Cherry Lockwood: The Grief‑Driven Actuary Behind the Predictions

Overview

Cherry Lockwood is the retired actuary who, on a routine flight from Hobart to Sydney, predicts the manner and age of death for multiple passengers. What first appears as a mystical feat is later revealed to be the distorted product of profound grief and a lifelong habit of calculating mortality risks. Cherry is no prophet; she is a traumatised woman who has lost her husband Ned and two close friends, and who momentarily lost her grip on reality. Her story threads together themes of fate versus free will, the illusion of control, and the raw experience of grief and loss.

Plot Role

Cherry is the catalyst of the novel’s central mystery. Her predictions force every passenger to confront their own mortality and prediction. She does not appear as a main viewpoint character until the second half of the book, when readers learn her interior life through first‑person chapters. It is Eve, a fellow passenger, who first identifies her by name after a Google search reveals a five‑year‑old photograph of Cherry Lockwood at an actuaries luncheon (chapter 106). Later, Cherry meets with Paula and Stephanie, admitting that she has no psychic ability and that her predictions were the result of a mental health crisis “crazed with grief” (chapter 121–122). Her public denial and apology shift the narrative from supernatural mystery to a meditation on psychological collapse.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Analytical Mind

Cherry has been mathematically inclined since childhood. She learned addition and subtraction through bowls of sliced banana with her father (chapter 44). She went on to study pure and applied mathematics and statistics at Sydney University. As an actuary, she spent decades analysing mortality data for insurance purposes. On the flight, she combined observable cues – a passenger reading a climbing magazine, a child in a cast – with actuarial tables to assign each person a plausible cause of death (chapter 122). This is not clairvoyance but the hyper‑rational application of probabilities, distorted by grief.

Social Awkwardness and a Desire for Connection

Cherry repeatedly acknowledges her difficulty with social norms. She introduces herself in chapter 24 by recalling an incident where she threw a spring roll at a colleague who kept calling her “Cheryl.” Her narrative voice is literal, overly detailed, and self‑deprecating. Yet she also craves connection. At a fondue party, she meets Eliza, a career woman who sings Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” and encourages Cherry to consider a life without children (chapter 85). Cherry’s attraction to Eliza – “the first time I had been attracted to a woman” – shows a longing for intimacy that is rarely fulfilled.

Devotion and Grief

Cherry’s capacity for deep love is evident in her two marriages. She meets Jack Murphy, a carpenter, when she is nineteen. The handshake that lasts “one or two seconds longer than socially acceptable” becomes a touchstone memory (chapter 75). They marry, and Jack dies of cancer. Years later, she meets Ned Lockwood at Sydney University; he calls her “Kronecker Delta Girl” and gives her a brooch inscribed with the Kronecker delta symbol (chapter 107). Ned’s sudden heart attack shatters her. After his death, Cherry sells her house, brings his ashes to the gym to cancel his membership, and feels anger over a doctor’s appointment he walked out of (chapters 113, 115). Her grief is raw and active, not resigned.

Chronological Arc

1. Childhood and youth – Raised by fortune‑teller mother (Madame Mae) and railway‑worker father. Learns maths from her father.
2. First love and marriage – Meets Jack Murphy, marries, he dies of cancer.
3. Career and meeting Eliza – Works for National Parks and Wildlife, attends a fondue party where Eliza inspires her to consider a corporate actuarial career.
4. Second marriage to Ned – Meets Ned, marries, becomes a retired actuary, wears a Kronecker delta brooch.
5. Ned’s death – Heart attack. Cherry spirals into complicated grief.
6. The flight – In a dissociative state, she predicts deaths based on actuarial data and passenger cues. She carries Ned’s ashes in her carry‑on.
7. Aftermath – Collapses at her in‑laws’ home, spends a week bedridden. Eventually scatters Ned’s ashes with Tony.
8. Public identification and apology – Passengers learn her name; she meets Paula and Stephanie, admits no psychic ability.
9. Rebuilding – Takes up tutoring, discovers Ned’s “one good thing” journal, re‑engages with life. Watches Timmy Binici – the boy she predicted would drown – win an Olympic gold swim medal (epilogue).

Relationships

• Ned Lockwood – Her second husband, a maths teacher. Their love is intellectual and warm. Cherry wears his brooch daily; after his death she reads his journals each night.
• Jack Murphy – First husband. The memory of their handshake stays with her. His death is a foundational loss.
• Madame Mae (mother) – A fortune teller who also claimed to see fate. Cherry both mocks and inherits her mother’s need to make predictions. Cherry’s mother had a customer who died in a house fire, foreshadowing Cherry’s own awareness of life’s fragility.
• Tony (stepson?) – After the flight, Cherry and Tony scatter Ned’s ashes and share childhood memories (chapter 115). Tony appears to be Ned’s brother or relative; the relationship provides a familial anchor.
• Paula Binici – A passenger whose prediction (son Timmy drowning) triggers obsessive reassurance behaviours. Cherry later apologises to Paula, who recognises that her own OCD is the real issue (chapter 121).
• Stephanie – Friend of Paula; her parents died in the plane crash that sparked Cherry’s mother’s prophecies. Cherry and Ned had been best friends with Stephanie’s parents (chapter 114). This doubling of grief deepens Cherry’s motive: she is unconsciously re‑enacting her mother’s role.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Theme and Symbol Connections

• Fate vs Free Will – Cherry’s mother believed she saw fate; Cherry claims rational calculation. Yet both generate outcomes that feel fated. Timmy’s survival because of swimming lessons forced by the prediction shows how a prophecy can become self‑negating.
• Grief and Loss – Cherry’s entire arc is driven by unprocessed grief. She loses Jack, then Ned, then friends Jill and Bert. Her predictions are an attempt to manage the unmanageable: death.
• The Illusion of Control – Actuaries quantify risk, but Cherry cannot control Ned’s heart attack or her own breakdown. Her mother could not control the house‑fire death.
• Guilt and Responsibility – Cherry feels guilt for causing fear; passengers must grapple with whether their actions after the flight are a response to a true prophecy or a self‑fulfilling belief.
• Symbols: The Kronecker delta brooch represents her union with Ned and mathematical beauty. Actuarial tables symbolise the futile attempt to map mortality. The colour green/grey of her outfit on the flight echoes her mother’s “Madame Mae” palette.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why did Cherry Lockwood make the predictions on the flight?
Cherry was in a state of “grief psychosis” after her husband Ned’s sudden heart attack. She combined actuarial probabilities with observable passenger cues – a reflex she had honed over decades – and delivered them as if they were clairvoyant. She later described herself as “crazed with grief” (chapter 122).

2. Did Cherry actually have psychic abilities?
No. She explicitly denies any psychic power in chapter 122. She attributes her predictions to her professional training: she calculated causes of death based on age, lifestyle indicators, and actuarial tables. The book reframes her as a traumatised professional, not a prophet.

3. What happened to Cherry after the flight?
She collapsed at her in‑laws’ home and stayed bedridden for a week. After recovering, she scattered Ned’s ashes with his brother Tony. Later, she began tutoring a neighbour’s daughter, Bridie, and discovered Ned’s “one good thing” journal, which helped her process her grief (chapters 115, 126).

4. How did the passengers identify Cherry?
Passenger Eve Googled “Cherry Actuary” after online speculation and immediately found a five‑year‑old photograph of Cherry Lockwood at an Actuaries Institute luncheon (chapter 106). This led to a direct identification.

5. What is the significance of Cherry’s brooch?
The brooch is inscribed with the Kronecker delta symbol, a mathematical notation. Ned gave it to her on their first anniversary (chapter 107). Cherry wears it daily as a tangible reminder of their intellectual and emotional bond. It also symbolises her identity as a mathematician.

For a deeper dive into the novel’s ending and unresolved questions, see the ending explained and questions and answers pages.