The Years That Followed

by Catherine Dunne

  And then her father’s hand was on her shoulder. “You are my daughter,” he’d said, almost as though he had heard her. His voice was quiet, but Imogen immediately understood his meaning, although she pretended not to.

  “What?” she said, backing away from the porthole as if she’d been stung.

  “You are my daughter,” Alexandros repeated, “and you will behave in an appropriate manner. I see how you look at him. I will not have it.”

  Imogen had slammed her way into her cabin, locking the door behind her. She’d refused to come out for hours. When she did, it was to her father’s repeated mantra of his duty; his authority; her safety and security above all else.

  “Good morning, Karolis,” Imogen says now, her voice friendly, cheerful. “All done?”

  “Yes, Miss Imogen, everything is ready. I charged the fridge battery last night and put the food away. The icepacks are frozen, and the drinks are in the second cabin—use the blue coolboxes first, then the red.” He flicks the butt of his cigarette into the water. Imogen feels a shivery thrill at the gesture. Karolis is so grown-up. Sexy. “Mr. Alexandros and Madam Sandra will be here within the hour.”

  Imogen looks at him. She can feel the way her mouth has opened, and she closes it again quickly. “What did you say?”

  “Your father called the office,” Karolis says. He looks puzzled, as though this, surely, is information Imogen must already have. “He told my father to put supplies on board for the three of you, that you had had a change of plan?”

  Imogen says nothing. She does not acknowledge the interrogative lift at the end of Karolis’s sentence. I have not had a change of anything, she fumes. Anger towards her father vies with what Aiya María-Luisa calls “breeding.” And Imogen remembers her father’s warning about loyalty: never, ever discuss family business in front of servants or employees.

  Loyalty.

  Fuck loyalty, Imogen thinks. Fuck it.

  Fury makes tears spring to her eyes. Omiros is away, taking part in a junior regatta; Sandra is supposed to be in Athens. This was to be Imogen’s day in charge of the Cassandra, under the supervision of her father. Skipper for the day, he’d promised her. You are more than ready. I’ve taught you all that I know.

  “That’s fine, thank you,” Imogen says to Karolis now.

  “Do you need any help at all on board?” he asks.

  Imogen can hear the hope in his voice. She hesitates, but only for an instant. “Thanks, Karolis, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  His smile collapses. “Of course,” Karolis says. “I understand.” He nods abruptly. “It would not be appropriate.” He touches two fingers to the imaginary peak of the cap he is not wearing—an ironic salute, a mock-servile gesture—and then he’s gone, walking briskly away from her up the jetty. He does not turn back.

  Imogen watches his departure, dismayed. She wants to call out, but she doesn’t know what to say. She wishes she could just walk away from this: from the yacht, from the prospect of her father and his wife for twenty-four hours. From her life.

  She climbs on board and opens the hatch in the forward cabin. The heat is stifling. It will be so much better once they get under way. Karolis has left clean sheets and pillowslips on the double berth, and Imogen ignores them.

  Let Sandra make her own bed.

  She crosses to her cabin and throws her rucksack onto the top bunk. Quickly, she pulls off her shorts and T-shirt. She’ll sunbathe in her bikini while she waits for the two of them to arrive. And if Alexandros objects, he can just go to hell.

  He can take the Cassandra out of the marina himself today. Imogen has no intention of sharing the cockpit with her father and Sandra while they fawn all over each other.

  Sitting up at the bow is the part Imogen loves best. Particularly once they get under way. The heat disappears; the breeze ruffles and cools; the engine noise makes conversation impossible.

  She scrambles up to the bow, taking her book with her. She has maybe twenty minutes’ peace before they arrive.

  * * *

  Imogen hears voices, sees the dip and swell of the jetty as Alexandros and Sandra approach. She hears her stepmother’s high, clear laughter and her father’s deeper tone underneath.

  She looks up. Alexandros waves. Imogen does not wave back. He says something to Sandra out of the side of his mouth, and they both laugh.

  “You ready to take her out?” Alexandros asks Imogen as he reaches the yacht and helps Sandra on board. He’s looking pleased with himself.

  “I’d rather you did it,” she says without lifting her eyes from her book. Her tone is cold. “The marina is very crowded today.”

  “You’re more than capable,” Alexandros begins. Imogen raises her eyes to his and sees the way Sandra quickly touches her father’s arm. He stops. “Well, if you’re sure that’s what you want,” he says, his voice conciliatory.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Gosh, it’s hot,” Sandra says. She fans herself with her ridiculous straw hat. Her freckled skin is already pink. “I’m going to have a beer. Imogen, would you like one?”

  Why not? Imogen thinks. Why not take advantage of the situation? “Thanks,” she says, reaching back as her father’s wife hands her a bottle from the coolbox.

  Sandra thinks giving her a beer is a big deal; Imogen is amused at her stepmother’s attempt to be cool.

  If only she knew.

  * * *

  Imogen’s mood begins to improve as they reach the open water. She already knows where her father will slow down, knows the exact spot where he will cut the engine, the time when he will expect her to unfurl the sails. This knowledge, this unchanging routine makes something rebellious stir inside her: Imogen’s familiar, bitter longing to make her life her own, to make it different from the one that has shaped itself around her.

  As the bow rises and falls, Imogen thinks of her mother, of her mother’s life. She resolves that this is the last time she will come sailing with her father and his English wife, the last time she will be treated as a child. She is not one to be bought off with spurious reassurances of adulthood. Sandra can keep her bottles of beer and her phony gestures of equality.

  Somehow, Imogen will escape. Somehow she will get herself to London and to Calista. She is at last sixteen, and she knows how to be cunning. She’ll take the time to plan her getaway; but get away she will. Imogen feels a surge of triumph, followed by a sense of relief so powerful that it feels like an assault.

  She is trapped only by her own acquiescence.

  A realization has been reached, a decision made.

  Is there any greater freedom than that?

  * * *

  Imogen looks down over the side, down into deep water that is turquoise in its clarity. Small waves begin to slap at the sides of the Cassandra. The yacht turns lazily on its anchor. But the breeze is beginning to strengthen; you could set your watch by it in this part of the world. Always at around three in the afternoon, the wind gathers force around the island. This makes Imogen happy; they will have an exhilarating sail to the harbor.

  Over lunch, Imogen makes an effort to be polite, to show interest in her father’s plans for the evening, once they dock. She doesn’t really care what they do later on, or where Alexandros intends to treat them to dinner. Her earlier decision makes her feel calm and resolute and grown-up. She feels that she can tolerate whatever her father does today.

  Alexandros drains his bottle of beer, stands up, stretches, and yawns.

  “I’m going to lie down for an hour or so,” he says. “We’ll give the breeze the chance to strengthen a bit; then we’ll be on our way.” He turns to Sandra, much too casually. “Coming, my love?”

  Imogen thinks she’ll throw up. He’s so transparent.

  Sandra hesitates. Imogen turns away, but not before she sees Sandra’s moue of embarrassment. She senses, rather
than sees, her father’s shrug. Without a word, Sandra gets up and follows Alexandros into the forward cabin.

  Disgusting, Imogen thinks. They’re just so disgusting, both of them.

  When the cabin door closes, Imogen sits back in the padded seat of the cockpit, shaded from the intensity of the sun. She no longer has any intention of sitting up on the bow; no intention of feeling herself surrounded by her father’s grunts and her stepmother’s high-pitched cries.

  Soundlessly, Imogen reaches for another beer. She has her own secret stash under her bunk. She’ll use it to replace the cold ones that she intends to drink, one after the other, until her father reappears.

  * * *

  When Alexandros emerges, Imogen has already heard the crackle of radio static from below. “There’s a bit of a blow coming,” he says. “It’s almost upon us. Time to test your skills.” And he grins at her. There is no sign of Sandra.

  “How much of a blow?” she asks.

  Even as she speaks, Imogen hears the snap of canvas: a taut, angry sound. It is the skipper’s duty, always, to check the weather in advance. Alexandros has taught her this, but Imogen holds her tongue. Her father will take no hint of criticism, particularly in the presence of his precious wife.

  “Nothing you and I can’t handle,” he says. But he moves with speed towards the bow.

  Imogen watches as Alexandros raises the anchor. The chain comes up from the deep, rattling its way into the housing with an aggressive screech of steel. It’s as though it’s reluctant to be disturbed. Alexandros noses the bow into the wind. There is an unaccustomed urgency to each of his movements.

  All at once, the rigging begins to sound as though it is struggling to break free, the metal zinging and slapping against the aluminium mast.

  Imogen feels the familiar thrust of excitement as the wind gusts from the west.

  “Ready?” Alexandros calls.

  “Ready,” she shouts.

  Alexandros grins again and gives her a thumbs-up. “That’s my girl!”

  But this is no ordinary afternoon. This is not something to be harnessed by exhilarated sailors bent on the pleasures of running before the wind.

  Instead, Imogen sees a storm racing across the water. She sees a gray, angry god churning the docile surface of the waves as it blasts its way towards them from the west. The yacht begins to buck and heave; the wind attacks from all sides. The rain comes in torrents.

  Imogen spots Sandra’s terrified face at the cabin door. The spray begins to lash the deck, wild and sharp and stinging. Sandra is screaming for Alexandros to come to her.

  And then there is a moment of calm. Imogen has no idea where it has come from. There is an abrupt, eerie stillness. The spray seethes back off the deck, fingering its way over the side, disappearing into the white waves below. Imogen feels an abrupt rush of nausea. She wishes she hadn’t drunk so much beer.

  “Jackets, Sandra!” Alexandros is shouting. “Throw us up the life jackets!” But Sandra cannot move. She screams something at Alexandros, but the wind whips the words from her mouth.

  Alexandros is gesticulating wildly now. Imogen can see that he wants to tell her something, but she cannot hear—she cannot make out what he wants from her. The yacht heels over at an acute, sudden angle. Alexandros waves his arms. Imogen is aware of a sudden commotion behind her—has something happened to Sandra?

  “. . . come about!” she hears at last.

  But she’s not ready to come about. She’s not quick enough. As she starts to turn, something hard cracks against the side of her head. It stuns her for a moment, and pain blinds her. Imogen feels knocked sideways; something has furied all the breath out of her body. The boom, she thinks in surprise. I’ve been hit by the boom.

  The knowledge feels hazy, interesting but detached, as though it is all happening to someone else.

  As she plunges into the water below, Imogen realizes she has had this feeling before. This feeling of pitching downwards, of having all her insides scooped out, of having her heart-place wounded beyond repair.

  She is aware of shouts somewhere above her. Of voices that rumble and shrill, shredding the air somewhere just out of her reach.

  All Imogen can feel is how quickly she is falling, falling, falling into that deep and dark and dreaming space just before sleep. Soon she will jolt awake, and this will be over.

  Nighttime shapes, sinister and darting, move around her.

  Imogen sees her mother in the kitchen, light shining behind her, Monkey at her feet. He’s wearing his new jacket and his smart new bow tie.

  She sees Aiya, warning her about something, but she cannot understand what she’s saying.

  Her eyes can just discern the outline of a shadowy country: a map with which she is unfamiliar. But Imogen knows where London is. She is sure that she can sail there, on her own, as she once navigated the swelling seas to Troy.

  Imogen reaches out one hand to touch the city. But the image recedes; it becomes watery and distant.

  Instead, Imogen sees, floating in front of her face, a pale, white hand.

  Her hand.

  Darkness comes.

  calista

  Limassol, 1983

  * * *

  Calista sees Alexandros’s ravaged face. Eyes that are raw with weeping.

  She cannot look away from the white coffin. Its surface is hidden by a calamity of red roses, poppies, anemones.

  Imogen’s body rests within. She waits, just below the altar.

  * * *

  At the house, Petros is weeping. Calista watches Alexandros. Her eyes never leave his face. There is something in his expression that she cannot read.

  She waits, as people come to her and speak words.

  * * *

  Sometime late in the afternoon, Calista says: “What happened? Tell me again what happened.”

  Alexandros sighs. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse with emotion. “There was a storm. It came at us out of the blue.”

  Calista sees the way his eyes flicker. She catches the glance that passes between him and his wife. She sees Sandra, watching.

  “But you’ve handled storms before,” Calista says. “You pride yourself on your seamanship. I’ve heard your stories so many times.” Her voice is even, controlled.

  Alexandros weeps. He wipes away the tears with one hand. “She wasn’t quick enough when we were coming about. The boom knocked her overboard. She would have been unconscious.” He weeps again, his last words almost pleading with her.

  Calista waits for him to compose himself. “Was she wearing her life jacket?”

  Then she sees Sandra flinch; sees the look that she casts in her husband’s direction. A look like a stone.

  The room has gone quiet. Calista is aware of Petros watching her. His face is distraught. But she will not stop.

  “What about the weather forecast, Alexandros? Haven’t you always taught the children to check the weather, no matter where they’re going?”

  Nobody moves.

  Calista feels Sandra’s eyes on her. She turns quickly and sees guilt in those polite, blue, duplicitous eyes.

  Suddenly, Calista understands. “You were fucking! You didn’t know because you were fucking!”

  Petros has struggled into standing. He places one hand on Calista’s elbow. She shrugs him off roughly. She screams at Alexandros: “You should have watched out for your daughter, protected her! You should have done your duty as a father!”

  And she flies at him. Her fists punch the base of his throat. Alexandros gasps, reeling away from her. Sandra runs to his side, shrieking. Calista sobs. Somewhere in front of her, she sees Yiannis’s horrified face. He makes his way towards her, his arms outstretched. She can see his lips move but cannot hear anything he says. The sound of her own weeping is loud in her ears.

  Before they take her away, she sees Om
iros across the room. She sees the way her son looks at her, sees the way he watches Yiannis.

  And then everything becomes the darkness.

  * * *

  Old Dr. Simon is by her side. Dimly, Calista is aware of his soothing voice. She feels the needle piercing flesh, and gratefully she sinks into the darkness again, to Imogen. To the darkness where Imogen lies.

  * * *

  When Calista dreams, she sees her daughter. Her lovely daughter, changed into a deer, all grace and elegance. She is escaping. Fleeing the darkness.

  Fleeing the light.

  * * *

  Calista wakes. Yiannis comes to help her dress. She sees the shock in his eyes. She glances towards the bedroom mirror.

  “My hair,” she says. “Look at my hair.”

  She touches its steely surface, her hand full of wonder.

  pilar

  Madrid, 1983

  * * *

  Florencia is back.

  How young she looks, Pilar thinks. And beautiful. But she’s tougher than Pilar remembers. Much tougher.

  “This is the way it has to be, Pilar. This family may not have told the child he’s adopted. Or the child himself—now a teenager, of course—he may not wish to meet the woman who gave birth to him.”

  Pilar flinches.

  “There are so many sensitive issues that must be taken into consideration. I know you’re disappointed, but you must trust me.” Florencia pauses. “I might have acted differently some years back, but Antonio and I have learned a lot in Lima.” She looks at Pilar, her gaze steady, unyielding. “This is how it has to be.”

  Pilar nods. “I understand.” Disappointment engulfs her. She sees hope slipping away, sneaking out through a back door she hadn’t even realized was open.