1
‘Excuse me, doctor.’
‘Yes, Michelle?’
‘There is a man in the waiting room who says he knows you. His face looks very swollen.’
‘Even the Pope would have to wait five minutes, Michelle.’
‘I’ll ask him to sit down.’
‘Won’t be long. We just have to check the occlusion on Mrs. Condon’s nice new crown and we’ll be done. How is Mrs. Condon anyway?’
‘Hine glocor. I huh your gusic.’
‘That’s nice. OK, fine, bite down on this paper, please. That’s it … very good. It looks OK. How does it feel? Have a bit of a bite and grind … that’s the way. Does it feel high?’
‘I can’t feel anything.’
‘Perfect. I’ll give you a mirror.’
‘Doctor, you can’t even tell. That’s truly wonderful. They told me about you. Thank you. I feel like a new person. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it was opening my mouth with that big stump hanging out of it like that.’
‘It is patients like you, Mrs. Condon, that give me the willpower to even get up in the morning.’
‘Oh, thank you, doctor.’
‘You should be fine now for a good twelve months. If you like, we can send you a reminder for your next check-up.’
‘Please.’
‘Till then, keep well, Mrs. Condon.’
‘Thank you, doctor, good bye.’
Michelle attended to Mrs. Condon, while Adam washed his hands and then stepped out into the waiting room.
‘Bob?’
‘Doc. It’s a wonder you recognise me with me face the way it is.’
‘Your face? Try half of your head. Are you in pain?’
133
‘That’s the funny thing, doc, it used to hurt, but it don’t hurt no more.’
Bob drew Adam’s attention to a teenage boy sitting in the chair in the corner.
‘This is Tommy.’
The boy smiled at Adam when Adam looked at him.
‘You look vaguely familiar to me.’ Adam commented.
‘He’s the kid we took to the hospital, remember, doc?’
‘How could I forget. Hi, Tommy, you look great, you both look great, except for your head, Bob. Come in, both of you. The elephant man has got nothing on you, Bob.’
‘Who?’
‘Here, sit here, Bob. You sit over there, Tommy.’ Adam looked at them for a moment, briefly recollecting the first time he saw them. He noticed something different about them. There was a happiness radiating from them now. ‘Well, what do you know,’ he thought. He then focused on Bob’s face. ‘Your right side is swollen up like a watermelon.
How long has it been like this?’
‘It blew up yesterday afternoon. That’s when the pain stopped.’
‘Give me a look. Aha, it’s your fifteen, or what’s left of it. God, Bob, it looks like a war zone in here … oh … sorry, mate, I forgot …’
‘She’s right, doc.’
‘It’s just floating in pus. I think it’s drained into the sinus. That’s why the pain stopped. The abscess has drained into the sinus.’
‘Just rip it out, doc, an don’t spare the flesh.’
‘Hey thanks, Bob, I just love ripping out a bit of flesh in the mornings.’
Tommy was grinning from ear to ear.
‘You gonna give me a shot, doc?’
‘Well, that depends.’
‘Depends on what?’
‘Depends on whether I think you need one.’
‘I need one, doc. I’m no hero in these places. I hate dentists. Nothin personal.’
‘Hey, I hate dentists too. What’s there to like? This tooth is just floating. It’s as dead as a doornail. I don’t think you’re going to need a needle. Can you feel this?’
‘No.’
‘How about this?’
‘No.’
134
‘Hang on …’
Adam stealthily picked up a pair of shiny, chrome forceps from a sterile drawer and brought them up to Bob’s mouth from beneath so Bob couldn’t see them. He placed them around the offending tooth and gently pulled it out of what felt like custard. As he pulled it, he said,
‘How about this?’
‘No, nothin, doc.’
Adam held the rotten tooth right in front of Bob’s face.
‘Look what I found.’
‘Is that it? Did you get it out?’
Even Tommy weighed in with a comment.
‘That was unbelievable, doc.’
Adam smiled and took a bow.
‘Thank you, thank you one and all.’
‘I can’t believe that it’s out. Hell, I could have done that meself and saved you the trouble, doc.’
‘I dare say you could have pulled it out with your fingers, but this is no trouble for me. It’s nice to see you. I was wondering what happened to you guys. Saline rinse, thanks nurse. Do you mind having a rinse, Bob? Here, Michelle will help you. Gee, the last time I saw you, Tommy, you looked …’
‘Ratshit I bet.’
‘You swung your foot at the bucket, boy, and Bob here pulled it out of the way in the nick of time.’
‘He said that if it weren’t for you, doc, I’d be dead.’
‘Are you allergic to penicillin, Bob?’
‘No, doc, they pumped heaps of that shit into me in Vietnam.’
‘Would you mind writing me up a script for Amoxil, please Michelle.’
‘Certainly, doctor.’
‘So, I guess you went back to the hospital, Bob.’
‘Yeah, I dropped in the next mornin an they let me stay with him. I was there when he woke up.’
‘He scared the crap out of me, doc.’
‘Really? I can see why. That melon would scare anybody. Just kidding, Bob.’
135
‘No, doc, when I woke up, he was sittin there next to me bed, this ugly lookin guy that I never seen before. The first thing he said to me was that I died an went to hell an that he was the devil come to claim me soul. Then he said that there was no hell like knowin that you’ve wasted your life.’
‘Bob, did you really do that?’
‘Yeah, doc. I wanted to really scare him an make him wake up to himself.’
‘There was just him an me in this small room, an it was real quiet, an I couldn’t remember anythin … an he got me, doc, got me good an proper. I actually thought that he was the devil.’
Bob started laughing.
‘The kid started cryin an beggin me to give him another chance an let him go back.’
‘Then Bob goes to me, I can’t bring you back from the dead, that’s the other bloke’s trick. You backed the wrong horse, son. He had me goin for, I dunno, ages. I was actually believin that I was dealin for me soul with the devil.’
‘In the end, he’s shittin himself so much that he calls out to Jesus to save him, please save me Lord, an I pretend like, you know, don’t, don’t, an then, a bit rooted from fightin for his soul, he goes off to sleep for another six hours. You know, he wasn’t lettin go of his soul without a fight. Then he wakes up for about thirty seconds an he opens his eyes an sees me, an I goes, I’m still here, boy, an his eyes just look at me in a kind of shock an then he goes off to sleep again. He didn’t wake up for another twenty-four hours, but when he did, he was heaps better.’
‘Bob never told me the truth till I got out of hospital. When I woke up, he was still there, sittin next to me bed. I freaked out cause I thought he was still the devil, but he told me that I must have dreamed the whole devil thing. When I told him that the devil looked just like him he goes how there’s no way that the devil’d be so good lookin. Then he told me his name an what happened, an about you an how if it wasn’t for you I’d be dead now.’
Adam looked Tommy squarely in the eyes.
‘Listen, Tommy, I wouldn’t have even noticed you if it wasn’t for the fact that I spotted Bob standing over you in that alley. Bob’s the one that saved you, and that’s the truth.’
‘Can I tell you something, doc?’
‘Sure.’
136
‘I can still remember every second of me time in hell, an I still remember every word I spoke with the devil, an I know that it was Bob bein hisself, havin a bit of fun an, I guess, tryin to help me in his own way, but there was somethin else goin on as well. I remember freakin out at the devil an callin out to Jesus to save me, an the next thing that happens, it’s kinda like I got 360 degree vision, I see this lion, directly behind me, real as real can be, an it steps forward, right through me, right through me heart, with these powerful, bold steps, an it’s carryin three shields, an I can just see it step through me with these shields an go at the devil an completely blow him out of existence. I started cryin, an this gentle rain started fallin, an these two nice ladies in these long dresses showed up an kinda calmed me down an were nice to me, like your mum would be. I know it sounds crazy, doc, but it was so real. Nobody could imagine what I saw. Anyway, it’s changed me big time … an forever.’
‘Yeah, doc, he’s been comin down the mission every day an talkin to pastor Ted heaps. There’s somethin about that bloke. It’s like he knows how to get you excited about livin.’
‘I know, Bob. He got me to learn the joy of work. That’s what he calls it, an he said that the freer the work, the bigger the joy.’
‘An he got us into this tricky situation. He got me to agree to not take a drink if Tommy stayed off the smack, an he got Tommy to agree to not get into the smack if I stayed off the piss. So we’re now holdin out for each other. I know if I take a drink, the kid’ll cave in. He’s so young.’
‘An I know, doc, that if I cave in, Bob’ll go down the gurgler as well. So I’m hangin in for him. We’re hangin in pretty much for each other, an we go an do work for the pastor around the place. There’s all these really old people that live by emselves, an me an Bob, we go around an see em. An you know, he was right about the joy an about findin things in places you never expected.’
‘And you’ve both got a place?’
‘Yeah. Pastor Ted got us a small place back-o-the-Cross.’
‘Yeah, with a bathroom an a tiny kitchen.’
‘He reckons he’ll figure out some proper work for us.’
‘When God is ready. He always says, when God is ready, so ya don’t have ta worry about it cause God’s on the job.’
137
‘Bob, will you please let me fix your mouth? I reckon I’d have to see you about five or six times. How about it?’
‘I don’t wanna put you out, doc. You don’t owe nothin to me.’
‘Hey, what about pastor Ted? You know what he said. Will you allow me some joy in life, Bob, and please let me fix your teeth? You too, Tommy. Anyway, it’s been way too long since I’ve had a really good, smokin, drillin session. Oh come on guys, give a poor dentist a bit of fun. Have a heart.’
Bob and Tommy both grinned,
‘That’s it, I’m definitely not comin.’
‘Me either.’
‘Excuse me, doctor.’
‘Yes, Michelle?’
‘Your next patient is here.’
‘Thank you, Michelle. Would you mind booking these two? Give them a couple of weeks, I’d say. Let the wound heal. Give me a quick look into your mouth Tommy, yeah, I think an hour each. You better take your pills, Bob. Four a day, before meals.’
‘Thanks, doc. See ya.’
‘See ya, doc. Nice meetin ya.’
‘Two weeks, and I’ll have my drill warmed up.’
2
The days passed into weeks and months, and spring turned into summer, the high season for hang gliding at Stanwell Park. The core group of pilots continued to expand the envelope of birdlike flight. Steve brought out a new hang glider, designed for better glide and better lift, and even though he thought that the new wing would not be as suitable for aerobatics as the old one, it turned out that the extra performance only enhanced aerobatics because the pilots could attain a higher top speed in dives and carry that speed better through the manoeuvres. Of course, the primary reason for the new design was to fly the pilots across the Stanwell valley to Mitchell’s and beyond. And even though it was still a struggle, filled with danger, they slowly, one by one, triumphantly conquered the challenging task. Steve was first of the group to emulate Zeke’s bold achievement. He did it in the prototype version of the new wing, and it was after that magnificent flight that he decided to put it into production. Glenn and Arnold were next, some four weeks later. They made it over together, both flying the ‘new ship’. That
138
summer, the entire group, except for Adam, made it across. It would take Adam another year to accomplish that feat.
The main activity in the air was still aerobatics in front of the hill. If there were ever some pretty girls watching, the aero show typically kicked up a testosterone notch, or two. Perhaps it was for that reason, or for some other reason, maybe just human nature, that one day Glenn and Ken dreamed up the idea to have a dogfight. The idea hatched itself one sunny, Sunday afternoon in the pleasant environs of the Newport Arms Hotel over a steady stream of middies.
‘We could tie some streamers off the wing tips.’
‘Yeah, and the keel.’
‘And the first to cut all three streamers would be the victor.’
‘The victor. It sounds so gladiatorial.’
‘I thought more like jousting.’
‘Piece of cake, let’s do it.’
‘Let’s. Your shout, isn’t it?’
The next time the conditions were suitable down at Stanwell, they both showed up with many rolls of paper streamers. They taped the streamers to the protruding tube ends of the keel and leading edges. They figured about thirty-five feet should be enough to make it safe. On the ground, the long, colourful streamers snaked and flapped in the wind, making for quite a spectacle. Any pilots still airborne quickly landed when they spotted the activity on the hill. They all gathered on either side of the two ‘battle wings’ and just stood there watching, occasionally muttering something like,
‘This is real aerial combat. It’s like the birds do it. I’ve seen them. They fight by trying to take out a wing or tail feather in order to weaken their opponent’s flying ability, and this is the same. It’s dogfighting with physical contact. That means getting real close to get the streamers, and that is very, very dangerous.’
‘How ya gonna cut a guy’s streamers?’
‘You’ve obviously got to get above your opponent. You can’t do anything if you haven’t got the altitude.’
‘Except run.’
‘What if he’s diving at you from above? You couldn’t even see him.’
Ken and Glenn had discussed tactics at length and they both agreed that the primary task was to climb above your opponent. That initially made it a soaring contest.
139
The lift band along the ridge was rarely constant and uniform. There were zones of weaker and stronger lift. Sometimes these lift zones shifted during the day, or completely switched off. It took many flying hours, in a variety of conditions, for a pilot to begin to develop an instinct for the lift. Being able to locate the good lift was one thing, but being able to utilise it was altogether another. To be able to climb the highest and to do it fastest, or to be the last still capable of soaring on a marginal day, those were the qualities of a master pilot.
It was decided that since the first part of the dogfight was a race for altitude, Glenn and Ken should both launch off the hill simultaneously and side by side. That way everything would be even and fair. The wind was strong, about twenty-five knots, a bit gusty and coming in from the southeast, making the point and the south face the flyable parts of the ridge.
They both launched aggressively with every eye that could see them focussed on their spectacular, streamered wings. Glenn turned left and Ken right, both aiming towards pockets of stronger lift. Glenn climbed out on the point, flying in efficient circles in a narrow lift funnel, while Ken chandelled up about a hundred yards further down the ridge, deeper in the valley. There wasn’t much in it in the climb-out. Both pilots rose together, watching each other like hawks and avoiding engagement until one of them felt they had a height advantage.
It was the middle of the day and the gusty, southerly wind felt cool without a jacket.
The sky, with its patchwork of cotton-ball clouds, looked vibrant and energised and complemented perfectly the bright colours of the wings and streamers of the two protagonists.
They both circled and hovered in their respective columns of lift, neither gaining an advantage, until suddenly, Ken’s glider bumped upwards in a small bubble of warm air.
Within ten seconds, and after a couple of tight turns, Ken was looking down on Glenn, who was now fifty feet below him. Glenn immediately started to fly out towards the beach attempting to outrun his opponent. He knew that Ken’s altitude would give him the first pass at the streamers. He also figured that if Ken missed, or only cut one or two streamers, he would have lost enough height in that manoeuvre to fly himself into a disadvantage.
So, Glenn was flying away defensively, but he was also flying himself into a counter-attack position. This was a move he had thought out while simulating aerial combat in his mind in preparation for the dogfight. Ken pulled the bar back and dove towards Glenn’s inviting
140
streamers. Just as he neared the trailing edge of Glenn’s streamers, he banked into a left turn, still diving, and lined up to cut all the streamers with his base bar. Glenn, reacting to Ken’s move, banked to the right sending his wake into the path of Ken’s glider. Ken, who was committed and continued to fly in the same arc, suddenly felt his sail momentarily collapse and his glider literally fall about twenty feet as it flew through the hole in the air made by Glenn’s glider. As he fell, his base bar clipped the last two feet of Glenn’s left streamer and ripped it about ten feet out from the wingtip. As Ken recovered from his temporary sail deflation, triumphantly trailing part of Glenn’s left streamer from his base bar, Glenn banked around in an efficient 360-degree turn to end up on Ken’s tail and now fifty feet above him. There wasn’t much time to think. For a moment Ken wasn’t sure where Glenn was, and while he wasn’t reacting, Glenn swooped into a mentally pre-rehearsed manoeuvre in which he pulled into a much steeper dive, gaining substantial speed, diving below the level of Ken’s glider, pulling up underneath the streamers, cutting two of them on the way up, and then banking away back towards the hill in an efficient, climbing, left turn before Ken even knew what happened.
Glenn had worked out earlier that the wake from an opponent’s glider would trail behind the wing just above the streamers. So, cutting the streamers from above meant having to fly through the hole in the air that was the wake. Glenn knew that there would be a momentary loss of control, with the occasional total sail deflation, if his wing passed through this wake. He assessed that losing control so close to the other glider was such an undesirable consequence of a diving attack from above that he worked out an offensive move in which he would cut the streamers from below, then, while retaining a smooth flow, he would immediately turn back at the hill in order to be first back in the stronger lift. This approach avoided having to fly through the dangerous wake.
The strategy worked perfectly. When Ken finally spotted Glenn again, Glenn was already back up to Ken’s altitude, he too trailing streamers from his wires, like victory pennants.
In the meantime, back on the hill,
‘That was just awesome!’
‘Glenn’s got two streamers.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like this. This is so … so …’
‘It’s bullshit, that’s what it is, total bullshit.’
‘I wonder what they’re gonna do now?’
141
‘Look, they’re pretty even height again.’
As it turned out, Glenn was more patient in the air, waiting for a good opportunity to cut the last of Ken’s streamers, the right one. Ken drifted towards Glenn, threatening, and Glenn backed off. Then they flew a circle around each other, literally chasing each other’s tails. This stalemate continued for some time with neither pilot being able to gain an advantage.
‘What are they doing up there?’
‘They’re just flying around in circles.’
‘Now I know why they call them dogfights.’
‘They’re stalking each other, looking for a weakness in each other’s defence.’
‘They look like two dragons circling each other with all those streamers flying off them like that.’
Finally, Glenn got it into his head that the only way he was going to break this impasse was to coax Ken into attempting an attack, missing, and losing his altitude in the process. He pulled the bar in and began flying out from the ridge. Seeing this, Ken sped up and flew in a shallow dive towards Glenn’s streamers. Glenn, watching Ken’s flightpath, actually banked slightly to the right, towards him, with the intent of drawing him in even more. Deceived by this tactic, Ken accelerated towards Glenn’s remaining two streamers. Glenn quickly rolled his glider in the opposite direction, out of the shallow right turn, into a more aggressive left turn that he intended to continue around in a 360.
His rapid change of direction completely fooled Ken whose left side wire ultimately only just managed to collect the end of Glenn’s right streamer. Ken was only partially successful. He got another streamer however in the process he squandered his precious altitude. As Glenn came around to point back into the wind, he could see that Ken was now about eighty feet below and right in front of him. Without a break in the flow of his flight, not giving Ken time to react, Glenn came out of his 360 and immediately pulled into a steep dive aiming for a spot about thirty feet behind Ken’s last remaining streamer. He pulled out of the dive about twenty feet below the streamer and, with the luxury of abundant airspeed, cut that last streamer with his left wingtip, right at the apex of a graceful, ninety-degree wingover.
Everyone on the hill went nuts with applause. Ken, realising that he had been defeated, flew straight around and landed back on the hill. Glenn, on the other hand, being victorious, flew around in a wide circle over the valley with his vanquished opponent’s
142
streamers trailing off his hang glider. He then staged a victory flypast, coolly skimming just a few feet above the heads of everyone on the hill.
3
Summer drifted into autumn and one year rolled into another. There might have been a whole world outside, but no one noticed. The pilots lived in a reality of their own, a reality that only manifested with the arrival of the south wind, a wind that powered an ancient dream, a dream in which everyone flew like the birds.
It was possible to find it, accidentally, maybe on a Sunday drive. Some who found it, the ones with a more mystical outlook on life, may have perceived it as a reality from a higher plane that somehow got drawn in by the strong pull of Earth’s allure. Other, perhaps even wiser, individuals may have seen it as merely the stream of life negotiating the twists and bends of a riverbed that was more ancient than thought itself.
4
The road twisted and wound its way through the Royal National Park like a snake in heat. It was a perfect road for a spirited drive. Not so good for a big, powerful car, but more suited to a small, lightweight, nimble roadster, preferably convertible so she could see all the trees. She could speed up on the short straights, but that seemed pointless because it proved nothing. It was more about the way she flowed through the bends, perfect entry and perfect exit, maintaining a smooth, rhythmical flow. Snick into third, smooth power up to fourth, minimum brake, flowing, perfect entry speed into the next bend, decelerating, snick, slide her back down to third, smooth power through the bend, finely balanced near the edge of adhesion of the sticky Pirellis.
She could be lost in the road, totally absorbed in it, for a solid, unbroken half hour.
She called it ‘driving at natural road speed’. It meant driving comfortably fast, disregarding all speed restrictions except the ones imposed by the road itself. And there weren’t many better roads to do it on than the one snaking secretly through The Royal National Park, just south of Sydney.
At the end of this perfect road she came blasting out of the forest, like out of some kind of cosmic time tunnel, and materialised into the most overwhelmingly beautiful world, seemingly sometime in the future, where people flew around in the sky like birds on fine, lightweight, colourful wings. And totally blown away she asked herself the primordial question.
‘Can this really be real?’
143
And she looked at it, really looked at it, and the more that she looked at it the more surreal it became.
5
The perfect morning tranquillity of the National Park was rudely shattered by the distant, throaty roar of a thoroughbred, Italian sports car. The two black crows, standing in the middle of the road, seemed almost too casual as they hopped away from their feast of roadkill, at the last second, letting the blood-red Alfa Spider miss them by only inches as it roared by.
Her name was Aureole. She was the youngest of five and the most beautiful daughter of Yusuf, the Lebanese trader who made a fortune acting as middleman and liaison in an indeterminable number of deals between Beirut, London, Paris, New York and Sydney. Things like electronics, weapons, medicines and drugs, for ‘whatever you want’. He was a connecting hub providing a desperately needed service in war-torn Beirut. He could find anything for you, for a price. He was a cactus flourishing in the parched, desert environment of chronic civil war, getting rich because he kept his head while everyone else was losing theirs. Then, when things went really crazy, in ‘75, he packed up his family and flew them all to Paris.
No one ever knew the extent of Yusuf’s wealth, except for Yusuf. Over the years he managed to bank most of his money outside of Lebanon, much of it in Australian banks through an Australian-Lebanese friend of his, named Harry. Harry was making millions of dollars importing literally tons of kef and hashish into Australia, all of it coming out of Lebanon through one of Yusuf’s discrete connections. After tying up a few last loose ends, Yusuf flew the family from Paris to London, where they rendezvoused with the QE2 for a leisurely cruise half way around the world to Sydney, where one of Yusuf’s Australian government connections had organised residency visas for them all, naturally enough for the appropriate price for such a specialised service. Yusuf bought a large Mediterranean-style villa overlooking the tranquil waters of trendy Double Bay. All the girls enrolled in university while Yusuf and his elegant wife, Miriam, could be seen sipping coffee and people watching almost any weekday morning at any one of a number of fine cafes in downtown Double Bay.
The most precious things in Yusuf and Miriam’s life were their five beautiful daughters. And out of the five, the most worrisome of them all was their youngest and brightest, the adventurous, free-spirited Aureole.
144
Aureole’s life had taken a dramatic turn for the better in the previous twelve months. Her life in Beirut was becoming a nightmare. She actually had to negotiate between stray bullets and bombs on her way to and from school. She belonged to a Christian-Lebanese family and the war was being waged between opposing Christian and Muslim factions. Then, as if by magic, she was suddenly and unexpectedly lifted out of Beirut and transported clear to the other side of the world.
She was nineteen, independent, with her own cheque account and dream Alfa Romeo Spider. She was comfortably multilingual, speaking fluent Arabic and French and a wonderful novice English, which she spoke with a seductively-broad French accent. She was studying journalism at Sydney University.
Now that she had settled down and her spirit could enjoy the trivial and mundane again, she doubled up on her two latest passions; that of exploring her exciting new country and driving her hot, new sports car. She had driven the National Park road a couple of times before. She loved it. It was the perfect road for her car. It was narrow and bumpy in places and sometimes there was a broken branch on the road around a blind bend requiring reflex braking or steering. There were dips and climbs out of deep gorges and there was a hairpin she wanted to get right this time. Last time she remembered that she shifted down too early coming into the hairpin, breaking the flow of the drive. This time she left it in third as she braked hard, deep into the bend, then changed down in perfect time with the transfer of her right foot off the brake onto the accelerator.
‘Ahh, that was better,’ she thought to herself as she powered up the hill through a series of esses, revving it out in second gear and chirping the tires as she engaged the clutch into third.
6
‘Ouch!’
‘What?’
‘There, getting out of the red Alfa.’
‘Je … sus!’
‘Aooow, the pain!’
‘What is she?’
‘She looks Middle Eastern. Check out that faaace.’
‘She reminds me of, you know, that sculpture of Nefertiti, the Egyptian queen.’
‘Yeah. She is a goddess.’
145
‘Look how she holds her head up, like she’s royalty.’
‘Check that jacket.’
‘And the driving gloves.’
‘Waaa, and the red jeans. Is that leather?’
‘And her skin. What is that? Coffee?’
‘With just a dash of cream.’
‘And how’s the jewellery?’
‘Hey, she’s looking this way.’
‘Looks like she’s noticed me, buddy. Didn’t I hear your mama calling?’
‘Sounded more like your mama to me.’
‘Jees, she’s coming over.’
‘Check out the walk.’
‘Ohh, ohh, I can’t take this ...’
‘Handle it, handle it!’
Moments earlier, Aureole stood next to her Spider and scanned the hill. She wanted to talk to someone about this ‘new flying’ and chose the two ‘good-looking guys’ who were both checking her out and who looked like they were part of the local flying scene. So, she casually sashayed down towards them and asked them directly,
‘Hello, are you pilots?’
‘Why ah … yes.’
She looked out to sea at the hang gliders and declared,
‘I cannot believe what I am seeing. Is like a dream.’
The boys both hypnotically replied,
‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing either.’
‘Me either.’
‘I drive this road two times before, but I did not see any flying.’
‘It probably wasn’t on.’
‘She won’t understand that!’
‘Pardon, but I understand very well. What you call it, the air, it was not OK?’
‘Hey that’s pretty good, but it’s the wind, not the air.’
‘Ah yes, the wind. It has to be more … strong?’
‘Not just strong, but it has to blow from the south.’
146
Glenn raised his arm and pointed down the coast towards Wollongong. As she turned her head to the south, he just kept looking at her exquisite face. He marvelled at her aristocratic profile, which was dominated by her unmistakably Arab nose, her soft, full mouth and her fine, smooth, dark skin. Ken was staring as well. He was mesmerised by the way her thick, dark hair, blowing in the wind, made her look like a heroic goddess.
‘Is truly beautiful. Is not easy, yes?’
‘Is not easy, no. Much practise.’
‘You can speak normal English to me. I have very good understanding. I am not so good speaking.’
Glenn’s jaw dropped as Ken came out with a surprising,
‘Ohhh, au contraire mademoiselle, you speak beautiful English.’
‘Merci monsieur, you are too kind, because I know it is not the truth. And you, you speak French?’
‘Ah, no, I’m sorry. That was about it. Was it any good?’
‘Ooooo yes, it was veeery good. So, you come here to fly?’
‘Yes, Stanwell Park is one of the best places to fly.’
‘In the whole world,’ Glenn added.
‘Really? Well, we have very big mountains in Lebanon also, more big than here and not far from the sea.’
‘Are you from Lebanon?’
‘Yes, I am from Lebanon and now I live in Australia, but Lebanon is the most beautiful country in the world. I love it like my mother.’
‘Isn’t there a war going on over there?’
‘Yes, it is tragic. The poor people suffer so much. The Muslims are crazy. They want everyone to be like them, and the young men, like you, they are all hot-blooded and they kill each other, and their mothers cannot stop them anymore.’
‘Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. My name is Ken and this is my … ah …
friend, Glenn.’
‘It is my pleasure to meet you. My name is Aureole. I would love to fly like that. It must be so free.’
‘It is … and you can.’
‘Yeah, you can go two-up.’
‘Two-up?’
147
‘Yeah. One of us could take you up.’
‘This is possible?’
‘Sure, anytime.’
‘Even today?’
‘Sure, it’s perfect today.’
‘How do you do it?’
‘You just clip into the glider next to the pilot.’
‘And when he says run, you run like crazy.’
‘Ahh, I can run like crazy. I was champion runner in Lebanon, in five-thousand metres.’
‘Five-thousand metres,’ said Glenn eyeing down her athletic physique. ‘That explains a few things.’
‘That’s it then, you can fly with one of us.’
‘Yeah, either one of us can fly you. The question is, who do you want to fly with?’
‘You must choose, Aureole.’
She looked at the gliders in the air, then at both of them.
‘This is crazy. Is it safe?’
‘Ahh, safe schmafe,’ joked Glenn. ‘If we die, Aureole, we die together … and …’
‘He’s kidding,’ interjected Ken. ‘What is the matter with you, Glenn, are you nuts? It is very safe, Aureole. We do it all the time.’
Aureole could see the confidence in these guys and sensed that giving her a two-up flight was a walk in the park for them while being a life’s peak experience for her. She began feeling a fear, a new kind of fear, one that she chose, not one that was imposed upon her. She thought to herself, ‘this is the fear of freedom, a fear I can stop by deciding not to fly.’ She remembered her fear of war, in Beirut, and how it was a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week sensation, which she could never stop. She wanted to fly, but,
‘I want to fly, and I am afraid, but I cannot choose between you, Glenn, or you, Ken.
You must choose, not me.’
‘Oh no, how are we gonna do this?’ Ken asked.
‘Why don’t you be gracious and let me take her up first,’ Glenn suggested.
‘Not even in your dreams, buddy.’
Aureole could see the open rivalry developing between the two young pilots, but she was used to this. It happened to her all the time and she just let it happen and resolve
148
itself. She didn’t go out with boys much, though. It was difficult because of her Lebanese culture. Her father could get very passionate about such things, so she kept them very secret. If he knew that she was contemplating flying in a hang glider with a strange young Australian man, she thought, ‘he would probably just kill me. Why waste words?’
‘We could have a dogfight,’ muttered Ken, half joking.
‘Hmm, a joust for the fair damsel.’
‘You will not fight like dogs.’
‘No, Aureole, it’s a flying contest.’
‘But not just any contest.’
‘It’s the ultimate contest.’
‘And now, finally, for the ultimate prize.’
‘To share, alone, Aureole’s joy in her first flight.’
Aureole was struggling to keep up with the conversation.
‘You guys. What have I found?’ She looked around, concerned. ‘Where has God brought me? What crazy destiny is this?’
The boys couldn’t believe their luck. Their faces beamed as they taped paper streamers to their gliders. Aureole hovered around them, asking them all kinds of questions about flying and their reasons for doing it. All Ken and Glenn could think about, though, was being alone with Aureole, one thousand feet above the world, feeling her slender body pressing tightly against his, watching her slide into ecstasy as she experienced the total freedom of high-altitude, hang-glider flight and having her fall more in love with him with every dive and turn. ‘Ahhhhhhhh.’
Neither of them felt that they ever had a better reason for winning a dogfight. As they prepared themselves for their ‘sky duel’, their sharp minds focussed on the prevailing conditions. How strong was the wind? Which exact direction was it blowing from? Were there gusts and lulls? Which part of the ridge was generating the most lift?
During this time, Adam had been flying out over the valley really beginning to feel at home in his new glider, which was custom made for him by Steve and Arnold. He made a wide, downwind approach towards the landing zone on top of the hill. The pilots on the hill all watched him bring his ship in smoothly and touch down gently, taking a few running steps to stop. He parked his glider and meandered over to where Ken and Glenn were preparing for their duel.
‘Are you guys having a dogfight?’
149
‘Yep, and the winner gets to give Aureole a two-up.’
‘Aureole?’
‘Oh, pardon Aureole. Adam, this is Aureole. Aureole, this is Adam, an old friend of mine. We go right back to our university days.’
Aureole shook Adam’s hand.
‘Hello, Adam. It is nice to meet you. You are a beautiful pilot. I love your landing. It was like a dance, like a ballet.’
‘Hello, Aureole. Please don’t stop talking.’
‘Adam, I am very frightened.’
‘What, about going two-up?’
‘Yes, about jumping out there.’ She pointed out to sea.
‘Don’t be frightened at all. These guys are the best.’
Adam was barely containing his composure face-to-face with such devastating beauty. While she hovered around Ken’s glider, he moseyed over to Glenn and quietly whispered to him,
‘Where did you find her?’
‘Mate, she just showed up on the hill in that red Alfa Spider over there.’
‘How hot is she? Are those leather pants?’
‘Mate, anywhere within fifty feet of her and I feel like somebody plugged me into 240 volts. It’s incredible. You can’t imagine how bad I need to win this, and I bet Ken feels the same way. It’s crazy, like I am totally obsessed.’
‘I don’t blame you. Look at her. Hey, don’t do anything stupid up there, OK?’
‘Yeah yeah. I just know I never wanted to win anything so bad in my whole life.’
‘Well, just take it easy, mate, after all, she’s just a chick.’ Adam looked over at her.
‘Who am I kidding? Look at her. Good luck, buddy.’
They all stood in a circle, between the streamered kites.
‘I guess it’s now or never, Kenny,’ said Genn.
Ken hammed it up a bit.
‘It’s victory, or death, for the fair Aureole.’
They all laughed and Aureole said that she wasn’t worth it. The boys both reassured her that she was, shook hands with each other and clipped their karabiners into the hang loops of their gliders.
150
Aureole and Adam stood side by side as they watched the combatants’ spectacular gliders simultaneously launch into the air. Adam immediately noticed how much more purposeful than usual their manoeuvres were. They flew much closer to each other this time, both fighting for lift in the same airspace, right in front of the point, right in front of Aureole. They made a couple of very close passes to each other, and at the point of closest approach, the two smitten pilots both looked into each other’s eyes and saw nothing but a mirror image of their own blind obsession. Adam noticed that Aureole gasped every time they came close. She was totally absorbed in the battle. She felt something special about this moment. There were two brave, young boys vying for the privilege to be her Peter Pan, her magic man, who would fly away with her and make her deepest, childhood fantasy come true.
They watched the two duelling pilots circle, swoop and dive, attacking each other’s streamers. Their flying was much more frantic and impatient this time.
‘They are scaring me, Adam.’
‘Don’t worry, Aureole, they know what they’re doing. They do this all the time.’
Ken got the first streamer in a brilliant, but dangerously close, dive. Then Glenn executed a steep, attacking dive and missed, losing one hundred feet in the process, allowing Ken to stalk and strike and take out another streamer. Two streamers down, Glenn decided to back off and disengage from the close-quarter nature of the contest. He flew west along the south face, deeper into the valley, searching for another column of lift.
‘Ken is winning, no?’
‘Yeah, two to nothing.’
‘I like Ken. He is so charming.’
‘I like him too, but not for that reason. He’s one of my oldest friends. He taught me how to fly.’
Ken circled in the lift, on the point, spectacularly trailing Glenn’s streamers off his wires. He was gaining altitude steadily, watching Glenn’s progress further down the ridge.
Then, suddenly, as if by magic, a rare, warm-air bubble, a small, punchy, coastal thermal let go off the ground from a sunny, hot pocket in the valley below, pretty much directly upwind of Glenn. The thermal belted his right wing, tipping his glider away from the ridge. Glenn aggressively shifted his weight to the right, leaning all his weight onto his right wing, causing it to ‘hook’ into the small thermal. His glider dramatically banked to
151
the right and began to fly in a tight, erratic circle. Ken couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched his rival rapidly spiral his glider skyward. In a matter of thirty seconds, Glenn found himself with a massive two-hundred-foot altitude advantage over Ken. As Glenn topped out in the small thermal, Ken, not being sure what the best defensive tactic was in this situation, continued to make flat circles in front of the point. Glenn began to stealthily crab towards Ken, and when Ken was in that part of his 360 where his vision of Glenn was obscured by his wing, Glenn pulled into an almost free-falling, vertical dive, aiming for a point further around Ken’s 360, further along the flight path Glenn imagined Ken would take. Without any real time to weigh up the potential consequences, Glenn chose to attack all three streamers in one pass, diving in over the top of Ken’s glider, coming in from twelve o’clock high and intersecting Ken’s streamers as Ken came around in his 360
towards him. He had completely forgotten all the reasons he had avoided attacks from above in the past. He just saw his chance and went for it. His dive was so steep, so fast and so committed to Ken maintaining his circular flightpath, that he was helplessly unable to react sufficiently when Ken suddenly levelled out of his 360 and flew his hang glider directly into the path of the plummeting projectile above him.
Aureole’s scream pierced the air as Glenn’s base bar connected with Ken’s king post.
The impact cut Ken’s top, right side-wire clean through.
The upper side-wires are there in the event of the hang glider flipping upside down.
They prevent the glider from folding up in such an inversion. They have no other function.
The significant thing about a hang glider inversion is that the pilot ends up sitting on top of the upside-down sail. That in itself is not necessarily such a bad thing as long as the wing doesn’t collapse. Many pilots have successfully righted their inverted wings. If an upper side-wire, or the king post, is broken however, and the glider flips over, the glider folds up, and it folds up around the pilot completely trapping him inside the sail. As the broken hang glider plummets towards the earth at free-fall speed, the air pressure on the outside of the flapping, collapsed sail is so great that the doomed, cocooned pilot cannot even move a muscle as he waits for the inevitable impact.
So, losing his upper side-wire would not have affected Ken’s ability to fly except for the fact that Glenn’s momentum punched him right through that initial impact and slammed him into the top of Ken’s sail just behind the nose-plate. This second impact caused Ken’s glider to rotate nose-down and flip upside down. Glenn’s glider just kept flying straight through both impacts. He pulled out of his dive just in time to see Ken’s
152
kite fold up and drop out of the sky like a stone. The folded-up sail, with Ken trapped within it, flapped like a flag as it plummeted towards the earth, spectacularly trailing a mass of colourful streamers behind it.
Adam screamed Ken’s name at the top of his voice.
Aureole went hysterical, screaming, ‘No, no, no, please God, noooo …’
Glenn, seeing what happened, watching Ken’s broken wing accelerating towards the huge boulders eight-hundred feet below, instantly pushed his control bar fully forward, pitched his glider into a full stall, snapped into a near-vertical spiralling dive and started chasing his good friend down the front of the rocky escarpment.
Adam, Aureole, and everyone else on the hill, lost sight of Ken as he disappeared beyond the edge of the cliff looking like he was doing over a hundred miles per hour. They then lost sight of Glenn, his glider screaming through the air in his desperate pursuit of Ken. Five hundred feet below, young Tim was startled by Ken’s freefalling hang glider as it whistled past him, missing him by no more than twenty feet.
High up above the point of the hill, Arnold, who was watching the whole crisis unfold beneath him, instinctively pulled into a steep dive and powered down through all the other airborne hang gliders, following Glenn, trying to get down to Ken as fast as possible, to help him.
All the pilots in the air witnessed Ken’s horrific impact into the boulders below. His mangled glider ended up wedged between three giant boulders, right in the surf zone.
Steve, who was high up in the back of the valley, was watching the drama from half a mile away. He thought he saw someone fall out of the sky and he could see all the gliders circling around one spot and two gliders diving vertically towards the ocean. He saw that something was wrong and speedily flew back to the hill.
Tim had been playing in the treetops, only three hundred feet above the ocean, when Ken shot past him. On seeing him impact in the rocks, he immediately flew out to sea in a shallow dive, turned directly back at the rocky shore, pulled into a high-speed dive, levelled out a few feet above the choppy surface of the water and, just as he reached the rocks, pushed the bar out into a perfect, high flare, landing awkwardly, but OK, between two boulders, not far from Ken.
Seconds later, Glenn ditched his glider in the ocean, just outside the surf break and right in front of Ken’s crash. He even had a technique for that. He flew into the water at speed, so when the base bar of his A-frame hit the water, it caused the glider to nose-in
153
hard and flip over on its back. Glenn ended up sitting high and dry on top of his upturned sail. He was able to unclip from his hang loop and discard his harness before the glider started sinking. He began to swim towards Ken’s glider, which he could now see was being completely destroyed by the six-foot swell slamming against the jagged shoreline.
He couldn’t see Ken anywhere and he wasn’t sure how he was going to negotiate the heavy surf. All he knew was that Ken was possibly still alive and that he had to get to him as fast as he could.
Around about then, Arnold swooped in from above choosing to do one of his patented ‘fly-on-the-wall’ landings on a patch of low scrub growing out of a crack in the vertical rock face, just above the boulder line. He softly mushed it into the bushes, right above Ken, his glider staying put as it entangled itself in the gnarly branches. He had to cut his loop with his knife in order to extricate himself from his suspended hang glider.
The air was opaque with sea spray and the roaring noise of the surf, smashing on the rocks, was made twice as deafening as it echoed back off the vertical rock wall of the escarpment.
On the hill, Aureole was crying uncontrollably, saying,
‘Why did I come here today? Why did God let me do this? Please, please Mary, mother of God, please let him be alive.’
Adam was partially in shock and looked as white as a ghost. He turned to her and said,
‘I’m going down to try to help.’
‘I want to come too. I can help.’
‘My car, I think. Don’t cry, he’s probably all right. Maybe he landed in the water.’
Just as they drove out of the car park, Steve ran over.
‘What happened?’
‘Ken went down just north of the point. Glenn and Arnold flew down after him. You want to come with us?’
‘No, I’ll take our car. See you down there. Anybody call an ambulance?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’ll do it down at the shop. See you down there.’
‘See ya.’
Adam blasted down the hill in his Charger with Aureole hanging on for dear life in the passenger seat. She was ceaselessly praying to God, begging Him to spare Ken’s life.
154
Tim was first to get to Ken’s mangled glider. It was jammed tight in-between the huge boulders and was being pounded by the crashing waves. Arnold arrived soon after.
‘I can’t see him, Arnold, he must be wrapped up in the sail.’
Arnold looked at the torn, broken wing, disappearing and reappearing between the powerful surges of water, and shook his head. He saw Ken’s impact from the air and he could see the damage. He sadly declared,
‘He’s history. Nobody could have survived that. Careful, Tim, you don’t want to fall in cause you’ll never get back out.’
Their attention then turned to Glenn swimming in the ocean.
‘You think he’s trying to get to Ken?’
‘’Jees look, he’s swimming straight in. That wave’s gonna get him. Look out Glenn, stay out, you’ll get smashed.’
Both boys started yelling at Glenn to back away and swim to the beach. They couldn’t see any way that Glenn could help Ken now. But Glenn was in delayed shock. His normal thought processes had been completely short-circuited. He was experiencing powerful surges of sadness and guilt, feeling responsible for the horrible accident. He was acting on instinct. He just pretended that he was body-surfing and caught the first wave that picked him up. He got powerfully smashed right onto Ken’s mangled glider. He felt his body slamming and scraping against the rocks but he didn’t feel any pain. As the water surged back out, he grabbed a hold of a piece of aluminium tube and held on. The water washed away for a moment allowing him to scramble a little further up the wreck, with the two boys standing on two boulders above him, watching. He began frantically feeling through the sail for Ken until the next wave came and smashed him hard against the rocks again. He hung on for dear life as the water surged over his battered body. As the wave receded, he spotted a gap in the sail. He crawled over, pulled back the sail and had a look.
Tim and Arnold could see him recoil in shock from the sight that confronted him.
Arnold yelled out,
‘How is he?’
Glenn, desperately hanging onto the sail, answered back dramatically,
‘He’s dead! His head’s all smashed in.’
The three young men all paused for a moment. Glenn just lay on top of Ken’s body, protecting it, clutching the sail, with the waves crashing down onto him. None of them saw each other’s tears as they all stared into nothingness, all turned in different
155
directions. They still all felt, at that moment, that their good friend was somehow still alive, still with them, still smiling and kidding around and challenging them to take it to the next level. It was hard for them to let go of him. They could still see his smiling face shining in the sun. They each, kind of, expected him to crawl out of that sail at any moment and say something typical like, ‘fooled ya’. But that moment never came. Kenny was gone, gone forever. Arnold was first to take rational stock of the situation. He was wearing a pair of strong, flying overalls. He took them off and screamed out,
‘Hey, Glenn, you can’t do anything now. Here, grab the overalls and we’ll pull you out.’
Glenn clung onto the sail for another couple of waves. The two boys could see that he was saying a few last, private words to one of his best-ever friends as he lay spreadeagled on top of Ken’s entangled body. Then, he turned his head and with perfect time with the wash, being lifted up by a wave, lunged towards the dangling overalls and grabbed them. By then, Tim had scrambled across to Arnold’s rock and together they pulled Glenn out of the water. He was covered in bleeding bruises and scratches. They finally all settled down and sat together on the same giant boulder, directly above Ken, completely oblivious of the surf spray drenching them, all silent, all totally lost for words in their bewilderment of their great personal loss.
The doors of the Charger flew open as Adam and Aureole skidded into the car park next to the beach. Aureole left her jacket and jewellery in the car and began to run across the beach behind Adam. It was a five-hundred-yard run, across soft sand, from the car to the beginning of the rocks that lined the shoreline beneath the hill. Then it was another two hundred and fifty yards scrambling across rocks and boulders to get to Ken’s glider.
Aureole ran up to Adam and asked him,
‘Where do you think he is?’
Adam pointed straight ahead and said,
‘He’s somewhere in there.’
She looked straight ahead and, accelerating into a sprint, took off and reached the rocks one hundred yards ahead of Adam. When she got to the rocks, she started climbing like a monkey, rapidly traversing the impossible terrain.
She was wearing a pair of special driving shoes made by Adidas, which also functioned superbly as climbing shoes allowing her to efficiently transfer her abundant athletic ability to the ground. She also still wore her very expensive, soft-leather pair of
156
Gucci driving gloves, which now allowed her to grab onto rocks freely without damaging her delicate hands. Her skin-tight pair of red-leather, Fiorucci jeans allowed her to slide and crawl over the rough boulders without scratching herself.
After a couple of hundred yards, she clambered onto a huge boulder and had a look ahead. There they were. She saw them, Glenn and the other two pilots, all sitting together on a rock. She called out to them. They turned their heads and on seeing her, waved to her. They watched in disbelief as she made giant leaps across the boulders, using her long, athletic arms and legs to rapidly make her way towards them. Breathless, she finally jumped onto their rock and hesitantly asked,
‘How is Ken?’
She knew immediately, by their silence, that Ken was gone. She burst into tears and knelt down behind Glenn and put her arms around him, and hugging him tightly with her whole body, she whispered into his ear between sobs,
‘Thank God you are safe.’
Then, looking around, she saw Ken’s wrecked hang glider below her, and Arnolds hang glider hanging in a bush above her, and Tim’s kite with its keel sticking out of the rocks and she began to comprehend what these boys had been prepared to do for their friend. She turned towards Arnold and Tim and hugged them both and introduced herself to them. Adam arrived soon after, followed by Steve. They sat there, totally at a loss as to what to do, until a man called to them from above. He had abseiled down a rope, down eight-hundred feet of vertical cliff.
‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘He’s dead!’ Steve called out.
‘Please repeat. Did you say dead?’
‘Yeah, he’s trapped in the sail.’
‘Copy.’
The hanging man then spoke into a radio.
‘Yeah, it’s a hang glider. He’s crashed into the rocks at the base of the cliff. The witnesses confirm the victim deceased. I think we’ll need to call in the chopper to get him out. He seems to be tangled up and jammed in between some rocks. I think the surf’s gonna be our biggest problem. I’m goin down. Can you lower down four ropes and a stretcher, and Al, can you come down here and help me out … over …’
157
It was nearly dark by the time they managed to extricate Ken’s body out of the rocks with the aid of the precariously, closely-hovering helicopter. They all made their way back to the car park, in torchlight, skilfully guided by the competent men from the Rescue Squad.
Many of the other pilots came down and helped Tim and Arnold pack up and carry their gliders back to the car park.
Back on the hill, now in total darkness except for the solitary streetlight, Glenn, Adam and Aureole exchanged phone numbers. She sadly insisted,
‘I want to go to the funeral. I want to see the people who knew him. That way I will know him better.’ She began to cry again. ‘I can’t … I can’t talk anymore. I will see you both at the funeral. I will call you.’
Aureole drove home worrying about how she would explain her late arrival to her father, but it turned out OK in the end. She told him everything except the part about her going two-up, and because of that strategic omission, her dad was very sympathetic and proud of his daughter for showing such concern for her fellow human being. She told him that she wanted to go to the funeral and in the end, after all the worry, he could not see a reason to offer any objection.
Glenn drove himself to the hospital where he got some of the worst of his injuries cleaned up and dressed. Then he had to go to the police station and answer some questions. It was a long, awkward night for him.
After everyone had left, and he finally said his last good-bye, Adam sat down alone, on the point of the hill, and just stared into the black, infinite void surrounding him.
…….
158