by Paula Weston
‘You two are close?’
‘Used to be.’ Waylon shifts so he’s sideways in his seat. ‘So, how much do you hate soldiers? Do I need to sleep with one eye open?’
The swerve in conversation throws Angie for a second. ‘I don’t hate soldiers, I was married to one for twenty years.’ She rests her knees on the back of the seat in front of her. ‘What I hate is the bastardisation of the Australian Defence Force. Corporate interests dictating where and how our troops serve. This operation of yours is a classic example.’
The bus gets moving again. Waylon’s still looking at her. ‘What happened in Pakistan? The real version.’
Angie scuffs the heel of her boot over a wad of old chewing gum. ‘Mike’s unit was redirected from protecting a village to protecting assets owned by Paxton Federation because the company was co-funding military operations in the region. He didn’t sign on for that. He was willing to risk his life for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. He was willing to die in the service of his country. He wasn’t looking to give his life for shareholder profits.’
‘He was a good bloke?’
Angie swallows and looks away. Fragments of memories rise up. Of laughter and drunken singing. Of angry words and make-up sex…Mike crying when Jules was born…feeding her a bottle in front of the TV watching rugby…taking her to her first day of school, both of them in uniform. And then that call in the dead of night. The cold fingers in her chest squeezing her heart until it was the size of a walnut.
She shuts down the memory before it dismantles her.
‘Mike wasn’t the saint everyone’s turned him into. But, yeah, he was a good bloke.’
Mike was a soldier. He went to work with a rifle on his back and a handgun strapped to his thigh and she’d expected him to live forever.
‘Waylon, roll up your sleeves.’
He gives her a nervous grin. ‘Wanna see my guns, Angie?’
‘Sure.’
‘Nah, I’m shy.’ He starts to lean away but she’s too quick. She pushes up the right sleeve of his T-shirt. His black skin is bare. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘What shots are they giving you?’
A shrug. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Vitamins, vaccinations, you know the drill.’
The bus pulls in at the next interchange. Passengers move off and on. Angie leans in closer to Waylon. ‘You think it was vitamins that let you boys withstand a stun grenade last night?’
He scratches the tip of his nose, doesn’t answer.
‘Don’t tell me there’s not something else going in your supplements regime.’
He gives her that lazy smile. ‘Whatever it is, it helps me keep this’—he lifts his shirt to show off his abs—‘so no complaints from me.’
Angie shakes her head. If she pushes Waylon hard enough he might cave, but now is not the time. First she has to deal with Xavier. She’s been daydreaming about what she’ll say when she’s face to face with him; the ways she’ll undo him that he won’t see coming. Voss sent her off with another warning to set aside her agenda until the threat to the nuclear plant is sorted. But Angie’s confident she can do both.
And she’s got three days to prove it.
25
The ride to the Amberley RAAF Base takes about forty minutes. Jules faces the window almost the entire way, trying to shut out Ryan’s incessant tapping on his knees. The rhythm changes regularly but that doesn’t make it any less irritating.
Their driver takes them straight to the airfield, stopping only for checkpoints. An ancient-looking grey monstrosity waits on the tarmac. Its back end is wide open, with a ramp leading up into it that sets off a nervous flutter under her ribs. She wasn’t completely tuned in when the Major was going over the flight plan, but they’re not going in that, surely?
Ryan’s staring at it too, grinning.
Jules climbs from the Land Rover and leans back in for her bag. ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.’
‘That’s a C-130 Hercules,’ he says as he gets out, as if it should mean something to her. ‘I’ve never been in one.’
Jules hoists the bag over her shoulder and slams the door to end the conversation.
They meet their pilot, a weathered man with pockmarked cheeks and bright eyes. He runs them through the safety routine as they shrug into their jackets and then leads them up the ramp into the back of the plane. It’s a gutted whale with shelving and red netting.
Jules falters. ‘Where do we sit?’
The pilot gestures to one side. Oh. The shelves are the seats. Someone else takes Jules’ bag as she sits down. She isn’t paying enough attention to say thank you: she’s too busy buckling herself in and making sure the seat is securely bolted to the plane.
A whine starts up outside and the engines rumble to life. Through a small window she can see props turning over. Ryan hands Jules a headset and puts on his own. She hesitates—her trembling fingers are going to give her away—but she lets go of the seat long enough to slip the earphones on and adjust the mic over her mouth.
‘It’ll get loud in here.’ Ryan’s voice crackles in her ear. He points to the cockpit and taps his earphones to let her know the pilot can hear them too. Good. Less chance she and Ryan will talk during the flight.
‘Let me check your belt.’ He waits for her permission before he leans over and pulls the strap to test the buckle. She keeps her hands by her sides, tries not to think about him on his knees in the lift. Focuses instead on the fact he had a knife in his boot and the reason it was there. The anger rekindles, brings the wall back up. She’s starting to understand why it’s Angie’s default mode.
‘All good,’ Ryan says. He settles back, lengthens his legs. ‘It’ll be easier if you relax. The Hercs are slower than a commercial airline. We’re going to be strapped in here for a while.’
It’s not the news she was hoping for.
They taxi out to the runway, the engines vibrating through the floor and seats. Jules can’t tell if it’s that or anxiety that’s feeding the current under her skin. She did enough at the base to keep it in check for a few hours but she can’t afford to drop her guard. The ramp starts to close and Jules exhales. It will be better when she can’t see the—
The ramp stops moving. They straighten onto the runway.
‘Aren’t they going to shut that?’
Ryan leans forward to see past her. ‘Not yet. The Captain thought he’d give us the full show.’
The engines build to a roar and the plane picks up speed. Within seconds they’re hurtling along, everything shuddering and shaking as the ground rushes past. Jules is pushed sideways in her seat by the force—and then they’re not on the runway anymore. She watches the tarmac drop away, her heart hammering in her throat.
‘Did the Major mention we’re not landing when we get to Adelaide?’
Jules tears her eyes from the gaping mouth at the back of the plane. Ryan gestures to the cables running the length of the opposite wall and the straps flapping in the wind. Her nose and fingertips sting from the sudden cold.
‘The co-pilot will fit our chutes mid-flight.’
She stares at him. ‘I don’t care if this thing is on fire and you have a gun to my head, I’m not getting out until we’re on the ground.’
Ryan laughs—he’s having a ball, the bastard. ‘I’m kidding. Bloody hell, you have no sense of humour.’
She squeezes her eyes shut, presses herself back into her seat as hard as she can. ‘Imagine what my life’s been like these past few years. See how much of a sense of humour you have then.’
A beat. ‘We’ve all had shit to deal with.’
‘I’m pretty sure mine’s different to yours.’
‘It’s still shit though, isn’t it?’
She tries to imagine what could possibly be so tough in his life. He’s fit and healthy, hot in a scruffy kind of way, and has a paying job in a covert army unit. Yeah, he’s been dealt a terrible hand.
Jules opens her eyes as the plane banks
and she immediately squeezes them shut again. They stay that way until a new voice speaks in her ear.
‘Last chance to enjoy the view, folks. We need to close up before we climb any higher.’
Jules takes a peek and her breath catches. A patchwork of green is spread out below, punctuated by squiggles of rivers and creeks. If her seatbelt lets go now she’ll tumble straight out the back and make a crater in one of those paddocks.
‘You should have said you were scared of flying.’
The ramp finally resumes closing and Jules waits until it’s sealed tight and her eyes have adjusted before she answers Ryan.
‘I’m not scared of flying. I’m scared of a thousand-metre drop.’ She fixes her eyes on the opposite wall, refusing to let him see her relief.
‘The Major said you were okay before we left the base. Are you?’ He doesn’t sound quite so smartarse now. ‘You can’t lose it up here.’
‘No shit, Walsh.’ He’s making it easy to stay annoyed at him.
She closes her eyes again, tries not to think about all the things that could go wrong up here, on the ground, and on that bus when Angie meets Xavier. Has she seen him yet? How did he react? Maybe he’s already released the damning footage. There’s no way Jules will know until they land. If Xavier has uploaded the video, Angie will have nothing to lose and God knows what she’ll do then.
‘Are you worried about your mum?’
Jules opens her eyes. ‘A little.’
‘I reckon she can handle herself.’
‘Not as well as she thinks she can.’
‘Waylo’s good under pressure. He’ll keep an eye on her.’
The engine drops revs and Jules’ heart climbs back in her throat until she realises the pilot has powered down to cruising speed. She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.
‘I was never going to follow that directive.’
Jules turns her face away from him, clocks that the ramp is sealed tight. ‘The one that said you could—’ She stops, remembering the pilot and co-pilot can hear every word.
‘Yeah. I wouldn’t have taken that option.’
‘It’s easy to say that now.’
A pause. ‘You’re pissed off at the situation, I get that, but don’t take it out on me.’
‘No, I’m pissed off at you because you didn’t tell me what you were really doing in that building.’
‘When would I have done that? When we were halfway up that ladder or when I was holding you over the elevator shaft?’
‘You could’ve told me in the van.’
‘Yeah, you were totally in the mood for that conversation then.’ He clears his throat loud enough that she hears it through the headset. ‘How can I protect you if you don’t trust me?’
‘I didn’t ask for your protection. All I need is somewhere to stay while my mother runs off to fight a war she can’t win.’
‘Fine.’
It didn’t take long to exhaust that poor excuse for an apology.
An hour passes without another word. Jules spends the time breathing deeply and concentrating on holding the charge behind her ribs. It’s constantly changing shape but she has a reasonable grip. The vibrations are steady now and the hum of her own energy has fallen in sync with it.
She’s feeling reasonably settled when Ryan unbuckles his belt and stands without a word or a glance her way. A few tentative steps and he gets his balance enough to walk to the tiny window on the other side of the plane. Jules waits for a commentary on the view but he maintains radio silence. After a minute, he moves towards the front of the plane.
‘Captain, permission to come up top?’ His voice sounds strange in her ear after its absence for so long.
‘Permission granted.’
Jules has no idea if the approval extends to her but there’s no way she’s undoing her seatbelt.
Alone, she feels dwarfed in the yawning space. She imagines these seats packed with soldiers, adrenaline-fuelled energy roiling against the hull. Her dad must have flown in planes like this when he was deployed, strapped in with his platoon on the way to battle. He didn’t know what it was like to live with her charge, but he understood nervous energy. Mike De Marchi said there were only two types of people in the world: those who could control their fear, and those who couldn’t.
It’s only now that Jules wonders which type she’s going to find on Ryan’s farm.
She’s chewing over that thought when Ryan returns a while later. He sits down without speaking and she realises she didn’t hear a word of conversation from the cockpit—the pilot must have switched off her headset while Ryan was up there.
‘Is there anything I need to know about your family?’ she asks, partly to find out the answer and partly to see if she’s on air again. He doesn’t respond and when she turns to check if he heard her she finds him with his head resting back against the netting, staring up at the curved hull.
‘Ryan.’ She bumps her knee against his.
‘What?’
‘It would be good to know something about your family before we turn up at your place.’
‘Like what?’ He stays fixated on the ceiling.
Great. It’s going to be one of those conversations.
‘Who lives there?’
‘Mum, Dad and my brother Tommy.’
‘How old is Tommy?’
‘Seventeen this week.’
Is that why he’d applied for leave? ‘What do you farm?’
Another pause and Jules notices his fingers have curled into fists on his thighs. ‘Wheat and sheep, but it’s hard to grow anything in a dust bowl.’ She waits for him to say more. It takes so long she thinks the conversation is over, but then: ‘The old man won’t touch GMO grains or New Gen Prime Lamb Merinos, so now he’s got no access to emergency relief funds, a bank loan, or the new inland pipeline. Bloody tough to run a farm with no water and no cash flow.’
‘But that legislation hasn’t gone through yet.’
‘It doesn’t need to. The old man’s one of only a handful in the district who hasn’t signed on to Pax Fed’s so-called voluntary scheme. Nobody’s channelling resources to a property where the farming practices are “unviable”.’
Pax Fed: ruining families across Australia.
‘How are your mum and dad surviving?’ she asks.
‘They’re hoping there’s a market for traditional spelt wheat if we can get in a decent crop and it rains. And if the wind doesn’t blow bloody GMO seed from the rest of the district onto our land.’
‘What about the sheep?’
A defeated shrug. ‘Half the flock was gone when I left home last year, shot before they starved to death. I don’t know what’s left now, nobody wants to tell me. I have no idea what I’m going back to.’ He picks at a thread on the seam of his jeans. ‘If the Paxton legislation goes through we won’t have a choice—grow their grain and sheep or lose the farm.’
We’ve all had shit to deal with.
Jules runs her fingers through her hair. ‘Do they know we’re coming?’
‘Safer for everyone if we just turn up.’
‘Will that be okay?’
Ryan meets her gaze but his mind is elsewhere, maybe already on the farm. Wherever it is, it’s not a happy thought. ‘I guess we’ll find out.’
Jules is shifting about, trying to get more comfortable, when the plane drops out from under her. She panics and grabs the seat between them until the plane steadies.
Ryan puts his hand where hers was and leans in. ‘You good?’
‘Yeah, sorry—’
The plane dips again, more violently and this time she grabs his wrist.
‘Hang tight, folks,’ the pilot says, his voice fuzzy in the headset. ‘We’re in for a bumpy ride for a few minutes. Nothing this old girl can’t handle.’
The charge is stronger now. Ryan shifts into the seat next to her and threads his fingers through hers.
‘This is nothing. Mick’s flown in war zones dodging missiles.’ Ryan relaxes his thi
gh against hers, rests their joined hands on his leg. Her mouth is bone dry but she manages to swallow and nod. Another drop, and this time the engine changes with it. Her heart’s thundering, palm sweaty against Ryan’s. He has to be worried she’s going to electrocute him but he doesn’t let go.
He brushes his thumb over her wrist, lightly. Jules closes her eyes again, breathes through the fear.
‘You into music?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘What do you listen to?’
Jules tries to find a meaningful answer but it’s hard with the blood rushing in her ears and the noise of the plane. ‘All sorts of stuff.’
‘Like what?’
She thinks about what’s on the old mobile she and her mum share and finally manages to name a few acts.
‘Not bad,’ he says. ‘I’m more an old-school guy myself: drums and guitars. Loud.’
He rattles off a list of his favourite bands, some she’s heard of, most she hasn’t. The bumpy ride lasts longer than a few minutes but he doesn’t miss a beat, even when the plane drops hard enough that the netting above them slaps against the hull. Ryan talks about gigs he’s been to since moving to Brisbane, discovering bands in dodgy suburban pubs. It’s the most she’s heard him speak. Jules focuses on his voice, tries to block out everything else. The whole time he holds her hand in his, unflinching.
He falls quiet when the plane is back on a steady course, but makes no move to untangle their fingers. It’s only when the pilot announces their descent that she turns her head and finds him watching her. It’s strangely intimate to make eye contact while they’re touching and she gently extracts her fingers. She flexes the joints and wipes her hand on her jeans.
‘You keep seeing me at my worst.’
Ryan shrugs. ‘Next time I’m losing my shit in a small dark space you can hold my hand.’ He raises his eyebrows, tentative, and she manages a small smile in return. It’s hard to stay annoyed at him. He’s the only person aside from her parents to touch her when she’s been afraid, knowing what could happen.
Even Vee’s never done that.
26
