“Let’s go.” I kept my worries to myself, flinging on my cover up and slipping my feet into sandals that I’d already stolen from Livi.
Livi and Lala.
Livi and Lala and Jay.
Lara was her star, and I was her storm, names given to us by our father. Storm Jameson was born at the end of the eighteen-hundreds, a novelist and essay writer and a suffragette. Somehow Gav knew of her, fuck knew how as he never read a book, and was taken by the name, the media connecting it to Jameson’s whisky, even though he couldn’t stand the stuff. Lara was his grandmother’s name, and star was what he said he knew she’d be.
I used to be jealous of her name. How it fitted so well with Livi’s. How she was a star.
Storms didn’t have the same positive connotations. They were powerful and destructive, causing havoc and damage. Until Gav pointed out that storms created. They cleared the way, and they were beautiful.
I’d never heard my dad say the word beautiful in his broad Mancunian accent until then.
You and me, Storm, we’re the same. We can see how things can be made,and then we make them. Everyone else, they just wait for us to do it.
The day after, he announced his split from the band.
Lala talked about Carl as we walked, complaining how he’d kept her waiting for half an hour to speak to him when she got to the restaurant where he worked. She wasn’tusedto people keeping her waiting. In London, she couldn’t really go anywhere without being recognised. Our mother was distantly related to the royal family – if we went back centuries – and her father was a viscount. That automatically bumped you into the VIP section in any exclusive nightclub, or found you a table in a fully booked top restaurant. Throw in Gav and some people practically bowed.
Lala dated. There were some men she used to be seen with, a couple of them gay but needed to keep it under wraps for various reasons, usually to do with family or careers. She had two friends-with-benefits that she’d hook up with which had been going on for a couple of years, and then there was Carl.
The only man who kept my sister waiting, which was probably why their affair had been going on the longest.
“Stop waiting for him.” It was a solution I’d given her loads.
She shook her head as my feet finally hit the sand. Any more weight I was carrying left every cell in my body and floated away with the tide.
“It’s what we do.”
“Carl’s using you.”
Lara shrugged. “Maybe I’m using him. I like that he uses me, because no one else will ever dare.”
She was right. No one would.
The beach was desolate. In another week, there would be more tourists, a few families or wanderers would find it, using guides that directed them to places that were off the beaten track. Remote. But even at the peak of the season, sunbathers would be dotted sparsely here. It was part of life here, not just somewhere you visited for the day.
Wooden piers jutted out into the sea, a few brightly painted fishing boats lulled on the turquoise water. There were fishermen’s huts here, weatherworn and shabby, some with doors that had been brightly painted then diluted by the sun.
I kicked off my sandals, my toes sinking into sand warmed by the sun, the lapping of the sea and the calls of the gulls the only music here. A thrill climbed from my feet to the roots of my hair, sending shivers into every sinew and making me smile for what felt like the first time in forever.
Lara had slipped off her flip-flops too and was laughing, watching me. We weren’t in our twenties anymore, but neither were we the nine-years-olds who escaped Safir to come here when Livi slept one day.
We were ageless here.
I spun round, arms out, the warmth of the sun’s rays on skin that felt like it had been covered for too long, my cover-up flaring out. Lara’s laugh sounded the same as it had done years before and I wondered if it would in another decade, two even. The sand here was courser, firmer underfoot, making it easier to run towards the sea. I ran along the beach, rough pebbles underfoot, toes pushing into the sand and splashed into the water, the Mediterranean not yet warmed up.
Lala was there, splashing and laughing, dipping down to spray droplets of sea at me. I splashed her back, not caring if anyone was watching because if they were they wouldn’t care or know who we were.
The day, year, decade, all became irrelevant. We could’ve been any age and any person, because we were here, in our place where night was just as important as day and no one cared who your grandfather was, it was just accepted.
“This summer’s going to be epically amazing.” Lara half laughed, half shouted the words. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I was too. I needed this. Needed this again.
We lay down on the sand, digging our heels in and forgetting about everything else. My studies, job; her designing, contracts – they all subsided under the early evening sun, the type of light when the island really woke up.
“Who’s started up Còctels?” I was suddenly excited to find out all the new bars and restaurants and clubs that has started since I’d last been on the island.
