The Hidden Beach

by Karen Swan

  She tore through the trees, her palms slapping against bark as she pushed off against them, running blindly, past the birches and pines, the blueberry bushes and the hawthorns that scratched her legs.

  She came to the water’s edge, the sea suddenly there like a bear saying ‘boo’, the levels much higher than usual, dredged up by the low pressure of the coming storm. She stared out, screaming their names, but it was hard to see and hear – the water was being whipped up by the wind, the standing waves in the strait making it hard to spot a small rowing boat or a kayak. Please God, not a kayak, not out there, not in these conditions . . . She scanned up and down the shore, stumbling on the rocks as she surveyed the water, straining to hear for cries over the wind, but there was nothing . . .

  She decided to keep to the perimeter and walk round. It was the water that was the danger. As long as they didn’t go in the w—

  Suddenly she stopped.

  She knew exactly where they were.

  The others had realized it too, Hanna still sprinting as Bell met her on the rocks, their feet slipping in their panic. The wind was blowing their hair around, blinding them for moments, Hanna’s slight frame sinewy and rigid with tension.

  They got to the crater and stared down the sheer drop, Hanna giving a cry as they saw the basin was full of rough, slapping water, no sand visible. No beach.

  ‘Linus!’ Hanna screamed, her eyes white like a horse’s in battle. ‘Tilde! Elise!’

  Max was ahead of them, on the far side, already scrambling down the rill. Emil was maybe a hundred metres behind him – not as fast, not as strong.

  ‘I can see them!’ Max yelled, his voice faint as the wind conspired against them and threw his words back over him. ‘They’re okay! They’re on a ledge! They’re okay!’

  Hanna gasped, her body giving out at the news, adrenaline overwhelming her, and she sank to the ground. Bell rushed over, holding her. ‘It’s okay, Hanna. Max has got them. They’re safe now.’

  ‘I can’t lose them, Bell.’

  ‘I know, and you won’t. Max is getting them. It’s all going to be okay.’

  ‘Oh God, my babies,’ she moaned.

  Bell looked down and saw Hanna’s hand curled over her stomach. A mother’s instinct. ‘They’re safe. But this one needs protecting too. You’ve got to look after yourself.’ And she placed her hand over Hanna’s.

  Hanna stared back at her, the question pale on her lips. ‘How . . .?’

  ‘I saw the pregnancy test in your drawer, that day when you’d lost the ring.’

  Their eyes met. They both knew now it had never been lost at all. Hanna had already been trying to control Emil the only way she felt she could, keeping her love for Max a secret still, buying time.

  ‘. . . I only took the test yesterday. I knew confirming the pregnancy would only complicate it all further and I wasn’t sure how far I would have to go to keep Emil on-side . . .’ She swallowed, looking ashamed. ‘You must think I’m terrible, to have done what I did.’

  ‘I think you were desperate, Hanna. Anyone would have been. You were protecting your family.’

  ‘As soon as it came up positive, I knew I couldn’t keep trying to persuade him or fool him anymore. I had resolved to tell him once we’d got through today. I was prepared to go to court over it.’ A tear slid down Hanna’s cheek as she bit her lip, trying to master her emotions. ‘But it wasn’t all an act. I do still love him, you know, in my own way. In spite of it all. How could I hate him? He gave me my son.’

  Bell bit her lip. ‘Just try to relax now. The kids are safe, Max is getting them and you heard Emil – it’s all going to be okay. They’re going to work it out.’

  Hanna gave a weak smile and nodded, closing her eyes as they both waited for the men – the two fathers – to bring the children back up.

  Bell felt herself trembling too, her own body unwittingly depleted by the frantic chase across the island and as she sat on the ground, she closed her eyes, trying to control her shock. She did what she’d done after Jack had died and closed the world down to darkness and just sounds – she listened to Hanna’s still-frightened breathing, the birds singing, the wind moaning, the sea’s rhythmic slapping . . .

  And then one more – unexpected, unwelcome, unnatural.

  A scream.

  In the final moments of his life, it was her face that filled his mind. Images spun round and round, of the light catching their pale spun hair, heads thrown back in laughter, his three girls, his three graces. Everything about them was radiance and beatific grace, as though they were not solid at all but heavenly conceits, constellations of stardust fallen from the skies into deft, perfect forms . . .

  In seeing all this, there was much that he missed – the frond of strife dropped by a passing gull, the slickness left by a high wave, the ragged gasps that pulled brokenly at the air and tore down the archipelago’s sky. He knew none of it.

  For him there was only light.

  And then darkness.

  Epilogue

  Auckland, NZ, four months later

  ‘Emergency! We’re out of milk!’ Bell yelled in panic.

  ‘But I only got some yesterday!’ Mats replied, his voice – and then bewildered face – appearing through the galley door.

  ‘Yeah, but did you have more of your shakes last night and this morning?’

  Realization dawned as he gave an apologetic grimace. ‘. . . Oh.’

  Bell rolled her eyes, not even knowing why she was surprised. ‘They’re going to be here in a few hours; I’ll go to the shops. Do we need anything else?’

  ‘Babe?’ Mats called, swinging himself down the short staircase by the ladder and landing softly like a cat. ‘Need anything?’

  Justine walked through, wrapping her hair up in a towel. ‘We’re pretty low on peanut butter.’

  ‘Okay, peanut butter,’ Bell repeated, checking her purse was in her bag. She wasn’t strictly sure peanut butter was a vital ingredient for tonight’s coq au vin, but she supposed come breakfast . . . ‘The one with the seeds?’

  Mats pulled another face as Justine sidled up to him. ‘Why can’t we just have peanut butter with peanut butter in it? I don’t want seeds in my butter. I’m not a frickin’ canary.’

  ‘It’s added goodness, babe,’ Justine grinned, hooking an arm around his neck and kissing him on the mouth. She was three inches taller than him, and often took advantage of the fact. The kiss became more involved –

  ‘Right, well, I’m off then,’ Bell groaned. It had been twenty-two days exactly since they’d met and she was looking forward to the month mark, when Mats said he usually began to calm down. ‘Be done by the time I’m back, please!’

  ‘Oh, he will be,’ Justine joked.

  ‘Oi!’ Mats protested, picking her up.

  Bell skipped up the stairs and jumped off the boat, onto the concrete gangway. It was very wide and stable, something of a relief after three months at sea, although she preferred the rickety swaying of the wooden sort. Of the Swedish archipelago . . .

  She immediately pushed the memories aside, refusing to let them settle. She had been disciplined and done a great job of outpacing her past, and she didn’t intend to let it catch up with her now.

  She glanced up at the sky as she walked quickly through the marina, past the hundreds of glossy white boats, sails bound, masts swaying in the wind; it wasn’t called the City of Sails for nothing. Black clouds were billowing overhead like witches’ skirts, the forecast storm arriving pretty much on time.

  The sight of it made her smile. She did her best to smile every day, refusing to sink back into the clutches of despair. She might have been here before, but Tove had sent her off with the actually wise wisdom that ‘life isn’t what happens to you, but how you choose to react to it’. So in the aftermath of those awful final weeks in the summer, she had first chosen freedom – and now she was choosing happiness. They weren’t inextricably linked yet, but she hoped one day they might be.

  ‘Hi
! Hi!’ she called out to the increasingly familiar faces as she passed by their boats, hand raised in a friendly wave.

  ‘Hey, Bell!’

  ‘How’s it going, Bell?’

  Their answering calls had different accents to the one she’d known during the summer, but the same carefree smiles and wind-whipped hair.

  She turned onto the main strip, glancing in through the open door of the harbourmaster’s office as she passed, walking with a long stride. ‘Hi, Dan,’ she called.

  ‘. . . Hell?’

  She stopped walking like it was a command. ‘Kris?’ she shrieked as a scraped-up man-bun on top of a very handsome head appeared around the door frame, swiftly followed by Tove’s electrified perm. ‘Tove?’

  ‘We were literally just getting your berth details!’ he laughed, running over and picking her up in a bear hug, swinging her around so that her legs swung out. ‘Jesus, there’s a lot of boats here! It’s Sandhamn on steroids!’

  She laughed with delight, feeling like a little girl as he swung her round, the Swedish language like music to her ears after her Kiwi hiatus. ‘But I wasn’t expecting you for hours yet! I’m out of milk!’ she cried, effortlessly speaking Swedish back and feeling very over-excited as he put her down and Tove swooped in for her hug.

  ‘Travelling winds,’ Tove said into her hair.

  ‘Huh, I could have done with some of those myself,’ she said, pulling back and taking in the happy sight of them both. They hadn’t changed a bit. Admittedly, it had only been four months, but in that time, her entire world had changed.

  ‘Yeah? You’re okay? You made it across safely?’ Kris asked, forever concerned.

  ‘Well, I’m here, aren’t I?’ she laughed.

  ‘It couldn’t come a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. He was fussing constantly,’ Tove said, rolling her eyes. ‘Kept checking the charts, looking at wind speeds . . .’

  ‘Aww, my mother hen,’ Bell grinned, leaning into his arm and squeezing it. ‘I told you I’d be fine. I was in good hands.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mean that literally,’ he said.

  She threw her head back and laughed. ‘Oh, trust me, no! That ship has very definitely sailed. Mats is currently loved up with a bikini model from Brisbane.’

  ‘Well, you could be one of those. Just look at you!’

  ‘If I grew a pair of legs,’ Bell quipped, holding a hand several inches above her head. ‘Short-arse here.’

  ‘But you’re so thin!’ Tove frowned. ‘Were you even allowed to sleep?’

  Bell laughed again, feeling the emotional release of being with old friends. She had missed it more than she’d realized. ‘Turns out sailing nine and a bit thousand nautical miles is all you’ve got to do to get a bikini body. There’s no coffee and cake shops in the middle of the Pacific!’

  Kris chuckled. ‘Well, you look amazing, but then you always did. Curves are good, I don’t know why women don’t get that.’

  ‘Shame that you don’t,’ Tove muttered.

  ‘And Marc couldn’t make it?’ she asked sympathetically.

  He gave a sad pout. ‘Exams coming up. But he sends his love.’

  ‘Ah, poor thing.’ She looked at him enquiringly, still worried about him in turn. ‘And it’s all good with you guys?’

  Kris winked. ‘Better than good. We’re keeping the apartment warm and stocked up on humous and pot plants until you return.’

  ‘But that’s not the main news. Tell her the main news,’ Tove prompted impatiently.

  Kris grinned. ‘Marc asked me to marry him and I said yes.’

  Bell gasped. ‘Oh Kris!’

  ‘The wedding’s set for next June. Midsommar’s, in fact.’

  ‘Oh –’ Bell’s mouth parted, the word an immediate link to her heartache, images flashing through her mind on a silent reel – his eyes; the fireworks; Impressed yet?; the first press of his lips . . .

  She saw them both watching her, seeing her freeze, like she had a pause button they could press. That easily, sending her back . . .

  ‘Ask who his best man is,’ Tove said, pressing play again.

  She gave a quizzical shrug, shaking the moment off. ‘Who’s your best man?’

  ‘You’re looking at her,’ Tove said, giving a dramatic bow.

  ‘Oh dear God!’ Bell exclaimed in shock – also feeling crashingly disappointed. She knew it wasn’t a competition, but Kris had always felt like her special friend. ‘This is going to be the speech of all speeches, you know that, right? No mercy.’

  Kris gave a hopeless shrug. ‘What could I do? She wants to wear a tux.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted a tux,’ Tove agreed.

  ‘You’re mad, both of you,’ Bell said, hoping her dismay didn’t show.

  ‘Have you ever worn a tux?’ Kris asked, one eyebrow arched.

  ‘Me?’ Her eyes widened as she saw the smile in his eyes. She gasped. ‘I get one too? I’m your best man too?’ Her hands flew up to her mouth in surprise.

  ‘How is that even a question?’ he demanded, outraged. ‘Of course you are!’

  ‘Well, I didn’t want to assume. I mean . . . I’m down here now, for one thing.’

  ‘Yeah, but not forever,’ Tove said, looking panicked.

  ‘No, but –’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing’s fixed. It could be five months. Could be five years.’

  ‘I do not think so,’ Kris said sternly. ‘I’m not losing my sister by another mister on account of Mr Right getting it wrong.’

  Bell frowned, shifting weight, her easy mood deadening. ‘He wasn’t Mr Right.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He was . . . Mr Right For One Night. That was it.’

  Kris arched an eyebrow. ‘That wasn’t what you said when you got back to the city. You were in pieces.’

  ‘Yes, well, it was an emotional time. After everything that happened with Max, and Hanna and the kids . . . I was all over the place.’

  They were both watching her closely, scrutinizing her for lies. ‘. . . Have you spoken to him?’ Tove asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Clean break, you know. Best thing. Definitely.’

  ‘Along with switching hemispheres. Just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said, realizing a moment too late it was intended as a joke. She gave a delayed smile.

  ‘Hmm,’ Kris intoned, looking thoughtful.

  ‘Hmm?’ she queried.

  He looked at Tove. ‘Could be awkward,’ he said in a low voice, not moving his lips.

  ‘I told you. I did say,’ Tove hissed back. ‘She’s stubborn as fuck. She’s not gonna be down with this.’

  ‘Down with what? What’s going on?’ Bell demanded, feeling a flutter of anxiety. She didn’t like it when they ganged up against her.

  Tove put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Just promise you won’t get mad, okay?’

  ‘Will I have a reason to get mad?’

  ‘No. None at all. We’ve done this from love.’

  ‘For love,’ Kris interrupted. ‘And because they wouldn’t stop doorstepping us.’

  ‘Doorstepping?’ The press? Had they found out she was the Von Greyers’ nanny? One quick Google search had been enough to confirm that Hanna and Emil’s divorce was now all over the Swedish papers.

  Their gazes collectively rose to a point beyond her shoulder, and she slowly turned. There, standing twenty metres away, was a man in a baseball cap – and beside him, a boy with a skateboard.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she cried, stepping back, her hands flying to her mouth at the sight of them here. All the way down here.

  ‘He literally wouldn’t stop calling,’ Tove murmured, watching her like she might fall. ‘I had to pick up for the sake of my sanity.’

  In a flash, Bell understood where her friends had got the money for the tickets. She should have known they didn’t have the spare cash to fly across the world to see an old friend and a boat race.

  ‘You’re not mad, are you?’ Kris asked, seeing how she had paled.
‘We tried to brush him off at first by saying you were with Mats. He didn’t care. He said he had to see you and talk to you in person. So we truck a deal, but with conditions: he’s promised to stay out of the way if you don’t want to see him. He said we can bring the kid to see you every day and he’ll go sightseeing or something . . . Say you’re not mad.’

  ‘. . . No, I’m not mad,’ she whispered, seeing how tightly Emil was gripping Linus’s shoulder, holding him in place; how Linus was straining forward; both of them waiting for a cue . . . Her arms raised up reflexively, held out wide, and in the next instant, the boy had broken free, dropping even his beloved board, and was sprinting towards her.

  ‘Bell!’ He rushed into her arms, his own around her waist and his head against her heart. ‘I missed you.’

  ‘I missed you,’ she gasped, not able to believe this was happening, her hands squeezing him, running over his hair, checking he was real. ‘Oh my God, I missed you so much! You’re really here? I’m not . . . I’m not hallucinating?’

  He looked back at her, nodding happily. ‘No! We flew for a day and a half to get here. We wanted to surprise you!’

  ‘Well, you did that, all right!’ she cried, half laughing, a sob of shock escaping her as she looked up to see Emil, closer now but still hanging back, holding his son’s skateboard. He had his baseball cap on, but no shades; she could see his eyes, those eyes . . .

  ‘So, are we good? Is this all good?’ Kris murmured, scanning the seemingly happy reunion. ‘Cos we can go to the hotel or we can stay here with you. For support. Back-up. Whatever you want.’

  ‘. . . It’s fine, this is good,’ she murmured, smiling down at Linus as he beamed back at her. A sunbeam that had landed in her arms.

  ‘Okay. Well, laters then, we’ll give you some time,’ he whispered, kissing her temple.

  ‘Later, alligator,’ Tove said, touching her arm lightly.

  Bell looked back at Linus again, barely aware of her friends leaving. ‘You’ve grown! My God, I can’t believe how much you’ve grown! Just straighten up.’ She measured the top of his head against her jaw. ‘Oh my God, half a neck! You were down here when I saw you last!’