Who We Were

by B M Carroll

  ‘Where’s Daniel?’ Jarrod asks, setting Mia down so she can follow her mother’s instructions.

  The need to check Daniel’s whereabouts has become the underlying beat to their lives. It’s always one of the first things Jarrod asks when he comes in.

  ‘At Jeremy’s house, working on a project for school. Some video they need to do for PE. I’m picking him up in half an hour.’

  ‘I can get him if you like,’ he offers, exhaustion etched in his face. He tends to go pale when he’s overtired. Annabel knows that on an average day he deals with a series of irate inconvenienced homeowners, outdated and treacherous wiring, claustrophobic ceiling cavities, not to mention alarmingly regular electric shocks caused by ditzy apprentices who keep forgetting to follow the correct protocols.

  ‘No, it’s fine. Have your dinner. Here, I’ll warm it up for you.’

  Much later, when Daniel has been picked up and it has been confirmed that the PE project was all that he was up to, when Mia’s maths homework has been extensively corrected and she’s tucked up in bed, when Annabel has done her level best to remove the scuff from the communion shoe, she finally sits down next to her husband on the sofa. Jarrod is watching the cricket; Australia appear to be in trouble.

  ‘This popped up in my email today.’

  Jarrod takes the sheet of paper from her outstretched hand and skims it. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  She shrugs. ‘I don’t really know. Some kind of joke, I presume.’

  He jabs it with his finger. ‘How do they know about Daniel?’

  Good question. Jarrod was livid when he found out about the bong. She had to tell him in the end, because although she confiscated it, Daniel lost no time finding both a replacement and a better hiding spot. Jarrod was equally livid with Annabel (for not telling him about it upfront) and Daniel (who point-blank refused to stop). The irony is, once Jarrod calmed down, his instincts were exactly the same as hers: to cover it up.

  ‘I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want people making judgements, writing Daniel off as a no-hoper,’ he said at the time. ‘Let’s try to sort this out ourselves the best we can.’

  They haven’t been able to sort it out, though. They’ve tried the calm and forthright approach, reasoning with Daniel about house rules, his health and his future. When that didn’t work, they came down heavier: limiting access to his bank account, keeping tabs on who he is with, enforcing curfews and a few sessions with the school counsellor. Daniel has responded by lying about his whereabouts, escaping from his room at night, and becoming increasingly disconnected from his family. His desire to get high, practically on a daily basis, suggests an inability to self-regulate and the possibility of a lifetime struggle with illicit substances.

  So how has the author of this email found this information? The school counsellor? Unlikely. Maybe Jarrod broke his own rules and confided in someone. Or maybe Annabel accidentally let something slip, even though she’s pretty sure she didn’t. For God’s sake, she hasn’t even mentioned it to Grace.

  Now she sighs. ‘I have no idea. Did you tell someone?’

  ‘Jesus, Annie, why the hell would I do that?’ His voice is loud enough to carry to the kids’ bedrooms. ‘Didn’t we agree that we’d keep it in the family?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t told anyone either.’ She shrugs wearily. ‘Unless I’m losing my memory .... Maybe I am losing my mind.’

  ‘I’m going to find out who sent this and smash their face in.’

  Jarrod was known for his short temper at school, especially at sporting fixtures. On-field grievances spiralling into tussles and swinging fists. Other team members pulling him back, talking him down. Minutes later he would be laughing and joking around. These days his anger is more entrenched.

  Annabel stands up, pats him on the arm. ‘It’s a joke, Jarrod. Just a joke.’

  He roars back at her. ‘Stop saying that! Do you see either of us fucking laughing?’

  Name: Luke Willis

  What you will be remembered for: Playing the role of Danny in Grease. ‘Summer loving had me a blast ...’

  Best memories of high school: Mrs Romford’s face when I told her I didn’t want to kiss ‘Sandy’ because I was gay.

  Worst memories of high school: The mud and leeches during cross country in Year 10.

  What will you be doing ten years from now: Famous Broadway actor (with at least five sports cars).

  2

  LUKE

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the cabin crew speaking. We have a medical emergency on board and our plane will be met on the ground by an ambulance. On landing, please stay in your seats while the paramedics attend to the patient. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience and will notify the transfers department of possible delays.’

  Luke’s announcement is met with mutterings of frustration and sighs of inconvenience. Selfish bastards. A woman – fifty-something, extremely overweight – uses her bejewelled hand to beckon him over.

  ‘I must get off this plane. I have a flight to catch.’ Her accent is Eastern European, her tone accusing. ‘You were already late taking off. It’s your fault I have so little time to connect.’

  Luke masks his irritation behind a slight, ultra-polite smile. ‘I’m afraid the announcement applies to everyone, ma’am. You all need to stay in your seats. The paramedics will stabilise the patient and we’ll do our best to have you off the aircraft as soon as possible.’

  ‘Where is this patient?’ She swings around in her seat. ‘Tell me, which row?’

  Jesus Christ. What is she planning to do? March down there and berate the man – who appears to be in the throes of a serious allergic reaction – for causing such inconvenience? Or declare that she could merely slip past the seat in question, and be on her merry way?

  ‘I need to get back to my duties, ma’am. Excuse me.’

  A flash of colour from the rings before her fingers bite into his arm. ‘Listen to me, you faggot. I have a right to get off this plane as soon as it lands. I have no travel insurance to cover missed flights. Do you understand me?’

  It always takes him by surprise. Invariably, it’s the respectable-looking passengers, rather than the rough ones; the middle-aged women and harmless old men, as opposed to the supposedly mannerless youth.

  He looks down pointedly at the fingers pressed into the white cotton of his sleeve. ‘What did you just call me?’

  She is not going to fall into the trap of repeating herself, not when there are other passengers listening now. She removes her hand quickly. Pats her hair.

  Let it go, he tells himself. Fatima is waving at him from the galley. They need to prepare for landing. He has bigger concerns, a procedure to go through to get this plane on the ground, a man whose life may be relying on their efficiency. She is a nothing. A bigoted, selfish, nasty nothing.

  It’s that word, though. Faggot. It reminds him of his father.

  Luke forces himself to walk away. After a few moments he has even resumed the slight smile – it’s almost part of his uniform, that smile – proof that he is above people like her.

  ‘Rubbish, anyone? Just pop it in here. Thank you.’

  Back to the intercom. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position ...’ He sounds as competent and calm as ever. Not at all rattled. ‘Cabin crew, please prepare for landing.’

  Nerida, his most experienced crew member, is assisting the man with the allergic reaction. It’s unfortunate, and quite unusual, not to have an off-duty doctor or nurse aboard the aircraft. Nerida has administered oxygen and adrenalin and is on the phone to paramedics. Soon she will have to leave the man and belt herself in, as per procedure. Hopefully his blood pressure won’t drop too low during the final stages of descent. In his twenty years of flying, Luke’s had six passengers die on board, mostly from heart attacks. Life is short. He’s always known this fact and it’s why he’s never been a time waster. He couldn’t wait to leave schoo
l, to get out into the world, to be independent. He loves his work. He loves his life with Aaron. He loves calling London home. If he doesn’t love something, or someone, he doesn’t do it, or them. It’s simple really.

  The plane lurches downwards. A baby wails.

  ‘Cabin crew, take your seats.’

  Luke sits in his seat, flanked by Fatima and, at the very last minute, Nerida.

  ‘His bloody EpiPen was past its expiry.’ Her voice has a tell-tale wobble. ‘When will people learn?’

  Luke takes her hand and squeezes it. She is a good friend. Later on, when they’ve dealt with the ambulance and all the paperwork, they’ll go for a drink and she’ll have a cry, let it all out. As the plane descends through the rain clouds over Heathrow, he thinks about another friend, from another lifetime: Katy. He must respond to her email as soon as he gets home. It’s been sitting there for over a week now.

  From: admin@yearbook.com.au

  Subject: RSVP

  Still waiting on your RSVP for the reunion. I know you can get back to Sydney if you really wanted to, so no excuses. Also, thought it would be fun to compile a new yearbook, showing where everyone is at today. Questions are below. Can you send me replies as soon as possible?

  Xxx Katy

  Where is he at? One of his passengers could be about to die, and if he does, Luke will be filling in paperwork for the next few hours. He has just been called a faggot, and it’s made him angrier than it should have. Nerida will undoubtedly want to get drunk as soon as they escape the airport, and Aaron will be annoyed if he doesn’t come straight home. A day in the life of Luke Willis.

  Luke catches up with Katy whenever he deigns to visit Sydney, and she has dropped in on him in London a handful of times over the years. In between visits, they text, FaceTime and share funny jokes and videos. Their friendship has lasted twenty-plus years; not bad, considering his intentions at the start were less than pure. Luke – trying to get through exams on a minimum-effort policy – sat next to her in class, hoping to short-cut a difficult chemistry unit. Not only was she helpful – summing up the unit much more concisely than the teacher – Katy Buckley was other things, too: foolishly big-hearted, always believing the best of people, including him; so eager and perennially positive that it was actually hard to be cynical (Luke’s speciality) in her presence. Something softens in him whenever he thinks about her. Their friendship was viewed suspiciously, incredulously, by his other more popular friends, but that didn’t bother Luke; he never gave a shit about what other people thought. Katy was too nerdy to become part of that group. Neither was she pretty enough, but she’s had the last laugh there. Years ago, she dyed her carrot-coloured hair a rich shade of brown and the effect was transformative. More recently she’s got into fitness and developed a unique sense of fashion. The last time Luke saw her, she was unrecognisable.

  Luke hasn’t stayed in contact with any of the others. As soon as the HSC was done, that was it: he was out of their group, out of Sydney, out of Australia. He landed his first job with a budget airline, jetting around Europe and having the time of his life. He never looked back, never regretted not furthering his education. Who needed university when there was real life waiting to be lived? Who needed to be dependent on your parents and subject to their rules when you could call the shots yourself? Who needed school friends who – when it came down to it – you had absolutely nothing in common with, other than the shared experience – torture, more like – of class after boring class, exam after pointless exam, teacher after detested teacher?

  Now, just thinking about that core gang – Annabel, Grace, Zach, Jarrod – makes Luke feel a surge of loathing. He can’t understand why. He didn’t hate them at school, far from it. It’s not as if they victimised him for being gay. If anything, it was the opposite: his sexuality made him more popular, at least with the girls.

  The plane breaks through the cloud cover and suddenly there is a close-range view of London. Grey on grey on grey: the sky, the buildings, the Thames. The greyness is the ultimate understatement, a clever disguise for the excitement, diversity and pulse of the city. History and modernity, classiness and grit, flourishing side by side. Luke has travelled the world. This is his favourite place.

  He’ll do an updated page for Katy’s yearbook but there’s no fucking way he’s going to the reunion. Why waste time looking back? Look forward, people. Look ahead. Grab life by the balls and live it. Forget about the past. The man struggling for breath on row fifteen is not thinking about the past. He’s thinking about the things he still wants to do.

  The plane bumps against the runway and bumps again, then screams forward at a ferocious speed. Luke always holds his breath at this point, thinking: Is this the one where we won’t be able to stop?

  But they stop. They always do.

  As soon as it’s permitted, Nerida unclicks herself. Luke folds away both their seats. When he turns back to face the aisle, he sees two things: Nerida manoeuvring the man so he is lying flat on the floor, and the overweight woman hoisting herself up from her seat. She reaches for the overhead locker and has her bag out before Fatima gets there to berate her.

  ‘Please sit down, ma’am. The plane is still moving and we must make way for the paramedics.’

  The woman looks her up and down. ‘I’m not having a Muslim tell me what to do!’

  Luke picks up the phone to greet the ground staff. ‘This is Luke Willis, cabin supervisor. Can I please request police as well as the ambulance? We have an abusive passenger who’s refusing to follow directions.’

  She’ll be first off the plane all right, but not in the way she expected. The police will detain her and she’ll be charged and fined. There goes her connecting flight and whatever money she was trying to save by not taking out travel insurance. Serve her right. Fuck her.

  Luke’s never been one to take shit, and he’s not going to start now. When he cares enough to exact revenge, he does so in spectacular fashion.

  Name: Grace McCrae

  What you will be remembered for: Probably for being Annabel Moore’s best friend!

  Best memories of high school: The Year 10 formal.

  Worst memories of high school: Food technology.

  What will you be doing ten years from now: No friggin’ idea.

  3

  GRACE

  Grace can’t stop looking at it: Yearbook of Macquarie High, Class of 2000. Ninety-odd pages that depict another lifetime, one that feels so very strange it could belong to someone else. All the girls wearing similar hairstyles – layered at the front, highlighted – and the frumpy uniforms that they’d hated, with good reason. The boys with hunched shoulders and sneakers instead of the proper school shoes. The self-conscious quotes speckled throughout, not remotely as meaningful or humorous as they’d believed at the time. God, they all looked so gauche. And so terribly, terribly young.

  ‘We thought we were hot,’ she comments to Tom as he emerges from the en suite, dressed for bed in a pair of old soccer shorts and singlet. ‘But we were just babies, really.’

  ‘Are you still looking at that old thing?’ he asks, sliding into bed next to her.

  ‘I can’t seem to put it away,’ she laughs. ‘I’ve become fixated on it.’

  He sidles over, rests his head hopefully against her chest. ‘I could give you something else to be fixated on ... if you like.’

  Grace is considering his proposition when, with impeccable timing, the bedroom door creaks open.

  ‘Mummy, Daddy,’ whispers a voice.

  Tom sighs and smiles at the same time. ‘Yes, Lauren?’

  It’s nearly always Lauren who pays the after-hours visits. Their third child suffers anxiety about school, social occasions, nightfall, and a long list of other things.

  ‘I heard a noise in my room. I’m scared.’

  ‘Right.’ Tom dramatically throws back the covers. ‘Daddy’s coming and we’ll have a full-scale search. There’ll be no escaping the eagle eye of Tom Coleman.’

 
; He bounds out of the room, giving a great impression that this – a hunt for would-be intruders – is exactly what he’d like to do at this precise moment.

  Grace goes back to the yearbook, flicking once again to her own entry.

  Why did she say that the Year 10 formal was her best memory? Why not the Year 12 one? Was it because it was all coming to an end, and she felt sad that they were about to go their separate ways? Or was it because Annabel, seven months’ pregnant, didn’t attend the Year 12 formal, and because her best friend hadn’t been there, it didn’t hold the same importance?

  Probably, pathetically, the latter. For this reason, Grace is watchful of the friendships that her children form and, whenever she can, veers them away from relationships that compromise their own identity.

  Don’t have one friend, she tells them regularly. Have lots and lots of them. Be your own person, not just a mimic of your friends.

  Sometimes she is more forthright: When I was in high school, I had only one friend. If she was in a good mood, I was in a good mood. If she was in a bad mood, I was in a bad mood. I think I missed out on a lot of fun because of her.

  Grace is brimming with things to tell her children, lessons she herself had to learn the hard way. She even has a notebook where she writes things down, practical advice and nuggets of wisdom to be imparted when the timing is right. Tom calls it the Mother Manual, although he’s been known to write a thing or two in there as well. They laugh about it – ‘That’s definitely one for the manual’ – but beneath it all they’re deadly serious. Tom was always one of those men who was going to make a great father. It’s Grace who’s the surprise. Being a mother is her calling in life, even though she never knew it until she held Tahlia – her eldest – in her arms. Grace plans to be proud about it at the upcoming reunion. No, I don’t have a paid job at the moment, because I have four fabulous kids – the best in the world – and I put all my time, energy and imagination into them.