Not Bad People

by Brandy Scott

  ‘I do,’ Aimee said, louder, so she could be heard over the confused crowd. ‘And it wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘It was,’ insisted Pete. He took a step forward, into the table.

  ‘Aimee!’ Nick was standing now. ‘Aimee, whatever this is, just stop.’

  ‘But he can’t take the blame for this.’

  ‘I have to,’ shouted Pete.

  ‘Just let me tell them,’ she shouted back.

  ‘There’s nothing for you to tell,’ Pete yelled, above the hubbub. ‘I’m the only one at fault, because I let Lincoln fly the plane. I wasn’t the pilot. Lincoln was.’

  The hall fell silent. Pete stayed standing, leaning on the table for support. ‘Lincoln was flying the plane,’ he repeated. Words he’d never intended to say. But he couldn’t let Aimee sacrifice herself either.

  ‘It was his birthday present. From me. A night flight. He’d never done one.’ Lincoln had spent weeks putting a flight plan together, emailing Pete coordinates of the best viewing spots for the fireworks. ‘He was so excited.’

  ‘Peter.’ Steve’s voice was gentle. ‘You son didn’t have a licence, did he?’

  No. ‘He’d been taking lessons, had a good grasp of things. And I was licensed. So I thought it would be all right, you see?’ He gripped the edge of the table. ‘We’d gone up together before, I’d let him take control. Everyone does. It’s not that big a deal.’ Convincing himself, or convincing his jury? ‘Night’s a bit more risky, but I thought I could take over if I needed to.’

  Except the usual dual-control plane hadn’t been available. Just the older Cessna, with the co-pilot control removed for skydivers. And Pete hadn’t had the heart to call their adventure off.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened?’

  Pete shook his head. ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ he admitted. ‘One moment we were fine, the next Lincoln had pulled us into a dive.’ He looked out to where Aimee’s voice had come from. ‘He panicked, Aimee, but it had nothing to do with your lanterns. We’d already seen them float over the river, watched them take off from your house. We were well aware.’ Pete bowed his head. ‘He lost his bearings and panicked,’ he repeated. ‘Simple as that. I leaned over, tried to take control, but it was too late. All I could do was shield him with my body and hope for the best.’

  Pete wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘I didn’t want you to think badly of him. Because it wasn’t his fault. He should never have been flying, but I was the one who let him. Because I wanted to make him happy. The only person at fault is me.’

  CHAPTER 40

  Pandemonium. That was the only word for it. People elbowed their way across the town hall as though trying to trying to find a lifeboat on the Titanic, blocking the main doors, the emergency exits, gossiping and grabbing and gesticulating as the press swarmed around them like flies. The ATSB officer had called for order, as though they were in an American courtroom drama, but the noise only rose, so Rex had declared the inquiry adjourned and ordered everyone to go home.

  Lou and Melinda stood at the back, wide-eyed.

  ‘Does this mean we’re in the clear?’ whispered Lou, truly confused.

  ‘Well, no one seems to be coming after us with pitchforks,’ murmured Melinda. ‘Yet.’

  ‘Don’t joke,’ said Lou. But it seemed Melinda was right. She could see Aimee having a subdued conversation with old Arthur, a confused Nick hovering behind. But even from the other end of the hall, she could tell that Arthur’s eyes were on Pete, not Aimee, and certainly not looking for them.

  ‘Why didn’t you want to stop her?’ Lou said quietly, mindful of the girls behind them. ‘I thought that was the whole point.’

  Melinda shrugged. ‘It would have come out anyway,’ she said. ‘I don’t think me trying to control things is working very well.’

  ‘Can you please CLEAR the HALL.’ The microphone squawked, sending a clutch of Hensleyites fluttering for the doors, their words and feet tripping over one another.

  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Lou. ‘Just go home and get on with our lives?’

  But Melinda was miles away. ‘You go,’ she said. ‘There’s something I have to do first.’

  Melinda strode to the front of the hall where the cameras were thickest. ‘Excuse me,’ she said in her boardroom voice, guaranteed to cut through hysteria and small-town furore. ‘I have an announcement to make.’

  The press followed her as she walked briskly outside towards the playground, and the nosier residents of Hensley followed them. When she reached a nice oak she turned and stopped. The sun was dappled on her face as Melinda began to speak. The photos would be flattering, if nothing else.

  Arthur was disappointingly uninterested in Aimee’s lanterns. ‘I don’t think they add very much to the situation, Mrs Verratti,’ he said. ‘Come in tomorrow morning if you want, make a statement. But I think it’s fairly clear what happened up there.’

  Nick, though, was suddenly very interested. ‘How could you not tell me?’ he demanded, quietly angry. ‘That you were going to do something like that?’ They stood in the middle of the emptying hall, volunteers stacking plastic chairs around them. Aimee moved to help but Nick stopped her. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘You need to talk to me.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks,’ said Aimee. ‘You wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Because I thought —’

  ‘You thought I was unreliable. You thought I wasn’t worth listening to.’ A few chair-stackers turned to stare, but Aimee didn’t lower her voice. ‘But I was right.’

  ‘Well, not really,’ said Nick, trying to pull her to one side. ‘You heard Arthur. It’s unlikely you had anything to do with it.’

  He was still discounting her. Aimee turned away. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Wait.’ Nick moved in front of her. ‘You’re right,’ he said, voice low. ‘I didn’t take you seriously. I should have.’

  Aimee nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it now?’

  Aimee wasn’t sure what she wanted. She knew she should be relieved, grateful even, that her life was still intact, but instead she just felt flat. ‘I don’t think I have very much to say.’ Nick had held her hand, but only because he was pleased she was keeping quiet. It wasn’t the same as believing in her.

  Nick sighed. ‘Don’t get all righteous, Aims. You haven’t exactly been the easiest to deal with lately. You’ve freaked all of us out, kids included.’

  ‘I —’ But Lou was picking her way through the stacks of chairs towards them, her face unreadable.

  ‘I think you should come outside,’ Lou said. ‘You and Shelley probably need to have a bit of a chat.’

  ‘I’ve decided to turn LoveLocked into an employee-owned company.’

  There was a confused murmur from the crowd, most of whom were news or local reporters, not business journalists.

  ‘It means there won’t be a public offering,’ explained Melinda. ‘I’m going to give ownership of the company to LoveLocked’s curators instead. They’ll hold all the shares, and the company’s leadership will work for them. Including me. They’ll be able to fire me, if they want.’ She smiled, wryly. ‘I’m hoping they won’t, of course.’ Melinda lifted her chin for the cameras at the back. ‘There are still a few details to be ironed out. This is very much an idea in progress, and I still have to inform the board.’ She’d only come up with it as she’d watched Pete fall on his own sword. ‘But this is what’s happening. No listing. No international investors. No big expansion, unless our new owners want us to. Just empowering the women who’ve actually built the company. From now on, we do what they want.’

  People began to wander away, not sure of the significance of what Melinda had just said.

  ‘Did I lose you at empowering?’ she joked. But it would be huge; thousands of women would become business owners, have a stake in the company’s finances. ‘We’ll be releasing a statement,’ she called after them.

  One journalist moved forward in
to the gap, recording device outstretched. ‘Why are you doing this?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘Because I made a mistake,’ said Melinda. ‘I lost sight of what was important. And this is the only way I can think of to rectify that.’

  Aimee’s heart sank as she listened to Shelley’s sad little whispered tale. There was barely anything to it. Fumbling, kissing. New Year’s, down by the river, a group of kids. Aimee didn’t love the thought of her thirteen-year-old daughter messing around with anyone, but the real heartbreak was in how Shelley had tortured herself.

  ‘Oh sweetheart, you’re not going to catch something just from that,’ she said, guiding her away from the stragglers on the hall steps.

  Shelley tugged on a little tuft of hair at the nape of her neck. ‘But I might have,’ she said. ‘It happens. I googled it.’

  ‘Google isn’t always the best place for advice,’ said Aimee. ‘You know that. Why didn’t you talk to me?’

  ‘Because I’m supposed to be the good child. The one you don’t need to worry about.’

  Aimee bit her lip. ‘Shelley, you know I don’t mean that.’

  ‘And I didn’t want you to have another nervous breakdown, because of me.’

  Aimee swallowed. ‘How do you know about that?’

  A Shelley-look she recognised, as though Aimee was too stupid for words. ‘You can unpick that filing cabinet with a bobby pin, Mum.’ Her daughter kicked at the concrete. ‘You were scaring me. I didn’t want to make things worse.’

  Aimee stroked Shelley’s thin little plait. Thank God they’d banished Nick to the car.

  Clint stood with his arms crossed at the edge of the playground, leaning against the chipped paintwork of the monkey bars. As the last of the small crowd slipped away he began to clap.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Very savvy. You’ve totally turned the narrative around.’

  ‘That’s not why I did it,’ said Melinda as she started towards her car. She had a whole new ownership structure to figure out; she needed to get cracking.

  ‘They’ll be holding you up as the new face of corporate social responsibility. I can see the headlines now — Is this the future of Australian business?’ Clint puffed slightly as he tried to keep up with her. ‘No flies on you, are there?’

  Melinda turned in the middle of the road. ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘But you didn’t do anything wrong. We were just trying to grow the company.’

  ‘Oh, I did,’ she said. ‘Just not how you think.’

  It was decided. Pete would appear in the station first thing for questioning with both the police and the ATSB. There would be consequences. Pete felt strangely relieved.

  ‘Nine o’clock,’ said Arthur, ‘and nothing but the truth this time. Or I’ll charge you with obstruction, for starters.’

  ‘I’ll bring him,’ Cameron promised.

  They walked slowly out into the midday sun, Cameron leading his dad, even though he didn’t need to. But it was nice to have someone to lean on.

  ‘You know, it’s easier to hate you,’ Cameron said as they negotiated the front steps.

  ‘Of course,’ said Pete. ‘It’s always easier to be angry. Keeps you looking outside yourself.’ He paused, leaning against a warm stone wall to rest. ‘You were right, though. I was irresponsible. If I’d stuck to the rules, he’d still be here.’

  ‘I heard you,’ said Cameron. ‘Apologising to Lincoln. Saying it was all your fault. And then I found your phone, after you said it burnt up.’

  ‘I lied,’ Pete said. And lied, and lied. ‘Lincoln and I had messaged each other about the flight. And I didn’t want people to blame him, you see? For him to have to cope with that when he woke up. And then when he died, I couldn’t bear the thought of everyone thinking badly of him.’

  ‘I do see,’ said Cameron. He guided Pete down onto the footpath. ‘Do you think you’ll end up in jail?’ he asked quietly.

  Pete shrugged.

  ‘I’ll have a word, if you want. Explain how hard it’s been since Mum died. How difficult I was.’

  Pete gave a half-smile. ‘I think Arthur probably knows.’

  They walked slowly down the quiet street, which was deserted now, by the sounds of it. Show’s over, nothing to see here. Everyone gone home.

  ‘Will you stay?’ Pete asked as they headed towards the car. The thought of being alone in that silent house, rattling around the place that had once housed his family . . . ‘There’s lots of room.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Cameron. ‘I’ll stay till this is over, but I don’t belong here. It’s too sad for me, you know?’

  Pete nodded. Fair enough. His real punishment wouldn’t come from Arthur, or the aviation body. Pete had already created his own purgatory, a life sentence of empty rooms and microwaveready meals. Maybe he’d get a dog. If his sight didn’t come back, he’d have to. One man and his service companion, for the next forty-something years.

  ‘Hey, I think that woman’s waiting for you,’ said Cameron as they approached the car.

  Pete’s heart sank. He wasn’t sure he had the energy for Aimee right now. But —

  ‘Hello, Pete,’ said Lou. ‘Can I have a word?’

  Melinda’s father was waiting by the side of the Range Rover. ‘Tried to call you,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ Melinda pipped the key ring, and the car’s side mirrors unfolded in response.

  ‘I suppose Louise has been talking to you. She always was trouble, that one. You remember when —’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ Melinda placed her handbag on the back seat. ‘A contract with a seventeen-year-old is illegal. You know that, I presume.’

  Her dad fiddled with his own key ring, out of his depth for the first time she could remember. ‘I was just trying to look out for you all.’

  ‘You were trying to look out for Matthew,’ Melinda corrected. She climbed up into the driver’s seat. ‘But don’t worry. I took care of it.’

  Her father didn’t move. ‘I caught your little press briefing.’

  Always with the subtle put-down. ‘I suppose you think that was sentimental.’

  ‘No, it was exactly right. But then you always get it right.’

  Melinda turned the ignition off. ‘You don’t act as if I do.’ She’d wanted to avoid him, not to have this childish argument, but . . . ‘You never act as though anything I do is any good. You just talk about how great Matthew is.’ Melinda could hear her voice getting higher. Brilliant. Everything she’d been through today, and this was going to be the thing that tipped her over the edge?

  Her father looked genuinely surprised. ‘But I’ve never had to worry about you the way I do Matthew. You’re fine on your own.’

  ‘I don’t want to be . . .’ Melinda shut her mouth. There was a compliment in there somewhere, and she was going to take it.

  They walked around the back of the hall, the first time they’d been alone together in more than a decade. It wasn’t that Lou had been avoiding him. More that she’d never known what to say. That chapter of her life was well and truly over; there’d seemed no point reminiscing with one-night stands. But there were a few things she needed to say now. Lou led Pete over to a battered park bench, helped him prop his stick up against the side.

  ‘What did you want?’ he asked softly.

  Lou checked there was no one else within earshot. ‘Why’d you lie?’

  ‘I didn’t want people to blame Lincoln,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want them to think he’d brought it on himself.’

  Lou stretched her legs out in the sun. ‘Why’d you lie about seeing the lanterns over the vineyard?’

  ‘But I did see them.’

  Lou shook her head. ‘The lanterns didn’t come from Aimee’s, they came from Melinda’s balcony. Totally different direction. And right into your flight path.’

  Pete froze.

  ‘It’s okay, there’s no one here but us.’ She took advantage of the fact that Pete couldn’t see her to scrutinise his face. ‘Wer
e you trying to protect Aimee?’

  He nodded. ‘And you.’

  ‘Why would you need to protect me?’

  ‘Because I knew you must have been involved. You three haven’t done anything independently since you were playing elastics.’

  Lou allowed herself a smile. ‘But why were you looking to protect me?’

  She knew what he was going to say before he said it. ‘Because I’ve always wondered if Tansy was mine.’

  Lou sighed. ‘Pete, she’s not. You know that. I told you at the time.’ He’d been the only one who’d checked, who’d asked if she needed help. ‘I wish she was.’

  ‘I worried about you. Coping on your own. It didn’t look as though your parents were much help.’

  Once upon a time that would have been a glorious invitation to bitch. ‘Not their job,’ she said simply. ‘Although you know, I think they might have cared more than I realised.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘They never came out and said anything. Never made peace. But thinking about it now, there were groceries on my doorstep, the odd hundred-dollar note. A pram in the hallway. That kind of thing.’

  ‘Good.’

  Lou leaned back against the cracked wood of the bench and examined Pete’s face. Skin starting to leather beneath the purple and yellow bruising, ears a bit thick from contact sports. A Hensley face, cradle to grave. ‘So what happens with you now?’

  Pete drew himself up. ‘Well, I have to find out how bad what I’ve done actually is. In the eyes of the law. Arthur’s pretty pissed off at me, and the ATSB aren’t too happy either.’ He shifted, and the wood beneath them complained. ‘I won’t be able to teach if I’m being investigated, but I don’t think I’m up to it anyway. It’s a shame, I’ll miss the kids. But it’s only fair.’

  It wasn’t her place to say anything. But she could set the stage. ‘Would you like to spend some time with us?’ asked Lou. ‘Me and Tansy? Hang out? It’d be good for her to have a bloke around, and she’s starting her VCE next year.’

  She could see him brighten. ‘If she didn’t think that was weird.’

  ‘You know what, I think she’d really enjoy it.’