by Freya North
Sometimes, the clearest thoughts came to Scott when he was on the cusp of sleep. It was the same with music; a quick surge of notes, snippets of songs, snatches of melody. It was as if these moments were when he was at his most open, most receptive to ideas that the whirl of the day had kept reined in. On New Year’s Day, as Scott fell asleep, he thought how he’d really like to marry Frankie. And how a married life split between Norfolk and British Columbia, though not conventional, could be a very good one. He’d remember this when he woke. And there on the buffet of the year ahead it would be placed, waiting for the right moment when it would taste its sweetest.
PART THREE
APRIL
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: yo!
Hi Scott
How’s it going? Guess what – Captain George Vancouver, who led the expedition to explore British Columbia and stuff nearby was actually born right here in King’s Lynn! School’s pretty good at the moment but I’m still looking forward to the Easter holidays (vacations). I never grow sick of Easter Eggs. Last year my Mum fessed up that when my sister and me were little she’d eat our chocolate.
Well – cya!
Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: yo!
Hey Sam
Great to hear from you. I’m glad you told me about the child cruelty when you guys were small. I’ll make sure she buys you double for that. Seems a long time since I was over – that was a lot of fun. I was thinking about your Mom’s office the other day – want to help me surprise her?
Say hi to Annabel.
Scott
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: yo!
Hi Scott
What sort of surprise?
Cya!
Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: yo!
Hey Sam
So it seems she’s struggling again with this new book she has to do – this Just My Luck story. I thought we could make her office a place she wants to go to. It’ll take a bit of work – are you in?
Scott
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: yo!
Do you mean am I in right now I’m not I’m on the bus doing emails on my phone but we could try and FaceTime later or something I have to go Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: yo!
Hey Sam
I meant are you ‘in’ for helping me plan the room for your Mom. Sure – we can FaceTime later if you like. When I was over in February, I snuck a bunch of stuff into the small shed. I went to the stores when she didn’t know. There’s some wood and shelving and a desk that we have to put together. I was going to buy paint but I thought Annabel might want to choose colors. When I’m next over, we’ll go get some drapes (curtains). That’s the plan! What do you think?
Scott
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: yo!
Definitely ‘in’! I’d better not tell Annabel just yet as she can’t keep a secret. She’ll just get too excited and let the cat out of the bag (the secret).
I have an unhuman amount of homework tonight. Sometimes I think it’s the school’s fault – they don’t teach us properly during the day so they make us finish it off at night while the staff put their feet up.
So I won’t be facetiming tonight. Soz.
Sam
* * *
‘C’est moi.’
‘Hey baby.’
‘I had a shit day. I’m making excuses to my editor again. Feeling out of sorts – that nausea and adrenalin. That fear of the blank paper.’
‘You know silence for a musician is the same as the bare page for the author. You have to see a kind of brightness to it, Frankie, not emptiness. It’s there for you alone to fill.’
‘It’s so weird, writing about a ten-year-old boy – I’m not even sure if I like him much. I still think of Alice.’
‘Poor Tom! Or did you change his name back to Ben?’
‘No, I kept it as Tom.’
‘You tried writing in your office?’
‘Kitchen table.’
‘How’s that working for you?’
‘It isn’t.’
‘You thought about having Alice be his friend? Ben, Tom whatever? Just have her come in every now and then? Frankie?’
‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to go quiet. Scott?’
‘Still here.’
‘Exactly. You’re still there.’
‘Frankie?’
‘– it’s just the missing you has felt exceptionally hard this time.’
‘Yes. Yes it has.’
‘February was just so lovely. But it seems so much more than six weeks since we were together. There’s always a period when we’re too far away, too long apart. It’s this yawning ache.’
‘Frankie if the world was small enough a place for us to find each other, it’s sure as hell a small enough place to keep us together.’
‘Why are you so content with things the way they are, Scott? Don’t you want more? When I was a teen I read Richard Bach and he said we’re not given a dream without the power to fulfil it.’
‘Frankie, when I was a teen, I went through a period of listening to the Doors on a loop. And Jim Morrison told me it was The End.’
‘What are you getting at? You’re pissing me off – because I’m serious.’
‘So am I, baby, so am I. Look around you, Frankie. Look right outside your window and way beyond it. Your world is a pretty good place to be in at the moment. Embrace what you have instead of tiring yourself out, hoping for more.’
‘Is it so wrong to want more?’
‘Is telling you how much I love you enough to keep you going?’
* * *
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: secret mission
Hey Sam
I hope you’re good. I met up with Dave Grohl last week – we may be working on a project together later in the year. I thought you’d like to know!
So I’ve been thinking – next week I have a quiet week. I’m going to look into flights and come surprise your Mom. That way I can make sure she doesn’t eat your Easter Eggs.
S
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: secret mission
Hi Scott
Omg she’ll love that. I can make sure she’s in – I can fake flu or spill something just as we’re going out. There’s loads I can do. I won’t tell Annabel because she won’t keep her mouth shut (she’s that age plus she’s a girl).
Epic!
Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: mission accomplished
OK Sam so I’ve booked a flight that’ll get me in on Thursday. I hope to be with you by the evening. I’ll let you know if there are any changes.
Take care big guy
Scott
* * *
April in Pemberton and the grass was green again; kids out playing soccer, families riding bikes and hiking. The black bears waking from hibernation, ready to regain the weight they’ve lost over winter. In the skies, finches, sparrows and collared doves, on the water trumpeter swans and buffleheads, in the rivers steelhead trout and in the woods Rufous hummingbirds lured by the wild red flowering currant bushes in bloom. All around, a feeling of renewed energy, a sense of welcoming true spring. And Scott wondered, what’s Norfolk like this time of year? How cold the sea? How full the sky? Who’s coming in and who’s heading out?
‘Buddy – if Johnny and little Tara offer you chocolate, you say no, OK? It’
s not good for you.’
Buddy and Scott, all packed and ready to spend Easter apart. The house on the verge of emptiness and silence for a few days. Aaron making his way up the drive with a honk of the horn and a sputter from the exhaust.
‘Hey Buddy. Hey Scott – so there’s no coffee?’
‘We have time?’
‘Did you ever miss a flight with Aaron Air?’
‘You jerk. I guess not.’
Scott and Aaron shooting the shit over a cup of coffee.
‘All set?’
‘All set. Can we go via yours? I have Easter eggs for Tara and Johnny.’
‘Sure – we’ll drop Buddy off there too. He doesn’t look like he wants to fly today. He looks like he doesn’t want to leave his bed.’
‘He’s looking a little tired, right? I thought so too.’
‘We’ll keep an eye on him, Scott. So – you going to arrive on her doorstep dressed as the Easter Bunny?’
‘You tool.’
‘And she doesn’t know a thing?’
‘For all Frankie knows, I’m right here at home missing her as much as she’s missing me.’
Safety checks. Scott had flown with Aaron more times than he could count but he never tired of seeing and hearing Aaron get ready to fly. Here was a man with flight in his blood, fiercely proud of his lineage, his granddaddy who flew and told him Ĺíĺwat legends of eagles and thunderbirds; his daddy who flew for his country. Aaron, a man whose passion for flight had propelled him from the joker in the class at school to running a successful little business and the owner of a plane he loved as much as his wife.
And all I do is play a little guitar, Scott thought as he looked out of the window. He was ready to get going. Frankie was still over half a day away. He smiled at the thought of her being blissfully unaware of him about to take to the skies, to make his way over to her with a bag full of Easter chocolate and, in a small velvet box, one plain gold wedding band.
‘All set!’
The men grinned at each other and Aaron whooped as the Cessna made her way down the runway and up, up, up.
This time of year, with the tropic air coming over the cooler ocean, there was a lot of stratus cloud settling over the Pemberton Valley, forming a thick duvet from which rain or even a little snow was still likely to fall. Aaron called it aboveground fog. There’d been one time when he was flying home that he couldn’t see around it, couldn’t see through it. With the airfield being VFR, visual flight rules only, all he could do was just keep flying. A sea of white stretching in all directions above which he had felt utterly alone until a tiny hole beckoned him down and he found himself beyond Lake Lillooet and some way from Pemberton. He’d flown low back to the airport. He never told anyone about that day. The spirits were with him and it was they who landed the plane, not him.
Beyond Whistler now, and over the provincial park of Garibaldi they flew.
‘Black Tusk,’ said Scott. The volcano inky and jagged, clawing into the sky up above the cloud.
ti Skenknápa,’ Aaron said.
Scott laughed. ‘Yeah – or Black Tusk for short.’
‘Landing Place of the Thunderbird,’ said Aaron, ‘that’s what it means. That’s how it was formed – that’s why it looks this way. From the Thunderbird’s lightning. You know on the north side of the north summit there’s a place that no man’s ever climbed? You want to take a look?’
‘We have time?’
‘Oh sure, we have time.’
Aaron turned the plane and descended.
The remoteness, the darkness, spoke of power beyond the natural to Scott. He felt they shouldn’t be there, up in the sky, masquerading as a bird.
‘Let’s keep going,’ he said to Aaron.
‘Whoa – it’s bumpy!’
The plane shook and lurched down and up.
‘We’re good?’
‘Sure, it’s just a little drainage wind – the high-density air rushing down the slope.’ Aaron started changing course, still low and continuing a little east off his intended route. Scott looked down over Garibaldi Lake icy cold, and beyond to Mount Garibaldi soaring above the Table. This God-given land in which he lived. He grinned at Aaron and held up his palm for a high five. Aaron clapped at his pal’s hand and then clasped it for a moment. He needed to head west again, and he needed to climb. There were cumulonimbus clouds in the vicinity, a no-go area for pilots. Thunderbird, he thought, I could do with you now. He didn’t like the look of the cloud in a spiral at the mountain. He really needed to climb.
‘Hold onto your hat – we’re going to get bumpy,’ he told Scott. He knew from the rotor cloud that there was mountain wave; the wind heading up the mountain encountering a stable air barrier at the top redirecting it down in a rush. There could be downdraughts of 5,000 feet per minute, a turbulent vortex, strong vertical currents and, in this land of mountains, this could go on for miles.
‘Fuck, man.’
It felt as though the plane was being sucked towards the mountain and yo-yoed. Aaron pushed the throttle forward into the bulkhead although he knew he was at full power and there was no more to come.
‘We’re good, Scott, we’re good.’
A little Cessna 172. Built in 1967. Seating for the pilot and three passengers. And hey – Aaron’s father and grandfather are there now, guiding him. You’re going to stall, boy. Don’t turn even though you’re going to want to. Just keep it together. They don’t call this the Coffin Corner for nothing. Just keep flying. Never stop flying. There is no turning point. You’re going to stall around about – now.
‘Aaron?’
‘It’s OK – we just stalled.’
‘Aaron?’
‘We’ve stalled.’
Rose and Tara and Johnny.
‘Mayday.’
Jenna. Frankie.
‘Mayday.’
The terror. The sheer terror. The utterly inconceivable becoming the indisputable truth. But love was a stronger emotion and love swept through Scott keeping fear at bay, keeping his heart aloft as everything else spun downwards. Love. For himself. For Aaron. For his parents. His dog. Mount Currie and Joffre and the black bear. His music, his guitars, his home. His densest, primal love for Jenna; his beautiful beautiful brave girl. And the most sublime and life-enhancing love he felt for Frankie. A bag of chocolate eggs and a plain gold wedding band.
Terror: when? when?
Sadness: so much to give. So much left to do.
Regret: he desperately wanted to live.
Love: how lucky he’d been to have had so much love in his life.
* * *
It took a day to locate the plane. Another day before Jenna and Rose knew for sure. Why didn’t she have Frankie’s mobile-phone number? Why didn’t she have her email address? Why had she had no need of them before? Messages from Frankie to Jenna were passed on via Scott. Why couldn’t she find any note of them at home? Why had her dad put a password on his laptop?
Why wasn’t Frankie on Twitter or Facebook? Why had she no private contact details on Google? If you can find Brad Pitt’s number on Google, surely an English author’s details are there somewhere too? Jenna tried phoning Frankie’s publishers but it was Easter Sunday and the offices were shut.
Pops. Oh Pops.
What am I meant to do?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: hi
Hi Scott. I’ve tried facetiming you but your phone is off so you must be on your way. Can you let me know when you’re arriving? You can text me or email me or FaceTime. I thought you said yesterday. I’ve worked out the time difference – and I’m sure it meant our yesterday, not yours.
Cya!
Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: from Sam
Hi Scott. I just want to know if you are coming or if you’re delayed. But if you are still coming. Don’t worry – I haven’t told my Mum. Please can you let
me know what’s happening with the flight and e.t.a.
Thanks. Hope to hear from you soon.
Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Please call
Why haven’t you been in touch Scott? My Mum is really upset – she says your phone is off all the time and you’re not bothering to return her emails or anything. If you don’t love her any more can you deal with that because she’s really worried and it’s not fair.
I thought you were coming?
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t.
Please call my Mum a.s.a.p.
Sam
A knock at the door.
Finally, thought Sam.
Mum! Mum – there’s someone at the door.
Can you open it please, I’m cooking.
No Mum – you.
Sam – for goodness’ sake, open the door. You’re just sitting there on your bloody gadget, phone, whatever – instagramming. Get up and answer it.
It’s not Scott.
And Sam thought, it’s never going to be Scott again.
He really hated him just then.
‘Steph!’
Frankie looked up from the stove.
‘Wow! Now there’s a surprise. Are you OK? What is it? Steph – what’s wrong? It’s not the Complete and Utter Turnip again, is it?’
Steph’s head dropped. It struck her she hadn’t visited Frankie since Christmas despite her best intentions. It suddenly seemed so long ago, all of them here together, all that noise and laughter and food and warmth and family and new friends. Now spring beckoned and Frankie had her kitchen window ajar, as if to coax it in.
‘Stephy – what is it?’
‘It’s Scott,’ said Steph.
PART FOUR
AFTER AND EVERMORE
My father has died and my world has withered. Some tutor I don’t even know was waiting for me in my room after my classes, standing there by the window. Natsuko my room-mate was sitting on her bed hugging her knees. Not in a million years would I have guessed why they were there. It was unbelievable. What they told me – I just cannot believe. I knew he was going to the UK to surprise Frankie, but I never thought he wouldn’t be coming back. It didn’t cross my mind. The last thing I said to him was one word – a single-word text replying to his telling me he was going to England. All I said was cool xx.