Passengers in rows 31 to 45 were told to exit by the rear doors. In 38E, Clare stood, her neck curled uncomfortably, as everyone retrieved their luggage from the overhead compartments and waited to file down the aisle. Katerina, her neighbour, who’d watched The Nut Job then Boyhood, and seemed to manage sleep with infuriating aplomb, smiled and wished her well. After almost thirty hours, it was evening all over again. The thrill of lifting off from Heathrow, the cleansing sensation of distance, had given way to tedium and claustrophobia somewhere in the Middle East. Now she felt dull, anxious, thirsty. She gathered her passport, the paperback her eyes had only dusted over, the empty tinfoil row of Restavit, and nodded to the flight attendant on her way out.
Inside the jet bridge, hundreds of people moved like cattle in a run. They filed through arrivals, past the final flash of duty free. At passport control, no one was there to welcome those coming home. Clare placed her photo on a pane of glass, faced a screen, and a gate flung open.
There was her mother in the swarm, flapping her arms. Oh, how she’d missed her mother! Barb weaved her way along the barrier rope, walking with those quicksteps of hers that pattered over the ground without really touching it. Petite and bird-like, with sprigs of black curls that fell around her eyes like a nest upturned. Her blue eyes were small and alert, as always. But as Clare hugged her, she felt smaller in her arms, and fragile, as if squeezing too hard might break her. Barb sniffed and looked away, and Clare wondered if she might be tearful. She’d never seen her mother cry.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, darling. Is that all you brought?’
‘You know me.’ Clare smiled, standing her carry-on upright.
‘At least it’s not that yellow rucksack any more. Right to go?’
Clare nodded; they turned into the crowd and headed for the exit. Outside, the cold air met her abruptly. Australia was always warm in her mind, but this was the last day of September, the first month of spring, and Melbourne was colder than London. She followed her mother along the elevated bridge to the carpark. Glimpsing those departing below—climbing out of taxis, hauling suitcases, marching to the entrance—she remembered that giddy expectation of somewhere else. Just past six o’clock, and darkness loomed. The chill seeped into her bones. Still, she was here. This was home.
The chill seeped into her bones. Still, she was here. This was home.
‘There it is,’ she said, pointing.
A boxy Subaru, eggplant in colour: a kind not made any more, which her father refused to sell. For two all too brief years it’d been hers: her very own portal to adventure, when driving away had seemed like distance enough. The Cathedral Ranges, Croajingolong, Apollo Bay, endless stretches of sun‑scorched road and yellow grass. She could almost feel sunburn radiating under her clothes, the sensation of freedom. Now the old car sat in a shadowy patch of Zone D, hidden behind an SUV.
‘That wasn’t there when I parked.’
‘I can’t believe you’re still driving this thing.’
Clare popped open the boot, which was empty except for the possum cage and cut apples her mother kept there. Barb had been a volunteer for Wildlife Victoria for over twenty years, rescuing stranded possums from roof cavities or treetops, and transporting them to shelters. A call could come at any time.
‘Now,’ she said, fussing around in her handbag for the ticket, ‘do you want to drop your stuff at home or go straight to see your father?’
‘Dad.’
Barb seemed relieved by that answer. Clare opened the passenger door and slid into her seat. The familiar smell of sunscreen, Mentos and Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew. Barb started the car and shifted into reverse; the gearstick was so worn from use, the R at the top left had rubbed off completely.
‘It’s hard to believe,’ she said. ‘One day and here you are.’
Clare leaned back, listening for the creak of the worn leather beneath her. ‘Here I am.’
There must have been a downpour that had since cleared: the car made a hissing sound over the slicked road. Other cars buzzed behind, their lights reflected too brightly in the side mirror. Billboards glowed from each overpass. Factory outlets, car yards, Sexyland abutted the freeway. Ugly, bleak, but still, Clare was struck by the length of the horizon. There was so much space in Australia.
‘Did you take the tube to Heathrow?’
‘No, Miriam dropped me off.’
‘Oh … that’s nice,’ came her mother’s reply. Barb’s discomfort over Clare’s sexuality was so familiar she barely registered the hurt any more.
‘Food okay?’
‘It’s not so bad these days.’
‘Watch any good movies?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You can’t remember any of them?’
‘I wasn’t really paying attention. They all blurred into one not very good one.’
Her mother loved movies, especially British ones with county accents and tremors of mystery. She loved to go to them, and she loved to talk about them. Perhaps she loved to lose herself entirely in someone else’s story and, for a couple of hours, forget her own.
Perhaps she loved to lose herself entirely in someone else’s story and, for a couple of hours, forget her own.
‘I adored that one with what’s-his-name.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh, you’d know him. He was in Spooks.’
‘Matthew Macfadyen?’
‘I know who Matthew Macfadyen is!’
‘He’s the only one I know from Spooks,’ said Clare, distracted.
They were passing the city: more skyscrapers than last time. To the right was the bay: ships docked at the port, containers piled high like toy blocks, cranes in the sky. It wasn’t London but it wasn’t a small town, not in the slightest.
‘Maybe it was State of Play.’
‘David Morrissey?’
‘That’s him. Isn’t he divine?’
‘He wasn’t in anything I saw,’ said Clare, and then felt guilty for being short with her. She remembered all the things her mother had on her mind.
‘Do you know the name of it?’
But Barb didn’t answer. She’d already drifted away.
Clare’s phone vibrated in her pocket. The messages she’d received while airborne were filtering through. Glancing at the notifications: a text message from Miriam.
Landed safe and sound? Xx
This is an edited extract from Together We Fall Apart by Sophie Matthiesson (Pantera Press), available now at your local independent bookseller.
