Page 80 of The Secret Beach

‘We should have done this a long time ago,’ he contradicted her, and there was nothing like the thrill of realising that he really did want her. That perhaps he’d always wanted her.

And so it began. An ill-advised affair, as most affairs are. A cobweb of lies and subterfuge and intoxicating lust but also the magic bubble of two people together who shouldn’t be, which is so potent and makes you blind to danger or the harm you might be causing. It was like falling into a whirlpool. Terrifying, disorientating, and the more she struggled to get out, the more she was sucked in. And so, after a week or so, she stopped fighting it.

‘We’re in too deep to stop,’ he said, holding her face in his hands. They shared endless stolen kisses in passages, doorways, corridors; kisses filled with urgency, sweet but sharp, like passionfruit. His hand between her legs, his lips on her neck, her fingers in his hair. She was weak. Weak with longing. Weak as a kitten as he dropped her onto her bed, her own bed, and she wriggled out of her jeans and let him inside her and had to cover her mouth to stop herself from crying out as she exploded into a million pieces, rocked to her very core.

Somehow, she managed to carry on normal life, even though she thought it must be written all over her, her pupils huge with lust, her legs trembling wherever she walked, her blood sweet and hot as a pan of strawberry jam, ready to boil over at any moment. Her mind ran on parallel tracks. Invoices, estimates, pro formas, schedules, timetables in one half. Him him him in the other – his marshmallow mouth, the salty tang of his skin, the tautness of his muscles like a leopard or a cheetah, coiled beneath her fingers. She would catch the drift of his scent on her and it would take her somewhere else.

Infatuation. It was a disease, with seemingly no cure. She had no choice but to go back again and again. And he felt the same. It was an impossible situation. They had three options. To stop. To carry on with their subterfuge. Or to run away together.

‘We can’t stop,’ said Nikki. For they had tried, time and again, but Speedwell was too small for them to avoid one another, and the minute they came into close contact, they were magnets. ‘And if we carry on, we will get caught. I know we will.’ It was far too dangerous. Again, Speedwell was too small.

‘So do we run away?’ They were at the secret beach, hiding in the caves behind the rocks. He’d brought a flask of spiced rum. It was gold and sweet and potent. It wrapped her up in the artificial glow of safety that only alcohol can give.

‘How? Where?’

He pulled something out of his pocket. A paper boat, made from thick blue paper.

‘We can take my boat. Sail over to Ireland. Live in Kinsale, where my father’s from. I’ll get work. You can have lots of babies who’ll grow fat on thick cream and black pudding.’

Nikki imagined it. A small white-washed cottage surrounded by hedges stuffed with fuchsias, the Atlantic crashing in the distance, the air sweet with the smell of dairy cows by day and sharp with burning peat by night. Patting out rounds of soda bread. Pegging out small clothes on a washing line. A donkey, perhaps.

She turned the boat over in her hands. The paper was soft, like sugar paper.

‘What about Jess?’ she asked in a small voice. It would be the ultimate betrayal, for your husband to run off with your own sister. ‘What about the baby?’

A bleakness flittered across his face. ‘I don’t know.’ It was almost as if he’d forgotten that detail. As if he was getting carried away with his own fantasy. ‘There is no answer,’ he said in a flat voice.

Nikki pushed the paper boat into her pocket.

The weeks slipped by, in an eternal loop of agonising soul searching and clandestine assignations at the beach, as Jess grew bigger and now there was no mistaking her bump. Six months. Seven. Nikki and Rik spent hours tangled up in each other in the caves at the beach, painting pictures of an imaginary future together with words that came easily, fantasy and reality blurring in a fevered frenzy. She could never be certain of him, for sometimes it was too dangerous and he wouldn’t be there, and she’d learned not to complain or accuse him of losing his nerve. He would be there if he could, but he wasn’t reckless. Not in the way she could be. Sometimes she didn’t care who knew, or if they were caught. Sometimes she longed for that day, for she thought it was inevitable. Small town. Sharp eyes. Loose tongues.

Other times, her biggest fear was him putting a stop to it. She could tell when guilt played heavily on his mind, and that was when she had to make sure he lost himself in her, and by the end of the afternoon he would gaze up at her, his eyes glazed, his guilt forgotten.

Most of all, though, she knew it was madness. It had to stop. She wanted to be normal again. To live with certainty, and without fear.

‘We have to decide,’ she told him. ‘Before the baby comes. Because once the baby’s here, we can’t do this. We just can’t.’

‘Shhhhhh.’ The sound came out of him like a sigh. It was a command, not reassurance. He was silencing her. He didn’t want to decide. In that moment, she knew he never would. That it would be up to her to dictate what happened. He would go on like this for ever. Getting away with it. Two sisters, like chalk and cheese. Snow White and Rose Red.

She remembered the story. And the immortal line: ‘Whatever one gets, she shall share with the other’.

42

Now

That night, Nikki barely slept. And when she did, she dreamed of paper boats and flasks of rum and threats written in black writing on the side of the lifeboat for everyone to see. She would have to cancel the party. She was exhausted. She didn’t have the strength to go through with it.

Woody wasn’t having any of it. By nine o’clock, he was standing on a kitchen stool fixing dozens of white paper lanterns left over from Christmas to the living-room ceiling. They spun in the air like out-of-season snowflakes.

‘I feel sick.’ Nikki looked down at the card again. ‘What if they’re coming here tonight? What if I’ve invited them and they’re going to come right into my home?’

‘It’s just bullshit, Nik.’ Woody jumped down off the stool and took the card from her. ‘You’ve got to hold your nerve. They could be bluffing. We don’t know what they know or what proof they’ve got or how they would back up any accusations. And who would believe it if they did say something?’

‘Who would believe I could do something so terrible, you mean?’ Nikki was in despair.

Woody crossed his arms while he considered his next suggestion. ‘You’re not going to like this, but the only way to devalue your secret is for it not to be a secret anymore.’

‘What do you mean?’

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