The next day she woke with another thought: a far more significant tragedy lurks in her future than a breakup. For example, she will be in a car accident with her parents and brother and she will be the only survivor. The subsequent grief will be unbearable. She thinks she’s a tugboat only because life has never tested her.
She looks over at her parents’ car, parked alongside the treadmill, a silver Volvo, bought ten years ago when both Taj and Allegra still lived at home. Naturally her mother did a ceremony to bless and protect the precious new car but they were running late for a family event and Allegra’s dad lost his mind as Taj took forever to smash the coconut on the garage floor (he had a new technique he wanted to try out) and they sprinkled coconut water on all four tires while reciting a special travel safety mantra, put lemons under each tire, and then Allegra’s mother lit a diya and waved incense inside the car, while her dad sat at the steering wheel, nostrils twitching, waving his hands, spluttering, “Prisha, enough, it’s getting in the upholstery!” Allegra or Taj only have to say to each other, “Prisha, enough!” to have them both rolling about laughing.
In addition to her mother’s blessing, her dad, besides being a careful driver, is meticulous about having the car serviced every six months. So, all bases covered, spiritual and earthly.
There will be no car accident and there will be no depression.
A couple of weeks ago, Allegra typed into her search bar: How to prevent depression even as she guessed all the answers that would appear. Regular exercise. Spend time with family and friends. Get outside. Avoid alcohol and drugs. Gratitude.
There is no sure way to prevent depression, the website warned, but Allegra still went ahead and made her own personal Stay Happy This Year plan as per the suggestion of some online psychologist. Why not? She might as well take control of her future happiness. Keep her mood stable. She has never been a huge drinker, but she is drinking even less. She runs on her dad’s treadmill twice a week and catches up with her parents at the same time. Occasionally she remembers to look at a tree and think, Nice.
“Next interval coming up, we’re increasing our speed for just thirty seconds,” warns Jay as the treadmill picks up the pace and Allegra’s legs are forced to run faster. There is always a moment of panic as her brain catches up with the rest of her body: Why are we running so fast? What’s the emergency? But then she settles into it.
Did her grandmother need a treadmill? It’s impossible to imagine Allegra’s dignified grandmother on a treadmill, but could that have saved her? She never seemed sad at all! Was she hiding her true feelings, or did the sadness creep up behind her one day like a monster and wrap her in its malevolent arms?
Allegra’s phone, on the treadmill console, rings and flashes the name: Trina Tanaka.
Trina is her crew manager. Allegra doesn’t know her well, but the little interaction they’ve had has been pleasant and professional. Trina is responsible for a team of more than fifty crew members and Allegra only occasionally sees her face-to-face. It’s one of the things Allegra appreciates about not being in a corporate environment: there is no possibility of a terrible boss having a daily impact on her life.
Allegra tugs the safety key free to stop the treadmill and grabs the phone.
“How are you, Trina?” she gasps.
As soon as she speaks, she realizes she should have let the call go to voicemail. For one thing, she needs to catch her breath, and more important, she knows why Trina is calling. Allegra should have called Trina first, got ahead of this situation as soon as the stories began appearing on the internet.
“Hi, Allegra. Listen, you were cabin manager on a Hobart-Sydney flight back in April where a passenger supposedly made predictions…about deaths of passengers, correct?” says Trina. “I assume you know what I’m talking about. The media is picking up on it. We’re getting calls.”
“Yes.” Allegra steadies her breathing. Come on, Miss Supposedly So Calm in a Crisis. “Sorry. I was on the treadmill.”
“That’s okay, take your time.”
Something about the tone and the words “take your time” reminds Allegra of a detective interviewing a suspect.
“It really didn’t seem that big a deal.” Allegra hears herself sounding defensive.
“Please just take me through it, Allegra.”
Allegra blinks away a droplet of sweat that has run into her eye as she reads the error message on the treadmill monitor: Uh-oh, looks like your treadmill has stopped.
Uh-oh indeed.
Chapter 77
Six months after we met, I found it necessary to inform my devout Catholic grandmother I loved Jack Murphy more than God.
Sometimes you can’t believe the things you said or the feelings you felt.
“Oh, darling,” winced Grandma, and she patted my shoulder consolingly.
Everything was better because of Jack. Food tasted better. The stars shone brighter, my studies were even more fascinating and they were already so fascinating!
I never thought, This can’t last.
I thought, This is just how my life is now. Perfect.
It was a special time. Jack was a social boy. He took me to parties and dances I would otherwise have avoided like the plague. With him by my side I found I could walk through any door, always on the count of three, and even enjoy myself, especially if I could find myself a spot in the corner with my back against the wall and a view of the nearest exit.
I took him fishing and canoeing and camping. He was very cowardly about cold water and wasn’t a strong swimmer. I’d count him in—one, two, three—when it came to the ocean.
I remember standing with him at the blowhole at Avoca Beach, watching the water being sucked in and out and then exploding volcanically, splashing our faces, while a group of local boys with shiny tanned shoulders, their hair slick against their heads like seals, timed their moment to jump.
I wore a purple “ring and string” bikini. The top was two triangles connected by a plastic ring. The bottom was another two triangles tied together in loose bows on my hips. I had not a care in the world about melanoma.
Poor Jack said gamely, “So…we’re going in there?”
He was so relieved when I said we were certainly not swimming in the blowhole (for one thing my bikini would not have withstood it) and he kissed me right there on the rocks while the boys hollered and whistled.
Blowholes can be treacherous, and blowhole swimming can be deadly. Please don’t do it. Even if you are a young boy with shiny tanned shoulders and think you are capable of anything, you are not.
When I was a child, I saw a boy I knew by sight from the campground dragged from the sea by his father. His head lolled at a ghastly angle in his father’s arms, and his gang of friends, who had been swimming in the blowhole with him, watched on in silence, when normally they were so noisy. He could not be revived. My dad hurried me away, but the sound of his mother’s wails followed us.
Sometimes I think those wails may have followed me forever.
Jack said if he’d jumped in that blowhole he probably would have vanished like the Australian prime minister Harold Holt, who a few years prior had gone for a swim on a Victorian beach and was never seen again. There were many conspiracy theories, one of which was that he’d been a Chinese spy and was picked up by a submarine. People didn’t believe a prime minister could drown. Prime ministers can drown. Princesses can die in car crashes.
Sometimes we went out in a foursome with Ivy and her boyfriend at the time. Jack was undeniably superior in every way to Ivy’s boyfriend, so I enjoyed that. I take after my dad, but I am also my mother’s daughter. (You may have noticed.)
Jack’s dad was a ruddy man with a dodgy knee. He liked me, but Jack’s mother preferred his previous girlfriend, a trainee nurse, who was more her sort of person.
