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CHAPTER
41
Antiseptic. Printer ink. The hint of burned raisin toast, caught on the grille of the ancient toaster in the staff breakroom.
A door out to the ramp—or runway, as the admin staff called it—was flung open and a shaft of cold October morning whipped across the crowded desks, causing unpinned pages to flutter like bunting. Habit had Kirsty placing her hands on the loose pages of the desk nearest to her until the doors snapped their jaws shut on the breeze.
‘Bloody hell, girlie, thought you’d done a bunk and left us,’ boomed a massive voice from behind her.
She smiled and felt some of the tension lift. ‘John.’
Whatever other words she might have come up with lost their chance to be said, because John Mann stepped forward and crushed her in a bear hug. His delight in seeing her made her realise what a fool she’d been to feel anxious about visiting.
‘Mike’s in his office,’ he said. ‘Better get on in there; he’s got a budget meeting at ten and you know that always makes him twitchy.But if you leave here without making me a cup of tea, missy, there’s going to be a fistfight in the carpark. You know where to find me.’
She did know. John manned four incoming phonelines and the shortwave radio. He had a memory chock-a-block with call signs and runway coordinates, and as a retired paramedic and grandfather of six, he had enough knowhow to talk a remote farmer through a shoulder dislocation without breaking a sweat.
John Mann, her hero.
She took a breath, squared her shoulders, and marched across to the closed wooden door behind which Mike, General Manager of the Port Augusta base of Mediflight West, ruled.
He had a phone clamped to his ear, a frown on his face, and a file on his desk.
Her personnel file, she presumed.
He waved her into a chair, mouthing ‘hello’ to her.
‘Uhuh, sure, next week,’ he said into the phone.
Behind him, covering the wall and displayed with the precision of a nanoscientist, were an assortment of thankyou cards and kids’ drawings of airplanes—the mementoes of months and years of aerial patient transport. She’d been a part of that. She could be a part of something like this again if she chose to be.
Mike wound up his call with a quick ‘thanks, mate’ barked into the phone, and then he gave her the serious face he usually saved for performance reviews. Which, now she thought about it, was what this meeting was.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the phone call the other day. It was good to talk things out.’
‘Hi, Mike. Thanks for seeing me. I thought it was past time I came to talk about my future.’
‘How’s the headspace?’ her boss asked, tapping one long finger against his temple.
Straight for the nitty-gritty. ‘I took your advice.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Which bit?’
She took a breath. She wasn’t here to pussyfoot about and make excuses for herself. She was here to resign and talk about a reference, about getting his advice on a new job—a long way north of here, twenty-one hundred kilometres to be exact—but if he thought she lacked merit, then she was ready to face it head-on. ‘I’ve come from the Mediflight West psychologist’s office. Helen’s given me the all clear.’
‘A tick and flick, that’s what I told you it would be, Kirsty,’ said Mike. ‘Rabbit warrens can surprise the best of us. You’ve told me you want to resign, but I’ll be doing my best to change your mind.’
Kirsty swallowed. ‘But Mike—maybe she shouldn’t have let me loose so easily.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did get myself into a bit of a state with that bad landing, and it messed with my confidence.’ Here it came: the truth moment. ‘I’ve been having a problem since that day, and I thought my problem was with airplanes.’
‘What sort of problem?’
‘The usual sort. Looking at them. Listening to them go overhead. Getting on one.’ She swallowed. ‘Flying one.’
‘You know that’s nuts, right?’
