‘It’s gone.’
Lexi looked uncertain, her gaze searching the ground between them, but there was no sign of the insect.
The fire hissed.
‘Our last night,’ Lexi said eventually.
Yes, Ana thought. It really is.
Because everything was about to change.
60
Robyn
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.