After the Ferry

by C. A. Larmer

  “And what? You think she was so crushed she ran out and killed herself or something?”

  “No, of course not!” What a ridiculous notion! Although now that he’d said it, she wondered if that was what she had been thinking. She shook the horrendous thought away. “It’s just that I’d never told her before about Angus and me, and, well, I wondered whether she brought that up with you last Friday? Whether she was hurt by the revelation, maybe she came here to commiserate or something?”

  “Oh, Monty, Monty, Monty.” Tom was looking at her like she was a small child and a dim one at that. “Stop making this such a big deal, babe. Amelia’s taken off again. It’s what she does, right? And I’m sorry to say I have no idea where she is this time. I’m as clueless as you are. I get this bloody strange call last Thursday, a cryptic message from a ghost from my past, begging to see me. I call her the next day, text her the address, she comes over and is here for, oh, about three minutes when she turns and runs out. I mean, I know I haven’t aged well, but yikes.” He half smiled, his eyes dropping.

  He looked disappointed.

  “And you have no idea what she wanted? She never asked you about Angus and me?”

  He shook his head. “We’d barely got past pleasantries. I mean, I was curious, right? Kind of looking forward to catching up, hearing her news, and then—pfft! Vanishes down the lane. I started to wonder if I’d hallucinated the whole thing.” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Chuckled again.

  But Monty wasn’t chuckling. “Right, well, she’s vanished for good. She hasn’t been at work, hasn’t been in touch with her parents. None of us have seen her since that Friday. There was one potential sighting on Saturday but… well, you’re one of the last people to see her so—”

  He thumped his beer on the table. “You really do think I had something to do with this.”

  “No, of course not! That’s not what I’m saying. Look, sorry. I… well, I’m not explaining myself very well.”

  He stood up. “I know exactly what you’re saying. She’s taken off again and you’re trying to blame somebody other than her. This is textbook Millie. She pisses off without thinking about anybody else but herself. I know she’s your ‘bestie’ and all that crap, but she was always a selfish bitch and it sounds like that hasn’t changed.”

  Monty was shocked by the language, by the very sentiment, but he didn’t seem angry so much as bored by the whole subject. And she couldn’t blame him. As far as she knew, Tom had no idea what happened to Millie the last time she vanished, and she wasn’t about to tell him now. So she pushed her cup aside and followed him across the room and down the staircase.

  At the bottom, he swung the front door wide and turned back.

  “Maybe it’s time to stop looking at everyone else and start putting the blame where it belongs, Monty. Or, I don’t know, here’s an even better idea. Maybe it’s time to forget precious Millie and get on with your own life. Maybe it’s time to stop cleaning up after that woman, hey?”

  Monty stepped out onto the road. He was right. Of course he was right. God, why was she doing this all over again?

  “I’m sorry, Tom, if you thought…”

  He grabbed her hand, squeezed it for a second, then let it drop. It reminded her of something, of before, and she offered him a sad smile.

  “Let’s try to catch up, properly next time,” she said, and he nodded blankly at her as he closed the door.

  She knew he wouldn’t be holding his breath.

  TOM

  Tom stepped heavily as he made his way through the overgrown grass to the secluded cabin on the top part of his block, smacking the stick against the earth, warning the brown snakes and pythons he was entering their territory.

  Her territory, actually, but the undisturbed grass testified to just how often she bothered to visit. It also proved that Geoff wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. His team clearly hadn’t thought to look up here. Tom had built the place for her. Years ago. Her haven, he called it. A place for her to hide away, write, paint, or whatever she needed to do to get happy.

  Wasted energy as it turns out. Like the jewellery tree. Like the boy.

  She feigned delight when he first led her here, eyes closed, hand tiny in his.

  “So this is what you guys have been working on all this time!” she’d said. “Another shed!”

  “It’s not a bloody shed, Millie. It’s an art space. Your art space.”

  “Mine? Really?” She threw herself into his arms. “Oh my God, you’re amazing!”

  But he’d seen the slight crinkle of her brow, the twitch of her lips before she’d hidden her face in his chest. She didn’t like it, that was obvious.

  “I love it, my God, but honey, you shouldn’t have! Don’t you want it?”

  “I’ve already got a shed. I want you to have your own space.”

  “Oh, okay, wow, thanks.”

  It took another two weeks before she returned, books and paints in hand.

  Two months later she stopped pretending and continued pottering about in the sunroom at the back of the house, doing the odd painting, scribbling the odd short story.

  “I like to be near the action,” she said when he pressed her on it. “You know I have loads of washing to do, and I need to be near the phone in case Mum calls or the school. But I do love it and I’ll use it, don’t worry.”

  Creaking the door open now, thick spiderwebs pulling apart as he did so, he could see she never did. At least not recently. He swung the door wide and waited a beat, allowing any critters to find a home before he stepped inside.

  He was kicking himself for not doing this earlier. Why hadn’t he thought of this? Perhaps he was as dumb as Geoff.

  There was a desk against one wall, a wooden chair in front of it, large, distressed wooden windows above it, looking out at the towering ghost gums that were one big storm away from destroying it all anyway. On the other side was a small table, a fan, a bookshelf and a single bed now covered in dead insects and rat shit. He’d hung vintage paintings on the walls and retro light fixtures he’d taken care to find at a Trash or Treasure shop an hour’s drive away. And all for nothing. He should’ve rented it out on Airbnb.

  He noticed Amy had found time to add some books to the shelf and he stepped across. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, The Road Less Traveled, The Celestine Prophecy, and at least five books by some dude called Dyer, including You’ll See It When You Believe It. He snorted at that one.

  Yeah right. That’s all it takes. A bit of conviction and your life is rosy.

  He surveyed the bookshelf again but couldn’t see what he was looking for.

  It had to be here, there had to be something. Angus’s words kept circling through his head.

  “She wanted me to have input. She wanted me to be involved.”

  It sent molten lava through his spine, and he looked around again. There had to be some proof, something… Glancing back at the desk he spotted the drawer and pulled it open. Ants scuttled across the dust and over a few unlit tea candles, but it was otherwise empty. He glanced around again, then he saw it. The tiny drawer in the table by the bed. It was easy to miss, but he wasn’t stupid.

  He strode across, just two steps, and pulled at it. It didn’t budge. He yanked, and this time it creaked and then flew out, spilling contents as it went, and he leapt upon them, darting his eyes back to the door, his heart hammering in his chest.

  He didn’t know why he was feeling nervous, there was nobody else around, yet it felt like he was invading someone’s privacy. Her privacy in fact, and guilt tugged at his heart. Ignoring it, he picked the contents up and placed them carefully on the bed. There were old crayon drawings and more recent report cards, all belonging to Phil, as well as copies of his birth certificate and immunisation record. But beneath it all he saw it, a thick white envelope with a fancy blue logo on the front. A logo he recognised.

  His heart stopped. His head felt light. He glanced back at the door, then he reached f
or it.

  SARISI

  It was Thursday morning on Sarisi. The 11:00 a.m. ferry from Piraeus had come and gone, and Millie tried to hide her disappointment as she left the wharf and returned to the road again. She was just passing the Casa Delfino when Nicholas appeared in the courtyard, an apron around his waist, a smile on his lips, his earlier mood now forgotten.

  “She wasn’t on it?” he called out, and she shook her head.

  He threw his arms in the air. “Sorry, what can I say? I think Effie’s avoiding us!”

  Millie had a pretty good idea who Effie was avoiding, but she kept that to herself.

  “She hasn’t called?” she asked.

  “Nope. Hasn’t returned my call either. But then she wouldn’t. Not unless I’ve rung to tell her the Delfy’s on fire.” He chuckled. Had considered lighting the place up himself a few times this week. It really had been manic without her. “Don’t worry. She’s gotta be back by the weekend; that’s when Theo returns. She won’t want to miss that. Plus there is the minor matter of a hotel to run. Speaking of which…” He swallowed his reservations and asked, “Got plans for lunch? Wanna grab a table and I’ll see if I can rustle up that fish I caught this morning?”

  “No thank you,” she replied.

  His heart deflated. “Oh, okay.”

  “But if you can spare some time, I’ve got a much better idea.”

  He held his breath.

  “I was wondering,” she said, smiling bashfully, “if you’d teach me how to catch my own lunch.”

  “What? Go fishing?” She nodded, her eyes twinkling. “Sure! No worries!” Then, about to turn away he quickly added, “Don’t move an inch, I’ll be straight back!”

  Nicholas raced inside, whipping his apron off and grabbing one of the rods he kept at the door outside the kitchen. Then he ducked into the pantry to retrieve a small bag of frozen octopus and told the frowning chef, “I’ll be less than an hour! Back before the rush, I promise.”

  “Sure you will!” Pete scoffed, but he wasn’t angry. He recognised a smitten man when he saw one.

  As he returned to the road, Millie’s eyes twinkled again. “I wondered if you’d let me use one of your fancy rods.”

  “Oh you’re not getting the fancy one. I’ve got a rusty tin can and some old wire for you, my dear.”

  And she laughed like she’d never heard anything funnier.

  Millie was still laughing twenty minutes later when she’d caught her first fish, and as she sat on the rocks giggling while he released it from the hook, he said, “Who knew fishing could be so funny?”

  “Sorry,” she said, throwing a hand to her mouth. “Truth is, I was remembering this inane article I once wrote for a magazine, many moons ago.”

  “You work in magazines?”

  “Many moons ago,” she repeated. Or at least that’s how it felt. “We called the story Fishing for Mr Right.” She almost snorted. “It was all about how women shouldn’t worry, there were plenty of fish in the sea.”

  “And is there?”

  “God no! That’s just what we tell single women to make them feel better so they’ll buy the magazine.” She laughed again, but it was less convincing. “Anyway, the point is we took the theme so seriously. Had a break-out box with little fish logos and this kind of Adonis guy with a naked torso and a hook in his mouth.”

  “Eww.”

  “I know! Woeful stuff. But the point is, we were so full of crap. I don’t think any of us had ever been fishing. Couldn’t imagine us in our kitten heels ever stepping onto rocks let alone throwing a line out. The closest we came to fish was grilled snapper at the gourmet Thai restaurant down from the office.” She smiled wistfully now. “We thought we were so clever, but we were so full of crap.”

  “Ah, but not anymore! Now you’ve tried fishing. You can go back and speak with some authority.”

  Her smile faded and she looked away. She didn’t think she wanted to go back. All those years she thought that’s the life she wanted, and now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted less.

  “So tell me about this magazine of yours,” he said, sensing her slip away.

  She thought about the question as she watched him rebait the hook. It seemed a lifetime ago now.

  “It was just a stupid women’s mag, like any women’s mag.”

  “Yeah, except I’m not a woman, right? You did get that?”

  She smiled. “Right. Well, let’s see. It was jammed with all the stuff we ‘experts’ deemed essential for a woman’s life, like fashion and beauty and relationship ‘advice’.”

  She used her fingers to denote the quotation marks, and the sarcasm in her voice showed him what she thought of that. He frowned.

  “You sound like an old cynic.”

  “You did just hear my story about fishing, right?”

  He smiled. “So why are you still there?”

  “Yes, except I’m not there, right. You did get that?” She turned back with a gotcha smile and he laughed.

  “Fair enough.”

  She gave the question some thought, though, as she watched him secure the bait, then said, “I think I believed all our lies at the beginning, I really did. I thought we were doing good work and I found it so easy to justify. We’re empowering women! It’s for women by women! But it just holds women up to a standard they can’t possibly reach and worse, it pits women against each other.”

  “How so?”

  She stared at him. “Again, that story about fishing! And there were plenty more where that came from. Stories like, Drop a Dress Size by Saturday.”

  “That was a story? Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” She sighed. “It wasn’t all rubbish. We did some good stuff; there was always at least one ‘worthy’ story.”

  “Worthy story?”

  “Yeah, you know, highlighting women’s issues and inequality—what it’s like being a woman under Taliban rule or how women still retire with almost 40 percent less savings than men and what we can all do about it.”

  “That does sound worthy.”

  She glanced back at him quickly, and he held a hand up.

  “I’m being serious. They sound like good stories.”

  “And they were, but they weren’t the real reason women bought the mag even though it made them feel better and gave them an excuse for buying it.”

  He laughed again. “Bit like Playboy then. You realise men only ever buy it for the articles, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So is that what this is about then?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You finally clicked that it was crap and handed in your notice.”

  A wistful look came over her face again. “The truth is, I worked out it was crap a long time ago. I’m only just admitting it to myself now. I thought it was what I wanted, what I dreamed of doing my whole life, the thing that would make me truly happy.” She shook her head. “I’m only just realising it’s not where I want to be, not really. I got it all wrong. Everything.”

  He looked at her confused. So had she left her job recently or years ago? The woman talked in riddles, and they were way beyond his paltry brain. He lightened the tone and thrust the rod back to her saying, “So just your classic midlife crisis then?”

  “Hey, who are you calling middle-aged!” She slapped him lightly across the shoulder, then took the rod.

  “Sorry, no offence! I’m simply wondering, is this a chance to catch your breath, start afresh maybe?”

  Or are you just here fishing? He wanted to say. But he wasn’t brave enough.

  She stood up and said, “Something like that.”

  Then she made her way back to the water’s edge.

  An hour later Nicholas had forgotten all about his promise to Pete and was still squatting on the rocks below the castle watching the Sydney woman as she continued fishing. She’d taken to it like a duck to water, and it surprised the hell out of both of them. He had to choke back his own laughter every time she snagged a fish and
let out an enormous scream. Like she was shocked that it had actually worked! Like it was a revelation!

  As she threw out another line, he wondered why she was still here, in Sarisi that is. And he knew it had nothing to do with fishing, and he didn’t really think it was an early midlife crisis, or at least he hoped it wasn’t. No, he had a horrible hunch it had everything to do with Effie. She seemed a little too interested in his cousin.

  But for the moment, at least, he didn’t care. He was interested in her. Intrigued. Millie was like no one he had ever met before. The backpackers around these parts were usually pretty vacant, just out for a laugh, void of substance. And the local Greek women were generally a variation on Catalina and Effie—loud, bossy, slightly unhinged. Either that or they were like his loving sisters—loud, bossy and wanting to mother him. And hadn’t he come all this way to escape that?

  But this woman was different. There was an energy in her, an intelligence and yet there was also something slightly broken. He could sense it beneath her radiant smile and in her strange way of talking. They might speak the same language, but she spoke in riddles, evaded questions, was definitely hiding something. Perhaps Catalina was right. Perhaps he should be careful. But he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to unravel the riddle, to find out who exactly was this mysterious stranger with the galloping laugh and the sudden interest in fishing.

  And he hoped to God Effie would stay away a little longer because he had a feeling it would all come crashing down the moment his cousin returned.

  Those two had history. He was no fool, and they were fooling nobody.

  He had a hunch Millie was on a fishing expedition, but it had nothing to do with fish or, sadly for him, hooking herself a man.

  EVE

  If deadline weeks were motion pictures, thought Monty as she placed the overladen tray on the wet tabletop and watched the team snatch their respective drinks, this one would be that Kevin Costner dud Waterworld. They’d pulled it off, but it was a pretty pathetic effort, and at what cost?

  Alex was clearly thinking more along the lines of Citizen Kane and made them all toast themselves as soon as they had drinks in hand. The issue wasn’t strictly finished, someone had to rustle up an editor’s letter—they all knew who was gagging to do that—and there were still proofs to check and several layouts to tweak, not to mention the cover. Monty couldn’t even get her head around designing the cover with Alex, but the bulk of the magazine was finished, and it was a minor miracle, even by publishing standards.