Chapter 43

“How is your back, beta? Are you still taking the painkillers? Your father and I just watched an excellent documentary about the opioid crisis. It was interesting, but also terrifying.”

Allegra’s mother is softly spoken, but her authority is so unassailable, Allegra finds she has to actively keep a grip on the grown-up version of herself even just talking with her on the phone.

She looks around the bedroom of the North Sydney apartment in which she once again finds herself, the one that she had promised she would never return to again, and yet here she is, not yet at the self-loathing stage, still at the to-hell-with-it stage.

All it took was some concerted texting on his part. He appears at the bedroom door holding up a bottle of wine, pointing at the label, eyebrows raised. For a moment he is illuminated only by the city lights from his window: stubbled, sculpted, gorgeous. It’s always a relief and a surprise to note he doesn’t have the rock-hard abs you’d think would go with his personality. He says he likes his food too much to ever get a six-pack.

He promised on his life not to make a sound while she takes this call from her mother. These days, if Allegra ignores a call from her mother for too long the next thing she might hear is rescue helicopters. She nods yes to the wine and he disappears.

“Remind me of the name of your medication, Allegra, I thought I’d written it down, but I can’t find it. I want to ask your brother what he thinks.”

“Who cares what Taj thinks?” says Allegra instinctively. There you go. Two minutes into the call and she’s already behaving like she’s twelve.

It’s been over a month since Allegra’s twenty-eighth birthday: a day forever marked by the worst flight of her career to date. She had to miss her birthday dinner at her parents’ place and go straight home to her apartment and to bed, and then the next morning she woke up and couldn’t move. Her back felt like it had calcified. She had to crawl on hands and knees to the bathroom, whimpering dramatically, all the while thinking vengeful thoughts about the caftan-wearing passenger with the carry-on bag filled with shoes.

Allegra rang her mother, who came and helped her back to bed, then called one of Allegra’s cousins, an orthopedic surgeon, who probably had better things to do, possibly even surgery to perform, but came straight over and prescribed the painkillers. It was while Allegra floated on a sea of blissful pain relief that she told her mother and cousin all about how a passenger had predicted her death by “self-harm” in the next twelve months.

Her mother took a rational, sympathetic approach. Of course that would be an upsetting thing to hear! But Allegra should not dwell on the words of elderly ladies.

It seems, however, that her mother has been dwelling. She’s always been interested in Allegra’s diet, sleep patterns, and menstrual cycle, but now she has an aggravating new interest in Allegra’s state of mind. How do you feel in yourself? How are your stress levels? Are you calm today? Are you worried about anything? All different ways to ask the same question: Is the family curse coming for you?

Because it was horribly apt that the lady had predicted the particular cause of death she did.

A coincidence, of course, although could the lady have guessed? Seen it? Felt it? Was it just that Allegra was having a terrible day at work so she looked kind of glum?

It’s not a secret that there is a history of depression on both sides of Allegra’s family. There is no shame. Absolutely not. Theirs is a progressive modern Indian family and her parents understand the importance of being open about mental health issues. Yes, of course they can answer any questions, although there’s little to say and there are more interesting things to talk about.

Her mother suffered postnatal depression after both Taj and Allegra were born. It was a challenging time, she got help, she got better, what do you mean why won’t I talk about it, Allegra? I just did talk about it.

Her father has been on antidepressants since he was thirty. His brain chemistry got “out of balance,” that is all, it’s under control now, nothing to worry about, is that all you need to know, because I am quite busy, yes, I am busy, I’m not just sitting here, I’m about to run on the treadmill, would you like to watch me? (Allegra’s father recently acquired a treadmill and is eager for an audience every time he uses it.)

And then there is Allegra’s grandmother, her father’s mother, who “accidentally” took too many headache tablets when she was fifty-six and not herself.

It was an aunt who informed Allegra and Taj that their grandmother had not made a mistake. She chose to end her life and therefore she would not go to heaven or hell, her spirit was stuck in a kind of in-between place, waiting for the day she was meant to have died.

“But is the in-between place nice?” asked Allegra.

“No,” said Allegra’s aunt emphatically. “It is not.”

For months, possibly years, Allegra had nightmares about her grandmother being in a claustrophobic waiting room the size of an old elevator, containing only one chair upon which her grandmother sat, her handbag on her lap, looking straight ahead, as the mustard-yellow walls drew closer and closer, and then it was no longer her grandmother, it was Allegra in the waiting room, and the mustard-yellow walls were coming at her from all sides, her nose pressed flat, her bones crushed to dust, and just before she died, she would wake, gasping for air.

Their parents never forgave that aunt for Allegra’s nightmares. She had never had one before!

Taj took a logical approach. He asked the aunt if they could work out when their grandmother should have died, so they would know how long their grandmother would be stuck, because their grandmother hated waiting. The aunt scoffed that no respectable astrologer would reveal your expected span of life on earth. Taj pondered and then said, “Wait.”

He said if their grandmother’s birth chart predicted she would die at another time, it would be wrong, because that’s not what happened. Therefore, logically, the chart meant nothing. “Don’t be disrespectful, Taj,” said the aunt.

Taj went further. He said he didn’t believe in heaven or hell or an “in-between place.” He slept peacefully and dreamlessly and became entirely secular from that moment on.

Allegra is not religious, but she is happy to go with the flow. She still goes to temple now and then. Why not? It does no harm and it makes her parents happy.

Her grandmother would only be in her seventies now if she were still alive. The ordained date of her death might still be years ahead. She might still be waiting for release from the mustard-colored walls.

Now Allegra says, “I already told you, Mum, my back is good now.I’m back at work. I’ve stopped taking the tablets. No need to discuss my health with Taj.”

“He’s a medical professional, and he’s your brother, Allegra, it’s not like I’m discussing it with a stranger on the street.”

Rationally, Allegra knows her brother must have some expertise. He has a degree, an office, patients. But he’s still just Taj. What would he know?

Her irritation makes her reckless. “I shouldn’t have told you what that passenger said. I will never ‘self-harm.’ I do not have depression, Mum, and I’m not getting it.”

Her mother’s tone is frosty. “Depression is not actually something you choose to suffer, Allegra, any more than you choose to catch a cold.”

Now Allegra feels bad. “Yes, I know, you’re right, I’m just saying—”

“I’m not concerned about what the passenger said.” Her mother’s voice is louder. She probably regrets saying what she said too, because isn’t she therefore implying that depression floats invisibly in the air like cold germs ready to infect Allegra with her genetic susceptibility? Allegra knows her poor mother is walking a delicate line: Don’t worry about this, but don’t be cavalier about this.

“I’m not even thinking about it. I called to make sure you knewwhen Diwali is this year, so you’re not working, because your cousins—”

“I know, Mum, I’ve got it in my calendar. I promise I won’t be working.”

A glass of wine is handed to her by the man about whom Allegra’s mother knows nothing. Her mother is not old-fashioned about premarital sex, but she would not like the idea of sex for the sake of sex. Sex is meant to be an expression of love. If you know for sure you have no future with this man, Allegra, if you’re not sure you even like him, why waste your time sleeping with him?

He carefully positions himself next to her on the bed, his back up against the headboard. He has smooth tanned calves. He shaves his legs because it “improves his aerodynamics” when he cycles. A surfboard is propped up in the corner of his bedroom. A dumbbell sits on a pile of military-themed books on his bedside table, along with a nasal spray. They could not be less compatible.

“You sound distracted,” says her mother. “Are you in the middle of watching something? Your brother hates it when I call when he’s in the middle of watching something, which, apparently, I always do.”

“I’m just tired,” says Allegra.

“You work too hard. Have you—”

“Eaten? Yes, I have.” She preempts the next question. “I had the brown chicken you gave me the other night.” She’ll have it tomorrow night. “It was good.”

“I will make more for you, meri jaan, sleep well.”

Meri jaan. Her mother reserves this term of endearment for times of genuine illness or heartbreak. The translation is “my life.” The love in her mother’s voice makes Allegra feel terrible for snapping. She will visit tomorrow.

“Bye, Mum,” she says, in a tone of voice that means I’m sorry.

She puts the phone face down on the bed next to her.

“Thank you,” she says to the man with whom she is not compatible.

He smiles. “You sound different when you’re talking to your mother.”

“You mean I sound more Indian.”

It’s something Allegra and her family notice about themselves: their accent subtly shifts depending on their audience. “Listen to Dad doing his Aussie voice,” her brother will chuckle. It happens naturally. Allegra can’t fake it.

“Do you speak…any other languages?”

“I understand Hindi pretty well,” says Allegra brusquely. “But I’m not fluent.”

She doesn’t want to talk to him about her family, her background, her culture. It’s too personal. She’s happy to be called “insanely beautiful” but not if what he really means is “exotic.”

She picks up her phone again, begins to scroll. “Shall I order us takeout?”

“Nope. I’m cooking,” he says.

“You’re cooking ?” She puts down her phone. “You don’t need to do that.”

“For your birthday,” he says. “I felt bad when I turned up to work and saw your friend with the balloon and realized it was your birthday, I didn’t know—”

“Why should you have?” She wants to make it very clear she has no misapprehensions about what is going on here. She kicks his calf with her foot. “Speaking of which, what was that performance with the doughnut ? My friend…”

She catches herself. Mockery is the basis of their relationship, but there are surely limits. She can’t tell him Anders said he’d never love anyone as much as he hated that man, in the same way that she can’t tell her friends that she occasionally hooks up with First Officer Jonathan Summers.

They would be appalled. More disapproving than her mother. Please not a pilot, Allegra, and okay, fine, if it has to be a pilot, why him? He’s the worst.

“I don’t know why I did that.” He puts his hand over his face and looks at her between his fingers. “I was thinking, Play it cool, play it cool, Jonny, because I know you don’t want anyone at work knowing about us, and then I…don’t know, I behaved like a jackass. I love those doughnuts.”

“You should be good in a crisis,” says Allegra. “You’re a pilot. Our lives are in your hands.”

“I’m excellent in a crisis,” he says. “I’m just a terrible actor.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “But you really don’t need to cook for me. That’s not necessary. That’s not…what we do.”

What they usually do is have astonishingly good sex, followed by fairly nice Vietnamese or quite good pizza from local takeouts and an expensive bottle of wine at his place. Never at her place. They never go out to dinner. Then she leaves his apartment in an Uber, satiated and a little drunk, and she promises herself that it won’t happen again.

It has the feeling of an affair, but he’s not married or in a relationship with anyone else, as far as she knows. No woman makes an appearance on his Instagram account.

There is no ban on work relationships. This happens all the time. They could go public with it, but it seems unnecessary to risk the humiliation and the gossip when it’s not going anywhere.

“I’ve made you a pie,” he says.

There is a beat.

A long beat.

“You’ve made me a pie ?” She doesn’t know why the word “pie” is suddenly so funny.

“Yes,” he says. He’s laughing a bit too. “I’ve made you a pie, Allegra. It’s my signature dish. I make good pies. I make the pastry from scratch. It’s chicken and vegetables with a lattice top. It will be ready in twenty minutes. I’ve also made a green salad.”

“Well, that’s all very, gosh, domestic…a lattice top, I’m not even sure what that means.”

“Like a basket weave.” He demonstrates by crisscrossing his fingers.

“Oh, yes, of course, I know.” She takes a big mouthful of wine and avoids his eyes. She feels embarrassed. His cooking for her feels more intimate than what they just did, the moment she walked in the door, which was very intimate.

Something is not right. He seems unsure, when Jonny’s defining characteristic is arrogance.

They ran into each other outside of work six months ago, when Allegra and a group of schoolfriends went to see a band. She recognized him right away, standing at the bar next to her: that conceited, good-looking pilot. She looked away fast, but he caught her eye.

He said, “How do I know you?”

She looks different outside of work. No makeup, hair down, jeans, nose ring, tank top, tattoo on her shoulder. (A tiny abstract Ganesha. She and her cousin got them together when they turned eighteen. Her mother said, You will regret that. So far: no regret.)

He worked out who she was with a snap of his fingers: “Allegra!”

“First Officer Jonathan Summers.” She tipped a finger to her forehead.

He flirted. She mocked. He took it with good grace. They danced. He could dance. Of course he could. She went back to his apartment because she was just the right level of drunk, because it felt wicked but technically was not wicked, because of the way she felt when he looked at her, because she’d been single for two years and her body said, That’s enough celibacy, Allegra, thanks very much.

This is the fifth time it’s happened since then. The sex, unfortunately, is only getting better.

He says, “When you were talking to your mother, I overheard— sorry if you don’t want to talk about it—but did that passenger give you a prediction that day?”

He knows about the lady because, as is normal practice, the flight crew all waited for one another on the aerobridge and left the airport together, so there was plenty of time to fill one another in on what had happened. Even the captain was intrigued and acted less like an aristocrat talking to his servants and more like a regular workmate.

“I wouldn’t want to know,” he said as the staff bus jolted its way toward the car park. “My wife found this website called the Death Clock, where you enter your date of birth, your BMI—that sort of thing—and it predicts the date of your death. I told her, do not enter my data!”

Bet she did, thought Allegra.

“Bet she did,” said Kim out loud, as she has no filter.

“I bet she did too,” said the captain gloomily, and they all laughed.

“I’d like to know when and how I’m going to die,” said Anders. “I’m so bummed I missed a prediction from the lady.”

“It’s not real,” Ellie said, with such conviction you would think it was a rule she’d learned in Ground School. “She was just making it all up as she went.”

Allegra remembers that Jonathan didn’t contribute much to the conversation on the bus, just looked at his phone and avoided all eye contact with Allegra, who also didn’t speak much, as she sat stiffly in her damp clothes, her back so fragile it felt like it could explode into a million pieces at any moment.

“So she predicted I’d die by self-harm at the age of twenty-eight,” says Allegra now.

Jonny flinches. “That’s horrible. You’re twenty-eight now! That was your twenty-eighth birthday !”

“I’m aware,” says Allegra. “It’s fine. I’m not worried. I’m not…you know, depressed or anything. I will not be self-harming.”

He frowns. “Imagine if she’d said that to someone experiencing mental health issues.”

“But I’m not,” says Allegra. “So it’s fine.”

He looks intently at her. “My brother got bad depression in high school. It was a scary time for our family.”

Goodness. What is going on? He’s basket-weaving pastry, he’s sharing personal stories about his family, he’s being vulnerable.

“Anyway,” she says. She’s certainly not going to share stories with him about her family’s history of depression. She sees those claustrophobic mustard-yellow walls again from her long-ago nightmare, thinks of her grandmother, waiting, waiting, possibly still waiting.

“Did you do an incident report?” asks Jonny. “For a passenger disturbance?”

Is this his pompous work persona emerging? Good. He’s being too nice. It’s weird.

“I thought about it, but nothing really happened; it was all over before it began,” she says. “I did a safety report for my back injury, and the vomiting kid, but the psychic lady…no.”

He nods. “Sure.”

“Do you think I should have?” She is momentarily anxious. “Maybe I should have.”

“No, I’m sure it’s fine,” he says, and he puts a comforting hand on her arm. “Sorry. I don’t mean to worry you. It would only be if a passenger complained or a video went online. That would have happened by now if it was going to happen. How long has it been?”

“Six weeks,” says Allegra. “Yes. I guess it would have.”

He puts his glass down next to his dumbbell and nasal spray, rolls onto his side, rests his head on his hand, and looks up at her with a smile.

Oh, no. Please. Stop it. You can’t actually like-like him, Allegra.

The fragrance of baking fills the apartment. She imagines him carefully cutting strips of pastry and feels a weightless sensation, a roller coaster tipping forward of her heart.

Her mother taught her that relationships begin with mutual respect and friendship that leads to love and then, only then: sex. But if you started with sex, could you loop your way back to friendship? Could you do things out of order and end up at the same place? In anactual relationship? With First Officer Jonathan Summers ? Of all people?

He says, “Tell me your life story, Allegra Patel.”

He says it like he really wants to know.