by Fiona Barton
“You look wonderful today, love, better every time I see you,” he’d told her as he entered her hospital room that lunchtime.
“I’ll be home soon, Bob,” she’d answered from her bed, a wind farm of fans ruffling the fibers of her wig.
Sparkes had sat in his usual chair, dark red leatherette, the front edge of its seat worn thin by the years of anxious spouses perched to catch every word and glance. He’d pulled the chair tight against the bed frame so that they could touch.
“How’s the pain?”
“Okay. How’s your day?” she’d asked, her eyes slightly unfocused but pointing in his direction. “Tell me your news.”
“Oh, fine. Anyway, never mind that, love.” Bob had leaned forward quickly to kiss her forehead. It’d felt damp and cold and he’d fancied he could taste the chemicals being piped through her.
His kiss had nudged her wig—she’d picked it from a hospital catalog the first time round and had gone for a new color.
“I felt like a change and I’ve always wanted to be a blonde,” she’d said, chirpy, pale, bald, and holding up a helmet of ash-blond hair for inspection. He’d laughed—the first proper laugh since her diagnosis—and kissed her hard. A lover’s kiss. The new Eileen had still stopped him in his tracks each time he’d come through the door, but when she took the wig off, stubble prickled her scalp and colored her back to brown.
“I might bleach it when I get home,” she’d teased when she caught him looking. “What do you think? Sexy?” He’d smiled and held her hand. They’d been winning then.
* * *
• • •
He closed his eyes as Eileen flooded his head. He ought to be at home, getting ready for her discharge from hospital. Changing the sheets on the beds—one upstairs, one down in the sitting room, which she would choose between depending on how she was doing. She liked the duvet cover with rosebuds on it. He needed to iron it. And get that raspberry tea she loved. He’d do it later. He scribbled R tea and ironing on a yellow Post-it and went to stick it somewhere he’d find it later. But he ended up putting it back on the Post-it stack, where it curled with contempt at his inadequacy.
Sparkes breathed deeply to contain the panic beginning to constrict his chest. Open your lungs, the woman in Eileen’s yoga DVD said. Feel your breath open spaces inside you. He had a go, but the dread about what “coming home” meant could not be exhaled. Eileen was coming home because there was nothing more they could do at the hospital. It was the endgame. Eileen’s consultant had told them as they held hands, both clammy, he from fear, she from the drugs.
“It may be months but more likely weeks,” she’d said kindly but firmly. There was to be no disputing the facts or appealing against the sentence. Afterward, they had sat in a sort of daze, not daring to look at each other, in case they had to talk about it.
“We’ll talk at home,” Eileen had said to break the silence. “Can you remember to get my raspberry tea?”
He would go and pick her up tomorrow morning, after the ward round. She’d be bright and cheerful for him. Eileen could still turn it on with the help of her morphine, but that would fade as the day wore on. He could picture her moving slowly round the house, touching things as if she were about to leave. The agony of cancer was changing her. There were times when she pushed away his attempts at loving attention. Times when she got angry, couldn’t bear him to touch her. And it was at these darkest times that he realized how much he loved her. How much there was to lose. Months, please make it months . . .
He pushed himself away from his desk as if physical action could rid him of his thoughts, and he cast around for anything else, something to distract him from Eileen’s illness for one last day.
FIFTEEN
The Reporter
MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2014
The airport lounge is crammed with businessmen, ties loosened, spectacles pushed up onto their heads, glasses of pinot noir in their fists as they lounge in the leather armchairs. There’s a football match playing on one of the vast TV screens and a ticker tape of news running under the smiling face of a presenter on another.
This is the part of the job I love most. Going on a Foreign. The last-minute arrangements, rushing to the airport while the news-desk secretary is still booking the tickets, pushing through queues, boarding as the plane doors are closing. The anticipation of the story waiting at the other end.
It’s busy and I choose a table in a corner and sit down slowly, scanning the room. There’ll be other reporters flying out to Bangkok to cover the story, but I don’t see any familiar faces propping up the free bar. My colleagues must be going goat class.
I’ve used my gold loyalty card and a great deal of charm at the check-in desk to be upgraded to business class. Maybe the last time I can pull that one, I think, but I’m pleased with myself. I need to be alongside the families so we can talk. And they’ll be bumped up to the front of the plane to protect them from the press. From people like me.
People in business lounges tend to fall into two categories: the Residents, feet up and on first-name terms with the staff, and the Tourists, the first-timers, buzzing over the free sandwiches like excited wasps.
But the O’Connors and Shaws are doing neither.
I spot Lesley and Malcolm holding hands over a table near the windows. Both look exhausted, neither speaking. Lesley’s staring at her phone as if willing it to ring. When she looks up, she sees me and raises a hand in recognition.
The mobile rings and she looks at the number, then hands it to Malcolm, gets up, and weaves between the tables to me.
“Can I sit down?” she says and collapses into a chair. “Sorry, you don’t mind, do you? I feel a bit wobbly.”
“Of course you do,” I say. “Do you want a glass of water or something stronger?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want anything except for it not to be Alex,” she says and bursts into tears.
“Oh, Lesley,” I say, pulling my chair round to touch hers.
“I know I must sound wicked, wishing it to be someone else’s child, but I can’t bear it.”
“You are not wicked,” I say. “Just desperately upset. I understand that.”
“I don’t think anyone can understand.”
I consider telling her about Jake. Share my bit of misery. Me, too. But she doesn’t need to hear it. It doesn’t matter what’s happening to anyone else now. She cannot think about anything but Alex.
“And I’m frightened of flying.” Lesley hiccups and almost laughs at the absurdity of her situation. “I can’t believe this is happening. I should be at the pub quiz tonight. We’re the Little Gray Cells. But instead I’m going to fly eleven hours to see if a body in a police morgue is my daughter.”
“You are doing brilliantly, Lesley.”
“No, I’m not. I’m falling apart, Kate. I don’t want to get on the plane. What if there’s news? We’ll be up in the air for hours, out of contact. We won’t know anything until we land. It’s terrifying me.”
I lean forward to be in her eyeline. To get her to focus.
“It’s night there now. Nothing is going to happen until the morning. Things could be a bit clearer tomorrow. You need to try to get some sleep on the flight. Have you got anything you can take?”
Lesley twists a tissue in her restless hands into shreds. “I’ll manage.”
I nod, never taking my eyes off the woman disintegrating in front of me.
I fish my phone out of my bag and dial Joe’s number.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m at the airport. Look, can you ring or text me if there is any more news before we take off?” It’s a given that Joe would, but I want Lesley to know that I am getting any new info.
Joe uses his telephone voice and I want to tease him, but not in front of Lesley.
“Yes, will do,” he says. “Nothing on the wires at the moment, or on Twit
ter or the Facebook group. How are you doing?”
“Good, thanks. Speak when I get there.”
I shake my head at Lesley. “Nothing new this end, but I’ll ring the local reporter now to make sure we get any updates before we take off.” I call Don’s number.
“Hi, I’m on my way to you. What’s happening at the moment? Anything I need to know before I board?”
“It’s the middle of the night, Kate. So not much. The police’ve been trying to make the building safe to continue the search. I hope they’re wearing hard hats—it looks like it was a hazard before the fire, never mind now. Smells terrible. Poor buggers flying out here to identify their kids.”
I’m editing the information in my head to make it fit for public consumption.
“Have you seen any of the parents?” Don says.
Lesley’s looking at me and I hope she can’t hear Don.
“Yes,” I say with what I hope is a telltale inflection.
“Ah, are you sitting with them?”
“Yeah, so . . . What are the police saying about the fire?”
“That farang kee ngok—sorry, Cheap Charlie backpackers—caused it. It looks like it wasn’t full at the time, thank God, but a contact at the hospital says there’s a possible survivor—a Western lad with burns who came in on the night of the fire. There are no other details about him yet, but I’m making inquiries.”
“Which hospital?” I ask. “Have you told anyone else?”
“Not yet. I’m working on getting in to see him.”
“I’ll make sure we look after you if you keep anything you get for us. Just until I get there . . . Don?”
We both know that an interview with the survivor could be the next big story. Especially if he turns out to be the hero of the hour.
“As it’s you, okay,” Don says. “But I can’t afford to fall out with the pack, so keep shtum. Okay?”
“Thanks. See you when I land. And, Don, can you text me if you hear anything new?”
“Yes, will do,” Don says. “See you in the bar.”
Lesley’s leaning forward expectantly. “What did he say? Who’s in hospital?”
“There’s a boy who might have been injured in the fire, but it’s all a bit vague at the moment.”
Lesley’s face droops with disappointment. “A boy,” she repeats quietly. “Does he know what happened?”
I squeeze her hand. “I don’t know. It’s still very early in the investigation, Lesley, so nothing is certain.”
Lesley nods but I can see she’s not really listening. She looks like she’s heard it all before. Because she has.
“My contact out there will call us if there’s any news; he’s talking to the police all the time.”
She mouths her thanks and walks back to her husband to tell him what I’ve told her. Then she goes over to another table, where Jenny Shaw is sitting with her ex. She has her back to him.
Well, this hasn’t brought them together, then, I think and lift my hand in silent greeting as Jenny looks across at me.
SIXTEEN
The Reporter
MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2014
My phone rings and I see Lesley’s head turn at the sound. It’s Mick and I shake my head to show there is no news for her.
“Just checking in, Kate. How the fuck did you get upgraded? No chance when I tried. The airline girl looked like I’d asked her for a blow job when I suggested business class.”
I turn away to smile so Lesley doesn’t see.
“I’ve seen three other photographers in the queue for security,” Mick says. “Going to be a pack job.” I can hear the grin on his face. Mick loves a pack job—the drinking, the competition, the fun of being with a crowd of other journalists.
“How’s it going on your end, then?”
“Okay. I’ve spoken to Lesley. They’re all terrified, poor things. Anyway, I’m sitting with them on the plane. It’ll make life so much easier to be with them when we land.”
“Well, think of me when you’re tucking into your gourmet meal and necking champagne.”
“I’ll bring you a doggie bag.”
* * *
• • •
I wait until the families are dozing before walking back to economy. Mick is dead to the world, his head lolling.
“Mick,” I hiss too loudly, and other heads rise in the seats around him.
“Hello, Kate,” George Clarkson from the Telegraph says from the row behind. “I didn’t know you were on board. How are you doing?”
“Yeah, are you up the front?” Louise Butler from the Herald calls across the aisle.
“Hi, okay, and yes,” I say. “How about you, George? Haven’t seen you since you moved from the Mail. What’s it like in the deep end?”
“A lot less screechy and hatey.” He smiles. “No one shouts. All very civilized.”
I look around and count five papers and a TV reporter. I know them all. They’re my people. I feel comfortable here, in the fug of airline food and flatulence of the cheap seats.
“Has either of the families spoken to you? Or are the flight attendants on security duty?” Louise says, and I realize they haven’t seen my story, filed from the airport lounge just before I boarded. I hesitate. The reporters hear the pause and know the painful truth. They’ve been beaten to it.
“What are they saying? They must be in pieces,” Louise says.
Feeding me the line. I simply nod.
“How did you get your desk to agree to pay for business class? My lot wouldn’t. I had a go at getting up front to see the parents when they were serving the meal but I got caught.”
Bloody Louise Butler. Little Miss Pushy, I catch myself thinking and get an unsettling glimpse of myself on a doorstep. I turn back to George.
“How are they, Kate?” he asks.
“Not bad. They’re being picked up by the embassy.”
“And you’ll be in the car, all cozy with them, no doubt. But you’ll give us a line, won’t you?” Louise says, leaning over and touching my arm. “We’re your mates.”
George raises an eyebrow on behalf of the other reporters.
“I get that you want the story, Louise,” I say, moving my arm away from her. “We all do. Look, I filed my talk with them just before we took off. Your lot can pick it up from the website.”
“Listen to her,” I hear Louise mutter, mimicking my voice, “‘Your lot can pick it up from the website.’ Who does she think she is?”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I say, trying to get things back on track. “Everyone’s tired and on edge. We should all get some sleep. Where are you all staying?”
* * *
• • •
Mick grabs my hand when I move off and I squeeze back. He gets up and follows me to the dividing curtain and we stop.
“When we land, try and get off as quickly as you can, Mick. I’ll go ahead with the O’Connors and the Shaws and meet you at the scene. I’ll get some photos and video on my phone in the meantime. Ring me when you’re on the way—and try to lose Louise. She’ll turn us over soon as look at us.”
Mick grins. “She’s toast.”
“Right. And, Mick, don’t say that in front of the families.”
SEVENTEEN
The Reporter
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2014
The embassy official gives me a long-suffering look when Lesley introduces me.
“Ah, Her Majesty’s Press. I’m sure you can arrange your own transport, Miss Waters.”
“She’s coming with us,” Lesley says. “We can squash up.”
I don’t say anything—I don’t need to. Lesley’s doing superbly on her own. Malcolm keeps quiet and the Shaws simply look away.
“Well, if you are sure,” the official says, displeasure in every clipped syllable. “This way.”<
br />
The mood of the group had dipped back to numb when Vice-Consul Clive Barnes met us at arrivals and told us there was still no confirmation of the identities.
“It was a multi-occupancy building and the police would like you to take part in the identification process so there are no mistakes,” he said carefully.
I took the lead as the others stumbled along in my wake, pulling their suitcases behind them. I needed to make a friend of Clive.
“This must be the most difficult part of the job,” I say, trying and failing to match his stride. “Coping with other people’s tragedies.”
“Indeed. But I expect you know all about that, Miss Waters. I cannot say I am happy about taking you to the scene, but it is what the families want, apparently.”
This is going to be hard work.
I fall back in step with Lesley and gently take the handle of her case from her. “You look worn-out. Let me have it for a bit.”
At the back of the group her husband trudges, weighed down with another case and carrier bags, his head lowered. Mike Shaw has his bag and Jenny’s holdall. She’d let him haul it off the luggage carousel for her after pointing it out but made no attempt to take it from him. She walks just behind Lesley but the two women barely speak to each other.
Lesley holds her husband’s hand as Clive Barnes loads suitcases into the boot of the waiting minivan. She looks frozen despite the heat, shivering, her teeth chattering when she tries to talk. It’s all too real now, I think. Not just on Facebook. They are here and their daughter is probably dead.
Malcolm helps Lesley into the vehicle and I perch between her and Jenny, apologizing as I fight to fasten the difficult middle seat belt. The husbands sit in the row in front. Lesley and Jenny stare out of their windows at the traffic while the men try awkwardly to make conversation.