Paper Chains Page 13

  Simon was reading the letter through for the fifth time. It was so out of the blue – he had assumed after their last conversation that he was never going to hear from her again. But now here was this letter – telling him she had a secret, talking crazily about scratching away layers of her skin. Asking him if he truly loved her. And what was the bit about not being sure if the next letter she sent would ‘actually make it to him’? God he wished he had a contact number for her. He needed to talk to the girl, find out what it was that was tearing her up inside. He needed to answer her questions, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. So when the phone rang, it felt like fate.

  He snatched up the receiver by his bed just knowing, knowing it would be her.

  ‘Si,’ she breathed into the phone and he felt his muscles unclench, his body relax.

  ‘India!’ he exclaimed, and he wanted to say, I knew it, I knew it would be you on the phone – but it seemed stupid and so he didn’t speak, just waited, wondering what she would say next. Wondering how he could convince her to tell him exactly where she was, how he could just be with her.

  ‘I’m leaving London,’ she said eventually.

  ‘And coming here?’ he asked, knowing the answer before the words even left his mouth.

  ‘No. Don’t know where I’ll go next. Maybe hitch a ride and head north.’

  ‘I got your letter.’

  ‘You did?’ She sounded surprised, excited.

  ‘Yeah, what’s this about having a secret then?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I thought you meant . . . I thought you’d got the next one.’

  ‘No. Only one. When did you post the next letter?’

  ‘I didn’t. I don’t like to post my letters, Simon. I like to send them out into the world and just see if they get to you. I give them to travellers and I ask them to pass them on. It’s like an international game of Chinese whispers – except the messages can’t change, because they’re there in ink, waiting to get to you.’

  That’s what she bloody well meant by wondering whether or not the letter would get to him.

  ‘India,’ he said carefully, ‘exactly how many letters have you sent to me like that?’

  There was a pause and when she spoke her voice sounded tight – maybe even embarrassed. ‘Oh, a few,’ she said. ‘Maybe nine or ten I guess.’

  ‘Are you kidding me? India, do you realise all this time I thought you’d pretty much forgotten about me? Why didn’t you just post them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Look. Why don’t you just tell me your secret? We can talk it through. Whatever it is, I can help you with it. I don’t like to think of you scratching so hard at your skin that you’re tearing it to shreds. Your skin is lovely; please don’t do that to yourself. Please, tell me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, maybe this will help. You wanted to know me? Here are the answers to your questions. My favourite movie is Crash. I love it because of that one particular scene, when the little girl jumps into her father’s arms to protect him from the gun shot and your heart jumps into your mouth and then there’s no bullet and it’s just the most beautiful moment of relief you’ve ever experienced. When I was a baby I had no hair, completely bald until I turned two; my mum was considering buying me a toupee when the first wispy curls finally appeared. I’m allergic to cut grass – so obviously that’s not my favourite smell. My favourite smell is your skin after you’ve swum in the ocean. It’s a mixture of sea-salt and gardenias. Did you know that? That your skin naturally smells like gardenias? Well, I suppose it might not be natural. I suppose there’s a chance that you wear a perfume called “Scent of a White Flower” or something like that. But now whenever I walk past the gardenias that grow on that hill above the wharf, and there’s a wind blowing in from the ocean, I find myself turning around expecting to see you there, standing behind me, smiling your huge smile.’

  He heard a muffled, tearful sounding laugh come through the receiver, but he didn’t stop talking. ‘The last time I cried was the 2006 soccer World Cup, when Gianluigi Buffon saved a goal in extra time, a save that was crucial to taking Italy to victory for the first time in twenty-four years. It was awesome. The last time I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt was when a couple of eighteen-year-old tourists drank too much on our boat and one of them fell overboard. After I stopped laughing I realised that he really couldn’t swim very well and I’ll admit, I was a little embarrassed about all the laughing as I rescued him – highly unprofessional of me. Don’t worry, he was fine – and if you’d met him and his mates, you would have laughed too. The last time I stubbed my big toe was last week. I did it on purpose against my coffee table after I read your letter, so I would have a specific time to tell you when I finally got to speak to you. Do you realise how hard it is to make yourself intentionally stub your toe? Your foot is screaming out, “No, no, why the hell do you want to do that?” And it’s exceptionally difficult to follow through, but I did it – for you.

  ‘And your most important question of all: Am I truly in love with you? Hell yes.’

  There was silence then, and for a second Simon was worried that she had hung up. But then she spoke. ‘I’m staying at The Wanderers Hostel in Earls Court,’ she said quickly, and her voice was rushed and wavering, all at the same time. And now she did hang up.

  Simon sat still on the edge of his bed, his heart thumping. It had worked; she’d finally told him the truth. He was going to be able to see her again.

  After a few minutes, he had gathered his thoughts and was ready to get moving. First he needed to figure out his travel plans. In the morning he would speak to his boss. He headed out to the local Internet café to check train timetables and to catch up on his emails before he left – hopefully as soon as possible.

  Walking into the Internet café, he was surprised as he always was by the incongruous juxtaposition of the smooth, modern Macs against the rickety old wooden tables and chairs. Charlie, the café’s owner, gave him a nod of recognition as he sat down in front of one of the Macs and Simon smiled back at him. He wondered then whether he would be returning to the Greek Islands after he met up with India. He supposed it all depended on how well their reunion went. Would she want to keep travelling – but together now? Would they go home to Australia together; maybe they could argue over Perth or Sydney? Would she consider coming back to the Greek Islands with him? Or would he end up back here on his own?

  He looked into his travel plans first, then logged into his gmail account. An email from his sister Riley caught him up on the latest family news. She was planning on flying back home in a week or two and she wanted to know when he’d be back in Sydney. Apparently it was a bit of a problem that neither of them had been back to meet their new nephew since he was born six months ago. That wasn’t really an issue he wanted to deal with just now – although he had been thinking lately of the return flight ticket to Sydney that was stashed at the back of his mind, waiting to be booked in – but he just wasn’t ready to return home to Australia. Especially not if he was about to embark on something new with India. He shot off a reply, telling Riley a little about India, explaining her quirky way of posting him letters – Riley would get a kick out of that – but he stopped short of telling her he was just about to take off for London to see her again. What if it didn’t work out? He didn’t want to look like an idiot. He finished off the email with a promise that he’d think about coming back home soon.

  Eventually he logged off and headed back to his rented room to pack, a slight spring of excitement in his step as he went.

  Poor Simon never had a chance. Even if he’d stood up and walked straight out his front door and stepped onto a plane the second that India had hung up on him, he still wouldn’t have got there in time. The problem was her stomach. The moment she’d told Simon where she was, it had begun to twist. It had started churn
ing and knotting and surely that wasn’t a good sign. So India wrote him another letter, left it with the girl at the front desk, heaved her backpack onto her shoulders and left.

  Dear Simon,

  I’m so sorry. I thought that writing you that letter was the answer. I thought that once my words were somewhere safe – that they’d landed in your hands and you’d begun to breathe them in and started thinking of something to say back – then everything would be okay.

  But what could you say really?

  Nothing.

  So I was wrong. Forgive me for running from you. For your sake I hope that my letter never does reach you. I hope that my words have been crumpled. I hope they’ve been trodden on, ripped to shreds. I hope that they have been whipped out of some traveller’s hand, that they’ve flown into the ocean, become sodden and heavy. I hope that they’ve sunk to the bottom and been swallowed by a hundred-year-old turtle named Sam.

  Love,

  India

  She took a bus that was headed north and tried hard not to feel guilty about what she was doing. After all, she hadn’t exactly told him to come and see her. She didn’t know for sure that he would even turn up. Maybe after she hung up the phone, Simon had thought to himself, ‘What is that girl on?’, shrugged his shoulders and turned on the television. Maybe he headed straight out to a club and picked up a pretty American girl and they’re still dancing together right now, grinding their hips together, with his lips brushing against her shoulder.

  But thinking about that made India want to punch the seat in front, so she stopped. In all honesty though, she knew this wasn’t the case. She knew that Simon was probably already making arrangements to come and see her – and that made her want to bang her forehead against the bus window.

  Come on, India, stop it. You’re an independent, grown woman. You don’t have to answer to anyone. No regrets.

  But her pep talk wasn’t really working, because deep down she knew that she hadn’t played fair with Simon.

  Simon was nervous. His boss was going to hate him, he was certain of that. There was no one to replace him and he felt bad about that. But he couldn’t pass up this chance to see her again. He needed to know what her secret was and to help her with it, whatever it turned out to be. He squared his shoulders before he knocked on Angelo’s office door.

  ‘Come,’ called the voice from inside.

  Simon pushed open the door and stepped into the room. ‘Angelo, we need to talk,’ began Simon.

  ‘Is about girl?’ Angelo asked in his thick Greek accent.

  ‘Yes, actually, it is,’ said Simon.

  Angelo paused as he picked up a paper cup on his desk to take a sip. A second later he spat the liquid back into the cup with a disgusted look on his face. ‘This,’ he announced, ‘is not coffee. Has been here on my desk all morning. It is ex-coffee. Blah. Cold. Now, as for Simon and his girl. I know. I see it. Your face, it’s different. All mopey, all the time. Wah, wah, why doesn’t girl like me? Go.’

  ‘Umm, excuse me?’

  ‘Go. You go and find girl. And come back happy. I give her job too.’

  ‘Really? You don’t mind if I just take off? What about the boat, how will you manage on your own?’

  Angelo shrugged. ‘These things, they work out. My wife, she is good woman. She will help. Go.’

  When Simon continued to hesitate, Angelo picked up a stapler from his desk and hurled it at him. Simon ducked and then hurried out the door before his boss could throw any more stationery at his head.

  She was in a small town just outside of Manchester when she realised something. India wanted to go home. The guilt about what she had done to Simon was making her feel lonely – lonely and homesick. And while there was no one waiting for her back at her home in Gingin, there were acquaintances, old friends who would welcome her back. It would be good to see a friendly face.

  Most surprising was just how much she missed Hannah. She hadn’t expected that. God she hoped Hannah’s reunion with her family had gone well. On an impulse she decided to write Hannah a letter, something to check in with her. As she considered what she should say, she thought back to their first meeting and an idea struck her. Smiling to herself, she realised she was going to have to do a bit of research on the Internet to pull her idea together before she could send this letter off to Hannah – she was also going to have to use up a fair chunk of her savings, but why not? She had decided she had had enough of travelling now anyway, and she wanted to do something nice for Hannah – it might help to appease her guilt over Simon.

  When she had finally pulled together all of the components for Hannah’s surprise, she hesitated over how to word the letter. In the end, she lied about where she was and how the idea had come about. For some reason she didn’t want Hannah to think of her, here in this tiny, rainy town, feeling lonely and a little lost. She wanted Hannah to think of her as some bohemian traveller, flitting around the world, continuing to make friends and hop across borders on a whim.

  After she posted the letter she headed to a local Internet café to book her last plane ticket home.

  Simon had to take a bus, a train and a boat to get himself over to London. He would have loved to have flown, he wanted to be there as quickly as possible, but his savings account didn’t have the funds to cover it just now. That’s why it was such a kick in the guts when he arrived at the Wanderers Hostel. Several backpackers were hanging around at some undercover tables out the front. Simon scanned their faces briefly as he passed by, but when he couldn’t pick out India’s face in the group, he headed on inside.

  He approached a desk where a bored looking girl in a white singlet and bright green flares was inefficiently (due to the fact that she was continuing to stay seated with her feet up on the desk in front of her) folding sheets from a laundry basket by her chair.

  ‘All right, love?’ she asked as she pretty much just balled up a fitted sheet and added it to the pile of messily folded linen.

  ‘Hi, I’m looking for someone who’s staying here. India Calder?’

  ‘You Simon then?’

  Simon nodded, a smile beginning to form on his face. The girl unceremoniously dumped the sheet she had been in the middle of folding onto the floor, leaned forward and reached under the desk. When her hand reappeared she was holding an envelope. ‘She said to give this to you if you showed up.’

  Simon’s face fell. ‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Fraid so,’ the girl replied, not unkindly. ‘If it helps, she did look sort of tortured about it,’ she added matter-of-factly. Then she returned to her sheets. Simon walked slowly back out onto the street, where he tore open the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter inside. He was angry. No, that didn’t cover it – he was pissed off. Fed up. He’d just travelled for a day and a half to get here and the bloody woman had taken off on him again. God, he was a moron.

  Never again, he thought as he crumpled the letter in his fist and headed down the street to look for a pub where he may as well drown his sorrows. Never again would he let himself fall that damn hard and that damn fast for a girl.

  Maybe it was time to just give up and go back home to Sydney after all. Maybe he was bloody sick of travelling.

  James smiled as he read the message on his Facebook account. He didn’t even know why he cared so much about this, but for some reason, he did. It felt vital that this letter make it to the right Simon, and it looked as though he’d finally received a genuine message from someone who believed they knew the right one. Someone who knew what ‘The Aella’ meant. A boat huh? He should have thought of that.

  He typed out a message to Riley, arranging a place they could meet so he could hand over the letter. Who knew, maybe this Riley would be cute, maybe this could be the start of something. His Facebook profile photo was of his childhood pet dog, so he couldn’t tell what Riley looked like, but he sounded sweet.

/>   James found himself looking forward to their rendezvous.

  PART FOUR

  Sydney as the seasons change

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Hannah’s plane landed, she hung back and allowed most of the other passengers off first. A part of her wanted to just stay in her seat. Curl up and hide. Wait for the plane to turn around and take her back. She hadn’t realised how comfortable she had actually become in London.

  So what now? When she got off the plane, walked through the airport and hailed a cab – then what? How did she begin to walk back into her life? Did she just turn up on the front doorstep?

  Finally she stood up and began to head down the aisle – after all, she really had no choice. She was slowed by another passenger who was lagging behind the others – an older man in an untucked business shirt and jeans. He seemed to be having some trouble getting his bag out of the overhead compartment. He gave her an apologetic look when she reached him. ‘Sorry about this . . . stuck,’ he added unnecessarily.

  ‘No worries, let me give you a hand,’ she offered. As she tugged at his bag while he pushed from the other side, he chattered away to her. ‘Gosh that’s really lovely of you. Do you realise how many people just pushed past me? Everyone’s keen to get off the plane, I suppose. Family to see, or holidays to get to. You here on business or pleasure?’ he asked as they finally managed to dislodge the bag and it fell down between them.

  Hannah paused, somewhat stumped by the question. Neither, she thought. Apparently she didn’t need to supply an answer though, as he simply continued on regardless. ‘Oh you’ll have a wonderful time anyway, beautiful girl like you with a heart of gold.’Heart of gold? Hardly.

  ‘Sydney is a fantastic city,’ he finished with a grin.

  From the airport she took the train to the city then walked down to Circular Quay. She was procrastinating, she knew – but really, she needed to prepare herself properly for this, and Circular Quay was the first place that came to mind. She wanted to see the harbour. She wandered up and down the curving footpath that followed the water’s edge with her backpack hoisted up on her shoulders and drank in the Sydney air. Storm clouds were gathering in the south, but the wind was surprisingly mild considering it was almost May. Soon, though, winter would begin its battle with summer for custody of autumn and the weather would turn icy.