Free-Falling (24 page)

Michael leant back into the microphone and added, ‘Now please turn to the large screen up here to my right. Keep in mind this is in the early stages . . . but, Andy, this is for you.'

An image appeared on the screen with the words: ‘Presenting GameTech's newest prototype, due for release later this year . . .
Andy's Urban Soccer Match
.' A series of images followed, showing grabs from the game. The main character within the game had brown, slightly curly hair and was wearing a cap that looked to Evelyn suspiciously like Andy's favourite cap, the one he used to wear constantly. It appeared to her to be a game where the player took their character around a rather familiar looking neighbourhood and challenged people in the street to soccer juggling contests. Once the character beat them, he then took them with him, gathering up people until he had enough for a soccerball match in the park. Evelyn realised she could see familiar traits in many of the little computer-animated characters, linking them to each of Andy's mates.

She gasped and nudged Violet. ‘Look, I think that one might be me!'

There was an image on the screen of a middle-aged female character with auburn-coloured hair and a cream cardigan she was quite sure she recognised as her own.

‘Yep. And that one's gotta be Belinda.'

Evelyn was flooded with guilt as she looked up at the tiny, dark-haired figure. ‘Goodness, she really was such an important part of his life, wasn't she? I'd better try her again.'

‘Ev, no, that's not a good idea. You've had a lot to drink and it's getting pretty late. I really think this is a conversation you need to be
fairly
sober for.' Violet tried to grab the phone.

‘No, no, it'll be fine. Let me just give it one more try.' She
swatted Violet's hand away and turned her back, heading for a quiet corner.

The phone rang once, twice, three times, and was finally picked up.

‘Hello?'

‘Oh, for goodness sakes, I thought I was never going to get you! Belinda, sweetheart! It's me! Ev!'

There was a big pause and Evelyn started to worry.
Hmm, maybe that was a bit too casual.
She supposed she had probably never called herself ‘Ev' to Belinda before. In fact, she didn't normally refer to herself as Ev to anyone. Perhaps she
had
had a bit too much to drink. She ploughed on regardless.

‘Look, I'm so sorry to call you so late, but I've been trying to reach you all day. I've been feeling terrible – there's something I
have
to tell you.'

‘Oka-a-a-y.' Belinda dragged her voice out on the other end of the phone. She sounded like she was trying to talk to a mental patient or something.

‘I've taken up skydiving, you see. And today, I had a bit of an accident. Almost killed myself in fact. But before I landed, I realised something. I've not been fair to you. All this time I've been blaming you for . . . well, for everything really. But I've finally realised I have to let it all go. I simply don't need to be mad anymore!' Evelyn paused, and when she was greeted with silence from the other end of the phone, she continued in a rush, ‘So that's what I'm doing. I'm letting it all go. Starting with making things up to you. Anyway, it would really speed up the process if you would forgive me. I'm not particularly enjoying this guilty feeling – it's really very unpleasant.'

‘Right. Yeah, you're making a hell of a lot of sense. What are you
on
about? Skydiving? And you nearly died? Mrs McGavin,
are you drunk?' The voice on the other end of the phone was sounding quite disapproving.

‘Just a little, but that's beside the point. So tell me, can you forgive me? I'll make sure to get you a copy of the new GameTech tribute to Andy soccer-game thingy.'

‘Okay, I'm not even going to ask about that one, but I'm guessing you're calling from the awards night. Had a few too many champagnes, have you? Look, Mrs McGavin, I'm really tired, I've had a long day, and you've sort of come right out of left field here. But if it's what you need to hear then, sure, I'll forgive you – although I'm not going to be surprised if tomorrow you sober up and have a change of heart. Is that all? Cause it's getting late and I'm thinking I might start getting ready for bed.' Was there just a hint of amusement in her voice now?

‘Sure, of course. You go to bed.' Evelyn was just about to hang up when she realised she had forgotten to ask the most important question, the thing that had been on her mind all afternoon.

‘No wait! There's one more thing. Belinda . . . you're not
pregnant,
are you?'

‘What? Why do you ask? Did someone say something to you?' The voice came back very sharply.

Ah, of course she's not, I've just gone and offended the poor girl. She's thinking someone thinks she looks pregnant when she's not. How terribly awkward!
‘No, no, it wasn't something anyone said. It was just something I saw . . . the day . . .' She took a deep breath before continuing, ‘the day Andrew died. I guess it was a mistake.'

‘What? What did you see?'

‘When I went into that store and saw him there, he was holding a pregnancy test. He must have thought that you were pregnant, for some reason. I guess he had it wrong then.'

There was a long pause and eventually Belinda spoke in a small voice.

‘Not entirely, no.'

Chapter 16

Bazza

On the first day after some guy in his apartment block was killed, Bazza kept hearing different stories. Every time he got in the lift to go out, or checked the mail or took out the garbage, someone else had an opinion on what had happened.

‘I heard it was one of those noisy boys from apartment 8A. You know, the ones that are always playing that “techno” music? Apparently he was in a “gang”. Well, if you get involved in these things – it's just inevitable, isn't it?'

‘Did you hear about Mrs Pritchard's son in 17B? Turns out he was a drug dealer and he got killed in some undercover drug bust operation in the city. Always knew he was a fishy character.'

‘Can you believe the news? One of the young men up on level three, killed in a service station hold-up. Poor boy, I think I know which one it was, a real polite young man. He was the one with the three-year-old daughter. How awful. Little girl's lost her father.'

‘Yep, Mrs Pritchard, it is sad news – but I am glad to find out it wasn't your son who died after all.'

‘What's that, dear?'

‘Nothing, never mind. I'll see you later, Mrs P.' Bazza headed out of the heavy front door and up the steps to the footpath. He couldn't believe how many different theories there were. He wondered who it actually was who had been killed and whether it was anyone he knew. He'd got to know a lot of the tenants in the building – especially those who were at the Christmas party by the pool last year. That had been a little weird at first: a bunch of complete strangers getting together simply because they all shared the same apartment block. But it was Christmas – so why not, right? Once the barbecue had been fired, the music turned up loud and the beers started getting passed around, everyone had relaxed and got to know each other.

He jingled his change in his pockets as he walked and wished he'd brought his iPod with him. It was only a five-minute trip up to the video store, but he felt like blocking out his thoughts. He didn't want to think anymore about the guy who'd been killed yesterday, whoever it was.

He reached the video store and made his way straight to the back of the shop, where they kept the old black-and-white classics. Tonight was the perfect night to watch one of these. All his mates were away for the weekend – he'd decided not to go because of all the study he needed to do for his TAFE course – but it wouldn't hurt to take tonight off and relax with a movie, right? His mates had absolutely crucified him when they found out he had a secret passion for movies with actors like James Dean, Humphrey Bogart or Rita Hayworth. But Bazza stood by his love for old movies; as far as he was concerned, they just didn't make them like they used to.

He picked out a classic Hitchcock thriller –
Strangers on a Train
– looking forward to his quiet night in. Sometimes it was such a relief to have the guys out of his hair (or lack thereof) for a
weekend. Going out to pubs and clubs every Friday and Saturday night was great, obviously, but it could also get bloody exhausting at times.
Ahh, I must be getting old
, he chided himself.

In the lift on the way up to his floor, he heard yet another theory about the guy who'd been killed. This time it was from his good friends, Mr and Mrs Crease from down the hall. They were a really decent old couple who he'd got to know quite well over the past year. Mrs Crease was often bringing him freshly baked scones, and Mr Crease liked to offer him advice on his TAFE course. In exchange, Bazza came by and did little bits and pieces that Mr Crease was a bit too frail to do. Sometimes it was changing a light globe, other times it was moving their entire living room furniture around – Mrs Crease frequently liked to rearrange it. ‘Variety is the spice of life, my dear boy,' she always said.

Now, as they walked away from the lift, Mrs Crease spoke in a sad, heavy voice. ‘I'm quite sure it was that tall boy from upstairs. I believe he got engaged a little while ago. How sad for his poor fiancée.' She dabbed at her eyes with a hanky. ‘It's not that I knew him well. I didn't at all – not like you, Barry . . . But it's still just awful, isn't it?'

‘Yep, sure is,' he responded, taking bags of shopping out of both Mr and Mrs Crease's hands and following them down the hall to their apartment. He held their door open with his elbow to let them both in, then stepped in after them and took their shopping to the kitchen.

‘I just don't know what I'd do with myself if it was you, Barry – you're such a good friend to us.' Mrs Crease shook her head sadly.

‘And yet you keep on calling me Barry, you persistent woman. I've told you, all my good friends call me—'

Mrs Crease cut him off. ‘Yes, yes, I know, but you can't expect me not to use the Christian name your mother and father gave you, and that's that. Here, have a sugared lemon and be off with you,' she said, inexplicably brightening up as she practically pushed him back out the door.

Back in his own apartment, he cooked up a quick, easy pasta for dinner, chucking cherry tomatoes, onion and a spoonful of pesto into the pan, along with a generous drizzle of olive oil. Then he sat down with the movie and his dinner, kicked off his shoes and immersed himself in his Friday night.

A few hours later, he woke up with a start. He was slumped on the couch, the TV flickering in silence, his bowl of pasta on the coffee table in front of him, barely touched. Jeez, had he even seen the first ten minutes of the movie before falling asleep? Definitely too many nights up late studying this week. He stretched and stood up, grabbing the remote to turn off the TV, and took his half-eaten dinner into the kitchen. He was standing at the kitchen sink rinsing off his plate when something caught his eye out the window.

No, that couldn't be right, could it?

He hurried out of the kitchen and around to the balcony, flicking on the lounge room light as he went. He stepped onto the balcony. There, in front of him, in the massive gumtree that grew directly in front of his apartment, was a girl – just barely clinging on to the branch above her.

‘Shit, do you need some help?' he called out. She just stared back at him, but he could see the look on her face, it was sort of . . . helpless.

What, was she drunk or something?
he wondered. And then he saw her hands start to slip . . .
Crap, she's about to let go.
The next thing he knew, she was falling, crashing through the branches,
seconds later landing at the base of the tree with a dull-sounding thud.

Bazza took off at once, back through his apartment and out into the hall. He tore down the hallway, went straight past the elevator and down the stairs instead – he knew it would be faster than waiting for the lift. He took the stairs two or three at a time, burst out of the fire-escape door at ground level, then raced around to where the tree was.

She hadn't moved since landing. She was lying on her back, completely still, staring up into the tree. He saw now that she was wearing jeans and just a bra. There might have been a bit of blood on the bra too. Had she scratched herself as she fell through the branches?

He squatted down next to her and placed a hand carefully on her arm. At least she was still conscious. He looked into her face and realised he recognised her. It was the girl from upstairs who he'd always had a bit of a crush on, but as far as he knew she had a boyfriend.
So where was
he
when his girlfriend was stuck up a tree, clearly in need of him?

‘Are you okay?' he asked.

She shook her head and he saw a tear slide down her cheek.

‘Fuck me! You fell a long way. Maybe I should take you to a doctor?'

‘Take me inside, please. Just take me in to your place.'

Her voice was so pleading that he decided to oblige. Anyway, once he got her inside he could check her out properly, see if she really did need to be taken up to the medical centre or something. He put one arm under her knees and the other around her back and, guiding her arm around his neck so she could hold on, he lifted her up and carried her inside.
Thank Christ I keep doing those push-ups every morning
, he thought as he hoisted her up a
bit higher so he could press the button for the lift. It wasn't that she was heavy – he was just glad that he didn't have to look like he was struggling.

They got up into his apartment and he gently laid her down on his couch. He started to move away, figuring the first move would be to grab some ice out of the freezer. She was likely to have a nasty bump from that landing – if not something worse. God, he hoped she didn't have any broken bones, although he supposed she'd probably be screaming in pain if she did.

But before he could step back, she suddenly clung onto him and pulled him towards her. Without even realising it was happening, she was kissing him. He almost let himself go with it, but managed to stop and pull back. As much as he'd always liked the look of this chick, he really wasn't into cutting some other guy's grass – even if the guy hadn't been there for her when she needed him.

‘Don't you have a boyfriend or something? I've seen you with him before . . .' He was sort of hoping she might say they'd broken up; then he could kiss her guilt-free. But instead, she just pulled him back towards her and continued to kiss him forcefully. He couldn't help himself: her beautiful, soft lips were just about making him melt. He fell into her arms and kissed her back hungrily.

Moments later, she was pulling off his shirt, digging her nails into his back. There was no going back now.
God, she's gorgeous,
he thought as he gazed down at her and then leant in to kiss her again, running his hands across her body. But apparently he was wrong. There was still time to go back. He realised she wasn't returning his kisses anymore, that she had become rigid beneath him. He pulled away yet again to look at her.

‘This isn't right,' she whispered, on the verge of tears.

He could feel guilt welling up and lodging in his throat. He should never have kissed her.
Fool.

Then she pushed him off her and strode out of the apartment. It wasn't until she was disappearing out the door that he saw the flash of the engagement ring on her finger.
Fuck!
She didn't just have a boyfriend, she had a
fiancé
! He felt terrible and, to be honest, a little nervous – what if this guy knew martial arts or something? He might be just about to get his arse kicked.

Wait. Hadn't Mrs Crease said that the guy who'd been killed yesterday lived up on the third floor and was engaged? He knew that this girl was from the third floor. He'd seen her push button three in the lift before.

Instantly, it all made sense. Of course, she'd be having some sort of mental breakdown (not that he got why she was hanging halfway up a tree, but still . . .). The poor girl had just lost the guy she was going to marry. And what had he done to help her out? He'd taken advantage of her. He felt sick. Okay, so maybe she'd made the first move, but that didn't make him feel much better.

He paced around his apartment for the next half an hour or so, trying to decide what he could do to make it right. Should he go up and apologise? Explain that he only just realised what had happened to her? No, probably better to leave her for tonight. He was going to have to find some other way to make it up to her.

The next morning, his worst fears were confirmed while flicking through the
Hills Shire Times
on the bus to work. There was a short story about a young local man who'd been killed, accompanied by a grainy black-and-white photo. Yep, that was definitely her fiancé. The story gave a few sketchy details, basically that he had been in an Ezymart store on Pitt Street when a drug addict with a gun held it up. He was the only person killed
and investigations into the crime were ongoing. Bazza scanned the photo again. He'd recognised him as soon as he saw it. He'd run into this guy plenty of times in the lift or the car park.

Over the next few weeks, Bazza kept racking his brain to think of a way to make it up to this girl. The worst thing was that he didn't even know her name. The paper didn't mention her and he'd never introduced himself properly any of the times he'd run into her in the building. It seemed crazy that he'd got so intimate with this girl and yet he really didn't know a thing about her – apart from the fact that she was on Mrs Pritchard's bad side for getting in the lift with sandy feet from the beach once.

‘What were they even doing at the beach? It's the middle of winter!' Mrs Pritchard had snapped, sounding scandalised when she ran into Bazza in the hall. Mrs P wasn't one to let these things go. And now he thought about it he remembered she'd said, ‘I believe her name is
Belle
. Common sort of name, don't you think?'

Belle
, probably short for Isabel, he supposed. ‘No actually, I don't think it is particularly
common
,' he'd muttered to himself as he walked down the hall to his apartment.

Between TAFE and work, though, he was being kept pretty well occupied, so it didn't leave him much time to think about her. He had a new client at work whom he was finding pretty intriguing – definitely not his usual clientele, and he got the feeling she hadn't taken up skydiving just for the fun of it. Every once in a while a client showed up, claiming they were after a rush, but clearly they were after a way to escape. Bazza had to admit, free-falling towards the earth was definitely the way to go when it came to escapism, but ultimately it wasn't going to solve your problems, whatever they happened to be. He took a professional interest in cases like these – his fascination with people and what motivated them had been the reason he'd taken up his psychology course.

Even though this client was keeping her story fairly guarded, he found her easy to chat to and, without meaning to, he started telling her about his own life, including his career plans and his crush on Isabel. Although he couldn't quite bring himself to explain the full story – he didn't think she'd approve of him making out with a girl the night after her fiancé had died.