The Man Who Sold His Son (Lanarkshire Strays) (7 page)

11

Leaning left and then right, Alex zigzagged his way between potholes on the former M74 motorway linking Bellshill City to Hamilton Village. The road surface was treacherous, mainly because nobody used it anymore, choosing the safer and more efficient UK Tubes-system instead. Alex much preferred being in control of the vehicle he was travelling in, or on, and the challenge of avoiding the road’s dangers were at least keeping his mind off last night’s conversation.

He and Sarah had asked Patricia to keep Thomas at her house for another night so that they could have space to figure out what, if any, choices they had. Sarah had been adamant that Alex wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was Tommy. In her view, she’d only just got her life back and wasn’t going to accept that it would be taken away from her. As the day and the night wore on and the discussion grew more panicked, they realised that they were being naïve. Snippets of the conversation flashed through Alex’s mind as he weaved along the torn-up carriageway.

Does he really have that much power?

Corporations have always influenced government policy. There’s only one, global government now and Ennis’s company is arguably the largest in the world, and the most influential.

We’ve only just got ourselves together again.

They’ll find us if we run, we don’t have the finances to leave Britain. Even if we did, would it matter to a guy with Ennis’s connections and wealth?

I’ve seen articles that are pro-segregation of Randoms. They don’t think of people like Tommy as real people at all. More like embarrassing throwbacks.

As the early hours sped towards them, they’d rallied themselves, dreamed up possible solutions or negotiations to offer Ennis. By morning they’d realised that they had nothing to offer Ennis and that only one option remained: Alex had to take the job. To be safe, Sarah would take Ennis’s money and leave for Alex’s grandfather’s place in New York with Thomas immediately.

The ten billion had pinged into Sarah’s account less than five minutes ago. Alex was speeding his way along the M74 to bring his son home from his gran’s by the fastest route. Thomas and Sarah would be leaving Bellshill and the UK within the hour. Sarah was already making her way to Bellshill International airport via The Tubes. Alex promised to have Thomas there in plenty of time. As he cut the air with his Kawasaki, his helmet-Comm popped an image of his e-tickets arriving. He made a gesture with his eyes and flicked the ticket open. He’d be leaving for China two hours after his family were on board their flight to America.

Alex leaned sharply to his left and took the exit that led to his mother’s home near Hamilton Racecourse. Twenty minutes later, he and an over-excited Thomas stepped off the Kawasaki at Bellshill International.

He’d never allowed Tommy to ride with him on his bike before and the family had never dreamed that they’d need to use the airport. The boy was hyper with excitement.

“That was awesome, Dad. Let’s go see our shuttle,” Tommy said, eyes alive with wonder.

Alex grabbed him by the arm. “Hang on a minute, son.” He went down on one knee and held his son’s forearms, making him turn away from the airport building to look at him.

“I want you to know that I love you very much, more than anything.”

Tommy pulled to turn away. “I know that, Dad,” he groaned. “C’mon…”

Alex pulled him back.

“Listen, Thomas. This is important.”

Tommy sighed and rolled his eyes, but turned to look back at his father.

“’Kay.”

“I wish I could come with you…”

“I know, but it’s too expensive,” Tommy interrupted.

Alex smiled and kept the hot tears from escaping.

“Yes, it is. But I want you to know that I’d give anything to be coming on that flight with you and your mum.”

“I know, Dad. You’ll be working anyway, and we’ll be back in a few days. Let’s go.”

Tommy broke off and ran into the building, laughing as a Holo-steward greeted him by name at the door. The holographic assistant led Tommy and Alex to where his mother sat, red-eyed, drinking coffee in the lounge. Turning to Alex, the steward said, “I understand you won’t be boarding the New York flight today, Dr Kinsella.”

Alex made a subtle gesture, turning off the steward’s speech facility before it could blurt out to Tommy that he’d be boarding another flight.

Alex walked over to where Sarah and Tommy were standing together and wrapped his arms around them both. The acid behind his eyes was threatening to burn through and release every emotion he’d ever felt. He had to leave.

“I love you both… See you in a few days.”

“’Kay, Dad. Love you.” Tommy ran towards the nearest viewing platform to look at the shuttle that would take them on their short suborbital flight to New York.

Sarah let go of the tears she’d been holding and latched onto Alex. “I’ll find a way to get you back,” she told him.

Alex nodded.

“I mean it,” she said.

Alex couldn’t speak for fear of losing control. He steeled himself once more and pulled her close to whisper in her ear, “They’re taking me to China.”

Sarah pushed him back to look into his eyes, but said nothing. The two of them, best friends for a lifetime, said a painfully silent goodbye to each other, smiles painted on for Tommy’s benefit.

“Look after him. Tell Granda everything.”

“I will,” Sarah promised.

Alex broke off and walked straight out of the lounge into the bathroom. He didn’t look back. Reaching the bathroom, he let out an excruciatingly miserable howl. Three men flushed and left the bathroom without washing their hands as Alex sat on the tiled floor, back against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees, crying and wailing, searching for a speck of courage to stand up and do what he had to do.

Sarah watched Alex leave, then wiped at her eyes. She never knew so many tears could flow from one person. She half expected to look down and find that her body had shrivelled with the loss.

All the years she’d wasted vaped, angry, desolate, alone in her own misery. Wasted time she should’ve spent with Alex. She wouldn’t let him or Tommy down again. She found the ember of strength she’d been shielding and nurturing since her recovery and used her love and her anger to fan it into a flame. Taking power from it, she walked towards her son and placed her hands on his little shoulders as he watched the shuttle they’d be boarding taxi around to the gate.

Her will became iron and her resolve riveted out a message into her heart.
I will see you again, Alex.

Two hours later, Sarah and Tommy, the only passengers on their shuttle, stepped out into the bright Manhattan morning. Tommy skipped along the short corridor towards the exit, scanning faces for his great-grandfather, with whom he shared his name. The airport had been erected decades before on the site where the Empire State Building had once stood and served to ferry the very rich around the globe on business.

Alex’s grandfather Tom, a writer, had lived in Manhattan since the turn of the century. Sarah had seen much of Tom when she’d been a child during his frequent visits to Scotland to see Alex. This was back before jets were decommissioned, new borders formed and old ones erased with the founding of the World Government, currently based in London.

After the new regime was formed, travel became more efficient with the advent of The Tubes system throughout the UK, Europe and the United States. Hundreds of thousands of miles of tunnels were carved out and filled with tubes of super-fast magnetic trains. The new government made all Tubes travel free and left the roads to rot or built bigger cities and towns over them. It had never been easier to travel the interior of one’s country or continent.
 
International travel, however, became more exclusive. The new government had passed legislation, with massive public support, to scrap the traditional means of air travel on safety grounds. Anti-terrorist agendas sped up the process and a new space program offering faster, suborbital travel was adopted. Flying the skies became a dream for the masses. As a result, flights were practically universally unavailable, except to the very wealthy, and the Kinsella family had been divided by the Atlantic Ocean for almost two decades.

Tommy had spoken to his great-grandfather many times via Holo-Net calls, but his excitement as he scanned the waiting faces in arrivals was electric. Sarah watched his face light up in recognition and he disappeared through the gate.

“Tommy. Wait for me,” she called after him.

Picking up her pace, she rounded the corner to see her son with his arms wrapped around his great-grandfather’s neck. The old man had his arms around the great-grandson he’d never met and his face buried in his neck in a tight hug, sniffing in the smells of the boy.

From her vantage, Sarah couldn’t see his face, only the top of his head
–
still thickly covered in greyed-blond hair
–
but she could hear his voice, his Scottish accent still very noticeable despite decades in the States.

“Hiya, wee man. Christ, it’s good to meet you.”

Sarah gave them a moment before approaching.

Tom heard her footsteps and lifted his eyes to meet hers. The years melted away as she looked into the warmth of Tom Kinsella’s eyes. They danced with joy and filled with emotion. Looking into this man’s face made everything that’d happened in the last few days suddenly seem far too real all of a sudden. Too real to cope with alone. Thank God she’d come here. Thank God for Tom Kinsella

Tom had a calmness, a strength that he carried around with him. He’d always seemed invulnerable to her, safe. Sarah had forgotten how it felt to be around him. Even as child she’d basked in the peace and confidence that emanated from the old man. Feeling his presence here, now, filled her with new strength and hope. Dressed in his customary old-fashioned Converse All-Stars, denims and long-sleeve T under a short-sleeve T, his only nod to his age was the cane he leant lightly on and the many laughter lines he wore on his face. He was at least eighty years old but had lost none of the vitality and intelligence she’d loved in him. He moved like a younger man, and his eyes danced and sparkled, full of life and vitality like a kid’s.

Tom’s eyes narrowed as he saw the pain in hers. He questioned her with a look.
Later,
she signalled. He gave her a slight nod and pulled her close to him. Embracing both her and his namesake, he told her, “Everything’s gonnae be fine, hen.”

Part of Sarah allowed herself to believe that maybe it could be.

12

“Anything else for you, Dr Kinsella?” asked a gentle voice with a North American accent.

“No,” Alex replied curtly.

As the stewardess walked away, he felt a little guilty for not thanking her. His situation wasn’t any of her doing; she was simply doing her job. Since breaking down in the bathroom, Alex had internalised all of the frustration and pain he’d been feeling and stuffed it into a cast-iron box in his mind. Pulling himself together had initially seemed an impossible task, such was his despair. Memories of Granda had suddenly surfaced and given him the impetus to move forward.

He’d laid on the tile floor visualising his grandfather as a seventeen–year-old
–
just a kid
–
leaving Bellshill for the first time to follow a rock band around the United States and Europe as a fledgling music journalist. Granda had relayed the story many times, telling Alex of how scared he’d been to leave his hometown behind. Having been orphaned as an eleven-year-old, Tom Kinsella had developed a deep need to live in Bellshill, his family’s hometown. He’d also formed a strong bond with the man who’d taken him in and raised him: his Uncle Alec. In young Tom’s mind, Alec and Bellshill were interconnected in a way he couldn’t explain, making it wrenching to consider being without one or the other.

A tiny ex-mining town in those days, Bellshill held little promise of a career for him and far too many ghosts of loved ones. At Alec’s urging, Tom had dug deep and embarked on a journey that had defined the rest of his life. Tom Kinsella had been a scared kid with a bag of complicated mental health issues and neuroses he couldn’t leave behind at seventeen, but had found the courage to leave the place and the person he valued most to rebuild himself. Alex had used the old man for inspiration many times in the past, and leant heavily on Granda once more to drag his will back to the fore and his body up off the bathroom floor.

Alex was essentially on auto-pilot, a blank slate. Mechanically, he’d boarded his private shuttle and strapped himself in for launch. His stewardess had informed him that the aircraft was the personal shuttle of Mr Ennis and that it was very unusual for anyone other than Ennis to travel in it. Alex may have grunted a reply as he bit back on the anger that still threatened to send him tearing out of the airport and after his family.

Reclining back into the deep, leather chair, Alex kicked his boots from his feet and lifted the glass of Glenmorangie the stewardess had brought him. Feeling the warmth snake along his throat and reach his stomach, he noted that it was a thirty-year-old single-malt and thought bitterly to himself,
I might be a slave, but at least the whiskey’s good.

Alex drained his glass and closed his eyes. He’d taken some valium and let the drug help him melt into the chair’s soft leather. He slept the three-hour flight away and dreamed of both of the Tom Kinsellas he loved. He also sent Sarah a silent plea to stay strong.

Stepping out onto the tarmac of the private runway, Alex sniffed at the air. Unmistakably, it smelled of the sea. Stained with images of Gullane beach and day trips with his family, the smell made him feel freer than he was. Alex took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity, and slowly breathed out his tension and all thoughts of anything besides what he was here to do.

The immediate area around the private landing strip was surrounded in jungle. Here and there were rocks jutting through the earth, and above and behind the trees stood a volcanic mountain. Turning around in a circle, he guessed that the island
–
the pilot had informed him over the intercom that they’d arrive on one of the
Diaoyu Islands
–
was fairly small and noted that the strip he stood on was in a valley between two similarly sized volcanic mountains.

As Alex scanned the horizon, he spotted a small jeep approaching, throwing a cloud of sandy dust behind it as it tore along. As it neared, he made out a red-haired lady driving along with grim determination on her face. Turning away, he called out to the stewardess, “Excuse me, Ms.”

Alex climbed the short stairs to re-board the shuttle.

Spotting her on her way to the doorway, Alex took her right hand gently in his and shook it, covering her hand with his left hand also. She looked a little surprised, as it was an old fashioned thing to do, but accepted the gesture.

Alex looked at her properly for the first time. “I’m very sorry for being so rude to you,” a quick glance at her name badge, “Natalie.”

She smiled at him, her eyes lively with genuine warmth.

“Thank you for looking after me,” he added.

She gave him a courteous nod. “You’re perfectly welcome, Dr Kinsella. And please, there’s no need to apologise. You obviously have a lot on your mind.”

Natalie’s eyes changed slightly, almost imperceptibly. She looked concerned for him but said nothing, choosing to squeeze his hand a little tighter, to reassure him. Releasing his hand, she said, “I hope you enjoy working in such a beautiful island, Doctor. Do keep well.”

Natalie turned away and swept along the shuttle’s short aisle to the rear cabin, leaving Alex alone to wonder how much she knew about his situation, and how her own situation compared.

Alex gave himself a sharp nod, acknowledging that it was time to go. On descending the steps of the shuttle a second time, he found the lady driver waiting for him. Alex recognised her instantly and felt his spirits lift for the first time since Ennis had appeared at his apartment.

“Professor, I’m very pleased to meet you.” Alex offered her his hand, which she ignored.

“Yes, well, let’s get on with it, shall we?” she snapped.

Without waiting for a reply, she whipped around to retake her seat in the jeep. Jabbing a thumb over her shoulder, she indicated that he should sit in the back.

He hadn’t expected Professor Robertson to be the stoic type
–
that wasn’t her reputation, quite the opposite in fact
–
so he behaved as he always did with her type of person. He treated her like an old friend.

“Oh, how perfectly wonderful to see you, Professor. I’m looking forward to working with you. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from each other.”

Staring straight ahead, the professor bristled.

“For.”

“Pardon me?” Alex hid a smile.

“You’re working for me, not with me, Doctor.”

She indicated again that he should get in the back. Alex gave a resigned shrug, threw his small holdall onto the rear seat and took the front passenger seat, next to the professor.

Throwing him a scowl, she crunched the gearstick into first and screeched the jeep around one hundred and eighty degrees, sending Alex clambering for purchase and a cloud of dust up behind the vehicle. Alex smiled at getting a reaction from her. He could’ve sworn that she had almost revealed the tiniest trace of amusement at his struggling to stay seated.

“Imbecile,” she grunted at him. This time she did let him see a begrudged smile.

“Can I drive?” he asked with a laugh as she tore along and slipped through a gap into the jungle.

Professor Roberson’s expression changed to one that a parent would use with an incorrigible child.

“Maybe next time.”