Free-Falling Page 21

  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 wa
y 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.

  Almost two months had passed since his ‘night together’ with Belle. Bazza was in the car park one evening, sorting through some of the storage he kept in his parking spot. He saw her chucking her shoulder bag into the boot of the car, presumably about to head out to the gym, judging by the clothes she was wearing. He hid himself behind the wall – he had no idea how she’d react if she saw him. Although hiding behind a wall to watch her was probably making him look like some kind of stalker or something.

  As he watched her climb into the car, he had to do a double-take. Was it just him, or was her stomach a lot rounder than when he’d seen her last? He squinted his eyes then clapped his hand to his mouth. Yep, there was no denying it. That was a pregnant stomach. If he was from some tacky tabloid magazine, he’d be calling it a ‘baby bump’. He had five older sisters and between them they’d had about fifty bloody babies. Okay, slight exaggeration – but he’d seen them go through a lot of pregnancies and he recognised the look of that stomach. Fuck off. He hadn’t just got steamy with a girl on the night after her fiancé died; he’d done it with a pregnant, grieving, engaged chick.

  ‘Jeez, woman, you’re killing me here!’ he murmured to himself as he watched her drive away.

  Feeling worse than ever, he decided to go out for a walk. For some reason it seemed even more important now that he find a way to make things up to her. The poor girl was about to have a baby all on her own. And he’d recognised the expression on her face as she drove away – it was the exact same look she’d had when she was hanging in that tree: helpless.

  He thought of his sisters and what they were like when they were expecting, and wondered what they might have wanted someone to do for them. Right, time to call in some reinforcements. He pulled out his mobile and dialled his sister Catherine’s number. ‘Hey, Cath,’ he said when she picked up. ‘I’m after a bit of advice.’

  ‘Sure thing, little bro – just give us one sec . . . MAX, GET AWAY FROM YOUR SISTER! I DON’T CARE IF SHE BROKE YOUR TRANSFORMER, YOU RELEASE HER FROM THAT HEAD LOCK RIGHT NOW! . . . Sorry about that. Okay, I’m all yours, what’s up?’

  ‘Ah, you sure you can talk?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  ‘All right, I’ll make it quick then. Last time you were pregnant, what did Dean do for you, you know, to make you happy or more comfortable or whatever?’

  ‘Baz, I don’t want to even know why you’re asking this question. If you knocked some girl up, I do not want to know about it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, just answer the question, all right.’

  ‘Okay, let me think about it. Mostly he looked after the kids for me when I was tired, and there was going out and getting weird foods for me when I had cravings.’

  All right, not helpful so far. He had no idea what sorts of food Belle might be wanting, and was pretty sure there were no other kids he could help out with.

  ‘What else you got?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. He carried the heavy shopping bags and stuff for me when it was getting too difficult . . . Umm . . . Wait! I know. I remember one time I was just in my second trimester with Max, feeling so down – I don’t even know why – and Dean surprised me with this beautiful bunch of flowers. Sometimes there’s nothing better than an impromptu bunch of flowers to make your day.’

  ‘Really? Flowers? Isn’t that a bit of a cliché?’

  ‘Only if you get roses. As long as you get the kind she likes, she’ll love ’em.’

  Bazza thanked his sister and hung up. Well, flowers seemed to be the only option. He really didn’t know what else he could do for her. Catherine had added, before hanging up, that helping out with the housework was always a winner too, but he didn’t think Belle would appreciate him breaking into her apartment to tidy up.

  He changed direction and headed for the shops so he could pick up the flowers right away. All he had to do was figure out which ones to buy. At the florist, he scanned the display and a large bunch of lilies caught his eye. The white flowers arranged with some greenery looked classic and simple in comparison to all the other garishly colourful bunches. He decided they would do.

  Back at home, he hung around his apartment, glancing at the flowers every now and then, wondering when he should take them upstairs and give them to her, and what he was going to say. How long would she be at the gym for? Eventually, he decided he’d waited long enough and took the lift up to level three. He stood in front of her door. He was certain this was her apartment; everyone in the building had been talking about the murdered guy from 13C.

  Then he panicked. What was he going to say to this girl? What if she never wanted to see him again? Suddenly handing her a bunch of flowers didn’t seem like such a great idea. Maybe he should just leave them by the door? He pulled a pen out of his pocket and scribbled the word ‘Sorry’ on the tag attached to the flowers. He didn’t think it would be a good move to expand on that any further. After all, what could he write – sorry I felt you up just after your fiancé died? He also figured there was no point signing his name – it’s not like she would know who he was anyway. He made his way back downstairs to his apartment, feeling like he’d at least made a start in making things up to her.

  A week later, Bazza had just hopped on the bus to head in for a midday lecture. He took a seat near the front and gazed aimlessly at the street while the rest of the people from his stop filed on. As he stared out the window, he spotted Belle, walking up the hill from their apartment block towards the main road. Was she trying to make this bus?

  He looked back at the people getting on – only one or two more to pay their fare – then back at her. He saw her start to jog, a worried expression on her face. The last person was on and she was only just getting to the top of the street. She was never going to make it.

  ‘Hey, buddy,’ he said, leaning forward to tap the bus driver on the shoulder. ‘Wait a minute, there’s a girl over there trying to make this bus.’

  ‘Yeah, mate, my heart bleeds for her. Too bad. I gotta timetable to keep to here.’ The driver closed the doors and indicated to pull out into the traffic.

  ‘C’mon, mate, she’s pregnant and her fiancé just died. Give the girl a break.’

  ‘What are you, her fairy godmother?’ the driver asked, chuckling at his own wit as he manoeuvred out.

  Bazza looked back and saw Belinda stop running, her face crestfallen as she turned around to return down the street. Desperate times . . .

  ‘All right, I’ll give you fifty bucks right now if you stop and wait for her.’ Bazza hastily pulled a fifty-dollar note out of his wallet to prove he was serious. If any of the guys found out he’d spent fifty bucks making a bus wait for some girl, they would absolutely cane him. But as far as he was concerned, it was worth it.

  The driver’s foot hit the brakes and he started reversing, causing the cars behind to beep indignantly. When she climbed aboard the bus thirty seconds or so later, Bazza buried his face in one of his textbooks, hoping she wouldn’t notice him. He was already feeling a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. At first, offering the driver that fifty bucks had seemed chivalrous, charming! But after the bus had reversed down a busy road, it just seemed a bit over the top.

  A few days later, he was in Mrs Crease’s apartment, fixing a blockage in
her sink, when she took him completely by surprise by asking him out of the blue if he had a crush on the ‘young lass upstairs’. He banged his head on her kitchen bench as he backed out of the cupboard.

  ‘What, what makes you say that?’ he asked as casually as he could.

  ‘I was on that bus on Wednesday, a few seats back – you didn’t notice me. I saw what you did for her. That was very chivalrous of you.’

  Ah-ha! Chivalrous: that’s exactly what I was going for!

  He couldn’t lie to Mrs Crease. He sat down at her dining table and told her the entire story.

  ‘So you are trying to be her fairy godmother then?’ she asked when he was finished, a twinkle in her eye.

  ‘I think I’d prefer the term “knight in shining armour”. Or even “undercover secret agent” – you know, 007-style.’

  ‘Nope. Fairy godmother it is. Now I’ve got a tip for you, fairy boy—’

  ‘Great, now we’re shortening it to fairy boy?’ he interrupted. ‘I spend months trying to get you to call me Bazza instead of Barry – but fairy boy you take to straight away.’

  She continued on, unfazed. ‘If you really want to help her out, I heard her on the phone to someone the other day as she was getting in the lift. Apparently her car battery is dead. You’re fairly mechanical, aren’t you? Way to a girl’s heart is definitely through the car engine. You mark my words, fairy boy.’

  ‘And what makes you think I’m trying to get to her heart?’

  ‘You can’t tell me this is just about a guilty conscience, boy. You kissed the girl back when she was grieving – big deal. There’s more to it than that, you have feelings for her. Trust me, the car battery is the way to go.’

  ‘Cheers, Creasy. I’ll be sure to give that some thought. You realise the more secret things I do for her, the more in danger I am of looking like a stalker, right?’