After the Ferry

by C. A. Larmer

  Brianna thought about that for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to her. She cheered up enormously.

  “Great idea, sir. I’m onto it.”

  “Good. And, er, what’s your name again?

  “Brianna, sir.”

  “Right, Anna, just let us know how you go. This is a major worry. It could be disastrous.”

  “Oh I agree, sir, we’re all—”

  “We’re due at a Revlon lunch at one”—he interrupted—“and if she’s not found by then, we can kiss the account goodbye.” And with that the line went dead.

  Brianna grinned. It was the longest conversation she’d ever had with Eve’s formidable publisher Gerry Henderson, and despite the tone, she had thoroughly enjoyed herself. He was a midsized man with an enormous, peppery moustache and a nose so mottled it looked like a pincushion, but that didn’t matter a jot. The guy was a publishing dynamo with a direct line to Rupert Murdoch. He oozed charisma, helped in part by the power he wielded over twenty of Australia’s top-selling magazines. It brought a constant stream of flirtatious females to his door, from the editors to the marketing department. He was even rumoured to have dallied with a few, despite a chiselled trophy wife at home, but Brianna doubted Amelia had ever come close. She didn’t have the mettle for that.

  Brianna grabbed her faux Gucci handbag and stood up. She needed to get to Amelia’s house; Gerry was relying on her. Glancing around, she realised the entire office was staring at her, and she thought that she would burst. It was amazing the power that had shifted to her shoulders in a matter of one day. It was as though she, the measly editorial assistant, held the key to the very survival of Eve.

  That’s when Alex Jones decided to pounce. The deputy editor leapt from her chair and dashed across.

  “Gerry hassling you?”

  Brianna nodded.

  Alex drew her into Amelia’s office and closed the glass door. “What are we going to do?”

  “He wants me to check out Amelia’s house.”

  “Exactly what I was going to suggest. Just switch your phone to… er…”—she glanced around the office outside—“…to Melissa’s. She can cover your calls.”

  Alex flung the door open and called out. “Mel, you’re on phone duty. But if Gerry calls—or Amelia for that matter—put them straight through to me, you hear? No one else.”

  A young redhead waved from the other end of the office. “What about any calls that come in for Amelia? Do you want to take them too?”

  “God, no,” Alex replied. “Just take a message. It’s not rocket science, Melissa. I’m sure you can handle it.” She turned back to Brianna. “Get going, but don’t take too long. And if you find her, call me, okay? Not Gerry. Me first. I’m in charge now.”

  Brianna wedged her lips into a smile and leant across to Amelia’s phone. She punched in a few numbers, diverting the line to the feature writer, and then picked up her bag again.

  Well, what a surprise. It hadn’t taken long for her power to be usurped.

  Amelia’s house was a one-hundred-year-old semidetached in the upmarket Sydney suburb of Rose Bay. It had been freshly renovated with an ornate garden planted at the front, but none of that changed the fact that it was a pokey, draughty place. Not even its two-million-dollar price tag could hide that. Brianna had been here several times before, usually in the middle of the day to pick up something Amelia had inadvertently left behind—cover mock-ups, invoices, her dry cleaning would you believe! But she had never been here chasing down the woman herself. It wasn’t necessary. Until yesterday, Amelia had not taken so much as a sick day. Rumour had it she hadn’t had a day off since she started at the magazine more than a decade ago. She certainly hadn’t taken time out to find herself a hubby or have a child. The very notion left Brianna snickering.

  Amelia Malone lived and breathed Eve magazine, which is why her absence was so oddly compelling.

  She rang the doorbell long and hard, then hammered on the door for a good minute before smudging her nose up to the front window. There was no movement inside. She glanced about. Yesterday’s mail was still in the letterbox out the front, soggy from the overnight rain, and she didn’t bother retrieving it, simply turned on her heel and left, her smile now wide.

  TOM

  The man with the ginger-coloured beard and the large leathery hands waited at the gate of Shepperdin Primary School for his son to emerge. There were women everywhere, as always, but Thomas Wilson kept his distance, sensing their sympathy. Not wanting any of it. No, it wasn’t sympathy yet; just curiosity at this stage. The sympathy would come, he knew, followed quickly by accusations from some. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

  Damn. There’s that busybody chick again. Polly, was that her name? The one who bustles about bossing everyone in sight as though she’s running a multinational corporation when all she’s in charge of is the measly parent-student committee. The P&C they called it, something like that.

  He showed up at one meeting, a few years back, offered to cook sausages for some fund-raising thing or another. Never again. Several of the single mums hit on him, as subtle as sledgehammers, causing a ruckus with the missus. He kept his distance after that, but he couldn’t stay away today, or yesterday for that matter. Millie had seen to that.

  In fact, before this week, he hadn’t shown up at the school in months. Avoided the place at all costs, with its stern-faced teachers and mothers who wore their superiority with tight smiles. He spotted a few dads, but most just rushed past with their heads down and their shoulders hunched to retrieve their progeny and vanish again before anyone could ask them to mow the lawn or drive the kids to another bloody excursion.

  How many excursions did kids need?

  He thought of Phil and felt a rush of relief. High school next year, thank Christ. At least there they let you off the hook, for the most part. They’re just happy if you get the kid to school at all, preferably not stoned. And with his mother gone, Phil has been desperate to go to school, as though being around the house was a reminder of all that went before. Of the deathly silence that led to her vanishing.

  Screaming he could cope with, accusations, anger. But the silence had been deafening, chilling even.

  If only there was a note. Some kind of explanation.

  He heard a “Yoo-hoo!” and looked up. Jesus, Bossy Sox was coming over.

  He turned away, pretending to be engrossed in something along the fence line. Too late, she was upon him, her eyebrows lifting, her head held slightly to one side in that “Do you remember me?” way.

  And then she said it: “Hi Tom, do you remember me? I’m Polly Wildermon, a good friend of Amy’s.”

  She was using Millie’s new moniker. Well, not new exactly. Amelia had shed the nickname ‘Millie’ years earlier, when she first settled in Shepperdin, choosing the shorter, sharper ‘Amy’ instead. Tom liked it. It was less fussy, less foolish. A bit like himself.

  He turned back, now thinking, You’re no friend of my wife’s.

  “Is Amy okay? We haven’t seen her for a few days and Toby mentioned something—”

  “She’s fine, thanks, Polly. Thanks for asking.” He tried to offer her a confident smile but was sure he hadn’t pulled it off.

  “Oh, okay. Great!”

  Polly reached out and rubbed one of his shoulders. It felt intrusive, but a few mums were watching and he didn’t want to shake her off.

  She got the gist, though, and dropped her hand. “Please tell that beautiful wife of yours that we’d love to see her at the hall this arvo if she’s around. Yolanda’s running her hatha yoga class. Be right up her alley.”

  “Yep, sure.”

  She smiled, paused, looked like she had more to say but ended with, “Take care of that boy, hey?”

  “Of course.” One of us has to.

  Tom spotted his son and watched him, mesmerised for a moment. Phil had a mop of floppy wet-brown curls and twinkling green eyes like his mother and was slapping his palm against his head, grinning at some
thing his mate Zachai was saying. Zac ended with a roar of laughter, then noticed his mum and kept laughing as he ran off to join her while Phil twisted his head around, looking this way and that.

  When he locked eyes with his dad, his grin dissolved.

  Tom sighed and headed towards him.

  SARISI

  A distant roar woke the woman from her sleep, and it took a few moments to work out where she was and why her body felt like it had morphed into a pretzel.

  Ah, Greece. That’s right.

  She stretched her neck to one side and then to the other and tried to stand but found one leg had forgotten its purpose and refused to work. The other was crossed over it, clearly blocking the circulation, and she slowly straightened it out and looked around. It was still quite chilly, but a little sunlight was poking through a persistent cloud, and she was starting to sweat under the coat she must have put back on at some stage of the morning. She pulled it off as the roaring intensified.

  There was a mechanical cough, a splutter and a whoosh as a motorbike came flying around the bend and up towards the woman at breakneck pace. That got her uncooperative leg working. She leapt up and out of the way as the rider came to a smoky halt, half a metre from her feet. The bikie wasn’t wearing a helmet, and his oversized mirrored sunglasses could not mask the shock on his face.

  “Sorry, sorry!” he was yelling. “I no see you!”

  She dusted herself off and managed a smile. “Don’t worry,” she said stiffly. “I’m fine.”

  He pushed the sunnies up into his cropped, receding hairline and stared at her like she was a mirage, his scruffy eyebrows scrunched together incredulously. Leaning the bike to one side, he applied the stand and lumbered off. Well into his thirties, forty perhaps, the man had a chiselled goatee, a short, trunk-like body covered in lurid orange jeans and a denim jacket, and an enormous crooked nose that suggested one too many brawls.

  “You come this morning?”

  She nodded. “Flew into Santorini last night, got the early ferry across.”

  He looked awestruck. “The 1:25 a.m. Blue Star to Piraeus?” He chuckled. “Nobody get this ferry. Is too early! Only mad dogs and English man. You mad dog or English?”

  “Australian.”

  He nodded as if that was basically the same thing. “You want bed?” The look of scepticism was still in place.

  She frowned.

  “Hostel no open, sorry.” He was pulling a cluster of keys from his jacket and striding towards the front door as he spoke. “Season no start.”

  She grappled for her things and followed.

  “But where’s Sister Agnetha?”

  He glanced back at her. “Your sister?”

  “No, Sister Agnetha. The head nun.”

  He snorted. “No nuns! You see.”

  As he said it, he unlocked the heavy wooden door, then used both hands to shove it inwards and open. There was a loud creak followed by a burst of icy air that rushed out to greet them. He waved the woman through, and at first she hesitated, glancing into the cavernous room before stepping across the stone threshold.

  And she did indeed see.

  The place had changed considerably since she was there last. Oh not the bones, not the structure—arched corridors still led in various directions, stone slabs still occupied the floor, uneven and worn down—but everything else was missing. The enormous wooden crosses that once adorned the walls had vanished. So, too, the chipped statue of Mary holding baby Jesus that once stood in the centre of the room, blocking the path of anyone who dared to whiz past. A most inconvenient position, she remembered, and as deliberate as a Stop sign. She could not recall how many times she nearly toppled it over in her youthful haste, a daily reminder of what was important, or so Agnetha said. The statue was gone, of course, and it was now an open thoroughfare adorned with a shaggy red carpet that looked straight out of an IKEA catalogue. Priorities had certainly changed.

  But worse than that, so much worse, the place had been whitewashed. Literally. Every wall had been plastered up and repainted a dazzling Santorini white where crumbling brown bricks once sat ticking off time. Her heart dropped further.

  This was not how it was supposed to be.

  The man was busy flicking on lights and opening shutters, oblivious to the disappointment that tasted like sour milk in the woman’s mouth. He made his way across to a varnished wooden reception desk and then reached around behind a large desktop computer.

  As it chimed its way to life, the woman cleared her throat. The hotelier glanced up as if surprised she was still there and then back at his screen. She stepped across.

  “This used to be a convent, am I right?”

  He looked up again. “Yes, looong time ago.”

  Thirteen years, she thought. Just a heartbeat.

  “You come before, to Sarisi?” he asked.

  She nodded, adding, “Also a long time ago.”

  He seemed happy to hear that and waved a pudgy hand about. “Is changed, yes?”

  Yes, she thought. Too much. “So do you know where they went? The nuns?”

  The man shrugged. He had no idea, and why would he? By Greek terms, Kostas was a newcomer to the island, moved here four years ago, seeking work and an escape from his father’s shoelace store in Athens. Of all things, he had thought, even as a young child, shoelaces! The shop was below street level, down a poky set of stairs into a darkened hovel of a space. And customers—mostly shoe shop owners needing to restock or local men wanting to gossip—would scuttle down at all hours to chat with his dad or barter for a better deal. It bored young Kostas senseless and embarrassed him too.

  I mean, shoelaces! Really?

  He swore when he was a man he’d get away, do something more important with his life. Yet it took him twenty years to work up the courage. But that was another story.

  As for the nuns? Yes, there were nuns here once, but apart from the creepy paraphernalia they’d left behind—paraphernalia he had worked hard to exhume—it meant little to him. He’d never given them much thought until now.

  Until she had shown up.

  “Do they have a new convent here, or did they go back to Athens?” the woman pressed, sounding both desperate and demoralised.

  “Sorry, Miss, I know nothing about nuns. They you friends, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, you speak to Effie.”

  The woman looked at him, stunned and silent.

  “My friend Effie. She know.”

  He reached below the desk and returned with a printout of a map. He thumped it on the bench in front of her and stabbed a finger in the centre.

  “We here, yes? You follow this road, back to town, to Casa Delfino. Down on—”

  “I know the Delfy.”

  She even knew its nickname, and this surprised him too. “Okay, good!” He took the map back. “You talk to Effie. She give you good room. You stay with her. Tell her Kostas send you.”

  The woman’s features had hardened, and she was looking about. “So this is a hostel, am I right?”

  “Yeeees.” His tone said no.

  “Then I’d like to stay here.”

  She wasn’t asking, her tone steely, her eyebrows wedged together.

  “Tonight?” She nodded. “We no open; you stay at Casa Delfino. Is good! Clean rooms. Hot water.” Then he looked her over, taking in the silk shirt and pearl drop earrings, and added, “Is good for you, yes?”

  “No, I’d like to stay here.” Then, more gently, she added, “Please.”

  The manager was bewildered.

  “Please,” she said again. “I’ve come a very long way.”

  He sighed dramatically. “Okay, okay, is your lucky day!” It would be cash in his pocket. He would charge her double. “You want look?”

  “No.” She reached for her purse and produced a credit card and several red and green notes that Kostas vaguely recognised. “I only have Australian dollars. You can exchange some for me?”

  He considered thi
s. In six weeks’ time the place would be swarming with boisterous Aussie backpackers—courtesy of their recent admission into Lonely Planet’s Guide to Greece—so he knew he could off-load them eventually. He reached under the desk, located a fresh guestbook and opened it.

  “Name and passport, please.”

  The woman rifled through her bag, retrieved a blue document and handed it across.

  Opening it, he flipped a few pages then frowned. “You Am-eel-ea Mar-loney?”

  “Amelia Malone.” She corrected him. “But please, just call me Millie.”

  “Millie.” He nodded. Yes, better. “Okay, Millie, I take copy. I give back, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  As he finished taking her details and exchanged some cash, the woman realised she must look a shambles and scraped thin fingers through her long, wavy hair. Where the stolen beanie had got to, she could not say. Eventually she gave up and pulled the whole lot into a knot on the top of her head, securing it with a black band she had around her wrist, then foraged through her bag again, this time looking for lip gloss. As she smothered it on, Kostas kept sneaking bemused glances her way.

  She wasn’t bad-looking, he thought. Bit bony for his tastes, but nothing a steady diet of moussaka couldn’t fix. Pity about the crazed look in her eyes. Effie had that look from time to time.

  When he was done, he plucked some keys from a board behind him and led her through the reception to a narrow, stone staircase. He was feeling optimistic, suspected she would change her mind the second she saw the rooms, or at least he hoped she would. He was still supposed to be on holidays, for goodness’ sake!

  “Okay, my name Kostas. I do bed for forty Euro a night. Yes?” She nodded. “We have sheet, blanket, pillow. No towel.” He turned back to the woman. “You got towel?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t worry, I get you towel.” He shook his head. Typical tourist. Lonely Planet must have left that bit out. He stopped at the first-floor landing and was making his way towards a closed wooden door when the woman cleared her throat.

  “I’d prefer upstairs, thanks.”

  He swung back. “Upstairs? Dormitory upstairs.” He turned to continue walking. “This single room is better.”