Forecast (2 page)

Sutcliffe fell quiet as a thought churned through his mind. “Did you take it from a shop without paying again?”

“Did I do a bad thing?”

“You can’t go helping yourself to things in shops without paying, Martin. It’s illegal.”

The rain intensified the further west they tracked and the whole time Sutcliffe laid into his son about his criminal behaviour. Coming off the motorway, they sailed down country roads passing through remote villages with hardly another car in sight in the downpour. Surrounding fields and meadows were empty, apart from a single farmer braving the rain in his tractor, ploughing up a segment of his land.

Sutcliffe’s stomach felt hideously alive with nerves as he drew into the Moorland Links Hotel car park. He located a parking space close to the entrance, disengaged the engine and turned to his son. “Wait here, don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything, don’t touch any-thing, just sit and wait.”

“How long will you be?”

“An hour, two at the most.”

He climbed out of his car and popped open his umbrella. His left leg was stiff and always was after a long drive, but he had other things on his mind as he limped towards the hotel, glancing briefly at the spectacular view of Tamar Valley as the rain spattered on his umbrella.

Inside the hotel, he headed off to the bathroom to freshen up. He rinsed out his mouth, washed his hands and smoothed his short hair. He straightened his necktie and perfected his professional smile. In forty minutes, he would be addressing the world. He told himself he was a professional and that feeling sick with nerves was all part of being human. Then he marched towards the conference room and stopped when he reached the door, his eyes transfixed on the gold placard – Chandelier Ballroom.

It was at a ballroom dancing class at the Islington Arts Factory in London where Sutcliffe had met Jacqueline Green. The first time he set eyes on her she was wearing a tight, black leotard and a mini-skirt that stopped at her crotch. Her hair then was short and curled at her shoulders. She sensed Sutcliffe was having difficulty, so she assisted him through the subtle fall and rise motions of foxtrot. Sutcliffe struggled to master the twinkles and chasses, whereas Jacqueline made it look easy, demonstrating sophistication and elegance through her movements.

After a week of tutoring, Sutcliffe invited her out to a movie. Afterwards he impressed her with an expensive meal at the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. They drank wine, they talked, they laughed and the night ended in a doorstep kiss, very clichéd. That night, he found out that Jacqueline remained untouched by the feral world of men and relationships and had only been with one man before she met Sutcliffe.

“Well, how did it go?” his mother asked the next morning over breakfast. She’d heard him arrive home late.

“Great, really great.” He reached for a box of cornflakes from the shelf. “I think she might be the one.”

“Well, don’t rush into anything,” she said, her eyes on the newspaper she was reading. “People have many colours to their personalities and so far you’ve only seen the nice ones.”

He grinned. “Yeah, and they were like a rainbow.”

Now she was looking at him. “Rainbows fade, don’t you forget that.”

Six months later, Sutcliffe moved into a tidy studio apartment in Surrey with Jacqueline. It wasn’t until four years later that she fell pregnant. It was a complicated birth. Jacqueline was dangerously overdue, but eventually gave birth to a healthy boy. Sutcliffe fell immediately in love. They named him Martin after Jacqueline’s late brother, who’d died four years earlier of mysterious heart failure. Not long after the birth, the mystifying combination of genes, environment and explosive brain growth went to work and Martin developed autism. It began with a lack of interest in toys and games and progressed to unprovoked outbursts and tantrums. It became even more serious when he started crying inconsolably if his bed-room light was switched on at night or at the flash of a camera, or brightness from a television set.

By the time Martin was six, Jacqueline had left Sutcliffe and only ever saw him during the courtroom showdowns over custody, though Sutcliffe believed Jacqueline only wanted sole guardianship of Martin to spite him; he wasn’t even sure she loved their son. It left him bitterly angry with her. Anger didn’t suit Sutcliffe one bit and he always felt uncomfortable when he did lose his temper. Sutcliffe wanted nothing more than to keep his son and with the help of very unaffordable and articulate lawyers, he claimed victory.

At Headcorn Airfield in Faversham, Sutcliffe and his best friend Mike Townsend were preparing their hot-air balloon for a routine flight when they realised something wasn’t right.

“What the hell is that noise?” Townsend had heard a strange popping sound coming from the balloon. The crew were stationed inside the wicker
-
woven gondola when they all heard the noise.

“Sounds like the wicker is cracking,” said Camilla, Mike’s girl-friend.

“Wicker doesn’t crack that easily. I think…I think it’s coming from the propane tanks.”

All of a sudden, a large flash of fire appeared above their heads causing the tethers to snap and the balloon began to shift. Everyone managed to abandon the balloon, all except Sutcliffe. His foot had become entangled in one of the ropes as he dived out and as the balloon skipped away it dragged him on his back across the field. The crew chased after Sutcliffe and the runaway balloon in the hope of freeing him before it gained altitude, but they couldn’t keep up.

Sutcliffe stared up at the massive bulk of trapped air as it played with his life. Fear gripped him, but the thoughts he had at that point were anything but fear-induced. He wondered how high up the balloon would take him and what the view would be like. He imagined the balloon whisking him off into space – the tranquillity and the simplicity of such a place. His strange, morbid thoughts fascinated him. What if the balloon took him far away from the world? The voice in his head was calm and he had made peace with the world. But then, with a swift change of heart, he could feel a pressure mounting around his ears and reality struck him. The gondola was on fire and the balloon was rising towards the trees. Suspended upside down in midair, he reached up for the rope strangling his foot. He inched his way up the rope until he reached the gondola and managed to hook his fingers over the rim. Freeing up one hand, he tried to untie his foot, hoping to fall into the approaching tree
-
tops. Within minutes, though, the gondola was a ball of fire and heat began to nibble at his fingertips. He yelled in agony, struggling to keep hold as he battled to free his foot. Then the balloon changed direction in a surge of wind and drifted towards a meadow. It struck a live power line and severed the gondola, which plummeted from the sky and crashed into the meadow below. Sutcliffe dragged himself away from the smouldering gondola, his whole frame numb, painfully aware that if both legs weren’t broken, one definitely was.

“Help!” he managed, barely.

Rushed to hospital with multiple breaks in his left leg, sprains to both wrists and burns to his right hand, he was unconscious when the ambulance pulled into the hospital and he was still unconscious when allocated a bed. When he did wake up, a doctor told him he was being taken to surgery to have an operation on his shattered leg. When he awoke the second time, he was in bed and it was day again and his leg was in traction. Plaster cast encased his leg from thigh to foot supported by balanced suspension using slings and both his wrists were bandaged. Mike Townsend was standing over him holding a card and a box of chocolates.

“How many times do I have to tell you that humans don’t fly?” he said. “That’s why we use balloons.”

Sutcliffe afforded a gentle smile. With a weak turn of the head, he watched Townsend draw up a chair. “How many times have I told you I don’t like chocolate?”

Their smiles hardened into a look more serious.

“Brad, I’m so sorry about what happened. I should’ve checked the tanks beforehand. I feel terrible.”

“Don’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

The National Transportation Safety Board later concluded that a leaky propane tank had exploded. The Board also stated that Sutcliffe had been extremely lucky that the other three canisters of propane hadn’t ignited.

Sutcliffe spent a few months in hospital. It gave him plenty of time to reflect on his life, where it was all heading. The dreadful events of that day had given him astounding clarity and purpose. All he could think about was piloting a balloon into space. Those he shared the wacky idea with failed to take him seriously, blaming the crash for his dementia. He allowed them to ridicule him, even made jokes at his own expense. But his actions would be his words. He hadn’t achieved much in his life and now was an opportunity to change that.

Using his laptop, he executed exhaustive research from his bed. He made enquiries by mobile phone and he decided to use the money from his compensation to fund the project. Soon, though, he realised he couldn’t manage the space flight alone. Not only did he need a crew, he needed investors. Costs were mounting, more than he’d first anticipated. But he would see it through, even if it killed him.

Outside the Chandelier Ballroom, Sutcliffe saw a hot drinks machine and for a pound he got a strong coffee. It would help sharpen his mind and settle his nerves. Strangely enough, he felt more anxious about the imminent conference with the media than he did about the balloon flight into space. British journalists could be malignant at times, even when they were covering stories filled with superlatives. Essentially, the space flight would make him a celebrity with success or a gallant hero with failure.

He took his coffee into the theatre
-
style conference room and stared at the stage in awe of the table arrangements, which met with his approval, before he headed backstage to get ready.

The classic duck
-
egg blue campervan with patches of grey filler and
Greenpeace
and
Save the Whale
stickers glued all over the windows received admiration and reverence wherever it went because it symbolised the dying icon of hippy adventurers. Although long unpainted and suffering with arthritic joints, the van was very much alive and loyal to the Volkswagen bloodline.

The aging machine was making some unusual clattering noises, but that wasn’t the reason Keith Burch pulled up onto the gravel embankment. He had lost his way to the Moorland Links Hotel in Plymouth. He didn’t have a map and his portable GPS system was broken. The day’s rain was only making things worse. Ignoring the sound of flints and pebbles careening up into the undercarriage, he stopped the van and popped it into neutral. Unable to figure out his bearings, he concluded that he would have to guess which way to go. The road seemed completely devoid of road signs and there didn’t seem to be a local about anywhere to give him directions. Judging by the duration of his travel, he thought he had to be close. Then again, he’d forgotten his watch, just another mistake he’d made that morning. And the clock in the van had stopped years ago.

With a shaking hand, he pinched an anxiety pill from its sachet, dropped it into his mouth and chased it down with some water. He wanted a cigarette, desperately. The van reeked of tobacco smoke, courtesy of an over
-
flowing ashtray, which he shook. Buried among the cinders he found the leftovers of a half
-
smoked cigarette. He sparked the end and drew in a deep lungful, immediately feeling better, though he was still lost and every chance he was running late. Flustered and full of apprehension, it induced Burch into a melancholic state.

“They’re gonna kill me,” he whined.

In the rear
-
view mirror, he caught sight of his forty
-
year
-
old eyes, black with fatigue. He thought about the state of his life, but it left his mind as quickly as it had entered and he felt a sudden surge of determination. Punching the gear lever into first, he trundled along the road, foot heavy to the floor, the engine howling in protest. The hotel had to be around there somewhere. There had to be other cars going the same way. A full house, Brad Sutcliffe had mentioned on the phone. To the west, he saw a wooded area and decided that it could easily hide a large hotel complex. Instead, it hid a golf course. Sutcliffe had mentioned a golf course. Yelverton Golf Club, something like that, was near the Moorland Links Hotel. He turned off at the next left and there, right in front of him, was a sign for the Moorland Links Hotel, blurred by the rain on his wind-shield. As the van lurched into the grounds of the country
-
style hotel, he saw the car park bursting with several media vehicles – a full house.

“Full house,” the prison warden gloated. “You get the last bed on the wing, Mr Burch.”

At twenty
-
two years of age, Keith Burch had been caught for tax evasion and was given a three-month prison sentence. Felix Dunmore, his cellmate for the next twelve weeks, had tattoos all the way up to his neck with an intimidating one which rose out of his collar like small flames trailing to beneath his left ear. No sooner had Burch set his belongings down on the bottom bunk than Dunmore, who lay on the top bunk reading, said, “Man, your head’s big.”

Burch had heard it all his life and shrugged off the remark. “You know what they say about people with big heads?” he replied.

Dunmore frowned. “I’m listening.”