A Place Beyond The Horizon

06. EXPOSURE

Aidan is scrolling through his messages in the back of the cab to Mara's place. She'd booked it for him, an expense he wouldn't have allowed himself. It's about spending time effectively, she had told him, using money to get more out of the day. Time itself has a cost.

Aidan's just happy to be getting paid on a regular basis, using the sessions with Mara to build up the bank account he's set up, to pay for a place on his own out of the backpacker hostel, somewhere modest that he can lock the door on a night and not have to deal with interruptions down the hallway after midnight. It also means that he's no longer dipping into his joint credit card with his wife.

He'd gone through the transactions last night, found himself scrolling through the entries looking for his payments. Instead, he had found himself piecing together traces of her life since he'd left: where she got coffee, where she went out, how often. Rosa would be able to do it too, tracking him. It hadn't taken Aidan posting the picture of Sydney Harbour at sunset, on the ferry with Kat, to tell his wife where he was. No, the finance trail had already been informing her in detail of his movements. Mara's weekly salary was at last freeing him of all that.

Ant had messaged again overnight. Aidan reads it and responds with a picture of himself on the sand at dawn after a run. Ant comes back straight away with a single line: 'Fuck off.' Aidan laughs to himself.

The next message is from Kat, giving him details of when she lands. They have been messaging consistently and as usual the latest is a statement of the facts: time and date and flight number. She's up from Melbourne for work, with a casual invitation to get together tomorrow night after she's done. Kat's keeping it light and easy, studiously not over-committing, leaving Aidan to read between the lines.

There's nothing from Rosa. It's been nearly a month since the disastrous phone call on the beach. Aidan looks at the two messages he's sent since saying that they need to talk, to no reply. Rosa is on radio silence after the outburst on the phone and it still rankles Aidan's guts that somehow she's found a way to justify blaming him. He has built up an image of his wife, seemingly living her best life in her social posts after moving on from the fact of her husband leaving her. The narrative is clear to him, that this is all on him for quitting. Seeing a picture of his wife's beautiful face up close in a post in her exercise top, smiling, felt like a stab in the heart. Aidan knows he has to get past this. It was always going to be hard: watching her from a distance, feeling those feelings but no longer with the right to do anything about it.

Aidan looks up and frowns.

"Hey, I think it was a right turn back there," he tells the driver.

"Not according to the booking," the driver replies.

"Uh, where are we going?"

"Palm Beach, sir. Isn't that where you wanted to go?"

It's odd, but Aidan shrugs. "I guess," he says and sinks back into his seat.

They drive for a while, threading their way up the peninsula until they're on a winding road that hugs the coastline. There is a wide turn and the cab comes to a halt. A woman in dark glasses and a baseball cap is leaning up against a tree. Aidan gets out and heads over to her.

"Hey," he calls.

Mara nods back, "Hi."

"So, change of plan?"

"I thought a beach run today, just for a bit of variety. What do you think? Get us out of the house."

"Sure. No problem."

Mara smiles and picks up her day pack, leading them towards the sound of the sea.

"You're not worried about being seen?" Aidan asks, but Mara just smiles and taps her shades.