After the Ferry

by C. A. Larmer

  “I’d love to, honey, you know that, but it’s deadline week.”

  “You say that every week.”

  “I know, but this one truly is deadline week. We need to get the magazine—”

  “—to bed, yeah yeah. What about putting yourself to bed right here.” He tapped the sheets beside him, nudged his eyebrows suggestively.

  And she laughed as she always did and said, “God, I wish. Sorry, honey.”

  This time things were different though. He didn’t sigh and roll over and go back to sleep. He sat up, his jaw tense.

  “I mean it, babe, come back to bed. Forget Eve and forget Amelia fucking Malone.”

  She stared at him, shocked by the outburst. “You know I’d love to, Tony. Don’t be like that. It’s all just part of the job.”

  “Bollocks, Alex! You shouldn’t need to work weekends if you’re doing your job properly!”

  She blinked back tears. “I am! Besides, you work weekends too!”

  Tony was a plumber. Had his own small business. He looked offended by the comment. “I work very bloody rarely, you know that! I only ever work Saturdays when there’s a genuine emergency, and even then I usually say no and tell them to find someone else. I put you and kids first. You… you put her first!”

  “Tones…”

  “No, babe. It’s true. You’re giving up your kids’ childhood just to impress that bitch.”

  “We don’t use that word, Tony, it’s derogatory to women. She’s not a bitch.”

  “No, she’s a freakin’ witch, and don’t tell me that word’s even worse. She is a witch! She’s had you under some kind of psychotic spell since the first day you started there.”

  Alex sighed. “I promised her I wouldn’t let her down, that the kids wouldn’t make any difference—”

  “No difference? They make all the difference in the world! They’re little human beings; they need their mother!”

  She had scoffed at him then. “What about their father? You’re being sexist.”

  “Oh leave your feminist bullshit at work, Al. We’re not living on the pages of Eve magazine now. This is real life. The kids see enough of me for Christ’s sake. It’s their mother they want to see; it’s you they want to hang out with. And all you want to do is hang out with her!”

  “I don’t want to, Tones, you know that! I don’t have any choice.”

  “You have a choice, Alex, and you’ve made the same one every weekend since Hayley was six weeks old. For God’s sake, when are you finally going to choose her?” He had paused then, his eyes flooding with tears she had rarely seen. He was normally so upbeat. “When are you going to choose us?”

  And that’s when she realised. It wasn’t just her kids she was sacrificing, it was him. It was her marriage. And it hit her then like a bolt of lightning, that this was what Amelia had intended all along. For everyone to be as pathetic and as lonely as she was.

  And so that weekend she had simply not shown up. Instead of dragging on her jeans and moping into the cold Eve office, she had stayed in bed and clung to her husband like she was the koala, he was the gum, and a cyclone was fast approaching.

  The following Monday, shoulders back, excuses at the ready, Alex had returned to work to find Amelia in a locked meeting with Monty. It was the beginning of many. It was the beginning of the end.

  The axis of evil had turned into an arrow and it was aimed at her head.

  “So?” Monty asked her now, perhaps for the second time. “Last Friday, Amelia must have known she was going away and wanted you to cover for her, did you ever think of that? You are the deputy, Alex. Maybe she wanted you in here on Saturday to tell you where she was going. But you didn’t give her the chance.”

  Alex shrugged, like it didn’t matter and said, “It’s not my fault she took off.”

  But the way her eyes slithered away suggested otherwise.

  TOM

  Tom was racing to make the school bell but missed it by ten minutes. It might as well have been ten hours by the look the principal gave him.

  “He went home with his cousins,” she said.

  You useless lump, came the silent echo. He nodded, thanked her and returned to his truck. By the time he got home, he had practised his excuse. “Bloody boss made me drop off a load of gravel, son. Got lost trying to find the place. Sorry, mate.”

  What else was he going to say? I’ve been out at Grant’s place, sinking beers, drowning my sorrows.

  Fortunately, Phil didn’t demand any answers. Didn’t even bother to look up as he bounced on his cousins’ trampoline with three of Harry’s kids, all pelting into each other, Scarlett watching on.

  “I’m happy to bring him home from school, Tom,” Scarlett said, her tone civil. “Besides, it’s the least I can do—Pandanus and Jarrah are squatting in your sandpit as we speak. It’s in much better shape than ours, that’s for sure.”

  Tom had to hide his frown. He hated when her brood came over at the best of times, but what could he do? Demand they pack up their buckets and piss off? Besides, Phil hadn’t used the sandpit all year. Practically lived there once, smashing his rusty Tonka trucks through the sand or climbing the old fig tree that hung over it like a pergola. Amy adored that fig, called it the Avatar tree, and she wasn’t wrong. It was an enormous, sprawling monster.

  “Anyway,” Scarlett continued, watching the kids jump, “Amy would want me to look out for Phil while she’s…” She turned to catch his eye. “Where exactly is she, Tommo?”

  He went to shrug, thought better of it and tried to swallow back a painful lump in his throat. “I… I don’t know, Scar. I don’t bloody know.”

  “Then why are you telling everyone she’s at her mum’s place or on some stupid bloody holiday?”

  “What else should I say? She’s left me? She’s left Phil?”

  “Yes, if that’s the truth!”

  “But I don’t know… I don’t…”

  She followed his eyes to where Phil was now performing a precarious somersault. Amy would tell him to be careful. He just watched.

  “You have no idea where she went, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, Tommo! Something could have happened to her! Something really bad.”

  “Don’t even say it, Scar, don’t even think it.”

  “Somebody’s got to! You can’t ignore this.” She reached out and touched his arm, then dropped her hand back quickly. “You have to call Geoff in. You have to make it official.”

  He looked at her, uncertainty in his eyes.

  “She could be in trouble, Tommo. She could be somewhere out there, hurt.” Then seeing his eyes fill with tears, she said more gently, “Just go and speak to Geoff. I’ll look after Phil. Come on, he won’t bite.”

  Tom nodded more certainly this time. He knew she was right, but it wasn’t Geoff he was afraid of. It was the brutal truth. Of his marriage. Of Amy’s despair. Of the quicksand that was their life.

  ***

  Geoffrey Pinter might be the local chief of police, a superintendent no less, but Tom first knew him as Pimply Pinter then just Pinter then as his best mate, and he tried to remember that as he stepped into the police station late that afternoon to answer some “friendly questions.”

  Friendly fire more like.

  “Thanks for coming in, mate,” Geoff said, his tone also light, like he, too, had history on his mind. “Just settling the horses, you know how it is?”

  “You calling Scarlett a horse, Geoffrey? Or are you referring to Polly?”

  The other man smiled, pretending that was a joke. “So. Amy.”

  “So. Amy,” Tom repeated.

  “Just for the record, can you tell me when you last saw your wife? Exactly?”

  “Sunday night.”

  Well, that wasn’t very exact. “Can you give me a time, please?”

  “Dunno.” He rubbed at the orange bristle on his chin. “Let me think… She’d put Phil to bed—not that he needs putting to bed, mind, but she did an
yway, always does. Kissed him like he was still five.” Tom smiled now. He loved that about Amy, reminded him of his own mother. “So that was around nineish, give or take. Phil always complained, reckoned all his friends went to bed later, usual stuff. Um, I’d been watching telly but headed out the back to the shed—”

  “Doing?”

  “Bit of this, bit of that.” Then as Geoff’s stare hardened, he added, “I’ve been working on a birthday present for Amy, if you must know, a jewellery tree.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s stupid.” He blushed. “Just a wooden thing, looks like a miniature tree, lots of branches coming out to hang your earrings and necklaces and shit. She wanted one.” He smiled wanly. “She saw one in that overpriced excuse for a gift shop, you know, the one in the arcade? I told her I could make one bigger and better. And I did. Well, nearly. Not going to bother finishing it now.” He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Why wouldn’t you finish it?”

  Tom frowned. “Would you give someone a present for walking out on you?”

  Geoff leaned back in his seat. “Okay, we’re getting off track here. I’m still a bit hazy. So she was putting Phil to bed, you went to your shed, what happened next?”

  “No idea.” Another stare. “Seriously. I’m as confused as you are. I came back in around eleven, eleven thirty. Amy wasn’t in the living room. I assumed she was in bed, but she wasn’t there either, so I assumed she was up in her writing cabin. Another thing I built for her.” More wasted energy.

  “That’s a lot of assumptions. So does Amy normally go to her writing cabin that late?” Tom shrugged. “So what happened next?”

  “Next thing I know Phil’s waking me in the morning asking where his mum is.”

  “She never came to bed that night? Sunday night?”

  He shrugged again, then thought better of it. He said, “It looked to me like her side of the bed had been slept in. The covers were down a bit, and her pillow was on the floor.”

  This had Geoff interested. “So what do you think happened?”

  “I think she came in late, had a bad night’s sleep—”

  “Hang on, how did you not notice her come to bed?”

  “I sleep like a tank, mate. Amy sleeps like a baby—you know, a newborn who wakes every hour.”

  He nodded. “Okay, so she came to bed and…?”

  “I reckon she got up early, packed a bag and pissed off.”

  “For no reason?”

  He shrugged again. “I’m sure she has her reasons; I just don’t know what they are.”

  Geoff watched him for a few minutes. It was all very strange. He said, “I spoke to Mr and Mrs Malone this morning.”

  Tom said nothing.

  “Why d’you lie to me, mate? Why d’you say she was there?”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “You said your wife was at her folks’ place.”

  “I said I thought she was there. Thought. Assumed.”

  “You’re big on assumptions aren’t you?”

  “Hey, I don’t know about you, Geoff, but when you’re not expecting your wife to clear out, you don’t automatically think the worst. You head straight for the simplest solution.” The kindest solution he could have said. “She goes there every few months, I just joined the dots. So, what did they say? Her folks.”

  “They haven’t heard anything. Not since you called and broke the news. They have a theory of their own, but I want to hear what you think now, what do you assume?”

  “I told you before, I honestly don’t know. But if I had to put a bet on it, I’d say Amy’s booked herself in some quiet little B & B somewhere and will be back by the weekend.”

  Geoff nodded. Amy’s parents thought the same. It had placated him somewhat. The mother, Beryl, insisted that Amy mentioned wanting a break, was planning a solo journey somewhere, but insisted she never really elaborated. “Wanted to find herself” the father had added, his tone denoting how frivolous he thought that idea. Neither parent suspected Tom of foul play, said he could be curt when he wanted to be but was genuinely loving, genuinely loyal. “Too loyal sometimes,” Ron had thrown in, as though his daughter somehow didn’t deserve it.

  Geoff sat forward in his chair and locked eyes on Tom. “Sadly for you, Tom, we can’t work off assumptions, not when there’re lives at stake.”

  “She’s fine! I know she is!” Or perhaps that was wishful thinking. He frowned, trying to think. “Look, Amy said something… there was something I saw, something about a holiday…” Evidence. He was sure of it.

  “Okay, so assuming you’re correct and she did go on some mystery holiday, any idea where? Is there a favourite place? Somewhere out of mobile phone range perhaps?”

  “Nowhere I can think of.” Damn it.

  “Does she normally up and leave? Just walk out on Phil like that?”

  “Walked out on me too, mate!” Tom rubbed two hands across his head and tried to calm down. “No, she doesn’t. Like I said, she usually went to her folks in Sydney when she wanted some time out, so that’s why I thought she was there. She liked it there, liked the luxury. Got a little tired of our old shack, the dunny out the back.” He looked away lest Geoff see the shame in his eyes. “Who can blame her, really?”

  You probably can. Geoff kept that to himself.

  “Okay, so we know she didn’t run back to her parents’ luxurious indoor facilities, which begs the questions: Why did she leave this time, and where did she go?”

  “I’ve been wracking my brain. I just don’t know. She’s coming up to another birthday, maybe that’s been playing on her mind. Things have been busy at work for me, perhaps I wasn’t giving her enough attention. You know how it is? You have a wife, right?”

  Geoff stared at him hard again. Tom knew the answer to that question better than anyone. Hadn’t they fought over his wife, Jenny, once? Hadn’t that marked the end of their friendship, mostly because Geoff had won the battle and Tom was a poor loser? Geoff tapped at his forehead as though erasing the thought, trying to remain professional. “I need to clarify, mate. Did you and Amy have a fight? Is everything okay with the marriage?”

  Now it was Tom’s turn to stare. “Taken up marriage counselling have ya, Geoff?”

  “It’s a simple question. Did you have a fight before she took off on this mystery holiday? Is that why you stormed off to your shed and she went up to the cabin? You can tell me, it’s no big—”

  “No!” He took a deep breath, rubbed his head again. “That’s what’s so bloody baffling about it all. We’d been good lately. I mean, I know she missed her old life, her career, her family, but I honestly thought she was settled.”

  “Did she take any clothes? A bag? Her mobile?”

  He grimaced. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “I have tried calling her,” he said, “but there’s no answer.” He wondered suddenly if they could track the phone. “She’s probably booked into a hotel somewhere to blow off some steam.”

  “We’ve checked all the hotels.”

  “In the whole damn country?”

  He was snapping now, and Geoff was not in the mood for it. “Hey, I’m trying to locate your wife. Amy is now officially a missing person. She hasn’t called you, she hasn’t called her family, it’s frankly worrying.” He took a breath. “Did she have a passport?”

  “She had one, but it’d be expired by now.”

  “We’ll check that.”

  He scooped a pen from the table and scribbled something on a pad in front of him. He also wanted to check with the local stationmaster. Geoff already knew there was an express train to Sydney that departed Shepperdin around five each weekday morning and went every hour until eleven. She could easily have walked the thirty minutes it took to reach the station from her house and jumped aboard first thing Monday morning with very little fuss and no one but a few dairy cows to see her go.

  He threw the pen back on the table. “I have to say, Tom, none of this has filled me with any confidence, and I’m n
ot waiting until the weekend. If Amy’s not back by the morning, if no one’s heard from her, I’m coming to the house. You are going to have to let me look around.”

  “Come! Look! But what would be the point? You think she’s hiding in a cupboard or something?”

  Geoff did not respond but it soon clicked.

  “You think I hurt her? Is that what this is about? You think you’re gonna find her chopped up into little pieces in the bathtub?”

  “Of course I don’t think that.”

  But plenty of others did, and Geoff wondered about that now. Despite their teenage friendship or maybe because of it, he wasn’t Thomas Wilson’s biggest fan, but he wasn’t baying for blood either, not like some.

  He recalled his conversation with Jenny over bacon and eggs that morning, how outraged she was by the accusations floating about. Mostly schoolyard gossip, of course, although she was taking it to heart.

  “Prissy Miss Polly thinks Tom’s batting well above his average, never deserved Amy,” Jenny had said, and Geoff realised she had taken that as a criticism of her own dalliance with the bloke. “And Scarlett reckons he’s been acting strange for days, but she won’t elaborate.” She tutted. “You can’t just say stuff and then not back it up.”

  Geoff agreed with her and with them. While it was true the younger Wilson boy had married up, it didn’t make him guilty of anything other than being a lucky bastard. And even though Tom could be secretive and grumpy and hold a grudge like no other, Geoff didn’t honestly believe that he would hurt his wife.

  Amy’s parents didn’t either. And that alone had filled him with hope.

  For all his faults, Tom was a good husband, attentive and loving, like he knew he’d scored well and was trying hard to live up. Geoff didn’t know what that jewellery tree was all about, but it didn’t suggest a man who wanted to get rid of his wife.

  “Just call me if you hear anything, okay? I’ll get the gossips off your case.”

  “Thanks,” Tom managed as he went to get up.

  “And one other thing.” Tom turned, eyes wide. “If there’s no sign of her by midday tomorrow, I’m taking it all up a notch.”