Chapter 7
CHAPTER
I was too young to remember much about the music festivals Mum took us to when Dad was alive, but I vividly remember the events we went to after he died.
My father was the lead singer and guitar player in the well-known but invariably impecunious rock band he’d formed in his teens and Mum used to track down his friends for free tickets.
We’d hang out with the musicians and roadies. I hated the crowds.
I would have been ten when, at a festival near Byron Bay, Matt crouched in front of me and took my hands. ‘Flick, why are you crying? What’s the matter this time?’
‘It’s too loud. Why is everybody drunk?’
‘Not everybody, and it’s not only drink that they’re into.’
‘Drugs are bad for you. I hate the smell of weed.’
‘Hold your breath.’
‘It’s dirty here.’
‘It’s been raining.’
‘It’s cold.’
He smiled at that. ‘Thirty degrees? You can’t get away with that one.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘Some of the bands are great.’ Matt grinned. ‘And when I tell people who our dad was, they give me a beer.’
‘You’re not eighteen yet.’
‘They don’t ask for ID.’
‘I don’t like beer.’ I pulled up my hood. ‘And it is cold, whatever you say. Mum sends me to the tent and forgets about me. I don’t like it when you leave me with her.’
He stood then, scooping up my bag of stuffed animals before taking my hand. ‘You can hang with me.’
When I get off the bus at Central Station in Sydney, the crowds remind me of a music festival.
My plane doesn’t board for another three hours and trains to the airport leave regularly, so I lug my oversized duffel bag through the throngs of people at the sandstone exit to a sloping patch of lawn.
Workers walk purposefully along concrete paths and countless cars turn left and right.
I’ve never lived in Sydney, but I’ve travelled here to see avian exhibits and archives at the museum and to attend conferences and workshops at local universities.
Sitting in the shade of a Moreton Bay fig tree, I take out my cheese sandwich and try to think in a psychologist-approved way.
It was six o’clock this morning when one of the stablehands, who owed me for covering for him last weekend, drove me to the bus stop in town.
Almost seven hours and many stops later, the bus arrived at Central.
Rani would say the ninety-minute plane trip to Melbourne, while challenging, will be an excellent opportunity to rest.
Hands shaking, I unwrap the sandwich. I could chew it and possibly swallow, but couldn’t trust myself not to bring it up again.
Maybe later. After I’ve taken the flight.
Before we lost Matt, I enjoyed the buzz of airports and the excitement of flying.
The first flight I took was the month after my father had died and Mum’s friends raised the money to get us to a Brisbane memorial service organised by his bandmates.
Our father had been a stranger to me and Matt, and Matt, now old enough to understand Dad had never supported his family, resented him.
Matt also reasoned that, as our father had had no interest in seeing us when he was alive, why should we go to the service?
Given Matt’s resentment and Mum’s heartbreak, I did my best not to appear overly delighted about getting to go on a plane.
Even so, I skipped through busy airport halls to get to the gate, joined the queue to board, and watched and listened in admiration as a flight attendant with bright red lipstick demonstrated the safety procedures.
Seatbelt. Exit lights. Oxygen mask. (Matt must have known I had my doubts about Mum managing to fit her mask and then mine because he nudged my elbow and whispered, ‘Good luck with that.’) Ramp.
Life jacket. Whistle. Having enjoyed the flight to Brisbane, I was even more excited on the return trip home.
I was a few years older when we flew to Cairns for my paternal grandfather’s funeral. The other passengers read or slept or listened to music or podcasts or chatted, but I looked out of the window. There were no birds to see, but to be up there, to imagine flying like a bird, was enthralling.
There’s a direct train to the airport, so thirty minutes after giving up on my sandwich, I’m travelling up the escalator to the Qantas domestic terminal.
The check-in machines are between the external doors and the baggage drop-off.
Carefully reading and following every instruction, I print out my boarding pass and a tag for my bag.
On the back of the tag there are more instructions on how to attach it.
I put my bag between my feet, consider the handle and think things through.
My bag requires a tag or it can’t go on the plane.
And my bag has nothing to worry about because a plane is one of the safest forms of transport.
I’ve flown once since Matt died, and that was with Beau, who was desperate for help with an important presentation because his PA was unwell and couldn’t make the trip.
Beau doesn’t hide his dyslexia, at least not now that he’s successful, but he needs help to communicate with clients in ways they’d expect.
He’s the closest I’ve got to a best friend.
I thought flying with him would be okay, but—
‘Do you need a hand?’
I jump so high, the giant man with the cloud of black hair who was standing behind me takes a step back and holds out his hands.
‘I didn’t see you!’ I drop my boarding pass, bag tag and bag receipt. ‘I’m sorry!’
‘Sorry I gave you a scare.’ A sparkling white smile as he picks everything up.
‘I was reading the instructions.’
‘The first few times, sticking the tag in the right place did my head in.’ After handing back my boarding pass and bag receipt, the man peels off the backing of my tag, threads it through the handle of my duffel bag and secures the ends.
‘There you go.’
I don’t trust my legs to make it all the way to the bag drop, so I take a seat at the doors and practise the breathing exercises Rani gave me.
But when my heart rate goes up, not down, I try something else, focussing on the wide double doors instead.
The gentle swish every time somebody comes in or goes out as the doors open and shut.
The regularity and predictability. The excited chatter of family groups.
The set faces of people keen to get to where they’re going.
Airports are like a bus or train station, I tell myself.
Thousands of people travel like this and today I’ll do that too.
The attendant who calls me over doesn’t seem to notice my stiff gait and white face, probably because she doesn’t make eye contact.
Her lipstick is as bright red as the attendant’s lipstick I admired when I sat on the plane on the way to my father’s memorial service.
That was eighteen years ago. Is lipstick still part of the uniform?
Surely not. Could it be the same woman? She might have a couple of children by now and doesn’t want to leave them too far behind so she works at the airport instead.
After I answer her questions about knives and batteries and explosives in the negative, she hands back my boarding pass and looks past me to the queue of other passengers.
‘Where do I go now?’
Frowning as if she’s already moved on and so should I, the woman points to her left. ‘Down that walkway, then through security. After that …’ She glances at her screen. ‘Gate 22.’
My brother wanted to join the air force, but as it turned out, he had flat feet.
That wasn’t a problem for a commercial pilot, so Matt, ever the optimist, turned his attention to working as many shifts as he could at fast-food restaurants, then in bars, to pay for the training.
His first position was with a small crop-dusting company up north, but he worked his way up until, just before he died, he got a job with a mid-sized aviation company.
The pay wasn’t great, but he was accumulating hours on larger planes to get licences to fly even larger ones.
He’d tell anyone who’d listen: ‘I’ll be a pilot for Qantas before you know it. ’
Matt backed himself. He worked hard and was committed. I had the occasional concern about his career choice, but it wasn’t a worry he shared. He reassured me an aircraft was like a bird: if it was well maintained and the flying conditions were good, why would anything go wrong?
I glance at the sign at Gate 22. Boarding in twenty minutes. My left temple is pounding. If I’d gone to my GP and asked for tranquillisers, she would have given them to me. But I don’t want to go down that road, not with my parental history.
When the neon sign changes to boarding, I wait for others to form a queue before joining it.
The man who helped with my bag tag is three people ahead and towers over everybody else.
Yes, he’s strongly built, but he’s also athletic.
Maybe he’s a rugby player. I keep my eyes on him as I’m poured into the walkway, which is more like a funnel, and shuffle compliantly with everybody else.
But when it’s time to step onto the plane, I freeze.
The engine noises, the vibrations, the thick metal doors that’ll be sealed up tight can’t be unheard or unfelt or unseen any more.
The man behind me clears his throat and I take another step. Another. One at a time, just like Rani encouraged me to do. Look straight ahead. Pretend you can open the windows and get out.
The flight attendant glances at my boarding pass. ‘18A. To your right.’
Increasingly nauseous, I hold my backpack in front of me as I walk down the aisle. The elderly woman a few metres in front struggles to lift her bag into the overhead locker and the tall man with the cloud of hair helps her out. ‘Thank you very much,’ she says.
‘No worries.’