Free-Falling Read online

  ‘Nonsense. This is how real men court women. Now be off with you, fairy boy!’

  He picked up a new car battery from the servo up the road the next afternoon and was down in the car park wondering how he was going to pop the hood without the car keys, when he heard voices coming from the front garage door.

  ‘Yep, wouldn’t start when I tried to drive it last Friday. I’d left one of the doors ajar, so the interior light had been on all night. It’s just down here.’

  Shit! It was Belle with the NRMA guy. He panicked and dumped the battery by the car then took off. There was a fire exit a few car spots down. He disappeared through it just as they were rounding the corner.

  The thrill of almost getting caught by her was starting to get a bit much for him. He’d take the rush of jumping out of a plane over this any day – his nerves were just about killing him. He decided it might be a good idea to lay off on the ‘fairy godmother’ act for a while; after all, it was possible he’d gotten a tad carried away, thanks to Mrs Crease’s advice. The poor girl was probably just going to get freaked out by all his anonymous good deeds. He threw himself into his work instead (literally).

  It was time for his new client’s first-ever solo jump. She was definitely more than ready to do it, and he was feeling quite proud of her as they stood together with John, the second instructor, at the door of the plane, waiting for the okay. She was looking pretty damn together for someone about to do their first solo. Jumping on your own was completely different from going tandem – a whole new experience. But then her face started to change – a look of dread sweeping across it like a shadow. Uh oh, someone’s having second thoughts. Time to get this show on the road.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking!’ he yelled out. ‘But you’re completely ready for this!’ Time to go, McGavin, you’re all over it baby! He coaxed her with his thoughts.

  She gave him one last look of sheer terror and then they jumped.

  Brilliant! She did it!

  When it came to jumping, Bazza had no fear whatsoever. Falling alongside her, he couldn’t help grinning like a fool. Eventually he gave her the nod, indicating it was time to pull their chutes. He got the feeling she may have forgotten to count out each thousand feet like he’d taught her. Not to worry: that’s why they were there alongside her. Once her parachute had been safely deployed, he and John pulled their own, Bazza feeling mildly disappointed, as he was every time, that it was time to stop free-falling.

  It was while they were eating Tim Tams and drinking coffee, enjoying the post-jump rush, when she suddenly lost it. One minute she was drinking her tea through a biscuit, the next minute she was storming out of the place. Her face rigid and her eyes icy.

  ‘Fuck me, what just happened?’ he said out loud. He took off after her. He’d known all along there was something going on. It was time he found out what it was.

  It took all his powers of persuasion (and admittedly a bit of ignoring of what he’d learnt in his psychology course so far) to get her to open up and talk to him. After she’d had a good cry into his shoulder (Bazza couldn’t stand to watch a woman cry; he had a serious weakness for it) and he’d cracked a few jokes to try to lighten the situation, he convinced her to come out drinking with all the staff from SkyChallenge.

  He finally got to hear her story. She didn’t tell him everything. Only that her son had been killed a few months back and she was struggling to deal with it, especially considering she’d already lost her husband years ago and her other son wouldn’t open up to her. She explained how it was her son James who was supposed to be going skydiving, but she had forbidden him and then, on the spur of the moment, she’d taken his place.

  Their night was cut short when she got a call from her sister to tell her that the said son was apparently locked up at the local police station. She left looking a lot calmer than he would have expected, considering the news she’d just received. He spent the rest of the night feeling he’d done something really good that day. Bazza Campbell, saving the world, one hysterical middle-aged woman at a time.

  A couple of weeks went by without him running into Belle at all. His guilt was beginning to ease and he was managing to ignore Mrs Crease’s ‘helpful’ prods in her direction. She seemed to think he still ought to be ‘courting’ her, but Bazza was fairly sure the girl just needed some space at the moment. A week before Christmas, he was out at the mailboxes collecting a stack of Christmas cards from his letterbox when he noticed that the flap on 13C was hanging off its hinges, barely managing to cover the slot. One letter had already fallen onto the ground and was just begging to be picked up by the wind and whipped away.

  It couldn’t hurt to just fix it for her, could it?

  The SkyChallenge warehouse closed up for six weeks over Christmas – the owner had a holiday booked to Thailand and he didn’t trust any of the staff to run it without him. Bazza was slightly offended by this, but too happy about having a compulsory holiday to really mind.

  He spent Christmas week with his family and was cornered by his sister the moment she saw him. ‘All right, what’s the deal – did you get some girl pregnant or not?’

  ‘Thought you didn’t want to know.’

  ‘I didn’t. I mean I don’t. I mean – just tell me, smart arse.’

  ‘Stop stressing out. I didn’t get anyone pregnant; I was just helping out a friend for a bit. No big deal, okay?’

  His sister gave him a sceptical look, but relented on her questions.

  For the rest of the week, Bazza had a pack of nieces and nephews dragging him in different directions, not to mention pregnant sisters demanding help with their older children. He regularly joked that his family had a neverending pregnancy: as soon as one sister popped out a baby, another one would announce she was expecting. Then there were his parents quizzing him about his plans to change his career.

  ‘It’s just that skydiving is such a good fit for you, darling. You love your job. You make the perfect jump master. Why would you even think of giving it up for a desk job?’ He didn’t know of anyone else who had a mum who would be trying to talk their kid out of psychology and into skydiving for a career.

  Dinners were crazy as well. For some reason, his parents could never seem to figure out the right quantities of food for the hordes of people that descended upon their house every Christmas. One minute, they’d all be fighting over the measly amount of roast potatoes (and generally it was the pregnant ones who won out), and the next, you’d be feeling sick after a five-course dessert. It was a relief to get back home to his quiet apartment at the end of the week, although he did get that slight feeling of something lacking at dinner time each night.

  New Year’s Eve came and went. He and his mates had a huge night out planned in the city. But when midnight passed by with no one to kiss, the night started to seem a bit lame. By 3 am, as his mates got drunker and rowdier, and the clubs they visited got seedier, he finally managed to ditch them and head home. He was about to turn in when he realised that an apartment upstairs was still blaring their music. He thought of Belle and how she must be a fair few months into her pregnancy by now. If his sisters were anything to go by, sleep was precious to an expectant mum. One more fairy godmother gig – for old time’s sake, he told himself.

  He headed upstairs and thumped on the door of the apartment from which the rumbling music could be heard. The door swung open and Bazza had to turn his face away from the plume of smoke that engulfed the bearded face that appeared.

  ‘S’up, dude?’

  ‘Look, mate, sorry to do it to you, but I gotta ask you to turn off the music. It’s three am, okay?’

  The guy looked back at him contemptuously. ‘It’s New Year’s, man. Not gonna happen.’

  ‘I know. And I wouldn’t ask, but the chick across the hall from you is pregnant and she’s the one whose fiancé died a few months back. How about cutting
her some slack?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  Nice.

  ‘All right, how’s this? You know who’s down the hall in apartment 22C, right?’

  ‘The cop?’

  ‘Yeah, the cop. You want me to get him to come down here and take a whiff of the shit you guys are smoking? Cause I’m guessing it ain’t basil.’

  ‘Fuck you, man.’ The guy turned his head into the apartment and called out to his friends, ‘Yo, kill the music.’ He turned back to Bazza, adding, ‘There. Happy, dickhead?’

  Bazza felt a surge of power, ‘Yeah, I am, and I want you to apologise to her too.’

  The guy glared at him before yelling out at the top of lungs, ‘SORRY!’ in the general direction of Belle’s apartment.

  ‘I didn’t mean now!’ hissed Bazza.

  ‘We done?’ asked the guy.

  ‘Uh, sure,’ said Bazza, starting to feel silly about the whole thing. He looked across the hall at Belle’s door, willing her to appear and discover his chivalrous act. But sensing only stillness from her apartment, he turned back to the guy to thank him. He was greeted by a door slamming in his face, barely missing smashing his nose in.

  Fair enough.

  On a Friday evening, a couple of weeks into the new year, Bazza was walking through the car park and noticed Belle’s car sitting in its spot with the boot wide open, absolutely packed full of shopping. She was nowhere to be seen. He thought back to his sister’s advice – one of the things she’d mentioned was to carry anything heavy for her.

  ‘I’d be rude not to help,’ he reasoned with himself.

  He moved quickly, loading his arms up with shopping bags, trying to pick out the heaviest ones. Then he rushed for the lift – could he make it up there before she was on her way back down again? He wasn’t sure that he wanted to run into her. If she saw him carrying her shopping bags, she might jump to the conclusion that he was stealing her shopping. Smooth. If he could just get it upstairs for her and then be out of sight again, hopefully she would think a friendly neighbour was doing her a favour – which was exactly what was going on: a perfectly innocent good deed.

  When he stepped out of the lift, he sighed with relief. He couldn’t see her anywhere and her door was shut. She must have been taking her time coming back out from her first trip up. He placed the bags carefully at her front door, then sprinted back down the hall so he could grab some more for her. He came up with the next armful of bags and thought he heard her apartment door opening, so he dumped the bags outside the lift and jabbed the button to head back down again before he got caught.

  Stepping out into the car park, he started walking briskly to get the last few bags. He stopped short though when her car came into view. There was a guy standing by it, about to reach in and grab some of the bags. There was something a bit familiar about him.

  Hey man, I’m the girl’s only fairy godmother here, he thought indignantly. But then there were footsteps from behind him, and he realised Belle must have come down to the car park for the rest of her shopping. He took off through the fire escape yet again – it was beginning to feel like this was his own private escape hatch.

  He spent the rest of the night out at the SkyChallenge warehouse. There was a clear grassy hill that rose up next to the warehouse, and at the crest of the hill you got a fantastic view of the surrounding area: rows and rows of pine trees and, if you looked to the east on a really clear night, the city lights off in the distance. On the one hand, he loved being in the city – right in the thick of it. But on the other hand, sometimes there was nothing better than being on the outside looking in. Just chilling here on a quiet, warm summer evening, with nothing but cicadas for company and a bitchin’ summer storm gathering out west.

  Okay, so that guy he’d seen was probably Belle’s new boyfriend. This was a relief then, right? He was off the hook. No more worrying about taking care of her. No more doing this stupid fairy godmother gig. Most likely she’d forgotten all about that night – maybe even blocked it out – and who could blame her? So what was this slightly sick feeling in his stomach all about then? What was that . . . jealousy? And was there maybe just a tiny part of him that had hoped she would catch him tonight, giving him the opportunity to come clean about everything he’d being doing for her?

  Snap out of it, dude, you barely know the girl.

  He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and sent a text to pretty much every mate he could think of.

  Time to stop sitting on the outside looking in.

  He didn’t get the chance to catch up with his favourite client again until February. They ran into each other at SkyChallenge and he sensed quite quickly that she was pretty down.

  ‘What’s the matter, McGavin? I’ve heard you’re up to your third solo jump. Took an extra one with Chad the other day, did you? I’m not going to lie to you: it hurts me deep down that you’d trade me in for a tool like him . . . But you should be on top of the world, shouldn’t you? You’re turning into a pro these days!’

  She wasn’t really paying attention to him, though, just staring off into the distance, looking depressed.

  ‘Oy, woman, you listening to me or what?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, sorry, Bazza, just got some things on my mind. What’s that you were saying?’

  ‘Never mind, don’t worry about it. But look, you got things on your mind – Doctor Bazza is here to help. Haven’t had the chance to catch up with you in ages. I’m taking you out to breakfast tomorrow morning. I haven’t even heard what happened when you went to bail your son out of gaol before Christmas.’

  ‘I don’t know, Baz, things are a bit . . . stressful at the moment.’

  ‘I kinda guessed that. Which is why I’m not taking no for an answer. Breakfast. Tomorrow. Eight am.’

  He took her to his favourite café, and was doing his best to get to the bottom of what was making her so unhappy when something she said took him completely by surprise. She had never told him exactly how her son had died, only that she had lost him fairly recently and definitely unexpectedly. For the first time she was starting to mention some of the details, and as she spoke he realised they sounded pretty damn familiar.

  Ezymart.

  On Pitt Street.

  Shot during a robbery.

  He felt his skin going cold as the realisation of what it was she was describing dawned on him. ‘Evelyn, I’m sorry to ask you this, but when did your son die? When exactly?’

  Back at home he flicked on his computer and went straight to the Hills Shire Times website. He searched through the archives for the September issues, then started scanning the articles for the right one. It took only five minutes to find it. There was that familiar black-and-white face again. He looked at the name under the photo.

  Christ. All this time, his favourite, new (and slightly damaged) client had been the mother of the guy from his own apartment block. And the girl he’d had a thing for was the ‘evil’ fiancée’ she hated so much. He’d presumed all along that Belle was short for Isabel, but now he realised it was short for Belinda. But the big news was that Evelyn clearly had no idea that Belinda was pregnant. He hated knowing secrets.

  He could see why Belinda hadn’t told Evelyn though. Ev clearly had it in for her. But, at the same time, he understood Ev’s side of it all. She was struggling to get over her son’s death, needed someone to blame and had fixated on the girlfriend. Just stay out of it, Baz. This has got nothing to do with you.

  He managed to avoid Evelyn completely for almost the next two months – arranging his shifts so he wasn’t at SkyChallenge when she had jumps booked in. But eventually he started to feel guilty, and decided he should at least explain why he was acting so strangely, even if he didn’t tell her the entire story. He could explain that it turned out he knew Belinda (and, to an extent, her son) without revealing that she was pregnant, he supposed.


  Nothing could have prepared him for his next encounter with McGavin though. Five thousand feet from the earth and the woman forgot to pull her chute. It had been up to Bazza to pull it for her, and only just in time too. After he’d pulled her chute – a moment when he wondered if he was going to be pulling his own too late – a thought had flown through his mind. A totally unexpected thought. I want to see Belinda again. So I do still have a crush on her. And maybe it’s a bit more than a crush. Maybe I kinda really, really like this girl.

  Back at home that night, he thought it through. This was insane. He hardly knew her. The extent of their conversation together consisted of, ‘Hey, are you all right after crashing through the branches of that tree?’ For Christ’s sake. I mean, what was that? How could he be falling for a girl without knowing anything about her? Not to mention the fact that the girl had a baby on the way. Was it crazy to want to get involved with her?

  All right, this was it. He was going to have to go upstairs and talk to her. It was time he apologised for the night they’d kissed, explained that he hadn’t realised at the time her fiancé had just died, and told her he wanted the chance to get to know her properly – even if she did have a baby on the way. And if she really did have a new boyfriend, or simply wasn’t interested, then he’d move on – for good this time. He strode purposefully out of his apartment and down to the lift. He was about to press the third-floor button when his nerves got the better of him.

  ‘It’s not like I can really turn up at someone’s door empty-handed, can I?’ he reasoned with himself.

  He pressed the ground floor instead and took a walk up to the shops. Deciding to skip the flowers this time, he scanned the chocolates in the confectionery aisle instead. A giant, bright sign caught his eye.

  ‘Sweet, pineapple’s the best flavour,’ he murmured to himself. He grabbed a block of the chocolate, wondering if it was a mistake – there was no way to guarantee that pineapple would be her favourite too. But for some reason, it seemed like the right choice, so he took it to the check-out and headed back.