‘Good London tan,’ she said, referencing the lily-white shade of his chest as he stripped from his T-shirt.
‘Good slacker’s tan.’
She laughed, and Finn took the opportunity to race past her, splashing through the white-water and hurdling small waves before the sea finally took his legs from under him. He tumbled forwards, flattening his body and spreading his arms so he hit the water with a slap, sending silver droplets skyward.
Mia was still laughing as she waded in to join him. The cold water was like a vice at her ankles, which reached its grip to her knees and caused a shaving nick to sting. A gull cawed overhead and she glanced up, watching it glide on the breeze. The seabed dropped away suddenly and water rose over her cotton pants and towards her stomach, which she sucked in away from the sea’s bite. She took a quick breath and then dived under.
When she surfaced her dark hair was slicked to her head like oil. She kicked her legs and swam with clear, smooth strokes.
‘Don’t go too far,’ Finn called. ‘I only do Baywatch rescues on red-pants days.’
The waves rose and fell beneath her. One took her by surprise and white-water slipped over her head like a blanket. She rubbed the water from her eyes and then took off in front crawl, feeling the tightening of her muscles as they worked to propel her forward. On every second stroke she turned her head for air, and felt the weak sun brush her face.
Eventually, when her legs began to stiffen from the exertion and the cold, she slowed and swam parallel to the shore, looking at the cliffs from a new angle. It was an impressive coastline – dramatic, weather-beaten and empty. The space was intoxicating, a physical relief after London where she had felt as if she could never quite catch her breath. Away from the city, away from the memory of who she’d become, it was the first time in months that Mia felt at ease.
*
That evening, they sat on a picnic bench clutching tin mugs filled with hot chocolate. She could hear waves breaking in the distance, a soft rumble, almost like a far-off lorry passing by. She slipped a silver hip flask from her back pocket and unscrewed the cap. ‘Whisky?’
Finn pushed his mug towards her. ‘Good job on dinner.’
Having camped often in their youth, they had mastered one-pot dishes to a level of wizardry. Tonight, Mia had offered to cook, serving noodles with thick slices of salami, simmering with peas, chunks of mushroom, a few cherry tomatoes and a shake of seasoning. ‘Always tastes better outdoors,’ she said, splashing whisky into both mugs. ‘It’s been so long since we’ve camped together.’
‘London parks don’t have quite the same appeal.’
‘True.’ She smiled. ‘But – really – are you enjoying London?’ Finn had moved there after graduation, renting a flat above a butcher’s shop. It backed onto a railway line, and water shook from the kitchen tap whenever a train passed.
‘I do. I did. It was a change after Cornwall.’
‘What, Friday nights at SJ’s didn’t do it for you?’
‘No, I love leopard print and Lycra on fifty-year-olds.’ He grinned. ‘London wasn’t for you, though?’
‘I guess not.’ She had missed the sea with a deep ache and found her dreams were filled with beaches and empty horizons.
‘Is that why you wanted to go travelling?’
She stretched the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and then wrapped them round the mug to keep warm. ‘I was ready for a change.’
‘It’s been a tough year. You deserve a break.’
Do I? she thought. It had been Katie, not her, who stayed stoically at their mother’s side throughout her illness. Mia had closed her eyes to the beakers of pills, the clumps of hair in the shower tray, the new gauntness in her mother’s cheeks – because it was easier. Anything was easier than watching her strong, capable mother wilt. She felt the hard little pebble of guilt that lived in her stomach and she reached for the hip flask, putting her lips around the cool metal mouth.
Finn slung his arm around her shoulder. ‘You okay?’
She nodded.
‘Listen, Mia.’ His voice was serious and she glanced up. ‘When your mum was ill, I know we weren’t hanging out so much – but you did know I was there for you, didn’t you?’
‘Course,’ she said, embarrassed by his earnestness. They had never broached the subject of the four strained months when a wall had reared up between them, stacked with hard bricks of resentment and cemented by Mia’s silence. She wasn’t sure she was ready to now.
Sensing that, Finn pulled his arm back and said, ‘So tell me about Mick. When did you decide you wanted to see him?’
‘I found a photo of him when I was clearing out Mum’s wardrobe.’ In the picture he was standing onstage with a band in front of a banner that read black ewe. The band looked as if they’d just finished a set, their faces red and glistening with sweat. A man with long black hair that had turned damp at the temples stood in the centre, holding a guitar loosely at its neck and staring intently at the camera. Beside him, Mick looked exuberant and fresh in a fitted suit and pointed brown shoes that turned up at the toe. He had no instrument to hold like the others, so he had shot a double-handed finger-gun at the camera and cocked his head to one side with a wink. It was a gesture that Mia would never have made, far too assured for it to look natural on her, yet she liked the picture as she saw a similarity between her and her father in the strong shape of their noses and possibly the curve of their lips, too. ‘I suppose seeing the picture made me curious.’
‘You haven’t been curious before?’
‘Not really. Well, maybe a little,’ she conceded, thinking of a comment her grandmother made years ago that had always stuck with her. Mia had been in the bath, the water turning brackish from the mud caked to her knees. She wriggled and protested at having her hair washed, her grandmother eventually snapping, ‘Such an awkward, independent thing, aren’t you?’ And then adding under her breath, ‘Just like your father.’ The illicitness of that name had lingered in the steamy room for a long moment. Long enough for the comparison to settle deep into Mia’s thoughts.
Finn tilted his mug to his lips, finishing his drink. ‘How come you haven’t talked to Katie about your visiting him?’
Mia thought for a minute. ‘Sometimes when people give you their opinions, they can end up becoming your own. I didn’t want that.’
A car pulled into the campsite, the headlights briefly illuminating them before the engine was cut. A couple got out and began staking out their tent by torchlight.
The few sentences they’d just shared were the most Mia had admitted to anyone, even herself. For now, that was enough. She reached across for Finn’s mug. ‘I’ll wash up.’ Then she hopped from the picnic bench and disappeared to the water tap.
Later, after she’d cleaned her teeth, spitting the paste into a bush, she climbed into the tent with Finn. It was pitched with the shadow of a scrub-covered hillside in the background and the salty breath of the sea to the fore. They lay with their heads on a folded beach towel, poking out of the tent so they could gaze up at the stars. They’d spent countless nights sharing a tent or lying like sardines in the single beds in each other’s rooms. Their friendship was close and easy even now, a gift that Mia would always be grateful for.
‘Shooting star,’ she said, pointing.
‘Didn’t see it.’
‘It’s hard to when you have your eyes closed. You should sleep.’
They pulled their heads inside, zipped up the tent, and lay next to one another, just as they had done a thousand nights before.
*