Natural Flights of the Human Mind (27 page)

She sits on the bed and tears spring into her eyes, not of anger, not of betrayal, but of sorrow for the eighteen-year-old
Imogen, who had had no idea. She had been so innocent that she couldn’t see any of it.

The real Harry had been so far away from her that she never had a chance to find out about him. If he hadn’t disappeared, or died in the crash, he would never have stayed with her. He would have reverted to his old life, which was centred here in this room, waiting for him to pick up where he left off.

She goes out and shuts the door. On her way down, she glances into the other rooms. None of them has been left like Harry’s. William’s and Nick’s rooms are nearly empty. They must have taken their possessions with them when they left, with no sense that they would return. Gavin’s room, she sees by peering through the half-open door, is in a state of chaos. Books, papers, magazines, CDs lying around on the floor. Piles of unexpected things, like kettles, fans, stationery sets, quilt covers, all wrapped and in boxes, apparently brand new. Stolen goods? Or does he run a market stall?

Downstairs, every other room seems abandoned, full of unwashed plates, mugs, soiled clothes. It looks as if Stella has worked her way through them, abandoning each one as it overflowed with rubbish, moving on to the next.

She is still sitting in the kitchen when Doody gets back. In the same place, in the same position. There is a portable television on the dresser opposite her, so she must be used to sitting there and watching. Has she regressed intellectually so that she now enjoys games shows, soaps, chat shows, anything that’s on? Doody sits down opposite, and starts to worry about her. ‘Do you have any friends?’ she asks her.

‘Friends? What are those?’

‘Does anyone come and see you at all?’

She laughs, uproariously, with her mouth wide open. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Are you well, Stella?’

Stella looks at her suspiciously. ‘You’ve changed, Imogen.’

‘I’m older.’

‘When did you ever notice anyone else?’

Doody is shocked. What does Stella know about her interest in other people? ‘Will you let me know when you hear from the police?’ she says.

Stella nods. ‘Leave me your telephone number.’

She can’t be as incapable as she looks. At least she went to the police after Doody’s phone call, and she did manage to buy some lunch.

‘Thanks for the lunch,’ says Doody, moving to the kitchen door.

Stella stays on her chair. ‘Thanks for coming.’

Doody goes out through the front door, and finds Gavin outside, washing the big BMW. It belongs to him, not Arthur, as she’d thought.

‘Hi,’ he says, looking up. ‘Great to see you.’ He smiles, a friendly, boyish smile. ‘Great weather,’ he says. ‘I like to do my car myself. No one else does it properly.’

He doesn’t look like a criminal: he’s too open and generous to be involved in violence. What can you go to prison for that isn’t violent?

‘Is your mother all right?’ says Doody.

He stops polishing and straightens up. ‘I don’t know. She’s just the same as she always was.’

‘I don’t think so.’

He frowns—like Harry—so that his eyebrows meet in the middle. ‘It’s a long time since you last saw her, Imogen.’

‘I can remember what she looked like then. Probably better than you.’

‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t notice properly any more.’

‘Well, you’re not around, are you.’

He laughs, a huge, infectious laugh that sounds as if it comes from someone who is comfortable with his place in the world. ‘She told you, then?’

Doody nods. She feels that she should offer some practical
advice, an older sister’s protective words, show him that she cares. But she can’t think of anything. She stands looking at him.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘we can’t help who we are. It’s all in the genes.’

‘The same genes as Harry?’

‘Yes, why not? Maybe he was nursing a secret vice, drugs or something. Easy to get supplies when you’re a doctor. Maybe that’s why he disappeared.’

‘No! He wasn’t like that.’

He laughs again. ‘Only joking.’

He seems so innocent and naïve. How can Doody be sure that Harry wasn’t like that? ‘So what do you do?’ she says. ‘I mean, in between…’

‘Oh, this and that. A bit of this, a bit of that.’

‘Well, this and that seem highly profitable.’

‘Are you referring to something in particular?’

‘The car. Not everyone can afford a brand new BMW.’

He winks at her. ‘I haven’t paid a penny for it. They’ll come and take it away once they realise.’

He is Harry with a bend in the middle. A slight twist that makes him into an imperfect image of his brother.

‘Don’t worry about Mum,’ he says. ‘She’s OK. She’s been like this since Harry left. Serves her right. She shouldn’t have had favourites.’

‘Does she manage the practical things, like eating and washing?’

‘You mean does she ever clean anything? No, of course not. She never washes up. She piles all the stuff in the rooms she doesn’t use, and when she wants more mugs or plates, she goes out and buys some.’

Is he joking?

‘Honest. Good idea, I reckon. She says she always hated washing-up. Why should she have to do it if she doesn’t want to? Every now and again I fill a few bin-bags and take them to the tip.’

So the one good thing she remembers about Stella, the cleaning, that wonderful sense of order and cleanliness, was not real either. Doody wants to say something to Gavin. Something that will tell him it matters that he is involved in crime, that he keeps going to prison, but she has no words.

‘’Bye, Gavin,’ she says.

‘’Bye, Imogen.’

Straker sits at the end of the pier with Doody’s clock and glasses beside him, watching the sun rise. The tide is out and the first hints of half-light separate the beach from the water, picking out clumps of black seaweed and the dark, abandoned shapes of the grounded boats. The shoreline is steely grey, then purple, and then copper-brown as the sun pushes up from the horizon. Water murmurs in the pools between the mud flats. The mud sucks and gargles, rolls the sea round in its mouth, then spits it out again. He can hear the day coming, the rush of activity as birds and shellfish emerge into the new warmth of the morning.

The wires on the flagpole rattle and hiss in the slight breeze as gulls appear from nowhere and whirl in flurries across the mud, watching the distant channel of low water, waiting for it to expand and creep towards the harbour. Straker can feel their excitement as they soar into the fresh blue sky. Flying is the one good memory he has of his younger self. The anticipation of real pleasure as he climbed into the cockpit, that surge of joy as the wheels left the ground and he rose effortlessly upwards.

The tide turns while he’s sitting, and the water starts to approach at a surprisingly fast rate. Behind him, the village is waking up, the fishermen coming down and preparing to cast off as soon as the water is deep enough. A good day for them, setting off early on the tide, plenty of time to get out to sea.

Will they come and find him, the relatives? What do they want? What will they do?

‘Are you Mr Straker?’

He turns in surprise and finds a boy standing behind him, dressed in jeans and a warm jacket, hood up and pulled tight round the face, his hair hidden. He’s holding a fishing-rod and looking amiable, but slightly nervous.

‘Who’s asking?’ says Straker.

‘Nicholas Turner.’ He holds out his spare hand and they shake hands.

‘Where are you from, Nicholas Turner?’

‘Over there.’ He waves in the direction of a large house up on the cliffs further along the shore. A metal staircase winds down the cliffs to the beach, with a padlocked gate at the top and another at the bottom.

‘Do your parents know you’re here?’ He doesn’t look old enough to be out on his own.

Nicholas shrugs. ‘How should I know? They’re still in bed.’

They can hear the fishermen, sorting sails, stowing nets, waiting for the tide to pull them off the mud.

‘The thing is…’ Nicholas pauses. ‘I’ve forgotten the maggots. They’re the best—cost me a fortune. I bought them yesterday, but my mum wouldn’t let me bring them indoors, so when I got up and it was still dark, I forgot them.’

‘Can’t you go back for them?’

‘I’m going to, but Duggie Hollingworth will pinch my place.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it does. The best place is at the end in the middle, where you’re sitting.’

‘I see.’

‘Only—could you save it for me? So if Duggie Hollingworth gets here before me, he can’t have the space.’

‘OK. How long will you be?’

‘I’ll be really quick.’ His forehead wrinkles. ‘Have you got time, or do you have to go? It doesn’t matter that much if you do, only it’d be good if you could keep the space for me. That is, unless you want to stay here anyway.’

He’s like boys Straker used to know at school. Earnest, educated, polite. Nice boys, who played with him if asked by adults, even when they didn’t want to.

‘I’ll save it for you.’

An enormous grin fills his face. ‘Thanks,’ he says, putting down his fishing-rod beside Straker. He runs back down the pier and along the beach to the locked gate. He leapfrogs over without opening it, and races up the steps. Straker feels unexpectedly pleased with himself. He can’t remember the last time he spoke to a child.

It’s inconceivable that his brother Andy is not married with children. He was so good with people. But if Straker’s an uncle, he’d like to have been told. Why have they made no attempt to contact him? Are they waiting for him to take the first step?

Nicholas returns with his maggots, and shows them to Straker proudly. There’s something fascinating about their frantic pink and blue wriggling. Straker tries to estimate how many there are in the tin—fifty, a hundred?

‘No sign of Duggie,’ he says.

Nicholas grins. ‘Great. He always gets here early, and I hardly ever beat him.’

‘What are you hoping to catch?’

‘Fish,’ he says.

‘Right.’

Straker gets up to leave, letting Nicholas take his place. ‘I thought you didn’t talk,’ says Nicholas.

‘You were mistaken, then, weren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I suppose I was. I’ll tell my mum she got it wrong.’ He picks up his fishing-rod. ‘Duggie says…’

‘Yes?’

‘He says you’re dangerous, that you kill people and eat them in your lighthouse.’

‘Does he?’

Nicholas studies him from under his hood. ‘Is he right?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know how you can tell.’

‘Nor me.’

Nicholas starts to fiddle with his fishing-rod. ‘You don’t look like a cannibal,’ he says.

‘Good,’ says Straker. ‘You show remarkable discernment.’ He turns to go. ‘’Bye.’

‘’Bye,’ says Nicholas, without turning round. ‘Thanks.’

The church bell starts to chime. Another bell joins in with a hollow, half-hearted attempt to sound welcoming. It must be Sunday and Doody should be at the cottage. She always comes for the weekend. Maybe she’s upstairs in bed. Straker walks round the edge of the village, anxious to avoid anyone going to church, but the roads are deserted. Most houses have their downstairs curtains still drawn, and there is little sign of life away from the harbour.

The cottage garden feels empty. He leaves the glasses and the clock on the doorstep, and goes round to peer through the back windows. Now that it’s light, he can see in properly. The kitchen appears to be different. The walls have been painted pale yellow and there’s a frieze at eye level, with large hens walking round in single file. He’s impressed by these hens. They are bold and stylish—they tell him that she knows what she’s doing, and she doesn’t need any help from him. A yellow and orange cloth covers the table, and dishes sit in the drainer on the side of sink. It looks like a kitchen where someone lives. A vase of flowers stands in the middle of the table.

He steps back and takes a breath, shocked by the flowers. He knows flowers are sold in Sainsbury’s, but he’s never given them much thought, accepting they are for confident, knowledgeable people. People who think about appearances, who know what they want.

He stands behind the cottage for some time and thinks about this. The world he doesn’t know. The world he never
knew. How does Doody understand what to do? She’s not exactly conventional.

It’s her unpredictability that he likes.

He goes back to the front and sits on the grass in the sun with his back leaning against the wall. He shuts his eyes and thinks of Simon Taverner, feeling oddly attached to him—protective, even. Simon is so old, so frail, so in need of support. Straker starts planning to return, offering to do his shopping, do some repairs for him, decorate his flat, put down carpet…

It’s Maggie. Whenever he sees Simon in his mind, she is there too, smiling up from the photographs, her presence still tangible after all this time.

Can he put the accident into some kind of perspective, go on as if it never happened? Or does forgetting mean not thinking about it, letting other things crowd in, take its place? Does he need compartments in his mind? Rooms that are occupied, that he needs to visit only occasionally? Not forget, just walk past, seeing through the open door.

‘Maggie, I need to speak to you. I know you said you were going, but I think I’m getting somewhere.’

Silence
.

Francis: ‘We’re here, old man. Holding the fort.’

‘Do you two have relatives?’

Francis laughs. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

Justin: ‘Aunt Amy, Uncle Fred. Dreadful—my dad used to go out when he knew they were coming.’

‘But what about your mum, your dad—you had a sister, didn’t you? Penny, wasn’t it?’

Justin’s voice becomes softer, more vulnerable. ‘So? Everyone’s got a mum and dad.’

‘How old would they be now?’

‘Work it out. You’re the one with the brain.’

‘What about you, Francis? What about your parents?’

‘What about them?’

‘Do you think they’ll come and see me? With all the other relatives? Apparently they’re coming here.’

Justin and Francis yell with laughter. ‘Hey, terrific. The showdown. The Gunfight at the OK Corral. Can we watch?’

I discover a curious emptiness inside me. My parents won’t be there. ‘I don’t know what they want.’

‘Calm down, Straker.’

‘Maggie! You’re listening.’

‘Only occasionally. Only if I want to.’

She’s watching over me! ‘I wanted to tell you. About the door, the open door, the room. I don’t always have to go into it, you know.’

‘Careful, Straker. You might be growing up.’

In the next two weeks, he visits the cottage several times, always expecting to find Doody there but missing her on each occasion. There is evidence that she has been, but they don’t meet. Is she deliberately avoiding him? He needs to talk to her, but doesn’t know how to find her. He has no phone number, no home address. Their paths only converge at the cottage. Will she ever speak to him again? It’s nearly the end of August, and the school term will start soon.

One Sunday, he decides to cut the lilac away from the windows, and he has just started when a man opens the gate and walks up the path. If Straker had seen him coming, he could have gone round the back and avoided speaking to him. As it is, there’s nothing he can do except stand up and wait for him to get within speaking distance.

‘Hi,’ says the man. He’s tall and thin, and has straight ginger hair that flops over his forehead. ‘Is Imogen in?’

‘I don’t think so,’ says Straker. ‘No.’

‘She should be here. They’re bringing in the Tiger Moth today. She won’t want to miss it.’

So it’s a Tiger Moth. Straker wonders if Doody’s happy with that.

‘Look, are you a friend? Of Imogen’s?’

Straker hesitates.

‘You know about the aeroplane?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to come and watch? She’s been renovated and they’re delivering her today. Flying her in. Should be any time now.’

‘No,’ says Straker.

But the man doesn’t seem to hear him. ‘My name’s Tony, by the way,’ he says.

Straker feels pulled in two directions. He doesn’t want to see the aeroplane again. He’s afraid of what it symbolises, afraid of the dreams and sensations that may return to him. At the same time, the thought of seeing it fly thrills him, sending a tingling sensation down his spine. He dithers between the two.

Tony gives him no choice. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

Straker finds himself walking up the road with Tony, who talks without waiting for a response. ‘My wife’s getting fed up with the whole thing. I’ve been down here every weekend working on the field. We’ve had diggers in, levelling it out, and now it’s all turfed. She says if I don’t stop soon, she’ll divorce me. Of course she doesn’t mean it. It’s just her way of telling me she’s had enough. We don’t believe in divorce. I mean, all our friends are splitting up, and you should see their children. Swamped by material possessions, two homes, sets of clothes and toys for each home, but they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. It makes you grateful for what you’ve got, doesn’t it?’

‘Well,’ says Straker, ‘I don’t really—’

But Tony is too diverted by his own conversation. Straker wonders if he could just run away.

‘Funny Imogen’s not here. I phoned to tell her the date.
Maybe she got the day wrong. She’s been busy at home—packing to move down here, I gather. I couldn’t make it yesterday. My daughter was taking part in a show. They all go to holiday clubs. Odd concept. Didn’t do it like that when I was a child. They do everything now, you know, gym, bands, drama, things like that. Keeps them occupied all through the summer holidays. I’ve only got three children, but they go to everything. Sally does ballet and gym in term time as well. They say she has to choose one and drop the other, but she won’t. She’s too good at both of them.’

So Doody is going to move down to the cottage.

They arrive at the pathway, and Tony opens the gate properly, with the catch. He stands back to let Straker pass and then shuts it. ‘Ouch!’ he says, and sucks his finger. ‘Must be a splinter.’

They walk up the pathway, which has been cut back and widened considerably. ‘Dreadful job getting the lorry up here to take her away,’ says Tony. ‘Luckily the wings are hinged—don’t know what they’d have done otherwise.’

The field has been transformed—flattened, turfed, a windsock up at the end. Four men are standing by the barn with a small tractor containing a fire extinguisher. It all looks painfully familiar to Straker—a more amateur version of the airfield he remembers.

‘Any luck?’ says one of them to Tony, as the two men approach.

‘No sign of her, I’m afraid,’ he says.

He introduces them. ‘This is Ben, Frank, Terry, Kasra…’

Straker shakes hands with them all, but can’t look into their eyes. They seem too young, too eager, too friendly. ‘So it’s a Tiger Moth?’ he says.

Tony smiles. ‘Yes. Imogen thought it was a First World War aeroplane. Bit disappointed, I think, but it’s still quite a find. I don’t think she’s decided what to do with it yet, so we’re bringing it back here for the time being.’

‘It’s been restored, then?’

‘Specialist firm,’ says Tony. ‘You need that nowadays. The safety laws are so stringent.’

Straker’s legs have started to tremble. He tries to be calm. ‘What was that about the wings being hinged?’

Tony laughs. ‘Unbelievably clever design. They made them on hinges so they’d fold back, like a moth’s. It meant more flexibility about where you could keep them.’