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16
Right now, we should have been strolling hand in hand through Sydney’s botanical gardens or preparing to climb the famous Harbour Bridge or sipping cocktails at the bar by the water’s edge outside the iconic Opera House. Our itinerary for the first few days of our trip had been full of tourist must-dos.
But instead of that, I was standing outside my office building, trying to find the courage to walk through the doors. I’d parked my car in the exact same spot Finn and I had fought over the first time we met. It had been curiously vacant today, even though the rest of the car park was packed. I wasn’t superstitious, I never had been, but I took that as a sign.
Dad had been astounded when he’d asked me what I was doing for the rest of the day and I’d replied, ‘Going into the office.’
‘To work?’ he’d queried incredulously. ‘But you’ve still got almost three weeks left from your h– holiday.’ We both politely pretended not to notice he’d done a very poor job of substituting the word ‘honeymoon’ with ‘holiday’ at the last moment.
‘I’m not going in towork. I want to use the big colour photocopier. I’m going to print up flyers of Finn’s photograph and then distribute them to as many places as I can during the rest of my time off.’ I sighed wearily. ‘If the police aren’t willing to do this kind of thing, then I’m just going to have to do it myself.’ I sat up straighter in my chair, braced for his objections. But none came.
‘That sounds like a really good idea to me.’
*
I’d told no one I was coming into the office. I was hoping to slip in unobserved, make the copies I wanted and then leave as unobtrusively as possible. I wasn’t sure I was up to explaining why I was still in the UK and not honeymooning on the other side of the world.
What I’d failed to factor in was that there would be no need to tell anyone what had happened to me – because they already knew. I’d invited a handful of close colleagues to the wedding, and news travels fast in offices, particularly in that industry. We’d doubtless been the number one topic of conversation at the water cooler this week. I shuddered, knowing only too well how some of those exchanges had probably played out.
There’s an unpleasant culture of bitchiness in some magazines, andGlowwas as big a culprit as any. I doubt it would have taken long before someone’s claws were unsheathed and comments of sympathy digressed into something entirely different.
The girl behind the reception desk clearly knew all about what had happened, and she was so new to the company I didn’t even know her name yet. Her face journeyed through at least five different expressions of amazement as she watched me swipe into the building, nod briefly in her direction, and stride towards the lifts.
Avoiding my desk, I took a circuitous route to the print room, hoping to find it empty. Sadly, it wasn’t. Jacqueline, the MD, looked up as I entered the room. Her latest Botox injections were too effective to allow the astonishment she was clearly feeling to show, but her mouth dropped open in a huge O of surprise.
‘Gemma, darling, whatever are you doing here?’
Jacqueline was impossible to age, but from the number of years she’d been in publishing, popular opinion placed her somewhere in her mid-fifties. She wore the years well, and today I looked and felt at least twenty her senior.
‘I’ve come in to use the copier,’ I explained, my hold tightening on the tote bag slung over my shoulder. Inside it was a photograph of Finn. Too late, I realised I should probably have asked permission to use the company’s facilities rather than just telling her. ‘If that’s okay with you?’ I added hastily. ‘I’d like to print out some “Missing” posters.’
Jacqueline’s eyes widened and then narrowed, as much as her cosmetic surgery would allow.
‘I’ll obviously pay for whatever supplies I use.’
She shook her head, her immaculately cut bob falling instantly back into place. ‘You’ll do no such thing. Feel free to use whatever you need. We’re all here for you, Gemma. I hope you know that.’
I nodded vigorously, afraid that my voice would crack if I attempted to use it right then.
‘Pop into my office and see me before you go.’
It was a directive rather than an invitation.
I nodded again, waiting until she’d left the room before drawing out the envelope with Finn’s photograph from my bag.
I’d probably taken hundreds of photos of Finn during the time we’d been together, but most of them lived in either my phone or his. As much as I loved our many selfies, what I needed for the flyer was a front-facing shot of Finn by himself, preferably one where he wasn’t pulling a goofy face at the camera.
In the end, there was really only one I could pick. It was my favourite of all the photographs I’d ever snapped of him, which was why it lived inside a silver frame on my bedside table. It was a great photo, taken late the previous summer, just as the sun was setting. Finn had been looking straight at me, and somehow I’d managed to capture in pixels the excitement we’d both been feeling at that moment.
People say you’re in charge of your own destiny, but sometimes fate steps in and takes over. How could we have known that getting lost on a summer’s evening in the middle of nowhere would change the course of our future?
From the first moment I saw it, I knew Mushroom Cottage was my dream home – Finn’s too, or so he said.
It was only much, much later that I came to realise we’d been dreaming two completely different dreams.
*
I considered stopping at five hundred sheets but found myself reaching for a second ream and feeding it into the paper tray. What if flyer number 1,000 was the one that succeeded in jogging someone’s memory; what if that was the one that shed some light on Finn’s disappearance?
