Free-Falling (26 page)

Their night was cut short when she got a call from her sister to tell her that the said son was apparently locked up at the local police station. She left looking a lot calmer than he would have expected, considering the news she'd just received. He spent the rest of the night feeling he'd done something really
good
that day.
Bazza Campbell, saving the world, one hysterical middle-aged woman at a time.

A couple of weeks went by without him running into Belle at all. His guilt was beginning to ease and he was managing to ignore Mrs Crease's ‘helpful' prods in her direction. She seemed to think he still ought to be ‘courting' her, but Bazza was fairly sure the girl just needed some space at the moment. A week before Christmas, he was out at the mailboxes collecting a stack of Christmas cards from his letterbox when he noticed that the flap on 13C was hanging off its hinges, barely managing to cover the slot. One letter had already fallen onto the ground and was just begging to be picked up by the wind and whipped away.

It couldn't hurt to just fix it for her, could it?

The SkyChallenge warehouse closed up for six weeks over Christmas – the owner had a holiday booked to Thailand and he didn't trust any of the staff to run it without him. Bazza was slightly offended by this, but too happy about having a compulsory holiday to really mind.

He spent Christmas week with his family and was cornered by his sister the moment she saw him. ‘All right, what's the deal – did you get some girl pregnant or not?'

‘Thought you didn't want to know.'

‘I didn't. I mean I don't. I mean – just tell me, smart arse.'

‘Stop stressing out. I didn't get anyone pregnant; I was just helping out a friend for a bit. No big deal, okay?'

His sister gave him a sceptical look, but relented on her questions.

For the rest of the week, Bazza had a pack of nieces and nephews dragging him in different directions, not to mention pregnant sisters demanding help with their older children. He regularly joked that his family had a neverending pregnancy: as soon as one sister popped out a baby, another one would announce she was expecting. Then there were his parents quizzing him about his plans to change his career.

‘It's just that skydiving is such a good fit for you, darling. You love your job. You make the perfect jump master. Why would you even think of giving it up for a desk job?' He didn't know of anyone else who had a mum who would be trying to talk their kid
out
of psychology and
into
skydiving for a career.

Dinners were crazy as well. For some reason, his parents could never seem to figure out the right quantities of food for the hordes of people that descended upon their house every Christmas. One minute, they'd all be fighting over the measly amount of roast potatoes (and generally it was the pregnant ones who won out), and the next, you'd be feeling sick after a five-course dessert. It was a relief to get back home to his quiet apartment at the end of the week, although he did get that slight feeling of something lacking at dinner time each night.

New Year's Eve came and went. He and his mates had a huge night out planned in the city. But when midnight passed by with no one to kiss, the night started to seem a bit lame. By 3 am, as his mates got drunker and rowdier, and the clubs they visited got seedier, he finally managed to ditch them and head home. He was about to turn in when he realised that an apartment upstairs was still blaring their music. He thought of Belle and how she must be a fair few months into her pregnancy by now. If his sisters were
anything to go by, sleep was precious to an expectant mum. One more fairy godmother gig – for old time's sake, he told himself.

He headed upstairs and thumped on the door of the apartment from which the rumbling music could be heard. The door swung open and Bazza had to turn his face away from the plume of smoke that engulfed the bearded face that appeared.

‘S'up, dude?'

‘Look, mate, sorry to do it to you, but I gotta ask you to turn off the music. It's three am, okay?'

The guy looked back at him contemptuously. ‘It's New Year's, man. Not gonna happen.'

‘I know. And I wouldn't ask, but the chick across the hall from you is pregnant and she's the one whose fiancé died a few months back. How about cutting her some slack?'

‘Nuh.'

Nice.

‘All right, how's this? You know who's down the hall in apartment 22C, right?'

‘The cop?'

‘Yeah, the cop. You want me to get him to come down here and take a whiff of the shit you guys are smoking? Cause I'm guessing it ain't basil.'

‘Fuck you, man.' The guy turned his head into the apartment and called out to his friends, ‘Yo, kill the music.' He turned back to Bazza, adding, ‘There. Happy, dickhead?'

Bazza felt a surge of power, ‘Yeah, I am, and I want you to apologise to her too.'

The guy glared at him before yelling out at the top of lungs, ‘SORRY!' in the general direction of Belle's apartment.

‘I didn't mean now!' hissed Bazza.

‘We done?' asked the guy.

‘Uh, sure,' said Bazza, starting to feel silly about the whole thing. He looked across the hall at Belle's door, willing her to appear and discover his chivalrous act. But sensing only stillness from her apartment, he turned back to the guy to thank him. He was greeted by a door slamming in his face, barely missing smashing his nose in.

Fair enough.

On a Friday evening, a couple of weeks into the new year, Bazza was walking through the car park and noticed Belle's car sitting in its spot with the boot wide open, absolutely packed full of shopping. She was nowhere to be seen. He thought back to his sister's advice – one of the things she'd mentioned was to carry anything heavy for her.

‘I'd be rude not to help,' he reasoned with himself.

He moved quickly, loading his arms up with shopping bags, trying to pick out the heaviest ones. Then he rushed for the lift – could he make it up there before she was on her way back down again? He wasn't sure that he wanted to run into her. If she saw him carrying her shopping bags, she might jump to the conclusion that he was stealing her shopping.
Smooth.
If he could just get it upstairs for her and then be out of sight again, hopefully she would think a friendly neighbour was doing her a favour – which was exactly what was going on: a perfectly innocent good deed.

When he stepped out of the lift, he sighed with relief. He couldn't see her anywhere and her door was shut. She must have been taking her time coming back out from her first trip up. He placed the bags carefully at her front door, then sprinted back down the hall so he could grab some more for her. He came up
with the next armful of bags and thought he heard her apartment door opening, so he dumped the bags outside the lift and jabbed the button to head back down again before he got caught.

Stepping out into the car park, he started walking briskly to get the last few bags. He stopped short though when her car came into view. There was a guy standing by it, about to reach in and grab some of the bags. There was something a bit familiar about him.

Hey man, I'm the girl's only fairy godmother here,
he thought indignantly. But then there were footsteps from behind him, and he realised Belle must have come down to the car park for the rest of her shopping. He took off through the fire escape yet again – it was beginning to feel like this was his own private escape hatch.

He spent the rest of the night out at the SkyChallenge warehouse. There was a clear grassy hill that rose up next to the warehouse, and at the crest of the hill you got a fantastic view of the surrounding area: rows and rows of pine trees and, if you looked to the east on a really clear night, the city lights off in the distance. On the one hand, he loved being in the city – right in the thick of it. But on the other hand, sometimes there was nothing better than being on the outside looking in. Just chilling here on a quiet, warm summer evening, with nothing but cicadas for company and a bitchin' summer storm gathering out west.

Okay, so that guy he'd seen was probably Belle's new boyfriend. This was a relief then, right? He was off the hook. No more worrying about taking care of her. No more doing this stupid fairy godmother gig. Most likely she'd forgotten all about that night – maybe even blocked it out – and who could blame her? So what was this slightly sick feeling in his stomach all about then? What was that . . . jealousy? And was there maybe just a tiny part of him that had hoped she would catch him tonight,
giving him the opportunity to come clean about everything he'd being doing for her?

Snap out of it, dude, you barely know the girl.

He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and sent a text to pretty much every mate he could think of.

Time to stop sitting on the outside looking in.

He didn't get the chance to catch up with his favourite client again until February. They ran into each other at SkyChallenge and he sensed quite quickly that she was pretty down.