Sunday, 22 April 2035
Things That Have Bloody Annoyed Me Today:
The man with no spatial awareness in the line for security.
The man with stinky feet in the line for security.
The woman walking too close behind me on the travelator.
People who can’t fold pieces of paper edge to edge [Melissa].
The lighting in airports.
The advertising in airports – it’s relentless.
River booked his flight to Fort Worth for roughly the same time as mine on the Sunday we were due to fly – from Fort Worth, he would then go on to Wichita, whilst I’d head to Mexico City, so we’d be together as long as possible.
He said he was going to meet his two sisters, whom he hadn’t spoken to for years.
That made me happy. I wondered about asking him to come to Mexico with me, just for a while, but the words wouldn’t come out.
I’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I told him I needed him to look after me again, now that Rhiannon had told him to back off.
She had released him from that cage and I didn’t want to lock him back inside it.
A cab ride and a flight together would have to do.
But he could visit, I thought.
Everything was set. The Aussies’ e-taxi arrived early, around 4:00 a.m. and me and River loaded our bags into his hire car with warp speed.
Despite Larry’s general slobbishness and lingering smells the whole time I’d known him, he was laser focused when it came to travel, and we had to leave dead-on 4:10 a.m. in order to be there two hours before ‘our flight to Perth’.
Which was, quite coincidentally, a whole hour earlier than my flight to Fort Worth. How on earth had that happened?
So it was a bit of a Home Alone-style rush to get everything and everyone loaded with Larry hurrying everyone up like the taxi was going to explode if we weren’t out of there in ten minutes.
I thought this was a little unnecessary but he seemed to relish the drama.
I was still going through the motions that I was heading to Australia with them, even though I knew damn well I was heading in a completely different direction.
I hadn’t had chance to do any of the stuff I planned – take bark rubbings from the trees or carve my name in my skirting board.
I also got my period when I woke up, because obviously God still needs to punish me about calling him an arsehole at Mum’s funeral.
So then I had to set about finding which pocket of my bag I’d packed tampons and knickers in and filling up a hot water bottle for my period pain.
Larry was in no mood for women’s problems.
‘Come on, ya great galah, look at the time now, 4:13 a.m.!’
But as we were about to leave the house, I did a final check in my rucksack, only to find my passport was missing.
‘It’s gone, it’s fucking gone! I put it in there, between my wallet and my book for the plane.’
River stood by my bedroom door, all dressed and booted, with his bag slung over one shoulder. ‘Try your pockets.’
‘It’s not in any of my pockets, I don’t have it, I’m telling you. Can you just see if you’ve put it with yours for some reason?’
‘Why would I have done that?’
‘Just check, will you? I’m panicking here …’
And he checked, and he rooted, and he emptied out the contents of his own bag on my bedroom carpet, but only his blue American passport was found. Mine had vanished.
‘Shit. This is bad, this is so bad. What if it went on one of the vans? What if it went to the charity shop in one of the bags?’
River shook his head, staring at my rucksack. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. I saw you put it in there last night with your e-reader.’
‘I know!’ We both stood there, in a kind of trance, minds racing, my heart racing, utterly unable to comprehend what the next step might be.
‘Come on, it might be downstairs somewhere,’ he said, urging me through the door. ‘The engines are running.’
‘What’s the point, I can’t go anywhere!’
We got down to the hall and did another search but the whole place was empty. It wasn’t anywhere.
Melissa appeared down the stairs in her pink chenille tracksuit, handbag slung over one shoulder. She wedged her shoes on at the bottom.
‘Everyone ready?’ she gurned. ‘Exciting, going back home, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where “home” is at the moment. Listen, I—’
‘—no, but you soon will. And River, you can visit us anytime, love, just drop us a line. You’ve got our address, Larry gave it to you, didn’t he?’
‘Yeah, thanks. Look, Ivy’s lost—’
‘—you make a cute couple, you two. Nice to see two young people in love. I remember when me and AJ’s dad met. We were about your ages …’
‘We’re not together,’ I repeated, seeing as she didn’t hear me the first or second time I’d said it. ‘And River’s almost ten years older than I am. He’s just my friend. And also, I’ve lost my passport.’
‘You what?’ Melissa seemed genuinely concerned. ‘You had it last night, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I had it last night but it’s not here now,’ I replied to Melissa. ‘What have you done with it?’
Larry appeared again, hands on hips. ‘What’s going on?’
‘She’s lost her passport,’ said Melissa, and I waited for a flicker of a lie in her eyes or her smile – the two places a lie usually sat, giving itself away. But there was nothing. ‘Why would I have taken it?’
‘I don’t know, to stop me coming with you?’ I snapped.
‘Just find it, will ya? It’s now 4:16 a.m., people,’ Larry reminded us, breezing on out to the taxi.
Jordy lumbered down the stairs with the last of their bags and caught us mid-fracas. ‘What’s goin’ on?’
‘Why would I have taken your passport?’ Melissa screeched. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ And she was right; it didn’t make any sense for her to have taken it. She said herself she would drag me to that airport if she had to. ‘It makes more sense you hid it yourself, so you didn’t have to come.’
I thought about that – she was right again. But I knew I hadn’t. ‘What about Larry?’
‘Larry can’t find his own arse with both hands so I’m not gonna go accusing him of anything.’
Right again, strike three. That only left one possibility; Jordy.
The only person in the house, apart from River, who knew my plan to go to Mexico.
They were being disconcertingly silent during this conversation and had lingered on the bottom stair where Maddox used to wait for me, like they too were waiting for some kind of bait – a reason to step down.
A figurative carrot, perchance. The awkward silence was the carrot.
‘Yeah, I’ve got it,’ they said, looking from Melissa to me and back again. ‘I’ve put it with ours for safe keeping. That’s all right, isn’t it, Ive?’
‘You took it out my bag?’
‘Nah, it fell out – it was on your bedroom floor. I thought I better look after it, in case you lost it. It’s all right, you can have it back when we get to Heathrow.’
‘Well, that’s all sorted out then, thank heavens,’ said Melissa, taking the bag from Jordy and heading out to pack it in the taxi.
‘Oh, right,’ I said, and at that moment I didn’t have an argument set up against Jordy’s idea. As long as they had it, and it was going to Heathrow with me, then my plan was still on. ‘You’re sure you’ve got it?’
‘Yep, check,’ they mimed cheerfully, drawing a tick in mid-air and following Melissa outside.
An uneasy feeling crept over me though and River could sense it.
He stared at me as he loaded the last of my belongings into his car and slammed the boot shut.
Larry posted the door keys through the letterbox and got into the taxi where Melissa and Jordy were already ensconced beneath a sea of holdalls.
‘Terminal 3 – Qantas QF10 for Perth – see you there,’ he called out and got in the passenger side.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘See you there.’
The whole ride to Heathrow, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Even as me and River chatted and switched music stations and played I Spy with passing cars, all the time I felt like Jordy was not being honest with me.
There was no good reason for them to take my passport.
No good reason not to give it back to me right then when I asked for it.
I kept remembering the look on their face when I’d told them about Mexico and my brother.
‘You’re quiet,’ River remarked as we hit traffic getting onto the M4.
‘Care to share?’
‘Not really. Not yet,’ I said.
A bleep came through on his phone. He started laughing as he swivelled the screen towards him in the hands-free. ‘Oh my God. Look at that; Guy Majors has been arrested. No, fuck, he’s been charged!’
‘What?’
He unlocked the phone and handed it to me.
I clicked open the Breaking News article.
‘“World-renowned journalist Guy Majors, injured when a riot broke out at Haverfield Prison during his interview with serial killer Rhiannon Lewis on Friday night, has been charged with the indecent assault of a minor”.’ I gasped.
‘“A source representing Majors, who is still recuperating in hospital from concussion and broken ribs suffered in the assault, says he will ‘fight these allegations with every breath he has.’ More updates soon.” Jesus.’
‘Rhiannon was right,’ River chuckled.
Our chit-chat fizzled out somewhere around Swindon and after downing a couple of ibuprofen for my screaming period pain, I was able to nod off against my bunched-up hoody.
I could lose myself with River next to me; safe in the knowledge that wherever I went, he’d find me again.
Maybe I needed him more than I thought. Maybe he could come with me instead of going back to his sisters.
Just for a while. I fell asleep working up the courage to ask him.