Free-Falling (6 page)

You all better show or we'll just have to assume you're too soft. Yes, even the girls.

Cheers,

Andy

Hi all,

Let's make it girls vs guys. Boys, we're going to kick your butts. Girls – ten-buck cocktails at the pub after?

Belle

x

Hey Ando,

Control your woman.

Belle, is that a promise, baby?

Yours faithfully

The Shankmeister

- Rock out with your cock out -

Have some class, Belle, we'll have those boys buying us bottles of Moet ;)

Right, looks like I'll be spending the night sharpening the studs on my old soccer boots. Watch out, Shanks, this is gonna hurt way more than the time I stepped on your foot in my stilettos.

Peace,

Jules

Guys,

Could we all stop hitting reply all?

Some of us are trying to get some work done.

Thanks

Kind regards

Stacey Thomas

Customer Service Manager

Bardens Lending House

‘Bardens takes the sORROW out of bORROWing!'

Oh, shit, think I just hit reply all.

Jeez, so sORRY about that Stacey.

Yours faithfully

The Shankmeister

- Rock out with your cock out -

She hadn't realised just how much she missed Andy's muck-around soccer games. They had been going on for about five or six months before he had died, and Andy and Belle had found that they played well together – once they made the decision to always stay on the same team. Belinda's competitive nature coupled with Andy's supreme soccer skills had meant that playing on opposing sides just caused fights between the two of them.

Reading the emails, she began to wonder once again about calling one of Andy's mates. The thought had crossed her mind on and off over the last month. After all, they'd all been her friends too. So had James, for that matter. But each time she had held her phone in her hand, she'd ended up finding some excuse not to.

Not right now, really should do some studying.

Maybe later, after I get home from the gym.

And now, as she closed the emails and turned away from the computer, she talked herself out of it yet again.

A couple of times, one or another of his good school friends had tried to contact her. There was a message from Coombes in her Facebook inbox titled ‘just checking in with you' that she kept meaning to read, and once an awkward, stilted voicemail from Aaron Shanks . . . But she couldn't think what she would say to them. Andy was the connection between her and the guys. Would she know how to act around them without him? And James hadn't made any attempt to call or message, so for all she knew he felt the same way as his mother did.

The longer she left it, the harder it seemed.

‘Uh, hi, babe.'

‘Nice time?'

‘I guess. Look I just wanted to say I'm really sorry about tonight. I totally realise I was a wanker for no reason at all and I feel terrible about it.'

‘Why the change of heart?'

‘Surprisingly enough – it was Shanks. I ran into him at the pub and he made me see how irrational I was being. The guy definitely has his moments.'

‘I see.'

‘Umm, not that I'm complaining here – but why aren't you yelling? Aren't you mad with me? Not only did I overreact but I've got beer breath, which I know you hate.'

‘Yeah, I know. It's weird, huh? I
was
angry. Actually, I was fuming. It was supposed to be your turn to cook. But then I started to think it through, tried to see it from your perspective and, well,
I decided to cut you a little slack. The few glasses of wine I had didn't hurt either.'

‘You're amazing. Oh, I almost forgot, I bought you some flowers. They're out in the kitchen. I was going to put them in water for you first.'

‘Let me guess, roses?'

‘Yep.'

‘Ah, babe, when are you going to learn? Lilies are my favourite! But thank you. And to answer your question, no, I sure as hell don't have a thing for your brother. I have a thing for you.'

‘So how are you holding up these days?' Stacey asked when the two friends met for a catch-up at a café in North Sydney, around the corner from Stacey's work.

‘Holding up? What do you mean? Oh, uni assignments? Yeah – I mean, they're pretty full on, but I'm managing.'

‘No, actually, that wasn't what I meant. How are you coping . . . without Andy?'

Stacey never used to call him Andy; she would always refuse to shorten his name even though that's what he actually preferred. The softness in her voice made Belinda melt a little. Her friend was normally such a logical, unemotional, straight-down-the-line kind of girl. That faded little line began to swim into view and she quickly hardened up again, scrubbing it from her mind.

‘Oh, that. Look, you always knew we weren't meant for one another anyway, so it's like fate or something, right?' Belinda nonchalantly lifted her cappuccino towards her lips but the aroma of the coffee reached her nostrils first and she recoiled from it,
completely repulsed. She put the cup back down on the saucer with unintended force, causing froth to slosh over the side.

Stacey's eyes narrowed. ‘When are you going to announce it?'

‘Announce what?' Belinda looked genuinely bewildered.

‘I'm your best friend and, to be perfectly honest, I can't believe you haven't even told me yet.' Her soft tone from earlier had been replaced by her usual bluntness. ‘Honey, I'm not stupid,' she continued. ‘You're constantly running off to the bathroom to be sick, you keep pressing your arms against your boobs like they're killing you and you're looking at that coffee like it's a cup of boiled cabbage. I remember when my sister was pregnant for the first time, she said one of the earliest signs was her sudden aversion to her morning coffee. Seeing as you usually keep Starbucks in business, I'm thinking something a little dodgy is going on here.'

Belinda stood up, trembling. She turned to leave, but Stacey wasn't prepared to give in on this one. She grabbed Belinda by the wrist and yanked hard so that she was forced to turn back to her.

‘You need to deal with this, hon, and there's no time like the present.' She was staring fiercely into her eyes. ‘So snap out of it.'

Belinda couldn't hold on to it any longer. Those two neat little lines began to form and harden. They danced before her eyes; they twirled little canes and tipped their top hats at her. ‘We're not going anywhere,' they announced happily.

A positive pregnancy test. It really was true.

She slumped into her chair and rested her head in her hands, trying to take it all in. She looked up at her best friend. ‘I'm pregnant?' she asked in a small, wavering voice.

Stacey immediately softened again. ‘Oh, sweetheart!' She dragged her chair next to Belinda and draped an arm around her.
‘We don't know for absolute sure that you are . . . although I kind of think you could be showing already.'

Belinda saw the two lines again, now in razor-sharp focus. They were doing the tango. ‘Yes, we do know,' she admitted. She started crying into her friend's shoulder and, moments later, Stacey had joined her.

She wailed into Stacey's neck for a good five minutes, letting everything out – disjointed sentences between sobs and sniffles – while Stacey reassured her when she could.

‘I ca— can't do this on my own.'

‘You're not going to be alone. You'll have me, and your family will come and visit too.'

‘I've been drinking all the time! What if I've hurt the baby?'

‘Plenty of people drink early on when they don't realise they're pregnant. Your baby will turn out fine.'

‘How could he leave me like this?'

‘He didn't want to leave you. If he could have, he would have done anything to be by your side for this.'

‘I didn't mean what I said before, about us not being meant for each other. We weren't that bad together. Were we?'

‘No, honey, you two were great together.'

Belinda managed a half-laugh into Stacey's shoulder. ‘Now I know you're lying. You never approved of Andy.'

‘Yes, well, the guy spent his days playing computer games. What kind of career is that?'

‘Stacey! He
designed
games. He was brilliant at it.'

‘Okay, okay, can you just work with me here? I'm trying to play the supportive, comforting friend!'

Belinda sat up and wiped at her sticky, tear-stained face. ‘And you're doing a great job, Stace. So I guess it's about time I went to see a doctor then. Will you come with?'

Chapter 6

Evelyn

‘You're certain you want to do this?'

‘Yes, of course, why else would I be here?'

‘It's just that you're not exactly in the ahh . . .
demographic
of our normal clientele.'

Evelyn rolled her eyes, irritated by the young man's bluntness. ‘Look, buddy-boy, there's no age limit on this and I'm perfectly fit and healthy. They didn't hire you for your brilliant personnel skills, did they?'

‘No, ma'am, they hired me 'cause I'm one hell of an adrenalin junkie.' He smoothed back his dreadlocks and grinned at her proudly, clearly unaware of the dig she'd just made at him.

‘Look, just get me signed up. I'd like to start the training right away. When will I be able to do the first one?'

‘All right, it's your call. Let me just take a look at the bookings . . . Right, give us forty-eight hours and we can have you strapped onto one of my good colleagues here.'

‘Great, and then when can I do it solo?'

‘Wouldn't you like to see how the first one goes and
then
decide if you want to go through with one on your own? It's a big process you know. You'll have to sign up to get your skydiving licence, and it'll cost you a lot of dough.' His gently condescending tone was infuriating.

Evelyn took in a slow breath to help with her frustration and spoke carefully. ‘Chad, is it? All right, Chad, how about you stop mollycoddling me and just accept that I'm actually looking to take this up as a regular sport and to hell with the money. So I'm going to be hanging around here quite a bit in the near future. Let's just say I need an “outlet”, okay? Now run along and get things moving for me. I want to get started straight away.'

Chad didn't seem to be the least bit offended by the way she was patronising him. In fact he was looking quite impressed, although she did get the feeling that she may have lost him on the word ‘mollycoddling'.

‘All right – the old lady wants to boogie, we'll let her boogie! Fill in these forms and then we'll get you introduced to your jump master. I reckon Bazza'll be perfect for you.' He handed over the paperwork and disappeared out the back, no doubt to tell ‘Bazza' about the crazy old lady who wanted to take up a sport usually reserved for kids her sons' age.

It was all James's fault that she was here. That very morning he had announced that he was going to go skydiving as some sort of tribute to Andy. He had already been surfing with his mates at 3 am last Wednesday night, where they'd apparently formed a circle past the waves and meditated on the loss of his brother. Next he'd been to a two-day music festival, where he'd used a careful combination of punk rock, hip-hop and copious amounts of alcohol to feel closer to his dead twin. And now he seemed to think skydiving was the final step in this ridiculous ‘spiritual journey'.

‘I think not, James Matthew. Do you really believe that I'm going to willingly allow you to risk your life when you're just about all the family I have left?'

‘Just chill for a minute, Mum. Skydiving is perfectly safe.' He'd patted her reassuringly on the back and then added, ‘And I'm doing this for Andy.'

Evelyn had snapped. ‘That's enough of this rubbish! Your brother hated surfing, had completely different taste in music to you and would have never even considering hurling himself out of a perfectly good aeroplane. You cannot expect me to believe that this thrill-seeking rampage could possibly pass as a way to somehow honour your brother in the afterlife.'

‘Mum, I'm just trying to find an outlet.' James had looked at her with pity, as though she could never understand the depths of his pain.

For goodness sake.
‘How about you sort through Andy's old closet. That ought to make you feel a little closer to him.' Evelyn had snatched the brochure from James's hand and stormed out of the house, grabbing her car keys from the hall table as she went.

She'd got in the car and just started driving, with no idea where she was heading, until, at a set of lights, she'd picked the brochure up off the seat next to her and gazed at the words:

I'm the one who needs a bloody outlet
, she'd thought angrily.
I'm the one who needs to feel something.

And now here she was, audaciously claiming that she wanted to take up this insane activity as a regular sport. Where the hell had that idea come from? It was absolutely too late to back out. There was no way she would let those twenty-something-year-olds, who were somehow managing to run this place, get the
better of her. It didn't matter that she would never see any of them again should she decide to cut and run. Her pride was now at stake; she had something to prove to Bazza and Chad and even to James – should she ever tell him.

She wondered what Carl would have thought of her being here. Her late husband probably would have loved the idea – would have been sitting right alongside her, egging her on. ‘Come on, Ev, you only live once. Do something spectacular while you can!'

That's how he always used to talk: so full of positive energy, right up until the end. Even as the cancer began to spread to his bones, he was still talking like they had a long future together.

‘Carl, you can't keep making these promises to the boys. You don't know that you'll be strong enough to take them fishing this year.'

‘Don't be ridiculous, sweetheart. I can do anything I set my mind to. The power of positive thinking – you don't realise how important that really is.'

‘Positive thinking can only take you so far.'

‘Stop stressing so much. It's got me here and it's going to help me make it through.'

‘But you know what Dr Coleman said. You know you haven't got long.'

‘You think I'm going to accept a death sentence, just because he says so?'

‘Carl, we've got to start preparing James and Andrew. They can't be looking forward to a fishing trip that we both know isn't going to happen.'

‘It's going to happen if I say it is, dammit!'

‘You're in complete and utter denial about this, and I need for
you not to be. Please, I don't know how I'm going to cope on my own, after . . .'

‘I know, Ev. Don't you think I know you're right? But I'm just not ready to let go.'

‘How are we going with those forms there? All done then?'

The voice brought her tumbling out of the shockingly clear memory. She looked up to see a tall, young man standing in front of her, rocking backwards and forwards on his toes, eyes glinting.

As it turned out, Bazza was a refreshing change from Chad and all the other kids she'd seen wandering around the warehouse that was home to ‘SkyChallenge' (
what an original name
that
was
). While he was just as young as his colleagues, he had a closely shaved head, unlike the unruly dreadlocks that most of them were sporting, considerably less facial piercings (although she did take note of a small stud in his left eyebrow), and was instantly warm and welcoming to her. He was polite without using that fake, sickeningly sweet voice that most young people put on when they were trying to show ‘respect for their elders'.

‘Okeydoke, looks like everything's in order here. I think it's time we got your training under way, Mrs McGavin. Just follow me and prepare to be blown away by
the most
unbelievable, incredible, terrifying experience of your entire life!'

Well! Not a hint of sarcasm, no surprised or doubtful expression on his face when he saw her. He sounded like he genuinely believed this
would
be the most unbelievable experience of her life. In fact, he got more and more excited as he described it all to her. She decided he was nice enough for her to refrain from
asking him if he'd like to try giving birth to a surprisingly large set of twin boys (one naturally and the second by caesarean) before deciding that skydiving was the most terrifying experience ever.

Bazza had a real passion for skydiving without any of the macho bravado of his workmates. His excitement quickly started to rub off on Evelyn and she found herself looking forward to taking the plunge. They spent a fairly pleasant afternoon outside in the fresh air, running preparation drills and learning all about his part-time study, his ex-girlfriend, Mandy, and his new crush on some girl from his apartment building named Isabel whom he barely even knew, and his secret ambition of moving into a career in psychology. ‘You see, I want skydiving to be more of a hobby for me instead of a job, before I lose interest from doing it twenty-four-seven,' he'd explained.

‘Tell me something,' said Evelyn as she sat down on the grass for a break and tilted her face up towards the warm October sunshine. ‘I know I'd have to be out of touch with you young people to some extent at my age, but I'm just curious about what the term boogie has to do with skydiving.'

‘Wait, let me guess,' said Bazza with a grin. ‘Chad used it, didn't he?' He shook his head and murmured affectionately to himself, ‘Chad, you mighty big tosser. He can't help himself,' he continued. ‘Tries to impress anyone he can with “skydiver slang”.' Bazza held up his fingers to indicate inverted commas on the last two words. ‘The problem is he generally ends up using most of the terms in the wrong context. Like “SkyGod”; he'll claim to most people – mainly chicks he's trying to tune – that he's known as a SkyGod amongst his mates because he thinks that it means he's an ace skydiver. What he doesn't realise is that it's actually slang for a skydiver whose ego has grown too big for his own thick head and who isn't as skilful as he thinks he is.'

‘Ahh, so boogie means . . .?'

‘It actually refers to a group of skydivers who make a jump together for kicks.'

‘All right, there's only one thing I didn't follow. You said he tries to “tune” girls. What am I missing there? Some kind of odd reference to transistor radios?'

‘Basically just means trying to hit on them, you know, like pick them up.' Bazza gave her a sly smile and added, ‘Or
court
them, as I'm sure they said back in your day in what – the early eighteen-hundreds?'

‘Watch it there, kiddo, I'm not that fond of you yet!'

‘Hey,' said Bazza, holding his hands up in defence. ‘I'm just trying to say, you're really not as old as you make out you are, McGavin.'

Evelyn smiled despite herself. She rather liked his habit of calling her by just her surname. He'd been doing it all afternoon and it had made her feel like she was just another one of his mates. It was rather enjoyable to be feeling young and hip once again.

‘You just might live to see another day, Barry.'

‘Ahh, McGavin, how many times do I have to tell you? It's Bazza. Or Baz, if you like. Careful, you're starting to show your age again.'