“Stop it,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“Stop watching me, stop making me notice. I haven’t got time to sort it.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Hannah put the mugs down by the kettle and spread her hands on the countertop for a moment, leaning her weight onto them, arms rigid and straight. Her bikini had imprinted a wet echo of itself through her shirt and trousers, and the rat-tail ends of her hair were hung with droplets of water like beads. The kettle began to make a quiet groaning sound, and she flicked it off again with a quick, decisive movement.
“Come on,” she said abruptly, reaching out a hand to him. “Let’s get out of these wet things.”
She took him upstairs to a large bedroom that faced the sea. The afternoon light poured in through two huge sash windows, warming the scattered corpses of flies on the sill. If there had once been curtains, there weren’t anymore. The bed had a high brass headboard; the duvet was crumpled, half on the floor. Cracks zigzagged like lightning through the pale blue paint on the walls. Hannah shut the door behind Zach and turned to face him as she pulled off her shirt and the wet red bikini top. She fixed him with a challenging expression, the pale ghost of her swimsuit diffuse against the summer tan on her skin, outlining her small breasts, making her nipples stand out darkly. Zach stepped forwards, put his hands around her waist and ran them up along her spine to the hard lines where her shoulder blades pressed through the skin. He kissed her and tasted salt. The sea was on her lips, on her chin and cheeks. Cold drops of it fell from her hair onto his arms when he wrapped them around her; and he felt her body tense up, pushing herself closer to him. Desire stormed through him, choking and irresistible, made his arms tighten until the breath was squeezed from her, and her mouth grew softer. When he opened his eyes, her look was no longer measuring but calm and urgent. It was an expression Zach could read at once; one he recognized, finally and without doubt. He didn’t loosen his grip for a second. He straightened up, lifting her so that her feet came off the floor. He turned towards the bed, and they fell together. The feel of her arms wrapped around him, the movement of her body, its taste, its smell, were all-consuming; made the world and everything in it vanish. For a while there was only the two of them, tangled together, and nothing else mattered.
When Zach woke up, he was sprawled across Hannah’s mattress like a starfish. The sheets smelled faintly of sheep. Every limb felt warm and heavy, but his mind was clear. He looked up and saw her standing in front of the window, still naked, chewing at the skin of one thumb. He took the opportunity to study her, knowing that he could do so only when she wasn’t aware of it. Her big toes turned up slightly at the ends, no paint on the nails. There was a tiny, dark tattoo of a seahorse on her right hip, just where the bone showed its shape. Her buttocks sank slightly down, creasing the skin into a single neat fold. He could count her ribs, which were scattered with freckles. Her hair was dry now, a wild, knotty-looking thatch. Wide eyes, focused far out to sea. Again he had the strangest feeling that he knew her, had seen her before. There was something naggingly familiar in everything, even the way she stood, lost in thought, and Zach wondered if this was some level of recognition deeper than the physical, than the mundane arrangement of features on a face. Something instinctive, needful. He felt something crack inside him then; a small rupture and a bruising sensation, at once new and familiar. He greeted it with mixed feelings-a dismayed sort of welcome.
“Hello,” he murmured. Hannah stopped chewing, looked over at him.
“Back in the land of the living?” she said.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Oh, only about half an hour. I wouldn’t call it sleep, though. Coma is more like it.”
“Sorry. You took me by surprise, a bit. Come here.” For a second she ignored the command, but then she crossed to the bed and sat down cross-legged, entirely unself-consciously. “Aren’t you worried about people seeing in?” he said, smiling.
“There’s nobody out there to see in. And the curtains caught fire, once.” She sniffed, turned to look at the window. “The wind blew them into a candle. So I took them down and never got around to replacing them. It helps me get up in the mornings, anyway. The light coming in.” Zach tried not to think about Hannah’s room, candlelit; about such a romantic gesture, and who it might have been for. He put out his hand and ran it along her arm, caught her wrist, and pulled her towards him. She resisted at first, frowning, but then relented and lay down next to him, curled towards him, not touching.
“Hannah, what about Ilir?” he asked tentatively.
“What about him?”
“You don’t think he’d mind? Us sleeping together?”
“No, he wouldn’t mind. It’s none of his business, really.”
“You mean you and he aren’t… you know. A couple?”
“Well, I’d hardly be shagging you in broad daylight if we were, would I?”
“I really don’t know,” said Zach, with complete honesty.
“No, Ilir is not my… lover. He never has been. As far as he’s concerned, I’m family. He’s a friend and… a colleague, in a way.” She looked at him frankly, and behind the lightness of her tone was something more serious. “There’s nobody else.”
“Thank God,” said Zach, relieved. “I would have hated to have to fight him. He looks… tough.”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” Hannah chuckled.
“It… feels right, to me. This. Being with you, I mean. I feel like I’ve known you for a long time. Do you know what I mean?” he said.
“I don’t know.” Hannah turned her face to the ceiling, unblinking. “Let’s not rush things, Zach.”
“No, of course not. I only meant… that I was glad. Glad to have met you,” he said. She turned to face him again and grinned.
“I’m glad to have met you, too, Zach. You have a very nice arse.”
“One of many fine attributes, I assure you,” he said, linking his hands behind his head and leaning back with conspicuous satisfaction. Hannah jabbed him sharply in the ribs with one finger. “Ouch! What was that for?” he said, laughing.
“Just pricking that ego, before it gets too swollen.” She smiled. Zach grabbed her hands before she could strike again, pulled her close, and kissed her.
“I’ve bruised you,” he said, putting his fingertips to her collarbone, where a pinkish mark was blooming.
“I’ll live.”
He laced the fingers of his left hand into those of her right, and pulled her hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. He ran his thumb over her palm and along her thumb, and felt a hard ridge in the flesh.
“What’s this?” He held her hand farther away so he could focus his eyes. A thick, straight scar ran diagonally right across the pad of her thumb. Silvery white, and raised. “How did you get this? Looks like it was deep,” he said.
“It was…” Hannah paused, frowning slightly. She withdrew her hand and cradled it in front of her face. “It was the night Toby died. I shut it in the car door. Hard. Nearly split my thumb in half. But I didn’t even notice I’d done it until the next day, when somebody pointed it out to me. It was numb. Like the rest of me, I suppose.”
“Jesus. You poor thing.”
“Me?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t the one drowning.”
“Hannah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“No, no, it’s okay, Zach. I actually want to talk about him. I know that sounds weird, probably too weird for you. But it’s been ages since I have. I guess you don’t want to hear about him. About that night.” She turned a steady gaze on him, her eyes dark and diffuse, hidden from the light.
“Tell me,” he said. Hannah took a slow breath in.
A night of thumping wind and solid rain. A night when the sky spat out crystals of ice to cut into your eyes and lips, and the air was sucked out of your lungs before you could speak or breathe. A night so black that any light dazzled you rather than guided you. Weather that found every leak in your roof and seam in your clothes; every loose tile and weak spot, every chink. Toby was a volunteer lifeboat crewman, though he’d grown up in Kensal Rise. Living out a boyhood fantasy of taming the bucking waves and coming like a guardian angel to people waiting for the sea to claim them. And live it out he did, for three years once he’d completed the training. He loved it-loved helping, loved the adrenaline, loved to be so needed. So that night, his last night, he gave her a grin from the bedroom door as he went out, and Hannah got dressed and followed him. Followed her feet down to the shore where the water was boiling angrily around the rocks; because that grin of his had been too excited, too pleased, and she believed in a watching fate that took pleasure in punishing those who went too lightly into danger.