Chapter 12
The beach bar hums with life, groups laughing and chatting over the background sounds of chilled music and waves crashing down on the shore.
Paper lanterns swing in a gentle breeze from the straw roof of the bar and fire pits glow on the beach, groups gathered around them on colourful beanbags.
Streaked across the horizon are the last shades of lilac and rose-gold from the evening’s sunset.
‘Coconut daiquiri,’ Harper says as she returns from the bar with two drinks topped with yellow paper umbrellas, the purple glitter on her face sparkling in the warm light and matching the sequins on her top.
Tilly is more understated in a simple white sundress, but she has conceded by letting Harper paint flowers in glitter on her cheeks. It is their second night in Bali but their first leaving the hotel.
Harper had grand plans for their first evening but as soon as Tilly saw the twin beds in their beachfront room she sank on to the crisp white sheets, suddenly exhausted.
Thankfully, Joe must have changed their booking from the honeymoon suite because there wasn’t a bottle of champagne or a rose petal in sight.
But she couldn’t help thinking how they should have had champagne and rose petals.
We should have had a whole life.
The combination of jet lag and grief knocked her out, and Tilly slept for fifteen hours, waking to a note from Harper telling her to come and join her for yoga on the beach.
After having ruined Harper’s first night, she didn’t want to let her down again so she borrowed a pair of Harper’s harem trousers from her suitcase and headed to the beach, feeling silly as she wobbled alongside the rest of the class but enjoying the view of the sea and the bit at the end where she got to lie down on the sand with her eyes shut.
The rest of the day has been spent by the infinity pool overlooking the beach, Harper swimming and Tilly sleeping under the shade of a sun umbrella.
It has been a long time since she has slept this peacefully.
But with the drowsy heat on her skin, the calming sound of the waves and the smell of coconut in the air, she allowed herself to sink, letting go of tension she has been carrying for months.
‘Can you take some photos for my social media?’ Harper asked her in the afternoon, handing her phone over and posing by the pool.
‘Because just being here isn’t enough – we must make everyone else jealous too!’
‘Shh, just because you’re an old lady who doesn’t “do” social media it doesn’t mean everyone else is. It still amazes me that you work with social media influencers. Remind me how that works again?’
‘I do my research. It’s just my job.’
‘And this is part of mine. You know Voyageur like me to share plenty of content while I’m travelling.’
Which explains why Harper leans in now and takes a photo of them both with their cocktails, Tilly smiling obligingly for the camera as Harper beams beside her.
As Harper returns her phone to the tiny straw bag slung over her shoulder she says, ‘Hey, I’m proud of you, by the way.’
‘For what?’
‘I haven’t seen you check your work emails once since we’ve arrived. That must be some kind of record.’
‘You’re the one who’s been working! All the content you’ve been sharing is for work, isn’t it?’
‘But that’s different.’
‘Why is it different?’ replies Tilly with an exasperated laugh, suspecting that the answer might just be because Harper is Harper and rules don’t apply to her little sister.
‘Because I actually enjoy my job.’ As Harper says it she raises an eyebrow and takes another sip of her drink, her hazel eyes flashing challengingly.
‘I do enjoy my job.’
‘But do you, though? Because I remember you saying you were just going to work there for a year to get some experience and then apply for jobs in fiction. But you’ve been there, what, six years now? That seems a bit more than temporary.’
Seven years, Tilly thinks.
‘I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am.’
Harper rolls her eyes. ‘No one is questioning that, Tils. You’ve always been a hard worker. I just think you’ve got so used to working hard that you’ve forgotten how to dream.’
Tilly’s grip on her drink tightens. ‘Not everyone can go on holiday for a living.’
Harper shrugs, shaking out her hair and rolling the paper umbrella in her drink between her fingers. She leans back casually in her chair, eyeing Tilly across the table with a raised eyebrow.
‘Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find something you enjoy more or shouldn’t at least try. Didn’t you apply for a fiction editor job a while ago? I remember you mentioning it but being cagey about the details. What happened there?’
Tilly stiffens, looking down at her cocktail glass. ‘It didn’t work out.’
Which is partly true.
Never one to linger on any one subject for too long, Harper gestures with her cocktail umbrella in the direction of a man walking from the beach towards the bar. He is dressed in board shorts and a loose white shirt, his body muscular and tanned.
‘Hey, what do you think of him?’
‘Well, I’ve never met him before so I don’t have much of an opinion.’
‘But you could meet him,’ Harper says with a mischievous smile. ‘He’s been looking at you all evening.’
‘No he hasn’t! And besides, I’m not interested.’
Undeterred, Harper turns her attention to the rest of the bar. She scans the faces for a while and then points out another man, this time taller and with a linen shirt open to reveal a toned chest.
‘Not even him? I would.’ Harper waggles her eyebrows suggestively, her face split with a smile.
Tilly nudges her sister gently in the ribs. ‘Hey, what about Raj? You know, your boyfriend of four years? Who you live with?’
Harper shrugs again, downing the last dregs of her drink and placing her glass firmly on the table.
‘I just think that a holiday fling might be good for you, Tils. It might help you move on.’
Tilly sits up straighter, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘I don’t want a holiday fling. And I don’t want to move on. What I want is Joe.’
The silence that follows sits heavily between them.
From further down the beach come the sounds of people laughing and dancing on the sand.
The sky is now a pale indigo, the lights from the bar and the fire pits reflecting on the water.
Harper fiddles with her hoop earrings and looks down at her lap.
Her lips are pressed tightly together and Tilly is reminded of seeing the same expression on her face all those times when they were little and Tilly would say, ‘Just one more page, and then we can play.’ And one page would become two, then three, then four …
However much her sister might make her bristle sometimes, she is here, isn’t she? There’s no way that Tilly would have made this trip on her own. She reaches across the table.
‘You said you had something else planned for us this evening?’ Tilly says, squeezing her sister’s hand.
Harper’s face immediately brightens into a wide smile. Her eyes flash up to meet Tilly’s.
‘You’re going to love it, I promise.’