Family Baggage

by Monica McInerney

  Melissa stood at the top of the table, tapping her hand on a pile of paper in front of her. ‘I think our older clients – the greater part of our business as I don’t need to tell any of you – will find formal titles particularly respectful.’

  ‘That’s a fantastic idea, Melissa,’ Austin declared, falsely bright. ‘Let’s start with me. From now on, I’d like all of you to call me Lord Austin.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Austin, please.’ Melissa was barely able to hide her impatience.

  ‘Why not? Have you got the monopoly on ridiculous behaviour? Actually, now I think about it, it seems you have.’

  ‘Austin, give it a rest, would you?’ James snapped, his face flushed red.

  Austin fell quiet and left the meeting soon after, as Melissa finished presenting the quarterly figures. He hadn’t spoken, simply stood up, gathered his papers and headed for the door. ‘Austin?’ James was the first to speak. ‘Where are you going?’

  He stopped, and gave them all a long look. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure. Somewhere a long way from here.’

  Harriet tried to stop him. ‘But you need to be here. It’s a family meeting.’

  ‘She’s right,’ James said. ‘Sit down, would you?’

  ‘It’s not a meeting. A meeting is a discussion of ideas, shared thoughts. This is a dictatorship and your charming wife,’ Austin bowed at Melissa then, who was growing as red-faced as her husband, ‘our self-appointed dictator. I don’t recall that part of Mum and Dad’s will, do you, James? Harriet? Lara? My understanding was they wanted us to carry on as a family business. With you as well, Gloria, of course.’ He nodded courteously in her direction.

  Harriet coloured. Lara went still. James straightened in his chair. ‘Melissa is family, Austin. She’s my wife. We come as a package and I think you are being bloody arrogant not to listen to her ideas. It’s all right for you, sailing around the world, playing your drums, breezing in and out as it suits you.’

  Gloria winced inwardly. Austin didn’t just ‘play drums’. He was the lead percussionist in one of Australia’s best-known orchestras.

  James kept going. ‘What would you prefer, that we’d have shut up shop after Mum and Dad died? That we’d go on as we had for years, the same tours, the same profits, year after year? Well?’ He looked around for support. ‘What about you, Harriet? What do you think?’

  Harriet hesitated for too long. Gloria knew what would be going through her mind. They had talked about it often enough. She thought that both her brothers were right, that was the difficult part of it. Melissa and James had practically taken over, but if they hadn’t been there after their father and then their mother had died, who knew what would have happened. ‘I think it’s worth listening to what everyone thinks,’ she’d finally offered.

  Across the table Lara spoke. The three Turners were pink-cheeked, their dark brown eyes flashing. Harriet’s hair was in tufty spikes from where she had been anxiously pulling at it during the meeting. Lara had looked as serene as usual, her blonde hair smooth, her blue eyes clear, no spots of angry colour on her olive skin. ‘Aust, come back, please,’ she’d said, quietly, firmly. ‘James is right. I think Melissa’s got some great ideas. Let’s at least talk about them.’

  He’d refused. He hadn’t attended a meeting since.

  The phone rang. Gloria snatched it up. ‘Turner Travel, Gloria Hillman speaking.’

  ‘Glorious, hello.’ It was Austin. ‘You’ve heard about Lara then?’

  ‘First thing this morning. What’s happened, Aust?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. I told Melissa everything I knew. Harriet arrived with the group and there was no sign of Lara. She rang her flatmate and was told that Lara had announced there’d been a change of plan and she wouldn’t be doing the tour after all.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘How did Harriet sound to you?’

  ‘Thrown at first, of course, but no more than anyone would be if they got to an airport and the person they’d expected to meet them hadn’t turned up.’

  Gloria leaned forward and checked through the half-open door whether Melissa had left her computer. No, she was on the phone herself. ‘You didn’t get any sense that Harriet was going to —’

  ‘Fall to pieces on us again? No, if anything, I think she wants to prove something to everyone. She only texted me for help after she’d got the group to the hotel and sorted out their rooms. She’s worried, but I think she’s got it under control.’

  ‘Of course she has. Melissa however has just asked me if I would like to pop over to Cornwall and help her out.’

  Austin gave a short laugh. ‘Dear, thoughtful Melissa. What did she suggest you do with Kevin? Drop him off at a Holiday Home for the Blind for a few days?’

  ‘Thank you, Austin. I knew I could rely on you to say the unsayable.’

  ‘Melissa seems to bring out the best in me. So what do you think’s going on with Lara? I played it down as much as I could with Harriet, in case she got too worried about her, but it’s weird, isn’t it?’

  ‘Completely. Lara sounded fine last time we talked. It was a quick call, mind you. She wanted me to fax over some information for a project she was doing at college.’

  ‘I spoke to her last week. I’ve got a few days off next month and we were seeing whether there was any chance of meeting up, either in Bath or somewhere else. And she rang me quickly the day James had his accident. It was just a quick call but she sounded fine then too.’

  ‘You’re in touch with her a lot?’

  ‘We ring a bit, and text. She nags me about my wild life, asks me when I’m going to settle down; I nag her about her perfect life, ask her when she’s going to loosen up. No change there.’

  Gloria slipped into their usual banter without even thinking. ‘She’s got a point, Austin. God knows, time’s marching on. Late-thirties, still no sign of settling down …’

  ‘If God wanted me to settle down he wouldn’t keep putting all these beautiful women in my path, would he? What am I supposed to do, Gloria, pretend I can’t see them? Ignore their pleas to be asked out? Ignore their shining, hopeful eyes?’

  Another time Gloria would have kept up the teasing. But something had just occurred to her. When she first heard that Lara was going to England, she’d anxiously waited for Lara to come to her, to ask if she knew anything about her parents, to ask if Penny and Neil had given her any more details about them. It would have been the most natural thing in the world, surely, for her to go looking for her parents’ homeplaces in England while she was in the same country. And perhaps also the most natural thing in the world to want to visit where they had died. But she hadn’t asked Gloria anything. There had been no mention of them in any of her emails or postcards either. She’d sent weekly reports from the tourism college, enthusiastic about how much she was learning. She mentioned Penny and Neil, as she did often and naturally, but not her own parents. Gloria had found it strange, but also a relief. The closer Lara came to the end of her studies, the better she’d felt, too.

  She hesitated and then made herself ask him. ‘Austin, has Lara ever mentioned anything to you about her mother and father? Whether she was going to go and visit the towns they were from, anything like that. Go to where it happened …’

  ‘No. No, she didn’t. It actually puzzled me that she didn’t. I would have, in her position. But you know Lara, she wouldn’t necessarily tell me even if that was what she was thinking of doing. She might already have done all of that, tracked them down, without telling us about it.’

  Gloria had an uneasy feeling.

  Austin continued. ‘Look, I’ve been thinking about this since Harriet rang. Maybe I should fly over to England this weekend. See how Harriet is doing in Cornwall. Then go across to Bath and have a chat with Lara’s flatmate. Just in case there’s more to it. Because something’s odd. This isn’t like Lara, is it?’

  It was as if he had read her mind. She’d been about to ask him if
there was any way he could do exactly that. ‘There won’t be a problem with the orchestra?’

  ‘No, not once I explain what’s happened. Anyway, we’ve got a break from the public performances after tonight. It might get me out of a very dull embassy event and two school workshops. I should be thanking Lara and Harriet.’

  They had a quick exchange of business, checking he had enough money for the air fares – he did; checking that he had Lara’s address in Bath – yes; that he knew where Harriet and the tour group were staying in St Ives – he hadn’t known, but took down the details. ‘And you’re okay to sort out the flights yourself?’ Gloria asked, finally.

  ‘You’re talking to the son of a pair of travel moguls, remember? I think a bit of it might have rubbed off.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m getting forgetful in my old age. I’ll leave you to it, then.’ She hesitated. ‘But will you tell her we love her when you see her?’

  ‘Tell who? Lara or Harriet?’

  ‘Both of them. But especially Lara.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. In case she’s feeling … Just in case.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And everything’s okay with you, Austie? The opera tour’s going well?’

  ‘No. It’s a disaster. Every time I hit a cymbal a woman on the stage plunges a knife into herself. Do you think I should take it personally?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes. Your drumming’s always had that effect on me, too.’

  She hung up and came into the office to report back to Melissa. The other woman was in her glass office, still on the phone, facing the wall. Gloria guessed she was talking to James.

  ‘… I can’t believe it. How could Lara do this to me? She knows how busy I am, and then she leaves us in the lurch like this … No, please don’t go on about Harriet again, she’s going to have to handle it, isn’t she, whether she can or not … Yes, she’s here, she knows, she’s talking to Austin at the moment.’

  Gloria suspected she’d be called in to give James a full report on her conversation with Austin any moment. While she waited she took the opportunity to finish her morning tidying, straightening the photo pinboard that had hung on the side wall since the early days. Under a handwritten sign ‘Turner Travel: We go further for you!’ were dozens of photos of the Turners and Lara with groups in front of landmarks all around Australia and, recently, some overseas ones as well. It was out of place in Melissa’s newly painted and remodelled office, but even she hadn’t dared to take it down.

  A recently arrived photo caught Gloria’s eye. Lara, with a group of fellow students from the tourism college, the Royal Crescent in Bath behind them, grey English skies above them. Lara stood out, even in a group shot like this one. She’d always had a certain presence, even in a photo.

  Gloria had tried to describe Lara and Harriet to Kevin once. He had a memory of them as children and teenagers but not as adults, as they were now. Gloria had tried to use words that would give Kevin more of a picture. He already knew that Harriet had dark hair and those big brown eyes that all the Turner children had, and that Lara was blonde, with eyes halfway between blue and grey. She’d thought about it for a moment.

  ‘Harriet’s still all movement, you know, she laughs easily and she uses her hands when she speaks, and she’s eager. Do you remember the way she was as a child, wanting to be helpful and look after people? But still ready for mischief at the same time? And the way she would follow Austin around, like a little sorcerer’s apprentice?’

  Kevin smiled. ‘That’s right, so she did. Lara did too, didn’t she? He had a harem even back then. And what about Lara now? What’s she like?’

  That had taken more thought. Gloria started hesitantly. ‘Lara is … she’s like a gum tree.’ She laughed at her own description. ‘That’s flattering for her, isn’t it?’

  ‘There are hundreds of different species of gum trees, aren’t there? Which one do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, aren’t you the expert. She’s like a particular type of gum tree. Do you remember out on the north road, Kev, the Melbourne road? There was that old farmhouse with a group of trees planted to the side of it, a whole collection of them, and there was that one on its own?’

  Kevin was nodding.

  ‘She’s like one of those gum trees. Those slender grey ones that just sway in the wind, even when it’s blowing a gale. That stand out, even in the middle of other trees. That’s what Lara is like.’

  Gloria looked at Lara’s photo again and invoked Penny, as she had often done since she had died. She hadn’t heard any answer yet, but it was still a comfort to talk to her old friend. She missed Penny and Neil very much. She missed the old days of Turner Travel too. Penny had joked one day that the agency was like a hippy commune, with the three Turners and Lara in and out from the adjoining house every day, and Gloria’s three boys calling in after school until hanging around an office lost out against surfing and playing football. All three of Gloria’s sons now lived in Melbourne, married with families of their own, but they still felt comfortable enough to call in, help themselves to tea or coffee, sit behind one of the desks, as if it was their family business as well. Penny had known all about Gloria’s three boys in the same way Gloria knew all there was to know about Penny and Neil’s family. More than she had wanted to know sometimes …

  ‘Is it about her parents, Penny?’ she said softly. ‘Is that where she’s gone?’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Gloria?’ Melissa’s loud voice cut into her thoughts. Gloria winced. If only it was possible to turn down her volume sometimes. If only it was possible to make her disappear sometimes. If only it had been possible for James to have met someone else he wanted to marry …

  ‘Gloria? I’ve got James on the line. He wants you to fill him in.’ The voice, even louder. ‘Gloria?’

  ‘Coming.’ She turned from the photo board and walked out into the main office again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The noise of planes coming in to land at the nearby airport woke Harriet before seven o’clock. She’d slept fitfully, but enough to set her up for the day, she hoped. She threw open the curtain and got her first daylight glimpse of England. The hotel was for business or international travellers like themselves, not far from the airport, on the edge of a village. Harriet was looking out over green fields, all so neat, with trimmed hedgerows on each boundary. There was a smattering of daffodils here and there. The sky was blue, but a watery, soft blue. She’d left autumn leaves and changeable skies behind her in Australia.

  She fiddled with the window lever and pushed it open as far as it would go. There was the smell of bacon frying. She must be near the kitchen vents. She could hear traffic sounds from the nearby motorway. But she could also hear birds, snatches of conversation and surely that was the sound of a lamb or sheep? She heard an Australian accent and leaned forward. Yes, it was two of the group, chatting as they took a pre-breakfast stroll. It was a good sign that they were up so early.

  An image of Lara came into her mind. She’d been her first thought on waking. Where was she at that moment? Waking up in a hotel somewhere else? With someone? On her own? Happy? Unhappy? If Lara had been at the airport as planned, what would the two of them have been doing now? Would they have been sitting here in Harriet’s room, going through the itinerary together, as James had imagined? Laughing? Would they have swapped stories of tours they’d been on, the way they used to do? Once upon a time, perhaps. Not now. Harriet knew they wouldn’t have been able to. There would have been too much wariness. Too much tension humming between them.

  She heard Austin’s voice in her mind, telling her to leave Lara to him, to concentrate on the tour. He was right. Her job this week was to make sure the tour group and Patrick Shawcross had everything they needed, wanted, or thought they needed or wanted.

  She checked her watch. Time to get dressed and then go to the breakfast room and greet the tour party. She opened the closet and took out her uniform, glad to see a
ny creases had fallen out overnight. She could hear Melissa’s voice, extolling the fabric’s virtues. She had produced samples at one of the meetings, passing them around the table. ‘It’ll make a difference for all of us,’ she said. ‘It’s not only convenient to have a uniform, but time-saving too. I’m assured the material is virtually uncreasable and uncrushable.’

  ‘Not to mention unspeakable,’ Austin had muttered.

  Harriet dressed quickly, pulling on the stockings, skirt, shirt, jacket and the scarf, which was patterned with dozens of tiny versions of the Turner Travel winged suitcase logo. Melissa insisted they added a jaunty yet feminine touch. She looked at herself in the mirror for the briefest possible time, cursing Melissa yet again for her choice of colour, fabric and style. Harriet was slim from all the swimming she did, but the design couldn’t have been less flattering. Even Lara looked awful in this outfit. The only person it suited was, astonishingly, Melissa. She had the right trim little body, blonde hair and brown skin that the style and colour needed.

  The day she produced the uniforms, Melissa had made a speech about how proud Mr and Mrs Turner would have been of them all, for keeping things going, for making the Turner Travel name live on. Harriet had wanted to stand up to her, to make her admit that all of these expansion plans were nothing to do with her memories of Mr and Mrs Turner and everything to do with Melissa’s own ambitions. But she’d said nothing. It had been too hard to put up a fight against Melissa’s bulldozer tactics when she felt as fragile as a paper doll, as if one tiny puff of aggression, argument, even a strong opinion from Melissa, from anybody, would send her spiralling, fluttering into the sky, never to be seen again.

  But not any more. She turned away from the mirror. That was the old her. She had to try and forget about that uncertain Harriet, and find the Harriet who had loved being on tour, who had faced any problems, dealt with difficult groups, managed anything that was thrown at her. She knew exactly what she needed to help her confidence. She reached for her bag, opened her purse and took out a small envelope. Even holding it in her hand helped her feel better.