Chapter 10
CHAPTER
I’d like to say I’m over my fears as I toss and turn in my bed, but the flight to Melbourne has escalated what I’ve spent years avoiding.
When I finally sleep, there are flames and explosions, so at three in the morning, I make a cup of tea and sit in a chair at the window.
A rubbish truck rumbles past. Two taxis.
A police car. If I thought I’d put others at risk at Morrison, I wouldn’t go.
But once I’m off the plane and the ship, I’ll be okay.
I’ll work hard with the specialists and support workers on Morrison.
I’ll keep working on the exercises Rani gave me.
By the time I come home, I’ll be stronger.
I hope.
I’m not meeting the others in the foyer until nine but leave my bag with the concierge at six.
The café on the corner has bacon and egg rolls and pastries on the take-away menu, but my throat is already tight so I order a juice, sipping slowly as I wait at the lights then cross the road to the park.
There are runners here, and cyclists, but I take a quieter route that winds through the gardens to the lake.
Magpies warble from a grey gum and six black swans glide across the surface of the water.
The eastern spinebill, a species of honeyeater, looks smart in his feathers of grey, caramel and white as he forages for breakfast. I sit at a timber bench that overlooks the lake, roll up my sleeves and roll them down again.
If I ignore the hum of traffic, the occasional car horn, if I focus on the birds and insects and keep my gaze clear of the skyscrapers, I could be at home in the country.
The superb fairy wren, blue and black with a white-grey belly, that hops over the leaf litter to my left is the twelfth species of bird I’ve seen this morning. Another wren, a female with mottled brown feathers, flits around as nimbly as her mate. My phone buzzes—a text from Robin.
Where are you? We’re in the hotel café.
I check the time—eight fifty already?—and jump to my feet.
Heading back now.
Robin, Kingsley and I are in the taxi before I voice the question spinning through my head. ‘Where is Captain Thorsen?’
‘He’s meeting us at the airport,’ Robin says.
I liked the sound of ‘Lisse’ on his tongue. I’m attracted to him. But he has his own agenda. And I have mine.
‘His talk in Hobart tomorrow night will be standing room only,’ Robin says. ‘People are coming from all over.’
When Robin’s phone rings, Kingsley groans a complaint. ‘Turn the volume down. My head is killing me.’
Kingsley’s hangover is a rational reason for having a headache. As flying is safer than travelling by bus or car, my fear is irrational.
I lean a shoulder against the window and press my thumb against my temple.
‘Flick?’ Robin offers a bag of red frogs.
I dredge up a smile.
‘No, thank you.’
‘You’re very pale.’
I put my hands against my face. ‘I’m not wearing makeup.’
‘Do you ever?’ Robin tugs at an arm, peers into my face. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘I didn’t sleep well last night.’
Thorsen isn’t at the gate when I show my boarding pass to the attendant with red lipstick and follow Robin down the ramp to the rear of the plane, where I sit at the window and she sits in the aisle.
There’s no one between us because the plane is half empty.
I keep my eyes straight ahead. After the flight attendant goes through the instructions, I pull out my pillow and clench it on my lap as the engines roar and the plane taxis.
When Robin offers another red frog, I swallow nausea and tell her in a voice I barely recognise that I might take this opportunity to catch up on sleep.
But as soon as I close my eyes, I realise I’m in trouble.
Demons, some around the furnace, others in tiered seating, have their glowing pitchforks raised.
Did I pass out? I’m pressing my face into the pillow in the hope of deadening the sounds of the engines when someone sits next to me. Sparks from the furnace light the demons’ fiery faces and pain explodes against the backs of my eyes. Are my eyes open or closed? What would be best?
‘She’s hyperventilating.’
Is Thorsen angry that I yelled at him to push the green button at the pool so I could escape?
He talks some more and even though I’m not sure what he’s saying, I listen for tone.
No, he doesn’t sound angry; his pitch is even.
He’s calm. A female flight attendant I see through a mist is arguing with him about something as he pulls me closer to his body and holds a paper bag to my face.
‘I know what I’m doing.’
I don’t want to vomit in the bag like I did when I flew with Beau, so I do my best to push it away, but Thorsen grasps my hands in one of his and holds them still. I cough and cough again.
‘No.’ The croaked word is mine, but there are even more voices now than there were.
The flight attendant thinks my panic attack is out of the ordinary and maybe I’m having a heart attack or a stroke or something else is going on so the captain might have to turn the plane around because no doctors have come forward and Melbourne is closer than Hobart.
But Thorsen says we should go to Hobart because he’s sure I’m having a panic attack and once he gets me breathing properly I will be all right.
I like the certainty in Thorsen’s voice but I miss Terry the rugby coach with his cloud of black hair who called me ‘love’ and patted my arm.
Now there are more flight attendants, all with different opinions on what to do.
Thorsen barks something about the air force and tells them he’s aware the first officer isn’t allowed to leave the cockpit, but they should get him on the phone.
More arguments, but Thorsen remains firm.
Robin backs Thorsen up in a very strict, no-nonsense voice I haven’t heard before.
Yet another voice, but it’s not Thorsen or Robin.
It’s the chief flight attendant who’s getting directions not from the first officer but from the captain.
The attendant tells the captain that Thorsen has told her he’s qualified to help the unhinged passenger even though the attendant doesn’t say ‘unhinged’.
Thorsen again. Norwegian Air Force. NATO. P-3 Orion. F-16 Fighting Falcon. C-130J Super Hercules. F-35 Lightning II. United Nations.
‘The captain said to leave him to it.’ The chief flight attendant, voice sharp, tells the other attendants to get back to their duties.
Thorsen’s hands are firm on my shoulders. ‘Open your eyes. Tell me what’s happening.’
This time when I push the bag away, he allows it. But, as demons strum nerve endings with their pitchforks, no words come out.
‘A panic attack. Anything else?’ One of his hands is at my neck now, his fingers on the pulse beneath my ear. ‘I have to know.’
‘Migraine.’ The word is faint and slurred.
‘The panic attack triggers a migraine. Is this what happened on Friday?’
‘They weren’t as bad.’
‘Who?’
‘The demons.’
A small hesitation. ‘Do you have medication for the migraine?’
‘Sleep.’
‘Breathe, Lisse.’ Thorsen’s hands slide down my arms as he mutters a curse. ‘You’re safe. I won’t leave you.’
I’m awake and asleep and awake again …
When the plane landed in Melbourne, Terry woke me and I communicated with him relatively normally.
I’d spotted the woman who’d sat next to me in the aisle and, with Terry’s help, walked to the baggage carousel.
Today, as everyone gets off the plane, I’m scrunched up against the window with my head in my pillow as the army of demons with pitchforks burn their way into one ear and out through the other.
Sometimes they take a fork in the road and march through my eyes.
Lights flash. Tears stream down my face.
Retching, gagging, coughing, I spit white, frothy muck into the sick bag.
A curse. A rustle. ‘Get me another one.’
Thorsen isn’t in charge of this plane but bosses everyone around as if he were, telling them to stand back, to get a wheelchair, to collect the bags and organise a car.
The plane’s engines aren’t rumbling like they were and the doors must be open so I shouldn’t need the wheelchair, but I know these demons and how they refuse to be hurried.
When I prise open my eyes, I see the long silver wing and the tarmac and the rain and men in orange vests bustling to and fro on foot and in buggies.
I dry retch and Thorsen holds the bag to my face.