Lisa Heidke by Lucy (mobi) (book club reads TXT) 📗

I ring the number listed on the embassy printout to book the three of us on one of the additional Qantas flights to Australia. Engaged. No doubt clogged with desperate travellers frantic to leave Bali and return to the familiarity of home where they can put this tragedy behind them.

I try the number again and finally get through to an operator. I book this evening’s midnight flight home for me and the kids, then ring Max. He doesn’t answer so I leave a message.

I walk back down to the pool. Water gushes from sandstone gargoyle fountains. The palm trees sway and the scent of frangipani lingers in the air. People sit on beach towels, reading magazines and shielding themselves from the heat of the sun. I can just see the waves on the beach as they crash onto the sand. But for me, this paradise is lost.

Sam waves me over. He’s joined up with a couple of boys his age and they’re swimming backstroke across the pool, much to the annoyance of the Japanese honeymooners canoodling in front of them.

Nearby, a camera crew is setting up and looking for people to interview, preferably those with first-hand reports of the explosions. All their dreams would come true if they could actually interview the relative of someone seriously maimed or, better still, dead.

Gloria would be in her element here.

As people notice the cameras, the holiday mood shifts. Just near me, a couple whisper to each other, then gather their belongings and leave. A dozen more people quickly do the same.

‘Mum! Mum, are you okay?’ Bella asks. Her hair has thirty-eight tiny plaits, she tells me.

‘Come for a swim,’ Sam calls again.

The sun is scorching. To satisfy Bella and Sam, I jump in the pool and we all hug each other. I’m thankful that we’re all okay.

To take my mind off Max, I settle down with my book, keeping an eye on the kids in the pool. It’s a novel about adultery, which should upset me, but I can’t help smiling because the wife stabs the adulterous husband, who, as a result, becomes impotent and the mistress drops him. I don’t think it’s meant to be a comedy.

I notice a man, probably in his early forties, swimming with two teenage girls, both blonde. One has her hair braided and is wearing a red polka-dot bikini. The other wears a one-piece with dark green and brown Pucci swirls. They’re laughing, hugging him and smiling. A woman joins them. I assume she’s their mother. She sits by the side of the pool, careful not to get her straight, blonde, blow-dried hair wet. She’s wearing a red hibiscus tucked behind her ear. The dad and the red polka-dot girl swim into the centre of the pool leaving Mum and the Pucci teen alone. I hear the girl call the older woman by her first name, Pat. So she’s not the mother! The plot thickens. But she’s wearing a wedding ring, and when the dad swims back she chats animatedly to him.

Then it clicks. Pat is the second wife. I close my eyes, imagining Alana as Max’s second wife.

‘Mum, Mum. Save me!’ It’s the girl with the polka dots calling out to another blonde woman who’s just arrived. The woman shakes her head and laughs as she takes off her sarong to reveal a plain black one-piece. She removes her black bug-eyed glasses, dives in and swims to the man. They hug and kiss. The girls swarm around them both.

I find out later that the other woman is the father’s sister. A good omen for us, I can’t help thinking.

By two o’clock, Max still hasn’t shown and the kids are ‘starving, Mum’. So we head outside the hotel grounds to eat at one of the many food bars nearby. It’s the first time since the bombings that the children have left the resort.

It’s quiet. The sun is burning and the breeze is nonexistent. I closely eyeball passers-by, daring them to mess with me or my children. Quite harsh really, because the only people around are the Balinese with their welcoming smiles and sore hearts. I am the only foreigner walking the streets with children.

The markets and shops are open, and the restaurants and bars still blast upbeat music from tiny, tinny sound systems, but there aren’t any customers, just an air of unease and unrest.

Every couple of metres, a local tries to sell me an Australian newspaper. I shake my head and turn away. I don’t want to read what the papers have to say. But Bella does. She’s mesmerised by headlines shrieking: AUSTRALIANS KILED, DOZENS INJURED IN BALI BLASTS.

Over satay chicken and nasi goreng, I broach the subject of going home.

‘Mum, we can’t leave. We’re on holiday,’ Bella says.

‘I don’t want to go home,’ Sam adds.

I’m torn between wanting to return my children to the quiet safety of their everyday lives and staying so Bella and Sam can continue the holiday they’re enjoying so much.

‘You promised we’d stay a whole week,’ Bella says.

‘That was before -’

‘I know it was before, but everything’s fine now. It’s over, isn’t it?’

I smile at her and continue eating. Every time I see a person in a puffy parka, long dark trousers and a black helmet, I have a mini panic attack. The children are oblivious.

As we walk back to the hotel, several Balinese stop us. One woman hawking silver jewellery tells me, ‘Bali finished’. Another woman rests her hand on my shoulder and apologises for what’s happened. ‘Please be telling your friends, Bali safe. Bali good place,’ she begs.

Bella looks at me. ‘We can’t leave, Mum. Not now.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ says Gloria, when I phone her for advice. I don’t mention spending the night with Max, or that he’s breaking up with Alana. ‘You’re over there now - nothing more will happen. Besides, it’s freezing here. Stay. Have fun.’

‘You’re up to something,’ I say.

‘No, Paranoid Pam. It’s just that your house and life are a mess back here - you