The house that Michael and Helena had built in Orchard Road had morphed slowly over three decades, constrained by money and fluctuating enthusiasm. Mature trees now formed an unassuming hedge to hide the façade, and concrete blocks enclosed the rows of unsymmetrical wooden stilts to provide the lower level with some cover from the elements. A concrete floor buried the playing field where young boys had once raced miniature cars in the dirt, and mud when it rained.
Carl stopped halfway up the back stairs to survey the backyard. The lopsided clothesline had never been the same since Matthew’s rotation on it in a homemade harness courtesy of William. In the distance, the hillside, which was the wilderness back then, was a sea of shiny iron and tiled roofs.
As usual, the backdoor was open, and Carl stepped inside with a shiver. The house had an aura about it that evoked emotion even if one did not know its history. The walls did it mostly, covered as they were in photos—split seconds of perfection captured to mold future memories. The albums provided a more focused immersion into images of an idyllic past that contrasted with reality, and this is where one could reliably find Helena.
“This is my favorite,” she said, pointing at the portrait of four children in a row, book-ended by a parent. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best with beaming faces for the camera. In the bottom left corner of the photo, the photographer had captured a brown ear, Basil, the source of the smiles.
Helena had other favorites: of her with her father at the mill, of William and Brian, especially those taken when the boys were young enough to say cheese and laugh with it. The albums were her life, but to Carl, remembrance was like injecting poison into withered veins.
In those final hours before Carl and Ethan were to drive away, Helena’s stoic pretense of the previous two months dissolved. And while the furniture van was already southbound, the bungalow tenanted, and jobs confirmed, Carl still had no idea how she would leave, but they did. Walter’s presence in the frame did not help.
The drive emphasized that a distance grew, and only a discussion on where they might live in Sydney brought Carl’s face outside of a tissue. They would buy a townhouse in the inner west, close to the city so Carl could walk to work in George Street via Darling Harbor for breakfast.
“You missed the turn,” she said as Ethan passed the northern entrance into Port Macquarie, their first overnight stop.
“We’re making a detour for a little wine tasting,” he said with a smile.
“I could certainly use a drink,” she whispered.
“That’s the spirit, Carl.”
They passed through a forest with hundreds of flowering rose bushes, flame trees, and jacarandas, and pulled up not far from the Cassegrain Winery’s Cellar Door.
“Your recovery starts now,” he said. “Let’s go!”
The first counter they approached offered samplings of white wines. Ethan swirled, sniffed, sipped, and spat, as instructed, while Carl swallowed every mouthful.
“This one has passionfruit pulp, green apples, and lime zest with lemon sherbert,” said Carl, reading a label. “Sounds healthy.”
“You’ll like this one,” said Ethan moving onto the reds. “Ripe blood plums, vanilla bean, and espresso mingled with earthy tones of mocha and blackberry. The palate is rich and ripe, with fine-grained tannins wrapped around a core of mulberries, licorice, and dark chocolate.”
“That’s a complete meal right there in that bottle. I don’t know why people say alcohol is bad for you.”
They progressed through the rest of the cellar, and Ethan decided on six cases of premium wines despite the absence of space in the boot of their car.
“72 bottles?” she asked.
“He was a nice old man,” said Ethan. “It’s sad to see old people having to work like that. He looked tired.”
“He’s probably the owner and a multi-millionaire, and besides, he probably enjoys being useful.”
“You’re probably right. Let’s get some food, and roll about on the lawn for a while.”
They headed back to the Cellar Door to buy a crusty farmer’s loaf, cheeses, olives, and nuts then settled on the lawns in the winery’s rose garden. Carl opened the additional bottle of chilled chardonnay, and sipped several times before referring to the label.
“This youthful wine has a lemon color with a vibrant green hue. Its aroma is rich and intense showing green nectarines, grapefruit and honeydew melon with a lashing of lemon zest,” she read, sipped and continued. “The palate has a lively core of white-fleshed peaches, figs and honey nougat, and a lengthy mineral finish.” She sipped again and shook her head. “I can’t taste any of that.”
“Carl, you have to swirl the wine around the glass like this to release the aromas.” Ethan demonstrated.
“I don’t think I need to know the origins of the wine. It’s not going to make any difference to my enjoyment of it.”
“And that’s why I bought 72 bottles,” he replied. “Ready for Rydges?”
“Rydges? We’re not staying at Rydges. We can’t afford Rydges.”
“We are, and we can.”
“We’re supposed to be saving to buy a townhouse, remember?”
“Well, we might not get back this way again, so we should make the most of it.”
Carl sighed.
“It feels like a champagne and lobster night, to celebrate our new adventure.”
“We’ll be lucky if we can afford a bed-sit by the time we get to Sydney.”
“That’ll do me,” said Ethan.
After spending the first week of their yet-to-be-earned wages in one night at Rydges, they set south for Newcastle at midday. Two and a half hours down the coast road, they stopped for fuel, Chicos, Jaffas, and Red Frogs. Carl waited in the car for Ethan to complete the transaction, and waited and waited, then went to investigate the delay. She found him in the cafeteria with a white ticket in his hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You’ve just had lunch.”
“It’s not for me,” he replied.
“Any more information than that?”
He took her hand, and guided her to the expanse of windows at the front of the service station. Two unkempt boys sat on a barbeque table near the roadside with rolled up blankets and a hand-written sign for Brisbane.
“They only had sixty cents for gum,” said Ethan. “And they’re very thin. They obviously need a good feed.”
“What did you order?”
“Burgers and chips, and some flavored milk, Fantales, and Minties.”
“We should give them cash as well,” said Carl.
“$50?”
“Will that be enough to get them to Brisbane?”
“I hope so. They should be able to hitch a ride. Shame we’re not going that way.”
“Yeah, like we have room.”
Ethan handed the ticket to the waiter and claimed two large brown bags.
Carl returned to the car while Ethan made the delivery, and chatted with the boys for some time as if they were friends.
“You’re a good man, Ethan Marsh,” she whispered.
Chapter Fifty
December 1997
THEIR new life required little adaptation, despite the disparity that was Maine and Sydney. They lived three miles from the city in a brand new townhouse on the banks of Orphan Creek Gully. From their balcony and across the gully, Carl could see the terrace house in Forest Lodge that she had shared with other students while at university. It had not aged well.
Each morning they set out in opposite directions, but at the end of the day they came together to exchange stories, and drink wine from the Hunter Valley. Dinner arrived in plastic containers or in a box.
Helena came to stay for the first Christmas, wearing long sleeves and upturned collars in spite of the scorching heat. When Carl saw what she tried to hide, the plan took shape—over the next two weeks, she would find a way to extricate Walter Garson from their childhood home and from her mother’s life. She wished Matthew were there
to perform the ousting, much like the one he had done for Gordon Moore. The key, Carl believed, was to help Helena find some level of self-respecting. Without it, Walter Garson had every right to feel secure with his entrenchment at Orchard Road.
The Get-Rid-Of-Walter program, GROW, would die on the vine if Helena knew Matthew was in hospital in London following four weeks in a Rwandan jail. His detention arose from subversiveness—a loud foreign voice lecturing the government on human right violations was fraught with danger, and Matthew had the scars to prove it. When Carl spoke to him by phone, he said he hoped the scars would never fade as the hatred they instilled in him just drove him on to do more. He had died in the muddy gutter where they had tossed his body with other rubbish after days of incarceration and beatings, but as he sensed his soul rising, something brought him back, and he did not know what. He laughed about it, suggesting the angels had not wanted him up there. Several others had died in the overcrowded cells because the guards had refused to open the doors to allow air to circulate in the stifling heat. They made a mistake in letting him go, Matthew said, or dumping his body more correctly, for their crimes would find a voice in his planned documentary. Much of the writing was already complete, thanks to his compulsory convalescence, and a secretarial service CNN had arranged for him. Carl could hear his anger as he spoke, but then Matthew had always been angry. Now, though, the level of angst exceeded anything she had witnessed previously. Whatever had happened to him, then and now, Matthew was strong and not at all broken like his body. He was not his mother’s son. He promised to call again on Christmas Day, and for once, he would actually be in the city he claimed albeit he was in a hospital and not a hotel.
Further Christmas complications arose, thanks to Ethan. Helena had mentioned casually by way of information only that Michael and Andréa now lived in Richmond, thirty miles to the west of their townhouse, and Ethan, not understanding that some families are distant for good reason, made contact and invited them to Christmas day lunch.
It was evident at the outset that Michael had enjoyed quite a few nerve-quelling brews before his arrival, and the diligence of Ethan’s hospitality both relaxed and heightened the palpable strain, with Andréa’s brow rising as each new can of bitter cracked open.
After lunch, Ethan proposed an excursion to see his second love, and despite a lack of enthusiasm for the idea, they crammed into the Fiat with a sober and reluctant Helena in the driver’s seat. Michael grabbed two beers to go, and they motored at a tentative pace toward Birkenhead Point Marina.
The closeness endured during the short journey ensured everyone alighted as fast as Ethan wanted, and in no time, he led the motley crew down to the water’s edge to where Eat My Wash bobbed in its berth. He owned a quarter share of the yacht, bought impulsively one cool, spring morning while they sipped coffee in the coffee shop that overlooked the marina. In the months since purchase, the four co-owners: Marcus, Joseph, Jim, and Ethan, had become the best of friends.
They all joined a sailing club, and Ethan and Joseph signed up for three courses: an introduction to sailing, Competent Crew, and a spinnaker course, then registered for a further two: the skipper’s course, and bareboat charter course. It was all part of a greater plan, not yet announced.
Mrs. Rey had always said that golfing wives were widows, and Carl realized soon enough that sailing wives were no different. There was weekend sailing, mid-week twilight racing on the harbor, and time spent tinkering with all its bits and pieces for maintenance.
Carl did not care for boats, the ocean, harbor, wind, or sails. She did not care to have her skin doused in salt so the midday sun could turn her skin into leather. She did not care for the way the craft tilted on its side, threatening to topple into the ocean as it slid across the water’s surface. But she cared that Ethan loved every minute of it, and so she resolved to learn to love sailing, and not abandon it, and Ethan, as she had done with mountain biking.
“That went well,” said Ethan, as Christmas day hobbled to a close.
Chapter Fifty-one
September 1998
ETHAN, Marcus, Joseph, and Jim met weekly to plan their great escape, and had been doing so for nigh on a year. The details were finally ready for presentation, and a meeting convened at the townhouse for the unveiling.
They gathered in the living room with wives on the sofas and husbands in the center of the room in front of charts, maps, and whiteboards, which hinted at the magnitude of the proposed adventure.
The plan was to sail across the Atlantic from the northwest coast of Africa to the West Indies in June the following year. Timing was critical to avoid hurricanes that required warm seas and calm winds to develop. They would fly directly to Agadir in Morocco then spend some time sightseeing, and provisioning the boat before crossing the Atlantic to Nassau. There was one stopover at the Canary Islands, and if the winds blew favorably, there would be time at the end to sail around the Bahamas. In all, they would be sailing for four weeks, but would have sufficient fuel to motor the whole way if calm winds stymied their plans. This was the fear no one wanted to contemplate as it amounted to defeat.
They were not asking for permission. The presentation was for information purposes only. Robyn and Karenna asked about costs, risks, and safety. Jo said four weeks was too long to have a husband away, and received no response, but continued to challenge the self-approval aspect of the scheme. Carl was just relieved her participation was not required, and had already formulated some ideas on how to spend her free time: in Maine on weekends to re-active GROW. During the week, she would devote more time volunteering at the community legal center and at Youths Off The Streets. She would miss Ethan, for sure, but would never try to stop him from living his dream.
June 2001
The great escape did not proceed as planned in June of 1999, postponed for two years because of interventions: Marcus and Robyn had a baby the first year then the Sydney Olympics in 2000 had Ethan preoccupied. By 2001, the seas were ready and so were they.
Carl started missing Ethan from their fifth wedding anniversary two months before the great escape, and she realized then that for the four hundred and seventy-six hours of his absence, she would need strategies to manage the time or it would pass more slowly.
She enrolled in two sailing courses, and planned to present Ethan with her certificates upon his return, but project B would please him most: find the baby born in the churchyard sixteen years earlier. It was important to Ethan for the child, he said, was part of their lives, and he wanted to know him.
Carl prepared a statement for the Adoption Information Unit detailing Nothing’s birth: the Baptist church, the police inquiries at school, and the newspaper reports courtesy of Olivia who still kept a shoebox of memorabilia, including the toy dog bone. Carl submitted to a DNA test and left the matter for investigation. Once her maternity was established, and that could take some time, she could apply for a Supply Authority. The child would then be informed. She did not want to think beyond that point, not without Ethan there to make it less harrowing.
The four travelers arrived in Agadir with no sign of weariness from their journey across hemispheres. They spent the first two days on the African continent discovering Agadir, the port city destroyed by an earthquake in 1960. A modern metropolis of contradiction ascended from those ruins: the streets were wide and lined by unassuming low-rise houses of Western and Arabic influence, with luxury and decay, all molded together. The air was unique and scented by pine, eucalyptus, and tamarisk whirled about on a permanent breeze off the Atlantic azure.
Their inspection of the chartered yacht, Le Maître de Votre Temps (Master of your Time), took three hours and tested the hirer’s patience. He expected them to divide the checklist amongst the four of them for expediency, but instead, they each undertook a full examination with every item checked and queried four times. Provisioning was similarly precise: food, water, fuel, very few non-essentials, and no alcohol—safety was their primary concern, at least, until
they reached the Bahamas. At the suuq of Talborjt, they bought souvenirs to commemorate their once-only adventure, as children were a priority for all of them when they returned home.
The long-range weather forecast was favorable with winds between ten and twenty-five knots—perfect sailing for their first day to La Palma in the Canary Islands. That would be their last stand on land for four weeks, a last chance to call home, and a last chance to celebrate before sobriety came into effect.
They formed two teams to rotate the four shifts each day: six hours on, six off. The night sailing was the ultimate: away from civilization the stars proliferated, the moon seemed closer and iridescent; the black was blacker, and the quiet quieter. A week out of La Palma the winds settled comfortably in the projected range.
Ethan was on watch the night the change came through when a breeze whipped itself into a flurry, upwards to thirty knots. It was of no concern—they all had plenty of experience in similar conditions. Fifty knots though, would be a different story.
When five-zero appeared on the wind gauge Ethan dropped the sails breaking personal and world records. The changed conditions woke the two sleeping crew, and all hands were on deck for the sail to the other side of the tempest.
Le Maître de Votre Temps bobbed about on the white tips like a cork. The waves, forty-five-feet higher crashed down on the bow submerging it before allowing it to re-surface. Their starry guides vanished with the moon now harbored behind clouds.
A side stay, one of four, snapped under pressure causing the mast to plunge into the maddened sea. Jim rushed in the blackness to find the bolt-cutters to sever the remaining stays so the mast could float free before the monstrous swell used it as a battering ram against the hull. He was too late. The mast pierced the hull twice below the water line making sizeable holes for water to surge inwards. Jim pressed on anyway. The once great structure that had risen above the vessel to support the weaker elements: sails, signals, rigging, and booms, lilted across the waves like a twig. The pump quit then after a valiant struggle with the motor unable to function immersed as it was in the enraged Atlantic.
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