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My eyes stare at the departure board, willing it to be wrong. My flight from Sydney to Honolulu can’t be delayed.
Not this flight.
The sudden thumping of my heart against my ribcage makes it hard to breathe. My soon-to-be ex-husband is due back from a conference in Vanuatu, and he’ll land in this airport sometime today.
Thanks to a cyclone, we’ve been out of touch for a week. For the first time in almost twenty years, I’ve been alone with my own thoughts. But now with power restored in Port Vila, he’s charged his phone. He woke me early this morning with a text.
How much do you miss me? On way to airport. They’re allocating seats in alphabetical order. We’ll see about that.
His surname is near the end of the alphabet so that should delay him for a while. Tabrett. Andrew Tabrett.
This is my first experience of travelling alone, so I got here way too early to check in my bag. Now there’s time to kill. Delays happen every day with international flights but it’s a hitch in my careful planning.
Picking up my little red suitcase with its precious contents, I wander through the departure hall looking for a distraction. Not a coffee. It will give me too much time to think. But I must keep checking my phone.
A boutique’s display catches my eye. It isn’t open yet but as I gaze at the sundresses and sandals, I’m overcome by the urge to choose something new for myself. I can’t remember the last time I shopped for clothes on my own. It’s why I’ve walked out with almost nothing from my wardrobe. Just what I’m wearing – jeans, T-shirt and ballet flats – and wrapped around the heavy cargo in my suitcase, another top, a sweatshirt, two business suits and a pair of heels. The bare essentials for a new life.
But there’s enough space for something else.
As if to support my wild idea, the salesperson opens up. Could the extra time be a gift? Now my heart is pounding for a different reason. No-one is here to supervise. And I have a purse full of cash.
I wander over to a rack along one wall.
“What are you looking for?” the woman asks.
“Something ... I like.”
It sounds lame to my ears but she doesn’t blink. Instead she takes in my tiny stature. “Let’s see what I have in your size.”
The frocks she brings to the changing room transport me to a place called freedom. Even though none of them is quite the right fit, I swirl the skirts of every one, relishing each moment. Next she shows me an array of tops and I’m drawn to a red cotton shirt with a cap sleeve and a deep V-neckline. It’s plain but teams perfectly with my jeans.
“Made for you,” she says. “With your ebony hair.”
I believe her.
She produces a pair of red leather sandals with an ankle strap. They fit. Then at the counter I swoon over a display of nail polish and choose the only colour possible. Red. Three new things. A magic number. Just like in fairy tales, they herald the beginning of my journey.
After paying, I indicate the changing room again. “Do you mind? I’ll pack everything straight into my bag and ... paint my nails.”
She gazes around the empty shop and grins. “Unless there’s a rush, be my guest. The smell won’t last. Where are you off to?”
“Hawaii.”
“I hope he’s worth it.”
Worth leaving. We share a smile.
With the clothes packed, I take my time applying two layers of varnish to each nail. The steady action of the glossy strokes soothes the palpitations playing ping pong in my chest. That frisson of freedom returns. Freedom from Andrew Tabrett. As soon as I’m on that plane.
On my way out, the woman raises an eyebrow at my bare fingernails. I slip one foot out of its shoe and wiggle my painted toes.
“Why not wear the new sandals? Show them off?”
I shake my head but I don’t explain. The paint is just for me.
Back in the departure hall, the display board alarms me again. The arrivals this time. While I’ve spent too long in the shop, a flight from Vanuatu has already landed and I still haven’t checked in my bag.
Then I remember Andrew’s place in the queue. But as I exhale, my phone pings.
Got lucky with a flight attendant. After a wink she went with A for Andrew. Home soon. Time for us to celebrate. In the bath. Then bed.
The sweat on my forehead is automatic. He’s expecting me to take the day off work. Then there’s the tracking app on my phone, disabled by a techie in my office. When will Andrew notice?
I race to join the bag-drop queue. As it inches forward, I tick off each minute until I’m at the counter and watching my little red suitcase glide out of view. Then it’s a sprint to the departure gates.
Any moment now, he’ll step off the plane and cross the air bridge. As I put my laptop and carry-on through security, I imagine him walking into the arrivals hall below me. In my mind, he’s showing his passport while I’m showing mine, the symmetry of our opposite directions giving me a symbol to savour. Now he’s at the luggage carousel, checking his phone while he’s waiting and wondering where I am.
Only when I reach the departure lounge do I allow myself to stop running. Catching my breath, I text my sister. If it wasn’t for Gretel, I might never have found the courage. She called the cyclone a gift, giving me a break from his control and the space to make a decision. Then she suggested I stay with her these last few days, to neutralise the emotional pull from my former home. It was a tearful hug this morning when we parted.
It’s happy hour in Honolulu, Gretel texts back. Have a second one for me. She’s pregnant. Bon voyage. Keep in touch. xx
Perching on a stool in the nearest bar, I take her up on her idea. While I wait for my first glass of wine, I send her a big thank you for everything. My flight is still delayed but by now a taxi must be taking Andrew all the way to our house, north of the harbour.
He has time to text. Where are you? Got you something special in Port Vila.
A game he plays. Another bikini. Because I’m afraid of the sea.
I picture him in the cab, worrying that he can’t track me. It’s my first thrill that for once I’ve outplayed him. But he’ll only fear his prolonged absence has gone to my head, imagining a frenzied shopping spree and a wardrobe full of outfits he’ll force me to return. A sudden smile at my purchases eases the knot in my shoulders. I slip both feet from my shoes and admire the defiant statement of my toes. The last thing Andrew will suspect is a walk-out. A real one.
When he opens the front door he’ll go straight to our bedroom. He’ll check the wardrobe for naughty purchases, the absence of my suitcase not on his radar, nor the few things it contains.
Wandering into the kitchen, he’ll think the tidiness is for him. But my cleaning frenzy morphed into a leaving ritual. No regrets – or crumbs – when I turned my back on almost twenty years.
Then he frowns at the side table in the dining room, noticing the empty space where Shona used to be. The black and silver sculpture from Zimbabwe. After we found her at Rozelle Markets, Shona made a dramatic statement against the white wall.
You broke the African sculpture? he texts. So clumsy. Is that why you’re hiding? Come out and own up.
To him she’s been an ornament, a talking piece. To me, a woman of power and beauty, someone to emulate.
And the only memento I’ve stowed in my little red suitcase.
Soon he checks the garage and finds it empty, our car gone for repairs after Sydney’s share of the cyclone and a fallen tree he doesn’t know about. That’s when I feel Andrew’s strategy shift. Time to tease his frightened fawn out of her hiding place and coax her home.
Tell me how it happened over dinner. I’ve just booked Chez Charles. Wear the white dress and the rope sandals. A pretty straightjacket. I’ll buy you a new sculpture for your birthday.
My absence gives him the chance to ransack the house for clues about my activities – and discover my laptop gone. This first wisp of suspicion will send him to the filing cabinet where we keep the passports.
His sudden comprehension arrives like a grenade in the pit of my stomach, confirmed by his next missive.
Have the office girls lured you to Bali? Did you think you’d beat me home and I wouldn’t find out? I’m disappointed, Elkie.
Disappointed. His shorthand for ‘incandescent with rage’. And Elkie Tabrett has reclaimed her birth name: Selkie Moon.
As they finally call my flight, he rings my office.
So you’ve quit your job. What’s your game, Elkie? A week apart and you forget your vows?
Now his mind formulates a plan. He won’t call me. Too needy. Instead he’ll hook me, one text message at a time, and try to reel me back. After wooing me at sixteen and keeping me in a bubble all these years, he knows what works. But the other times I only ran as far as a friend’s couch, to be bundled up in a blanket like a cheeky child and carried home.
This time I’ve won a green card, in a lottery he doesn’t know about. After an expedited interview at the US consulate, I’m starting a new life.
In Hawaii.
*
A mix-up with my online reservation puts me in the window seat. A fleeting glimpse of the harbour I’m leaving behind. The sails of the Opera House. The coat-hanger bridge. Lump in throat optional.
Then ocean.
Thousands of miles of it.
Concerned I’m not getting his texts, Andrew switches to a messaging app. I could ignore them or switch off my phone, but there’s something riveting about watching him unravel. On a spreadsheet I begin to plot his missives, telling myself it will dilute their power. Sometimes they’re short and close together, one minute simulating the tenderness of love, the next threatening consequences.
After 48 hours I’ll report you missing.
He has no idea where I am but the police will be able to track me down. If they care.
As soon as you use your credit card, I’ll know where you are.
That’s something I’ve thought of. I opened an account in my own name and the bank is sending a credit card to Gretel’s address. Until she forwards it to me, I’ve got cash to last for a while.
Now he treats me to a little silence to let me stew on the warning. Will he follow me? The possibility makes me sweat. I have to consider he’ll be much more humiliated by my successful walk-out than by dragging me home in public and rolling his eyes at his friends about disciplining his ‘disobedient wife’.
When he stops writing altogether, the spreadsheet does its job. I see through it. He’s calculating that a sudden loss of contact – even from his bullying – will leave me bereft and alone. I’ll be overwhelmed by the realisation that freedom comes with the grown-up responsibilities he’s insulated me from. He’s counting on a wave of panic to bring me to my senses. I know what he’s doing but his power threatens to weave its usual spell.
As I settle with a pillow against the cabin wall, the stress of the last few days knocks me out. The next thing I know I’m waking to the aromas of a meal, in time to reach for the offered tray.
But the view through the window has changed.
The sky has turned threatening. Clouds once high and fluffy have morphed into a storm. It’s December. Cyclone season in the Pacific. The pilot warns of turbulence ahead, so the flight attendants pack up their trolleys and scurry to their own seats. As we circle the billowing beast, the tension from my fellow passengers sweeps through the cabin like a virus. Our tiny plane is at the storm’s mercy. We eat in silence, waiting.
Suddenly the aircraft drops with a jerk. As my stomach bounces off the inside of my skull, drinks fly, plates sail into laps, and overhead lockers spill their carry-ons like boulders. Behind me a woman won’t stop screaming. How close is the ocean now? Terrified to look out the window, I shut my eyes and lament the folly of my purchases, of this whole expedition. Was my mad dash for freedom always going to end in the sea? But the cabin staff are already leaving their seats to deal with the carnage, clutching at chair backs in case it happens again.
My speedy eating has left me with empty plates, but the grey-haired woman beside me is wearing her dinner. We haven’t spoken at all but I need a practical project. Grabbing my pristine napkin, I help her mop up.
“Thank you,” she says. “Luckily it’s only white wine, but this gravy is going to stain.” As she looks down at her ruined cardigan, its pearl buttons dripping brown goo, she chuckles, and I admire her for focusing on a minor problem while our predicament is looking anything but. “Did you know the storm was coming?” she asks. “Is that why you ate so fast?”
Now she’s made me chuckle. “Not psychic. Just hungry.”
While those around me deal with the aftermath, my eyes are drawn to the bird’s eye view through the window. Mesmerised, I watch as we circle the core of the storm, its heart of explosive light. My body is drenched, not by sweat, but by a surprising calm, and a current surges through me, snuffing out my panic about Andrew.
Soon the towering clouds are behind us. When the sun comes out, bathing the shambles around us in relief and optimism, the whole cabin bursts into applause. We might be stained and bruised but we’re not going to die.
My life is before me. A life without Andrew.
But not far away a new panic is poised to pounce.
Honolulu. The capital of the one US state that demanded my attention in spite of my sea phobia.
When the plane begins its descent, I still can’t look away. Laid out below me is a dot of land. In the middle of all that ... ocean.
My new home.