Jesus, where the bloody hell are you, Annie?
At least my appearance had improved: I was respectably dressed in a newly purchased blue Oxford button-down, chinos, a brown leather-weave belt and desert boots, having consigned the remnants of my island attire to the bin. The stubble had gone but my hair still had a whiff of Boris Johnson about it. Suitably dressed, I felt more confident when, as promised, I fronted the media again on the front steps of the hotel. They were pissed off that Annie was not there, but then so was I. There was nothing really new to tell them so, after I denied having anything to do with any drug smuggling and posed for a few pictures, I retreated to the hotel bar.
Annie had made me swear on the hotel bible that I would call my parents to tell them I was safe. She said the story was bound to be all over the Aussie papers so they would be worried. I wasn’t so sure about that but I called them anyway. To my surprise, my mother became quite tearful and I had to promise her I would visit them as soon as I got back.
Next I called my agent, Drusilla Gottlieb. And, once I had stopped the flow of foul expletives that rained down on me, I explained why the promised book wasn’t ready yet. I told her everything: the drugs, my breakdown and Rehab Island. And I told her about Annie and our escape. And how I had loved and lost her. I explained that I had put the original story I’d been developing to one side and was now working on a different one – an epic love story set against the background of modern-day piracy in South East Asia.
After a short pause, she said: ‘You know what, darling? I fucking love it! Tom Hanks’ new movie is about Somalian pirates so your story will be very topical. And it has all the ingredients: pirates and plunder plus violence and sex. Just make sure there’s plenty of steamy sex in it all right?’ Dru was even happier when I said I could finish it in just four months if I got my head down. We agreed to meet in Sydney as soon as I was allowed to leave Indonesia.
Over lunch the following day, Hennessy told me unofficially that ‘Mrs G’ had been staying in a different hotel in the city, but after being issued with a temporary passport, she had gone back to Oz that same morning. He said the cops had warned her that she might have to return in due course to ‘help them with their inquiries’. They had said the same thing to me, of course. But Hennessy reckoned the case wouldn’t go anywhere until the police found Budiman so it was unlikely I would have to come back anytime soon. He was shocked when I told him of my violent encounter with the pirate. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, ‘you do live an exciting life.’
‘Mate, I am looking forward to a quieter one as soon as they give me my bloody passport back.’
Finally, after two more days, I was told I could leave if I wanted. Did I want to? You bet I did! I picked up my passport, paid one last visit to the dock to finalise The Scoop’s trip home with Super and say goodbye to Wagga before heading for the airport.
76
ANNIE HAD chosen St Andrew’s Cathedral, a gothic pile next to the Sydney Town Hall, for Martin’s memorial service. It was mid-January and Sydney was sweltering in the summer heat. It had been over a week since she had left Jakarta. She had chosen St Andrew’s partly because she thought its proximity to Martin’s old office would help encourage his former colleagues to attend. Besides, Martin would have appreciated the grand gesture: a cathedral, no less.
A few people had already arrived, mostly men in dark business suits, as she sat down in the front pew looking up at the great east window with its magnificent stained-glass panels. Rays of blue, red, purple and yellow light spilled across the marble tiled floor of the chancel. She gazed around at the comforting solidness of the nave, the soaring sandstone arches, and the carved, ribboned pillars that rose majestically to the blue and vermilion roof above. She breathed in through her nostrils – a glorious smell that reminded her of Sunday church outings with her family back home. I feel more at peace here than I have in a while, she thought.
Martin’s boss, Ian Fitzgibbon, sat down beside her. He was younger and smaller than expected. He has a boyish face, she thought. Neat, clean hands. He was clearly uncomfortable. No wonder, Annie thought bitterly. What do you say to a woman whose husband has been brutally murdered by pirates and thrown into the sea in South East Asia? ‘Sorry for your loss’ doesn’t really cut it, does it? Nevertheless, she was grateful not to be sitting alone and turned to exchange a few pleasantries with him.
Moments later, the minister appeared on the steps of the chancel and he nodded to her as he turned to face the sparse congregation. Touching briefly on the tragic circumstances of Martin Greenwood’s passing, he uttered a few platitudes about the Englishman having been born and brought up as a Christian. A man of faith, he said, who had now gone to his reward. Then the minister nodded to Annie and announced that Martin’s ‘devoted wife’ would like to say a few words.
She stood up and walked to the chancel, where a large framed photograph of Martin sat on a wooden easel. She turned back nervously to face the audience. The natural gloom of the long, narrow nave was lifted slightly by the glass-coloured rays of the late morning. About half-a-dozen rows on either side of the main aisle were filled, mainly by suited men with some serious-looking women dotted here and there. Just Martin’s banking colleagues and a few other mutual friends. Not nearly enough people to fill the cathedral. Most people looked as if they wanted to be somewhere else. Making money, she supposed. They’d probably been dragooned by Fitzgibbon to show up and wave the flag. However, Annie was pleased to see that Stuart Wooldridge from the embassy in Jakarta had turned up. He had been a tower of strength to her back there.
With a clenched stomach and constricted throat, she looked down at her notes to begin her eulogy when she heard the sound of heavy, leather-soled footsteps from the back of the nave. She looked up and saw a familiar tall, blond figure. Her heart lurched. It was Jonno, looking lean and tanned, his blond thatch combed into a semblance of neatness. He was wearing a tailored charcoal suit, crisp white shirt and dark tie and looked impossibly handsome.
A mosaic of images of him flashed in her mind: on the island, on The Scoop, at the police station. Above all, in the hotel room. His brilliant smile, his brown shoulders, his strength. But here in front of her was not the large, shaggy surfer dude in board shorts she remembered in tortured dreams. Instead, there was a sheen, a smoothness about him that she had not seen before as he took a seat towards the back of the congregation.
Momentarily thrown off balance, she coughed into her fist before reading out her carefully penned lines about the man to whom she had been married, all the time thinking about the man in the back pew. Just seeing him had made her blush. She still could not believe that she could have been with a man in that way so soon after her ordeal. Yet, and she could not explain why, it had felt right, almost a relief, to be in the arms of a man who she knew respected her, loved her unconditionally and had demonstrated more than once that he would even die for her. But I am so messed up, she thought, I can’t work out how I really feel about him.
After the service I hung about outside the cathedral while Annie thanked the minister and arranged to meet some of Martin’s colleagues for a drink at the Belvedere Hotel around the corner. When she finally appeared, I was standing in the shade of a nearby jacaranda tree in the Town Hall Square. I gave her a careful hug, thinking she looked exquisite in her simple black dress and high heels. She accepted my embrace but I noticed she didn’t hug me back. Tension tightened her pallid face.
‘Jonno. I didn’t expect you. How did you even know the service was on?’
‘Hennessy. I’ve kept in touch with him, and his British counterpart must have told him.’
‘Well, thanks for coming, but it wasn’t necessary. You didn’t know Martin.’
‘I didn’t come for him. I came here to show my support for you. I’ve missed you, Annie. I’ve really missed you. How are you?’
‘Well, you know, it hasn’t been easy. But thank God it’s almost all over. I’ve said I’ll meet up with Dani’s folks but
after that I’m going home.’
‘Home? As in England?’
‘Yes. I need to see my family. As you can imagine, they have been going out of their minds with worry. Besides, you and I both know that I need professional help. I am still having nightmares, flashbacks to the, you know, the beach. Panic attacks. I wake up crying. My mother knows of a good pyschotherapist I can see back there.’
‘But surely I can help—’
‘No, Jonno, you can’t!’
We were both surprised by the force of her reaction.
Annie let out a long breath. ‘The only feelings I have right now are anger and fear. And a sense of helplessness. I hate it. And you know what the real problem is?’
I shook my head.
She came closer, put her hands on my shoulders and sighed. ‘You are the problem, Jonno, you remind me of what happened – the whole sorry, sordid nightmare on that island. I’m sorry, it’s not your fault but I just can’t be around you right now. That’s why I need to go home.’
Thin tears suddenly appeared on her face. Her glistening green eyes briefly locked onto mine and then she was walking briskly away along George Street.
77
COUNTRY SONGS do not do it justice. Back in Nashville, Wes Dreyfus might disagree with that but now I knew what heartbreak really meant. It meant feeling like shit most of the time. Just like when I heard Percy had died: sick, numb, empty. Ironically, I had followed Percy’s advice and found a good lassie . . . then she walked out on me. It broke my heart that I might never see her again. In Wes’s world it would be enough to drive a man to drink or drugs, I thought wryly. But I had been down that road once and there was not a skerrick of doubt in my mind that I would never be tempted again.
I had taken a three-month rental lease on a great place in the Finger Wharf building in Woolloomooloo, less than two kilometres from Sydney’s CBD. It was also relatively close to the Rose Bay marina, where I planned to berth The Scoop when Super brought her back. The apartment building also had a row of fantastic ground-floor restaurants. I did not plan to have any time for cooking.
Looking out of the wall-to-wall bedroom window I could see the hulking grey slabs of the warships parked next door in the naval yard. They reminded me of the patrol boat that had rescued Annie and I from the pirates.
I met up with my agent the day after I got back from Jakarta. Drusilla Gottlieb was fifty-two, tiny, Jewish and voluptuous – a force of nature. She was wearing her standard Dru uniform – a sharp black pantsuit and bright red, ‘fuck me’ stilettos that matched the colour of her hair dye. At first she feigned outrage that I had avoided her calls and failed to deliver the book I had promised. But when I apologised for my bad behaviour, she gave me a hug, her arms barely making it all the way around my stomach, her head resting on my lower chest. Then she looked up at me intently with her shrewd grey eyes.
‘Well, you certainly look good, Jonno. Swashbuckling obviously agrees with you. But, mon petit, do I detect a certain tristesse? Anything to do with that gorgeous lady I saw you with in the papers? The one you allegedly saved from the clutches of those naughty pirates?’
I laughed. Dru took very few things seriously apart from books and money. ‘Sadly, Annie – that’s her name – has to go back to the UK for now. But you’ll be glad to hear that that’s a blessing in disguise: I’ll be able to work harder and faster without the distraction.’
‘I like the sound of that. And this pirate book – when did you say you can produce it?’
‘How does a hundred days sound?’ I waited for her shocked reaction. That was an incredibly short time for a substantial piece of fiction.
‘Are you fucking serious? The publishers will be ecstatic. But how is that possible? I don’t want you churning out some piece of shit just to please those bastards.’
I smiled as I remembered something Annie had said: ‘You tabloid guys are good at writing fiction, aren’t you?’ I assured Dru it was doable: the material was, of course, still fresh in my mind and I was working on the book night and day.
Once she had gone, barking down her iPhone at some poor secretary and already plotting how to finesse potential film rights and negotiate another screenplay, I got back to work.
78
THE WAITING room was just as Annie had imagined it: floral watercolours, beige carpet, two or three wooden chairs with fabric seats and a pine coffee table with new magazines. The psychologist was not what she had imagined, however. She was tall, in her forties, long straight black hair tied back in a youthful ponytail, stylishly dressed in a silk top and loose pants, gold sandals on her feet, her face striking, with flinty cheekbones and clever eyes. Her voice had a soft Irish lilt to it.
‘Hello, you must be Annie Greenwood. I’m Dr Madeleine McCabe. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You can call me Maddy.’ She smiled gently and clasped both Annie’s hands in her own. ‘Please come into my room.’
Unlike the waiting room, Dr McCabe’s consulting room exuded taste and warmth, with subtle striped wallpaper and comfortable armchairs in a deep red and gold fabric. Subdued lighting, rich red silk rugs and a vase of fresh roses provided a soft, welcoming touch. Annie was surprised not to see a chaise longue or some other couch in the room. Dr McCabe, as if reading her mind, asked her to sit on one of the plush armchairs while she took another. ‘I like to look people in the eye when we are talking,’ she said.
‘Now Mrs Greenwood – can I call you Annie? I want to tell you from the outset that anything we discuss today or at any time during treatment is completely confidential.’
Annie nodded that she understood. Her mother had recommended Dr McCabe. Earlier, in a couple of emotionally charged chats at the kitchen table, fuelled by gallons of pinot gris, Annie had opened up to her mum about the whole story, although she had stopped short of mentioning the rape.
The flight home had been a nightmare. The memorial service and, more particularly, that last meeting with Jonno had drained her energy and sapped her spirit. On the plane she had come crashing down. A series of flashbacks flickered through her bruised brain as if on a film loop, silent tears running continuously down her cheeks.
Finally, exhaustion had kicked in and she’d managed a short, tortured sleep on the second leg before arriving at Heathrow. There she had walked like a zombie through the gauntlet of immigration, baggage carousels and Customs. Then, finally, she’d collapsed, weeping, into her parents’ arms.
Now, sitting opposite Dr McCabe, Annie was nervous about a stranger probing her mind, rummaging around in her subconscious like a thief in her panty drawer.
Sitting back in the armchair, eyes closed, hands clenched in her lap, her ankles tightly crossed, Annie began at the beginning: November, Singapore.
Ninety minutes seemed to go by in a heartbeat. Outside the window, the street lamp penetrated the cold, brittle darkness of a British winter evening as Annie disgorged the whole story, every heart-wringing, gut-wrenching syllable forced out like an exorcist expelling a foul demon. Often she wept, her voice faltering as she came to particularly grisly details of the story, including the sexual assault.
Her voice dropped to a whisper: ‘I feel incredible guilt that Dani got the worst of it. Maybe I could have done more to help her. She was in such pain, her screams . . .’
Annie’s eyes opened and she felt as if she had come from a faraway place. She took a drink of water, her throat sore from the hot, hard words that had poured out of her.
‘Well, God bless you, Annie, you certainly have had a rough time of it,’ Dr McCabe said, her soft Irish accent emphasising her deep-felt sympathy. ‘And you say you have not spoken about the fact you were raped until now? What a terrible burden to carry.’
Annie nodded. ‘Actually, the man I mentioned, Jonno, I’m sure he knows what happened but we never really talked about it properly. My decision.’
‘It was good that he was able to provide comfort after what you endured. Perhaps we can talk more about your relationship with him the next time
we meet. One question before we finish: have you seen a doctor?’
Annie’s face showed her puzzlement. ‘You’re a doctor.’
‘Yes, but I deal with the mind and there might be physical issues associated with the attack. Injury to tissue or internal organs, for example. Or an STD. It is usual in these circumstances for the victim to undergo a full medical examination. I see from your face that you have not. Annie, I strongly urge you to see someone. As soon as possible.’
To her relief, Annie found her twice-weekly sessions with Dr McCabe hugely beneficial. She could tell that Dr Maddy was deeply touched by her suffering and clearly admired the courage she showed in facing up to it.
The psychologist’s voice was gloriously soft and mellifluous but she could be equally hard, pushing and prodding Annie to confront her issues and deal with them. She reinforced Annie’s firm belief that she deserved no blame or shame. Nothing she had done had contributed to what happened to her. It had been a tragic case of wrong place, wrong time both for her and the other victims. Nevertheless she felt guilt. Guilt that she had survived while the others had not; guilt about Dani, and guilt about her lack of love for Martin.
Dr McCabe had quickly established that Annie was suffering a combination of post-traumatic stress disorder and rape trauma syndrome.
‘But I thought the trauma thing was more to do with soldiers in battle and shell shock, that kind of thing?’ said Annie.
‘Anyone exposed to a traumatic event, such as a car crash, street violence, sexual assault, warfare, or even something like the loss of a loved one, can experience it. You qualify on several counts. And you have had many of the usual symptoms, including flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety and depression.
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