Swimming with Sharks Read online

  The previous evening is a blur. They drank a lot of champagne. He had brought it from the bar in an ice bucket with silver handles. They drank it from the bottle; poured it into each other’s mouths. Made love and fell asleep letting the champagne dry on their skins. Nicola was wasted. This morning her head is throbbing and her tongue is swollen inside her mouth. She can believe now that thirst kills. She slips from under his arm and staggers to the fridge. A large, icy bottle looks like salvation. She swallows in loud gulps.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ His voice is gritty. ‘You’re not trying to escape from me already?’

  ‘No!’ The thought scares her. ‘God, no! Just having a drink. I’m so thirsty.’

  ‘It is called a hangover.’

  She sits on his side of the bed (his side of the bed, she rejoices) and passes him the bottle. He sits up, pulls himself up to the headboard. His stomach is flat and muscular even when he is sitting, folded in half. He drinks – his Adam’s apple bobs like a buoy.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of escaping,’ Nicola says. ‘I can’t imagine when it is all over and you go back to Finland and I go back to the UK … I just can’t bear the thought of being separated from you. I know it’s silly. I know I’ve only known you for two days. But I can’t bear the thought –’

  ‘It doesn’t have to come to it. I won’t let it.’ The bottle is empty. He puts it aside and pulls her towards him. ‘Don’t even say it. Let’s not worry about it. It won’t happen.’ He kisses her on the forehead, a strange paternal gesture after a night of passionate lovemaking, but Nicola finds it reassuring. He won’t let me go … she reminds herself to keep that reassurance afloat. Deep down, a nasty little voice whispers in her head that she is one of many conquests, she is a little grey moth attracted to a bright light. He must’ve told many women the same thing and then walked away to his high life and the sparkling memories of his ballerina wife. Nicola banishes those thoughts from her mind. She is too afraid to doubt him. She wants to believe him. Somehow he won’t let it happen because he says so, but she won’t ask him how exactly. If she did, she would hear the truth: how can he not let it happen, how is it at all within his power to not let it happen …

  ‘Chin up!’ he tells her. ‘Let’s go for a swim!’

  Her foot is better; the swelling has gone down a lot, but he insists on carrying her like he did yesterday. Except that today she has managed to put her costume on. He doesn’t object. His hunger for her nakedness has gone down just like the swelling of her ankle. He is spent, Nicola fears, but tries to combat her insecurities: he is spent but not bored. How many times have they made love in the span of two days? She has lost count. He is spent, not bored.

  He dives in and pulls her with him. ‘I love water!’ he shouts, ‘Ever since I used to go to pioneer camps in the Crimea. The Black Sea is just like this!’ And he is gone. Nicola bobs on the surface, waiting for him to emerge. She scans the hazy horizon. Someone is waving to her from a pier, a lonely, small figure sitting with her legs up, knees drawn to the chin. Nicola recognises the matchstick body. It is Amy. She waves back. Mishka pops out of the water, shakes droplets out of his hair, grasps her arms and pulls her in before she is able to draw air into her lungs. Underwater, he gives her a kiss of life.

  Agaata has checked Nicola’s ankle and declared it ‘on the mend’. She has been staying away for most of the day and refused to join them for dinner. Mishka has come up with the idea of a French restaurant, not part and parcel of the holiday package but something more luxurious and secluded. A bit of the high life. ‘I want you to myself,’ he tells Nicola. ‘I don’t want all those people around us. Just you and I.’

  ‘What about your mother? She’ll have to dine by herself, she won’t like it.’

  ‘She’ll love it! She knows what she’s doing. Do you call it giving us space? That’s what she is doing. She’s done some matchmaking in the past. I know her: she’s rubbing her hands with glee.’

  A tiny niggle at the back of Nicola’s mind: all that matchmaking … Did anything ever come out of it? She has the urge to ask but bites her tongue. She doesn’t really want to know. She would be stupid to want to know.

  The restaurant is on top of the island, on a secluded peninsula that stretches into the ocean. Mishka has hired a rowing boat: the quickest way to get there with an invalid in tow, he laughs. Nicola’s foot isn’t that bad, she protests, though she loves the idea of being ferried on a rowing boat, far away from all those preying eyes. How her life has changed in the span of a couple of days, she marvels as she leans back in the boat and dips her fingers in warm water. Her work in the Manuscripts Department seems like a pointless exercise in reversing the flow of time – something that has been eating away her life, nibbling on precious moments like this one here and now. Her home is an empty shell that belonged to a different snail: an old aunt who has squandered her own life on pointless exercises. Nicola will not make that mistake. If Mishka – her dashing, mad Alosha Vronsky – asks her to go with him to Finland, to Russia, to the ends of the world, she will.

  If he asks …

  The sun is setting in deep hues of crimson. In the distance a couple of white yachts break into the crimson. The two Russian boys are building a sandcastle on the beach. One of them runs with a bucket to get water, the other is patting a conical shape that looks like a turret. They are two innocent kids, Nicola reflects, playing in sand. Only two days ago she saw them as the devil’s own, now they make her smile with warm affection. They have brought her and Mishka together. Everything changes when your own perspective shifts and you see the world from a new angle, and it surprises you how different it is. The boy’s father rises from a beach chair and pulls a towel from his face. He is watching the ocean or the bobbing yachts; perhaps he is watching the two people in the rowing boat. The young, gorgeous mum also gets up and starts dusting the sand off her legs. She is wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. She stands next to her husband, shades her eyes from the sun, and watches. In a surge of affability, Nicola waves to them. She feels like she knows them. The woman responds but the man puts his hands on his hips, shouts something to the boys, and they all begin to collect their belongings. An idyllic family snapshot. Only yesterday she feared them and suspected the man of sinister intentions. She has to smile.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Mishka asks.

  ‘I think I am happy.’

  ‘I am smiling too. Have you noticed?’

  In the restaurant he tells her about all the things he wants to show her in St Petersburg. His face is animated and flushed with colour. She can’t keep up with his drinking. Shot after shot of neat spirits. ‘We take drinking seriously in Russia, you know?’ His accent becomes more pronounced; he stretches and softens vowels and starts throwing Russian words into the mix. Nicola loves his accent. And that’s not all, but she is too afraid to admit that even to herself.

  ‘What the devil,’ he says, ‘I’ll take you there! I don’t care! Ya byl durak! Trus! Payedziom! I will take you to that restaurant near Ermitazh. They serve proper Russian borscht. Then I will take you for walk. I know places … I was stupid to leave! Durak! You come with me? Say you will!’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘That’s my girl!’ He seizes her hand and lifts it to his lips. ‘You will see life in Rossiya! Ahh, it will dazzle you, I bet you all I have! You will be dazzled … When we partied, in those days – I was younger then, but I can still do it! You watch me! When we started going, the morning would never come. We could go on day and night. Champagne was flowing in rivers. A never-ending ball … Whoever said Rossiya was sad and dull was a fool. On nye znayet!’

  His eyes are sparking with a feverish light. They are a bit bloodshot from the amount of alcohol he has had, but they are alive and almost insane with excitement. Nicola tries to imagine the wonders he is talking about. How she wants to be part of it! She downs a whole glass of champagne in one go, like he does. She can do it! What the hell!

  You only live once!
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  Day Five

  How quickly things change. Unexpectedly and without a warning. Thinking calmly about it – if she ever does – she will realise she has had it coming. Her mother used to say it often: if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. It has been too good, way too good to be true. And it is so easy to get used to the good thing, so easy that you find it impossible to let it go.

  They wake up together, once again at an ungodly hour well past breakfast. Nicola recognises the symptoms of a hangover and drowns them in a pint of water. She joins Mishka on the deck. He is gazing over the waters of the peaceful ocean which rustles and whispers, and sighs and murmurs as the waves throb only skin deep while the depths remain unmoved. The invisible heat is beginning to rise, but it is still relatively cool. Nicola wonders if she has enough money to be able to live here permanently. Probably not. A few months and she would have to pack up and return to London to earn a living. She shudders thinking about it. She wraps her arms around Mishka’s body; it is a reassurance. For now, for here, nothing is impossible. Almost too good to be true.

  The sun isn’t yet high or powerful enough to dazzle. In the distance the two regular white yachts are joined by a third one. It is bigger than the others – a cruiser rather than a yacht – and it is blue with white lettering on the side. Nicola recognises them: Russian letters. Like Amy has said, they have all the money in the world to come and go as they please, and even to live here permanently if that takes their fancy. Nicola can only dream.

  ‘My ankle is fine,’ she says. ‘I’m walking today. In fact, I think we should go for a long walk around the island. I’ve been planning to do that ever since I arrived. Got lost a couple of times,’ she chuckles. Mishka doesn’t respond. His body is rigid and he is stubbornly staring into the horizon. He hasn’t even looked at her, not once, not since she joined him on the deck. ‘What do you think?’ she asks, ‘about that walk? I’m perfectly capable … no more carrying me around, mister!’ She doesn’t think he has heard her. Or he is ignoring her on purpose. His face is inscrutable, the mischief in it has vanished and so has the wide grin. ‘Is your head as bad as mine?’ she guesses. ‘Too much vodka. I think I’m due for another glass of water. You too?’

  He turns, pushing her away. Her arms fall off his waist – he doesn’t notice. He strides inside. ‘Have you got a pen?’ he demands and looks at her for the first time this morning. His eyes are cold and focused. She hardly recognises him.

  ‘A pen?’

  ‘Pen and paper.’

  She searches through her bag. Pen and paper, not something you have lying around handy. She finds a pen and passes it to him together with the flight itinerary, which is the only scrap of paper she has. He snatches it, almost rudely. ‘What is your address in England? And your telephone number.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to know.’

  Her stomach sinks to the bottom of her pelvic floor. She dictates the address to him and he takes it down quickly, making several spelling mistakes, which she does not dare to correct. ‘This is … rather sudden,’ she says quietly.

  ‘I want to be able to contact you. I’m leaving today.’

  It is the most unexpected revelation she has heard from him even though she has been expecting it, fearing it. It was going to happen. He was going to go home, and so was she, when their time was up on this island. But this strikes her like a hammer on the head. Perhaps it is the way he is telling her: he is cold, matter-of-fact, indifferent. What has happened between last night and this morning? ‘I didn’t know … I mean, that you were leaving so soon.’

  ‘I have to be going.’ He folds her itinerary with her address on it, and puts it into the pocket of his shorts. In all her dismay she is able to consider whether or not she may need it to travel home. She starts crying. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she apologises. ‘I didn’t know. What am I saying!’

  ‘Sorry,’ his face softens for a fleeting moment of regret or sadness, ‘if it is sudden. I will be in touch.’

  She decides to be brave. ‘Can I be in touch? Will you give me your address then?’

  There is a hesitation in his eyes, and that tells her that he has never intended to contact her and that he doesn’t want to be contacted by her. But he chooses to be polite (probably to avoid a scene). He takes the itinerary from his pocket, unfolds it, scribbles something on it, tears the bottom half off and puts it on the table. ‘Here, my address and telephone number.’ His tone tells her he doesn’t want her to call him, or to write. It is hard. He is just getting rid of her. Probably the address is made up.

  ‘Thank you,’ Nicola says weakly.

  She can hear a commotion next door. He and his mother are speaking fast, so fast that she can’t make out anything. She is listening in so that she can make some sense of it. They must be packing. She wonders if Agaata will come to say goodbye. She was supposed to be their matchmaker. Or does she know not to interfere in her son’s affairs? Does she know how quickly he tires of women? Does she enjoy the fact that she is the only woman in his life? Nicola searches in her memory for any early signs of this sudden and brutal parting. She finds nothing. How would she know anyway! How often has she been in a relationship that she would know when it ends?

  The door to their chalet is shut closed. Nicola peeps through her own door: Mishka is carrying two suitcases, Agaata trots beside him, muttering and waving her arm in agitation as if she were trying to convince herself of something. The suitcases must be heavy, but Mishka has not called for a cart to take them to the Reception hut. Are they really heading there? Are they really leaving? Is this a trick? Against her better judgment, she follows them down the sandy path. She wants to make sure he has not lied to her. As if that should make any difference! Because if he had lied and this whole circus is just to be rid of her, then it is worse than him just going home at the end of a holiday. Because going home would hurt less than growing tired of her. But she still hopes that as suddenly as this has started, he will as suddenly turn back and run towards her and laugh out loud, and tell her what a silly numpty she has been to believe him. And he will do that with that trademark wide grin of his, full of mischief.

  He doesn’t turn back. They reach the Reception hut. They enter. Nicola stands outside and watches as they check out, return the key to their chalet, tell the receptionist that they indeed enjoyed their stay. This is final.

  The two Russian boys, as is their special talent, pop out of nowhere and glare at Nicola. Once again they have caught her with her knickers down. She doesn’t care. It’s a Mexican standoff. She glares back at them – the cause of her heartache. Their father hurries from the bar behind the reception hut, instructing them to go home, now: ‘Petya, Vanya, davay doma! Bystrah! Ya skazow!’ It is at that very moment that Mishka and Agaata emerge from the reception hut. Mishka bumps into the Russian, they look at each other, taken aback and potentially apologetic; it looks like Mishka is about to say something, but the other man turns on his heel and runs after his boys. Towards Nicola. Mishka’s head turns after the man. Nicola steps back behind the bushes. She can’t be seen. She couldn’t bear the embarrassment of being discovered. Thankfully, he didn’t spot her. His gazed is focused on the Russian man. Mishka watches him walk away and only when the man finally turns the corner does he tear his eyes away from him. He points his mother towards the jetty and urges her to head that way. He puts the smaller of their suitcases in her hand. There is a boat moored by the jetty; holidaymakers have poured out of it, loud and excited. A group of about ten people is beginning to board the boat. Mishka pushes Agaata towards that group. He says something to her – it sounds urgent and angry. She tries to grab his hand to pull him with her, but he frees himself from her grasp and is starting to explain something. He gestures towards the path and the bush where Nicola is hiding. She’d better disappear now, before he finds her spying on them. She starts walking back to her chalet, or just walking without any particular aim.

  The more she walks, the more strain she
puts on her ankle. It now begins to hurt, or it is only now that she realises that the ankle hurts. She begins to limp, but she cannot stop walking. She is walking away from it all: from her stupid old spinster’s past, from her job in the Manuscripts, from pointless exercises in living a life, from her table tucked away in the corner of a restaurant where only couples dine. She is walking away from her awkwardness. And her naiveté. Though she will never be able to walk away from her Alosha Vronsky’s curse and from how she felt when they made love, when he smiled at her so openly that there was no doubt in her mind. Not only will she not be able to walk away from him – she won’t be able to let him walk away from her. At least in her mind, that is, because in reality he just has.

  She cannot put the snippets of her grief and shock into any cohesive pattern of thought so she keeps walking – limping – along the beach at the height of the day. The waves that brush by her feet are warmer than chicken broth. The soles of her feet burn, which is a welcome sensation for her inner pain needs to be superseded by something, anything!