Autumn: The Human Condition (9 page)

`Do me a favour,' I say to Willy who's one of the regular glider pilots.

`What's that?' he asks.

`Give them a fright, will you? Scare the shit out of these buggers!'

He smiles knowingly. He shares my dislike of overpaid businessmen.

`No problem,' he grins. `Anyway, Tuggie, five minutes of being dragged up behind you with your flying is enough to scare anyone! I'll be shitting myself, never mind them!'

`Cheeky sod!' I snap as Willy walks away, cackling to himself.

Willy and Jones (one of the ground staff) stand and wait for Ed (Willy's lad) who's towing the gliders out of the hanger and out onto the airfield. The tractor he's driving is a noisy bugger. It fills the air with chugging and clattering and with clouds of thick black fumes which it spits out of its exhaust. I head back to my caravan for a cup of coffee to wake me up properly before the flying starts.

We move quickly. It's not even nine o'clock and I've already towed three gliders up.

This really is a simple job. The glider's attached to the back of the plane by a cable. I take off and drag it up until we've reached around two thousand feet. The glider pilot releases the cable. They go up (for a while, if the conditions are right) and I go back down. They usually stay up for anything between twenty minutes and half an hour. The flights might last a little longer today. The clouds are good and the sun is bright. There should be plenty of thermals to keep them up in the air. Once I've lost them I can just coast back down to the landing strip.

We usually try to have four or five gliders up in the air at the same time. This morning the first three went up without any problems. Ed's just attaching number four to the back of the tug plane. I watch the lads getting the glider ready in my mirrors. Ellis (the pilot) nods to Jones who gives me a hand signal and I start to move slowly forward until the cable is taut. Another hand signal and I stop. Behind me two ground hands hold the wings of the glider, keeping it steady. A final signal from one of them tells me that they're ready to fly.

We're off again. The tug plane bumps along the uneven grass for a couple of hundred yards before I give it a little more gas, pull back the controls and start to climb. The rumbling beneath me is suddenly silenced as the wheels leave the ground. Now the glider's up too and we're on our way. I can see the faces of the two men in the plane behind me. Ellis is talking ten to the dozen but his passenger isn't listening. He's bloody terrified! I think he's got his eyes shut!

Christ, the sun's bright. There's no escaping it when you're up here. It's hot too. It's not like you can pull down a blind or open a window. You just have to put up with it to an extent. You know it's not going to last for that long. A few minutes flying and then... Shit, what was that? Turbulence? Not at this altitude. No, I didn't like that, something's not right. I'm looking at the controls in front of me, but there's nothing wrong with my plane. Everything looks normal. It must be the glider. Something's happening behind me. I can't see what they're doing... Oh, Christ. Jesus Christ, Ellis is losing control. We're not even a thousand feet up yet and he's lost it. I can't see what's happening and I don't know if he's...

Oh, God, the glider's rolling to the side. He has to release. If he doesn't he'll drag me back with him and... and I can't see Ellis. Bloody hell, I can see the passenger's face now. He looks like he's trying to get out. He's banging against the sides of the cockpit. Maybe he's had a panic attack or something. Damn, I can just about see Ellis now. He looks just as scared as the other man.

The glider's tipping again. We have to separate. I don't have any choice, I have to pull the emergency release. If I don't then they'll pull me down with them and we'll all... There, done it. Had to do it. I'm free again and I've got control back. I bank and climb and look down below me as the glider rolls and dips and begins to spin towards the ground.

I can't watch. I don't know what happened in there, but I know that the two men don't have long. It'll be over in a couple of seconds. I just hope Ellis can try and get control and level out before... I need to get back down there and get help. If I... Jesus Christ, what was that? What's happening now? Fucking hell, another glider has just dived right across the front of me. It could only have been a hundred yards ahead. Shit, another couple of seconds later and it would have hit me and I'd be heading down there with Ellis and... and what the hell is happening here?

The planes are dropping out of the sky all around me. The four gliders we put up this morning are all either down or on their way down. Keith Meade � a man who's been flying these things for more years than anyone else I know � has lost control of his glider too. The plane is spiralling down towards the hanger. I don't want to look but I can't help but stare as the flimsy aircraft smashes through the roof, its metal and fibreglass wings and body crumpling and being torn apart on impact.

My heart is thumping and sweat is pouring down my face. I can't think straight. God knows how I'm managing to keep flying. My legs are shaking with nerves and I can hardly keep the wings of the plane level. I've got to keep going. I'm approaching the airfield from the wrong direction but it doesn't matter. There's no-one else left up in the sky. I can't see anyone moving down there. Surely someone should have been out here to help by now?

I have to leave my landing a little longer than I'd like. What's left of Ellis' glider is strewn across the middle of the landing strip. There are pieces of plane and God knows what else scattered all over the place. I can't risk hitting any of the debris. I manage to put the plane down in half the distance I'd usually need. I kill the engine and sit and wait for the propeller to stop moving before I move. I don't want to go out there. I can't see anything or anyone moving. I can't sit here all day. I slowly climb out of the cockpit of the tug and just stand there for a moment, listening to the loudest, most overpowering and terrifying silence I've ever heard.

What the hell has happened here?

There are bodies at the side of the airfield. Without stopping to think about what I'm doing I find myself walking towards them. These aren't people who were flying. There are a couple of faces that I recognise � Meade's daughter is one of them. The rest, I think, are the remains of the men and women visitors who weren't flying. They're dead. They're all dead. As cold and lifeless as the rest of their colleagues who are scattered in pieces around here.

Inside the office I find Chantelle Prentiss, our Admin girl, dead at the front desk. The phone is off the hook next to her upturned hand. It looks like she was in the middle of a call when it (whatever it was) happened. I pick up the phone and lift it to my ear. Silence. I hang up and try to dial out but there's no answer on any number. After a while the phone stops working completely.

The world is dead.

I'm up in the plane again, flying round and trying to find someone else who's left alive. There's no-one.

The whole damn world is dead.

JULIET APPLEBY

`So what time will you be home tonight?' asked Mrs Appleby, staring with frustration at her daughter across the breakfast table. Sometimes trying to get information out of Juliet was like trying to get blood out of a stone.

`I don't know Mum...' she began to answer, in a quiet, mumbling voice that her mother had to strain to hear.

`Because you know how your dad gets if you're not back when he's expecting you,' Mrs Appleby interrupted.

`I know, but I can't help it if I have to stop back...'

`He has to have his meal before half-six otherwise it keeps him awake all night. And you know how he likes us all to eat together. It's an important part of family life.' `I know.'

`Dad just likes his routine, that's all. And he likes to know where you are. He likes to know that you're safe.'

`I know that too, Mum, but...'

`But what, love?'

`I'm thirty-nine for God's sake.'

Juliet Appleby closed the front door behind her and walked down the garden path to the car, pulling on her coat and brushing her long, wind-swept hair out of her eyes. She glanced back at the house before unlocking the car and getting in. There they were. She could see them both hiding behind the net curtains, pretending not to watch � Mum in front, trying not to be seen, and Dad standing just behind her. Hiding behind Mum, that was where he seemed to have spent most of his life, she thought. Inside the house he was king, and he let the two of them know that constantly and in no uncertain terms. Stick him outside and force him to face the rest of the world, however, and he couldn't cope. The accident twelve years ago (which was still a taboo subject that they weren't allowed to talk to him about) had destroyed his confidence and unbalanced his temperament. He didn't seem able to interact properly with anyone outside the small and tight circle of the immediate family. Outside Dad would always get aggressive or angry or confrontational with some poor unsuspecting person and it would inevitably be left to Mum or Juliet to smooth things over and sort things out.

Juliet sat down in the car and started the engine. Poor Mum, she thought. She'd dedicated her life to Dad. She'd put up with years of his moaning and his mood swings and his tempers. Sometimes, though, she was just as bad as he was. As Dad relied on Mum, so Mum seemed to rely on Juliet. And who was there for her? No-one. On the few occasions that she'd been brave enough to start talking about leaving home and setting up on her own it was usually Mum who played the sickness card and who came up with a list of reasons why she couldn't leave and why she had to stay and why they needed her around. She believed it. Each and every time she heard it she believed it. Why would they lie to her? Her friends at the nursery told her that she should just pack her bags and leave. But it was easy for them. She'd left it too late, and now she was trapped, spending her time being paid to look after other people's children when she should have been raising her own. Fat chance of that ever happening. She hadn't ever had a `proper' relationship. Men were either put off by the fact that she behaved like a timid old-maid trapped in a younger person's body, or Dad managed to put them off for her. She'd long since stopped dwelling on all that she had gone without physically, but she often thought about the cruel irony of her situation � there she was, a thirty-nine year old virgin, surrounded constantly by the fruits of other people's sexual encounters.

A quick wave to Mum and Dad (even though they thought she couldn't see them) and she was off. A ten minute drive into the centre of Rowley and she'd be there.

Juliet always seemed to be the first one to arrive at work. She was always there ages before anyone else. At the time she arrived at the nursery each morning there were usually only one or two other people around � usually just Jackson the caretaker and Ken Andrews, the deputy head of the infant school to which the nursery was attached.

`Morning, Joanne,' smiled Andrews, waving across the playground. Bloody man, she thought. In all the years she'd been working in and around the school he'd never got her name right. Occasionally she thought he did it on purpose to try and wind her up, other times she decided he was just plain ignorant. But the fact of the matter was he continually got her name wrong because he rarely had any reason to speak to her about anything of importance and also because she'd left it too long to correct him without there being more embarrassment on her part than his. To say that Juliet melted into the background was something of an understatement. Years of her overbearing parents had virtually destroyed her self-esteem. Juliet had reached the point where she preferred it if no-one noticed her.

As usual the caretaker had opened up the prefabricated hut they used for the nursery class. The classroom was always cold first thing in the morning, even in summer, and this September morning was no exception. Her breath condensed in billowing clouds around her mouth and nose and the low temperature made the tips of her fingers feel slightly numb. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. Half an hour until the children were due. Probably twenty-five minutes before any of the other classroom assistants and nursery teachers would grace her with their presence. As low, depressed and dejected as she could ever remember feeling, she began to prepare the room for the morning's activities.

What the hell was that? Juliet stopped what she was doing and looked up. Fifteen minutes now to the start of class and she'd just heard an almighty crashing noise just outside the door. It sounded like kids messing around on the concrete steps which led up to the classroom. It sounded like they'd thrown something against the door. Juliet didn't like confrontation. She kept her head down, hoping that whoever it was would go away as quickly as they'd arrived. Maybe they'd just miss-kicked a football or something...

Suddenly another sound, this one very different to the first. It sounded like someone coughing and choking, but it couldn't have been, could it? Juliet crept cautiously towards the window and looked outside. The playground was empty and still with the only movement coming from the birds flying between the roof of the school building and the rubbish bins and back again. She was about to turn round and go back to what she'd been doing when she noticed it. She had to stand on tip-toe and crane her neck to see properly, but she could definitely see a foot sticking out over the edge of the steps. So there were kids messing around after all, she thought. With her pulse racing (she didn't like it when she didn't know what was happening) she walked over to the classroom door and pressed her ear against it. She couldn't hear anything outside. Very slowly she pushed the door open. Lying on the steps in front of her was the dead body of Sam Peters, one of the boys who had been in the nursery class last year. Panicking, she immediately slammed the door shut again and leant against it. Not knowing what she was going to do, and overcome with sudden nervousness and disorientation, she slid down to the floor and held her head in her hands. There was no question that the boy was dead. She'd never seen a body before but she knew he was dead. His frozen face was all twisted and contorted with pain and there were dribbles of blood on the front of his yellow school sweatshirt.