by Helena Halme
The Island Affair
Can one summer mend a broken heart?
Helena Halme
A free story!
To celebrate the publication of The Island Affair, I've written a short prequel to the book (and the new series).
The Day We Met is set at Uppsala University in Sweden where Alicia is studying English. When a migraine is threatening to ruin her day, the last thing she expects is to meet the man of her dreams.
Liam, a British doctor is in Uppsala attending a medical conference when a beautiful leggy blond chooses to sit at the same table as him in the busy student canteen. She's not the first woman Liam has ever been attracted to, but there's something beguiling about this young student and he cannot take his eyes off her.
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Prologue
Alicia wakes up with a fuzzy head. The curtains to the bay window in the bedroom have been closed, and she hears muffled voices downstairs. She puts her hand on her body and discovers she's wearing a pink dressing gown over the oversized T-shirt she sleeps in. The clock by the bed shows 3.25am. On the small bedside table, she sees a half-empty glass of water and a packet of pills she's never seen before.
Then she remembers, and a horror rises in the pit of her stomach. She gets out of bed and crosses the landing to Stefan's bedroom. The familiar musty smell of her teenage son, her nearly grown-up son, her beautiful boy, hits her as soon as she opens the door, searching the dark room for the bed in the middle of the space. Wanting to see signs of the lanky shape, she looks for a narrow foot peeking out from under the familiar blue and white cover with the cockerel logo of Spurs football club. She prays for the sight of a mop of blond hair on the pillow above the bedcovers. Carefully, slowly, as if still in a dream, she walks over the threshold of the room. When she sees the bed is neatly made up and empty, she falls on her knees and lets out a cry.
She hears rapid steps behind her and feels Liam's hands on her shoulders. He's squeezing her hard, too hard. She can feel tears running down her face and realizes she is weeping. She's making noises she doesn't recognize, animal sounds like a wolf's howling.
One
Alicia is standing looking at the vast display of bottles in the ship's tax-free shop when the deck beneath her suddenly shifts and she almost loses her balance. The ferry must be out in the open sea between the islands and Sweden. Liam has gone to sit in one of the 'sleeping chairs'. He's taken a seasickness tablet and feels drowsy. This is the routine they have fallen into over the years, and mostly he is fine, as long as he stays still and keeps his eyes on the horizon. Luckily the quiet compartment has vast windows overlooking the sea.
The Viking Line ferry passes through the small islands between Stockholm and the coast before sailing through the open sea to the Åland archipelago. Usually conditions are calm, but sometimes there's a high wind and the sea is so choppy for an hour or so that the staff close the bars and restaurants.
Alicia tries to listen for any announcement above the clinking sounds of the bottles, but she can't hear anything. Again the ship moves abruptly, and Alicia loses her balance. She suddenly finds herself looking into a pair of piercingly blue eyes.
She had noticed the tall blond man walking along the aisles when she entered the shop. He was difficult to ignore in his trendy jeans, sailor shoes and soft suede jacket. He had an expensive-looking tan and ruffled hair. He's even taller than Liam, Alicia thought, but she didn’t spot him standing next to her until she bumped into him.
He takes hold of her arms. His gaze is so direct and suggestive that Alicia gasps.
'Sorry,' she says and the man smiles. The intensely azure eyes and the slightly open mouth surrounded by laughter lines make her instinctively grin too. The sensation on her mouth feels strange; she doesn't remember when she last felt the urge to smile.
Alicia feels the man’s strong hands keenly on her elbows. She senses the heat rise into her neck and face. She looks away, embarrassed.
When did she last blush?
'Don't be, I enjoyed it,' the man says, and his smile grows wider at her discomfort.
She straightens up, and the man's hands fall away from her. For a mad moment, Alicia wishes he would put them back and hold her, but she shrugs such thoughts away and gives a short, flustered, laugh.
The man stretches his hand out. 'Patrick Hilden,' he says. He has a very Swedish accent, from Stockholm, Alicia thinks. She tastes the name on her lips.
'Alicia O'Connell.' His hand lingers around Alicia's fingers.
'You're not an islander, are you?' he says.
'Is it that obvious?' Alicia manages to say. She doesn't know how. She's finding it difficult to speak. She's breathless, as if her lungs have been emptied of air.
'It takes one to know one,' the man continues to smile shamelessly into Alicia's eyes.
'I moved with my mum to Åland when I was a baby, but then went away to university and never returned,' Alicia says. She doesn't know why she feels she wants to tell this man her life story.
'Ah, that makes sense. All the best ones leave,' Patrick says.
'And you, you are obviously not from Åland either?'
He laughs. 'Originally from northern Sweden but I now live in Stockholm. One of the unlucky ones.'
Alicia returns the man's laugh. Everybody on the island hates the arrogant Stockholmare.
After what seems like minutes, Patrick lets go of Alicia's hand but he's still standing close to her, and his scent of expensive leather and something else, a manly tang, envelops her. She knows she ought to take a step back, but she can't move. She lifts her eyes toward his face and those eyes again.
'You don't sound like a Norrbotten Swede,' Alicia says, and then, seeing the man's raised eyebrows, adds laughing awkwardly, 'Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude.' Alicia has forgotten about the many sensibilities surrounding the Scandinavian countries. She's so used to what one can and cannot say about accents in the UK, but she suddenly feels clueless about the similar issues here. She's been living away from home for too long.
The boat shifts again, and Patrick puts his hand out in case Alicia loses her balance.
But this time she's prepared and steadies herself by placing her hand on the edge of the drinks display. 'Not much of a sailor, am I?'
Patrick laughs into her eyes. 'You're over for a holiday?'
'Yes,' Alicia replies simply. His scent and presence are intoxicating. She isn't hearing or seeing anything else but this tall, blue-eyed stranger. It's as if he's mesmerized her, and the old ship’s clanging sounds and smells of diesel and paint have disappeared.
'Here you are!' Alicia is woken from her hypnotized state by an almost equally tall and elegant woman, who is striding toward them, speaking loudly in an Åland accent. When she sees Alicia, she looks her up and down and then turns to Patrick. 'Look, they're about to close the shop. There's a storm apparently, so we need to get a move on. Did you find the champagne?'
'This is Alicia O'Connell,' Patrick says, ignoring her urgent question and stretching his arm toward Alicia. He turns to Alicia and says, still smiling, 'And this very rude woman is my wife, Mia.'
The woman looks at Alicia more closely. 'It’s you!' Her voice is very shrill and Alicia has a sudden desire to cover her ears with her hands, but instead she smiles. She feels Mia's arms pulling her into a tight embrace.
'Hello, it's been a long time,' Alicia replies from inside the woman's hug. The thin, but muscular arms are holding her tightly.
'So sorry I didn't recognize you!' she says, releasing Alicia.
&nbs
p; 'You know each other?' Patrick says, his eyebrows raised.
'We went to school together!' Mia shrieks. 'But we have to get on. Alicia, are you going to be on the islands over Midsummer? You must come to our party! Give me your email, will you?'
'Hmm,' Alicia says, not knowing what to reply. She glances over at Patrick, but his face betrays no emotion. He looks bored more than anything else now.
'Oh, don't worry, I've got your mum's address. You must all come. I'll send you the details!'
She drags her husband away. Patrick turns and looks at Alicia. With his right hand, he tips an invisible cap as if in a salute. Alicia stands there with a stupid smile on her face. She watches Mia speak to Patrick rapidly, like a machine gun. Patrick's shoulders are wide and she can see blond hairs curl up at his neck and a tiny, brown patch of skin above his shirt collar. She imagines stroking it, running her fingers along his neck and into his thick hair.
What's happening to me?
Two
Liam wakes with a start. He checks his watch. He's only been asleep for a matter of minutes—half an hour at most. He wipes his mouth with his thumb; his lips and the side of his cheek are dry. He's paranoid about falling asleep in public and drooling, but all seems to be fine. And then he remembers where he is, on a ferry to the islands, and what has happened. Each time this occurs, each time he lets the knowledge slip from his mind, it's as if a cannon ball hits him in the guts when he remembers. The pain of the realization is intense, and for a moment he struggles to breathe. His heart is beating fast and he closes his eyes again, telling himself that breathing is as natural as living.
Living!
He knows this is just a minor panic attack, a reaction to the death of his son and part of the grieving process. These attacks will lessen and then hopefully disappear. That is what his colleagues at St Mary's Hospital tell him. When it happened the first time, a month or so after the accident, he thought it was his heart and had welcomed the panic and the pain. It would have served him right to die, to follow his son to an early grave. Besides, it would have been a relief.
But to his surprise, after a while his breathing had returned to normal. He remembers how disappointed he had felt, lying in the dark in his bed, next to Alicia, who was gently snoring. She had been on heavy sedatives then, on pills that he had prescribed.
'Acceptance of the facts is the first step,' his psychologist and colleague Constance Bell—a fair-haired older woman—had said. He’d given little credence to her practice before the accident.
'In time you'll be able to celebrate your son's life rather than grieve his death.' Connie, as everyone called her, gave him a half-smile, lifting the corners of her thin lips just a fraction on either side, and nodded her head. That movement meant it was the end of the session. Liam knew the woman was also seeing Alicia, and got the uneasy feeling she was on her side in all of it. He knew that professionally she wasn’t taking sides, but after a few sessions, he had detected a coldness in her manner. Now he wonders if, when they're back in London, he should ask to see a different grief counsellor, but he knows changing now would only raise eyebrows in the hospital where they both practice.
* * *
Forcing her eyes away from the broad back of the blue-eyed man, Patrick, and her old schoolfriend Mia, Alicia sees Liam walking up and down the aisles. He's carrying a basket and Alicia sees a packet of cigarettes in the bottom. Marlboro Lights. After the accident he started to smoke again.
What is he doing here, especially when there's a storm brewing?
Alicia waves to him several times, and calls his name, soliciting stares from the people around her, until he eventually sees Alicia and walks slowly up to her.
'They're closing the shop,' he says.
Alicia remembers why she is here. Hilda, Alicia's mother, has asked her to bring wine, two bottles of white and two of red, to be precise. 'Something nice,' she had added on the phone, as if Alicia would buy some worthless plonk as a welcome present, or alternatively, as if she was completely unknowledgeable about wine.
'I know,' she says to Liam, and picks up four bottles at random and puts them in Liam's basket.
'We've been invited to a party,' she says over her shoulder, walking toward the tills.
* * *
'You hungry?' Liam asks as they leave the ship's tax-free shop. As they pass the loos, a woman comes out, and the familiar smell of the ferry—a combination of drains, diesel oil and paint—hits Alicia's nostrils. For a moment, she feels a wave of nausea overwhelm her. Perhaps she's suddenly developed sea sickness too?
But she nods to Liam. She wants to follow the old routines on this journey. Veering away from what they always did would be to betray Stefan's memory. Alicia feels his presence strongly now, and she doesn't want to let go of him.
Every summer, Alicia, Liam and Stefan would fly from London to Stockholm and then onto Åland, a group of islands between Finland and Sweden.
Alicia's home.
* * *
Usually, Alicia's mother picks them up from the airport and drives them to the Ålandsfärjan ferry port in Kapellskär. But this year, Hilda didn't come to meet them in Arlanda. Alicia knows she's scared and wants to postpone the moment when she has to acknowledge Stefan's absence. Instead, she and Liam take a train to T-Centralen in Stockholm and a bus to the harbor.
* * *
During the hour-long bus journey, Alicia withdrew into her memories of the many times they'd taken this trip together. When Stefan was a baby, they would rent a car, and she’d fuss over the unfamiliar Swedish car seat. How did it work? Was it safe? Alicia would ask all the questions while Liam calmly looked at the instructions and eventually strapped—the usually crying—Stefan into the seat. Alicia looked over at Liam's profile. She was sitting on the aisle seat in the bus, while Liam was asleep, his head resting on his folded jumper by the window. She loved him then; she thought she could never do without him.
In the past, when the seas were heavy Liam got very seasick and had to sit and stare at the horizon close to the bathrooms while Alicia, her mother and Stefan ate and drank in the restaurant, talking about what had happened during the months, or sometimes a full year, since they’d last seen each other. During the meal they admired the breathtakingly beautiful archipelago with its many islands, while Hilda stared besottedly at her grandson, commenting on his taller frame, new haircut or smart jacket.
As the ship picked its way through the small channels, Alicia and Stefan would gawp at the large seaside villas, with their intricate woodwork, built decades ago on the larger islands, or the tiny red houses, with sparkling white window frames, perching on top of small rocky outcrops.
'Can we live there?' Stefan would ask each year, pointing to a particularly beautiful villa, with a boathouse below it and a long jetty jutting out to sea. Even when he was older, they went through this routine, picking out a place they would like to own.
'We already have a cottage on the islands,' Alicia replied.
One year—Alicia cannot remember how old he was—her son said, 'When I'm a grown-up, I'm going to buy that one,' pointing at one particularly grand villa just outside Stockholm.
They had laughed at his naivety—the villas cost a fortune and were rarely even for sale—and Stefan had cried, his dreams crushed by the stupid adults.
* * *
'You sure you want to go to the restaurant? It was Stefan who ...' Liam now says, gazing at Alicia, his dark green eyes trying to figure out what is going on in her head. She knows she's shutting him out, pushing him away, but she is too tired to soothe Liam's grief. All her energy is spent on trying to keep herself composed. Trying not to slump down and cry in the middle of the passage, among the holidaymakers, who are laughing, happy at the prospect of a long break on the islands.
Liam is standing in front of her and they are blocking the other passengers, some of whom tut and say 'Ursäkta', the Swedish for 'Sorry' in a loud voice.
'You OK?' Liam says. He reaches his hand out, about t
o touch Alicia's arm, but she moves away just in time and Liam's hand flops down.
Alicia looks at Liam. He is definitely a bit green around the gills.
'How are you feeling?' she manages to say, even putting an emphasis on the 'you' to show that she cares, even though she doesn't register any kind of feeling for her husband.
'I'm fine—let's risk it. What else is there to do?' Liam says, pulling his mouth into an attempted smile. Alicia looks at her husband. The lines around his eyes have grown deeper in the past few months, and his skin looks pale and sallow. He's got his feet planted wide, but he is ever so slightly stooped, perhaps because he's holding the plastic bag from the tax-free shop. He'll feel better once they enter the Åland archipelago, Alicia thinks, and walks in front of Liam.
* * *
Even though Liam knows the layout of the ferry intimately after all these years, Alicia still feels she is the local, and he the foreigner. When the deck below her shifts again, she takes hold of the bannister of the central staircase leading up to the restaurant. She glances behind her and sees that Liam is steady, holding the wall to keep his balance. She nods to him and he follows her up the stairs. As they make their way to the restaurant and are shown to the end of a long table by a large, oval porthole, she remembers how she and Stefan would devour the buffet lunch of gravlax, herring, meatballs in gravy and rye bread and eat too much. She and her son had the same tastes; they both missed proper Finnish food in London. Her lovely, serious boy, who seemed to understand the sacrifice Alicia had made to live away from the islands. He loved the sea, the sauna, the silence of a nightless night at Midsummer when the only sounds were the faint cries of the birds, flying low above the seashore.