the salmon, his stony expression reflecting the deadening of his senses, as around him, the conversation steadily died. Even Nina was unable to sustain a lively repartee in the face of his implacable quiet. Pretence was impossible. They all knew the moment was upon them. All he wanted was to talk.

  Emil dropped his fork with a clatter, onto the plate as, beside him, Hanna flinched. Jumpy. ‘Max, I owe you an apology.’

  Max stopped eating, his fork poised in mid-air. It wasn’t the statement any of them had been expecting.

  ‘Yes, I’m truly sorry if my recent . . . woes have proved troublesome for you. I expect you must have been somewhat disquieted with Hanna staying here over the weekend. Playing nurse to me.’

  It was the first shot, whistling through the silence like a cannonball on the dawn battlefield. Nina sighed and reached for her drink.

  Max looked back at him, steadily. ‘Not at all. Hanna’s a great nurse. I’m glad she was able to help.’ He placed the forkful in his mouth, but Bell was certain he wasn’t tasting his food any more either. His skin was looking almost grey with the stress.

  A small smile played on Emil’s lips. ‘Oh yes. She was a great . . . a really great . . . help.’ He glanced over at Hanna as the stress landed on the innuendo; she wasn’t even attempting to eat, staring at him with a horrified plea in her eyes, a dawning realization that she had no control over this situation after all. She was out of time . . .

  ‘Emil –’ she whispered, but Emil’s attention was already back on Max.

  Max continued to chew, but more slowly now. He looked over at Bell. ‘If the children have finished eating, they can go off to play . . .’ he said in a low voice.

  It was like asking the ladies to leave the room before the men pulled out their revolvers and Bell could only shrug feebly in reply, for the three of them were already halfway down the lawn anyway, heading for the bouncy castle again, their cleared plates on her lap. She knew she should take them to the kitchen and steer well clear of this toxic scene, but her feet wouldn’t move. She had to know how this was going to play out. Like some kind of sadist, she needed to watch the man she wanted get back the woman he wanted.

  A cold wind barrelled up the garden, parting the flowers and carrying salt from the sea.

  ‘You know,’ Emil said, sitting back in his chair, elbows splayed and lacing his fingers together. ‘People think that being in a coma for seven years is the most terrible thing, but actually, there are upsides.’

  Bell glanced across at Hanna, her long hair streaming across her face. No filter for one, she thought.

  Nina spluttered on her drink. This was her kind of humour. ‘There’s time to think?’

  ‘There’s less thinking going on than you may suppose,’ he grinned. ‘But it is very peaceful. There’s a lot to be said for that. Cutting out all the noise, the chatter, the distractions . . . It’s been one of the more disconcerting things to have to readapt to; life is so loud.’ He sighed, letting his shoulders rise and fall, looking amiable and relaxed. ‘No, more than anything, I think, if you are lucky enough to pull through it all, you emerge with Perspective. With a capital P. What’s life all about? Why are we here? What really matters?’ He threw his hands out questioningly, looking round the table at the faces looking back apprehensively. Bell realized it was actually a question. ‘It’s not that –’ He waved a hand indicating the house. ‘Forget all this –’ He jerked his head towards the private fairground on the lawn, the parked helicopter, the large, lush, mature garden on a tiny Baltic island. ‘All it boils down to is love.’

  No one spoke. They didn’t disagree. They just didn’t want to go where this conversation was heading. Not Nina, not Max and not – from the look of barely controlled panic on her face – Hanna. She really wasn’t ready for this, Bell realized. The way Emil had spoken to her in the bedroom, so certain of his plans, she had assumed Hanna was complicit, that they had discussed this. But there was no disguising the fear on her face now. Her eyes were shining with tears as she looked between the two men. It was clear Emil was going rogue, off-book.

  ‘And I have always loved this woman.’ He covered Hanna’s hand with his own, drawing it into him and holding it against his heart. Bell stared at it there, remembering how she had lain with her head in that exact spot, for just one night. ‘You know that, Max. You were one of the first people I told that I’d met the girl I was going to marry! Remember it? I introduced you to her that day in Vardshus, in the garden? You were on your lunch break and we’d piled off the ferry with some friends; it was the start of the summer – party, party, party. Life was good, eh? You remember?’ He nodded, never letting go of Max’s gaze. And Max, likewise, both men held in a lock. ‘Of course you do. You were my best man. The best man I knew.’

  Bell looked at Max in surprise. He’d said they’d been friends, that he’d gone to their wedding – but to have been best man? That wasn’t just a detail, it was a statement.

  Emil tapped the side of his head. ‘Which brings me to another coma upside – clarity. Capital C. Some things now, from years ago, I can recall like they happened this morning. Not everything – there have been things that were just . . . just out of reach.’ He tapped his head again. ‘Hence the headaches, you see.’

  Hanna was pressing her lips together, her body held in the contracted state before a sneeze, or a sob.

  ‘And when I look back now, I think I knew you were in love with her too. I think I did know it,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I just . . . refused to see it. I didn’t want to see it. I mean, my wife and my best friend.’ He made a crazy face. ‘Who the hell wants to see that, right?’

  Max didn’t reply but he had stopped eating now, his cutlery returned to the plate, his arms splayed on the carver chairs as he sat back, listening. Waiting.

  Bell couldn’t take her eyes off him. Max had been in love with Hanna for all those years, before Emil’s accident? He’d been their best man?

  ‘S
o maybe I can’t blame you for swooping in while I lay there, not dead but certainly not alive for seven years. Maybe I’d even have done the same. All’s fair in love, right, especially when the other guy’s . . . you know . . . a vegetable.’

  Hanna gasped. Bell winced at the savage language.

  ‘But again – upsides!’ He smacked the table with his palm, an almost jocular gesture were it not for the fact that the look in his eyes in no way matched the words coming from his mouth. ‘You took care of my family and that’s a good thing. I mean, I know they were more than adequately provided for financially, thanks to Nina’s efforts setting up the trust.’ He gave a silent clap to Nina and she nodded her acknowledgement warily. His anger threaded every word and she looked as worried as the rest of them now. ‘I know you set up home together in a house that my family paid for, but you were a father to my son. You kept my wife warm at night. I should be thankful for that. You . . . minimized their suffering.’

  ‘Emil –’ Hanna faltered, but he silenced her with a look. Of course, there was no real gratitude in his eyes, but there was something else missing too. No . . .

  No . . .?

  Bell gave a shiver of trepidation at his steeled manner. Everything felt ‘off’, somehow. There was a chilling calculation to all of this that was far removed from the passion, the desperation he had shown upstairs. He wanted his family back, she understood that, but did that mean destroying Max first? Humiliating him? And why wasn’t Max fighting back and defending himself? If everything Emil said was true, there were also mitigating circumstances. Max wasn’t a monster.

  The wind gave a low moan, like a dog turning over, just as Emil gave a sigh. ‘But of course, the thorn in everyone’s sides is that I somehow, against the odds – against the gods! – inconveniently recovered. And so now I’m back, and everything’s got to change again.’ The silence yawned as the statement hung in the air like smoke after the bullet’s left the gun, both men staring at one another. ‘Because you know, Max, of course you know, that Hanna’s mine again. You knew it when she heard I’d been hurt again and she ran out in that storm.’