The First Cut (2 page)

Sam had finally found her keys in her upturned bag next to the cooker and had tiptoed in a painful, bare-footed hobble across the spiky gravel of the drive. After much swearing and jabbing at her key fob she had got her car to stop making that insane racket, and had turned to go back to the pool and her bottle of beer. The noise that surrounded her, carrying over the rural silence, almost froze her blood. The screams couldn’t be coming from a human being. No one could possibly be suffering that much.

N
icky tried to ignore the man poking her in the arse with his bag as she watched the woman in front try to stuff a bag the size of a fridge in the overhead locker. Why were they called lockers anyway? They fell open if you hit turbulence, and – with the pelting rain outside that they were still trying to shake off after the ungainly sprint across the tarmac – their trip home was bound to feature a lot of that. She hoped she wasn’t the one to get bonked on the head by the leg of
jamon
bought in a fit of love for all things Spanish at duty-free.

‘Move along the aisle and take your seats, please,’ said a stewardess with an accent it was impossible to place – Moldova? Latvia? The man behind huffed as Nicky waited for the woman to finish pushing and shoving. They didn’t move an inch. The plane was filling up from the back door. She saw passengers surging forward, filling the window seats she wanted for herself. Finally the woman turned and did the squat-lean-hunch manoeuvre to get out of the way and Nicky slid past, eyes locked on the row where she would perform her own personal contortions to get into the doll-sized seats. Budget air travel was a blast.

‘You can’t sit here,’ a stern woman in the Day-Glo uniform of the airline said, her blood-red nails jabbing at the row Nicky had her eyes on.

‘Wing exit?’ Nicky asked.

‘You can’t sit here,’ was the reply. Nicky wasn’t going to argue. She wondered if the stewardess was a robot, programmed with only three sentences: ‘You can’t sit here’, which she’d already heard, ‘No’, and ‘That’ll be ten euros’ (without a please). She moved down the plane, her case bumping on the headrests, and began to stuff her own bag, the size of a cooker, into the locker.

‘Here, let me help.’ A broad and hairless hand reached out for the case and gave it a confident shove. The hand and hers managed to squeeze it into the unforgiving space and slam the door shut on it, like it was a tawdry secret they wanted to forget. ‘After you,’ she heard the man say to her neck. Nicky didn’t hesitate. She shuffled towards the window without even looking round. To hell with manners, it was everyone for themselves in here. She heard the squeak of the plastic beneath her thighs.

‘Thanks.’ She said it to the graphic of a woman crawling along a smoke-filled cabin, which was stuck to the seat back in front of her. They’d taken away the pocket that used to contain a dog-eared magazine, the sick bags and a piece of crinkly orange peel. She glanced over at the man, now sitting in the aisle seat.

‘We have a full flight today, so please use all available seats,’ the tannoy announced. The man looked over sheepishly and Nicky got her first proper look at him as he moved to the next seat along. She fought the desire to grin stupidly. Life always did that to her: stunned her with its ability to spring surprises when she was least expecting them – not all of them pleasant. The man sliding over the armrest was gorgeous, just peachy. He had dark hair that gleamed like a seal’s pelt, a strong profile and brown eyes that with one glance managed to suggest fun and a bit of danger. And he was young. Nicky saw a small knitted braid of something round his wrist. She had a sudden flashback to a holiday in Santorini with Grace – another lifetime ago – and dropped his age to the early twenties.

‘Sorry.’ He shrugged and fidgeted, glancing at her with one dark eyebrow raised. He seemed absurdly big for the seat, his shoulders pushing over the boundary into her space.

‘I think the owner of this airline is a dwarf.’

He turned to her fully now. ‘He’s keen to punish anyone over five foot six.’

‘Too selective. Anyone with a stomach. Have you tried the food?’

‘Of course. Cost me ten euros for a burger.’

Nicky tried to remember when she had last seen a smile that good. Probably not since she’d been married. Stop it, she told herself sternly. Naughty Wife was rearing her head. She watched him punching the recline button on his seat.

‘They’ll be over in a flash to tell you to sit upright.’

He leaned towards her conspiratorially. ‘I like breaking the rules.’

She felt a flutter of excitement across her stomach. He was forward and daring and Nicky found herself hoping that a weekend trying to breathe life into a dying friendship could be redeemed with a little flirtation on the home leg. After all, where was the harm?

He shuffled about trying to locate the seatbelt ends. ‘I think this bit’s yours.’ He held up the strap with the metal buckle for her. His gesture felt loaded with possibilities. A grin formed on her face and started to meander across her cheeks.

A forceful gust of rain splattered the plastic window and they both stared out for a moment. ‘Typical. I came to Spain in the worst rainstorm for two years.’

He blew air out of his cheeks. ‘Have a good time?’

Nicky actually considered this question. ‘No.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘You know, I really didn’t have a very good time.’ Those eyebrows shot towards his hairline again. ‘Sorry, sorry, I—’

He interrupted her. ‘Forgive me, I’m Adam.’ He held out his hand and she shook it.

‘Nicky. What should I forgive you for?’

‘Because I’m asking you questions and you don’t even know my name.’ Adam was distracted by a man slumping down in the aisle seat. They all shifted and rearranged themselves. Adam’s elbow slid over to her side of the armrest. ‘So, what went wrong in Spain?’

She wondered where he’d acquired his manners and his confidence. Private school, maybe even boarding school? She reminded herself that he wasn’t long out of whichever institution it was.

She waved her hand dismissively, thinking: don’t complain, don’t carp about life. Stay positive. After all, every day is precious. She’d learned that the hardest way possible. She had a running total in her head of the number of days she’d lived without Grace. Weeks would sometimes go by and she wouldn’t think about that total, but she could always recall it. When would that internal counter stop marking the death of her best friend?

Nicky fiddled with her shoulder-length hair. ‘I guess I realize that I’ve grown apart from someone I used to be close to.’ The flight attendant slammed shut the plane door and pinned an orange strip of material across the window. Nicky was unsure how that tiny piece of material would help in an emergency. She saw Adam was watching her intently with those dark eyes. He seemed to be really interested in what she was saying. Nicky wondered with a jolt of loss whether she used to be like this all those years ago – curious, excited by the new.

‘Go on.’

Nicky took a deep breath. ‘I went to see an old friend for the weekend. She’s married with two kids and living in Bilbao. We had absolutely nothing in common any more. Her interests were all about her kids; mine lie elsewhere. And that was kind of that.’ How simple our complex stories can be made to sound, Nicky thought. Sam. The legendary party girl – until
that
night. Their relationship had not survived Grace’s death. That tragedy had changed them all in different ways. Sam had run away to Spain, married a doctor, become teetotal. Nicky envied Sam’s ability to escape her past, to create a new identity. She would never be able to do the same. Grace was the sister she never had. Their relationship had withstood the teenage years, separation at university, a string of boyfriends and periods of work overseas, yet had still held strong, through Grace’s marriage to Greg and beyond. They had been blessed with an unshakeable bond and they had blithely assumed it would go on like that for ever, right up to the same old people’s home when their husbands were long dead and their children grown, still gossiping, still laughing, still friends.

How wrong they were.

Grace had never seen past her thirtieth birthday. Nicky felt the familiar rage build in her chest and pushed her knees against the plastic seat in front. She refocused on Adam, who was looking at her, waiting. ‘What were you doing in Spain?’

‘Seeing my friend Davide.’ He paused. ‘So what do you do for a living, Nicky?’

‘I write obituaries, for my sins.’

‘Wow! That sounds really great!’

Nicky couldn’t resist a smile. He was so young! So enthusiastic! So unlike the jaded and cynical person she had become, her heart crusted over with grief and questions that would never be answered. ‘I like it, which is a bit of luck since I do it every day. I’d say having done what you liked is pretty high up the list of people’s wishes at the end.’

Adam leaned back into his seat. ‘It’s funny how people only sum up their life at the end of it. How they unburden themselves as it all draws to a close. My aunt is dying, basically.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She meant it. She knew she didn’t have a monopoly on suffering or grief, though it sometimes felt like it.

He waved her sympathy away. ‘She’s led an interesting life. Maybe that’s all we can ask for. But when she’s lucid she spends her time looking back and she seems so full of regret. The past haunts her.’ He shook his head. ‘I think it’s important throughout your life to close the chapters as you go.’

Nicky considered this. It would be a mistake to think that just because he was young he was naive. She put her hands in her lap and looked out of the window.
Closure
. Such an American word, but, like a lot of Yank ideas, catching. Her wedding ring was cold against her fingers. A lack of closure on Grace’s death was causing big problems in her marriage.

She turned back to him as they taxied to the end of the runway. ‘So, what do you do?’

‘Oh . . .’ He tailed off. ‘You know how it is with young people today. Not in education, not in training.’ He flashed her a devastating smile. ‘I went to circus school for a while. Learned to fly trapeze, juggle, that kind of thing.’

Their conversation was interrupted as the roar began underneath them and they were sucked back against the seats. Nicky found take-off a thrill.

She heard Adam mutter a low ‘Christ.’

She saw his hands were white with the effort of gripping the armrests. ‘Flying not your thing?’

‘No, no, it’s not that. I’m claustrophobic. I don’t like crowds. Being all thrust up against other people.’ He shuddered a little.

The plane eased to horizontal as they left the ground.

‘Take-off inevitably makes me think of what it would be like to crash-land with all this lot right around you.’ He cocked his head to indicate front and back. He gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘At least if you die you know you don’t go alone.’

‘Shoulder to shoulder with your fellow passengers.’ He groaned.

‘They say it’s the safest form of travel.’

‘That doesn’t help, I’m afraid. My fear’s not rational. Like so much of what we do, it’s irrational. I wonder if it’s the loss of control I can’t stand. Maybe I’m a control freak.’

‘Your fate in someone else’s hands.’

He cocked the eyebrow at her again. ‘Indeed. Someone who’s been on a three-day bender with five Thai prostitutes and chooses landing time to catch up on his lost sleep.’

‘You know, I once read an article about plane crashes, which claimed that the reason most people die is that they assume they’re going to die on impact, and so they don’t make the effort to get out. They passively await their fate.’ He was nodding, looking at her intently as she spoke. He had dark hair that sat up in a cute tuft at the front and he looked like he was listening to a private joke. ‘The ones who fight, survive.’

‘Would you be like that?’

‘You bet! I think at that moment all my worst character traits would come out. I’d be climbing over people to escape, chewing off limbs.’

Now it was his turn to laugh. She saw more of those perfect teeth and his eyes that crinkled up at the corners. The lines disappeared the moment he stopped, his skin with its lovely texture springing back to its correct shape instantly.

‘Remind me not to be in front of you come the first day of the sales.’

Good-looking, and fun too. Life is for living, Nicky thought. God, would she fight, fight for every day that was afforded her. Had Grace fought? She shuddered. They told her the death was quick, that she was dead before she hit the water, but there was still so much they didn’t know. Nicky would be trapped for ever in the purgatory of what ifs and why.

‘You can rest assured I’d get to the widescreen TV before you.’ She was flirting and she didn’t care.

Adam threw his hands out in a gallant gesture of defeat. ‘It’s all yours, Nicky, all yours.’ He paused. ‘At least you’re honest. I like to think I’d be the hero, running across the tarmac with twin babies under my arms, saving them from the big explosion behind me.’ He narrowed his eyes and looked at her and she felt the shards of physical attraction pierce her. ‘The gap between our hopes for ourselves and the reality is pretty big. We’d all love to be a hero, but in the end we probably just save ourselves.’ Adam leaned towards her. ‘Gosh, this is a DMC.’

‘A what?’

‘A deep and meaningful conversation.’ Nicky laughed. ‘You know something else? They say that twenty per cent of all couples meet on a plane.’

Nicky gave him a look of mock horror. ‘That is
not
true.’

Adam continued. ‘Sitting side by side for hours, far from home. You can think about the big things in life – and have a drink.’ They both looked towards the galley where an air steward was pulling out the drinks trolley. ‘Beer or wine? Plain or salted peanuts?’

When they landed the sun was shining, the robot from Bulgaria was smiling and no one shoved her. She floated down the plane steps on warm good feeling and walked across the tarmac with a swagger. Luton’s beautiful, she thought. The customs channel was as far as they could go together, because beyond that she was headed for the car park and he to the train. She kept their goodbye light as they formally shook hands before she continued across the concourse. She couldn’t resist turning round and there he was, staring after her as she’d suspected he would be. They smiled at each other and for a glorious moment she saw her younger, carefree self burst through the shell she had erected around herself in the aftermath of Grace’s murder. Thank you, Adam, she said to herself.