Her mother told her lots of interesting things about the war like how she had to sign a declaration saying she’d take the pill to avoid pregnancy if she were captured and raped. She kept silent about her service, so did the government.
One day her mother just opened up to her and said that she was so proud to have been a nurse and that you couldn’t do a better thing. In war and peace nurses were heroes her mother said, so how could I do anything else? She said that she thought back to all those Christmas presents, the nurse’s cap with the red cross on the front, the nurses scrub and the stethoscope. Her mother was hoping and she was thrilled when Carol got this job.
Carol’s eyes met Eliot’s.
Oh, I’m so sorry Eliot, I talk too much, I know that, so what is taking you to KL?
The friendly, familiar tone of her voice and the sound of his name tightened his chest and he could hardly believe it
I’m on my way to Uttar Pradesh, in India. To work in a school.
Sounds exciting and challenging.
For both of us. So you are from Melbourne?
Yes, I work out of the Red Cross office in Melbourne but I’m originally from Shepparton .
Really, I grew up in Benalla.
They talked, Carol most of the time, until the call to board and it was so easy. About the common experience of growing up in the bush and all it did to you and then the move to the big smoke as Eliot’s father always called it. And about what they did in Melbourne. Their talk, unfolded very naturally as if they had known each other for years.
Carol was interrupted mid-sentence and they looked at their boarding passes and saw that were at different ends of the plane and Carol said that their luggage would be in transit but they agreed that they would make sure to say goodbye at the other end. Hullo and goodbye.
Eight hours later the co-pilot was telling the cabin crew to be seated for landing and that it was eleven am in Kuala Lumpur now and the temperature was thirty degrees Celsius. Thank you for flying with Air Asia, we hope to see you again. Enjoy your stay. Eliot stepped out into KLIA2 and he was thinking about Carol and as he was he had that uncanny feeling you get when someone is looking at you when you are not looking at them and a smile had hit Eliot from behind. There was Carol, she was waving at him. Closer her blue eyes made him a little flustered because he knew that how he felt would be obvious to her when he did not have that instant to mask it. He was about to have an accident.
I didn’t think I would see you again …….to say goodbye.
I was always going to find you to say goodbye Eliot. I’m sure that we have time to buy a coffee, don’t we?
As he turned to walk beside Carol, his right foot struck the wheel of someone’s trolley, his big toe took the impact. He knelt down in the pain and his big toenail was angled upwards and already his foot was sticky with blood on his thong.
Oh dear, Carol said.
She reached into her shoulderbag and pulled out a small packet of tissues and Eliot told her where his first aid was. She found the Elastoplast and some hydrogen peroxide. She knelt down before him. Her hands were slender and steady. She doused and cleaned the toe in hydrogen peroxide and enclosed the wobbly toenail both ways with the Elastoplast. Eliot felt an intimacy in these few moments, that made it difficult, that somehow compromised everything he would say to her before they parted. Being close to her was kind of excruciating
Thank you Carol. I really appreciate it........ I hope that you will let me buy you a coffee now?
While they waited for their coffee, she let out her hair and retied it in a ponytail and there was a transitional beauty that Eliot wanted to respond to in some way. If only he knew how .She was the most natural person. He quickly glanced at her breasts and immediately he wished that he hadn’t because obviously women know these things and what would be her judgement? Carol noticed of course, because his guilt was written all over his face and broadcast by his eyes and she thought that some older men were silly, they should know better, but they couldn’t help themselves. A man travelling alone with a wedding ring on his finger but no mention of a wife. She smiled to herself. And that ponytail?
He needed to talk, about how she was lucky that her mother had instilled in her the desire to be a nurse, how the pregnant women in Payakumbuh were blessed that she was coming to make them safe and happy and he was sure that her mother would be very proud of her. Would her mother come out to West Sumatra to visit Carol? In her turn she said that she was nervous about her new job, about being on her own, about being lonely, not having anyone to talk to. But what the hell, a challenge is good for you and I need a changeshe said.
They promised to stay in contact. Coffees were emptied and the time had come.Carol looked at her phone and said that it was almost time to check in and Eliot said that he still had quite a wait . She collected her backpack hanging on the back of a chair and stood up. The table separated them and then it didn’t and Eliot was uncertain, he wanted to put his arms around her but instead he took her hand and shook it and then gently leant forward and kissed her on the cheek.
I am very fortunate to have met you. I will send you an email when I get settled and hopefully we will meet again one day.
I hope so too Eliot. Look after your toe.
Eliot watched her walk away and he waved to her but she had other things on her mind now. She was beautiful and as he washed his hands, Eliot looked at himself in the mirror and saw what she saw and he smiled to himself. Ok, he was a silly old fool to be spluttering and blushing in the presence of an attractive young woman, maybe he should be embarrassed, but behaving this way meant that he had crawled out of his cave.
11.
Passengers on Flight AHK 417 to Kolkata. Now boarding at gate 4.
The time to fly to India had come. To another world where things were very different. He had stowed his luggage in his overhead compartment ten minutes earlier and now finally he was in his seat and it seemed like he had fastened his seat belt over and over and the plane began to reverse. The last ten minutes had been a frustrating time for him and he had tried not to become grumpy, but he had not been very successfully. He had tried to think of something else, so he thought of Carol. The steward began to tell them what they should do in the unlikely event of an emergency.
Eliot smiled at his frustrations. God, he said in his head, what’s new? So someone was sitting in your seat which is on the aisle so you can get to the toilet quickly and a bag fell out of the overhead locker and hit your shoulder and that woman treated her 5 year old son like he was Sachin Tendulkar and you wondered why some Indian kids were spoilt. That’s so tough! He looked across to the left, at the two people who he was going to share the journey with, two people who were like those that he was going to share his life with for the next couple of months and whenever he got frustrated he would feel Marion’s hand on his forearm and everything that needed to be said was said, try and see it from their point of view she would say and he would recover. Not to worry he thought, being grumpy and judgemental was probably a step in the right direction.
Next to the window was a very fat Sikh who could hardly confine himself to the allocated space. He spread onto the young woman nursing a sleeping baby, who sat next to Eliot. Earlier, when he had finally claimed his seat off the fat Sikh, while being only a little bit rude, the young mother had given him a friendly smile and radiated a kind of beauty despite or maybe because of the child on her lap. Now as they took off she was cradling her young baby, dozing like the tired mother she undoubtedly was.Their plane left the ground.
After light refreshments which the young mother slept through, the cabin lights were dimmed and the passengers were encouraged to have a short kip and this suited Eliot because he thought that he would be asleep if he was back in Australia. But just as he was drifting off the fat Sikh in 7A who had earlier been in 7C, needed to go to the toilet. What a pain in the arse Eliot whispered to himself. He muttered that he and the young woman with