The Seven Steps to Closure (21 page)

‘If you’re married to a bad person, does that make you bad by association?’ I asked Jessie, when I staggered into the lounge. I had been relieved to catch a glimpse of Tahlia asleep in his bed.

Looking up from his computer, he scratched the growth on his face as he pondered my words. ‘Are you talking about the terrorists?’ he asked confused.

‘No me?’ I said, running my hands through my tangled hair in an attempt to tame it.

‘Being married to Jake?’ he clarified.

‘Yeah.’

‘Does that make me a bad person being his brother?’

‘No, you didn’t choose to be his brother. I chose to love, honour and obey the son-of-a-bitch.’

‘It doesn’t make you a bad person – naive perhaps, but not bad.’

Tahlia stumbled into the lounge in her nightie and croaked, ‘Coffee.’

I poured both of us a cup from the pot Jessie had brewing. She took a sip and groaned in appreciation.

‘If it makes you a bad person for marrying him, what does it make Sydney for electing him to be their Mayor?’ she asked. She managed to look beautiful even with smudged make-up and bed-head hair.

‘Sin City,’ I answered. ‘So what happened last night?’

‘It was mayhem. Unfortunately the heads of the police force were taken out fairly early on so there was no real leadership.’

‘The police station was attacked?’ I asked dismayed.

‘No, they were out to dinner together when some of the terrorists drove past. They had a shoot-out and were all killed.’

‘But they got the terrorists?’

‘Unfortunately no.’ She shook her head sadly.

‘But it’s all over, isn’t it?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Jessie, looking up from his computer, ‘the Taj Palace is still under attack. They’ve also found out that they came in on boats from the bay to launch the attack.’

I had goosies thinking that while Matt and I had been sitting in the Taj Palace having high tea, terrorists had been hiding out on the bay strapping bombs to their bodies.

‘What’s the body count at?’ mumbled Tahlia through a huge yawn.

’100 dead, another 150 wounded,’ Jessie informed her.

100 people dead?
I couldn’t fathom it.

‘I’ve got to get back out there,’ she said, heading to the bedroom. ‘Want to come?’

For a second I thought she was asking me, and for half a second I considered it. I imagined myself commando crawling behind her up the streets of Mumbai while bullets whistled over our heads and Tahlia stopped to check people for pulses.

‘This one’s alive,’ she’d say and yell ‘MEDIC’ like in the movies, before flicking open her notebook and saying to the victim, ‘So tell me, what happened in there?’

And then the next half a second my brain froze up with the sheer terror of what it had been contemplating – and then I realised she was talking to Jessie, not me.

‘Sure, why not?’ he said, hopping to his feet and stretching. ‘Tara, you should spend the day contacting your friends and family. Use my computer to email them, or there’s Skype set up on it you can use if you want.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, wondering how you use Skype. I didn’t want to appear a total edjit, so I refrained from asking and decided that emails would work well.

I finished my coffee and jumped in the shower before I sat down in front of Jessie’s computer with some toast.  Flipping on the small television so I could keep an eye out for any developments, I logged into my Hotmail account and was overwhelmed by the increasingly frantic emails. Poor Mum was going ballistic. By the sound of it, she practically had my funeral planned. I logged into windows messenger and saw Mum’s icon waiting.

Calm down Mum.
I typed.
I’m safe at Jessie’s apartment, why didn’t you ring me here.

She must have been sitting on the computer because within a few seconds I had a response.

Oh Thank God you’re safe. They said some tourists had been killed and I thought it was you.

Mum there are thousands of tourists here in Mumbai. Why didn’t you ring?

I tried but I couldn’t get a line to Mumbai. Maybe they’re damaged.

Or overloaded.

What are you going to do? When are you coming home?

I’m not sure. Just staying indoors till it’s all over and then I’ll make up my mind. Don’t worry about me. You know I’m too much of a chicken to put myself in danger!

Love you.

Love you too Ma. I’ll let you know when I know.

I flicked off an email to Lil and the girls that had way more information – information about a certain Matthew King -  but it was hard to be enthusiastic about that with thoughts of terrorists killing hostages whirling around in my head.

I was bored by the time Jessie and Tahlia got home. Having emailed everyone and responded to numerous questions from them, I cleaned up the kitchen and tidied up the lounge room. Then I watched the English news channel for updates and did my nails with some of Tahlia’s stuff I found in Jessie’s bathroom.

(Yes, I had been snooping. And yes, I know snooping is wrong. But as I mentioned earlier, I was bored.)

I had some more toast for lunch with some cheese I discovered in the back corner of the fridge, and tried to nap on the couch – but the annoying tinkling of
Here comes the Bride
from the elevator soon drove me into my bedroom to sleep. Finally I heard the front door open. I was eyeing off the area under the bed wondering if I could make it before I was discovered, when I smelt the unmistakeable wafting of Indian cuisine. Surely terrorists wouldn’t be luring out foreigners with curry? They wouldn’t be that clever.

It was Jessie and Tahlia. I don’t think I’d ever been so pleased to see two people.

‘Thank God you’re safe,’ I said, launching myself at them.

‘Bet you’re hungry,’ said Jessie.

‘Starving. You’re out of bread by the way.’

He laughed and put the curry on the table while Tahlia grabbed the cutlery and plates.

‘How is it out there?’ I asked, digging my fork into my pile of butter chicken.

‘Getting better,’ Jessie answered, around a mouth full of curry.

‘So it’s still going?’

‘You can hear gunshots at the Taj Palace and occasional groups of tourists are still escaping,’ he replied, once he had swallowed.

‘I got great photos of some climbing down curtains they had tied together,’ said Tahlia. ‘They were trapped in the conference rooms. It’s going to make a great story.’

‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ I said.

‘What, get trapped in a conference room?’

‘No tie the sheets from my bed together and climb out through the window.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Haven’t you?’

‘Maybe just a little,’ she admitted laughing.

It was after we had finished eating that they dropped the bombshell on me.

‘We ran into Matt today,’ said Jessie.

‘He’s good isn’t he?’ Tahlia said to Jessie.

‘He’s on another level totally.’

‘What did he do?’ I asked.

‘God,’ Tahlia continued, ‘I couldn’t believe it when he ran into that burning building.’

‘I could have saved those kids,’ Jessie said defensively.

‘I’m sure you could have,’ Tahlia said soothingly, reaching over and rubbing his arm.

‘He went into a burning building?’ I asked, when I had managed to get my mouth to function again.

‘An orphanage caught on fire,’ said Jessie. ‘They thought they had everybody out and then these two little faces appeared at a window on the top floor. It was awful.’

‘Heart wrenching,’ said Tahlia. ‘They were crying and clutching each other.’

I shivered at the vision, trying not to remember the other tear jerking images I had seen in the last 24 hours.

‘The authorities wouldn’t do anything so Matt went in to save them.’

‘I thought he was dead for sure,’ said Tahlia.

‘So what happened?’ I asked, feeling more like I was asking about an action movie plot than a real life event.

‘Well, about a minute after he went in we could see him through the window talking to the kids,’ said Jessie.

‘You should have seen it,’ gushed Tahlia, ‘he just swept them up and threw them over his shoulders.’

‘It did look pretty heroic,’ Jessie admitted. ‘But of course when they didn’t come back out, well, I thought that was it.’

‘It was horrible, wasn’t it?’ Tahlia said to Jessie.

I was sitting on the edge of my chair, my hands clenching the armrests. ‘And?’ I finally asked, unable to take the suspense anymore.

‘He went out a rear door,’ Jessie said. ‘We didn’t realise it for a few minutes though, but he and the kids are fine.’

I sat there shell-shocked. I had been hiding all day while Matt was out saving lives. I could see now that even if he didn’t hate me, he was far beyond my reach.

‘Anyway – it turns out that he’s going to Rajasthan to do an article for a travel magazine and he said you could tag along if you wanted,’ said Jessie.

‘What?’ I asked, thinking I had totally misheard them. ‘Pardon?’

‘Matt,’ said Tahlia, ‘he’s going up to Rajasthan for a couple of weeks, and we thought since Jessie or I can’t go that you might want to go with him.’

I tried to get my head around the information. ‘But,’ I said, ‘won’t he be here covering the story?’

‘He’s been paid in advance for this article by
Travel Abroad
so he has to go,’ Tahlia explained. ‘Lucky you,’ she sighed.

‘You know I can just step aside and give you and Matt a little space,’ said Jessie teasingly.

‘Nah,’ Tahlia said, ‘you’ll do. Besides I think I’d have some competition.’ She looked at me meaningfully. ‘I saw the looks you were shooting him last night.’

I tried to look innocent, but I was also dying to ask if she’d seen him shooting me any looks. I managed to maintain my air of nonchalance with extreme effort. I thought I’d gotten away with it until Jessie piped up.

‘Yeah,’ he said, his journalistic instincts kicking in, ‘for two people who’ve never met, you two seemed quite chummy.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I said, examining the job I had done on my nails.

‘Oooooh goody,’ said Tahlia, ‘a secret. I love secrets.’

‘She’s relentless,’ said Jessie, ‘just spill your guts now and save us all an evening of persistent questioning. Just when you’ve lowered your guard, bam, she’ll slip in another one. She’ll get you in the end.’

‘I don’t really know him,’ I said weakly.

‘You’ve admired him from afar? You’ve been stalking him? He’s an old flame from before you were married? He’s a one night stand?’

I was sure my facial expression didn’t change at all – I certainly didn’t flinch or do anything obvious.

‘A One Night Stand!’ she yelped in excitement. ‘When, where, details I need details. God was he fantastic?’

‘I told you,’ said Jessie apologetically. ‘She’s like a heat-seeking missile.’

‘She reminds me of my friend Elaine,’ I admitted. I could feel myself blushing.

‘Tell me,’ said Tahlia, in a pathetic, girlish voice, batting her long eyelashes at me.

I grimaced and bit my tongue, but she came and sat behind me on the couch. ‘You look so tense,’ she said, starting to give me a back rub. Groaning I leaned into her; she had hands of gold. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she said after a few minutes, ‘but if you feel like sharing, I’d love to listen.’

‘All right, all right,’ I said, breaking away from her. ‘I’ll tell. But just to shut you up. ‘

‘Oh thank God,’ said Jessie from his computer, ‘I thought I was going to have to put my ear muffs on.’

‘It was a few months ago. I was out with Elaine, she’s the one you remind me of,’ I informed Tahlia, ‘and the aim was to have a one nightstand to help me achieve closure from Jake. I’ve been doing this stupid Seven Steps to Closure thing and it was step number four.’

‘What’s step number five?’ she asked, fluffing up a cushion behind her.

‘Travel to an exotic destination.’

‘Tick.’ Tahlia mimed a big tick as she nestled back into the cushion and crossed her legs. ‘You’re almost there. What’s step number six?’

‘Have meaningful sex,’ I said, trying not to blush again.

‘I’m confused. Wasn’t that step number four?’ said Jessie.

‘No, that was to have meaningless sex,’ I explained.

‘So you had sex with Matt?’ Tahlia clarified.

‘Yep.’ This time I did blush.

‘Wow,’ interrupted Jessie. ‘That’s totally out of character for Matt.’

‘What to have sex with someone like me?’ I asked, a little offended by the implication.

‘No silly, to have a one night stand. It’s really not his thing.’

Hmmmm, I filed that one away as food for thought later.

‘So you two hadn’t seen each other since you did the wild thing?’ Tahlia asked.

‘Well…’

‘What you’ve been seeing him in Sydney?’

‘No. Quite coincidentally we ended up sitting next to each other on the plane.’

‘Nooooooooo,’ said Tahlia in an excited voice.

‘Yeeees,’ I said, getting into the story. I hadn’t realised how much I’d been missing the girls. ‘Only I didn’t recognise him.’

‘NOOOOOOOOOO,’ screeched Tahlia. ‘Oh this is too good.’

Jessie laughed and said, ‘I would have loved to have been there for that. So then you met up last night?’

‘Well. No, we actually spent yesterday together in town.’

‘Ahhhhahahahahhahahha.’ Tahlia was rolling around on the floor, kicking her heels in the air. ‘Thanks,’ she said, when she sat up, ‘I needed a really good laugh after the last couple of days.’

‘Glad to be of service,’ I said.

‘Ohh, you so have to go travelling with him,’ she said breathlessly. ‘This was meant to be.’

‘But,’ I said in a pathetic little voice, ‘he hates me.’

‘No he doesn’t,’ said Jessie, as reassuringly as he could, ‘he hates Jake. And,’ he added cunningly, ‘Jake hates him. Imagine the look on Jake’s face if the two of you ended up together.’

I paused to add that to my favourite fantasy. My dream guy/Matt rides up on his motorbike, removes his helmet and says, ‘Bugger off Jake, you had your chance and you blew it. Tara’s with me now, and I won’t be letting her go.’ Yep. I definitely liked the way that all fitted together.