Swimming at Night: A Novel by Clarke Lucy

Author:Clarke, Lucy [Clarke, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2013-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

16

Mia

(Western Australia, February)

She dived down again, her body a slick underwater arrow, toes pointed, fingers together, hair in a smooth dark trail. She cut through the sea like a fish, her eyes open to the blurry blue sting of salt water, her ears filled with its fizz and echoes. Then she pulled her arms to her sides, arched her back, and kicked upwards, breaking the surface and feeling the sun on her face.

There was no breeze and the sea settled around her. The shore was empty and the karri forest beyond, still. She floated on her back with her eyes closed. The air was thick and she could feel the weight of heat in it. She wished Katie were floating beside her, the sea making them weightless. The thought caught her off guard. It had been years since they’d swum together and she wondered why she still missed it with such a sharp ache.

She flipped onto her front and swam back in. Water streamed off her skin as she waded in to shore. She wrung out her hair and then shook the sand from her sun-crisped towel and wrapped herself in it.

She padded back to the hostel and dustings of sand trailed her along the corridor as she headed towards Noah’s room. There was no swell forecast, so she was hoping to spend the day with him. Zani had told her about a deserted cove 20 kilometers up the coast, where a pod of dolphins regularly visited. She had e-mailed a link of how to reach it and Mia was planning to take Noah there.

She knocked on his door. She imagined stepping from her towel, and slipping into bed beside him, Noah’s body still warm. When there was no answer, she turned the handle and went in.

The room was empty: the bed had been stripped and his belongings were gone. Blood began to pulse in her neck.

She hurried along the corridor to Jez’s dorm. She knocked twice, then let herself in. A row of stripped bunks framed the room. She swallowed, telling herself there must be some explanation.

Clutching her towel to her chest, she moved outside and followed the perimeter of the hostel, which led her to the garage. She stepped into the musty dimness and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. Save for the hostel’s shared surfboard, huge and dented with a missing fin, the rack was empty.

Then she checked the patch of gravel beneath the eucalyptus trees for his van.

Gone.

She jogged back inside towards the reception desk. Karin, one half of a Dutch husband-and-wife team who ran the place, asked, “Hey, what’s up?”

“Where’s Noah? He was staying in room four.”

Karin closed one eye and squinted towards the ceiling through the other. “Checked out,” she said, opening both eyes again. “And the guys from dorm seven, too.”

“What? When?”

“First thing.”

“Where did they go?”

“No idea,” Karin said, picking up a mug of coffee and blowing it cool. “They were talking about a good forecast. Aren’t they always?”

“Are they coming back?”

“If they are, they haven’t booked.

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