Versace Sisters (27 page)

The seething masses of humanity lined up barefoot and
resigned at security – each bored passenger awaiting his or
her turn to remove belts, bangles and other unassuming
items that might make the sensitive metal detector sound
its suspicious alarm.

Huffs and sighs from one queue burst forth as an elderly
woman was caught trying to smuggle nail scissors aboard.
Those more experienced travellers, impatiently tapping
their feet in the line, shook their heads – they'd all been
there before, the old duck might as well try and convince
Dannii Minogue to quit plastic surgery for all the good her
pleas and tears were going to do.

Bella took the scene in, grateful for her own incident-free
queue. She was well-versed in this minefield of
inconvenience and had quickly assessed which line had the
fewest likely troublemakers. Certainly not the line on the
far left with the mother, the stroller and the three children,
that's for sure. The infant was asleep in the stroller and the
mother was in tears after being told she had to remove
the sleeping baby, fold up the pram and put it through the
X-ray.

Metal-free and sans pointy implements, Bella entered
the far side. She checked her watch for the tenth time
since entering the airport. She had to meet Sera's friend
at the bar to give him his accommodation voucher for
the Peninsula. She was more than a little annoyed that her
gift to Sera had been re-gifted to a person she didn't even
know. She'd been looking forward to a night out in Hong
Kong with her sister but when she'd heard the sad tale of
the dead wife she'd swallowed her irritation and forced
herself into a more charitable frame of mind. Who was this
bloke, anyway? When she'd last caught up with the girls in
Sydney they all seemed so taken with him.

She found the bar and flicked her eyes around the
room. The dimly-lit space was peopled with solo travellers
sucking down their drinks, too desperate to wait for the
free grog on their flights. All she had to do was hand over
the voucher and then she could head to the flight attendants'
lounge. The flight was due to board soon and she
needed a little freshening-up time.

At the bar, however, was a man who was obviously not
the typical airport barfly. He had a long black fringe that
touched his narrow black rectangular glasses. He wore a
black polo top with a charcoal suit coat and faded jeans. A
canvas computer bag sat at his feet. She looked back at his
face and realised he was smiling tentatively at her.

He stood. 'Bella?'

'I guess you're Sam.' Holding her hand out in greeting,
she moved over to the bar.

'It's so good to meet you. I can't thank you enough for
this. I hope you don't mind that your sister re-gifted your
present.'

'Not at all, I haven't thought about it twice.' Bella
couldn't help herself and smiled again. He was really quite
sweet; it was rare to meet a good-looking man unsaddled
with arrogance. 'And here is your accommodation
voucher.'

'Thanks so much, it is very good of you. I really appreciate
it. Can I get you a drink to say thank you?'

Bella hesitated – she really needed to get moving – but
he was so grateful, not to mention charming. 'All right
then, a quick bitters, lime and soda, then I should get to the
gate. We board in forty-five minutes.'

'So you fly?' He attempted light conversation as the
barman served their drinks.

'I do,' she replied.

'Do your arms get tired?' he asked, deadpan.

She looked at him strangely for a second, then
laughed.

'Sorry, I make stupid jokes when I'm nervous,' he told
her.

'Are you a nervous flyer?' she asked.

'Yes, a little,' Sam admitted.

'Then your arms must get really tired!' She returned
the gag and they relaxed into each other's company.
They chatted away in the manner of new friends: comparing
stories about Sera and her family, international
cities, airport dramas, the latest episode of
Border Security
– a secret weakness they shared, they realised. Bella even
opened up so much to Sam that she shared the story of her
rough upbringing, making him laugh with stories about
her wild brothers.

She couldn't put her finger on it. She felt warm in this
man's company, safe and relaxed. She'd never experienced
that with anyone before. Usually she had a gatekeeper in
her mind who monitored her every word to ensure she
didn't let loose any private thoughts, but it was obviously
on strike today as all sorts of opinions and anecdotes came
tumbling forth.

She suddenly realised she hadn't checked her hair or
her make-up since she had walked in. Her watch remained
unchecked and her posture had relaxed into a languid lean
instead of her usual rigid stance.

Just as Bella reluctantly glanced at her watch to see if it
was time to go to the gate, the announcement came that
the flight to Hong Kong was delayed by two hours.

Amongst the exasperated moans of their fellow
travellers, Bella and Sam found it difficult to pretend to
be disappointed.

When Bella and Sam left the bar to board their plane, they
joked that the pilot must have finally found the keys to the
747. They said goodbye at the gate and she promised to
visit him during the flight.

Now it was back to being Bella the professional, Bella the
serious. Her smile quickly switched from the natural beam
she'd been shining on Sam to the pleasant, tight-lipped
countenance she reserved for her first-class passengers.

Her chignon was neat enough; Bella didn't bother
checking.

'Cabin crew, secure doors and cross-check,' the first
officer announced over the PA. Asif giggled at her as they
crossed paths to double-check the door.

'Oh, put a sock in it, will you,' she said to him over her
shoulder. She was well aware he was laughing at her old habit
of cross-checking, triple-checking and quadruple-checking
the doors were secure. She may have recently begun tackling
her OCD but she was still a stickler for safety.

'What?' he said, all wide-eyed and innocent. She poked
her tongue out at him and walked up to the head of the
aisle, pasting on her most winning flight attendant smile.

She picked up a lifejacket and went through the motions
of the safety procedures to the pre-recorded voice. She
could do this in her sleep. Bella shuddered to think how
many hundreds of times she'd performed this ritual. But
she liked it. It soothed her in a strange way, to have this
routine performance that was simultaneously crucial yet
mind-numbingly mundane.

It fascinated her how many passengers steadfastly
ignored the safety demonstration. Perhaps they'd heard it
so often they knew it by heart, she wondered as she stood
there in front of them as if invisible. Or perhaps they were
in denial that there was any chance of an accident. When
the demonstration was over, she went up to the exit area
to buckle herself into her seat.

*

Sam stowed his carry-on luggage in the overhead locker
and sat down next to an earnest bespectacled fellow. They
exchanged brief pleasantries before Sam picked up the
in-flight magazine and his fellow passenger went back to
madly texting on the in-flight telephone.

After take-off, Sam's seatmate finally put the phone
down and breathed out a tremendous sigh. It was so melodramatic
Sam turned to him questioningly. 'Oh, sorry,' he
explained. 'Steven Blakely's my name. I'm a journo with
Reuters and I've just texted a story through to my bureau.
It's no mean feat writing an entire article in SMS.'

'Why didn't you do it on the ground?' Sam enquired,
intrigued about the man's job.

'It only just broke. My contact in Iraq phoned just as
they were closing the doors. There was an explosion in a
shopping centre in Baghdad literally minutes ago.'

'Really?' Sam exclaimed. 'Many injured?'

'It's too early to tell yet, but it doesn't look good. It's
peak shopping time there and it's a suspected car bomb.'

'Oh, jeez, that's terrible.'

'It would have been terrible if I hadn't received that
call. Talk about by a bee's dick. I would have landed in
Hong Kong to find the story submitted by somebody else.
It'd be old news by then. But now, it's on the internet as
we speak.'

'That's amazing,' Sam said. As they chatted more, he
learned that Steven had worked the international circuit as
a foreign correspondent for fifteen years. He didn't look the
flakjacket, adventurous, devil-may-care type, but Steven
explained it was just the front-of-camera telly journos who
fitted that stereotype.

The first few hours went by while they each drank a
beer and chatted about world politics, carbon emissions and
life in the internet age.

*

Apart from a chatty elderly lady, the first-class passengers
were a fairly easy group to handle once the alcoholic in
2A passed out, which was a relief because the Sydney to
London via Hong Kong flight could be a tiring one.

Twenty-two hours with belligerent passengers was hell
on earth. Although the layovers were generous, it often
wasn't worth it. Thank God she was stopping over in Hong
Kong this time. She'd arranged to meet up with Sam and
pleasant thoughts distracted her for a moment from her task
at hand.

A few hours into the trip, Bella couldn't conceal a shy
schoolgirl grin as she told Asif about Sam sitting in Business
Class. He threatened to go and check him out, but she
begged him not to.

'Oh, come on, Bella, just a quick peek,' Asif taunted. 'I
have to give my approval, you know. I'm not letting you
go out with a fugly.'

'He's not fugly,' she hissed and tried to push him back
into the galley, 'and be quiet, he's just on the other side of
that curtain, he'll hear you.'

They rolled their eyes at each other as the impatient
ding of the call button sounded. They peeked out of the
galley and sure enough it was 3A. 'North Shore Princess's
fizzy needs topping up,' Asif groaned. 'Here, you do it.' He
thrust the bottle at her.

'I'm not doing it. She's your passenger.'

'I'll buy you a Chanel handbag when we get to Honkers
if you do it.'

'Big whoop, they're a dime a dozen.'

'No, real one, promise,' Asif said with his hand behind
his back. Bella knew he had his fingers crossed but she took
the bottle anyway.

'Chicken,' she said, as she turned to leave the galley.

'I prefer spatchcock,' he shot back and turned to restock
the refreshments trolley.

The cabin thrummed as the plane continued across
the continent. After she topped up her passenger's drink,
Bella glanced around and took in her steel tube world in
a slow gaze. It seemed calm enough, business as usual.
Napping, sipping, TV-viewing passengers; quietly spoken
flight attendants. A passenger leaving the toilet. It was like
an ecosystem in a bell jar. In stasis. Nothing could change,
nothing could happen, they were all just trapped there,
under the guidance of the pilots, trusting, waiting for the
moment they arrived back in their lives.

Bella returned to the business class galley to catch Asif
admiring himself in the stainless steel reflection of the Atlas
locker. She was just about to tease him when a deafening
crack rocked the cabin. The passengers shrieked as the floor
beneath Asif's feet crumpled up in a steel hump. He was
flipped to one side, his head smacking hard into the metal
bench, leaving him unconscious and bleeding.

Gale-force winds flushed debris through the cabin. The
metal wall of the toilet was smashed and one lethal
piece came to rest near Sam as if it had been a throwing
star wielded by a ninja. Sam looked at it two feet away
and swallowed hard. The roar of wind and yelling was
deafening.

'We're being shot at! We're being shot at!' a middle-aged
man two rows back screamed hysterically.

The oxygen masks dropped down in front of each passenger.
It gave them a job to do, albeit a minor one, which
helped distract them momentarily.

Sam fought past the dangle of yellow plastic and made his
way back to the hysterical businessman, who was still yelling.
The cabin had depressurised. He didn't have much time.

'Hey mate, stop panicking. We're not being shot at. Put
your mask on and don't say another word. We'll be fine.'
The man looked up at him mid-sentence, then nodded
mutely and started fiddling with his mask.

Sam sat back in his own seat and grabbed his own mask.
The oxygen was hissing reassuringly and he took three
deep breaths before pulling the elastic over his head.

Steven Blakely turned his ashen face up to Sam before
he grabbed the plane telephone and started texting again.

'What the hell are you doing?' Sam hissed from the side
of his mask.

'Texting the bureau,' Blakely replied, his voice lowered
several octaves by the yellow rubber interference. 'This is
an airline disaster story, you don't get bigger than that! This
is a guaranteed front page by-line.'

'What the fuck?' Sam said, 'We need to do something,
we need to help!'

Steven Blakely's thumb was a blur as it flew over the
keypad. He didn't look up as he replied, 'No point in
helping, what can we do? We're screwed. Must get story
out before crash.'

He put the phone back after a few more seconds. 'Well,
that's it. The word's out.' Sam looked at him and a chill
ran through his bones as the journalist sat back calmly and
waited grimly for the inevitable.

*

Sera stood in her bathroom and smiled at the glass jars in
either hand. She shook her head in disbelief that she'd once
had so much faith in their contents. This ridiculous white
cream wasn't the answer to her issues with the scar. The
answer was inside her, and had been the whole time. She
didn't care about it anymore. Sure it would be nice to have
smooth legs, but it would also be nice to win Lotto and
that wasn't about to happen either. She was sick of casting
herself in the role of victim. This was the hand life had
dealt her, and it was about time she accepted it. The classical
music pouring from her bathroom radio soothed and
enhanced her new found sense of inner calm.

Sera moved towards the bin to add the jars to the batch
that had already been discarded. Suddenly the music ground
to an abrupt halt. She looked at the radio in surprise. That's
not very ABC, she thought.

An officious female announcer started to speak. 'News
just in: A mid-air explosion on Air Australia Flight 96
en route to Hong Kong from Sydney has just occurred.
Reuters journalist Steven Blakely is on board the aircraft
and has reported that an explosion on the left-hand side
of the plane has penetrated the hull. Debris and wind are
inside the cabin. One flight attendant is unconscious but
there are no other apparent injuries.

'Details are limited at this stage. Air Australia CEO
Kevin Janeway is about to make a statement to the press.'

Sera screamed and dropped the jar onto the tiled floor.
It exploded into shards.

Tony came running in. 'What is it, Sera, what's
wrong?'

She looked at him dumbstruck and simply pointed to the
radio. The CEO of the airline was repeating what the news
reporter had just said. He also explained the type of aircraft
it was and details of the passenger and crew manifest.

'Shit, that's bad,' Tony said. 'Let's clean up this mess,
and then we'll go down and turn on the television. It'll be
on all the stations.'

He knelt down with the bin and a roll of toilet paper.

'Tony,' Sera said, her voice strained.

'Yeah, what hon?' He said and turned up to face his
stricken wife.

'Bella and Sam are on that flight,' she whispered.

*

Chantrea walked down the wide airport concourse towards
her gate. Two small boys were playing chasey from one
side to the other and she nearly tripped over them twice.

'Stop it, you little buggers,' she snarled at them when
they came close to her a third time. She glanced at the clock
on the departure screen overhead. Ten minutes: plenty of
time to slap on some face, drag on her kit and play Hostess
Barbie for the next cattle car full of Bali-bound punters.

Suddenly her mobile went nuts, ten new messages
coming in at once. Then it started ringing with an incoming
call. She was about to answer it when her attention was
grabbed by the mass of people crowded around a television
at one of the gates.

The phone continued its insistent bleating as she looked
in disbelief at images of the Air Australia flight and old
footage of the Qantas oxygen canister accident of a year
ago flickering up on the screen. She moved closer to hear
the news. Hijacked? Surely not. What on earth was going
on? Which flight was it?

AA-96. Her world tumbled in sickening lurches as her
phone kept ringing. That was Bella's flight, and Sam was
on it.

*

The crutches went flying across the room and bashed into
the opposite wall as Mallory crashed to the ground in tears.
'I can't do it, I'm telling you, it's too hard!'

'Yes, it's very frustrating,' Francesca, the physiotherapist
cooed as she retrieved the crutches, 'but you're making
tremendous progress. Look, you took six steps today,
and the crutches only really held your weight for the last
few.'

'Six steps? That's crap. I used to do Step Reebok. I used
to do fun runs. I used to wear high heels.' And with that
last, most tragic, announcement she put her head down and
wailed. 'I'm . . . never . . . going to wear . . . high heels . . .
again,' she sobbed.

Francesca couldn't help but roll her eyes. Mallory was a
fairly easy-going patient usually but really, high heels?

The door to the workout room slammed open. 'Hey,'
Francesca scolded the receptionist who came flying into the
room, 'I have a patient.'

The girl rushed to the television and picked up the
remote. 'A bomb or something's just exploded on an Air
Australia plane,' she explained.

'Oh, shit,' Mallory and Francesca said in unison and
stared at the screen. The room was dense with silence as
the trio watched in horror.

'Apparently the plane was on its way to Hong Kong,'
the receptionist said.

'Oh no,' Mallory said in a little voice, 'I think my
friends are on that plane.'

*

'You're very kind to help me, Joan. You really don't need
to,' Jacqueline said.

The two women were up to the rims of their pink
soapy washing gloves in dishwater, cleaning up after the
day's bakefest. They'd made forty-two chocolate cheesecakes,
a dessert that was fast becoming Jacqueline's signature
dish.

'I said I'd help you and I'm a woman of my word,' Joan
said. 'Well except for that "to have and to hold, to love and
to cherish and forego all others" load of codswallop.'

Jacqueline laughed at the callous disregard of the sanctity
of marriage. Joan was a funny old bird. Jacqueline thoroughly
enjoyed her company and couldn't have grown her business
so quickly without the older woman's help. In fact she'd
expanded her range to include a line of tasty little Italian
pastries at which Joan seemed to be quite the dab hand.

A repeat of
All Saints
babbled away in the corner of the
room as the women washed the last of the baking trays.

Suddenly Chris Bath at the Channel Seven news desk
interrupted, all worry lines and shaky voice. 'Breaking
news: an explosion has just occurred on board Air Australia
flight 96. Reuters journalist Steven Blakely is on the flight
and witnessed the blast first-hand. Terrorist activity has not
been ruled out at this stage. The award-winning journalist
sent a message from on board the plane.'

A close-up of a mobile phone was shown on the screen.
A text message was scrolling:

Explosion abrd AA96. Crw mbr dwn. No O2, masks in use.

A male voice-over translated the SMS in a sombre baritone,
'Explosion aboard Air Australia flight ninety-six. Crew
member down. No oxygen, masks in use.'

The newsreader continued with ultimate professionalism,
her head tilted sightly to one side. 'This text message
was received by the Reuters bureau in Sydney at 4.10 pm
eastern standard daylight savings time and it has been confirmed
by telecommunications experts as having been sent
from Flight 96. This is not a hoax. At this stage we cannot
confirm if Sydney Control Tower has been able to get in
contact with the captain of AA96.

'In July 2008, a Qantas jet experienced what seems to be
a similar mid-air explosion . . .'

The women grasped each other's pink, soapy, rubber-lined
hands and stared at the screen in horror.