‘Why don’t we call you back once we figure this out?’ Hugh says, standing up and pulling our bags down from the overhead locker. ‘We haven’t had a chance to sort out a plan just yet.’
I stay seated a few seconds longer, silently basking in the way he’s taking charge. It’s been so long since someone has done that in my life. Shared the problems. No matter how tired I get, or how supportive someone is, I always have to be switched on. I’m the only person in the world who loves Charlie the way a parent would. The only daughter Mum has. The only breadwinner. The only one doing the endless washing and cleaning and cooking. What I wouldn’t give for someone – I don’t care who – just to step into my life and take the reins, for even a second.
‘Ready?’ Hugh says, and he stands back in the aisle to let me out.
The post-storm tropical humidity slams into us before we even reach the steps of the plane. I know we’re in the wrong place, with meetings in disarray and no way we can drive twenty hours to meet with the scientists on site in Far North Queensland, but a big part of me is atypically unfazed. It’s probably the same part of me that’s incomparably exhausted. Inside the airport, it’s chaos, with crowds pushing for answers on diverted flights and unplanned layovers, kids having meltdowns, adults raising voices at people doing their best in the latest in a long line of ‘unprecedented’ circumstances.
‘How ironic is this weather event given the purpose of our trip?’ I say, and Hugh has to lean towards me to hear me over the din.
Neither of us have checked-in baggage, and it’s pretty obvious nobody’s going anywhere in a hurry. When I look at him, he nods his head in the direction of the exit.
Minutes later we’re in the back of an Uber fleeing the scene like Bonnie and Clyde, heading for the Bangalow Bread Co. to assess our options over coffee.
‘Best jam donuts north of Sydney,’ our driver boasts.
Coming from chilly Canberra, I wind the window down and let the double-digits warmth wash over me as we rush past fertile dairy farms, Bangalow palms and thick clumps of the invasive camphor laurel. I don’t know how long this forced diversion will last and I’m determined to soak up every second of it while I can, in case we’re back on a plane, by some miracle, this afternoon.
I glance at Hugh, sunlight streaming in the car window, wind in his dark hair, lines on his face seeming to un-crease in real time. It’s easy to forget you’re not the only one with problems. Particularly when people assume a death in the family trumps everything else, as if it’s a problem competition. He looks like he needs a break from our usual life as much as I do.
‘You here for the writers festival?’ the driver asks.
My heart quickens. ‘That’s this weekend?’ I hadn’t twigged. We weren’t meant to be stopping anywhere near Byron Bay, and now it’s just minutes away.
‘Kicks off tomorrow,’ the guy answers. ‘You a writer?’
Now my heart really starts hammering. Why is this question always so hard? Once you tell someone you’re writing a novel – feeling like a total fraud when you say it – they want to know what it’s about. They expect you to be the expert on a plot that feels so wholly out of your own control, it’s alarming.
‘We fundraise for a university,’ I say instead, and there’s a quiet sense of regret. If I don’t believe in my own dream, how can I expect a publisher and future readers to buy into the fantasy?
Hugh looks disappointed in me. Or maybe for me. He knows I write. I used to do it every lunchtime there for a while. I ran it past him, of course. Not the novel itself. Shudder. The man did not need to suffer through my fledgling attempt at being the next Margaret Atwood. Particularly not since Cam had told me I ‘hadn’t yet found my place’. Grace, on the other hand, laboured through various drafts. She was abundantly encouraging, even though she’s more of a Marian Keyes fan herself.
‘Other writers have beta readers,’ I told her once. ‘You’re my alpha.’ Everyone needs someone glowing, who’ll rein in all constructive feedback until your fragile ego has fought its way through at least one full draft.
‘When will you own it?’ Hugh says unexpectedly. ‘The writing?’
This question is beyond his remit. It’s hard to admit just how long I’ve been tussling with this manuscript. How hard I’ve been fighting it, while words trip me up as they fall into the enormous gap between how I imagine it could be, if it was any good, and how it really is.
‘If you don’t tell people about it, the writing dream stays untested,’ my grief counsellor once told me. ‘It stays intact.’ She went on to pronounce my relationship with words and literary rejection as ‘toxic’. ‘It’s gaslighting you,’ she told me bluntly. ‘All this “What’s wrong with me? Am I really this bad?” It’s not healthy.’
‘Anyway, we won’t be here at the weekend,’ I explain to the cab driver, ignoring Hugh’s question. ‘We’re not meant to be here at all. We’ll sort out flights back—’
The cabbie chuckles. ‘Not in a hurry you won’t. The whole east coast from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast is in chaos. Hundreds of hail-damaged planes. Thousands of stranded travellers. Make a weekend of it. Romantic little Airbnb in the hinterland. Go chase your dream at the festival.’
‘We’re not together,’ Hugh interrupts, as if it’s vitally important to clarify the situation with a guy we’ll never see again in all our lives. Even Hugh seems surprised by the intensity of his own protest and glances at me almost apologetically.
‘Heartbreaker!’ I whisper jokingly. At least I hope he knows I’m joking. Now it’s me surprised by how much it matters to me that he doesn’t get the wrong idea.
What my heart is really breaking over is the way a child-free weekend in this paradise is being dangled in front of my eyes, and I cannot think how to realistically make it happen. Logistics like this are my nemesis. Mum can’t handle Charlie for more than a night or two, and I’ve never been away from him longer than that. I don’t want to ask Grace – it would take a whole weekend out of her mission to find Mr Right Enough and get pregnant before Christmas.
‘What do you want to do?’ Hugh asks. ‘I think we’ve got a few options.’
We do? I angle my body to face his in the back seat so he can walk me through them, because from where I’m sitting, it’s all too hard.
‘We’re going to have to reschedule the meetings, either way. So cut that out of the picture.’
Right. That’s a relief.
‘Realistically, we probably can’t fly anywhere today, so cut that option.’ He rushes on, because he can probably see the anxiety rising within me about Charlie. ‘If you really need to get home for Charlie, we could hire a car. It’s a twelve-hour drive though, and you haven’t slept.’
It feels like we’re rapidly running out of feasible choices.
‘You need a break, Kate,’ he says. ‘You’re fragile.’