by Brandy Scott
‘Joining the party?’ a waiter asked. Melinda pulled her shoulders back. She was not going to feel like the odd woman out at her own event, dammit. She’d sat through too many dinner parties at the end of the table, or next to the cousin with no social skills, or worse, not even invited, because a host didn’t want her to feel ‘uncomfortable’. This was her gala celebration, and she was going to enjoy it. Or get drunk. Probably get drunk.
Clint had arranged a private tutorial, to teach her to smile in a way that would look genuine and flattering in photos: tongue pushed against her soft palate, eyes slightly crinkled. Melinda put on her photo-face now and started moving through the crowd. She steeled herself for the usual questions about whether there was a Mr Melinda, and where was her special someone tonight? But the questions never came. Instead, women gently took her elbow, steered her into quiet spaces to talk about their own battles with IVF, or hugged her and wished her luck with the adoption. Even those who didn’t stop her seemed to smile more warmly. Bloody hell, thought Melinda. I’ve crossed to the other side.
‘I thought it was so brave, what you said up there,’ said one woman — Stella from Takapuna, according to her name tag. ‘Opening yourself up like that. I’ve always admired you but now I feel like I know you.’
‘It must have been so hard for you, year after year, listening to us talk about our children while not being able to have your own,’ said Lisa from Birdwood. ‘I had no idea. I wish I had. I wouldn’t have complained so much. I feel really selfish.’
The general consensus seemed to be that she was infertile rather than mateless. Melinda moved through the crowd, quickly growing used to having her arm touched, a kiss blown towards her. God, this has really changed how they see me. How much they like me, even. That’s . . . appalling.
But was it really that surprising? After all, she’d done this before. The Australasian Small Business Awards, Wellington, 2014. Melinda had been feeling like a bit of a freak anyway, hadn’t been on a date for over a year. She’d been the only non-partnered person on her dinner table, again. So when someone had asked, she’d said she was divorced. The change was remarkable. People had been more open towards her, men especially. It was as though she had an invisible stamp of approval: someone had wanted to marry her once, so she must be okay. It wasn’t the only time she’d told that lie either. At overseas conferences, where no one knew her, Melinda had taken to intimating a recent break-up, with similar results. Her singleness was accepted as a temporary aberration, rather than the state of play. Far better, it seemed, to be damaged goods rather than left on the shelf.
At the top table Clint was waiting, looking slightly less pretentious than usual in a tuxedo, white rose blooming in the buttonhole. He looked almost attractive, or was the kindness of strangers making Melinda herself less judgemental? She kissed him on the cheek, surprising them both.
‘Well done,’ he muttered.
‘It was an accident,’ she whispered back. ‘It doesn’t mean I’m going through with it.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he smiled, as cameras flashed at them.
God, would people think they were a couple now? What the hell. Melinda rested a hand on his shoulder as Clint put his arm around her back, both of them leaning in without discussion. The artifice just came naturally. Melinda let herself relax into the pose. She’d deal with any repercussions later. For the moment, she was just going to enjoy belonging.
‘I need you to talk to that journalist, though,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t want it to end up in print.’
‘Already did,’ he replied, as he pulled out her chair. There were six other people at the head table, Melinda’s top sellers, but they leaned away to give the ‘couple’ their privacy. ‘But,’ he added, as he spread a linen napkin on her lap, ‘I think the cork might be out of the bottle. Everyone here will be on Facebook, Twitter. That story’s not going to stay quiet.’
Fine. Fuck, but fine. Melinda took a balancing sip of wine and smiled, photogenically, at the woman opposite. She could play along. No one in their right mind was going to give a baby to a single woman who travelled half the month. She’d find out the names of a couple of adoption agencies, fill in the forms and wait to be rejected. There must be some kind of consultant who could help her with that. She’d get her assistant to find one in the morning. Melinda took another sip of wine, calmer now. The paperwork alone would take a hundred years, and if it gave her an edge in the meantime, so be it. Look at all the press those power mothers got, the I Don’t Know How She Does It articles, the praise for merely having a working womb and someone willing to fill it. How was that fair? It didn’t take a genius to have a baby. Teenagers got pregnant all the time. Like Tansy. Melinda felt a pull of conscience at the thought of Tansy’s frightened face, of Lou’s permanently tired one. She quieted it with another slug of wine. Because it wasn’t a complete lie. She was considering adoption. She just planned to consider it for a long, long time.
By the time Lou and Tansy left the park the light was starting to go. They drove back to Hensley in silence, apart from the odd instruction from Lou. ‘Watch out for that van.’ ‘It’s green, Tans, you can go.’ Tansy was too busy concentrating on the road to talk. Lou was concentrating on not being her parents.
Because her attitude, so far, was exactly the same. She could tell her daughter that pregnancy was nothing to be ashamed of, but look at the way she was acting. Sneaking off to another town for tests, hoping Tansy would decide not to have the baby. Or if she had it, not to keep it. Pushing her towards the ‘right’ decision, however much she claimed she wasn’t. Which was even worse: hypocrisy. At least her parents had never hidden their position. Enough, Lou told herself firmly, watching her daughter bite her lip as she negotiated the hills that led into Hensley. If she wanted to break this cycle, she had to stop perpetuating it. It was that simple.
‘Tansy,’ she said quietly, once Tansy had passed through the dense tree cover and was looking more comfortable with the clear visibility of wide country roads, ‘whatever you decide to do, I’ll back you one hundred per cent, okay? Promise me you’ll think about it properly first, but — you’ve got my support, no matter what.’
They were approaching Maddocks Clearing. Where Pete’s plane had come down, Lou realised with a start. The man’s son was lying in a coma; she should be thankful her daughter was only pregnant.
‘One hundred per cent,’ she repeated, staring at the flapping accident tape ahead. ‘I love you very much, Tans, and this doesn’t change that, not at all.’
Tansy gave a sob.
‘Oh for God’s sake, don’t cry.’ Lou put her hand out to steady the wheel. ‘Okay, this is no good. You’re going to have to pull over.’
Tansy steered the car onto the verge a few metres short of the crash site. Lou could make out two men standing at the base of the ranges, a tarpaulin over what must have been the remains of the aircraft. She turned her attention back to her daughter, who was slumped over the steering wheel. ‘That’s it,’ she said, rubbing her back. ‘Let it all out. Good girl.’
‘I — just — don’t — want — to make things worse for you,’ Tansy choked.
‘Oh, Tansy, you’re not,’ Lou lied.
‘But I know you want to travel. You want to go off and do things. And I’ve messed it all up.’
‘You haven’t,’ said Lou. ‘This is a . . . postponement of plans.’ Like Aimee had said. ‘You don’t need to worry about me.’
‘Because I don’t think I can do it on my own,’ Tansy wailed. ‘I need your help.’
‘And I’ve said I’ll help,’ said Lou. She made her voice softer. ‘But Tans — do you want to tell me who the father is?’ There wasn’t a boyfriend, Lou was fairly sure. But that didn’t mean whoever he was couldn’t shoulder some of the responsibility. Him and his parents.
Tansy stared vacantly towards the corpse of the plane but didn’t speak. Lou’s stomach turned over. ‘Tans?’ she whispered, frightened. Because what if it wasn’t another ki
d? She was assuming a teenager, someone drunk and stupid, but — what if it was a friend’s father? Someone they knew. An authority figure. A teacher. It happened, didn’t it? Especially at private girls’ schools. You saw it in the papers all the time. Tansy quivered, and Lou bunched her good hand into a fist. She would fucking kill him.
‘I can’t say,’ Tansy whispered. ‘Not yet.’
‘Is it . . . an adult?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s just a big mess.’
‘Do you need to tell him first?’
Tansy nodded slowly.
‘But you know who it is, right?’
‘Yes.’ Tansy looked indignant. ‘There was only one. I was at a party.’ She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. ‘But I can’t talk about it right now.’
And Lou found she couldn’t push her. Because she’d hardly been forthcoming in that regard herself, had she? Lou sighed and shunted her seat back into a reclining position.
‘You understand, don’t you, Mum?’
‘Oh yes.’
Tansy adjusted her own seat so she was lying beside Lou. ‘Did you ever tell my father about me?’ she asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper.
‘You know I haven’t. I don’t know where he is.’
‘I just thought you might have found him at some point. Tracked him down over the internet. It would be easier to do now.’
There was a fly buzzing in the car. Lou turned the engine on so she could crack a window and let it out.
‘He was just passing through,’ she told Tansy, as she had done for sixteen years. ‘Backpacking. I don’t even know how to spell his last name, or where exactly he was from. He was French. It’s a big country.’
‘We could try.’
Lou twisted onto her side. ‘Do you want to? You’ve never been bothered before.’ Tansy had barely even asked about him; the only emotional button she hadn’t pushed in her teenage rebellion. As though she realised Lou wouldn’t be able to take it.
‘Nah,’ said Tansy, chasing the fly through the gap on her side. ‘I don’t really need a dad now. Besides, the timing might be a bit off. Bonjour, Papa. Meet your pregnant daughter.’
She gave a loud, inappropriate laugh, and Lou found herself cracking up as well. They rolled together, bumping the gearstick as they snorted and shook.
There was a tap on the windscreen. One of the accident investigators. ‘Everything all right in here?’
‘Fine, officer.’ Lou straightened herself up. ‘Nothing to see here.’
He nodded, unsmiling, and moved back towards his field, his shrouded plane.
‘Fuck,’ said Lou, wiping mascara out of her eye. ‘What are we like?’
‘Each other,’ said Tansy. ‘We’re just like each other. Sorry, Mum.’
The lift door slid closed softly.
‘Alone at last,’ said Clint. ‘What a fantastic evening.’
Melinda smiled, swaying slightly. It had been a fantastic evening. And Clint had been a surprisingly big part of that. Keeping her glass topped up, his arm on the back of her chair. Melinda knew she was setting feminism back a thousand years, but there was something about having a man beside her that had made her feel . . . accepted. Bulletproof. As though, finally, there was nothing about her to criticise.
There’d been only one sour note in the whole evening. Somewhere between the fish and the sorbet, there was a rustle next to her. The Sydney journalist woman — Sarah? No, Stacey — pulling out a seat that had recently been vacated.
‘I want to apologise,’ she’d said. ‘For giving you such a hard time earlier. I didn’t realise what you’d been going through.’
‘It’s all right.’ Melinda had smiled magnanimously. ‘You weren’t to know.’
‘It’s nothing personal,’ Stacey continued. ‘I’m just really interested in LoveLocked. My mum used to sell it. It was how she managed to raise three kids, on her own.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Although I’m not sure what she’d make of all these changes.’
Melinda bristled. ‘Well, you have to move with the times,’ she said. ‘Our current curators seem to love them.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Look, Stacey, can I ask you —’
‘I won’t write about the adoption,’ Stacey promised. ‘Clint’s already spoken to me. I understand it’s private.’
‘I’d appreciate that.’
They’d chatted about the IPO, Melinda hinting daringly at potential big-name investors. And then Stacey had said, as she was getting up to leave, ‘What’s happening with the plane crash, by the way? The boy that was in the coma? How’s he doing?’
Melinda had been thrown, and her half-pissed face had shown the shock.
‘Gosh, I’m not sure,’ she’d bumbled. ‘I haven’t been following the story.’
‘Really? I thought it was such a close community. Your friend Aimee was telling me how well you all knew the pilot.’
Melinda had nothing to say, just an open mouth that definitely wasn’t photogenic.
Clint had come to the rescue, kind of. ‘We don’t know him personally, but obviously we’re concerned. Anything that affects Hensley affects us. LoveLocked is going to make a big donation to help the pilot and his family with their recovery.’
We are not, thought Melinda. She didn’t want anyone making a connection between her company and Pete Kasprowicz’s plane.
‘That’s strictly off the record, of course,’ Clint added. ‘We don’t talk about charity work.’
Stacey said she understood, smiling up at him in a way that lots of women had been all evening. And why not? He was a good-looking man. Just a little . . . pushy. But ambition could be attractive. Melinda had begun to feel the first spark of something towards Clint, a little flare of attraction ignited by another woman’s interest. Competition did it for her, always had. She’d leaned closer, closed the gap between them. ‘No, we don’t,’ she told Stacey. With a slight but obvious emphasis on the ‘we’.
The lift pinged.
‘My floor,’ said Clint.
Should she?
‘After you,’ he said.
And Melinda found herself walking unsteadily towards her IPO advisor’s hotel room, his hand on the small of her back.
‘St Margaret’s Hospital, Intensive Care, good evening.’
‘I’m calling to ask about a patient.’
‘Sorry? I can’t hear you.’
Aimee pushed the door of her study shut. ‘I’m calling to ask about a patient,’ she repeated, as loud as she dared. ‘Lincoln Kasprowicz.’
The woman on the other end of the phone sighed. ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’
‘Oh my God.’ The bookshelves tilted as Aimee sat down hard on her desk. ‘Is he . . . dead?’
‘What? No. But it is nearly midnight.’ The nurse sounded impatient. ‘Who’s calling please? Are you a relative?’
‘I know it’s late. I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep.’ That was true enough. ‘It’s Lincoln’s aunt. Peter’s sister. Mary Kasprowicz. Well, Waters now, but I was Kasprowicz.’ She was babbling, she could tell.
‘He’s still the same, Mrs Waters, as last time you called. No change.’
‘Thank you so much. I’m sorry, I was just —’
‘I know you’re worried. But you only called three hours ago. I told you, someone will phone if there’s any change.’
‘Email, please. I’m not always home.’
‘Yes, email. There’s a note here.’ Another sigh. ‘Try and get some sleep, Mrs Waters. I’ll speak to you again tomorrow, no doubt.’
‘I will. Thank you. I’m so sorry to bother you. Thank you again.’
CHAPTER 16
It was like falling asleep in class — the vivid daydreams that you’d get as you nodded off, the kind that felt so real you were shocked and confused when the teacher caught you and shouted you back awake. Mixed in with long periods of black nothing. Nothing that sometimes had a voice shot through it, harsh and unintelligible, a foreign language. Nothing that would t
hen be cut with another image, a sudden memory, like accidentally coming across an old photo on your phone.
Lincoln lay in the black and enjoyed the memories, smiling inwardly when they appeared. His mother reading, the bulk of her covering the couch. Cricket with his dad, in the backyard. Sitting on their concrete front step with Cameron, sucking on an icy pole. His throat was dry in the blackness, his head heavy, as though it had somehow been weighted down.
The images started coming more often, and lasting longer. Weekend flights, the toy-town views of the cellophane river from up high. His dad’s hands, steady and confident, on the controls. Dad smiling in the cockpit, explaining, pointing. The stomach-dropping freedom of gaining height, the same nauseous excitement when it came time to land. His own first few lessons, just the basics. Dad watching proudly from the ground.
More Mum. Cooking. Singing. Swimming, at the beach, the bottoms of her two-piece disappearing between thighs and stomach. Mum sick. Getting smaller. Greyer. The hospital. Drips, tubes. So real he could smell the place, hear the beep of the machines.
Lincoln tried to open his eyes, but they refused. Instead he watched the painful pictures of his mum’s last days. Asleep, most of the time. In pain when she was awake. His dad panicking, running across the hospital car park. The funeral. The coffin. Cameron. Then no Cameron.
And sex. Many of the flashes were sex. Lincoln had only done it once, and not that long ago. But those memories seemed extra real, and he could feel the same giddy disbelief that someone was actually going to let him. The girl’s mouth, smiling. His head, arching back. The thrust, thrust, thrust, too quick probably. It hadn’t lasted long.
The blackness began feeling softer, lighter, mixing with the memories now. His own face, begging for the night flight. Dad, finally giving in. The two of them pulling the plane out of the hangar in the fading sunlight, like something from an old Tom Cruise movie. The sunset setting the river on fire. Lights rising, exploding, falling. Growing closer.