all; they always had. It had been one of the few constants he had come back to. Her and Måns.
Hanna and Linus, on the other hand . . .
It was apparent his son was terrified of him, or couldn’t abide him – possibly even both. Every response was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and on the boat, having their picnic breakfast that morning, he’d said barely a word and eaten even less. It had been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and had left him feeling low even before the forgotten meeting with his lawyers – and especially before she had flown down the stairs in a state of wildness and undress to castigate him.
He closed his eyes, struggling for the strength to remain patient. Remain calm. Everyone had warned him it would take time for the bonds to be renewed, but he had underestimated the pain that would bring. It was a physical ache – along with all the others he had to endure – constantly having to hold himself back. He wanted to squeeze his son in a hug, ruffle his hair, pinch those cheeks, hold his hand, kiss his temple as he had as a sleeping toddler . . . But he couldn’t. These privileges were forbidden to him. Aside from their initial handshake, there had been no physical contact between them. Nothing at all. Another man – another father – got to love his son; even she, the nanny, was allowed to touch him in ways he couldn’t – squeezing his shoulder, bedtime cuddles – while he was nothing more than a remote stranger with long-ago memories no one else remembered.
That was the hardest part of it all: the dislocation between how it was for him and everyone else. In the seven years he had been under, they had all moved on without him. He had been, ultimately, disposable, and it was a hard fact to accept, especially because he had woken with the same love and same bonds as seven years prior. For him, it had been but the blink of an eye. One long night’s sleep. Nothing altered, nothing changed. And now, he had to somehow win them all back – like it was a competition. He had to prove himself worthy, better, more than the other guy.
All under her watchful gaze. Something about her unnerved him – her honest, probing stares made him feel nervous, like she could shine a light into his darkest corners.
He glanced over, seeing how Bell and Linus waved politely – obediently – as the helicopter rose into the air like a giant dragonfly, the cousins giving bored-again nods through the windows, their phones already back in their hands. The gardener stood by the side of the garden like a touchline referee, racing down the lines any time it looked like a bolt of muslin was going to wrench free; but his system held strong, and no sooner was the helicopter safely clear than he started pulling up the tent pegs and rolling back the cloth again, bringing colour and texture back to the garden scene.
‘Well,’ Bell said, into the fresh settling calm. ‘That was an . . . unexpected surprise.’
‘You have to expect the unexpected with Nina.’
She looked back at him with guarded eyes, their argument this morning still unresolved and lingering in the air between them like coloured smoke.
‘So . . .’ he murmured, at a loss as to what to do next. He couldn’t do right for doing wrong, it seemed, and his confidence felt battered. ‘It’s a nice day. What shall we do with it?’
He directed the question at Bell. She had made it perfectly plain nothing would happen without her say-so, and to be honest, he didn’t trust himself to get it right on his own now anyway.
She looked surprised by the deferral, her mouth parting in a pretty ‘o’. She looked back at Linus. ‘We could kayak? Or go for a swim?’
Linus shrugged. The idea clearly didn’t thrill him, but the look on his face asked the question, what else were they going to do? He looked bored.
‘I know some high rocks we could jump from,’ Emil said.
Linus’s head snapped up. ‘You do?’
‘Yes, but they’re about an hour’s sail from here. They’re about ten metres high, though –’
His little face brightened. ‘Cliff jumping?’
‘Well, I’m not sure cliff is quite the word,’ he smiled. ‘But they’re better than anything else you’ll find around here.’
From the look in Linus’s eyes, it was apparent they had