Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
The coals glowed orange through the ash, giving off a tar-like smell as Henrik raked them back and forth.
They’d been laid out on top of the shingle next to the water and Jonas sat cross-legged at the top of the pathway, drumming out a rhythm on his bongos as we walked up.
The sun had flooded the sky with burnt yellows and reds, and I could happily have spent the evening with my book, a blanket and a flask of hot chocolate, but instead we were gearing up to walk across hot coals.
As you do. The others seemed giddy with excitement but there was no way I’d be putting my little piggies through it.
This little piggy would be going wee, wee, wee, wee, all the way home, well before it got to me.
I’d play along for a little while, though.
I didn’t want to give off completely negative vibes.
I tightened my ponytail and tucked it down the back of my dress. It was covered in hairspray, and I didn’t want to take any risks while I was flammable.
‘Have you done this before?’ Ethel asked, taking off her socks.
‘Er, no. Have you?’
‘Yes, lots of times. Shaking up your belief system is the secret to an interesting life,’ she said.
‘Is it? You’ve lost me. How does this link to my belief system?’
‘Well, you believe – we all believe – the coals to be hot. We know they’re hot, in fact. Our eyes tell us so. It goes against logic and our sense of safety to step on them.’
‘True.’
‘Which makes this less about hot and cold and more of a mind over matter conundrum,’ she said, her blue eyes twinkling.
‘You’ll watch as your friends somehow walk to safety, and your brain will then have two versions of the truth to contend with.
Either way you’ll be challenging a belief, and once you’ve done it yourself, you’ll feel elated – trust me.
That sense of achievement when you get to the other side is addictive. ’
‘Totally,’ Mark piped up. ‘I’ve done it a couple of times myself.’
‘Have you?’
‘Yeah. In Goa last year. It’s easy. Focus straight ahead; don’t look down.’
‘We did it in Thailand,’ Celeste chipped in.
‘Cool,’ I said, feeling very uncool.
Everyone seemed super casual about running across an open fire and it turned out I was the only one who hadn’t done it before.
I mean, who didn’t have smoking hot coals on their front lawn these days?
In which case, maybe I should give it a go.
I didn’t want to pass up my chance to try it in a safe environment.
And then I could be all casual about having done it next time I found myself in this situation.
Walking across hot coals? Completed it, mate.
But I’d wait until the end, once everyone had checked their soles for burns and confirmed there were none.
I needed two fully functioning feet. Walking was a key part of my life.
‘Gather round, everyone, please!’ Tore clapped his hands together, and we all shushed each other.
The coals hissed behind him as Henrik doused them with water.
Surely there was a fake section of battery-operated charcoal that we’d run over?
My travel insurance wouldn’t cover self-harm.
Oh God. ‘There is no pressure at all to do this. It is an exercise in listening to yourself and pushing your limits. Even if that push means you consider the coals, then choose not to take part. That process still takes strength and courage.’
Phew. He’d given me an out. I could tell everyone I’d pushed myself on the inside and they’d never know if I really had. Not that anyone else cared. I just didn’t want Ethel to think I was a wimp.
‘We will line up here and take it in turns. Henrik will talk you through the technique, then walk alongside as you traverse the coals. He’ll even hold your hand, if you ask him nicely.’
‘Yes, please!’ Mark called out, chuckling to himself.
Henrik gave him a cool stare. ‘I’m sure you can manage.’
Jonas had upped the tempo on the drums, and we were about to begin. Ethel went first, hitching up her skirt and taking big, bouncy steps, while Henrik held on to her like a pony. Then Kimi and Yuto went together, hand in hand, skipping in time to the music as they laughed their way across.
‘Watch this,’ Mark said with a confident smirk, rolling up his trouser legs.
He started clapping above his head, like an Olympic athlete preparing to do the triple jump, encouraging everyone to join in – which we felt obliged to do.
Absolute cringe. Then he jogged around in a circle, gave Tore a high five and ran at the coals, hopping across them in four easy strides.
If only I had his long legs, instead of my chunky skittles.
I was getting increasingly nervous. I’d mentally pushed myself enough.
I’d just say no when it came to me. It didn’t matter.
No one cared. Henrik had barely looked at me all evening.
He obviously had a love ’em and leave ’em approach to one-and-a-half-night stands, which was fine by me.
It had felt good to get all that pent-up energy out of my system.
It was a shame not to be able to tee up an encore, but it would be tricky with Mark here anyway.
Everyone was quite taken with the clapping and started doing it for all the firewalkers, chanting their names as they stepped up, to give the walk a sense of drama. Then suddenly they all turned to me.
‘Sa-ra! Sa-ra! Sa-ra!’ I’d been so absorbed watching everyone else, I hadn’t realised I was the only one left and it seemed churlish to say no now. I was going to have to bloody well do it. FUCK.
Henrik came over in his professional capacity as coalmaster. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Not really.’ I laughed.
‘You don’t have to do it,’ he said earnestly. ‘There’s no pressure.’
‘Sa-ra! Sa-ra!’ The cheering got louder as everyone tried to encourage me.
‘Sounds like it,’ I said, my heart thumping wildly. ‘It’s fine, I’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure?’ I nodded, feeling sick. ‘The trick is not to overthink it,’ he said. ‘Hold my hand and we’ll go together. You’ll be done before you know it.’
I nodded again, feeling much better with my hand in his.
The whole experience was bizarre and surreal.
The music, the clapping, the chanting, my naked toes exposed to the cold.
It felt like I was about to be sacrificed to the gods.
I looked for Mark, but he was at the back of the group, swiping on his phone.
He must have had a coat hanger down his trousers to boost the signal.
‘Ready?’ Henrik asked, looking straight into my eyes.
‘Yes,’ I said, taking a deep breath. These coals were real, and the fire was hot, but I trusted him. I’d watched the others and they’d all taken different routes as they’d made their way across. Some held Henrik’s hand, but there was no trickery going on, no safe route he was steering people down.
I ran like a cartoon character, all arms and legs, as fear took hold of my insides. Henrik legged it alongside me to keep up, and I was ten metres beyond the coals when I realised I’d finished.
‘Did I do it?’ I shrieked. ‘Have I done it?’ I looked down at the grass under my feet.
‘You have,’ Henrik said, grinning.
‘Woohooooo!’ Relief and adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I jumped into Henrik’s arms. ‘I did itttt! I survived. Oh, thank fuck for that.’
‘We wouldn’t do anything that might hurt you,’ he said, spinning me round, then pulling back, our noses nearly touching.
‘You never know what’s going to hurt someone. What if I’d tripped?’
‘I’d have thrown you over my shoulder and got you out of there,’ he said, his eyes dark.
I felt my breath catch. He’d caught me unawares again. This guy was something else.
‘Really?’
He nodded silently, still holding me tight. The last time we’d been this close, we’d been kissing in jacuzzi jets, and the flashback gave me palpitations.
‘Well done, Sara!’ Mark shouted. ‘Now you can say you’ve walked over hot coals too!’
Henrik’s eyes changed, the desire gone, and he let go. I felt instantly colder as he stepped away, as well as being all hot and bothered.
Mark bounced over. ‘Nice one!’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ I murmured, watching Ethel’s face light up as Henrik congratulated her.
‘Fancy a cheeky nightcap?’ Mark whispered. ‘No point hanging out with this lot drinking camomile and cocoa.’
I absolutely needed a drink. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and Henrik was avoid my attempts to catch his eye.
Aside from a few moments ago, he’d been giving me the cold shoulder ever since our tryst in the lake.
I felt awful about the situation, but I needed to speak to him one on one to explain – it was still confusing to me, so it must have looked completely bizarre to him, and I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.
Mark gatecrashing my retreat had not been on my holiday bingo card.
‘Sure,’ I said, turning away from the group and following him. I glanced back briefly as we reached the edge of the forest, and Henrik’s eyes were fixed on mine from all that way away.
*
Mark poured me an amaretto and Coke, and it was the sweetest thing I’d tasted in a lonnng while.
Apart from the cheese and crackers we’d had earlier.
I’d got the fire going almost instantly and had successfully turned on the hot tub.
I was on the verge of becoming a professional woman-of-the-woods and now knew that dry, battered old logs made the best fires – the uglier the better.
Mark and I had jumped in the jacuzzi and were relaxing in the bubbles under the stars.
The booze had gone straight to my head and the woozy Henrik-factor wasn’t helping.
That guy was so sexy. I closed my eyes and imagined he was here instead of Mark.
He was such a passionate, sexy kisser, and his body was so strong.
The memory of him on top of me, nibbling on my ear, sent tingles down my spine.
And knowing he was only ten minutes-walk away was torture.
I wanted to order room service, but it was impossible with my ex-husband sat next to me, cramping my style.
I opened my eyes and Mark was staring at me.
‘I know that smile. What are you thinking about?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes.
I sat up and tried to pull myself together. ‘What? Nothing!’
‘Yeah, right.’ He gave me a cheeky nudge.
Funny to think he could still read my mind after all this time – almost. That he knew me and didn’t know me at the same time. How had it all gone so wrong? To have been on such a level together and now back to being strangers.
‘I was thinking about us running over the coals,’ I said, lying through my teeth.
‘Really?’ he said, a sly smile on his lips. ‘Did I look good? Did you get a photo?’
I laughed. ‘No. We’re not meant to have our phones, remember? Taking photos would defeat the object of it being a personal, physical, visceral experience. An inner journey.’
‘Yeah, but it’s nice to put it on the socials though, eh? Show everyone how it’s done. Hashtag serenity. No – I’ve got it – hashtag life coals.’
I snorted with laughter. ‘Too blessed to be stressed.’ Our neighbour’s favourite hashtag – who was always very stressed.
‘You’ll just have to keep the mental image in your mind.’
Mark slung his arm around me like he’d done a million times before, and I turned and kissed him like I’d done a million times before. My muscle memory taking over. It was the same old familiar kiss, but it only lasted a second before Mark jumped back and pushed me away.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, his face full of panic. ‘Sorry, Sara, I shouldn’t have sat so close. This isn’t what I want.’
‘Oh! No, nor me,’ I said, sitting up and shaking my head. I’d been snuggled and cosy and wasn’t really thinking. Mark’s arm had felt so familiar and I was like a coiled spring after being so close to Henrik. ‘Let’s pretend it didn’t happen.’
He was suddenly very sober. ‘I thought we were good?’
Mark said good in the same tone Mum saved for dairy as a lactose-intolerant.
‘We are. Calm down, it was an accidental kiss. And you made the first move, with the old arm-around-the-shoulders trick!’
He pulled himself out of the hot tub. ‘It’s late. I’m going to bed.’
‘Bloody hell, Mark! Overreaction, much? It’s not like we haven’t kissed before.
’ What was I doing? And more to the point – what was Mark doing in my hot tub in the middle of my holiday?
Auto-kissing the ex-husband was never a good look, but it was all Henrik’s fault for giving me the horn.
And on top of the alcohol and the high of firewalking, I’d been completely discombobulated – in the worst possible way.