Flashback

by Helen McKenna

  Emerging from the bushland he ran over to where she lay crumpled on the ground clasping her left ankle, which was already swelling rapidly. Her handbag and its contents were strewn across the grass nearby. He had never seen her look like this before, scared and helpless. She was usually so poised and controlled. Yet again fate had intervened, amazingly, to make him the hero.

  At the sight of him she immediately burst into tears.

  ‘Craig!’ she exclaimed, between sobs. ‘Please help me!’

  She knew his name! He thought he was just another employee number, a faceless member of the construction crew who visited the payroll office every Thursday morning to sign his timesheet.

  Craig had been smitten from the first moment he had laid eyes upon Ella. But he’d always been so shy with women and the office was so crowded that he’d never got the chance to speak to her alone. That was why he had been waiting in hope these past few weeks. What could be more natural than bumping into a workmate and walking with them to the office?

  His main aim had just been to speak to her, but something much bigger was going on here and he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  ‘Don’t cry Ella,’ he soothed, ‘everything is going to be all right.’

  Natalie finally emerged from her room at nine o’clock, sleepy eyed and with crazy bed hair. She wasn’t surprised to see Marty ensconced on the couch, watching TV.

  ‘Hey sleepyhead,’ he said, ‘Glad you called in sick today?’

  ‘Yeah, what do you reckon?’ she replied with a grin. ‘I haven’t slept in for weeks and I can’t wait to catch some rays once we get to Mooloolaba. I’m a big believer in the occasional mental health day.’

  ‘Oh yeah, me too.’

  ‘So, you been here long?’ Natalie asked, as she poured herself a glass of pineapple juice.

  ‘A little while.’

  ‘You weren’t bored were you?’

  ‘No, not a bit, I’ve been catching up with some text messages.’

  ‘Okay, great. Just give me a minute and we can get going.’

  ‘Sure Babe, no hurry,’ he replied. ‘Oh, by the way Ella took your phone by mistake.’

  Natalie put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oops! That was my fault. It was still half dark when I grabbed it this morning to call work. I didn’t realise I got the wrong one.’ She raised her right eyebrow questioningly. ‘How did you realise that?’

  ‘You left it on the couch. When I picked it up to move it there was no little dot.’

  Natalie shook her head. ‘Oh no, I feel bad! I hope it doesn’t inconvenience Ella too much.’

  ‘No point worrying about it now,’ Marty said and then lay down so Natalie wouldn’t see his grin.

  From the moment she had moved in Marty had taken an instant dislike to snooty Ella, Miss High and Mighty who used to have such an important job and a place in the city. He was tired of hearing her whinge about the long commute and how primitive life was out here in the sticks so he had taken the opportunity to make her reconsider her long train journey each morning.

  It was fortuitous that he had seen her running down the road with the heel of one of her stupid shoes hanging out of her handbag. Having heard her rave on and on about them they lent a great deal of authenticity to his text conversation. He was also glad he had kept the prepaid SIM card he’d bought on his latest trip to Bali. It was totally untraceable.

  Oh yes, he had finally solved the Ella problem.

  With a bit of luck she would be gone before the month was out.

  The Group

  Beth couldn’t believe how nervous she was.

  It was ridiculous – after all she was a successful, confident woman with a corporate career. She had two bachelor degrees and an MBA and she earned a six-figure salary. Yet, as she stood here in the small, run-down community hall facing a rather motley crew of strangers her palms were slick with sweat and her heart was pounding as if she’d just leapt off the treadmill.

  The pages Beth held in her hands were dog-eared from incessant handling. She had still been flicking between them making last minute adjustments when she was introduced by Gordon and invited up to speak.

  Beth couldn’t believe how different Gordon was in person. Her impression of him from his emails, and his name, had been an older, distinguished gentleman, and she was still struggling to come to terms with the twenty-something guy with his straggly goatee and waist length ponytail. His face was open and friendly, but also slightly puzzled as he eyed Beth now, obviously wondering why she hadn’t yet spoken.

  ‘Beth?’ he prompted.

  Beth nodded and managed a weak smile. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, ‘I’m just very nervous.’

  ‘No need to be,’ Gordon reassured her. ‘We were all the newbie once.’

  Several other audience members nodded their agreement.

  Beth took a deep breath and focused her attention on a spot on the timber-panelled wall. Breathe Beth, she instructed herself. If you can speak at a national conference you can speak here. Yeah, but the national conference was business, she reminded herself, this is personal. You are about to expose a side of yourself that has never been publicly acknowledged.

  A woman in the front row coughed and a man up the back glanced at his phone. People fidgeting was not a good sign and Beth knew she had to either get on with it or get out.

  Taking another deep breath she opened her mouth and finally the words began to flow.

  The huge thunderclap and accompanying flash of lightening ended Beth’s hopes of leaving the office to buy a sandwich and a magazine. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, realising she should have gone half an hour ago. Josie from the secretarial pool had already buzzed twice to remind her that ‘lunch hours need to be strictly adhered to so as to ensure the smooth running of Lloyd and Morgan’.

  Beth conceded she had a point; after all it was hard to put calls through and schedule appointments when staff didn’t stick to their break times. Even so, did everything about the accounting world have to come down to numbers? She had just wanted to get Mrs Borthwick’s complex tax return done and then enjoy her break.

  She clicked on the lodge button and sighed wearily as the file uploaded. It wasn’t accounting that was the problem, it was her. A box containing her newly updated business cards – which now proudly acknowledged her as Senior Associate – caught her attention. This new position and the pay rise that came with it should make her feel happy, right? A decade of study and hard work had finally been rewarded after all. Yet what she felt now was weighed down with expectation and trapped into a future she didn’t want.

  The urge inside Beth had been growing stronger for a long time now, it had been there since childhood really but she’d never had the courage to tell anybody. In the past she had managed to squash it by working harder and studying more but now as she approached her thirtieth birthday, well, it seemed if she didn’t act soon she would go crazy.

  Boom!

  Another rumble of thunder sounded, followed by the pounding of heavy rain on the roof. Well, that was that, it was the lunchroom or bust today. Flicking her computer to hibernate, Beth picked up her water bottle and trudged down the hall.

  Considering that Lloyd and Morgan was a prosperous, long-established firm with very fancy office space, they paid little attention to the state of the staff lunchroom. Stuck in a windowless corner of the building, the fluorescent lighting was much too harsh for the small space and the lingering olfactory reminders of thousands of microwaved meals permeated the room, resulting in a persistent, unpleasant odour. Beth could not understand why more of her colleagues did not choose to escape to a nearby café like she generally did.

  Fortunately, the staff club kept a supply of basic food items for sale, so Beth paid one dollar for a packet of generic chicken noodle soup mix and selected a packet of chicken Twisties from the vending machine. After mixing her soup she took a seat at the only vacant table and leafed listlessly through the selection of junk mail, accounting journals and ancien
t magazines on the table.

  Adam from IT sat down opposite her, frowning as he examined a bruised Granny Smith apple.

  ‘Whoa,’ Beth said, ‘that’s a lovely looking specimen.’

  ‘Yeah isn’t it just? I found it at the bottom of my backpack and can’t quite remember when I put it there,’ he admitted. ‘But my options are pretty limited aren’t they? I see you snagged the last cup a soup and you’ve hogged all the best reading material.’

  ‘You’ve got to be quick around here,’ Beth laughed. ‘But let me save you some time – Coles have a two for one special on tinned tomatoes, Woolies have rolled back the price on Safe toilet paper and according to this five year old New Idea, William and Kate are never getting married.’

  Adam reached over to the next table. ‘Here you go,’ he smirked, handing her the latest edition of the local community newspaper. ‘I’m sure there will be some ground-breaking headlines in here.’

  ‘My humble thanks,’ Beth deadpanned. She never read the free paper, but in the absence of anything better today she slid it over and started flicking through it.

  It was only a small notice, buried in the free classifieds section, but Beth noticed it immediately. It had occurred to her that a group might be a good outlet, a way to test the waters and try something new without having to turn her whole life upside down.

  Maybe it was just what she needed to get the idea out of her system for good. Because, in the end, it was a crazy and very impractical desire. She hadn’t studied for all those years and worked her butt off for even longer to throw it all away on a whim.

  Still, it couldn’t hurt to check the group out.

  Adam noticed her preoccupation. ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting involved in community affairs.’

  ‘No, nothing that noble. Just checking my stars.’

  ‘Let me guess…you’re on the brink of a whole new life cycle and destined to meet the man of your dreams?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘He could be closer than you think,’ Adam murmured wistfully.

  Beth ignored the comment, having no desire to open that particular can of worms today. Waiting until Adam went up to make himself a coffee she tore the page out and tucked it into her bag. She had never believed in fate before but had to admit it was positively providential that she happened to come across that particular advertisement at this particular point in time.

  Beth headed back to her desk five minutes early so she could email Gordon the group co-ordinator and was thrilled when a reply pinged back almost immediately.

  “Thanks for your interest Beth,” he wrote. “Please find attached information about the group and our meeting schedule for the year. We’re a bit of an odd bunch and there are no airs and graces, but we’re always on the lookout for new members. Please feel free to email with any questions you may have. Looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Thanks Gordon, you too,” she replied then conscientiously dragged her attention back to the pile of work on her desk, as unappealing as it was.

  Even though the next meeting was still weeks away, Beth immediately found herself in a much better frame of mind at work. How was it that such a seemingly small step towards a dream could buoy up in her the kind of enthusiasm she hadn’t felt in years?

  Yet at the same time she didn’t plan to share her aspirations with any of her workmates. They were all so into accounting in a way that she just wasn’t and she knew they could not possibly understand.

  Beth almost died when she nearly let it slip at Friday night drinks. Having enjoyed a few wines she was feeling nicely mellow and got as far as saying, ‘I’m joining a…’, before pulling herself up.

  ‘Joining a what?’ probed Josie, who always took it upon herself to give unsolicited advice on any topic.

  ‘A gym,’ she mumbled hoping that the interest would end there.

  ‘Really?’ Josie replied excitedly, not seeming to notice she had dropped a clump of salsa down the front of her white blouse. ‘I’ve been thinking about doing that for ages too, let’s go together!’

  ‘Uh, yeah, sure,’ Beth replied, knowing it would probably all be forgotten by the next week. Josie was notorious for embarking on fitness drives she never followed through with.

  Unfortunately this was the one time Josie’s motivation was genuine. When Beth arrived at work on Monday morning she found a thick stack of brochures on her desk for all the gyms within a ten kilometre radius. Logging onto her computer she found an email in her inbox with an Excel attachment summarising all of the information in the brochures.

  On Tuesday Josie buttonholed her at morning tea and showed her a series of photographs on her phone. Beth expressed polite interest although she did feel she had to ask why they were all exterior shots of the various gyms in question.

  ‘So you can see what the car parks are like,’ Josie explained impatiently. ‘It’s one of the first things a woman is supposed to check out for safety reasons.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  On Wednesday she found a bound document with timetables for various classes arranged in alphabetical order and degree of difficulty.

  By Thursday Beth knew she had to speak up. She had no desire to join a gym and it was ridiculous to be forced into it just because Josie was nosey, and because she didn’t want her workmates knowing her personal business.

  Taking a deep breath she picked up the phone, then chickened out and started an email instead. “Hey Josie, thanks so much for all the info, particularly the price list you just forwarded. I didn’t realise gym memberships were so expensive! I have just realised I really can’t afford to join now. Sorry.” Just for effect she added a sad face.

  Josie’s reply was swift and blunt. “You earn more than twice what I do and I can afford it.”

  Beth stared at the screen but managed to refrain from typing what she really thought, which was something along the lines of “so get your degree you bossy cow!”

  Instead she took the high road and just ignored it.

  The idea of telling her family her secret was just as unappealing for Beth. To an outsider the professional pedigree of her parents and siblings – lawyers, actuary and systems analyst respectively – was outstanding. How could she risk messing up this perfect picture? It wasn’t that she didn’t love them, she just knew they would not fathom, or possibly even respect, the choice she was making.

  Fortunately it was easy enough to avoid the topic. As always, their weekly Sunday lunch date was full of talk about topics boring enough to lull a hard-core insomniac to sleep within minutes. Well, maybe that was a bit unfair, Beth acknowledged as she poured some more gravy over her roast pork. The rest of her family were technical and analytical and she wasn’t – it was as simple as that.

  ‘So Beth, I guess you’re looking ahead to Junior Partner now?’ her mother queried.

  Beth hesitated a second, but couldn’t bring herself to fess up. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s on my five year plan.’

  ‘Five years?’ her brother Nathan scoffed. ‘You could do it in three.’

  ‘Yeah, true enough,’ she agreed, hugging her secret to herself and smiling inwardly at the thought of where she would actually like to be in three years time. It certainly wasn’t at Lloyd and Morgan.

  The next near miss happened the following week. Trapped in the lunchroom during another summer storm, Beth was half-heartedly listening to the conversation around her when her manager Camilla tried to rope her into playing netball in the firm team. ‘It’s Saturday fortnight at two thirty,’ she said, ‘And I’ll put you as Goal Keeper so it’s not too strenuous.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t, I’ve got a meeting,’ Beth replied vaguely, as she continued to read her copy of Vogue. She immediately paled when she realised what she’d said.

  ‘What kind of meeting?’ demanded Camilla, who saw herself as the star of the netball team and took offence when anybody who was asked to play refused.

  Beth had to think on her feet. ‘Trust me
it’s nothing any of you guys would be interested in.’

  Adam gave her a sly smile. ‘Oh let me guess – secret women’s business, hey?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Beth murmured.

  ‘Hmm, sounds intriguing,’ Adam teased.

  Beth felt like rolling up her magazine and clubbing him with it.

  Of course her reply raised many more questions than it answered. The other women at the table continued to look at her with great interest throughout the rest of lunch. Later she heard two of them talking about her in the copy room.

  ‘Well I’d say it’s AA,’ Leanne whispered. ‘They’re not supposed to tell people about it’.

  Julia nodded sagely. ‘It’s always the ones you least suspect. You know I’ve often seen her looking blankly at things like she’s not really there. She’s probably got a hip flask somewhere’.

  And thus began a surveillance operation to rival ASIO.

  Staff began dropping into Beth’s office unannounced and appeared disappointed to find her completing tax returns or audits. Conversations stopped when she entered the file room or secretarial pool. Her name was deleted from the email list announcing a new wine club one of the partners was starting.

  She even caught Josie smelling the contents of her water bottle.

  ‘Should we have it sent off for analysis?’ she asked, eyebrows raised as she walked into her office, returning unexpectedly early from a meeting.

  It was the first time she had seen Josie lost for words.

  Refusing a slice of mud cake at Adam’s birthday morning tea started off the next round of gossip. As appealing as the rich treat looked Beth had the beginnings of a migraine and chocolate always made it worse.

  ‘I bet it’s Weight Watchers,’ Josie said triumphantly to Leanne as they stood at the communal filing basket later that morning. ‘You have to pledge to pass up the good stuff most of the time to save your points.’