Family Baggage

by Monica McInerney

  Less than a week later, a fax had arrived from the agency. It was good news. They’d all gathered to hear Lara make the call.

  ‘Mrs Lamerton, I’m calling about the Willoughby trip. What would you say if I was to tell you that not only is a tour to all the locations from the series possible, but our special guest would be Patrick Shawcross, the actor who played Willoughby himself?’

  They had all heard the squawk of delight.

  Harriet remembered James’s words the night of the handover in the hospital. He was right. The tour really had been Lara’s baby. Which made it even stranger that she would abandon it like this. Simply announce to her flatmate there had been a change of plan. Just up and leave …

  Another episode ended and the closing credits played. Harriet sped through the opening credits of the next episode, then paused while she checked James’s itinerary notes again. He had become very fond of exclamation marks in the past year, she noticed. ‘Here in Marazion near Penzance is the dramatically stunning island castle of St Michael’s Mount, used as the setting for those calamitous wedding scenes in “The Case of the Titled Temptress”! En route to Marazion keep a look out for the police station, scene of the hilarious confrontation between Willoughby and Sergeant Carling in episode eight, “The Case of the Hunted Hounds”. The sergeant certainly met his match in our Willoughby, didn’t he?!!’

  Harriet pressed fast forward again and Willoughby sped around the town in his red mail van, hopping in and out with amazing dexterity, before driving down a tree-lined lane and through some tall gates. She released the button and let it play normally again, as he pulled into the driveway of a large mansion, the gravel sounding under the wheels of the car. He climbed out and stood, broodily good-looking, against the van. The front door opened and a well-groomed blonde woman came down the steps and slowly made her way towards him. She was wearing a trim, pale-blue suit, high heels and a lot of jewellery for that time of the day.

  ‘Willoughby,’ she drawled.

  ‘Lady Garvan,’ he said. The shots were now full close-up. ‘You know why I’m here?’

  She moved forward and stroked his cheek. ‘I know why I hope you are here.’

  He didn’t react. The camera pulled even closer and Harriet pressed pause. The actor certainly looked the part of a man with a mysterious past, with his dark hair and dark eyes. Would he have aged well? Fifteen years had passed. She leafed through the information pack but there were no photos of what Patrick Shawcross looked like these days. According to the brief biography, he had been living in America since the series ended, ‘pursuing his acting career and other interests’, whatever they might be.

  She fast-forwarded again. As always the crime was solved and analysed in a scene between Willoughby and his best friend, George the farmer, sitting in their favourite pub in St Ives, enjoying a pint of bitter and shaking their heads.

  ‘That’s people for you, George.’

  ‘Aye, Willoughby, so it is.’

  Mr Douglas and Mr Fidock, the only two men in the tour party, had acted out that same scene at the airport. And on the plane. And in the hotel lobby. They were surprisingly good mimics, Harriet saw now. They had the Cornish accent with its rolling r’s just right. She sped through the opening credits of the next episode as well, nearly laughing out loud as the black and white collie went tearing across the fields. Had Lara and James thought about tracking down Patch the dog as well, Harriet wondered. She pictured a sort of old pets’ home, full of ageing animals from different TV series, sitting around in their luxury, pastel-painted kennels and hutches, reminiscing about their favourite scenes. The rabbits from Watership Down. The cat from the opening credits of Coronation Street. The pigs from Babe … She blinked hard, forcing herself to concentrate.

  An hour later she had fast-forwarded through all of the episodes and felt slightly more familiar with the show. As long as everyone in Cornwall did everything at twenty times the normal pace she would be perfectly fine. She stood up and stretched, first one arm, then the other, her bracelet sliding down her arm as she lifted her left hand into the air. She had worn it every day for the past year. It had belonged to her mother, a present from Harriet’s father the year they arrived in Australia. It was made of ten opals, each gem a swirl of blue and red fiery colour embedded in gold rectangles, simple but striking. As a child, Harriet had loved to sit on the Merryn Bay beach beside her mother and move her wrist up and down so the blue of the opal was lined up against the blue of the sky. ‘That’s it, Mum. Leave your hand there. It’s exactly the same colour as the sky, isn’t it?’

  Harriet had a flash of wanting to be on that Merryn Bay beach right now. A longing to be taking an early morning swim, with the sea to herself. She and her niece Molly used to laugh about the fact that Molly did all her swimming in the chlorinated swimming pool, while Harriet stuck to the sea.

  She decided on fresh air in the absence of water and went over to her hotel window. It opened only a little way, looking out over the car park, to darkness beyond. Her face was reflected back at her, her skin pale, her hair a black cap, spiky in places from where she had been running her fingers through it. She didn’t have to look closely to know there would be an anxious expression on her face.

  The five days stretched out ahead of her. She thought of the daily trips to the different Willoughby locations, the problems that might crop up with traffic delays, bad weather. There were bound to be personality problems, too. There always were on these group tours. The only variable was how quickly they happened and how she reacted. Expect the unexpected.

  As the list of possible black spots grew longer in her mind, she felt a shimmer of the frightening feeling inside her. No, she nearly said aloud. Not here. Not now. Think positive. Look on the bright side. She shut her eyes and did the breathing exercises she’d been taught. Talk to yourself, Harriet, she said as she breathed. It won’t happen again. You will be fine. You are fine. Breathe in, breathe out. Centre yourself.

  Slowly, gradually, the panic subsided. Don’t be afraid of the feeling, her doctor had said. Understand it and where it comes from. The more you know, the less you’ll fear it.

  That was the trouble. She knew more about it than she wanted to. She could pinpoint exactly when her panic attacks had started and she also knew exactly what had caused them. She was reminded of it every day. Their empty chairs in the office, their voices missing from conversations, the daily task of explaining to people ringing Turner Travel asking to speak to Penny or Neil Turner. The knowledge that her parents no longer lived just metres away in the house that adjoined the Turner Travel office, her childhood home. Reminder after reminder. Even after the tour went wrong, after she had got out of hospital and come back to work, the deep sadness, the desperation had stayed with her.

  She remembered her first week back at work, when it had all seemed so hopeless and overwhelming. Lara had come in early and left a little vase of jonquils on her desk, Harriet’s favourite flower.

  ‘Harriet, if I can help, will you just ask?’

  She’d been very moved, as she had easily been at that time. She’d looked up and smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks, Lara.’

  ‘I mean it. With the tours, or any itineraries.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Even through her sadness, Harriet had noticed Lara’s self-assurance, her elegance. Her clothes were immaculate, her hair tied back in a stylish ponytail. Even her nails were manicured. How did she manage it, Harriet had wondered. She felt like she was falling apart, inside and outside.

  In the background, Melissa answered the phone. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you can’t have heard the news,’ she said as loudly as ever. ‘Mr and Mrs Turner passed away earlier this year. Yes, both of them. No, not together, one after the other. Yes, it was tragic. Very hard on the children. They were with them, thank God. Well, all except Harriet.’

  She and Lara were looking at each other as Melissa spoke. Harriet had replayed that moment many times in the past three months. She had seen the grief and the hurt in Lar
a’s eyes, as she knew Lara would have been able to see it in hers. But what else had she seen in Lara’s eyes? A flicker of guilt? Or had she imagined that afterwards? Wanted to see it?

  ‘Yes, it’s very tragic,’ Melissa had said again. ‘We miss them every day.’

  Every day, every hour. Harriet hadn’t needed Melissa’s words to remind her how she felt. Every detail was only ever moments away from being recalled. It was like having something on loop tape, always on her mind, there for her to review, replay, time and again, wishing for a different ending, wanting to make it different, wishing with all her heart that it could be. Even standing here, in a motorway hotel in England, it was the same. All the memories, as clear as if it had happened the day before, not the year before.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Harriet called into the travel agency just before closing time the day her father would die. Her parents always worked the half-day on Saturday, insisting the children had the weekends off. She and her boyfriend Simon were on their way to Melbourne for the day on a shopping trip. He’d lost his mobile phone and was going to buy a new one, while Harriet wanted to browse in the bookshops. She had a cup of tea with her mother and collected measurements for some curtain material she wanted Harriet to buy from a department store in the shopping centre they were visiting.

  She didn’t see her father. He’d finished up early in the office to get ready for golf. She poked her head through the door that joined the travel agency to the house and called out loudly. ‘See you later, Dad.’

  His voice came down the hallway. ‘See you, love. Drive safely.’

  Three hours later she had a bag of new books and was walking around the department store, carrying the curtain material, hoping she’d chosen the right pattern. She didn’t know where Simon was. They had arranged to meet at five o’clock, in two hours time. If they still felt like it, they were going to see a film. ‘Don’t be late, Harriet,’ he’d said. ‘If I don’t find the mobile phone I want, I won’t be able to ring you to remind you, remember.’

  ‘I won’t be late, I promise.’

  ‘Harriet, you’re nearly always late. You’ll come dashing up, saying you couldn’t help it, you got talking to someone who told you the most amazing story about being stopped in the street by a man in a giraffe suit —’

  She didn’t like it when he talked to her like that. ‘I’ve never met anyone who said that.’

  ‘I bet you will one day. So I’ll see you at five o’clock. Will I write it on your hand?’

  She softened and smiled. ‘I’ll shock you one day by turning up on time.’

  ‘Yes, you will.’

  She decided she’d shock him today. She was determined to be waiting there when he arrived. She’d be twenty minutes early, to make doubly sure. She checked her watch. Not even three o’clock. She had plenty of time yet.

  When her mobile phone rang she thought it would be him on his new phone. She checked the display screen as she kept walking. No, it was Austin.

  ‘Hi, Austie,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Harriet, it’s Dad. He’s had a heart attack on the golf course.’

  She stopped in the middle of the shopping centre. Two people nearly ran into her.

  ‘He’s in hospital. You’d better get back as quick as you can.’

  ‘He’s alive? He’s all right?’

  ‘Get back as quick as you can.’

  She couldn’t get back. Simon had the keys to the car. There was only one bus a day to Merryn Bay and the bus station was miles away. ‘Aust, I can’t get there.’

  He misunderstood. ‘Harriet, I think you’d better. It’s serious. Hurry. I have to go, I’m trying to get James and Lara as well. I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Hurry up and get here.’

  She ran from one side of the shopping centre to the other looking for Simon, trying to spot his sandy blond hair, the striped shirt he’d been wearing. Was it a striped shirt? Or had he been wearing a T-shirt? She suddenly couldn’t remember. There was no sign of him in the mobile phone shop. What else had he said he was looking for? Sports shoes? There seemed to be twenty sports shops. She ran up escalators. She called his name into shops. She went back to the car park, in the vain hope he had got bored and was sitting in the car. He wasn’t anywhere. She tried all the coffee shops and cafes. Where could he be? Where else could she look? She was getting desperate. She stumbled on the information desk. It hadn’t occurred to her, but of course, she could get them to make an announcement.

  The woman behind the counter made the call in a smooth, clear voice. ‘Would Mr Simon Baxter, Mr Simon Baxter please come to the information desk as soon as possible. Mr Simon Baxter.’

  Harriet waited. Nothing. There was no sign of him. She looked at every man his size and his age in the centre, but none was Simon. None of them was headed towards her. The woman was keeping an eye on her. She guessed before Harriet had a chance to ask. ‘Shall I try again? The music is loud in some of the shops. Perhaps he didn’t hear the first time.’

  One more time. Again. Harriet couldn’t stand still. ‘If he does come, can you ask him to wait. Or to ring me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where else would a man in his thirties shop in here?’

  The woman answered as smoothly as if Harriet had asked for directions to the ladies toilets. ‘Menswear on levels two and three; sportswear, videos, DVDs and CDs on levels five and six.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As she ran down the side of the escalator, dodging people, her mobile phone rang. Austin. ‘Harriet, where are you?’

  ‘I can’t find Simon. I don’t know how to get there.’ Her panic was rising. She was trying not to cry. ‘Aust, how is he?’

  ‘We’re all here, at the hospital. Mum’s in the room with him. He’s had another heart attack, Harriet. Since they brought him in.’

  She was more than two hours drive away. ‘I’m getting a taxi.’

  It would be several hundred dollars but Austin wouldn’t have told her to hurry if he didn’t mean it.

  The first driver turned her down. He was nearly at the end of his shift. So did the second. ‘You’re only paying me one way. Who’s going to want a fare back to Melbourne?’ She hadn’t been able to find the words to convince him. The third one hardly reacted, just nodded. She got into the back seat. He slowly put on his seatbelt, slowly put the car into gear, slowly indicated.

  She leaned forward. ‘You’ve got to hurry. Please. You have to do everything faster.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My father is dying.’ Her voice was shaky. ‘He’s in hospital. Please, can you hurry.’

  He did his best. He shot her glances now and then as they made their way out of the city into the countryside. She stared at her mobile phone. If it didn’t ring, it meant her father was all right.

  ‘Black spot here, love. No signal for the next twenty miles or so.’

  She didn’t take her eyes off the phone, willing Austin to call with good news. Of course her dad was all right. He was in intensive care but he was all right. She’d arrive and he’d be sitting up, looking weak, a few tubes coming out of him and he’d be wearing one of those white gowns, of course, but he’d be all right. ‘I hope you didn’t rush,’ he’d say. ‘Didn’t I tell you this morning to drive safely?’

  The phone rang. It was Austin. ‘Harriet?’

  ‘Don’t tell me.’

  ‘Harriet.’

  She knew before he said it. ‘Don’t tell me.’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘No, Austin.’ They were still more than an hour away.

  ‘They tried everything. We were all with him. Lara, James, Mum.’

  But they hadn’t all been with him. She hadn’t been with him. She couldn’t talk any more. She said goodbye. She said she’d be there as soon as she could. She cried, stopped crying, started crying again. The taxi driver kept driving.

  They had just arrived at the hospital when the phone rang again. She stared at it. She didn’t recognise th
e number. It kept ringing.

  ‘You’d better get that, love.’

  She pressed the connection.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s half past five, Harriet. A joke is a bloody joke. Where are you?’

  It was Simon. She couldn’t answer him. She passed the phone to the taxi driver as she climbed out.

  Simon arrived at the hospital at nine o’clock that night, coming in to the room, pale faced, where they were all gathered. Harriet’s mother was inconsolable. She kept saying the same things, over and over. ‘But he was healthy.’ ‘He exercised every day.’ ‘He was only sixty-three.’

  He had been dead for one hour and thirty-three minutes by the time Harriet saw him. She’d walked into the hospital and been met by Austin.

  ‘Harriet, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  She moved into his arms, tears flowing down her cheeks. ‘Where is he, Austie? I need to see him.’

  It hadn’t been her dad. It had been his face, his body. She had been right about the hospital gown. But there had been no sign of the smile, the soft accent, the teasing look in his eyes. She spoke to him. She touched his hand. She was overwhelmed by emotion, barely able to stand. Her dad was dead and she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to him.

  Austin was beside her. His hand was on her back. She turned to him. ‘Austie, did he know I wasn’t here? Did he know I was trying to get here as quickly as I could? Did he know?’

  ‘Harriet —’

  There was a noise at the door behind them. They turned. It was their mother. Lara was on one side of her, James on the other. They were both holding her tightly.