Family Baggage

by Monica McInerney

  They hadn’t seen or heard her, Molly was sure of it. She slipped back inside as quickly as she could. Not long after, Lara came in, looking really strange, and then Harriet ages after, all strange-looking too, pale like she always was but like she was in shock. What had they been talking about? What had Lara done or not done?

  Molly spent a lot of time in the office after school, folding brochures and helping out with filing and she hadn’t once heard Harriet have a proper phone conversation with Lara in England since that night. Lara phoned fairly often but Harriet barely talked to her, just transferred the call or took a message as if it was a stranger, not Lara, practically her sister. Lara didn’t ever ask to speak to Harriet, either, any time Molly answered.

  One day, when Molly was talking to Lara on the phone, she asked her about it, out of the blue. ‘Have you had a big fight with Harriet?’ Lara reacted really funny, too, she thought. ‘Why?’ That was all she’d said. Molly had murmured something vague about just wondering and quickly changed the subject.

  She’d nearly, nearly said something about it when her mum told her that Harriet was going to be travelling with Lara on this Willoughby thing now instead of her dad. But there’d have been a big fuss, she knew. ‘What do you mean they had a fight? What about? What did they say?’ And Lara didn’t like fusses, Molly knew that. No, better to keep quiet.

  ‘Good morning, darling!’ A voice sounded outside. Her mother, poking her head through the adjoining door from the office. ‘Come on, Molly, breakfast please. You’ll be late.’

  Five minutes later, she was rinsing out her cereal bowl and about to go and clean her teeth when her mobile phone beeped to say she had a new text message. ‘Let it be Lara, let it be Lara,’ she said under her breath. It wasn’t. It was her friend Hailey asking her to remember to bring in the magazines she had loaned her last week.

  NW, she texted back. It was short for ‘no worries’.

  She checked the time. Three minutes to eight. She’d have to hurry. She brushed her teeth then called out a goodbye to her mum through the door. ‘See you later, Mum.’

  ‘Bye, darling. Do you want to come and see your dad tonight?’ her mum called out.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Leaving at six.’

  ‘Okay. See you.’

  Her phone beeped again as she was a little way down the street, letting her know another new text message had arrived. Perfect timing. She didn’t like being home when this text came in. It was too special to read at the kitchen table. She stopped and checked. Not from Lara, she knew. Even better than Lara. And right on time, as always. His message came every day at eight a.m., on the dot. I I u. I love you.

  She wrote the message she sent back every day. I I u 2. Then hitching her backpack on to her shoulders, she walked on to school.

  Gloria picked up their mail from the post office and then stopped at the deli two doors from Turner Travel, taking a carton of milk from the still-to-be-unpacked delivery by the front door. The verandas on each shop in the main street gave plenty of shade, and kept the milk cool, which was especially fortunate in the hot summer months. Gloria had collected the Turner Travel milk from this step every morning for the past thirty years, paying for it at lunchtime. She looked across the road and saw Molly on her way to school. They waved to each other, as they also did every morning. Molly was getting so tall, Gloria thought. Almost a woman not a schoolgirl these days. And getting quite beautiful, in that long-limbed teenage way.

  As she reached the Turner Travel glass front door she noticed the lights were already on inside. She could see them through the edge of the blind she had pulled down the night before. She felt a flicker of alarm. Had she forgotten to turn them off last night? Or, oh God, not burglars. She was trying to decide whether she should call the police when she saw Melissa emerge from the staffroom, with a large pot of coffee in her hand.

  Gloria unlocked the door and pulled the blind up with a snap. ‘You’re up bright and early. You nearly frightened the life out of me.’

  ‘I’ve hardly slept. Thank goodness you’re in early.’

  ‘I’m always in early,’ she said, put out to see Melissa. She treasured the early-morning peace in the office, straightening all the brochures in their racks, dusting all the framed travel posters on the walls and then writing up her travel fact on the blackboard they placed on the footpath outside. It had been her job since the agency opened. She already knew what today’s was going to be. Did you know it took 1400 men eight years to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge? (Great bus/rail packages and guided tours to Sydney available now.) Afterwards she would enjoy a slow cup of tea while she sorted the mail, sometimes even playing some opera or listening to the news programs on the office radio. Not today …

  Melissa paid no attention to the tone in her voice. ‘You know I’m not one to exaggerate, Gloria, but we’ve got a disaster on our hands. I’ve made you a coffee, here. Please, take a seat.’

  Ten minutes later Melissa had filled her in on Austin’s phone call and the situation with Lara, Harriet and the Willoughby tour. She put her cup down with a bang on the table. ‘Which brings us to the serious question of our next step. How to rescue the situation. I don’t suppose you could go?’

  ‘Go where? To England?’

  ‘Yes, to England.’

  ‘Why would you want me to go? Or anyone to go for that matter?’ Gloria was genuinely puzzled.

  Melissa gave an impatient laugh. ‘To stop the tour turning into a complete disaster, of course. You don’t think Harriet’s going to be able to cope on her own, do you?’

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t she?’

  ‘You know why. The first sign of trouble, the littlest hitch, and it’ll all be too much for her. It’ll be harder to come to her rescue when she’s on the other side of the world. At least she was only a few hours away last time.’

  ‘Harriet will be fine. That was nearly a year ago. It’s time you forgot about it.’

  ‘It’s taken nearly a year for me to get those people back travelling with us again. I’ve put a lot of work into it, regaining their trust.’

  ‘I’m sure they coped.’ Gloria noticed it was about the work Melissa had put into it, not how hard Harriet had worked to overcome her problem.

  ‘I’m serious, Gloria. Would you be able to go there? Would Kevin be able to cope on his own?’

  Gloria sat upright. ‘Sorry, Melissa, let me get this straight. Quite apart from you knowing I hate long-haul flights, you’re asking would my blind husband be able to cope on his own while I flew to the other side of the world to rescue Harriet from a situation that she doesn’t need any rescuing from? In fact, a situation that might be just what she needs to build her confidence up?’

  Melissa had the grace to colour. ‘Look, I know you’re fond of Harriet —’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with me being fond of Harriet or not.’ Gloria was surprised how angry she was. Perhaps it was the extra cup of coffee this early in the morning, but for a second she felt as though she was channelling Penny Turner, defending her daughter. ‘Harriet has a great deal of ability. She has a lovely warm way with people. She gets things done, sometimes in her own unique roundabout way, but she still gets them done. All she needs is the confidence and the feeling that people believe she can do it. You are not to think for a minute about sending someone over to rescue her.’

  ‘But it’s one of our international theme tours. It’s important to the company, to our future direction.’

  ‘So was the Lord of the Rings tour of New Zealand that James ran last year. The one that got flooded out for two days. Did you send in anyone to rescue him?’

  ‘No, but that was James. He’s done dozens of these tours. And besides, the clients loved it. They were talking about it for days. Some of them were even on the TV news.’

  ‘And the disastrous Mutiny on the Bounty trip to Norfolk Island? The one you were leading?’

  ‘I wasn’t to know there would be a pilots’ strike.’ />
  ‘No, but between us all we managed to organise other transport, didn’t we? And your clients were fine. Leave Harriet alone, Melissa. You bully her enough as it is.’

  A gasp. ‘I do not bully her.’

  Gloria suddenly didn’t care what she said. ‘No? What do you call it then?’

  ‘I help her. And my number one priority is always the clients, Gloria. Which is how it should be in any business.’

  ‘It’s a family business. Family plus me. It should be us first, and then our clients.’

  Melissa didn’t have anything to say to that. Gloria knew it was her part shares in Turner Travel, the ones that Penny and Neil Turner had left her in their wills, that infuriated Melissa. She knew that Melissa, and to a lesser degree James, disliked having to come to her to float ideas, to pass any expansion plans. She had been as surprised as the rest of the family when the will was read out, but she had been able to imagine a conversation with Penny about her reasoning behind it.

  ‘Will you keep an eye on all of them for us, Gloria? Not just the three children and Lara, but Melissa as well? Just to stop them fighting?’ Penny had been asking her to do that since the early days. And she would have said yes, she knew.

  She kept control of the conversation. ‘Surely the tour is the least of our worries, in any case. The main worry is Lara. Where she is. How she is.’

  ‘Yes, of course it is.’

  Gloria suspected Melissa had completely forgotten about Lara. ‘Have you got any idea why she might have done this? Has she seemed different to you? Worried about anything?’

  ‘Not that I noticed.’ Melissa was sulking now. ‘But Lara isn’t one to spill her secrets in any case, is she? I’ve always found her secretive, if anything.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps we should ring Austin back. He might have some ideas. And at least he’s on the right side of the world.’

  Perhaps we should ring Austin back? Chance would be a fine thing, Gloria thought. She knew perfectly well that the last thing Melissa would do was ring Austin again. The devil got into her, though. ‘That’s a good idea. You won’t mind talking to him again?’

  Melissa’s chin lifted. ‘I’ve never minded talking to him. It’s Austin who doesn’t like talking to me. He’s got this idea in his head about me and James and the business, and he refuses to see or hear sense.’

  Gloria had to bite her tongue again. Austin’s idea that Melissa was putting plans into action without checking with the rest of the family. Not so outlandish really.

  ‘I’ll ask James to phone him,’ Melissa said, busying herself with a pile of papers and not looking at Gloria.

  Gloria softened. This was about Harriet and Lara, not Melissa, after all. ‘Would you like me to ring him? It might be difficult for James in the hospital.’

  ‘Would you mind? I’ve got a lot more on than you today, so that would be helpful.’

  Gloria only just kept her temper again. Fighting an inclination to pour what was left of her cup of coffee over Melissa’s head, she checked her watch and did a quick calculation of the time difference. Morning in Australia meant it was after midnight the night before in Europe, a good time to ring Austin. She knew from his tales of past tours that the members of the orchestra didn’t go to bed until at least two a.m. after any performance. He’d said in his last email that the orchestra was performing every night this week. ‘No problem, I’ll do it now.’

  ‘Thanks, Gloria. I appreciate it.’ Melissa didn’t look at Gloria as she spoke. She’d already turned to her computer and was scrolling through the morning’s emails.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gloria decided to call Austin from the phone in the staffroom, preferring to be out of Melissa’s earshot. She dialled his mobile phone number and was disappointed when it went straight to his voicemail. She left a brief message. ‘Austin, it’s me. Can you call me back as soon as you can? I think you know what it’s about.’

  She took the opportunity to make a pot of tea, hoping that would dilute some of the effects of the morning’s coffee. As the kettle boiled, she gazed around the room. A stranger would assume the pattern on the walls was old faded wallpaper – rows and rows of little multicoloured suitcases, apt for the staffroom of a travel agency. In fact, each suitcase had been stamped individually, over the thirty years Turner Travel had been in business.

  It had been Gloria’s idea, a way of marking their bookings in the early days, when things had been slow and they needed all the encouragement they could get. She’d presented Neil and Penny with a custom-made stamp in the design of a suitcase, and different coloured inkpads, suggesting they stamp the wall each time they got a booking. In the first few months there hadn’t been much stamping. Ten a week if they were lucky. That had gradually changed. The proof of it was on the walls now, hundreds and hundreds, thousands even, of tiny suitcases, thirty years worth. The rows of suitcases were in different coloured inks, each colour representing a new year. The one colour that hadn’t changed was the green for group tours. There were hundreds of those, sprinkled all over the walls.

  ‘Imagine all the stories each of those suitcases would hold,’ Penny had enthused one afternoon, just two years ago, when they were all sitting in the staffroom. It had been either Lara or Harriet’s birthday, Gloria remembered. They were both in May, so her memories of their parties sometimes got confused. There had been cake, anyway, and a bottle of champagne. It had been a happy afternoon, she remembered. Lots of talk, teasing, laughter. And a lot of reminiscing, too, of the early days, when the staffroom wall had been more paint than suitcase stamps. Neil had started to count the suitcases and quickly given up, not even reaching the first thousand.

  ‘What about the suitcases that went missing en route?’ Austin asked. He had been home for a few days, not working but hanging around getting under everyone’s feet. ‘All the lost luggage? Should we paint over some of the stamps in memory of them?’

  ‘Turner Travel lose clients’ luggage? Never!’ Penny had said. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.’

  That day Penny and Neil had started talking about the trips they’d like to take, if and when they ever retired. Harriet, or perhaps it had been Lara, had leapt up, gone into the office and returned with a big bundle of brochures about great cruise journeys of the world. There was a lot of discussion about which would suit their parents best. Harriet chose the one around the Mediterranean. James preferred the more adventurous one to the Antarctic. Lara argued enthusiastically for two weeks in the Caribbean.

  ‘You’re all just trying to get rid of us,’ Neil said.

  ‘No, of course we’re not,’ Harriet said quickly. ‘You don’t have to go anywhere. You know we don’t want you to. You’re the ones who mentioned retiring. If it was up to me you’d work here forever.’

  Penny laughed, pink-cheeked from the champagne. ‘It’s all right, my pet, we’re in no hurry to go anywhere, are we, Neil?’

  ‘Of course not. How could we leave Turner Travel in the children’s hands? Austin would have it sold and be off to Bermuda on the profits before the others knew what had hit them.’

  Austin rolled his eyes, pretending to sigh heavily. ‘Thanks, Dad. You gave the game away. Surprise was my number one weapon.’

  ‘So you’re not thinking about retirement yet?’

  Gloria could still remember Melissa asking the question. She wondered was it only her who had thought the question was being asked in great seriousness. In any case, Penny hadn’t noticed any undercurrent.

  ‘No, not yet.’ She’d gazed around the room, up at the walls. The champagne had made her sentimental. ‘Not until the day we’ve stamped ten thousand suitcases. Then we’ll think about calling it quits.’

  Gloria picked up her cup and took it over to the sink. They’d all had such optimism back then, such a naïve belief that it was all in their control, that they had a choice about what happened. But they hadn’t, had they? Neil had died suddenly a year later and Penny just two months after that. Everything had been differen
t since then. Melissa – with James in the background – had somehow taken charge. The suitcase stamping had virtually stopped. Only Gloria thought to do it now, once a week, and she wasn’t sure how accurate her numbers were, not now when so many of their bookings were made on computer and spoken of in terms like PAX and Clientele or Groups A, B or C, rather than customer names. Melissa had never been interested in the idea of the stamps, in any case, Gloria knew. She looked at balance sheets, not stamps on a wall, to measure their success. Things had changed in so many ways since Penny and Neil died. The new regime had taken over, as Austin had put it. There was no time for frivolous things like stamps. No time for enjoyment. It was a serious business these days. Even the monthly meetings, which had once been good fun, were now regimented to the last minute.

  Gloria thought of the last one Austin had attended. Melissa had been in top form, making pronouncements, producing flowcharts and pie-charts as though they were discussing a major economy, not a travel agency. She had reported on new tours, travel trends and where Turner Travel was placed in the market. She also announced a new company rule. There had been no discussion about it. All clients, both in the office and on tour, were to be referred to as Mrs, Mr or Miss, or, in extreme cases, Ms. She’d quoted from a recent study that good manners in business dealings had a greater impact on customer relations than any other aspect of communication.

  Gloria had decided to herself she’d be having no part of it. Most of their clients were Merryn Bay locals and there was no way Gloria was going to start calling a woman she had known since she was five years old by a formal title. She said nothing, though. She’d already learnt the art of passive protest.