Airside, p.23
Airside, page 23
Two minutes before 2.00 pm the main access doors to the auditorium swung open, and a group of half a dozen young men strode in with almost military precision. The doors were then closed, with one of the men standing before them. The other five men walked briskly to the front of the auditorium, where they spread out and stood facing the audience. One of them was Larry. He had his arms folded, and he kept scanning the audience like a security officer protecting politicians.
The house lights went down. Spotlights lit the stage. Alone in the glare Justin felt more self-conscious than ever before in his life.
With precisely one minute to go, a burst of familiar music roared out of the sound system: it was the famous triumphal march from the climax of Space Warp Heroes , Horvath’s ground-breaking science-fiction film, made when he was still in his twenties. At the sound of the first exultant notes the audience erupted into applause, many of the people standing up in excitement and cheering and clapping. Justin, almost paralysed until this moment by his attack of nerves, felt the same surge of thrill and anticipation. Everyone loved Space Warp Heroes . He too rose to his feet.
As the extract of music approached its climax, Spencer Horvath walked out on to the platform from somewhere upstage. His arms were raised, his hands waving in encouragement to the audience. The cheering increased to a deafening level. Horvath moved into the centre of the main spotlight beam, arms still raised, smiling and waving to the audience.
A second crack of thunder burst forth above, much louder and more sudden than the first. Horvath clearly relished the sound that continued as the thunder died away, the renewed cheering, whistling and yelling.
Justin sat down again, reflecting that if that roar of thunder had been dubbed into an action scene in a film, it would be mocked as a tired cliché. Horvath seemed unaware of such a thing, and stood in happy receipt as the extravagant ovation continued.
Finally, it began to quieten down.
Horvath strode across to the second chair. As he did so there was third rumble of thunder, this one loud and long.
In normal circumstances, when interviewing someone on a stage, Justin would make some introductory remarks: a personal appreciation, then a list of titles, or awards, or a summary of the critical reception that had been earned over the years. In this case he had had little time to prepare. Anyway, Horvath, he felt, had set up his own introduction, and anything Justin said now would be superfluous and seem like an anticlimax.
So he simply said, ‘Spencer Horvath, it is my sincere pleasure to welcome you to this film festival in St Kilda.’
‘Well, thank you, Justin. I’m a great admirer of your work. I love everything you do, and it’s a fantastic privilege to meet you.’
Another round of applause followed, this time brief. Justin looked at the screen of his mobile phone, and read aloud the text of the first question.
‘Mr Horvath, your films are famous for drawing uniquely on the existential conflict between self-doubt and the modern agony of life. Would you care to enlarge on what most people agree is an irreconcilable dilemma?’
‘Well, that’s an interesting question, Justin, and I am pleased to explain. You see, I was born on a small farm in Idaho, the nearest town more than an hour’s travel away. We were dirt-poor. From an early age I observed the movement of the stars and the ebb and flow of the seasons. The mysteries of nature enthralled me. The love of my mother and father inspired me to meet with my maker. I knew even then that I held in my small hands the key to a higher form of enlightenment, and—’
The audience was silent. Thunder rumbled loudly again. Horvath had come to the platform wearing bright-blue sports shorts and a T-shirt emblazoned with his own name and a photograph of one of the women actors who had played a leading role in two of his space films. He was wearing rope sandals. On his head he had a bright orange cap with some sort of corporate logo on the front. He was wearing huge round sunglasses with mirrorshade lenses, which made it impossible to see his eyes or read his expression. Most of what could be seen of his face was his nose and mouth. He wore a goatee beard, starting to turn grey. He was thin. His bare knees jutted upwards from the way he was sitting. His hands, which he waved as he spoke, were almost skeletal.
But he was poised, his body language evinced confidence, his speech had been perfected.
As Horvath reached what seemed to be the end of his peroration, another clap of thunder came again, this one louder and more terrifying than any that had preceded it. Justin could see many members of the audience reacting uneasily to the sound of the storm. It sounded as if it was directly overhead.
‘Thank you, Mr Horvath,’ he said, and, feeling he should press on, looked at the second question on his smartphone screen. ‘Would you kindly share with the audience the key to your personal psychology? In other words, what is it that drives you, what opens your personality to your great and unique visions?’
‘Well, Justin, how interesting that you should ask me that. In my small way I feel I have understood the supreme wisdom of God, and this has created the lifetime mission on which I have embarked—’
There was now a distinct roaring sound. It was not more of the thunder. This was something else, something material, heavy, broken, loose, intermittent, falling or collapsing, closer than the outside atmosphere.
While Horvath droned on, Justin looked around to see if he could locate the source of the noise, but because of the darkened house lights and the glare of the spotlights focused on them on the stage it was difficult to see into the depth of the hall. He could just about make out the people in the front row, including Matty. They were looking around and up, clearly distracted by the ever-increasing racket from outside. Another crack of thunder was followed by a louder, more alarming and destructive rumbling sound.
Horvath continued.
Suddenly, all lights in the hall were extinguished, throwing the entire place into pitch darkness. The PA system died – Horvath’s words were silenced. Many people in the audience immediately shouted their frightened reactions and some screamed. Voices were raised everywhere. The racket outside grew shockingly louder and closer. The dark was impenetrable, but after a few seconds emergency back-up lights came on: the bland radiance filled the hall, flattening the scene, illuminating the crowd in a frigid, shadowless way. Signs over the main doors and the emergency exits glowed brightly, flashing on and off to make their presence known.
A deafening warning signal began: a loud electronic bleating, two notes repeated endlessly, drilling into the mind.
Most of the people in the audience were already standing, looking around, starting to shove away from their seats. Many were pushing towards the exits. Everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Beside the platform area, over to the right, but not far from where Matty was sitting, a heavy cascade of water was pouring unstoppably down the wall and jetting towards the audience seats. Justin saw Matty trying to stand, then being overcome by the flood. She staggered to her feet, managing to recover. He was out of his seat, trying to leap down towards her. A large section of that wall fell catastrophically away, and the torrent plunged in with a terrible roaring sound. Deadly cold water gushed against him. A group of people who had been scrambling away from their seats in that area were overwhelmed, swept helplessly along by the surging wave. Rubble-filled water spread muddily across the area. It flowed rapidly on the sloping floor, flooding into the well in front of the first row of seats and immediately before the stage. People in the front row were attempting to move back and away from it. Some fell over the seats as they tried to climb to safety, others fought and elbowed. One aggressive man fought to get away, overbalanced, fell backwards and landed in the muddy flood. He struggled to his feet and splashed angrily away.
A recorded announcement, maximum volume: ‘ Please leave the building immediately. This is an emergency. It is not a drill. Use the emergency exits as soon as possible. Take your time, and do not rush. Help anyone with mobility issues. Use the stairs only. Do not attempt to use the elevators. Do not run. ’
It was immediately repeated in several languages.
The torrent of floodwater increased, now breaking into the sub-ground auditorium with horrifying force from other sides. Panic was rising with the flood.
In the chaos of what followed Justin never saw Horvath again, nor even thought of him.
He managed to scramble down from the stage, half propelled by the turbulent inflow of rubble-filled water. He waded through the flood, stumbling, terrified of falling over. Matty was there, stretching her arms towards him. He reached her. He briefly held her, she held him. The sound of the rushing water was terrifying, but the shouts and screams from the hundreds of people still trying to escape the hall overwhelmed everything. The water was rising fast.
‘Backstage!’ he shouted to Matty. ‘There are some stairs there!’
But the flood between them and the stage was spreading. Matty pointed to the far side, where there was a short flight of access steps up to the platform. They waded through the edge of the flood, which had already almost overwhelmed the first three rows of seats, but people were going the other way and in the pandemonium many bags and other pieces of property were in the water, floating and blocking. Several people were floundering in the water, bundled along by the violent inrush, which was now circling like a maelstrom.
They managed to reach the end of the row. Teddy Smythe’s wheelchair was there, lying on its side, almost submerged in the muddy torrent. A woman, presumably Teddy, was lying face down in the turbulent water next to it. She had one hand on one of the metal legs, and was using that to try to lift herself out of the water. Most of her head was submerged. Her struggles were weak. She was trapped between the fallen wheelchair and the fixed seat at the end of the row. She was soaked through and covered with mud.
Justin leant down in the water, thrust his arms beneath her. Matty lifted her head, pulling her face into the air. Teddy choked and spluttered. Her grey hair was a streaky mask across her face. Dark water burst from her mouth. They managed to raise her out of the flood as she yelled with pain, but the wheelchair was trapped somehow beneath the theatre seat it was beside. They pulled hard to shift it, but it was impossible. She threw up more water. They dragged her away from the wheelchair while she gasped.
There was a roar, and another part of a side wall collapsed. A huge new surge of filthy water rushed in.
They abandoned the wheelchair but now they had to wade through the currents of the dangerous flood and all the debris it was carrying. The stage was still not inundated, but the steps up to it were almost swamped. Justin and Matty splashed and struggled, dragging Teddy between them, her arms limp across their shoulders, their drenched clothes making every movement a massive effort.
They scrambled across the stage. Teddy was a deadweight between them. When they reached the steep service stairs behind the stage they seated her on the lowest steps. Her eyes were open but she slumped forward, belching and groaning. Water still came from her lips, but now in a series of trickles. She gasped as she tried to suck in air. Justin looked up at the climb they had to make: twenty-five or thirty metal steps, so narrow that only one person at a time could ascend. A handrail and a wall defined them. Floodwater was pouring down from above, a forceful cataract.
Matty went first, dragging Teddy up towards her one step at a time. Justin was below, taking her weight, lifting and pushing. Debris-laden water continued to flood down on them in a terrible deluge. It was gaining strength. Every step was an ordeal. Somehow they managed to reach the top. They emerged into daylight, where the storm still raged.
The alarm siren continued to blare. The disaster went on.
Teddy Smythe was rushed to the emergency room, first at a hospital in Prahran then later into St Vincent’s in Melbourne. She had suffered multiple cuts and bruises, and a badly sprained knee and hip. Her lungs had to be drained. Because of her age she was judged to be in a critical condition, but she was resilient and quickly started recovering.
She was one of the several hundred people seriously injured in the tropical storm that suddenly swerved inland and hit the eastern coastal strip of Melbourne Bay. Hurricane-force winds coincided with an extreme drop in atmospheric pressure and a high tide, creating a powerful tidal surge. It was a zone of devastation. Sixty-seven people died in the St Kilda town area – twenty-three of those fatalities occurred in the conference centre involving attendees at the film festival, and fifteen of those were of people unable to escape when the auditorium was violently flooded. Dozens more were injured in the stampede to escape. Several of them were to die later in hospital.
Buildings in many parts of the town were damaged or destroyed. Hundreds of trees were blown down. The conference centre itself became unusable, although many of the guest rooms on upper storeys had survived undamaged because they were at the rear of the building. The executive suite was devastated when a large satellite dish was thrust by the gale through the balcony windows. All the accessible levels on the ground floor were beyond use. The admin offices occupied by the conference staff and the temporary information centre of the festival were overwhelmed by the violent wind and the associated flood.
The floodwater did not entirely disperse until three days after the storm. Matty and Justin suffered cuts and bruises, but did not require hospitalization. The festival was abandoned and the conference centre closed.
Eight days after the storm Justin and Matty boarded a Qantas flight, one stop to London, calling only at Bangkok. Teddy Smythe travelled with them.
25
Justin, Matty and Teddy were airside, in a huge transit lounge in Terminal One, Charles de Gaulle Airport, near Paris.
The passengers had been told that they would not have to wait long, and that as soon as replacement planes to London could be cleared for take-off they would be informed. Their luggage was somewhere else. Ground staff working for airport services had brought them to this lounge and left them there. The lounge was equipped with automats offering snacks and drinks, which would accept credit and debit cards. The carpet was woven with the Air France logo. There were rows of bench seats, padded with tough-looking flat cushions. Brought in first, because of Teddy’s wheelchair, they moved to a corner position where there was a low table. The room was lit flat white by overhead strip lights. It was made for waiting, not for comfort.
They had not intended to be in this airport. They were no longer flying. They were not travelling, not arriving, not leaving. They were waiting in null space.
Their flight home had gone normally until they were somewhere high over Russia or Finland, coming towards the end of the long second leg from Bangkok. They were seated in a row of three, Justin at the window, with Matty beside him. Teddy was on the aisle seat because of her mobility difficulties. From time to time Matty or one of the flight attendants would help Teddy along the aisle if she needed to use the bathroom. She had been offered a special ambulance plane with medical attention on board, paid for by the festival’s liability insurance, but she insisted she was well enough and preferred to fly home with her friends.
They were on a scheduled Qantas flight, a big Airbus, all seats taken. Several of the passengers were survivors of the disastrous storm and flood tide in St Kilda, a few even who had survived the catastrophic flood at the film festival. For that reason the cabin crew were giving all passengers extra attention if needed. It was otherwise an unremarkable journey, two long uninterrupted flights.
Teddy slept for most of the way. Justin watched the inflight movies, then dozed, intermittently attaining real sleep, but only for short periods. The bruises on his back and legs made him uncomfortable, but the cabin crew gave him a neck rest and noise-cancelling earplugs. Matty was a better flier than him: she read for a while, watched a movie, read some more, listened to music on headphones, then fell asleep twice, once before the stopover in Thailand, once in the hours since.
Their calm exterior concealed the emotional impact of the disaster in the underground auditorium. Apart from what turned out to be the relatively minor injuries they had suffered they were overawed, shocked, by the tragic seriousness of the event. Even so, compared with what happened to many other people they had come through it reasonably unscathed. No one they knew closely or had worked with died in the flood, or as a result of the damage caused by the violent storm wind. All the members of the competition jury, who for the Horvath interview were occupying the section of seats reserved for them at every event, made their escape before the water rose too high. Matty, being in the front row away from the others, was the only jury member to have had to struggle to get out. Harvey Hanting suffered minor bruising and a soaking; his colleague Bernie Williamson escaped without injury. Spencer Horvath had been immediately surrounded by his people, and spirited away to safety. He had departed Melbourne in his private jet at the end of the same day. Several members of his executive staff suffered various degrees of injury. None was critically hurt.
Even so, the images of darkness, the tempestuous thunder and the screeching wind outside, the inrushing cold water and the flooding mess of broken masonry and soil, the fear of being overwhelmed, still haunted both Justin and Matty.
They wondered about Teddy, who said little. At first, while she was recovering in hospital, she was withdrawn, perhaps under the influence of painkilling drugs. She recognized them when they visited her bedside. She smiled a lot, that symptomatic half-smile, but said little. Justin was concerned about her mobility for when she was discharged. He made it his business to investigate what had happened to her wheelchair, to recover it if possible, to arrange for a replacement if not.
When the theatre auditorium was pumped out her chair was found close to where they had last seen it. Emergency crews and volunteers pulled it clear. Once it had been dried, cleaned and repaired it was more or less as she had known it before. If it had carried any of her personal effects those were lost. She said nothing about that. Everyone in the disaster-hit hall had lost something.
