Trip of a Lifetime

by Liz Byrski

  ‘Everything all right?’ the guard asked.

  She shook her head, leaning back against the wall, her legs trembling. ‘No. Well, I don’t know . . . there’s a man, over there in the gallery, the lower level near the outside door. He kept staring . . .’

  The security guard spoke into his radio, and two more guards and Vince suddenly materialised beside her.

  ‘On the end of the row,’ she said again, moving towards the door to point him out, ‘there by the . . . he’s gone, he was in that end seat, and now he’s gone. He must have left when I did.’

  Her heart was pounding now and she was finding it hard to breathe. Vince steered her to a seat.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Grey hair, quite thick, squarish face.’

  ‘Clean shaven?’

  ‘Yes, and wearing a jumper, dark; navy, perhaps, or very dark grey . . .’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Sixty, maybe more.’

  Vince nodded to the guards, who headed for the side exit. ‘Anything else? Did he do anything strange, try to attract your attention?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, it was just the staring, he was staring at me all the time. I’m sorry, I’m probably overreacting. I expect he’s perfectly innocent and he’s gone now.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Vince said. ‘I’ll send a uniformed constable to stay with you. Can you go to your office or do you need to go back to the chamber?’

  ‘No.’ She was feeling stupid now. ‘I won’t go back in, I can’t, not today.’ She looked up in relief to see Shaun approaching. ‘I was so frightened in there, and now it seems silly,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’m becoming paranoid.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Vince said, ‘but maybe not. I don’t like the fact that he left when you did. We’ll see what the boss has to say.’

  ‘Okay, here’s what I want you to do,’ Alex Roussos said the following day. It was ten minutes to the start of question time and the House was crawling with police both in and out of uniform. ‘Go in to the chamber as though nothing has happened. Behave normally, go to your seat and try not to look at the gallery. We want him to think you haven’t noticed him.’

  Heather’s heart leapt into her throat.

  ‘You mean he’s there again?’

  ‘There is a man who fits your description sitting in almost exactly the same place near the side door. One of my officers is sitting beside him and there’s another just behind. Try to look relaxed and when you’ve been in there a few minutes you can glance around. Vince is with the usher on the other side of the chamber, between the Speaker and the Opposition benches. If you think it’s the same man, just give Vince a nod. Then I want you to stay there for a while. Do you think you can do that?’

  Heather nodded and swallowed hard. ‘Be calm, take my seat, don’t look round straight away, then when I do look up, if I spot him nod to Vince and stay put.’

  ‘Right, good. It’s important that he thinks you haven’t noticed him. Stay there as long as you can, ten minutes if you can handle it, then get up and come out, same as you did yesterday, and we’ll see what he does.’ He gripped her arm. ‘I’ve got officers in front, beside and behind him, Heather, so just take your time and stay cool. Remember, he’s had to go through the x-ray machine to get in.’

  Fear encased her in a cocoon, making her struggle for breath. People, voices, action in the chamber all existed in another dimension. She made her way to her seat, willing herself to relax, to smile, battling the urge to look up to the gallery from where his presence seemed to exercise a magnetic force. She fixed her attention on the mace resting on its stand on the green baize of the central table and waited. As the Speaker welcomed a group of year eleven students and an RSL club, she allowed herself to turn her head, along with the rest of her colleagues, towards the gallery in acknowledgement, and she saw him. His gaze struck her like a blow and she gasped, turned to Vince and nodded, before looking down at the order paper that was shaking furiously in her hands. Ten minutes to get through, why didn’t they just take him now? Why wait to see what he’d do?

  Her shoulder throbbed and she closed her eyes, trying again to visualise healing but able only to see herself, as from a distance, hurtling down the office steps on a dark, wet night. She managed seven minutes before her terror drove her stumbling out through the side door, where Roussos, mobile phone to his ear, signalled to her to move away from the line of sight.

  ‘He’s leaving now too,’ he told her. ‘They’ll pick him up outside the door.’

  ‘And then you’ll never guess what happened,’ Heather said, reaching out for her wine glass. ‘They did apprehend him and carted him off to the police station, where it turns out he’s not some mad would-be assassin but,’ she turned to her brother, ‘and you won’t believe this, Adam – it was Ellis.’

  Adam was silent for a moment, puzzled. ‘Ellis?’ he said finally. ‘Not Ellis Hargreaves?’

  Heather nodded and sipped her drink. ‘Ellis Hargreaves. Isn’t that amazing, after all this time? He’d heard what happened and he decided to come and see me.’

  ‘Ellis Hargreaves?’ Adam said again. ‘That bastard! I wouldn’t put anything past him. What’s Ellis bloody Hargreaves doing showing up after all this time?’

  ‘Don’t be such a grump,’ Heather said, her cheeks flushing slightly. ‘It was lovely to see him again.’

  ‘Why? Why did he want to see you? I hope Roussos is checking him out. It could be him. Bastard.’

  Shaun, sitting on Jill’s left, saw her head spring up in surprise. Clearly she was shocked by Adam’s vehemence.

  ‘Adam! That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ said Heather, clearly hurt. ‘I know you never liked him but –’

  ‘Liked that sleazy bastard? No. I never understood what you saw in him, especially in view of . . .’ He stopped and they both looked down awkwardly at their plates.

  ‘He . . . er . . . well, he does have an alibi for the night of the shooting, Adam,’ Shaun said, feeling some responsibility to support Heather in the face of this uncharacteristic attack. Since the police had apprehended Ellis that afternoon, Shaun had witnessed Heather’s roller-coaster emotions as she swung from fear to relief at a possible arrest, to delight at the appearance of an old friend and back to fear that they had not, after all, found her attacker. ‘Apparently he was at some retreat in the Blue Mountains at the time. A number of people can vouch for him.’

  ‘Perhaps someone would tell me who this person is?’ Jill said, passing Shaun a dish of steamed vegetables. ‘He seems to be inciting some rather unusual passions in you, Adam.’

  ‘He was a part-time law tutor when I was at uni,’ Heather began, glancing sideways at her brother. ‘We fell in love . . .’

  ‘Ah! An old boyfriend.’

  ‘Boyfriend,’ snorted Adam. ‘A married man with two small children. Boyfriend, indeed. More like a vile seducer preying on young girls.’

  ‘Heavens, Adam, what’s got into you? You’re sounding positively Victorian,’ Jill said. ‘Did he really seduce you, Heather?’

  ‘No, well . . . maybe . . . yes, I suppose he did,’ Heather said, flushing more deeply, ‘but it wasn’t as though I was unwilling. He was exciting, handsome and brilliant, and I was madly in love with him.’

  ‘He took advantage of you,’ Adam said. ‘These days he’d never get away with it.’

  ‘He was in love with me too,’ Heather protested. ‘He was. He said so today, he was always in love with me. He should never have left, he said so, it was just the situation. He was married . . .’

  ‘Yes, he was married, he was much older, you were eighteen, and he was your tutor, for heaven’s sake. He was in a position of trust and authority and he abused that and then abandoned you, and now he’s stalking you.’

  ‘He’s not stalking –’

  ‘Well,’ Jill cut in, ‘this is a surprise. A secret past. Come on, Heather, tell all.’

  Adam glared at her and stabbed a baby carrot with his fork.

&
nbsp; ‘It was just that, really,’ Heather said, embarrassed now.

  Adam grunted. ‘Just what, exactly?’

  Heather ignored him. ‘I suppose it was doomed from the start, what with him being married, but just the same . . .’

  Adam grunted again, louder this time.

  Shaun studied his plate, slicing his chicken breast into small pieces, uncomfortable to find himself suddenly at the heart of some reignited family tension.

  ‘So this appearance is quite out of the blue?’ Jill asked. ‘How long since you saw or heard from him?’

  Heather paused. ‘Oh, decades – must be almost forty years.’

  ‘And you didn’t recognise him in the gallery?’

  Heather shook her head. ‘No. Close up he looks almost the same – older, of course, grey hair, and he had a beard in those days. At a distance I had no idea it was him. It’s not as though I was expecting to see him, or even thinking about him.’

  ‘And so, what about his wife?’

  ‘He’s single. Divorced ages ago. He’s retired to Byron Bay and apparently he has a beautiful house in the tree tops.’

  ‘Retired from what?’ Jill asked.

  ‘When I knew him he was tutoring in law, but later he was a criminal lawyer. He was at the bar for years. Then some time ago he just gave it up and sort of reinvented himself.’

  ‘As what, exactly?’ Adam asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘He’s a life-coach,’ Heather said, avoiding eye contact. ‘Not the sort that tells you how to organise your sock drawer. I think he said it’s more orientated to wellness and spirituality through discovery of the self.’

  This time Adam snorted. ‘Oh, please!’

  From the corner of his eye, Shaun watched Heather’s hand plucking at a serviette.

  ‘So what now?’ Jill asked. ‘Now he’s seen you and got arrested in the process, is he heading off back home to Byron Bay?’

  Heather paused, sipping her wine again. ‘No, he’s going to be in Sydney for a couple of weeks. I’m having dinner with him on Saturday.’

  Adam threw his serviette onto the table and got up. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ he said, pushing back his chair.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jill asked.

  ‘To load the dishwasher.’

  ‘But we’ve only just started eating,’ she protested.

  ‘I’m certainly not going to sit here and discuss that . . . that man,’ Adam said, turning to Heather. ‘I can’t believe you would even deign to talk to him, Heather, let alone have dinner with him,’ and he disappeared into the kitchen slamming the door behind him.

  ‘Door, Dad! Remember!’ yelled Toby, who was passing through on his way to find cookies. ‘No slamming doors.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Heather said awkwardly, fiddling with the stem of her wine glass. ‘That was a bit of a disaster, wasn’t it? Sorry, Jill, I thought after all this time . . .’ Her voice faltered.

  ‘It was very unlike Adam,’ Jill said. ‘Whatever’s got into him? Sorry, Shaun, take no notice. Let’s just finish our dinner and talk about something else.’

  Shaun smiled and returned to his rapidly cooling food, wondering how long it would be before he could reasonably suggest that he should drive Heather home.

  Jill signalled left and took the slip road off the freeway.

  ‘Yay! McDonald’s,’ Toby yelled from the back seat, where she had banished him as punishment for constantly putting his feet on the dashboard. ‘I want a Big Mac, large fries and a strawberry thickshake.’

  ‘Chicken burger, chicken burger, chicken, chicken, chicken burger,’ Daisy chanted, ‘and ice cream.’

  Jill readied herself for a lecture on healthy alternatives and decided it was all too hard. Slipping into a parking space outside McDonald’s, she pulled a twenty-dollar note from her purse and handed it to Toby.

  ‘This is for yours and Daisy’s,’ she said. ‘And I do know how much change there should be. See if you can organise it without fighting. I’m going next door to get a decent coffee.’

  It had been a spur of the moment decision to call Barbara and ask if she could pop up with the kids. In the three days since the scene at dinner, Adam had been like a bear with a sore head, growling at anyone who spoke to him. Her efforts to get him to tell her just what it was about Heather’s friend that upset him so much had hit a wall.

  ‘He’s a bastard,’ was all he’d say. ‘He treated Heather really badly and I can’t understand how she can bear to have anything to do with him.’

  After a night of trying to sleep in uncomfortable proximity to his anger, Jill had called Heather in the hope of getting to the bottom of it, but Heather had been vague.

  ‘It’s just old stuff,’ she hedged. ‘Forget it, Jill, he’ll come around.’

  Jill was hurt and frustrated. When she’d admitted to Renée that she resented the attention Heather got from everyone, she had really meant from Adam. While she understood that being close in age, together with their father’s long illness and early death, had brought them close as children, she still resented the way that he seemed to feel so responsible for Heather. The worst thing was, Jill knew that if she were asked to provide actual examples of this she wouldn’t be able to. It was just a gut feeling, one that, had she voiced it, would simply sound petty and neurotic. But she’d always felt excluded from their mutual understanding, and now she was also excluded from their conflict. But there was one person who might be able to tell her what was going on. With Adam and the orchestra heading off on Friday evening for two concerts in Melbourne, a weekend visit to Morpeth seemed like a good idea.

  ‘Lovely!’ Barbara had said when Jill called. ‘It’s ages since I saw you and the children. I’ll expect you about midday.’

  ‘How much farther is it now?’ Daisy whined as they pulled back onto the freeway. ‘I’m bored.’

  ‘Boring, more like,’ Toby said through a mouthful of burger. ‘Boring and soppy.’

  ‘About three-quarters of an hour,’ Jill said. ‘And, Toby, if you don’t shut up you’ll sit in the back all the way home tomorrow too.’

  While Jill supervised Daisy’s shower, Barbara took a bottle of wine and two glasses out onto the back verandah and sat down to wait for her, the staccato soundtrack of Toby’s DVD floating out from the lounge room. She poured the wine and sat back wondering whether she could remember anything about Ellis Hargreaves. Jill had started to tell her about Adam’s outburst while they were out for a walk that afternoon but Daisy, tired of tormenting Toby, had decided to walk between them.

  ‘He’s not a very nice friend if he tried to shoot Aunty Heather,’ she announced.

  ‘He didn’t shoot her, Daise,’ Jill said, taking her daughter’s hand. ‘He didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘So why is Daddy all grumpy?’ Daisy asked, determined not to be left out.

  ‘He’s just tired and busy,’ Jill said, looking across at Barbara, who changed the subject by asking Daisy how she was getting on at dancing class.

  Now, facing the stillness of the darkened garden, Barbara wrapped a woollen shawl around her shoulders and wondered if there were something she’d forgotten that might provide a clue to Adam’s hostility and Heather’s reticence.

  ‘Oh, delicious,’ Jill said, joining her and picking up her glass. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers. Daisy okay?’

  ‘In bed, thank goodness. So, you don’t remember anything about this Ellis person?’

  ‘Not a thing. I don’t even think I’ve heard his name before, but then if Heather was involved with a married man I doubt she’d have told Dorothy or me about it.’

  ‘So am I being paranoid or do you think it’s odd the way Adam’s behaving?’

  ‘Oh, I do think it’s odd,’ Barbara said. ‘Most unlike him. We all know that Adam takes the line of least resistance, often to the point of being infuriating, so to suddenly flare up like that is very strange.’

  Jill swirled the wine in her glass. ‘It’s q
uite hurtful, really.’

  ‘Because he won’t talk to you about it?’

  ‘That and the fact that Heather won’t either. It feels like a conspiracy.’

  ‘Now, that is paranoid,’ Barbara said gently. ‘This isn’t about you, Jill, it’s something between them that’s never been resolved. You’re just copping some of the delayed fallout.’

  Jill sighed. ‘I suppose so. The other night at dinner it was like when couples carry on their domestic hostilities at the table. The whole room is alive with tension, but no one else really knows what’s happening, and everyone’s embarrassed.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Barbara said. ‘I’ve been trying to remember what was happening then. It must have been around the time Heather and Adam got the flat together, or just after. But I can’t really say that anything else springs to mind.’

  ‘Well, I’m clearly not going to get any answers from either of them,’ Jill said.

  There was a scuffle in the lantana and George’s cat darted out chasing something small across the grass.

  ‘Rusty’s found a mouse,’ Barbara said. ‘Now he’ll take it home and present it to George. He’s always finding little corpses on the doorstep.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Adam and Heather aren’t the easiest combination to cope with, Jill, but, again, this is about them, not you. Adam is devoted to you and the children. If he’s going through an odd patch, you can bet your life it’s not about you.’

  Jill nodded. ‘I hope you’re right. He’s a strange mix, really understanding and loving, but sometimes so cut off. He disappears into that music room and plays those Bach suites as though he’s in another universe.’

  ‘It’s his compensation for putting up with the rest of it, I suppose,’ Barbara said. ‘That old baroque cello, the Bach preludes – compensation.’

  ‘For putting up with the rest of what?’

  ‘The orchestra. The disappointment.’

  ‘What do you mean? What disappointment?’