Swimming at Night: A Novel (24 page)

He was in Bali.

She scanned the message again and then her gaze locked on one sentence:
“It was a last-minute decision, as I guess Finn said.”

She read it twice more to be sure.

Finn had known where Noah was.

She swallowed the espresso, then rose from her chair and left the Internet café, the message still flickering on the screen.

*   *   *

Mia pushed the door open with the palm of her hand. The dorm was hot and airless, empty of people. Her sleeping bag had been rolled up neatly and propped beside her backpack. She gathered up her towel and the bikini that she’d left drying on the back of the door, and stuffed everything in her backpack, buckling it shut.

She found Finn in the communal kitchen. He juggled a toasted sandwich between his fingers before dropping it onto a plate, then took a knife and cut it down the middle, melted cheese dripping from the divide.

His whole face brightened the moment he saw her. “Where’ve you been?”

“Walking.”

“Want half?” he said, lifting the plate.

She shook her head. “We need to talk.”

“Sure.”

They returned to the dorm and Mia closed the door behind them. Finn sat on the edge of his bunk bed, his head bent forwards. He bit into the sandwich with a satisfying crunch. A piece of tomato fell onto the plate, the red skin peeling away from the flesh. He picked it up between his fingers and dropped it into his mouth. “You know your dress is inside out?” He grinned, but there was a nervous energy about him.

Mia stood opposite, pressed flat to the wall. “Did Noah tell you he was going to Bali?”

Finn stopped chewing. His foot began to jig, causing his
flip-flop to lightly slap against his heel. He swallowed his mouthful, then said, “I saw him the morning he left. You were swimming.”

“What did he say?”

“That he was flying to Bali with the others. There was a good forecast. He said to let you know.”

Her pitch rose to a slap: “Then why the fuck didn’t you?”

Finn pushed his plate aside. “Because I knew how much it’d hurt you.” He shook his head and said gently, “Mia, he didn’t come looking for you. I happened to be in the kitchen just as he was leaving. I asked where he was going, so he told me.”

“But you never told me.”

“No.”

“I’ve been going out of my mind, Finn.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her hands were trembling. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”

He stood up and moved towards her. “Mia, it was too easy for him to leave.”

“And too easy for you to step into his place.”

He looked aghast.

“What a perfect opportunity—Mia gets wasted as usual, and Finn offers a shoulder to cry on.”

“How can you even suggest—”

The door to their dorm opened and a young European couple entered. They said hello and unhooked their bags, somehow oblivious to the tension that filled the dorm.

“Let’s go outside,” Finn said.

They moved past a group of girls sunbathing on the scorched grass, and walked to the fence line, which was partially shaded by karri trees. Finn placed his hands behind his neck, locking his fingers. “What you just said, Mia, is wrong. Totally wrong. I would never take advantage of you.”

One of the sunbathers raised her head and peered over the top of her sunglasses. Finn lowered his voice. “Shit, Mia, you’re treating me like I’m some asshole who’s used you. What happened last night wasn’t premeditated, you know that.”

She didn’t answer. She felt the sun beating down on the crown of her head, her scalp prickling beneath its dry heat. She hadn’t drunk any water and now her hangover was taking full hold.

“I’m sorry for not passing on Noah’s message. We’ve always been honest with each other, so I regret that, I really do. But last night had nothing to do with Noah.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Last night was about how I feel about you. Traveling together has made me realize exactly how much I care about you, Mia.”

“Don’t do this, Finn.”

“You wanted honesty, so here it is—I’m in love with you.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, wanting to put her hands over her ears to block out the words. Her heart was hammering against her chest and she felt the espresso acrid in her stomach.

“I’m in love with you,” he said again, his face open and earnest. “I have been for a long time.”

She looked away. It was the truth, but she couldn’t bear to hear it because it changed everything.

“I know this is a lot for you, Mia. It scares the shit out of me, too. I hate that it could put our friendship at risk, but it’s how I feel and I can’t do anything about it. Last night—”

“—was a mistake!”

His eyes widened.

“You lied about Noah. How can I trust you?”

“You know me.”

“I need to go,” she said, turning.

“Come on, don’t walk away from this.”

“I have to.” She stepped off.

“Mia!” he called after her.

She stopped.

“Remember, it’s two o’clock.”

She turned, looking at him blankly.

“Our flight. New Zealand.”

Could she sit beside him for several hours as if none of this had happened? Could they arrive in a new country and travel together after all of this?

“You’ll be there?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.

“I’ve messed up, I know that. But you can’t bail on me. We’ve got to work things through. You wanted to see New Zealand, so let’s see it together. We have to go together.”

Her head was pounding. She needed water. Shade. Space to think.

“I’ll be at the airport with our tickets. Two o’clock,” he called, but Mia didn’t answer.

She returned to the dorm, collected her backpack, and left the hostel, unsure where she was going.

*   *   *

Finn waited, hands slung in his pockets, his backpack propped against his legs. People streamed around him pushing luggage trolleys, pulling children by their hands, and scanning departure boards with raised chins. He’d positioned himself near the central set of revolving doors, which provided a sweeping view of the airport. He resisted checking his watch again. He knew it was only five minutes since the final call for their flight had been made.

He wiped the film of sweat from his forehead. “Come on,” he said under his breath.

Last night was a mistake,
Mia had told him earlier. But he already
knew that. He knew the moment he woke alone on the rocks. He’d heard the clatter of the rum bottle as it rolled, but he’d kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep, giving Mia the option to run. He knew her better than anyone and understood that when life loomed up too close, she’d rear away. He shouldn’t have let things go so far. He’d allowed himself to believe that she’d wanted it as much as he did, but he had been wrong. Just as he’d been wrong to lie about Noah. And now she was angry and afraid, and all he could do was wait.

Just then, Mia walked through the far right entrance doors, her backpack on her shoulders, her hair scooped up high.

She glanced around, searching for him. She looked lost in the vast space of the airport. He picked up his backpack and began weaving through the crowd towards her. If they were quick, there was still time to make their flight.

She hadn’t seen him yet and began moving in the opposite direction towards a check-in desk. “Mia!” he called, but she was too far away to hear.

He glanced at his watch. Four minutes. They still had four minutes.

He jogged across the airport, saying, “Excuse me,” as he ducked around other travelers. Squeezing through the center of a tour party, he saw Mia placing her backpack on the conveyor belt at the check-in desk. It didn’t make any sense: he had her ticket and she wasn’t in the correct zone for New Zealand.

As he drew nearer, he glanced up and read the screen:
FLIGHT JQ110. PERTH TO DENPASAR.

In that moment he understood. Mia was flying to Bali to find Noah.

She was leaving him.

He watched as she took her ticket and moved towards the
security-check area. The volume seemed turned up; he heard the rattle of suitcase wheels, the squeak of shoes, the crackle and boom of an announcement, the far-off beeping of an airport vehicle passing. He watched, stunned, as she handed her passport to an official, who looked at it, nodded, and then directed her through.

“Mia!” he shouted, waving.

She turned.

A strand of her hair had come loose and fallen over her cheek. She wore the same green sundress she’d made love to him in hours before. He wondered if it still smelled like jasmine.

When she saw him her fingers fluttered close to her heart, then settled on the bangle on her other wrist.

She smiled. It was a poignant, sad smile that didn’t reach her eyes but told him that she understood the magnitude of her decision. Then he watched Mia turn away from him and leave.

He would replay that moment for years to come, blaming himself for letting her go. But on that day, he stood in the crowded airport believing it was the most painful moment of his life—with no idea that far worse was to come.

(Bali, July)

T
he air smelled of clove cigarettes, fried fish, and motorbike fumes. Westerners filled the pavements and were courted by the Balinese with their winning smiles. Katie wove through the crowd beneath the solid weight of her backpack as the traffic flowed past, taxis shunting and beeping with beads and flowers jiggling from rearview mirrors.

She paused for a moment in the shade of a doorway while she checked the map: the hostel looked near, two streets away now. She had asked the taxi driver to drop her short of the hostel—the stop-start traffic had made her queasy and the back windows hadn’t opened—but now she regretted the decision as weariness spread through her body like the heat.

She tucked the map away and lifted the base of the backpack with her hands to allow her shoulders a moment’s respite from the pinch of the straps. Then she pushed on, squeezing through a group of noisy tourists haggling over silver jewelery. She turned
right and then immediately left, which carried her down a narrow road flanked by bloated trash bags.

The Nyang Palace was announced in faded yellow letters painted across a piece of hardboard. The sign was propped on a plastic chair beside a doorway. She moved into the dim entrance, stepping over a woven basket filled with wilting orange flowers and grains of rice.

Inside, the smell of cooking oil hung thickly in the air. A group of travelers lingered around a tired settee, speaking in a language Katie couldn’t place. Behind the reception desk a heavy woman sat on a stool eating rice with her fingers. Beyond her, a man wearing a pair of dark glasses was stretched out on a mattress, watching television.

“Hello,” the woman said, sucking her fingers clean. “You want room?”

“Yes, please.” Katie kept her backpack on, hoping the transaction would be swift: she wasn’t sure she’d find the energy to pick it up again.

“Dorm room? Single room? Double room?”

“Single, please.”

“Fifteen dollar.”

Katie had changed half her money into rupiah at the airport, having been advised to pay in Balinese as the deals were better. “In rupiah, please?”

“No. No. Dollar only. Dollar.”

She handed over $15, too tired to haggle.

The woman shuffled out from behind her desk; she was wearing bejeweled sandals, her toenails polished a deep, glossy violet. Katie glanced at her thick hands and bitten, ridged fingernails and wondered what small pleasure she must take in dressing her feet so particularly.

She was led up a set of stairs and along a corridor where paint peeled from cracked walls. The woman unlocked a door and then handed the key to Katie on a knotted piece of graying string.

The orientation of the hostel was brief: “Toilet,” she said, pointing to a green door with no visible handle. Then she indicated towards the ceiling, saying, “Terrace for smoking up there. No smoking in room.” The heels of her sandals made sharp clicks along the corridor as she left.

The room was dingy, cast into shade by lank brown curtains that were fraying at the base. She tugged them open, disturbing a mosquito that buzzed groggily to the ceiling. The view through the streaked glass was of the dilapidated building opposite, a slice of early-evening sun visible above it. She shrugged off her backpack and sank onto the bed, trying not to think of how many other people had slept on the thinning mattress.

In the quiet heat of the room, she realized that each of the places she had visited over these past few months had been leading her here: Mia’s final stop.

She unbuckled the backpack and pulled out the journal. Flicking her thumb through the leaves, she guessed there could be no more than 60 pages remaining: few enough to read in one sitting. She could do it right now, tear through them in a matter of hours. It was all here beneath her fingertips, waiting for her to begin turning the pages.

But she knew she couldn’t read it like that, not all in one go. Not yet. For months she had been making this journey alongside Mia, coming to understand her sister through her own words. If she read these final pages now, then it would be over. She’d have to leave Mia, for good.

She put the journal away, deciding that she wouldn’t read any
more until morning. Tonight there was only one thing that she needed to do, something she’d already put off for far too long.

She smoothed her hair behind her ears, picked up her bag, and left the room.

*   *   *

Her cell had no reception, so she found a payphone two streets away. It was near a lively bar where travelers laughed and drank in groups like packs of animals drawn to a watering hole. Music drifted down the street, catching a young couple in its rhythm. The girl’s hips began to sway beneath her sarong and the boy made a jazzy shuffle step in his flip-flops, causing the girl to laugh. They clasped hands, interlocking their fingers so the hearts of their palms were touching.

As she turned back to the payphone, Katie hesitated.
Is this the phone you used, Mia, when you called me the day before you died? Were you nervous about ringing to ask for money? Or didn’t you give it a second thought, knowing how readily I always said yes to you? I can still hear every word of that conversation—the last one we’ll ever have—and it haunts me. What I said to you will always haunt me.