Free-Falling (23 page)

‘We'll talk down there!' she called out, pointing towards the ground to illustrate.

Bazza nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. She looked over at the second instructor who stayed aboard the plane once she and Bazza jumped; he gave her the signal. They were in the right spot – it was time to jump.

Right, let's do this thing . . .

. . . this crazy, insane, life-endangering ‘fun' thing.

Evelyn steadied herself, concentrated on her breathing like
Bazza had taught her, squeezed her eyes tightly shut,
not at all
like Bazza had taught her, and then pressed her feet down hard, bent her knees and sprang from the plane. A flurry of colour to her right told her that Bazza had jumped as well. There was the instant feeling of dread – it was the same every time, that ‘Oh God, oh God, what have I just done?' moment when she realised she was free-falling through the air and she'd left behind that satisfyingly solid hunk of metal with its whirring engines and its capable pilot and its comfortable seats with their nice, safe, firm seatbelts.

But then that moment passed and Evelyn remembered why it was that she kept doing this. That feeling of absolute freedom exploded from within and a gleeful smile was pasted across her face – despite the fact that her cheeks were rather unattractively flapping in the wind and her skin was being stretched back as though she'd just had an intense dose of Botox.

What is it about this that makes me feel so damn good?
she wondered as she continued to plummet towards the earth. It wasn't the view. Sure, that was nice – the patchwork of fields spread out below her with the beautiful soft contours of the mountains in the distance – but that didn't really seem to interest her. Against her better judgement, she shut her eyes again and let herself simply focus on the sensation of the fall: the wind against her face, the pure freedom of having absolutely nothing holding her back.

She let her mind begin to drift. She thought about her conversation with Violet that morning. She thought about how much she'd been fighting with James over the last couple of months. She thought of her boss, who was now beginning to demand that she return to work. And then she thought of getting rid of all that conflict in her life.

Why
not
just let it go?

I should phone Belinda.

I should apologise to James.

I should quit my job.

And finally, she let herself think about that day in the Ezymart store. She started to see things differently. She saw the expression on her son's face when he took that final breath and realised she had been wrong to think it was a look of fear or terror. His face hadn't been small and sad and pathetic. It had been strong, brave and full of pride. And it had the appearance of someone who was ready. Ready for what came next. It was the face of someone who had accepted their fate and was saying goodbye.

See you later, Mum.

And there was something else. Something he was holding, clutched so tightly in his hand. Something important that she really did need, finally, to take notice of.

What was that?

Evelyn felt a hard thud against her shoulder, her eyes snapped open and what she saw made her heart skip a beat, her stomach lurch and her throat tighten. The ground was rushing towards her and Bazza was right next to her, scrabbling frantically with her chute. She was filled with horror as she realised her stupid mistake. All that time spent with her eyes shut, lost in her thoughts, she had forgotten to count.
Again
.

Christ, I've bloody well gone and killed myself.

See you later, Mum.

But then she felt herself being jerked abruptly upwards. Bazza had opened her chute for her, yanking his own cord just moments later. It was extremely late, though. Normally there were several minutes of gentle floating after the chute was deployed, giving you plenty of opportunity to prepare for your landing. But today,
the chute had barely been pulled in time and she braced herself for the impact as she rapidly descended to earth.

The landing was rough and messy. She somersaulted along the ground, sky and grass all melding in together as she rolled. When she had eventually stopped tumbling, her final position was flat on her back with one leg folded rather uncomfortably underneath her. She lay in shock, taking in deep breaths. Then she began patting her arms and legs, checking for broken bones.

Amazing
: although her ankle seemed to be ballooning out before her very eyes, she couldn't find a single broken bone. Not only that, she was
alive
! How in the hell had she survived that?
I'll tell you how
, she thought crossly to herself.
Bazza is how you survived that. That boy is your saviour
.

‘Lord, if something's happened to him I'll never forgive myself,' she muttered, rolling over and lifting her head to look for him. She heard him before she saw him, ‘Ev! Ev, are you okay?' he yelled as he ran towards her.

Thank Christ he's all right.

She gave him a wave to signal she was alive, and then collapsed back down on the grass. He had landed quite a distance away: it would take him a few moments to get to her.

‘What the hell were you thinking?' she scolded herself as she waited. She stared up into the clear, blue sky and tried to figure out where she'd gone wrong. As she gazed upwards, a memory popped into her head. It was a memory of Andrew's voice – not his deep, adult voice – but his squeaky, pre-pubescent voice, the one he'd had at about thirteen. He was groaning crossly as he spoke to her. ‘I
said,
“See you later, Mum,” not “See you soon!”'
What was that? When was that from?

The memory's smells reached her first: popcorn, Coca-Cola, Maltesers. That's right! It was the movies. It was Andrew and
James's first trip to the movies with their friends without an adult there to chaperone. Well, it was supposed to be – but Evelyn couldn't help herself. She had been intending to give them half an hour after the movie to play a few games in the Timezone next door, but she was too anxious. So she had been standing out in the foyer, ready to meet them the moment they came filtering out of the cinema.

James had just ignored her, carefully avoiding eye contact as he followed his friends into Timezone. But Andrew had stopped to grin up at her, the look on his face saying he should have known better but, deep down, he really didn't mind that much. The exasperated voice was more of a put-on for his friends.
I said see you later, Mum, not see you soon.

Evelyn started to cry, just as Bazza reached her. ‘What is it?' he asked frantically. ‘What have you hurt? Is there something broken?'

‘It was a pregnancy test,' she replied through her tears.

‘What?' he asked, clearly thrown.

‘That's what he was holding when he died. It was a pregnancy test. He must have thought he was about to become a dad.'

‘Shit, she's lost it,' Bazza said as he reached into his vest for his mobile phone.

Back at the SkyChallenge warehouse, after all the incident report forms had been filled in and they had both been checked over, Evelyn sat with an icepack on her ankle and got the full rundown from Bazza on what exactly had happened. Apparently, as soon as he'd realised she wasn't going to the pull the chute on time, he'd spent several seconds trying to signal to her to let her know she'd
lost track of her counting. Then he'd realised that her eyes were shut. She'd looked as though she was in some sort of a trance, he said. Evelyn sat listening to the story, feeling absolutely humiliated that she'd made such a huge mistake, and yet exhilarated that the whole experience had led her to some sort of mental breakthrough.

The rest of the staff wanted to quiz the two of them on the incident, but Bazza was adamant that Evelyn be left alone. He seemed very protective of her, probably worried that they might make her feel more embarrassed, or perhaps guilty for endangering their mate's life. Eventually, Evelyn felt the shock start to wear off and her nerves start to calm down a little. She checked her watch and realised she was already running late if she wanted to make herself look presentable for tonight and be ready for Violet to pick her up at 7.45.

‘Listen, Bazza, I'm so sorry to rush off, but I've got something quite important on tonight.' She felt guilty to leave him so soon after he had saved her life, but she got the sense he was still hyped up on adrenalin from their near-death experience anyway. He was probably keen to head out to a nightclub with his mates.

‘Sure, no worries,' he responded with a wave of his hand.

‘Hey, Bazza,' she said, pausing at the door, ‘you truly are a hero.' Then, without waiting for a response, she began to hobble out to her car, trying to ignore the pain in her ankle.

She climbed into the car, feeling relieved that she drove an auto and that it was her left ankle that she'd hurt. Her mind turned to tonight and to the phone call she planned to make as soon as she got home. Bazza was pushed to the back of her mind and she completely forgot about the important conversation he had wanted to have with her before they had jumped from the plane and everything had changed.

In between showering, dressing, blowdrying her hair and applying make-up (all with great difficulty as she hopped about the house on one foot) she kept trying to make the phone call but kept getting voicemail. Violet turned up in a taxi to collect her and was furious when she saw Evelyn's injury.

‘I told you it was a stupid hobby! I don't know what you were ever thinking doing such a crazy sport!'

‘You don't even know the half of it,' Evelyn replied loftily, then shushed her sister as she climbed into the cab. She proceeded to take out her mobile to keep trying to make the phone call.

They arrived at the awards night just on time and began dutifully wandering around the room, looking at the huge screens displaying GameTech's latest products. However, they both found they had a bit of trouble knowing quite how to react. Gazing at violent video games wasn't quite the same as admiring art in a gallery. They weren't sure whether it was wrong to look so repulsed by what they saw, or if this was the desired reaction.

Evelyn kept trying her phone until Violet snapped crossly at her, ‘What is so important that you need to make a call
right
now?'

Evelyn sighed as she reached voicemail again and hung up. ‘I'm trying to get hold of Belinda. I had what I guess you could call a bit of an epiphany this afternoon and I realised I do need to let go of this
thing
I've got against her. Plus there's something rather important I have to ask her. Actually, I half expected to see her here tonight. I'm wondering whether or not she did get an invite herself.'

‘This is
quite
the turnaround. Must have been one hell of an “epiphany” you had.' Violet gave her a somewhat dubious look.

‘Trust me, it was. But all I keep getting is her voicemail or the phone ringing out on her home line.'

‘Look, Ev, why don't you stop trying to phone her and see if you can relax and enjoy the night? Surely whatever you need to ask her can wait until tomorrow? Anyway, isn't that Andy's friend Michael Coombes over there? Let's go over and find out which of these extraordinarily gruesome games your very talented son had a hand in.'

Evelyn gave in and accepted the glass of champagne her sister handed to her as they headed over to Michael. An hour or so, and many more champagnes later, she was feeling much more relaxed, her ankle was barely hurting, and it was time for the special tribute.

Andy's boss spoke first. It seemed as though he wasn't much of a public speaker. As he stepped nervously in front of the microphone, his voice was shaking. ‘Um, hello? If I could have your attention, please, everybody – a little bit of shush, thanks – great, thank you. Right, it's time we took a moment to acknowledge a person who can't be here with us tonight. This person is Andy McGavin, and he was a very big part of GameTech. In particular, he was a major player on the “Snowboard Slasher” project, but he was also an all-round great guy. So his good mate and colleague Michael Coombes would like to tell you all a bit more about him.'

He stepped away, looking relieved, and Michael took his place, adjusted the mic for his height, and began to speak much more confidently. ‘Anyone who knew Andy McGavin knew he was a great guy. Friendly, bloody hard-working, classic sense of humour, and just a fricken awesome guy. By far one of my best mates. Losing him in September last year was a dark time for me and the rest of our mates. But that said, I knew Andy well, and I know he'd be wanting us to celebrate the good times. So I'd like everyone to raise your glasses to Andy, a legend.' Michael lifted his beer high into the air.

‘To Andy, a legend,' chorused back the crowd, obediently raising their own drinks.