by Helena Halme
'Isn't it obvious? All this,' he says instead.
Patrick throws his arm out, pointing toward the house behind the large boulders. They hear faint party noises; someone has put on music. All of it seems far away to him. He feels as if he's sitting on a desert island and the only person who matters is this vulnerable, beautiful woman next to him. 'Besides, you're one to talk about escape. I believe you're on the run as we speak.'
Her large eyes stare at him, and the grief in them fills him with sudden, strong desire. Her lips are slightly parted. An invitation. He needs to kiss those lips now. He bends closer and presses his mouth to hers. He's hungry for her. He puts his left hand onto her neck to pull her close, and his other hand finds the small of her back.
* * *
Alicia pulls herself away. She's breathless. She stands and smooths down her dress to disguise how strongly she feels.
'You shouldn't have done that,' she says and picks up her shoes from the sand. She doesn't dare look at Patrick. She loved the taste of his lips on hers; the desire she can feel emanating from his body.
And hers.
Patrick is quiet and Alicia moves her eyes toward him. He's still sitting on the boulder, leaning on his hands, which are placed either side of his body. Alicia can see his muscles flex. His eyes are a darker shade of blue now, and she has to turn her head away to avoid sinking into them.
'I can't wear these!' she laughs, stealing another sideways glance at Patrick. She's banging her wedges against each other, but the wet sand is sticking to the inside and soles.
Alicia sits down next to him again, facing the small beach, where the water laps gently against the sand. The only sounds are from the party beyond the boulders, further up the bank behind them.
'Wear mine,' he says, pushing his shoes toward her feet.
'No thanks,' Alicia says and they both giggle uncontrollably.
I must be very drunk. I don't have any sense of guilt about kissing another man.
'I love champagne, must have just had too many glasses of the stuff,' Alicia says, between bouts of laughter.
'I'll remember that,' Patrick says, then he is suddenly serious. He touches Alicia's cheek. 'I hope this wasn't just too much drink?'
Alicia looks into his brilliant blue eyes. She sees there are specs of brown in the aquamarine and that his eyelashes are unnaturally long and dark for a man.
For a man with blue eyes.
She says nothing but allows Patrick to put his lips on hers, and once more they kiss. This time, Patrick is gentle; he doesn't use his tongue as he did before, but gently presses himself against Alicia. She pulls away again.
'I like you,' Patrick says breathlessly.
Alicia touches his lip, and another cut on the side of his chin.
'You haven't learned to shave yet?' she says and smiles.
But Patrick is serious. He doesn't reply but silently takes hold of her hand and kisses the inside of her palm. Alicia's insides riot. Her head spins in a rush of desire. She glances down at Patrick's linen trousers which clearly reveal his arousal.
A sudden bout of loud laughter makes them both turn their heads toward the party, which they can't see from below the bank, but which is very close. Anyone—Mia, Kurt Eriksson, Alicia's mother, or Uffe—could at any moment walk down and see them sitting like this.
They are both married and Patrick has two little daughters.
Alicia pulls her hand away and gets up. She decides to rinse her feet in the water. When she walks back, Patrick tries to take hold of her hands. But now, shaken awake by the sounds of the party, she turns her head away, acutely aware of the proximity of Patrick's real life. His wife and children are in the boathouse, which she could see lit up in the distance as she walked to wash her feet in the sea. And her parents too—or mother and Uffe—are there, talking to their friends, being pleasant and civilized, unaware of what's going on between Alicia and Patrick. While they have been acting like any good guests of the richest man on the islands, Alicia has been kissing the son-in-law of the benefactor. And what was Patrick doing? How could he behave like that, so close to his wife and children? The children he was leading in a traditional Midsummer dance only moments ago? Or was this what he did all the time? To punish his rich father-in-law?
'You OK?' Patrick now says. His face is serious, his eyes searching, trying to lock onto Alicia's. But she won't look at him, can't look at his face. She must get away and pretend this never happened.
'I have to go,' she says, getting up, and putting her sandals onto her still sandy feet, praying that no one will spot her wet canvas shoes under her flimsy dress. It's all the fault of the dress; she knew it was too sexy, like an invitation to Patrick. Perhaps he'd taken it as a sign that she wanted him.
Oh my God, what have I done?
'Alicia,' Patrick says, but she's not listening.
Alicia bolts off the beach and onto the path. She's slipping in her damp shoes. Only once when she's on the other side of the large boulders does she dare to look back. But Patrick hasn't followed her. She can just spot the top of his blond head framed by the beach and the sea beyond it. For a moment she stops and sees that he's lit a cigarette. She can spot the red burning light of the tip as he sucks on the filter.
Twenty-Six
Alicia wakes up to a ping on her phone. She gets up quickly, still used to being on call in case Stefan is in trouble somehow. Her head hurts from the quick movement and as she reaches toward the illuminated screen of her phone, she remembers. She'll never again be called to fetch him from a party after a night bus has failed to arrive, or a friend has let him down.
The screen shows a message.
'You OK? You disappeared and I couldn't find you anywhere. P'
Alicia stares at the words. There’s a persistent hammering on her temples. How much did she have to drink last night? She scans the room and spots a packet of painkillers in the corner. Birds are happily twittering outside and the sun, which barely dipped below the horizon last night, is blasting into the room through the large sea-facing window. Alicia swallows two pills with a glass of water and opens the door to the beautiful early morning scene. The sea is calm. A family of mallards is swimming in a long line in the distance, and the reeds covering the shore are gently swaying in the light sea breeze.
You could almost feel content here.
Alicia goes inside and fetches a throw to cover herself; the morning is sunny, but there is a chill in the air. She sits down on the porch, which Uffe, on her mother's instructions, has extended into a deck the same size as the main room in the sauna cottage, where Alicia sleeps on a double sofa bed. She glances at the phone again and finds herself smiling at Patrick's message. She thinks back to last night; the way it took them seconds to attach themselves to each other. How exciting, yet so wrong, it had felt to touch another man's lips. How taut Patrick's body had been when he emerged from the sea. How easily he had lifted up her chin and kissed her. She should not reply to his message. But in spite of herself she taps the phone and writes, 'Good morning. I'm fine. You?'
'Flying. When can I see you again?'
Alicia's heart begins to beat harder. She wants to write, 'We can't do this.' or 'This is wrong, you know that.' Instead she types, 'Monday at the office?'
There's no reply to this message. Alicia waits for a few minutes, then decides to go for a morning swim. That will sort the headache, which is bouncing behind her temples. Inside the cottage, she exchanges the blanket for a towel and walks swiftly toward the jetty a few meters along the shore. She leaves her phone behind on purpose. She wants to play it cool. She'd already made one mistake by replying to him far too soon.
What am I thinking?
This is all wrong. He is married with not just one child but two. And to an old friend of hers. Well, not a friend exactly, but at least an old school mate. And she is still not even separated from Liam. Alicia resolves to reply 'No' to the next message, whatever Patrick asks.
* * *
At the
jetty, Alicia glances quickly around, but there's no one to be seen. It's just half past eight on Midsummer Day and everyone is still in bed. Alicia pulls the T-shirt she wears as a nightie over her head and lowers herself into the water. The cold hits the skin of her calves and thighs and is a shock, but Alicia walks quickly through the shallow water, almost running into the deeper sea. She doesn't want anyone along the shore to see her naked. She wants to feel the caress of the water on her body. Soon, she's taking long strokes, in a perfect front crawl.
* * *
Pleasantly tired from her swim, Alicia slowly approaches the sauna cottage, trying to resist the urge to run to her phone to check if Patrick has replied. All through her time in the cold sea, she has not stopped thinking about him, or about what happened last night. She feels guilty but she cannot stop thinking about him, so she shoos away thoughts of Mia and the two little girls. It was Patrick who initiated the kissing; if anyone should be feeling bad it's him, and he obviously doesn't. Flying, he had written. Flying because of her, Alicia?
When she gets closer to the cottage, Alicia is surprised to see her mother sitting on one of the chairs on the decking.
'Nice swim?' her mother shouts.
Alicia nods and waves a greeting. From the distance Alicia can't see her phone. She's sure she left it on the table outside. What if Hilda saw Patrick's reply? What if he'd replied with something sexy? Alicia pulls her towel a little tighter around her naked body and bends to kiss her mother on the chin.
'I'm wet, sorry,' she says as a droplet falls on Hilda's crisp white linen shirt.
'That's OK.' Hilda takes a hankie out of her shirt sleeve and blows her nose. Now Alicia sees she has red-rimmed eyes.
'You've been crying?'
Hilda nods. 'It's Uffe.'
Alicia sighs. 'What is he supposed to have done now?' Her words come out harsher than she anticipated, and Hilda lowers her head and puts the hankie to her eyes. 'You always take his side,' she says.
'Look, I've got to get some clothes on. Have you seen my phone?' Alicia says, putting her hand on Hilda's shoulder, trying to sound nonchalant about the phone and caring about her mother at the same time. Hilda doesn't look at her, but nods at the window sill.
The screen is black. Alicia snatches the mobile and runs inside. There it is, a message from Patrick. It doesn't look as if it has been opened, but Hilda could have seen it displayed on the screen.
'I can barely wait. Meet me outside von Knorring on Monday at 12 o'clock?'
* * *
Ten minutes or so later, she's sitting opposite Hilda, her hands holding hers.
'Tell me what happened.'
This is not the first time her mother and stepfather have rowed, but as they’ve got older, the arguments have become worse and more frequent.
But her mother seems to have changed her mind.
'It's nothing,' she says, affecting a bright tone. She looks at Alicia and takes her hands away.
'Where were you yesterday?'
Alicia is caught short with this sudden change of subject.
'What do you mean?'
'You disappeared during the party.'
Hilda's eyes are sharp, and Alicia very nearly crumbles under her gaze, ready to reveal everything to her mother. But surely Hilda can't have seen Patrick and her together? They were away from the party for only an hour, if that. It was very quick and very passionate, she thinks, and she cannot help a smile forming on her lips.
'What are you not telling me?' Alicia's mother demands.
'Nothing, I was just thinking of the drive home.'
They had taken a taxi home. The driver had been an older man with a huge moustache, which Hilda, after copious glasses of champagne, had found hilarious. Uffe knew the man and it was left to him to try to hold up conversation while Hilda made faces in the back seat. Alicia thought that her mother had behaved really quite badly, but at the time she had also found it funny.
'Is Uffe upset about the taxi driver last night?'
'What?' Hilda says. 'No, it's just money, boring, boring money!'
Twenty-Seven
Alicia forces herself to sit down and have a coffee after Hilda returns to the main house. She's shocked by what her mother has told her. She had no idea her parents had money troubles. Seeing how little Hilda was making at the shop had been a surprise, but she thought Uffe's farm was very profitable—enough to cover Hilda's losses. She had never discussed money with her stepfather; her mother wouldn't entertain it. All issues relating to the support she had as a student had been done through her mother.
Alicia recalls a time at a Midsummer dinner when she had thanked Uffe for everything he had done for both her and her mother. Hilda had risen from the table and come back several minutes later puffy eyed. Later that evening she had argued with Alicia in front of Stefan, who had been just seven at the time. Rows with Hilda were never understated affairs, and Alicia had learned to avoid them, but on that occasion, fueled by too many schnapps and wine during dinner, she had confronted her while helping with the dishes. She had put her arm around Hilda's shoulders and asked what was the matter. Her mother's reaction was explosive; she began shouting how Alicia had never appreciated the efforts she’d made to support her through university, nor since, and did she have any idea how much food cost? Or how many hours she spent scrubbing the house and the sauna cottage to make it ready for Alicia and her family? Or how much time she devoted to looking after Stefan, and cooking breakfast, dinner and supper for them? Alicia was and had always been an obnoxious, ungrateful girl.
That time, Alicia had moved away from her mother, and put her arms over Stefan's narrow shoulders. She was about to turn away, knowing that nothing she could say could make her stop, when, without even a glance at Stefan, Hilda threw a plate at her daughter and left the room. Luckily, her aim was poor and the dish ended up on the kitchen floor between Alicia, Stefan and the sink.
Alicia's heart had been beating hard, but she forced herself to remain calm. She heard her mother stomp up the stairs and slam her bedroom door. Turning to Stefan, who had wrapped his arms around Alicia's waist, burying his head into her lap as he had done as a small child, said, 'Don't worry, Mormor is just a bit upset. She will be fine tomorrow.'
The look in the boy's blue eyes nearly broke Alicia's heart. 'It's OK,' she said and hugged him hard.
Alicia sent Stefan to watch cartoons on the TV in the lounge, where she could keep an eye on him, swept up the remains of the broken plate, and finished clearing the table and doing the dishes. As usual, Uffe had gone to his office well before the argument to listen to the late news on the radio, and Hilda's outburst had eluded him. After half an hour, when she hoped her mother had calmed down, Alicia climbed the stairs to her mother's bedroom, determined not to start another argument, but to restore peace for Stefan's sake if no one else's. She knocked on the door.
'Yes?' had come a faint reply.
Alicia opened the door slightly. Seeing her mother lying on the bed on her own, with her face red and swollen from tears but without fury in her eyes, she stepped inside the room. Her mother had remodeled the house Uffe had been born in, adding an attic and extending the master bedroom with a wooden balcony and an en-suite bathroom on the middle floor. Alicia had been inside this room only once before, when Hilda had proudly presented the new interior. The walls of the room were dark, and there was a large wooden bed in the middle. The overhead lamp was off, but Hilda had her bedside light on, which cast a somber glow into the room and over her dramatic facial features.
When Alicia walked slowly toward the bed and looked down at her mother, Hilda brought an arm out from under the blankets and said, in a miserable, small voice, 'Sit down here, Alicia.'
'I'm sorry,' Alicia had said and took her mother's hand. She felt fourteen, or perhaps fifteen years old. Her mother's scent reminded her of the many nights they would stay up late together, watching a romantic film on TV while Uffe was in his office, doing the paperwork for the farm.
&nb
sp; 'Don't be,' Hilda said and gave a faint smile.
Alicia bent down and hugged her mother.
'Goodnight,' she said and left the room.
After this incident, Alicia was careful not to raise any subject that implied Uffe was supporting her and Hilda. The summer after the outburst, Stefan begged to be left behind in London to stay with a friend for the summer. He was just eight. In the end, Alicia managed to convince him to come, but she’d been careful not to upset her mother since. Talking about money now would, she was certain, cause a similar reaction.
Twenty-Eight
During the first three days back at work, Liam doesn't see Ewa and he is relieved. He is supposed to be on holiday, so there's no contact between them, as planned. But on the Friday afternoon, as he enters the hospital in St John's Wood where he has a private clinic, she's there. Wearing her blue nurse's uniform, and with bright red lips, she looks up at him and smiles.
'Didn't think we'd see you today, Mr O'Connell,' she says with a smile full of meaning.
Liam keeps his face steady. 'Change of plan. I believe you have some patients for me?'
Ewa grabs a clipboard and follows him into the consulting room. Liam puts his briefcase down, but remains standing behind his large desk. He faces Ewa, who closes the door behind her and, with her back straight, showing off her large breasts, straightens her mouth, and with serious, widened eyes asks, 'What happened?'
Liam looks down at his desk.
'Nothing,' he says and stretches his hand out, to indicate he wants Ewa to hand him the files. 'Who do I have today? Any new patients?' he says, sitting down, not looking at her.
Snapping into her professional role, Ewa briefs Liam on who he will see. The day is already filled with patients, even at this short notice. As Liam listens to Ewa rattle off the names and their medical history, he wonders how he can ever be away, even on a short holiday, without people suffering because of his absence. He makes notes, with his head bent. He's suddenly aware that Ewa has stopped speaking. He lifts his head and sees her standing in front of him, with the clipboard pressed against her ample chest, gazing at him with an expression he can't read.