by C. A. Larmer
I think of Monty and I’m so glad she did not drown. She has already booked her flight and will be coming to join me, to meet my boy, Effie’s boy, and Nicholas’s too. She gets two weeks’ grace before throwing herself into the career she should have had years ago. Willow couldn’t be happier; she’s getting the best designer in the company. I’m not sure what will happen to the others. I’ve put in a good word for them all, especially Alex. She deserves the top job, but Monty tells me she’s not sure she wants it. Is considering her family. That would have shocked me once. Angered me even. Now I know what nonsense I spouted, how manipulative I have been. How smart Alex was all along. And how lucky she is to have such a devoted man like Tony to have her back, to have the courage to show up at my place one morning and stand up to a bully like me.
Oh, I’m not completely contrite. I did save the magazine. Gerry told me that over a boozy lunch several times. It was one more bad sales report away from being shut down. And I know I gave Alex the chance of a lifetime and kept Brianna on when the lazy slacker deserved to be sacked. But that’s why I kept Brianna—because she had absolutely no ambition, and it made me feel safe.
And God I needed to feel safe back then.
But Monty had ambition and I do feel bad about that and about allowing her to take my guilt as her own. We might mock our naivety on the ferry that day, but we were grown-ups. Both twenty. Old enough to know better, old enough to own our own decisions. Even if she had jumped off the ferry and chased me down, I would have told her that. I would have laughed her away and kept walking towards my Greek guy.
The stranger who was less dangerous than the friend sitting across from me.
We only lasted two days, Aki and I, and then we realised our folly. We had so little in common, nothing to talk about. The lust was not enough to sustain us. So we smoked fake cigarettes in the early morning mist and shared one last kiss before I was to catch the red-eye on to Santorini.
We kissed. He smiled. He walked away.
I was getting back on the ferry. That’s the irony! I was heading back to Monty and to Angus and ultimately to my rapist. But he came for me first. I think he would have hurt me no matter where I’d ended up.
I saw Thomas’s eyes in his apartment that Friday before I left Eve. I saw the evil that Artemis speaks of, and so did Monty, and I am so dreadfully sorry. She told me about his assault during our last phone call, and it cut me to the core. If I had spoken up before I fled the country, if I had not been in such a stupid hurry, I might have spared her that.
I shiver and glance towards Nico, who is kicking a ball with Theo. My son. My beautiful, beautiful boy with his twinkling green eyes and floppy brown fringe and curiosity towards me, not anger or ill will. That, alone, fills me with hope. But I won’t be performing any more coups, don’t worry about that. It is not my place to march in and oust the old brigade. I have to tiptoe through their lives, hope to be involved, expect nothing.
I watch them for a while and wonder why I ever panicked. I no longer see any of Thomas in Theo. Sure, his hair has a reddish tinge, his shoulders already broadening, but he is so clearly his own person, fast evolving into his own man.
And I remember that question, the question that started all this: What is love and can it be trusted?
When it comes to my child I already know the answer. As for Nicholas Xydis? Time alone will tell. I don’t yet know if this is love or lust or will even last the summer, but I also know it doesn’t matter because finally I am asking. Finally I am moving past the bitterness and the cynicism and the fear.
I’m opening myself to love again, and isn’t that what really matters?
Effie has offered me a job at the Delfy—she wants some time out—but I haven’t accepted yet. I know my mother would be delighted—she wants me anywhere but Eve—but can I seriously downshift so dramatically? Switch smoothly from my publishing career to managing a hotel, bar and restaurant? Am I even capable of it? Again, time will tell and maybe Nico and Theo who are watching me now as I watch them, smiling, waving me across. Come, that wave says. Come play.
“Not a chance!” I yell back. I haven’t played in a very long while.
Baby steps, boys, baby steps, please.
Later that evening, as I snuggle into Nico’s chest, listening to him snore and marvelling at the beauty of watching someone you love sleep—no wonder Alex wanted to stay in bed on weekends!—I think about that day on the ferry, of the choices that I made.
And didn’t make.
I wonder what would have happened if I had not followed the Greek stranger and had simply stayed on the deck, in Angus’s lap. Would we have ended up together? Or would he have let me down like Thomas warned me he would that first night we met? I didn’t realise it at the time, I thought he was just being a disloyal friend, but it wasn’t Angus he was warning me about. It was himself.
“Chicks always fall for Angus first,” he’d told us while his mate was fetching drinks in that smoky Roman bar. “But they soon learn, he’s a flake. He never lasts the distance; always moving on to the next one. He only really cares about money.”
He’d laughed and Monty had laughed along, calling him a jealous bastard, but when he spoke again it was my eyes he was beseeching.
“I’m in it for the long haul,” he continued, his voice barely a whisper. “When I take a fancy to you, I’m in it for life.”
I shiver at the memory and of what might have been, and for the first time in thirteen years I know that getting off the ferry was the right choice and it wasn’t just because it created Theo.
Despite everything, I can’t help thinking I made a lucky escape.
Then I snuggle deeper into my Greek man and I finally stop wondering, What if?
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Acknowledgements
Firstly, I’d like to thank my old school buddy Virginia Knight for strapping on her backpack and travelling through Europe with me all those years ago. It was during that journey—on a gusty Greek ferry—that the seeds for this story were first planted.
I’d also like to thank my twin sisters, Simone and Michelle, who read an early draft and advised so carefully and oh so kindly, as well as my editor and cheerleader Annie Sarac, my beloved reader Elaine Rivers, and family and friends who always have my back. Special thanks to Christian, Peter, Dianne, Michael, James, Debra, Antony, Morgana, Elaine, Lou, Steve, Tara, Nadine, Mandy, John, Louise, Bette, David and Poppy Jean. Thanks, too, to Sophie Hamley for setting me on this path.
And finally, thank you, dear readers, for your encouragement and support. Without you, my stories would never see the light.
About the Author
Christina (C.A.) Larmer is a journalist, editor, indie publisher and teacher, and the author of more than a dozen books including the award-winning Agatha Christie Book Club series, the popular Ghostwriter Mysteries and the non-fiction book A Measure of Papua New Guinea (Focus; 2008).
Christina grew up in the Pacific, spent time working in London, Los Angeles and New York, and now lives with her musician husband and two sons in the Byron Bay hinterland of Northern NSW, Australia.
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Other books by C.A. Larmer
The Agatha Christie Book Club
Murder on the Orient (SS): Agatha Christie Book Club 2
Evil Under The Stars: Agatha Christie Book Club 3
The Ghostwriter Mystery series
Killer Twist (Book 1)
A Plot to Die For (Book 2)
Last Writes (Book 3)
Dying Words (Book 4)
Words Can Kill (Book 5)
A Note Before Dying (Book 6)
Posthumous Mystery series
Do Not Go Gentle
Do Not Go Alone
&nbs
p; PLUS
An Island Lost
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