LITMIR.BIZ

       3. SARAH

      DAY ONE, MIDDAY

      I wait until midday before I call Jacob; it gives him long enough to sleep off the worst of his hangover, and enough time to feel he’s proved a point by not returning to the beach hut. When I pick up my mobile, I see that I missed a call from Isla last night. There’s no message and I wonder vaguely if she was ringing to apologize.

      I scroll to Jacob’s number, press call, and then hold the mobile to my ear, my fingers drumming the kitchen counter.

      Oddly, there’s no ring tone – just a recorded voice informing me that they’re unable to connect me, and I should try again later.

      Jacob would never switch off his phone. His mobile is like a fifth limb, which he uses with an instinctiveness that eludes me completely. He can point his phone to the sky and name star constellations, or take over the car stereo with a swipe of the screen. It’s unlikely he’s got no signal either, as everywhere on the sandbank is in range. I suppose it’s possible that he’s run out of battery, although we all charge our phones from an attachment that Nick rigged up from the solar panels.

      I wonder what to do now. I don’t like the idea of stewing in the beach hut, waiting for him to return. I keep replaying our argument, pausing on the narrowness of Jacob’s dark gaze, and the way he’d yanked his rucksack from the floor, then slammed the beach hut door so hard that the panes of glass rattled in their frames. I’d gone to the window, pressing my fingertips against the cool glass. The beach was in darkness, except for the lantern of a night-fisherman setting up for the evening and the glow of Neil’s boat going out, and I’d watched Jacob slide away into the night, a stranger to me.

      What happened to the little boy I used to hold in my arms as a baby, with his inquisitive brown gaze that fixed on mine, the button nose that wrinkled when I made him laugh? It had been so much easier then. There were fewer mistakes to make.

      I pick up my mobile again, passing it from hand to hand. Part of me is desperate to call Nick and tell him what’s going on, but he’ll still be in the pitch and, anyway, if I tell him that Jacob’s stayed out overnight, he’ll want to know why.

      No, I need to handle this myself.

      I slip the phone into my pocket, then leave the hut.

      Luke’s beach hut is on the harbour side of the sandbank, near the wooden jetty where the ferry docks. I’ve known his parents for years: they are a lovely couple, both GPs, who take on gruelling schedules. Luke is the youngest of four brothers and I think, by now, his parents’ rules have relaxed so greatly that Luke spends the majority of the summer in the beach hut on his own.

      A shining cloud of starlings rises from a hut roof as I pass, wings beating a bewitching pattern in the sunlight.

      As I near Luke’s hut I pull my sunglasses down and go to smooth my hair back – forgetting I’ve recently had it cut so it now rests just above my shoulders. The space where it has always hung down my back feels strangely exposed, naked. Nick assures me he likes the change, but I worry I look too severe, the blonde bob sharpening my features.

      Luke is sitting on the deck in his board shorts, opposite a girl who wears a black bikini, her skin tanned and tight. I glance beyond them, inside the dim hut, and can make out a cluster of young people sprawled across the sofas. I have no intention of embarrassing Jacob with a lecture about why he didn’t come home last night – I simply want to see him, know he’s okay.

      ‘Luke!’ I smile, lifting a hand.

      He sits up a little straighter, squinting. ‘All right?’

      He’s turning into a handsome young man, with his thick sandy blond hair and an open smile. ‘Good party?’

      ‘Yeah,’ he says, getting slowly to his feet. He climbs down from the deck and stands on the beach, leaning a hand on a weathered picnic bench as he squints against the sun. I don’t flatter myself that he’s come to greet me – he just doesn’t want me to enter the hut. It’s a space for teenagers, not mothers.

      Up a little closer, it’s clear he’s hung-over. He’s got that glazed look, and a slumped, low energy, as if everything is a little too bright, a touch too vivid. His hair sticks up at one side of his head, and his eyes are bloodshot. I can smell the alcohol fumes rising from his pores. ‘Jacob still here?’

      ‘Jacob?’ he repeats, surprised.

      ‘He didn’t stay here last night?’

      ‘No.’ Luke glances back inside the hut, my gaze following his. Through the gaggle of teenagers I spot empty cans of beer, bottles of spirits, cigarette butts. I notice a plastic drinks bottle with the nose cut off and tin foil wrapped around one end of it, and can guess what they’ve been using it for.

      I keep my tone light. ‘He did come to the party?’

      ‘Yeah, course. It was for him.’

      Jacob has always dismissed any suggestion of a birthday party, which is why I was thrilled this year when he said he was going to Luke’s hut for drinks. I offered to buy some beers for them, and a few packs of burgers in case they were hungry later, but he said, ‘It’s sorted.’ Which meant, Don’t interfere.

      Despite myself, I ask, ‘What time did he leave?’

      Luke rubs the heel of his hand across the side of his head. ‘I dunno. Maybe around eleven, I guess.’

      Early – especially as it was a party for him.

      ‘He said he was gonna come back here.’

      Then I realize. I smile lightly as I say, ‘I should probably be looking for him in Caz’s hut, shouldn’t I?’

      One of the young men in the hut adds with a smirk, ‘Maybe they were making up!’

      Luke narrows his eyes at the boy.

      I want to ask more, but instead I say, ‘Cheers, Luke.’

      Cheers? I never say cheers.

      I leave the hut feeling like an idiot. Of course Jacob will be at Caz’s hut! Robert, her father, must be away.

      As far as I can intuit, Jacob and Caz have been a couple since the start of summer. I’ve known Caz since she was a little girl. She’s always been pretty – petite and blonde with sharp green eyes – and I’ve watched her bloom into a confident, beautiful young woman, but there’s a knowingness in her eyes that doesn’t escape me. Earlier in the summer I’d come across the pair of them lying on a rug by the shore, listening to music. A song they both knew was playing loudly and Caz began to sing. I was surprised to see Jacob joining in at the chorus. Their singing grew louder and more raucous as they half shouted the lyrics, nodding their heads, laughing together, the sun on their faces. Caz had jumped to her feet, the rug becoming her stage as she danced and sang. Jacob pulled out his phone and snapped pictures, Caz posing with a hand on her hip, laughing, pouting. As I watched, a spike of doubt stabbed the scene: Do not hurt my son.

      As I’m walking away from Luke’s hut, I catch one of the girls saying, ‘Caz was a total mess.’

      I slow my pace enough to catch someone else adding, ‘He didn’t need to march her out. She was just having fun.’

      I strain to hear the rest, but the conversation swims away from me. Did Jacob have to help Caz back to her hut? Was she so drunk that he didn’t want to leave her? I like the idea of my son being the responsible one.

      Caz’s hut is at the furthest end of the sandbank, near the headland. The walk from one tip of the sandbank to the other should only take fifteen minutes, but in summer it feels like you can’t go more than ten paces without a hut owner calling out a greeting,

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