Chapter 2 – Safe Home – Day 31
Susan woke up with jolt, feeling she had been wrenched back into consciousness. Her head had slumped into an uncomfortable position and her neck ached. The large woman squashed into the seat next to her seemed to have given her a nudge to stop Susan falling onto her; not exactly friendly. But then she had barely spoken to this lady in the last fourteen hours, during which time they had sat side by side on the aeroplane.
Since Susan had come back onto the plane in Singapore, their one stopover after Darwin, it was like she had retreated into a cocoon. She had done little more than sleep the hours away, with occasional brief interludes for loo breaks and food, before retreating back to a respite of slumber.
She felt totally disorientated. Here she was, on a plane approaching London, and a month of her life had vanished into nothingness. Gradually her mind pulled her back to fragments of those last awful days; a memory of a smiling man’s almost handsome face, but devoid of normal emotion, memories of crocodiles, blood and torn body parts, memories of a large white four wheel drive with a built in cooler on the back. She suppressed them with a shudder.
She looked around. It could not be far now; people were waking up and making preparations for a scheduled 6 am touch down at Heathrow. Some had raised their slide windows; and early morning grey daylight squeezed in through the gaps.
Breakfast was now being served. She felt ravenous. A few minutes later, when the croissant and scrambled egg breakfast was served, she ate with relish.
There was urgency as stewards quickly removed breakfast trays.
Now the plane was in final descent. She raised her own plastic slide. It was mostly grey outside. They were flying under a blanket of cloud, but with lighter sky to her left and behind her; she supposed this was southeast England, somewhere over Kent. They were scooting over farmlands, roads and villages, lush green in the grey light. Further away were glimpses of busy roads and large towns. The grey matched an unquiet anxiety within her. Was it really over and was she was safe home? Or would police be waiting for her at the arrival gate?
Suddenly a shaft of sunlight pierced through. It lit up the countryside with glowing gold light. Her mood soared with the light. It was as if a connection with the horror was broken by light. She could feel herself smiling all over. She could not suppress the joy she felt. She was alive, and her life would be good again.
How great it would be to see her family and friends again. None of them need ever know. She had made a visit to Australia, travelled around, seen interesting and beautiful places; that was her story. If asked whether she would like to go back, or where to next, she would say, It is good to have done the trip, but the travel bug is gone. Now I am happy back home.
Her fellow traveller alongside her must have caught something of her musing smile. Susan looked at her and the lady smiled. Susan smiled back; joy is an infectious thing.
The lady, Annabel—she now remembered that was her name—seemed friendly. Susan knew that it was she, herself, not this lady, whose demeanour had changed. She let herself be drawn into a conversation about trips and travel. She explained that she had been exhausted from her trip, but now she felt much better, after that long, long sleep.
Soon they were making a final approach. There was a slight jolt and body push as the airliner braked on the black tarmac.
She felt amazingly refreshed and confident. It was like a bad dream had ended with the morning sunshine—those anxieties belonged to another time and place.
She gathered her minimal possessions—an overnight bag, book, cardigan, purse—and followed the slow procession of departing passengers down the aisle and out to the concourse. She wondered who would be here to meet her, Mum and Dad of course, perhaps Tim, her gawky brother, maybe Gran Elizabeth.
Suddenly there they all were; all her family members as expected. She rushed into an overwhelming group hug.
“How brown you are!”
“How’s my girl?”
“Hi Sis, no new Aussie boyfriends in tow?”
“You look at bit drawn around the eyes dear, must be all the bright sun and late nights.”
A bit of surprise arose with no big bags of luggage. But she had this story worked out.
“It went missing on the last leg of my trip. I only noticed getting off the bus, arriving in Darwin. Didn’t have time to try and find it before my plane left. I’ll make some calls as soon as I get the chance!”
They drove home, to Reading, through the increasingly lumpy early morning traffic.
Her room was just as she had left it—was it really only four weeks ago?
Her Dad had bacon and eggs sizzling away, they sat around over coffee and chatted. She told stories of her first two weeks—the reef, Sydney, Melbourne, but not much about the trip through the outback. It did not matter, plenty to tell before then.
Then it was time for Tim to head off to Uni. Mum and Dad both needed to get to their work, just a bit late. Dad said he would drop off Gran to her own house on the way, as Susan would want to sleep off her jetlag.
As she watched the last car turn out of the drive onto the suburban road, Susan felt her forced gaiety draining away. She went to her room, sat on her bed and picked up her favourite childhood teddy; so soft, so same, so stable.
Her body shook as a creeping horror and numbness washed over her. Then came tears streaming silently down her face. Soon her whole body was convulsing in wracking sobs. She hugged her teddy and sat there. After ten minutes the emotion subsided.
She went to the bathroom and ran a hot shower, shampooed her hair and washed herself all over, then did it a second time for good measure. She dried her hair standing in a bathrobe, made up her face and found her sassiest outfit: tight jeans and a sparkling top.
She opened the overnight bag that had accompanied her back from Australia. She removed a book, wrapped in a hankie, and a heavy small cloth pouch which clinked. She placed these under her jumpers in the bottom drawer of her dresser.
Susan looked at her underwater camera, the only item she still cared about that remained in the bag. It held a handful of photos on the memory card from her trip, as well as others from other trips and dives. She felt that she should throw it out, but then this camera held a big chunk of her past life and she loved it. So she decided to keep the camera but ditch the memory card. She took the memory card out and put the camera back in its normal place in her drawers. She slipped the memory card into her purse; she must copy any photos she wanted before she threw it away.
Then she found a large empty rubbish bag. Susan placed the overnight bag, with all its contents, inside and tied the top shut. She went to the garage, where her Ford Fiesta was parked, and put this rubbish bag in the boot. Tomorrow, it would go into an industrial bin at her work, the place where the lab samples went for incineration. This would bring an end to those last fragments linking her to that last month of her life on the other side of the world.
She was OK; today was a glorious English summer day and she was going out into it. She would enjoy the first day of the rest of her life. The other was a past and finished visit to another place.
She had closed that book. Now she would put it away, behind all the other stories of her life, at the back of the very highest shelf, unseen and forgotten. She intended to leave it there, never to be taken out or opened again.