Natural Flights of the Human Mind (22 page)

‘So if you’re not married,’ she says, ‘what about your family? Do you have brothers, sisters, parents, nephews, nieces?’

He doesn’t say anything, or make any acknowledgement that she has spoken.

‘I was married once,’ she says.

He continues to dig, but the shape of him changes. His movements become less fluid.

‘He was a doctor, but I think he must have had a breakdown.’

He gives no sign that he’s interested. Does he even want to know?

‘He was tired all the time—he spent most of the time sleeping. He had to travel a long way to the hospital. I think it was just too much for him. The flat was cold and damp, and we never seemed to have enough money—although things would have got better, since he’d just qualified.’

He stops digging, but doesn’t look at her. ‘So where is he now?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘He disappeared.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, there one minute, gone the next. Just a space where he used to be.’

‘What did you do? Go to the police?’

‘Not straight away.’ It sounds foolish now. No wonder Stella was so annoyed with her. ‘At first I thought he’d been delayed.’

‘But he didn’t come back?’

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘No.’ It sounds final. More final than it’s ever felt. It’s the first time she’s told anyone about it, admitted that she’ll never see him again. He must be a different person by now, and if he turned up at her door, she wouldn’t recognise him. He’d be twice as old as she remembers. In her mind, he’s still twenty-five. A young man.

She has stopped weeding, her hands poised over the freshly turned earth. Harry at fifty. She has never thought about this before. He would be the same age as his father was when she last saw him, bald, probably. The Harry she knew is gone.

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Yes—yes. They didn’t take it very seriously. They said lots of people just disappear. He was under stress from work—there was a major accident that night, apparently. A big pile-up on the M25. Or he had another woman somewhere. I told them that wasn’t possible, because I’d know, but they didn’t believe me. They pretended to, but they didn’t.’

Straker goes back to his digging. ‘So how long ago was this?’

‘A long time.’

‘How long?’

‘I don’t know. About twenty-five years.’

He stops digging.

‘What’s the matter?’ she says. ‘Did you know him, then?’ Silly question. He doesn’t even know Harry’s name.

He looks at her and his face is pale and shrivelled.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Twenty-four years?’ His voice has changed, become strangled, thick and uncomfortable.

‘No, twenty-five.’

He drops the spade and backs away from her. She doesn’t understand what’s happening.

He starts to walk away.

‘Straker! Come back! What’s going on?’

His walk turns into a run.

‘Straker!’

He turns round when he gets to the gate. ‘Don’t you see?’ he shouts.

She stares at him blankly.

‘He was on the train, wasn’t he? I killed him. He was one of the seventy-eight.’

‘No,’ she shouts. ‘It wasn’t the same time.’

‘Yes, it was. About twenty-five years, you said.’

‘It can’t have been. Nobody said anything about crashes. They know who died on the train, don’t they?’

‘There were nine unidentified bodies.’

She doesn’t know what to do. He opens the gate.

‘Straker!’ she shouts. ‘Straker, come back!’

But he’s gone. The gate is open, the spade lying abandoned on the earth, and she’s alone.

Straker runs all the way to the lighthouse. It is only when he arrives there that he realises he’s left the dinghy by the pier in the harbour. He stops by the door and tries to think. Does it matter? Should he go back and fetch it? Nothing is clear in his mind. His thoughts roll round in circles, pretending to be articulate, but ending up at the beginning again, making no sense whatsoever.

Suleiman comes out through the cat-flap, perplexed, not expecting him to be there. They stare at each other as if they’ve both been caught in some accusing spotlight. Suleiman gives in first and goes back through the cat-flap. Straker remains standing, looking at the empty spot where Suleiman has been, trying to remember what he should be thinking about.

After a while, he walks to the edge of the cliff, counting his steps. Nineteen yards, much closer than last time he counted. When did the last five or six yards go? How had he missed their disappearance? Has he forgotten to check for the last few weeks, or is it going more rapidly? He balances on the edge, watching the sea. The wind pushes him constantly backwards, and he has to put all his energy into standing upright. The sea is hurling itself against the cliff with desperation, and spray shoots up at regular intervals. The waves seem to know that they can bring the cliff down and are competing for the privilege of delivering the final blow. Beneath his feet, there is a feeling of the cliff moving. Shifting, crumbling, preparing for destruction, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He looks back at the lighthouse and sees more cracks, more evidence of its vulnerability. From a distance, it looks
invincible, but in reality it is dying, struggling to hold on to its last breath.

He stands for a long time, counting the waves as they come in for the attack, swaying in the wind, maintaining an unwilling balance in the unpredictable gusts.

What does he do now?

He has no idea. It feels as if everything has stopped.

When he turns back to the lighthouse, he’s s still counting. First waves, then lighthouse steps. He goes up and down, up and down, leaving out seventy-eight. He treats it as if it doesn’t exist.

Later, much later, he stops on the top floor and watches the sun set. He’s exhausted, but unable to eat anything. He sits down and leans his back against the wall. Magnificent comes to rub himself against him. He gives a little chirrup when Straker puts out his hand to stroke him.

Now, finally, he realises the one thing that he hadn’t understood before. There may have been seventy-eight victims, but if you know one of them, the other seventy-seven become irrelevant. All his research, his letters, the replies, should have told him that, but he hadn’t somehow put the strands together.

This should not be true. Some of the victims are more real to him than others. Maggie, of course, Felicity, Alan…They have all become part of his thoughts, but they started from the position of being dead. Today he’s had a conversation with a real person, and everything has changed. There was only one passenger on that train who has any direct relevance to his life, and he doesn’t even know the man’s first name.

He remains outside after the sun has gone, and darkness rolls in. He discovers that his face is wet. Looking round in surprise, he wonders why he hadn’t noticed that it was raining. Magnificent is beside him, lying on his back. He’s sleeping blissfully, the soft fur on his stomach exposed, and he isn’t wet. The floor around them is dry.

Straker is crying. He can remember only one other time
when he cried as an adult, and that time has led to this. Tears pour out of his eyes, down his cheeks, and he feels their wetness, tastes their saltiness, not even attempting to wipe them away.

Speak to me, Maggie
.

There’s no one there. Not even Sangita, Felicity. Where have they all gone?

I’m listening, willing myself to sleep so that I can hear them, straining inside my head, longing for a voice, a faint whisper, the rustle of a movement
.

Nothing
.

I imagine I can hear a small voice in the background, interfering with my normal dreams, and I stop the action, call a halt in the filming, listening, listening, expecting Felicity to come into the dream. Felicity can’t stop talking. She’s always there
.

Nothing
.

What has Maggie said to them? Why are they all so obedient? What hold does she have over them, that if she doesn’t speak, neither do they?

Maggie, please come back. I’ll go to see Simon. I’ve listened to you, I’ve understood. I’m trying. I’m changing—I can feel it inside me. I’m doing what you want me to do. Please come back
.

During the following week, he walks up the road from the village, past Doody’s cottage, towards her field, where there are signs of serious activity. A mechanical digger has been brought up the pathway and left on the side of the field, presumably to redo the runway. Straker resents the people who’ve come here and taken over. If he meets them, he’s afraid he’ll be angry, threaten them, frighten them so that they’ll go away.

Every day, it becomes more urgent that he talks to Maggie’s husband. So, two weeks after he ran away from Doody, trying not to think too hard about it, he takes a bus to Exeter. He’s never travelled on one before, but he’s seen them with
EXETER
on the front, stopping in the village.

He steps up behind the other passengers and watches them pay. When Straker reaches the front, he waits to see what the driver will say. He sits slumped down, only half looking at Straker, and doesn’t say anything.

‘Exeter,’ says Straker at last, struggling to breathe evenly.

‘Where in Exeter?’

‘The station.’

‘Which station? Bus or train?’

‘Train.’

‘Central or St David’s?’

Why are there two stations? ‘I don’t know.’

The driver shifts irritably in his seat. ‘I’ll tell you when we’re at St David’s. You can sort yourself out from there.’

Straker gives him the money and goes to sit down, wishing he’d never started. He looks out of the window and shuts his eyes, waiting for the sweat to dry on his face.

‘Excuse me.’ A small, thin woman in a pink and white tracksuit is leaning over his seat and holding something out. ‘You forgot to take your ticket.’ She has very big, earnest eyes.

He takes it from her and tries to smile. She doesn’t react.

Once at the station, he goes to the ticket office and stands behind a queue of people who seem to be in a desperate hurry. He moves aside as each new person arrives, waiting until they’ve all gone, but they’re never all gone. People keep coming, an endless trickle, and he steps forward to join the queue. When he reaches the window, he leans forward.

‘A return ticket to Birmingham,’ he says loudly, to the man behind the thick glass screen.

He’s convinced that the man can’t hear him, but he feels unable to shout.

‘New Street or International?’

He can’t go through this again. ‘New Street,’ he guesses.

‘What day are you travelling?’

Straker looks at him blankly. He has no idea. Maybe he never will. Maybe he’s only pretending.

‘Well?’ says the man, impatiently.

‘Today,’ says Straker.

‘When are you returning?’

This is none of his business. Straker can hear people muttering behind him, with urgency in their voices. ‘Today,’ he says.

Once he has the ticket, he stands looking at it for some time. People are still arriving, rushing up the steps to other platforms. He discovers screens that show arrivals and departures, so he studies them for some time, until he sees a train to Birmingham and a platform number. The train leaves in ten minutes, and he follows a group of people up the stairs to the bridge over the platforms. On the way up he passes a young girl with two heavy suitcases, struggling to lift them up the steps.

Somebody should help her, he thinks, as he passes her. He pauses at the top to see if anyone does, but they all ignore her. He walks away. He can’t force people to take notice. Half-way across the bridge, the thought comes to him. He could help. He stops. Can he do it without talking? No. He continues on the bridge, then stops again. He should offer. If she doesn’t want help, she’ll say so.

He goes back. She’s paused half-way up to have a rest, so he walks down to her. ‘Can I help?’ he says.

‘Oh, yes, please.’ She smiles.

He has done the right thing. He bends down, picks up both her bags and climbs quickly up the stairs. The cases are heavy, but not impossible. He can hear her sandals clicking on the floor as she runs to keep up with him. ‘It’s very good of you,’ she says breathlessly. ‘I always mean to take less, but somehow it just mounts up, doesn’t it.’

He can’t think of a suitable response.

‘The others’ll laugh at me when I meet them, because I always take too much.’

She doesn’t look old enough to be travelling on her own.

Once they reach the platform, he stops, realising that he didn’t know which platform she wanted. He turns to her, ready to ask, but she seems satisfied, so he must have guessed correctly. ‘Thanks ever so much,’ she says. She’s pretty as well as young. He feels her examining his face, and a hot flush spreads through his cheeks. Her expression seems to change. She pretends to keep smiling, but it’s not the same.

‘Oh, look,’ she says, ‘there’s Jamie. Thanks awfully.’

And she’s gone.

What did she see in his face? Is it possible to tell that he’s a mass murderer? Does he have ‘78’ written between his eyes?

When the inquest ended with an open verdict because of insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution, Pete’s father was jubilant. He hustled Pete past the waiting hordes of press. ‘Gangway!’ he yelled, as if they were standing in a market and he was pushing a trolley into people’s backs. For some reason, they parted to let them through.

A man pulled Pete’s arm and stopped him. He was a small man with very greasy shoulder-length hair and thick-rimmed, dark glasses. ‘Pete,’ he said into his ear, and Pete stopped at the familiarity of his tone. Did he know him? ‘What are you going to do now?’

Pete stared at him. Who was he? Was he asking him to go out for a drink with him? He tried to think if he had met him before. His father pulled his arm. ‘Come on, Pete,’ he said. ‘What are you messing about for?’

‘Fifteen grand,’ the man said, speaking fast. ‘Think about it.’

Pete didn’t know what he was talking about. The man
reached up and put a card into his top pocket. ‘Ring me,’ he said.

There were voices all round, people shouting Pete’s name, the flashes of endless cameras. He lost his bearings. He didn’t know which way to go. His lawyer had disappeared completely. He was supposed to be making a statement on Pete’s behalf, but Pete didn’t know how he would manage it with this terrible noise around them. He stood and tried to make some sense out of all the heads, the voices, the garbled words that came flying through the air at him, but nothing connected. It had the surreal atmosphere of a nightmare where everyone was talking in a foreign language. They could all understand each other, but not Pete, even though he had something important to say.

‘Pete!’ He heard his father’s voice, and there he was again. ‘Over here.’ His arm grabbed Pete and pulled him forwards. They arrived at a car and he shoved him in. He tried to force the door shut, but they drove away with it still slightly open, a man’s face leering in at them through the window, the almost human face of his camera pointing at Pete.

‘Get down,’ said his father, pushing his head on to his knees just as a click set off a blinding explosion of light. They drove away, slowly at first and then faster, leaving the roar of the crowd behind them, a forced calm settling over all of them in the car, as if they’d just escaped from a war zone.

There were more reporters at the entrance to Pete’s parents’ house, but his father had guards at the bottom of the drive by the electronic gates. Ian, whom he had known for years, stood there in his uniform and pressed the button to open the gates, while Neil stood in front of the other vehicles, preventing them following. They glided through and Ian shut the gates again immediately. Pete looked into the mirror and could see them standing in front of the closing gate with their arms crossed, twice as big as any other man he had ever met, except his
father, obviously getting enormous pleasure out of the confrontation.

Pete hadn’t wanted to go back to his parents’ house again. He thought it would have been better to go home, to his bachelor house, the place where he did as he pleased—played records, watched TV, drank and drank and drank. But he had no choice. His father was directing operations. Pete’s preferences were irrelevant.

When they entered the front door, Pete thought his mother might be there, waiting for them, worried about the outcome of the inquest. But she wasn’t. In all the time Pete was in the house after the inquest, he never saw her. He didn’t even know if she was there at all. She might have been in one of the twelve bedrooms on the first floor, or the attic rooms. Maybe she stayed in her room the whole time, watching the garden through the window, measuring the height of the roses in her mind, seeing the grass grow, the buds forming on the late marigolds. Maybe someone took her meals up on a tray. There were plenty of people working around the house. Pete didn’t recognise most of them. He didn’t ask about her, and his father didn’t volunteer any information.

Pete stayed indoors for about three weeks. There were always reporters at the gate. Most of them left after a few days, but one or two remained, apparently convinced that patience would reward them. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He prowled round the house, looking at the people by the gate, wondering what would happen next. He seemed to be surrounded by a fog of unreality that he couldn’t shake off. He slept very deeply every night and woke late in the morning, his head thick and heavy. He spent long periods sitting and doing nothing, finding it almost impossible to rouse himself to go to meals. He tried watching television, but couldn’t take it in. How could he be interested in people wandering around on a screen pretending that they were going through crises? What did they know about
disaster? Time moved slowly, slowly, plodding with heavy feet, refusing to rush.