Justin hands me my bag, pulling me from my thoughts. I step back and admire the bike properly now. On the back of it, for the very first time since the night Cam died, there’d been a sliver of time free from obsessing over the sheer awfulness of it all. Obsessing over Cam. And how much I miss and adore him and can barely gasp for air sometimes in his absence. What a precious escape this ride was.
Reality chases the dream. I’m definitely thinking about Cam now and feeling really bad about how effortlessly sexy I imagined myself to be just then, perched behind Justin, all leather and legs and Biker Chick Energy . . . before misjudging the dismount, obviously, annoying Hugh and snapping straight back into the real world.
I start to unzip the leather jacket, but Justin grabs my hand and pauses the action at my chest.
‘Nobody’s going to need that before you get back,’ he explains, still holding onto my hand. ‘Keep it. You look hot.’
I glance at Hugh. If I’m scouting for a second opinion, I’m not going to get it.
When I pull out my phone, Justin lifts it straight out of my hand and inputs what I assume is his number, whether I want it or not. Hugh and I watch silently as he saves the contact, hands it back and says, ‘I put it on speed dial.’ This is a man who has clearly experienced very little social rejection. He must have god-like status in the largely introverted actuarial world.
‘We board in ten minutes,’ Hugh says, his tone brisk. I toss the strap of my tote over my shoulder and mumble an inadequate thank you to Justin, launching myself at him for a lightning-fast hug.
He hugs me back so tight I’m breathless. Then he readjusts the strap of my bag, which is now all caught up in the zipper of his jacket somehow. Hugh sighs as I peel myself off my neighbour and a police officer wanders over and says, ‘Move on, please.’ This is strictly a drop-off area, and not a place for awkward and premature public displays of affection, regardless of how cinematic this scene looks in my imagination. There’s always been a lot of Anne of Green Gables about me, imagination-wise.
‘Two police incidents since we met,’ Justin observes, swinging his leg over the bike again and kicking the stand. ‘You’ll get me in trouble, Kate.’
He makes an exit as dramatic as our entrance and I stand on the pavement, staring after him and trying to turn off my inner-Anne. Of course she’s well on her way and by the time I catch up with Hugh, who’s had it with the whole performance, he’s removing his belt for his second pass through security this morning. He hands me a tray for my phone and laptop and another for the jacket and my bag, which is bulging with the latest Mhairi McFarlane novel and one of Emily Henry’s gems. I have a personal rule never to run out of book chapters in the air, without a backup.
‘Buy yourself a Kindle,’ Hugh mutters. I would mount a defence of paper books but the security guard is eyeing my generous bounty and sighs, very deeply, as though he hates people. Hugh picks up one of the novels and I grab the rest, only to be beckoned over for a random explosives check, which doesn’t seem random in the slightest, because I’m stopped for it every time.
‘No gunpowder residue from last night,’ Hugh notes, as I’m released, clean, and we stride towards the gate. ‘That would have been interesting.’
‘That whole thing was a complete overreaction,’ I remind him. Secretly I’m relieved, because I hadn’t even thought about the grenade and don’t know how I would have explained it to the police if Charlie had smuggled it into my bag or something, instead of showing me.
‘This is an announcement for passengers Lancaster and Whittaker, on flight QF1456 to Brisbane. Please proceed to Gate 11 as your aircraft is preparing for departure.’
We are the last two to board the plane. Hugh is definitely a ‘first to board’ type of person. We jostle ourselves down the aisle and my bag won’t squash into the overhead locker, because it’s already full with the bags of the punctual people.
Hugh watches my struggle, until he can stand it no longer. He reaches over my head and gives it – and by extension, me – a hearty shove. We’re put in our place, my bag and I, and he shuts the locker door, stands back and offers me the window seat, which I slide into.
‘How long is this flight?’ I ask. I can’t get out of here fast enough.
‘An hour and forty minutes to Brisbane and about two and a half hours to Cairns after that,’ he replies as he shuffles in next to me. He might as well be describing his life sentence.
‘I got to the airport as fast as I could,’ I explain. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t get a minute’s sleep last night.’
He glances at the whole helmet-hair-meets-bed-hair situation, swallows, and says, ‘Really?’
‘Oh, God,’ I say, so loudly the white-haired woman in front of me turns to her husband and tut-tuts. I grab Hugh’s arm with both hands and he flinches. ‘Forgot the valium!’
This is dire.
I’ve tried counselling and hypnosis and the Fear of Flying course the airport runs and nothing works. Valium takes the edge off, though, so I don’t spend the entire time floundering in an anxiety attack.
I can’t help that this is how I was raised. Of course, my parents didn’t intentionally give me a phobia, but I’m from a family of pioneer aviators. Two of my great uncles died in plane crashes. One of their planes simply broke apart mid-flight in the 1930s. It’s the stuff of family legend.
‘Planes don’t break in half in mid-air these days, Kate,’ Hugh says, demonstrating how many times he’s been the audience of one for my ‘unresourceful runway self-talk script’， as the psychologist calls it. Normally I’m way less freaked out about this than I am right now, because normally I’m way more medicated. I couldn’t grip Hugh’s arm any tighter if I was having a transition-stage contraction and it was too late for the epidural.
Don’t picture Charlie’s birth! Delivery suite memories lead to emotionally perilous memories of Cam. I can picture his face so clearly now that it’s like he is right here, up close, forehead pressed to mine, our tiny baby in his arms, whispering, ‘Thank you, sweetheart. You’re amazing.’
Stop it.
‘It’ll be okay,’ Hugh says quietly, extracting each of my fingers from the sleeve of his now creased white shirt and bringing the armrest down gently between us. He’s probably wishing it was something more substantial. Cone of silence. Force field.
I turn away from him and stare out the window, desperately seeking composure. The captain announces that the doors are armed and instructs the crew to cross-check and be seated for take-off. I need a happy place. Stat.
Wish I was back on that bike.
7
As the plane lifts into the air, my body starts to shake. The sight of the tarmac falling away makes the anxiety even worse. So, as Lake Burley Griffin and Mount Majura shrink out of sight in our wake, I go to Plan B: staring at the headrest in front of me and doing the breathing exercises the psych taught me, which always work so well in her office when I’m not technically anxious at all.
Staring at the headrest, however, only draws my attention to the card in the seat pocket containing safety instructions in the event of a crash. I shove it behind the in-flight magazine and the sick bag, which I’m going to need in a minute because I’m close to hyperventilating.