Robyn bent unsteadily towards the speaker and turned up the volume.
Across the fire, Bella whooped.
The hem of Robyn’s summer dress skimmed her thighs as she moved her hips to the beat. Damn, it felt good to dance, to sway, to feel. She tipped back her head, looking up at the night sky.
Yep, definitely drunk. She giggled. This – this was exactly what she was supposed to be doing. She was at a hen party. She was child-free. She wouldn’t be woken at six a.m. by Jack parking a toy car on her forehead. She lifted her beer to her lips and then laughed because the bottle was already empty. She had an urge to launch it into the sea just for the hell of it. But didn’t.
Clearly not drunk enough.
Robyn wandered towards the cool box, tiny pebbles sticking to the soles of her feet. She hooked out another beer, snapped off the lid, and took a long drink. It was cold and pleasantly yeasty and she thought of her ex-husband and how, when they first met, he used to like it when she’d drink beers straight from the bottle. But then when they were married, he’d reminded her – politely – to use a glass.
She let the bottle clink against her teeth as she swallowed.
The track changed. ‘Rehab’! She loved this one. Robyn had been at Glastonbury years ago when Amy Winehouse played the Pyramid Stage, Robyn dancing in the heart of the crowd, moving and rocking as if they were all part of some huge writhing beast. That’s how music could make you feel, wasn’t it? Alive and elemental. She needed more music in her life.
The others were sitting around the warming glow of the fire, Fen feeding more wood into the flames. Lexi had a red cashmere wrap draped over her shoulders, long legs stretched towards the fire. Bella danced towards her, snaking low, hair trailing down her back. She swung her hips, reaching a hand towards Lexi, who smiled and mouthed something like, Later, then carried on talking to Ana. Bella pouted as she danced on, twisting her hands into the air.
Robyn turned away, only wanting music and the warmth of the night against her skin. The sky was sprayed with stars. Smoke curled into the breathing night.
She heard a whoop! and turned to see Bella moving towards the shallows, peeling off her dress and tossing it onto the shore. Course Bella would initiate the skinny-dipping! She unclipped her bra and twirled it around a finger, then flung it towards the beach. Her breasts were full and high, pale in the moonlight from her tan lines. It seemed miraculous to see breasts so real, so unmarked by pregnancy and breastfeeding.
She felt the tug of nostalgia for their teen years, those wild nights with Lexi and Bella, Robyn always feeling like she had to hold herself back – that someone needed to, otherwise things might go too far.
‘Robyn!’ Bella called above the music. ‘Come swimming!’
‘I’ll watch!’ she shouted back.
‘Course you will.’
The edge to the remark caught her off guard. She turned to see if anyone had noticed, but the others were still talking around the fire.
Bella wriggled out of her thong, then sashayed into the water, squealing at the cold. She dipped briefly beneath the surface, then rose again, dark hair slick against her scalp. She howled with delight, then rolled onto her back, arms wide.
Bella Rossi. They used to be so close, once.
Lexi had asked what created the distance between them. Robyn could’ve cited so many things: the hurt she felt when Bella didn’t invite her to Ibiza; the tears she sobbed when Bella blanked her in Circle Club; that she didn’t send a card when Jack was born, or visit until he was six months old. There were so many small moments, cuts and nicks to their friendship, but the root of it went far deeper.
She remembered the night. Would always remember.
They were celebrating the end of sixth form and their friend, Andy Chrisler, threw a house party. He was the only boy in their school whose parents had a swimming pool. It all felt so Californian – the summer evening, the fancy pool, the parents away for the night. Boys in boardshorts swam in the pool, while the bikini-clad girls gathered around the edges, sucking in their stomachs and pushing out their chests. It hadn’t taken long for them all to get in the water together – a bunch of seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds knowing that their school days were done and nothing but the big wide world waited for them.
Robyn felt differently. To her, the long summer stretched like a void, a marker-less expanse of time filled only with the quiet sorrow that clung to her house. Her brother had been dead for four months by then. It amazed her that they no longer specified the time in days or even weeks, but months. He’d been gone from their lives for months. It didn’t feel possible. She still rushed her showers, waiting to hear the rap of his knuckles on the bathroom door, telling her to hurry, or she’d listen for his loping footsteps as he took the stairs two at a time. She missed the way he’d stand in the doorway of her bedroom when she had friends over, his eyes lingering a beat too long on Lexi. She missed the easy way he’d tease their parents over dinner, his quick banter lightening everyone’s moods.
So Robyn had stood on the side of the pool, watching as the other boys – who were still alive, still had hearts beating in their hairless chests – coaxed the girls to ride on their shoulders.
Thomas, a handsome boy from her English Lit class, called to Lexi, ‘Jump on!’ He’d dived down, ducking his head beneath Lexi’s legs, then rising up with her like a prize on his shoulders. Her body dripped with water, skin golden, limbs long. Thomas held onto her smooth calves and Robyn had looked at them both, wishing it were her brother. That he could have this moment in the pool.
‘Robyn! Get on!’ Bella had called from the water. ‘We can take down Lexi!’
‘You can’t lift me,’ Robyn protested.
‘Small but deadly, remember? Climb on!’
Robyn moved to the pool edge, climbing carefully onto Bella’s wet shoulders. She was pleased she wasn’t wrapping her legs around one of the boys as she had goosebumps, which made her leg hair feel like iron filings.
Bella gripped her hands around Robyn’s calves as they squared up to Lexi and Thomas. Eye to eye, Lexi and Robyn grinned as they half-heartedly fought, each lacking the competitive spirit to bring the other down.
Bella had other ideas. Letting go of Robyn, she used both hands to shove Thomas square in the chest. He staggered back, but it was Robyn who was left unbalanced. She felt her thighs, slick with water and sunscreen, slipping. There was nothing to hold on to and she heard herself scream as she went over backwards. She saw the concrete lip of the pool coming towards her, unstoppable. Felt the crack of her skull connecting with it, followed by darkness.
Now Robyn looked towards the sea, her gaze searching out Bella.
She scanned the water, eyes travelling from one side of the bay to the other.
Moonlight danced silver, but not a ripple of movement broke the surface.