Page 77 of The Elements

Emmet has cocooned himself into his seat, kicked off his trainers, pulled a blanket over his body, and is lost inside a subtitled French language film.

I’m not surprised he’s chosen this over the multitude of Hollywood movies available on the in-flight entertainment system.

From childhood, he’s displayed a quietly intellectual bent, with books and cinema proving almost as important to him as swimming.

A poster for Visconti’s Death in Venice hangs on his bedroom wall at home, while his shelves are filled with a mixture of manga and classics.

Only last May I found myself walking along Walsh Bay midafternoon and spotted him emerging from one of the pier theaters during the Writers’ Festival, carrying several books in his hands.

I felt instinctively that I shouldn’t call out to him and waited until he’d disappeared out of sight before crossing the road to see whose session he’d attended.

It made me wonder how many other things went on in my son’s life that I knew nothing about.

Sensing me looking toward his screen now, he glances over and presses the button to raise the privacy barrier between us. I give him the finger, and as he disappears from sight, it’s good to hear him laugh aloud.

I eat, enjoy some more champagne—the Dom now, may the gods be praised—and watch a couple of episodes of an American comedy show.

Despite the length of the flights, I’ve been quite looking forward to my enforced absence from the world, and even though my chair could not be more comfortable, I decide to stretch my legs and make my way toward the bar area.

A few seats are available on the left-hand side, and I settle into one, asking the steward for a beer.

When it arrives, I open my laptop; there’s a few emails I need to attend to before I can fully put my Sydney life to one side for the week.

Most are related to children I work with, follow-ups with clinicians or parents, in one or two cases correspondence with the police or the Children’s Court of New South Wales, and I compose each one carefully, consulting my notes, then save the document in that child’s file before placing the reply in my outbox.

The Wi-Fi works fine up here, but I’d prefer to reread them later for clarity’s sake and send them en masse a couple of days hence.

I’m lost in thought about a ten-year-old boy who’s suffering debilitating nightmares and who I’ve been treating for five months now, when a woman takes the seat next to mine.

I’m barely aware of her at first, but when I look up from my screen, I realize that she’s not a complete stranger.

“You’re suspiciously alone,” she says, and I laugh.

“I swear I haven’t lost him,” I say, holding up my hands. “He’s up there, watching a movie.”

The steward, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Paul Newman, approaches and she orders a glass of champagne, which arrives quickly, half a strawberry floating at the top. Her eyes follow him as he returns behind the bar.

“Working?” she asks when her attention returns to me. I’m no slouch in the looks department, but Cool Hand Luke has me well beaten.

“Just catching up on a few things,” I say, closing my laptop and extending a hand. “I’m Aaron by the way. Aaron Umber.”

“Charlotte Billings.”

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I say. “I might have been a bit snappy in the airport. Early morning and all that.”

“You’re fine. And I do understand. I’m about to have seven blissful days away from my son while his father looks after him. A little break from his tantrums is just what I need. How about you? How long are you staying in Dubai?”

I tell her that I’m not, that we have a connecting flight there, and when I reveal the reason for our journey, she says all the right things but asks no further questions.

“You said you’re a policewoman?” I ask.

“A detective, actually.”

“Impressive.”

“And you?”

“A psychologist. I work with children.”

“That probably comes in helpful with… sorry, what’s your son’s name?”

“Emmet. We named him for his aunt Emma.”

“Your sister?”

“His mother’s.”

“They must be close.”

I choose not to tell her that not only did my son never meet his aunt, he wasn’t even aware of her existence until recently.

“I try to avoid analyzing him,” I continue. “He doesn’t like it when I do.”

“Well, at least he’s a reader. That speaks well of him.”

I frown. “How do you know he’s a reader?”

“He told me about the Furia Flyte novel, remember?”

“Oh yes.”

“Actually, I’ve read a couple of chapters since boarding,” she continues. “He wasn’t wrong. It’s very well written. And the story’s interesting. I’ve never known much about drovers.”

I nod but remain silent.

“Have you read it?” she asks.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not a big reader, if I’m honest. The occasional thriller if I want a bit of escapism.”

“You should give it a try. There’s this interesting detail about how—”

“No spoilers,” I say, feigning a smile and hoping that she’ll let the subject drop. The last thing I want to talk about is Furia.

“Fair enough. Still, it’s always good to see boys that age reading, isn’t it?”

She catches Butch Cassidy’s eye and points toward both our glasses, which are almost empty.

It’s not long before they’re refilled. “Billy—that’s my son—he wouldn’t know one end of a book from the other.

It’s all football and cricket with him. And now, of course, girls have entered the equation, so that’s made life even more delightful. ”

She waves a hand in the air, as if she wishes she could simply magic all her son’s interests away and return him to childhood.

“How old is he?” I ask.

“Fifteen.”

“Then it’s only natural.”

“Oh God, I know. And it’s not as if I wasn’t expecting it.

I was no saint at that age myself, so it’s not like I have a leg to stand on.

But things seemed simpler when we were growing up, didn’t they?

More innocent. On the rare occasions Billy graces me with his company these days, he just sits there tapping away at his phone with an expression on his face that makes me wonder what the hell kind of messages he’s getting. ”

I understand that concern. It’s something I’ve been dealing with increasingly in recent years with my patients.

I’ve had more than one child sitting in my consulting room, tears rolling down their cheeks as they’ve told me how they’re being excluded from chat groups or private accounts.

A single negative emoji placed beneath one girl’s beach photo left her so upset that she refused to attend school for a month.

A sixteen-year-old boy whose friend request on Instagram had been ignored for two weeks had become withdrawn and sullen.

It’s a subject that’s been preying on my mind lately as it relates to a problematic issue that Emmet and I need to discuss.

Two weeks ago, while we were watching TV together, Emmet stood up to use the bathroom.

He left his phone on the sofa next to me, and despite every fiber of my being telling me not to, I lifted it and scanned quickly through his messages.

They were mostly indecipherable, written in some form of English that must have made sense to him and his friends but was like Greek to me.

I was about to put it back when it occurred to me to check his photos.

They were mostly pictures of Bondi Beach, a few of his friend Damian surfing, but as I scrolled further back, I found something that made my stomach sink.

Three semi-naked photos.

None, thankfully, featuring his face but I knew his torso well enough to recognize that they were of him, the shots starting at his lower lip and ending with a view of his pubic hair.

Who were they taken for, I wondered? A girl he was talking to?

A boy? Or someone else? An adult who had contacted him through a chatroom or an app, masquerading as a teenager?

When I heard the toilet flush, I had no choice but to return the phone to where he’d left it, but those pictures have haunted me ever since, and despite my training, I haven’t found a way to talk to him about them.

The invasion of his privacy would understandably incense him.

So I’ve been forced to remain silent even though, every time he lifts his phone in my company, I wonder about the messages he might be sending or receiving.

“Sometimes I think having a daughter would have been easier,” Charlotte continues, and I snap back to the moment. “But then you’re faced with other problems, aren’t you? Girls are so much more vulnerable than boys.”

“You think?” I ask, dubious about this.

“Oh, I know,” she replies. “Remember, I was one once, so I know what it’s like.

The sheer impossibility of getting through the day without suffering some form of harassment.

Seriously, from the age of about twelve.

That’s when it starts. Then every minute you’re out in public, in a bar, wherever, it just goes on and on.

I’m forty-two now and I’m still not out the other side of it.

Twenty years in the New South Wales police has given me the skin of a rhino, but it pisses me off. ”

“Things can be difficult for boys too,” I suggest.

“The poor lambs,” she says, unconvinced.

“They can,” I insist.

“Look, I’m sure there are some who face similar difficulties, but I don’t think the two can be compared.” She raises her voice at the barman, who jumps slightly—ironically, he’s been scrolling on his own phone, which I imagine is against airline policy—and orders two more drinks without asking me.

“I should slow down,” I say. “I don’t want to get dehydrated.”

“Oh, come on,” she replies, placing a hand on mine and squeezing it. “You’re on holiday.”

“Well, I’m not,” I remind her, pulling it away. I hate people touching me without asking. Or huggers. They’re the worst.