by Paige Toon
The air hostesses have started to serve drinks at the top of the aisle. I figure they can back up into Business Class and let me take my seat so I walk up towards them. The older one, Franny, nods at the younger one, who swivels round and spots me before turning back to Franny with an almost imperceptible shake of her immaculately groomed head. Then the bitches make me wait back by the toilets while they carry on serving the entire cabin with their frosty, false little smiles until finally they reach me and I’m able to pass. I am livid, but I won’t let them see they’ve got to me. I get back to my seat and realise I haven’t even been given a drink.
Franny and her evil counterpart are serving food now. The chicken stir-fry is slimy and unappetising, but I’m famished so I eat it all. Even the fake-cream sponge goes down nicely. The alcohol is starting to wear off and I find I’m exhausted, although I’m still so mad at James I can barely breathe.
So he lied about cheating. I can’t believe I actually apologised for suspecting him! How dare he? The image of him in bed with another girl comes to me once more, but I channel my anger back fast and strong. I can’t deal with those sick nerves again–anger is much easier to handle.
I need to go to the loo again. The air hostesses have already cleared our dinner trays, but they’re still working on the seats behind us. The curtain that divides Economy and Business Class is tied back and the Business Class toilets are tantalisingly close. What the hell, I think, and walk up the aisle.
It’s much nicer in here. They’ve even got hand cream and flowers.
There’s a knock at the door. What now? I wee as quickly as I can while the knocking increases in urgency and volume, and then unlock the door. Surprise, surprise, it’s Franny’s frosty friend. She must have seen me come in here. I haven’t even had time to use the hand cream yet–damn.
‘Miss, these are Business Class toilets–the Economy Class toilets are at the other end,’ she tells me condescendingly.
I motion to the passengers in Business Class and say, ‘I don’t think anyone here really mi—Wait. Are those telephones?’
An Asian businessman has a phone to his ear and this phone is attached by a cord to the back of the seat in front of him.
‘That’s certainly what they look like, don’t they?’
I look at her desperately. ‘I need to make a phone call.’
‘I’m afraid you can’t. They’re for Business Class passengers only.’
‘No, you don’t understand. I have to make an urgent call.’
‘I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do. You need to take your seat now.’
I should’ve known better than to piss off an air hostess.
She determinedly guides me back to my seat as I look over my shoulder in desperation at the phones. I don’t care that there’s only a few hours left of this flight. I want to call the son of a bitch and scream at him NOW. I will use that phone.
An hour later, when all the other passengers are either sleeping or watching the in-flight entertainment, I hoist myself up in my seat and climb over my dozing neighbours, carefully treading on their armrests so as not to wake them. I lift back the curtain dividing us and Business Class and step through. The Asian businessman is sleeping, so I creep over to him. Carefully taking the phone from its mount, I scrutinise it. No! It looks like it needs a credit card.
‘Miss! What are you doing?’
The businessman jolts wide awake at the sound of the air hostess’s shrill voice and stares at me, startled. He shouts something I can’t understand and, before I know it, the phone has been wrestled out of my grip by Franny and I’m being frogmarched up towards the front of the plane.
In the kitchenette area she turns to me and says with icy-cold hardness: ‘You’d better listen to me long and hard. First, you rocked up late and drunk. You were lucky that we didn’t refuse you passage on this aircraft—’
‘I wasn’t that drunk,’ I interrupt.
‘Enough! This is the one and only time I am going to tell you. If you don’t go back to your seat and calmly stay there for the duration of this flight, you will be banned from ever flying with this airline again. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?’
A red flush has crept across my face and I nod my assent. Mortified, I make my way back to my seat. Again I climb up and over the sleeping passengers, all the time watched closely by Franny. When she’s satisfied that I’ve been put firmly and literally back in my place, she turns and leaves, shaking her head in disgust.
After a few minutes of sitting there with my face burning, I decide I’d better watch a film or something–anything to try to take my mind off my situation. I won’t be moving again.
An hour later, when they’re bringing the breakfast trolley through, I barely look up, and when we finally land I can’t meet their eyes as I walk out through the door. They don’t say anything which may cause a scene in front of the other passengers, but I know they’re delighted to see the back of me. I just hope they’re not on my return flight. But right now, of course, there are other concerns on my mind.
Sydney
Chapter 1
I have to clear Immigration before I can call the wanker but as soon as I’m through and walking towards the luggage conveyor belt I’m dialling his number.
He picks up, laughing. ‘Hello?’
‘James.’
‘Lucy! How are you? How was your flight?’
‘You lying, cheating, son of a bitch.’
‘Lucy?’
‘You heard me, you bastard.’
‘Hey?’ Confusion reigns.
‘The sheets, James, the sheets. How did your friends know about the shitty sheets I use when I’m doing my fake tan? They don’t know, you arsehole—’
‘Lucy!’ he interrupts, but I’m on a roll.
‘They don’t know because they weren’t there. Whoever it was that you were shagging knows–oh, she knows alright.’
‘Lucy!’
‘Shut the hell up, James, I don’t want to hear! You have really blown it this time–I will never, ever forgive you!’
‘Lucy!’
‘No! Shut up!’
‘EGYPTIAN COTTON!’
‘What?’
‘Egyptian cotton!’
‘What are you talking about?’
He sounds panicked. ‘I told them about the ludicrously expensive Egyptian cotton sheets you bought from Selfridges a few weeks ago. I was complaining about it to a bunch of people at work just the other day.’
‘Why, James, why would you be talking about our sheets at work? I don’t believe you.’ My voice is flat.
‘Well, you’re going to have to because I was. Jeremy said something about how I must be enjoying my promotion and living the high life now and I said we won’t be living the high life if you keep spending money on stupid Egyptian cotton sheets!’ He barely pauses for breath.
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, oh. This is crazy!’
‘I thought “nice sheets” was sarcasm.’
‘Well, you thought wrong. Again.’
Neither of us can speak. The wind has been ripped out of my sails and I picture James all worked up, on the other side of the world, breathing hard and fast into his chest. I genuinely don’t know what to say. I’m still so angry. It’s like when you have a dream that your boyfriend has cheated on you and you wake up and look at him and still feel pissed off. He doesn’t understand, of course, because he’s done nothing wrong. But you still want him to apologise. I really don’t feel capable of saying sorry again.
‘Lucy?’
Nothing.
‘Speak to me!’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well, sorry would be something.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Doesn’t sound like you mean it.’
‘James, I have just had the worst twenty-four hours of my life! I thought you’d cheated on me. I thought I was going to lose you, have to move out of our flat, divide up our CDs, everything. I had to go through all that TWICE!
All because of your sodding mates and a sodding text. Do you understand?’
This time he doesn’t answer.
‘You’d better find out who sent that text. I want names, James.’
‘A poet and you didn’t even know it.’ He laughs.
‘I am not joking. Names!’
‘No, I’m not going to find out who sent that text, don’t be ridiculous.’ He’s suddenly serious. ‘If they knew how much trouble they’d caused they’d probably be over the moon. By not mentioning it, they’ll never have that satisfaction.’
I’m not convinced by any stretch of the imagination–I want their heads strung up so I can throw stones at them–but I know what he means. Immature little twats.
‘Are we alright, Lucy?’
‘No, we’re bloody not.’ But his tone softens me.
My phone beeps and I realise my battery must be low. Good timing, as I see my bag making its way around to me on the conveyor belt. ‘I’d better go–my battery’s running low and my bag’s here.’
‘Baby, please. Give me a call when you’ve charged up your phone. I love you, okay? I would never, ever cheat on you.’
A thought occurs to me. ‘Why were you laughing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you answered the phone. You were laughing.’
‘Oh! I was watching something on telly.’
‘What was it?’
‘Lucy, stop this! I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘What was it, James?’
He hesitates, then says, ‘If you can’t trust me—’
‘Tell me.’
My phone battery beeps again.
‘I was watching a repeat of Little Britain on UK Gold.’
‘I didn’t even know we could get UK Gold on our TV.’
‘Well, we can.’
I say nothing.
‘Lucy?’
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll speak to you later.’ I hang up on him.
I grab my bag and haul it off the conveyor belt, then, still feeling unsettled, I pull up the handle and wheel my way out through Customs.
As soon as I see them my heart swells with joy and forces out all the negativity from the last twenty-four hours. Molly and Sam are standing there at the end of the walkway. I rush towards them, tears brimming in my eyes.
‘I can’t believe you’re here!’
Suddenly I’m being smothered in a three-way hug. It’s so good to see them. Molly’s slimmed down and is this tall, skinny pale thing towering over me with a shock of red hair blasting out from the top of her head. She always hated her ‘mop-head’, as she called it–but I can’t imagine her without it. Sam looks different too. In contrast to Molly, he’s filled out and is now, well, a man. His face is a little rounder and his brown hair is shorter. He looks elated to see me and I check my emotions. Nope, nothing. Thank goodness for small mercies.
‘We brought you something.’ Molly beams and pulls a packet out of her bag.
‘TimTams!’ They were my favourite snack in high school: chocolate biscuit things–a bit like Penguin bars in England. You dip one end in your tea, bite it off and then dip the other end in, before sucking out the insides as quickly as you can, trying not to spill it all over you. ‘Now we just need a cuppa,’ I laugh.
Sam takes my suitcase from me and we head outside to the car park. It’s still only about eight in the morning so it’s not quite warm yet, but I’m anticipating a glorious, sunny day. Happiness washes over me.
‘How was your flight?’ Sam asks.
I groan. ‘Not great. I’ll tell you later.’
‘I can’t believe your English accent!’ Molly squeals suddenly. ‘You sound like a Pom!’
‘I do not.’
‘Yes, you do. Doesn’t she, Sam?’
‘She does indeed.’ Sam smiles across at me fondly. ‘Here we are,’ he says, hauling my suitcase up into the back tray of an open-topped white truck, lying it flat next to half a dozen baby palm trees.
‘Are you working today?’ I ask him.
‘Nah, I’m just doing a favour for a mate. I’m going to drop you girls off home and have a quick cuppa with you and then I’ve got to get off and do some gardening.’
Sam works as a horticulturalist in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, which is where he proposed to Molly, high on a platform within the walls of the great pyramid-shaped glasshouse. He uses the truck for work and I’m lucky it’s not raining, otherwise my clothes would get drenched.
We hit the Expressway, Sam zipping in and out of traffic, honking his horn like a madman. ‘It’s so weird seeing you driving,’ I say. ‘I never thought you’d end up being such a nutcase behind the wheel.’
‘It’s not me, it’s everyone else that’s the problem.’ He grins.
I glance at Molly and bare my teeth in fake horror.
She rolls her eyes at me. ‘This is nothing. You should see him in rush hour.’
We enter a tunnel and when we come out the other side the city is upon us, jagged skyline stretching up into the clear blue sky. The golden top of Sydney Tower glints in the morning sunlight.
‘Do you want to go over the bridge, Lucy? Or shall we tunnel it?’ Sam asks after a minute.
‘Bridge! Bridge!’ I bleat excitedly.
Sam and Molly live in Manly, one of Sydney’s northern suburbs. You can access it by ferry from Circular Quay, but we’re doing the journey by car across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Moments later the huge steel arch of the bridge looms in front of us. Two Australian flags fly high atop it and I can just make out little figures not so much scarpering like ants as straining to complete the bridge’s strenuous climb. I look back over Sam’s shoulder and glimpse a view of the ocean. The Sydney Opera House shines like a white beacon and the water in the harbour sparkles and glimmers like billions of tiny crystals.
Across the bridge we take a right towards Mosman and Manly. Car dealerships, shops, chemists, delis, newsagents, funeral homes and coffee shops whizz past and soon we’re approaching the Spit where hundreds of different-coloured apartment blocks and houses step down the cliff face overlooking the bay. Palm trees and pines line the waterfront and the grass is yellow and dry.
‘Hot summer?’ I enquire.
‘Very,’ Sam answers. ‘Terrible for the garden.’
Terrible for the garden, good for me, I think. I hope it stays that way for the next couple of weeks, and for the wedding of course.
Molly winds down her window and I breathe in the ocean air. I’m beginning to feel more like myself with every minute.
‘So how’s James?’ Molly asks, as Sam drives right up the backside of a silver Suzuki.
‘Urgh.’ I tell them a condensed version of my sorry story.
‘Blimey,’ Molly says when I finish. ‘Do you believe him?’
‘I don’t know. I think so. I just don’t know.’
At that moment I make a decision not to let what happened with James bring me down. I’ve saved up for months for this holiday; it’s the first time I’ve been back to Australia in almost a decade, and I absolutely, resolutely, will not let him spoil it. I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I do.
‘Get a move on, woman!’ Sam breaks the silence by honking his horn.
After a few minutes we take a left down a pretty tree-lined street full of houses with red-tiled roofs. Before I know it we’re pulling up in front of a two-storey wood-panelled green and cream house. A hammock hangs out on the porch and a fragrant frangipani tree is in full bloom in the front garden.
I’ve been to Sam and Molly’s house plenty of times, back when it was Sam’s family home. Shortly after I left Australia, Sam’s parents, Joan and Michael, died in a boating accident. Their bodies were never found. Sam and his younger brother, Nathan, alerted the authorities when their parents still hadn’t returned late at night after a whole day sailing. The boat was eventually discovered empty a couple of days later, drifting way out in the Pacific Ocean. The most popular theory was
that Joan had fallen overboard and Michael had jumped in trying to rescue her, forgetting to put the anchor down. The boat had drifted and they’d both drowned or had been taken by sharks. Some speculated that they’d done a runner or been kidnapped. And there were even terrible whisperings that maybe Michael had murdered his wife and then killed himself. But anyone who’d ever met them knew that wasn’t true. They were a wonderful, warm couple, their house always filled with Joan’s infectious laughter. I was devastated when I found out. They’d always joined in with us ‘kids’ and we felt comfortable around them. Michael was a good-looking man with slightly-too-long-for-his-age dark hair and rough stubble, while Joan was tall, slim and elegant with short blonde hair. I always wanted to be like her when I grew up. But at five foot six, curvy and brunette, the most I can hope for now is having Joan’s sense of humour.
After their parents’ disappearance the boys moved in with their aunt, Katherine, in the city. When it was eventually accepted that Joan and Michael were never coming back, Katherine–Joan’s sister–agreed to take them on permanently, rather than unsettle them even more by forcing them to move all the way to Perth in Western Australia to live with their grandparents. At almost eighteen, Sam would soon be old enough to move out and go to university, so it didn’t seem worthwhile uprooting him and his brother. Neither of the boys could bear to sell the family home and as Michael had been a successful architect and, together with Joan, had run his own property development business, Sam and Nathan found they could afford to keep the house and rent it out.
Eighteen months ago, Sam and Molly finally moved back in and turned it into a B&B. They now run the place together and are kindly letting me stay in one of their two guest bedrooms for the next fortnight. There’s a sign out at the front saying NO VACANCIES and Molly explains that they’re not taking on anymore visitors in the lead-up to the wedding. I’m secretly overjoyed that we’ll have the house to ourselves, although I feel bad that I’m not a paying guest. I hope they don’t mind but the cost of the flight has almost wiped me out as it is.