Swimming at Night: A Novel (10 page)

Two months before Mia went traveling, she’d woken Katie at three in the morning. “Lost my keys,” she had slurred, a finger to her lips. Kohl eyeliner was smudged beneath her eyes and a pair of scuffed heels dangled from her hand.

“Oh, Mia,” Katie sighed, helping her through the doorway. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

“Because,” she answered, staggering past her and into their living room, “I am a fuckup.”

Katie had left her for a moment and gone into the kitchen. She gripped the cool edges of the sink and closed her eyes. Several times a week she would find evidence of similar nights out—the front door slamming at an ungodly hour, her medicine box raided and the aspirin missing, the aftermath of late-night snacks littering the kitchen worktop. The drinking and the dark moods that
followed were a reaction to losing their mother, so Katie never mentioned her disrupted sleep or the mess she cleared up in the mornings.

As the older sister, making sacrifices for Mia came naturally to her. When Mia was six and refused to speak in the school nativity play, it was Katie who’d gone onstage, holding her sister’s clammy hand and saying the words for her. When Mia, at seventeen, thought she might be pregnant, it was Katie who’d raced back from college and missed her summer ball. When Mia spent her student loan on a trip to Mexico and couldn’t cover her rent, it was Katie who’d lent her the money—never minding that she was short herself. It was as if their personalities were balanced on a seesaw: Mia had claimed the wild, high ride and Katie was left on the ground. She loved her sister fiercely, but lately she’d found herself resenting her, too.

Music suddenly blasted from the living room and Katie thought immediately of their neighbors below, a serious couple with a baby.

“Mia—” she began, marching into the room—and then stopped.

Mia was dancing in the space between the sofa and coffee table, her hair swaying down her back. She closed her eyes as she swirled to the music; it was a soul track from one of their mother’s old albums. Mia’s fingers stroked the air as if feeling her way through a stream of notes. She spun around, the skirt of her dress filling with air. When she opened her eyes and saw Katie, she grinned and extended her hand.

For a moment, Katie glimpsed the eight-year-old Mia, mud-streaked and soaked, dancing in their garden in a summer downpour. Katie found herself being pulled forwards, drawn into the music, drawn into her sister. Her shoulders began to loosen and her hips swung beneath the silken touch of her nightdress. She smiled as Mia took her other hand, spinning her beneath a raised arm.

They made each other laugh with silly moves and outrageous gestures. Mia jumped onto the sofa using it as a podium, her bare feet sinking into the leather cushions, her fingertips stretched towards the ceiling. Katie remembered a sequence from a childhood dance routine they’d learned in front of her bedroom mirror and executed it now with such serious precision that she could have been ten years old again. They collapsed on the sofa, laughing. Mia wrapped her arms around Katie, who accepted the gesture for what it was—a rare burst of affection made accessible by alcohol.

When the track ended, the room sank back into silence. They stayed in each other’s arms, their hearts thumping from the exertion. In the darkness, Mia said, “You remind me so much of Mum.”

“Do I?” Katie said softly, cautious of chasing away the intimacy that had fallen on them like a beam of sunshine.

“You two could have been sisters.”

A long silence stretched between them, and was broken by a question pitched by Mia. “Do you ever wonder why Mick left us?”

Surprised, Katie sat up. “He left because he was selfish.”

“Maybe there’s more to it than that.”

“Yes,” she said. “He was flawed.” Through the window, the flashing blue lights from a police car passed. “Why are we even talking about him? He never cared about anyone but himself.”

“How do we know?”

“He abandoned us. That’s how.” Katie stood.

Mia tucked her feet to her side and Katie saw that her soles were filthy.

“Have a glass of water before you sleep.”

As she left the room, she heard Mia say, “What if I’m like him?”

Katie paused, not sure if she’d heard right. When Mia didn’t speak again, she continued to bed.

At the time, she had dismissed the remark as a drunken rambling, rather than considering that Mia could have been voicing a real fear. Now, eager to find out where Mia’s journal entry about Mick led, she flipped overleaf.

Stuck on an otherwise clean page was the stub of a boarding card from a flight to Maui. Mia and Finn had gone there the day after the entry was written.

“How may I help you?” A woman with a buttercup-yellow scarf knotted over her blouse smiled at Katie from behind the ticket desk. Katie had reached the front of the line.

“I’d like to book a flight, please.”

“Certainly. And where will you be flying to?”

Glancing down at the journal, she wondered if Mia’s decision to see Mick was somehow tied to what happened in Bali. If she flew home now, she would have no choice but to accept the authorities’ account of Mia’s death. She’d never know the truth.

She closed the journal carefully. “I’d like a ticket to Maui.”

*   *   *

It was dawn when Katie stepped from the plane into the sweet, humid air of Maui. Tour operators draped leis of fresh hibiscus flowers around their guests’ necks, and Katie slipped quietly through the perfumed crowd and into a taxi.

She rolled down the window and felt the warmth in the air loosening the tension in her neck and shoulders. She was dropped off at the Pineapple Hostel on the north shore of the island. The owner, who wore three silver rings in his bottom lip, told her, “Dorm four is empty. Go along the hall, up the stairs, and it’s on your right. The bathroom is opposite. Enjoy.
Mahalo.
”

Katie thanked him and followed the brightly painted corridor.
She passed cheaply framed photos of towering waves ridden by windsurfers, and beneath each the location was printed in white letters:
MAUI.
She thought how surreal it was to be here, knowing almost nothing about the island, when a different decision just hours ago would have seen her alighting back into freezing temperatures in London.

It was her first experience at a hostel and she was relieved to find the dorm clean and airy. There were four bunk beds with bright green sheets and yellow pillows, and she set her backpack against the nearest one, claiming the bottom from habit.

When Katie was nine, Mia six, they had asked for canary-yellow bunk beds for Christmas. They didn’t need to share a room—there were two other empty ones in the house—but Katie liked the idea of having someone nearby as she fell asleep, and Mia liked having something wooden in her room she could climb. There was no argument as to who slept where: Katie wanted the bottom bunk so she could tuck a sheet into the corners of the mattress above, making it drape down like the canopy in a princess’s room, and Mia was delighted by the top so she could pretend she was on the highest deck of a ship. She stuck stars on the ceiling for the sky and dragged in the blue bath mat, which became the sea. She’d call Katie up, who was less confident negotiating the flimsy wooden ladder, and they’d sit with their legs crossed, describing the things they saw in the water.

Now, Katie took her cell from the backpack and switched it on. It beeped immediately, with three new messages from Ed. She sat on the edge of the bunk bed, her neck craned forwards, and called him.

“Katie! Where are you? I’ve been worried about you.”

“My flight left almost immediately. There wasn’t time–”

“You’re at Heathrow? Already?”

“No. Listen, Ed,” she said, placing a hand to her forehead. “I had a chance to think. I’ve decided to carry on with the trip.”

“Where are you?”

“Maui.”

“Maui! What the hell is going on?”

“It felt wrong giving up.”

“You can’t just fly off to God knows where without telling anyone! It’s not safe. You’re acting like Mia.”

She knew the comparison was meant to chastise her, but privately she felt pleased by it. She pulled off her ankle boots and socks with one hand, and placed her bare feet on the wooden floor of the dorm. It felt wonderfully cool.

“We should be making these kinds of decisions together,” he continued. “You need to talk to me.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I hate being apart, I really do. It’s just I’ve realized exactly how much I need to do this.”

“A few hours ago you called to say you’re coming home. And now you’re in Maui and it’s all back on. I’m honestly not sure if you’re in the right state of mind to be doing this.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Katie I know is decisive and levelheaded.”

“Yes, she is. But she’s also just lost her sister and deserves a little leeway.”

“I’m not arguing with you, Katie.”

“So show me that you support me.”

“I support everything you do. I’m just finding it difficult to believe that traveling alone is the best thing for you right now. I’m worried you’re chasing ghosts.”

“And I’m worried,” she said levelly, “that if I come home now, I will have let Mia down.”

There was a strained silence. She turned her engagement ring with her fingers, the diamond glittering in the light.

“Our invites went out today,” Ed said.

She had ordered them through a design company that was laser cutting the edges with flowers. She hadn’t realized they’d be sent so soon.

He added, “The wedding is in four months.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be home in time?”

“Of course.”

“Because,” he said, his voice softening, “I’ve no idea what I’d do with a hundred tea-light holders if you’re not.”

She smiled. “I’ll be home.”

She put the phone away and lay down on the crisp green sheet with Mia’s journal. Despite Ed’s concern, for the first time since she’d left England, she felt as if she was finally able to think more clearly.

She opened the journal at the page with Mick’s address and trailed a fingertip over the unfamiliar words. It was strange to think of her father living nearby; she imagined a large modern house, a man with silver hair, a wardrobe of smart suits.

When they were girls, Katie and Mia would sometimes talk about their father in low voices after dark. Mia would lean over the edge of the bunk, poking her head under the princess canopy to ask, “What is Daddy like?” Katie thought she was being clever by making up abstract comparisons that kept Mia confused for days. “He is like Moby-Dick,” or, “He reminds me of the songs in Mum’s David Bowie album.” When Mia asked what she meant, Katie would just shrug and tell her to read the book or listen to the record.

The real reason she avoided giving a proper answer was because she didn’t know what their father was like. Her memories were
pieces of two different puzzles that wouldn’t slot together. She held a few crisp, wonderful recollections—like the one that played out in their old kitchen in North London where the red-tiled floor was freezing underfoot, even in summer. Katie was meant to be asleep, but had come downstairs to ask for a glass of milk. Not finding either of her parents in the living room, she had wandered towards the kitchen where she heard music playing. Her mother was being swirled in her father’s arms, laughing wildly. She watched for a moment; she saw the glint of her father’s gold watch where his shirtsleeve ended, caught the smell of his aftershave mixed with a sweet tang of whisky, saw her mother’s hair coming loose from a tortoiseshell clip. Spotting Katie, her father stopped dancing. Fearing she might be yelled at for being out of bed, she began to yawn, but he took her by the hand and spun her, too. She laughed as she’d seen her mother do with her head thrown back and her mouth open.

There were other memories, though, that she had been careful not to share, like the time when Mia was two and she needed seven stitches across her right temple. Katie and her mother had been at a ballet performance and, during the intermission, when Katie was pirouetting in the drinks lounge, her mother’s name was called over the loudspeaker. At the front desk, the theater manager said, “Grace Greene? Your husband is on the phone.” Katie watched the color drain from her mother’s face and her eyes grow frighteningly wide as she held the phone close to her ear.

After that she remembered the evening in frames, like the illustrations in a comic book. She recalled a taxi ride in the dark. A hospital desk she couldn’t see over, even on tiptoe. Her sister lying in a bed with polished metal sides. Her mother’s pale hands clasped around her bag as she spoke to their father.

He said that Mia had tripped on the landing and fallen down
the stairs, but over time other clues surfaced that suggested something entirely different. A nurse mentioned a motorbike; a neighbor had said her father’s name and used the word “irresponsible.”

They returned from the hospital the following day to find that their father and his belongings were gone. It wasn’t the only change. As time went on their mother seemed listless and vacant and, when she took her evening bath, Katie would hear her crying above the gush of the water.

Even as a child she could see the link between Mia’s accident and their father’s leaving. She remembered standing in the doorway of their mother’s bedroom, watching as Grace dabbed concealer on the dark circles beneath her eyes, and asking, “Did Daddy leave because of Mia?” Her mother had dropped the gold makeup pot, taken three paces across the carpet, grabbed the top of Katie’s arm with one hand, and slapped the backs of her thighs with the other. Three months later, their belongings were in boxes and they took a train to Cornwall.

Now, turning the pages of the journal, she had an uncomfortable feeling that this meeting with Mick was somehow tangled up with the rest of Mia’s trip. Stretched on her bunk she read swiftly but closely. She didn’t notice two other travelers coming in and out of the room, or hear the tropical rain begin to beat against the window. She simply continued to read, utterly absorbed in the pages of the journal as Mia recounted what happened the evening she arrived at their father’s house.