Matt Howes - Tragedy and Fear - 1. Chapter 1

Let me introduce myself, my name is Matt Howes, I’m 50 years old, Australian and a lawyer who works for a government department in the Middle East. I’m married – or I was until I was recently widowed - and had a nine year old son, who also died in the accident which claimed his mother.

I’d just spent the past ten weeks in Melbourne, Australia having treatment for a recurrence of cancer, a recurrence which came far too quickly after my initial diagnosis and treatment just on two years ago. This time, the treatment was not available in the Middle East so I was given the option to travel overseas for fairly radical and specialized surgery and chemotherapy only offered in a handful of centers around the world.

My wife and I had been married for over 25 years, in fact my initial diagnosis of cancer had come just after our 25^th wedding anniversary when she had finally pressured me into going to see a doctor about why I was sleeping all the time, when it was discovered my haemoglobin was down half of what it should be, and I when I also developed severe abdominal pain, they decided to have a bit of a look, finding a large malignant tumor on my bowel.

Twelve months following surgery and six months of chemotherapy, neither of which I would wish on anybody, I had a follow up scan which was all clear – Woo Hoo! One year down, four to go to be ‘cured’.

As I have family living all around the world, we alternated our xmas breaks between Australia and the UK. My mother had lived in Australia but had died while I was undergoing the first round of cancer treatment in 2016 so I wasn’t able to travel to her funeral. My father lived in the UK and was our son’s only remaining grandparent.

As this year was the Australian xmas year and I was diagnosed with the cancer recurrence in the November, I investigated and was accepted, for treatment in Melbourne. The surgeon was able to see me while we were there over the xmas/NY break and scheduled me to return six weeks later for cyto-reductive surgery with heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS with HIPEC). I would follow up with six months of standard chemotherapy when I was back in the Middle East.

We all travelled back to Melbourne in early February 2018 with me in a physically bad way. I had spent another two weeks in hospital with complications of the cancer, had lost a lot of weight due to not eating and was worried I wouldn’t even be able to travel back to Australia for the surgery. I managed to be discharged the day before I was to fly back, made it by the skin of my teeth!

My wife and son stayed in Melbourne for the preoperative period and then the first few days post op, until I was discharged from my three day stay in the Intensive Care Unit, they had to get back to the Middle East as we had taken our son out of school for this trip we, and he, did not want to miss too much. It was on their way back when their plane went down on the flight from Singapore to the Middle East.

I had internally struggled with my sexuality all my adolescent and adult life, was I hetero, homo or bisexual? I first had exploratory gay encounters at boarding school in grade seven and a few other encounters as I got older, but most of my experience had been with women. This was in the late seventies and early eighties when there was still a lot of stigma around homosexuality (or at least that what I convinced myself – despite having several gay friends who were proud and out), my parents very negative attitude to homosexuality (although my mother’s attitude changed later in life after she divorced my stepfather and realised she had two gay grandsons), and the specter of HIV and AIDS. I had suppressed any same sex attraction so far down I wasn’t in the closet; I was in the basement in a locked steel vault!

I had resisted having children as I had always thought I would be 1) a terrible parent, I had a very poor relationship with my stepfather who I grew up with, and 2) I worried about whether my conflicted sexuality would ever come out and ‘ruin’ others’ lives (again – in my head). My wife was persistent and despite suffering early menopause we decided to go down the donor egg/IVF route. We were lucky, the first go resulted in a pregnancy and we had our son.

Despite a very average sex life which became nonexistent after the birth of our son, we were very good friends – in fact best friends and still enjoyed each other’s company. I guess after over 25 years together there must be something there. Did we seek release elsewhere? I certainly didn’t with anyone other than myself and I’m fairly confident neither did she.

Three days after the operation, my first day on the general ward, my family and friends in Melbourne, who were supporting me for my three week stay in the hospital and post-surgery wrestled with how to tell me about the accident; however I knew which flight they were on and nothing can stop the relentless media cycle on the TV. My two older sisters, one who lived in Melbourne and one from Sydney came in together with the surgical fellow to ‘break the news’ but by this time, despite the elephant strength pain relief I was on, I already knew the worst and was an emotional mess.

The media reported that there was an explosion on board, most likely a bomb, and that there were no survivors found. Most wreckage was spotted in the sea but was limited to fragments of the plane. The ‘experts’ postulated that death would have been rapid for all those on-board.

The next few weeks in hospital and post discharge went past in a haze. Not only was there the radical surgery to recover from, but poor physical condition to overcome and regain strength, overcome six months of increasing narcotic use and the fugue of losing two important people in my life.

The couple of weeks post hospital had been a seemingly never ending round of doctors and lawyers appointments, first to make sure my health was recovering, second to sort out all of the crap which suddenly appears when people die. Fortunately we had redone both our wills when I was diagnosed and made sure all of our life insurances and superannuation was up to date, in case anything happened to me! Fortunately also, while I held tri-nationality, my wife and son only held Australian citizenship and here I was back in Australia to try and sort things out. As the accident had happened in international airspace, on a foreign carrier things were not to be so simple to sort.

Given my mental and physical state, I was glad that our solicitor and executor were going to take over and handle most of the administrivia for me.

The week before I was due to return to the Middle East I decided I needed to get some sort of control back in my life, or at least my head. I stopped all the narcotic pain relief I was on – three very shaky days later I no longer had any craving for the morphine, fentanyl, oxycodone and tramadol I had been taking like Smarties for the past six months.

It was now time to return to my ‘life’ and try to make sense of what it was to be and what I was to be. There is no point in gilding the lily, I was in a very dark place and not really sure of how or why I even wanted to go on. My two sisters were worried about me, I could tell and they had made it pretty clear, they had both wanted me to stay in Australia and ‘see someone’ to help sort things out. My life, work and home were a third of the way around the world however and I needed to go back to sort all that out, and make some decisions.

As I settled into my seat on Qantas flight 35 Melbourne to Singapore, a nice quiet First Class seat, the Flight Attendant came and introduced himself saying

“Hi, my name is Erin and I’ll be looking after you today as we head for Singapore. May I get you something to drink before we depart?”.

“Sure” I said, “A glass of champagne please”. My wife and I had always celebrated flight departures with a glass of bubbles, even if we weren’t together on the flight. The thoughts of all the travel we had done over the years and places we would no longer see together overwhelmed me and by the time Erin was bringing back the Verve Clicquot La Grande Dame I was sitting there with tears running down my face.

“Are you ok?” Erin quietly asked.

“Sure” I said “I’m just remembering better times, I’ll be ok”.

“Anything I can do to make you more comfortable, you just let me know” he said and gently put his hand on my shoulder.

“Thanks” I said as he turned to see to other passengers.

On his way past a moment later he quietly handed me a packet of tissues, “Thanks again, I may need a few more packets of these” I said.

“No problem, I have plenty more where they came from” he replied.

It was soon time for the push back and safety video as we began the journey to Singapore. I had decided to break the journey with a night in Singapore as I had no idea when I booked the return just how physically well I would be to handle the 15 hour direct flight back, breaking it into two eight hour legs seemed like a good idea at the time.

Erin came by to collect the glassware “Don’t worry, I’ll be back with a refill as soon as we are airborne.”

“Thanks” I said and gave him a feeble smile.

“Anything I can do, it looks like you’re not having a great time” he replied and gave my shoulder another squeeze.

As I made myself comfortable for the eight hour flight up to Singapore I scrolled through the movies available on the flight. There was a reasonable selection of recent releases many of which I hadn’t seen due to either having been so unwell or they not being released in the Middle East due to ‘content’. One of these which I had read many good reviews about was ‘Call me by your name’ which had also won several film awards. I decided that I would watch it, knowing it may stoke questions which I just wasn’t ready to consider but it did look like a good film.

I set myself up as the plane took off and climbed to cruising altitude. Pretty soon the seat belt sign went off and the cabin crew was moving around distributing pyjamas and amenity kits. Erin came by with another glass and the bottle of champagne.

“I said I‘d be back with more” pouring me a glass, “I’ll be back to take your lunch order shortly”. Looking over he noticed the film I had started and said ”Oh, that’s a great film, beautifully shot and a great and touching story, I hope you enjoy it”.

“I’ve read good things about it” I replied. I started to get the sense that he was being a bit flirty towards me, or perhaps it was just my imagination. Why would a young, fit, handsome flight attendant be at all interested in a middle aged, balding, unfit guy who looked sick? Sure I had lost a lot of weight over the course of my illness, 30kg to date, so wasn’t the obese individual I had been but I was by no means a choice physical specimen.

The flight was smooth and uneventful as I watched the film and the lunch service was leisurely delivered. Erin came to set the table and each time he brought a course, he lingered, cast his eye towards the movie and gave me a warm smile. As the lunch service and the movie drew to a close and he returned to take away the service items he asked me what I thought of the film. “I loved it” I replied, “It was beautifully shot, as you mentioned, and a sensitive telling of a story of realisation and exploration. I particularly thought Elio’s fathers monologue towards the end is something everyone should be told as they are growing up – a very powerful piece and one I wish I had heard many years ago myself, it may have made my life a lot simpler, but one my parents would never have discussed”.

He smiled at me again “Yes, I found it moving also”. “Is there anything else I can get you or would you like me to make up your bed?”

“Yes please, I’ll take a vodka tonic and please put the mattress pad down, I don’t think I’ll sleep but it’ll be a bit more comfortable”.

“I’ll be right back” and he shortly returned with my drink and the bedding. I got up to move out of the way for him to do what he needed to prepare the seat and as he passed behind me I felt his hand on the small of my back. I raised my eyebrows (what was left of them after the chemo) and he blushed and said “Oh, I’m sorry”.

“No drama” I replied but really did wonder whether this man was trying to flirt with me. Surely there were far more interesting and attractive passengers to flirt with and ones who didn’t spend the beginning of the flight in tears.

I settled back down and scrolled through to find another movie to watch. Five and half hours to go to Singapore and while I was still very easily tired I didn’t want to sleep as I needed to start getting my body clock back to Middle Eastern time which meant adjusting to local time as I travelled. I decided on ‘I, Tonya’ another movie I had heard about but not seen. It was entertaining but a fairly typical Hollywood production, ok but nothing out of the box.

I got up and went forward to use the toilet and when I came out Erin was alone in the galley.

“How’s it going, may I get you anything?” he asked.

“Sure, I’ll have another vodka tonic please.” I decided to stand for a bit and have a chat; most of the other passengers in the small forward cabin of the A380 were either sleeping or watching the entertainment, except the one guy sitting in front of me who was banging away on his laptop. “Do you get to stop over in Singapore or do you have to turn around and head back to Australia?” I asked Erin as he made up my drink.

“We get to stop the night and most of tomorrow and then some of us take QF 1 on to London in the evening, and have a couple of days there before heading back home” he said. “Where are you heading to? Is Singapore for business or pleasure?”

“Just transiting through although staying the night, I’m on my way home to the Middle East, although I’m not altogether sure it’s where I want to be any more”.

He looked at me and raised an eyebrow, “You work there?”

“Yes, I’ve been there about four and half years” I replied.

“Do you have family there with you?” I had to turn away at that point as I felt my eyes well up again and the tears begin to fall.

“I’m sorry!” Erin said with a look of concern, “I’ve said something I shouldn’t have”.

“No, it’s not your fault. I’ve just been in Australia for major surgery and my wife and son were on the flight which was blown up a few weeks ago while they were on their way back home. I’m still coming to terms with the fact I’ll be walking back into an empty apartment save for the fact it will look like the home we left as a family”.

I couldn’t help the tears at this point and was hunting for a tissue. Erin produced yet another packet of tissues and then wrapped his arms around me in a hug; perhaps not standard operating instructions for flight attendants, but it felt warm and welcomed, and maybe it lingered on just that bit? He smelt wonderful and his embrace was strong and firm.

“I’m sorry” I said, “I need to get my emotions under control, but life has gone from bad to shit pretty quickly of late. I’m sure you don’t need to hear about it though”.

He smiled at me again “Sometimes it’s easier to talk about things with strangers; we are all strangers before we become friends”.

I thanked him for his kindness and said I’d get back to my seat, he followed me back with my drink and as I sat said to me, “I meant what I said up there” and gave my shoulder another squeeze as he turned to go.

Surely this man is flirting, but he’s a flight attendant off to ports distant tomorrow and I’m heading back, to what? What would I do with a flirting man anyhow? While I may fantasize about having a gay encounter and have watched gay porn and read gay stories (and still do), that’s as far as it went. My previous fumbling explorations were around thirty years ago and I had just lost my heteronormative family. Not to mention I’m living in an Islamic State where homosexuality is still illegal.

I tried to push these thoughts from my mind but when I did that I was flooded with thoughts of loss and the stresses I had been under for the past six months. In moments like this it felt like the whole world was collapsing in on me, the black hole just getting deeper and deeper. Everything around me was becoming suffocating and the anxiety and panic rising up to overcome me. I had to get a grip, we would be landing in Singapore shortly and I had to hold it together to clear immigration and get to my hotel. Once there I could allow myself to sink back in to my darkness, at least until the flight tomorrow.

Erin came around again, this time with landing cards to be filled in for Singapore immigration, “You mentioned you were stopping the night, you will need one of these” handing me a card and a pen.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“I’m at the Conrad” I said.

“Really, that’s where we are put up for the night also, perhaps I’ll see you later” and gave me a wink and a smile. Alright, this guy was definitely flirting.

“Ok” I said, “That would be nice” and smiled back.

The maelstrom of thoughts that were racing around my head was leaving me even more anxious and very confused. What was I thinking? What was I thinking may even happen? What was I thinking of doing? This was scary and I started to think that I was reading far too much into this. He was just being nice to someone who was having a hard time.

The pilot came on the PA and gave us the usual arrival information about conditions in Singapore, local time and thanks for flying with Qantas. The cabin crew came through to prepare the cabin for landing, collecting up service items and asking for seats to be put upright and blinds opened.

The cabin manager came through to personally thank us for flying with them today and looking forward to welcoming us again. Erin came by and crouching down said he hoped I was feeling better and that he was actually looking forward to catching up for a drink later at the hotel. “Sure” I said and smiled at him; still very conflicted and now sure it was not a hollow invitation, but unsure if I could actually go through with meeting up.

Landing in Singapore was its usual efficient process, clearing immigration and collecting luggage was done so quickly and easily, why can’t other airports do it as well? My car service however was not. I use this service all over the world but the only times I have had problems are when I land in Singapore, they are ok to bring me back to the airport but always late collecting from a flight. The car eventually arrived but soured my mood even more when the driver attempted to make his tardiness my fault (not quite sure how he arrived at that conclusion) anyhow, I had already rung and complained about him not being there and they had adjusted the charges accordingly.

After a quick trip from Changi to the Conrad, I was welcomed back and promptly taken up to my suite. The porter reminded me the Executive Lounge was on the 35^th floor and that evening drinks had started a little while earlier. I thanked him and moved my things around the room, plugging in devices and logging on to the Wi-Fi. This is when I would have put through a facetime call to home to let my family know I had arrived safely and find out what kind of day they had had, but not anymore. I felt the waves of sadness wash over me again and decided I wasn’t ready to wallow just yet. I would head upstairs and have another drink and maybe a bite to eat, although I didn’t do much eating any more, just no appetite and since the surgery I had completely lost my taste for red wine, something which was unfathomable given my prior love (probably too much love) of it.

I went up to the lounge and ordered another vodka tonic and browsed the buffet of canapes, taking a couple of chicken satay sticks and vegetable curry puffs I decided that would do for dinner.

My drink arrived and as I sat there gazing out at the city I thought about the offer to have a drink downstairs with my friendly flight attendant. Did I want to do this? What did having a drink with him mean? Was I reading things into it in my conflicted state? Will I, won’t I?

To be continued.