Page 73 of The Elements

Although Emmet has communicated through little more than a series of feral grunts since being dragged from his bed this morning, I can tell that he’s impressed by the business class cabin.

He’s undertaken the Sydney–Dubai return flight annually since Rebecca relocated there a decade ago, but always in economy.

Despite working for the airline, which would have arranged an upgrade for her without any difficulty, she insisted that it was wrong to waste such advantages on a child.

Let him wait until he can appreciate it, she said, and it didn’t seem to be something worth arguing about, particularly as there was always a steward or stewardess assigned to look after him.

Although he’s never refused to go, I’ve been conscious in recent years that he’s grown less enthusiastic about these trips.

It won’t be long before he snubs them entirely, which will be her problem, not mine.

It’s not the lengthy flight that bothers him; it’s the anger he feels toward his mother, a rage that’s been smoldering within him for some time now, probably since puberty hit.

It doesn’t concern me unduly. After all, it’s to my advantage that he shows little interest in the world outside of Sydney, where the beach and our home in North Bondi is central to his sense of well-being,

“Pretty cool,” he admits, offering a small concession to the comfort of our surroundings before ruining the moment by glancing to his left, in the direction of an empty single seat. “Do you think anyone’s sitting over there?”

“Why?”

“If no one takes it, could I move?”

I blink, telling myself to take a breath before replying. There are moments when I think there is nothing more difficult in this world than being a parent to a teenage boy.

“But why would you want to?” I ask.

“Because it’s better. There’s a window.”

“How about just enjoying the seat that I booked?”

“I’m just asking.”

It pisses me off that even here, in such luxurious accommodation, he’d still prefer to move as far away from me as possible. I’m fairly immune to the sense of entitlement that kids his age have but I do feel that the occasional thanks, Dad wouldn’t kill him.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “These planes are all organized through weight distribution. They don’t like it when someone changes seats.”

“You honestly think something terrible is going to happen because a sixty-five-kilo boy moves across the aisle?”

“Sixty-five kilos?” I ask, trying to suppress a smile.

He’s fifty-five at most. The look of complete outrage on his face when I say this sends a knife through me, and I regret it immediately, recalling his attempts to bulk up his muscle mass.

“It would probably be fine,” I say, hoping to salvage the moment.

“But wait a bit, yeah? They’re still boarding. Someone might take it still.”

He nods, accepting this, and we start to settle in, arranging our belongings.

I store my backpack, removing my laptop, phone, and book, before examining the menu and small bag of cosmetics that awaits every passenger on their chair.

Emmet is doing the same, studying the tiny tubes of moisturizer, deodorant, toothpaste, and lip balm with care.

Along with his attempts to grow stronger, he’s become increasingly concerned with his skin in recent months, and I’ve noticed a range of serums and moisturizers making their way along the shelves of his bedroom, a liquid army prepared to repel the advance of pimples, although so far he appears to have been lucky in that his skin remains blemish-free.

Next, he picks up the television control and starts scanning through the endless list of films and TV shows on offer, removing a small notebook from his backpack and scribbling down various titles.

This is a boy who loves nothing more than a good list, tracking every book he reads, every film or TV show he watches, his daily steps, his weight, even a record of the best waves he catches.

Although he’s unaware of it, I invaded the privacy of his phone recently and was shocked by what I discovered there—it’s one of the things I’m hoping to discuss with him on this trip—but I’ve never seen inside his laptop and imagine it holds any number of complicated spreadsheets, along with God knows what else.

For a time, I wondered whether there was an element of OCD to his relentless list-making, but I think being organized simply calms him, offering him the illusion that he’s in control of a life that has, on occasion, been badly disrupted.

“You know there’s a shower on this plane, right?” I ask him, and he turns to me with a skeptical expression on his face.

“No way.”

“It’s true. Up toward the front. Only for the first-class passengers, but still. Can you imagine? Taking a shower in the air?”

He considers this.

“What if there’s, like, turbulence? Wouldn’t you get thrown around?”

“Maybe the stewardess would come in and save you.”

Once again, the words are out of my mouth before I can take them back, and I tell myself that I need to think before speaking over the days ahead.

It’s a crass comment, after all, sexist and outdated, and he blushes at the idea.

At home, even on the hottest days, he never takes his T-shirt off anymore.

And yet, at the beach, he’s always in just his swimmers.

Perhaps there are different rules of conduct by the water.

“There’s a bar too,” I add, pointing toward the rear of our cabin. “We have access to that, so we can go down there at some point if you like.”

He thinks for a moment, as if deciding whether there is something he could object to about this, but, finding nothing, says, “That’d be fun,” and I grasp at this small concession.

I’d imagined him placing his headphones on his head and either submerging himself in films or sleeping throughout the thirteen hours that lie ahead of us.

It’s not that we need to be locked into constant conversation, but it would be nice to feel that we’re not completely ignoring each other.

“What’s going on here?” he asks. “Are we rich suddenly?”

“What?”

“I mean, all of this,” he says, looking around. “How come you’re splashing out?”

“We’re not rich rich,” I tell him. “But, you know, we’re comfortable. And honestly, if we have to spend so long in the air, I thought we might as well do it in style. It’s not like you ever ask for anything.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“No, but I bet you’re glad that I did it.”

“Could be worse,” he says, returning to his notebook and scribbling something down before flicking through the monitor again.

He stops at a miniseries from a few years back about a young Greek swimmer in Melbourne with aspirations toward the Olympic Games, reads the summary carefully, and makes a note of it.

Since childhood, Emmet has been a natural swimmer and, in more recent years, he’s also become a skilled surfer.

For a time, Rebecca and I called him the Bish: half boy, half fish.

At first, she didn’t want him anywhere near the beach, didn’t even want him to learn how to swim, but I managed to persuade her that this was not just unreasonable but irresponsible.

A child simply cannot grow up in Sydney without spending half their lives running in and out of the waves.

She of all people should know the dangers that water holds for the uninitiated.

Now Emmet knows the waters of Bondi like the back of his hand, could tell you the different currents you might encounter every few feet from Backpackers’ Rip to Buckler Point and, along with his friends, has walked from Spit Bridge to Manly a dozen or more times, stopping at every beach along the way for a swim.

For a few years, he made vague references toward the Olympics himself, ambitions that are sadly implausible.

He’ll never be tall enough, his feet will never be large enough—they remain a stubborn size seven—and he has no more chance of making it to the Games than I have of performing on Broadway.

But, to my relief, he hasn’t mentioned this in a while, the word lifeguard popping up in his vocabulary more frequently of late, an idea that I’m encouraging.

Although cautiously, of course; too much enthusiasm on my part will only turn him against it.

A stewardess appears carrying a tray holding glasses of champagne, water, and orange juice.

Despite the early hour, I choose the champagne, and she apologizes that, as we’re still on terra firma, it can only be Bollinger.

Once we take off, she assures me, we’ll be switching to Dom Perignon.

I try not to laugh and tell her that’s fine, I’m happy to slum it in the meantime.

On the other side of the aisle, a young man is carrying a second tray, and when Emmet reaches for a glass the steward glances toward me.

“Just an orange juice,” I tell Emmet, and he does as he’s told with one of his trademark sighs. If any of his lists includes the multitudinous indignities he has to endure as my son, I’m sure this latest one will make it onto it.

Further down the plane, I notice the door to the cockpit open and one of the copilots emerges, stepping into the toilet cubicle toward the front of the cabin.

I recognize him immediately as one of Rebecca’s colleagues from when we first moved to Sydney all those years ago, and I retreat into my seat a little.

I can’t imagine him scanning the cabin when he emerges, but if he does, I don’t want him to notice me.

Whenever our paths crossed in the past we always got along perfectly well, but I know that if we catch each other’s eye now, he’ll feel obliged to come over and say hello and I’d prefer that he didn’t.

No one is supposed to know that Emmet and I are here, after all.

Thankfully, when he reappears, he makes his way back into the cockpit without so much as a glance in our direction.