Free-Falling (17 page)

‘Good idea,' he agreed, relieved to have an easy escape.

He gathered his things and she walked him to the front door, pulling it open, ready to usher him out as quickly as possible. James made to head straight into the hall but, changing his mind, he paused and leant back in.

‘Look, I'm sorry about what just happened there – but I'm not sorry about coming round. I think we could be really good friends and I do want to keep in touch. I'm bloody glad that I finally got up the courage to come and see you instead of just dropping off
those stupid flowers. Like
that
was going to fix everything.'

She had been listening with her eyes glued to the floor, wishing him out the door so she could get back inside and start to clear her thoughts. But when he mentioned the flowers, she snapped her head up in shock. ‘Those were from you?' she gasped.

‘Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't put my name on the card. I meant to give them to you face to face but I sort of chickened out at the last minute. Anyway, I guess I just wanted to make things up to you, after everything Mum said. To be honest, I felt as though I should be somehow looking after you. A bunch of flowers was the first thing that came to mind . . .' He kissed her gently on the forehead, then whispered, ‘Friends, yes? Promise me we can keep being friends. I want you in my life and I know that Andy would have wanted that too.'

‘Sure,' she said quietly, anything to get him out – now there was even more to think about.

Thankfully, he finally left, obviously satisfied that she was going to keep in contact with him. She closed the door behind him, then turned and leant her back against it, slowly sliding herself down to the floor. Not only had it
not
been Andy helping her bring in the groceries from the car tonight; it hadn't been him who had sent the flowers. Although, were both bunches from James? She supposed they must have been. Maybe he dropped off the roses first and then later remembered that her favourites were lilies? After all, all their friends knew that it was a standing joke between her and Andy that he could never get it right. James had said he'd wanted to look after her, that flowers were the
first
thing that came to mind. So it must have been him also doing all those friendly little favours she'd thought were Andy.

‘No more tears,' she said determinedly to herself. She needed to accept it. Andy had never been haunting her: it had been James
all along and there was no point crying over spilt milk.

She pressed her hands down on the floor and carefully stood back up again.

It was time to move on.

Chapter 12

Evelyn

Evelyn pressed her back against the sticky, padded bench seat and breathed in the strong aroma of scrambled eggs, bacon, roasted tomatoes and steaming black coffee. Bazza grinned at her from across the table. ‘How good is this place?' he asked, stabbing his fork straight into the middle of a hash brown and lifting it up whole off the plate.

‘Frankly, the stench is a little nauseating. A tad too overpowering for my taste. But yes, I'll give you one thing, the food is impressive for such a gaudy looking restaurant.'

Bazza had extended a breakfast invitation to her the other day when she'd met up with him at SkyChallenge for her third solo jump. She had taken a second jump as soon as possible after the company had opened back up after the holidays, but this one had been with Chad and the experience hadn't been nearly as lovely as each jump with Bazza had been.

Now, as Bazza swallowed a gigantic mouthful of hash brown, he continued proudly, ‘You tell me you need to take your mind off some family issues and I bring you to a themed café where
the smell of food and the dazzle of the garish décor is so strong you've got no hope of concentrating on anything deep and meaningful. Did I deliver, McGavin, or did I deliver?'

‘Yes, yes, an apt distraction technique,' she assured him as a waitress offered to top up her coffee in a very ‘American diner' sort of way. She felt like she was in one of those clichéd sitcoms.

‘So what are these family problems you're trying to escape? Doctor Baz's clinic is officially open for business.' He took a massive bite of his hash brown, then leant forward, placed his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his fists, peering expectantly across at her.

She raised her eyebrows at him in amusement. ‘Ahh Bazza, I think you've just missed the point here. We were supposed to be distracting me from my issues, not dredging them up so we can rub them in my face some more.'

‘Yeah, but you know that's not how I roll, Ev baby.'

Evelyn choked on her coffee. ‘“Ev baby”? So now we're on a “first name slash terms of endearment” basis, are we? God, I hate to think what you'll be calling me next!'

‘You love it,' he replied with an air of relaxed authority. ‘Now stop trying to change the subject. We all know the real reason you let me bring you to this trashy diner today.'

‘Is that right?
We
all know why I'm here, do we?'

‘That's right, sista. I know it, you know it and that Betty Boop waitress over there knows it.'

‘And why is it?'

‘It's because you really do want to chat about what's going on in your life. You had a fricken fiesta giving us all the real dirt on the McGavin family back at Murphy's pub before Christmas. I'm like your resident therapist, and while I should be charging you
at least one-fifty an hour, I'm willing to let you slide on a freebie. So spill it.'

Evelyn prepared herself to retaliate, but then she caved. What was the point in arguing? ‘Fine, you win.' She launched into a rundown of what had happened when she'd left Bazza and the others at the pub. Bazza was suitably impressed to learn that she had been able to get James off the hook and even more so when he heard about how she had put the old school principal in his place. She cut the story short then, saying (in a voice that was just a tad too upbeat), ‘So that night James and I went out to dinner to celebrate.' She gazed vaguely around the diner as though that was all there was to it.

‘And yet I'm getting the feeling that there's more to the story, otherwise I wouldn't be sensing a world of hurt radiating across the table from you?'

Evelyn sighed crossly. ‘You don't give up, do you?'

‘Nope.'

‘Okay, okay, so James and I had a little bit of an argument over dinner – that's it.'

‘Give me some details to work with here.'

‘He brought up the one person I least want to hear about, talk about or even think about. He brought up Belinda, Andrew's fiancée. He seemed to think we ought to be
keeping in touch
with her.' She spat the last few words out as though disgusted by the mere thought.

‘Allow me to play devil's advocate here and ask: is that really such a bad idea?'

Evelyn fired up in an instant. ‘Are you
joking
? That woman, that
girl
, is responsible for my son's death. Why would I want to have anything at all to do with her?'

‘Just chill, McGavin, I'm on your side. But humour me and explain exactly how she's responsible?'

‘How? My God, I can't even begin to put it into words – it's everything about her. He met her and it changed the course of his life. Had he never met her, then he never would have died. It's as simple as that.'

‘Walk me through it. How did meeting her wind up with him being killed?'

Evelyn huffed a little irritably. ‘If I have to spell it out . . . before he met Belinda, he was still living with me and studying at university full-time. He was doing well, getting good results, and working a part-time job at a bookstore that was right around the corner from home. Because he was living with me, he was earning all the money he needed, and I let him off paying any board because I wanted him to concentrate on his studies and not have to worry about any financial issues.

‘Then he met Belinda and, before I knew it, he became serious about her, was spending far too much time with her, and all of a sudden it was vital that he had to move out, which led to him cutting back his last year of uni to part-time study so he could get a full-time job to pay rent. Before Belinda came into the picture, I can assure you he had absolutely no interest in moving out and he certainly wasn't interested in interrupting his studies for work of any kind.

‘But here's the important part. He was killed a block away from his
work
, while on his way home from
work
,
just five minutes after leaving
work
. Do you get the connection now? He meets Belinda, Belinda makes him move out, therefore he needs a new job to support himself, therefore he ends up at that stupid Ezymart shop on Pitt Street, on that particular day, at that particular time, around the corner from his work.'

Bazza hesitated momentarily, then spoke carefully. ‘Take a step back and imagine you're hearing those words from
someone else's mouth. Think about it: “he met her, therefore it's her fault”.'

His calm, sensible words were infuriating her. ‘You're not listening to me. Don't you understand? She orchestrated his whole life so that he would end up in that stupid job. So of course it's her fault. The whole thing was completely and utterly her fault.' She paused for a brief moment and then pushed on determinedly, ‘She might as well have pulled the bloody trigger.'

Bazza seemed to flinch at her final words. She had never told him exactly how her son had died; he was only just finding out now that he had been killed in a convenience store. She had shocked herself a little, saying those words out loud. He recovered quickly, though, and then gave his unwanted opinion, ‘I got one word for ya, McGavin:
harsh
.'

‘Harsh? My son is dead and you think I'm being
harsh
?'

‘Look, woman, I'm still on your side here. I see that girl on the street – what did you say her name was? Belinda? Right, I see this Belinda on the street and sure, I'll give her a filthy look instead of my usual surreptitious once-over. But would I go so far as to accuse her of causing her own fiancé's death? Nope. And I'll tell you why – because it's too damn harsh. You even realise what you're putting on that girl's shoulders? You're making her solely responsible for another human being's death when there would have been too many other factors at play. Can you guarantee one hundred per cent that he wouldn't have ended up in that same job had she not come along? Maybe his mates would have convinced him to move out regardless. How about why he was in that shop? Do you even know why he went there after work? Do you get where I'm going with this?'

Evelyn was preparing her retort – and she was not going to hold back – when Bazza's eyes widened and he leant forward and asked
her a question in a slightly frantic, uncharacteristic voice. ‘Evelyn, I'm sorry to ask you this, but when did your son die? When exactly?'

This was the first time he'd ever called her by her full first name. She decided to save her retaliation and respond. Something seemed to have spooked him.

‘It's been four months, three weeks and six days. He died September eight, and if you want the time to the second, it was five-seventeen pm.' She held his gaze, kept her voice level and emotionless. ‘Why?' she added a little tiredly.

He ignored her question. ‘And you say he was killed in an Ezymart store? The one on Pitt Street? And he was . . .' he paused nervously, ‘he was shot?'

‘That's right.'

‘Right. Um, you're going to have to forgive me. I've gotta take off. Somewhere I need to be.' He gestured vaguely towards the street as though that explained it all.

Evelyn couldn't help but feel a little hurt. ‘First, you sit there and tell me I've got my ex-future-daughter-in-law all wrong, and now you're going to leave before I get the chance to defend myself? I can't believe you're standing me up when you were the one who invited me out.'

Bazza reached across the table and gave her hand a quick squeeze. ‘I'm really sorry – there's just something that's come up, okay? Plus I don't think you quite know the meaning of being stood up. Does it count as standing someone up if you actually show up to start with?'

And with that he was gone, leaving his half-eaten breakfast behind. She pushed her own plate away. Her appetite had evaporated.

‘Didn't even get to talk to you properly about my fight with James,' she murmured sulkily to herself.

‘What was that, ma'am?'

Evelyn realised a waitress was standing right next to her. ‘Nothing,' she said hurriedly. ‘Perhaps you could just bring me the bill?'
Ha, left with the bill yet again. First, James at dinner; now, Bazza at breakfast. Young men these days – no manners.

‘Nope, 'fraid I can't do that. Bazza's a regular here and he already asked for the bill to be put on his tab. Can I get you anything else?'

Evelyn shook her head guiltily.

Annoyingly, Evelyn didn't get to catch up with Bazza again for the next few weeks. They kept missing each other at SkyChallenge, which meant she had to take a couple more of her jumps with the ever unimpressive Chad, and she couldn't seem to reach him on the phone. She was getting very frustrated. She had all these comebacks saved up ready for him, perfectly sensible reasons as to why she should still be blaming Belinda, but she wasn't being given the chance to share them.

What was more annoying was the frequent calls that she had started getting from work. Apparently five months was long enough for a grieving mother to get over her son's death and it was time she got back to her ‘responsibilities'.

‘Hi, Evelyn, just checking in again. So how
are
you today?' Gabbie's sugary-sweet voice was like a screwdriver to her spine. The calls had become a daily ritual.

Then there was the morning that her boss had turned up on her doorstep. ‘We understand what you must be going through, but . . .' he'd begun.

Evelyn had barely hesitated before replying, quite matter-of-factly, ‘No you don't, Alby. You don't have a fucking clue.' And
she'd closed the door in his face. It had felt good – even if she didn't really know why she hadn't gone back to work yet.

The next night, she decided that while it wasn't time to return to work, it was time to return to book club. Although, to be perfectly honest, it seemed like such a bland hobby in comparison to her more recently acquired pastime. Book club was being hosted by Violet that night. The group was a rather eclectic mix that included: a couple of the women from Evelyn's work whom she could actually tolerate, some mothers from Violet's kids' school, along with one mum's somewhat sprightly mother-in-law and, finally, Violet's extremely camp and yet happily (and heterosexually) married next-door neighbour, Neville.

Violet was both pleased and surprised to see Evelyn when she turned up at the door. ‘Hello, stranger,' she exclaimed happily.

‘Stranger? I just had coffee with you a week ago!'

‘Yes, but in the context of
book club
you're a stranger.'

Evelyn shook her head at her sister as she stepped past into the house.

The rest of the group were equally pleased to see her. ‘
Darling
, it's so good to have you back!' Neville cried, touching his fingers dramatically to his throat, his voice choking up a little as he spoke.

Evelyn took one look at the group sitting around her sister's lounge room – all dressed in their comfy knitted cardigans (Neville included), regardless of the fact that the early autumn weather was still quite warm and comfortable – and was simultaneously hit by two trains of thought. The first was simply, ‘Goodness, this lot seem so boring now.' The next was a memory that surfaced as flashbacks often did when she smelt something strong and familiar: sudden and clear. It was of book club quite
a few years back. The faces were a little different – there were some old members who had since dropped out, while some of the newer ones were missing – but the knitted cardigans were the same. And while the room in this memory was her own lounge room, the set-up was similar: dim, warm lighting, Arnott's assorted biscuits on the coffee table and cups of tea and coffee scattered around amongst several books.