Chapter 12: Ten Years Later

“We’re just circling Glendambo airfield now, Miss Bonnie, and should be landing in a few moments. It’s quite a tight fit and may be a bit bumpy, if you would care to fasten your seatbelt?”

The announcement came over the loudspeaker but I was actually the only passenger in the chartered 15-seater executive jet, having let my PA have the week off. She opted to stay in China on an open-ended flight ticket.

I did as I was told by the pilot and fastened my seat belt. After an exhausting week of modelling and essential promotion work, it had been a relatively relaxing journey here, my first visit to Glendambo since the infamous incident ten years ago which almost certainly would have led to my death at the hands of a man who thought his wealth gave him the power to follow whatever whim he desired. That man is now incarcerated for twenty years, halfway through his sentence; by the time he would be released he’d be in his eighties, and without any wealth or power at all.

I had kept in contact and ‘talked’ to a number of Glendambo people over the last ten years by email and text message and even seen them several times more recently over Skype, particularly during these last few months when we have discussed organising this reunion party. I looked forward to seeing Mary Ann and Junie again, and meeting Junie’s husband Thomas for the first time. I was hoping to see everyone of my friends again, especially my wonderful hero of that particular hour a decade ago, of course. He had to make it to the reunion, if both or either one of us missed this celebration it would be flat and awful. However, Mary Ann had confirmed in her last message that Mark had definitely confirmed he was coming. My “White Knight” Mark Cornwall was now a successful writer of travel books and once upon a time he constantly travelled abroad. More recently he had based himself back in Australia and was occupied in charitable work among other things.

Every day since I last saw him and we parted, separated by the different but equally insistent demands upon our time, I deeply feel the ache of that separation. After the disappointment of missing my original flight to Australia two days ago, though disastrous weather in China, which only served to confirm that I missed Mark terribly and hoped that he will look favourably on the news that I ache to tell him, news that will finally put my career on the back burner by May this year at the very latest.

It had been a hot but wet February morning in Darwin when I landed earlier today, returning from a fashion show in Beijing, where I had put in a promotion performance at the launch of my latest range of clothing aimed at the Asian market. I should have left China the day before yesterday and would have landed in Melbourne before driving to Glendambo, but the poor weather, torrential rain, flooding and electrical storms in China meant I missed my original flight. A boat trip down the coast got me to a different airport where the flight options were limited. The flight to Darwin and the charter flight on from there, that Monika arranged for me, was the only way I could make it in time for the reunion. I was grateful to Monika for her fantastic job as my agent.

I did regret how busy my professional life had been recently. I had once intended permanently giving up work and travelling extensively and exclusively with the man I loved then, the man I still love with all my heart now. It was fantastic while the travelling with Mark lasted, but on reflection that magical time was all too brief. For me, having no particular schedule, and sharing my journey through life with someone I couldn’t bear to be apart from, was perfect but that ideal was not to be.

Previous commitments and existing contracts kept me away from what I really wanted to do. Circumstances, mostly fuelled by the enormous resurgence in public interest in everything I do, couldn’t be ignored and had to be met by sharing myself with the world. My public profile was not only due to the criminal case in Australia, but my civil action against a well-known international beauty products consortium for hidden and unpaid license and royalty fees, turned out to be a can of worms that famously brought a number of producers of internationally endorsed products to their knees. This tenth anniversary was the time I was determined to put my foot down with Monika and start her on seriously reducing my scheduled appearances until I can take an extended break in around three months, or even sooner if at all possible.

The plane landed on the tiny dusty airstrip, the area flat and featureless to the unaccustomed eye, with few trees and that brick-red dust everywhere. A harsh environment, but one which once brought a welcome watershed to my life and I hoped this week would bring a new beginning to turn my existence into living the life I desired above all else.

I stepped out into the blinding sunshine and the wall of heat that hit me. The air was thick with the overwhelming smell of eucalyptus from the gum trees lining the track from the airfield to the servo area. I could see Mary Ann immediately, standing alone by the Hotel minibus. She is a large lady and impossible to miss, but of my ‘white knight’, Mark Cornwall, there was no sign, crushing my hopes of an early reunion with the one true love in my life.

“Mary Ann, have you had an update from Mark, will he be coming to the celebrations?” I gasped as her enthusiastic hug expelled almost all the air from my lungs.

“Yay, Missy Bonnie, he’s on his way, only a handful of clicks away, now,” Mary Ann grinned, “By the time we gets to the Hotel I bet he’ll be there, or he’ll come short after. I’ve not told him you was flyin’ in and gettin’ here just before him, it’ll be our little surprise for him. You look real beaut, Missy, you have a happy glow about you.”

“I’m just glad to be here, Mary Ann, looking forward to seeing everyone, relaxing and enjoying the company of all the people I love.”

“Well, Missy Bonnie, you know you’re loved here, but I bet you’re loved wherever you be.”

“Get away with you, let’s go to the Hotel and get under some welcome shade.”

As we left the airfield, the small jet plane took off, did a tight circuit of the airfield to waggle its wings, before the gleaming flash of silver in the sky headed north back to Darwin and what passes for civilisation in these parts.

Within a few moments the bus was parked at the back of the Hotel in the tiny servo stop at Glendambo on the Stuart Highway, where I stepped down with my two small bags.

“Junie!” I cried and hugged the woman who had been only a girl when I last saw her in person. She had served us our meal that fateful day a decade earlier. I could feel her shape pressing against me was bigger than I expected. “Junie! Wonderful! How long before the baby comes?”

“Two months, Miss Bonnie,” Junie grinned, “meet my husband, Thomas.” She pointed to a short but stocky Aboriginal man standing and shuffling his feet nervously next to her in a stiff, freshly-ironed button-up shirt he was clearly unused to wearing. He held out a horny hand.

“G’day Miss Bonnie, howyougoin’?”

I shook his large hand, my tiny one lost in its dry, gentle grip, “Very well, Thomas, it’s a pleasure to be meeting you at last. Look after my girl here, won’t you?”

“Of course, Miss Bonnie, I always do, she’s very precious to me.”

Behind them was Police Inspector Shona and her husband Don, now Detective Chief Inspector, both promoted thanks to the very high profile of the case they worked on and how successful the prosecution turned out. They were in civvies ready to party at this reunion and wore full beaming smiles.

I embraced them both, remembering the last time we saw them at the Supreme Court hearings, which were dominated by the high resolution and clear audio from the webcams that had been recorded from the webcams in the truck and stored on the cloud. Mark’s former colleague Mike had the forethought to have the whole weekend’s recordings downloaded onto memory sticks before the new owners took over the truck and the business, eliminating any risk that they would wipe everything to make a fresh start, and avoiding any issues of ownership of the images.

Yes, I know, the thought of our intimate moments in the cab being stored for embarrassing posterity occurred to both Mark and I, but Mike assured us that he knew precisely the times of the dramatic incidents that concerned the case against Powell and his cronies. He had guessed the times when what went on in and around that cab were concerned only with our privacy, and assured us that those recordings were utterly deleted unseen. As they have never appeared in public, despite the intensity of interest in ‘The Truckie and The Duckie’ as one paper called it, or the ‘Wooppee in Woop Woop’ which was tabloid-headlined over a very speculative missive, the real images or audio never reached the glare of a public airing, thank goodness!

Just then I could hear the sound of heavy tyres on the dusty ground and we all turned to see five Winnebagoes, all with consecutive regos, sandwiched between a white Land Rover Defender Twin Cab in the lead, followed by a large all-terrain box truck bring up the rear. They pulled into the car park behind the hotel and curled around us in a cloud of red dust. The leading Landy stopped next to where the five of us stood, the others stopped in line directly behind it.

The cab opened and out stepped Mark Cornwall, smiling, clean-shaven, tall, handsome and athletic looking, with his cropped hair slightly greying at the temples, wearing a tight white tee and khaki shorts, showing off his tight bod, his tanned legs long and lean down to his short socks and hiking boots.

Gosh, I thought, he is so heart-stoppingly handsome, I felt like I was a teenager again, gushing over the gorgeous gym teacher and feeling self-conscious that he’d realise how far I was beneath being in any way worthy of his attention. What a sight for my tired eyes. I ran to him as fast as my trembling legs would carry me and he opened up his arms with a welcoming smile before we embraced. We locked our lips together in the intensity of pash that could only partially make up for what seemed a lifetime apart. It seemed as long.

“Oh Mark, I have missed you so much,” I gasped, catching my breath as soon as we stopped our desperate pashing.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to make it, sweetheart. It’s been a really long week without you, Blue,” he said, “I was worried and didn’t think you were going to make it on time after they cancelled the Melbourne flight because of the storms.”

“Monie managed to get me on a boat to another Chinese airport to catch a later flight to Darwin and then arranged a charter jet from there.”

Just then came a couple of squeals of “Mummy!” coming from voices I all too clearly recognised and had also sorely missed this last desperately long week. I quickly kissed Mark again, a kiss and a look from my eyes that were full of implied but delayed promise, before I turned from him. He slipped his arm around my waist and we both crouched down on our haunches as two bundles of energy bounced into my outstretched arms and Mark wrapped his free arm around the three of us.

“Honey and Katie, my darlings, I have missed you both so much!” I cried tears as I kissed and hugged them.

‘Honey’ is really Henrietta Harriett Cornwall, OK, not outlandish names as celebrities are wont to saddle their little angels with but I love traditional names. When Henrietta first started to talk the best she could manage of her mouthful of a name was ‘Hunyetta’, so we called her ‘Honey’ and it has stuck ever since. She really is such a sweet girl, in looks and by nature. She has her father’s lovely warm grey eyes that look so full of wisdom and patience, her hair dark blond and straight. Always on the go, at six years old, she’s a fully signed up Daddy’s girl and she only hugged me first because she hadn’t seen me in a week; normally she claimed Daddy as her very own sweetheart and she probably always will. She is very protective and patient for the needs of her sister, so she very quickly moved over for her sister to monopolise me while Honey hugged her Daddy, simply because the opportunity to do so presented itself. I didn’t mind, of course not, their relationship was simply beaut, but just wait until lights out and it’s your bedtime, Honey, because that’s my time and I meant to savour every minute with the only man in our lives.

Katie or Kat is Katrina Marie Cornwall and she’s three and three-quarters, and another knotted bundle of furious energy. Now her hair is a wispy fierce red that looks like a desert fire out of control. Her eyes are so deep blue that in some lights they look purple and in others border on the red side of mauve. Yes, she’s still in the middle of her extended ‘terrible twos’ and an absolute diva, forever trying to dominate and control those around her who fall instantly under her incorrigible spell. I cannot understand where her divaism comes from, especially as Honey so sweetly smiles and concedes to her sibling. They never fight, probably because Kat is no rival, she accepts the love of her father as a given without monopolising it, and turns her charm on everyone else. When Honey’s curled up on her Daddy’s lap, Kat clings to me like a limpet. Katie dresses herself in the most outrageous combinations, aiming for the most dramatic appearance she can and will not be dissuaded in her choices by one iota. Yes, you guessed right, her Daddy’s already ordered his shotgun for delivery on her thirteenth birthday!