Buying Time

by E. M. Brown

  They’d shared a disdain of pretension, a love of Ealing comedies, and little else other than a magnetic physical compatibility that had made sex an uncomplicated, uninhibited joy.

  She’d left him about half a dozen times in those five months, saying that she wanted someone who would commit to her: he’d refused to move in with her, he said, because he feared that the routine of domesticity might sap his will to write. She’d finally left him after objecting to something he’d written about her in a radio play. He’d called her politically naive, “The kind of institutionalised Labour voter who in the ’thirties would have voted for Mosley had he promised more meat in the pies.” She had thrown the typescript at him and yelled that she never wanted to see him again. And she hadn’t.

  A month later Tash had called him into her tiny office at Waterstones one Monday morning, sat him down, and said she had some terrible news. A folded copy of The Sun was on her desk, with a headline about the passenger plane that had crashed in the Swiss Alps.

  Tash had indicated the paper and said, “Ed… That girl you were seeing… we met at a party… Helen Atkins –”

  “What about her?”

  “The air crash in Switzerland, Ed… I’m so sorry, but Helen was aboard.”

  Saturday the 20th of May…

  He pushed himself away from the mirror, hauled open the toilet door and reeled through the pub. Despite having unloaded all the alcohol he’d downed that day, he still felt maddeningly drunk. He was aware of the surprised attention of Debs and the rest of the Waterstones’ crowd as he staggered through the packed bar and out into the street.

  He stopped dead, swaying in the hot sunlight, disoriented.

  Where had Helen lived – where did she live?

  He saw a double-decker bus stop-starting down the busy road, with the number 59 and its destination above the cab: Southwark, a couple of miles up the road…

  He ran along the street, easily outpacing the bus, and arrived at a stop. Panting, he waited with a dozen others until the bus eased to a stop with a hiss of compressed air brakes and the door concertinaed open.

  He bought a ticket to Southwark High Street and slumped into a seat as the bus lunged into motion.

  He recalled the sense of cryogenic numbness that had gripped him when Tash passed him the paper. On an inside page he’d stared at a list of some of the known victims. Helen Atkins, 25, a nurse from Southwark. He’d hardly heard Tash tell him to go home, take a couple of days off… He’d gone to the pub instead and proceeded to drink himself into a grief-filled, tearful stupor.

  If they had still been seeing each other, then Helen wouldn’t have gone on the cheap package holiday to Rhodes; he’d detested flying, had done so only once before. They would have taken a holiday somewhere in Britain instead…

  He’d attended her funeral, deadening his grief with the anaesthetic of booze, and had gripped her mother’s hand and mumbled words of futile consolation to the inconsolable woman, who had so disconcertingly resembled her daughter.

  Now it was Friday, May the 19th, and Helen had not yet taken the ill-fated flight to Rhodes.

  The bus seemed to take an age to travel the two miles to Southwark High Street. It was Friday afternoon and the traffic was heavy. The heat was intense, making the journey even more unbearable. It didn’t help that he’d thoughtlessly taken a seat at the rear of the bus, near the furnace heat of the engine. He got up and made his way to the door as the bus turned into the High Street and stopped. Then he was off and running… He slowed; there was no need to hurry, he told himself; he had a day before the flight.

  But it had been many years since he’d last been to Southwark, to the cramped terraced house Helen shared with three other nurses. He had a dim memory of the street’s appearance, identical to a dozen others in the area. Kennedy Street, he recalled… He stopped an old woman and shouted, “Kennedy Street?”

  She backed off, staring at his vomit-flecked jacket, and pointed vaguely. “Third on your right, luv.”

  Richie ran on, panting and feeling a sensation little short of elation as he turned the corner into Kennedy Street and slowed to a fast stride, counting off the houses as he passed.

  Number forty-four was identical to all the others, with an overgrown privet hedge, a painted gate, and lace curtains at the front window. Richie pushed through the gate and hammered on the front door.

  He knocked again, cursing at the delay. He recalled there was usually someone at home, as the four nurses rarely worked the same shifts.

  The door swung open and a young black woman, familiar but whose name he couldn’t recall, stared at him. “Oh… Ed. This is a surprise.”

  “Is Helen in?”

  “Ah… no. No, not at the moment.”

  “It’s important. I need to see her. It’s urgent. Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  The young woman considered, biting her lip. “Her shift finished at three, so she should be back by four.”

  He felt his wrist. Damn it, he wasn’t wearing a watch.

  She smiled. “It’s twenty to four.”

  “Could I possibly – ?” He gestured past her, into the hallway.

  “Ed, I’m not sure that she –”

  “Please… It’s important. Life or death, and I’m not exaggerating.”

  She relented, and Richie felt like kissing her. She stepped back and ushered him inside.

  “I’ll make you a cuppa, Ed. Black, isn’t it?”

  He sat down at the scrubbed kitchen table and stared around the small room. The blue and white hooped teapot was achingly familiar, as was the dusty cuckoo clock on the wall. How many times had he sat here, drinking tea and chatting to the other nurses while waiting for Helen to get ready upstairs?

  She passed him a mug and he clutched it. “You’re a star.”

  “Look,” the woman said, moving to the door and turning, “Don’t tell Helen I let you in, okay? Just say you found the door open. I’ve got to go.”

  “Is she…?”

  “You hurt her, Ed,” she said, and hurried out.

  He stared at the black-and-white chequered linoleum, anticipating Helen’s return and wondering what to tell her. His memory of her was twenty-one subjective years old, and gone was the affection he must have felt for her back then; all he recalled was that she was a good person, who had deserved better than him, and better than the end that awaited her.

  He finished the tea. It was almost ten to four. The time dragged. His heartbeat was louder than the ticking of the cuckoo clock. He stood up, paced the small kitchen, then on impulse hurried along the hall, turned and climbed the stairs.

  Helen’s room was through the first door on the right. He stood on the threshold, staring at the double bed where he’d made love to her countless times, recalling the hammering on the walls, the cries of good-natured complaint from the other women.

  A big navy blue suitcase stood at the foot of the bed, open but not yet packed. He wondered where she kept her passport; as a last resort, he could always steal it.

  He heard the front door open. His heart skipped. He stepped back onto the landing and eased the bedroom door shut. He faced the stairs, expecting to confront her, but footsteps sounded along the hall as she made her way to the kitchen.

  Dry of throat and with mounting apprehension, he made his way quietly down the stairs and approached the kitchen.

  Helen stood with her back to him at the sink, filling the kettle.

  She was still in her white uniform, and the silly origami hat that perched on her bountiful blonde curls. She had a thick waist and broad bottom and Richie wanted nothing more than to advance into the room and take her in his arms.

  She turned, alerted by something, and stared at him in shock.

  Her mouth opened. Her face wasn’t as pretty as he recalled. She looked like a startled Cabbage Patch doll. “Ed.”

  He lifted a hand. “I’m sorry. I just need to warn you…”

  “Ed, what the hell? How did you get in here?”<
br />
  “The door was open.”

  She placed the kettle on the draining board. “What do you want, then?” That Lancastrian intonation, the broad vowels.

  “I know this’ll sound crazy…”

  “I said I didn’t want to see you again.”

  “This isn’t about us.”

  “I’d had enough, I needed to get away.”

  “This is important.”

  “You can’t just barge back into my life like this.”

  He held up both hands, as if to silence her; they were talking at cross purposes.

  “Okay.” He took a breath. “Helen, please listen to me. You’re going on holiday tomorrow.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re not coming with me, if that’s your game.”

  He said, “Don’t go.”

  “What?” She sounded incredulous.

  He found himself blurting, “The plane crashes. You’ll be killed, along with the other two hundred passengers.”

  “Ed… this is sick! What the fuck…?”

  “Please, I’m begging you, Helen, don’t take that flight. It crashes. I know.”

  She leaned back against the sink and crossed her arms under her large breasts. “Ed, I know you’re afraid of flying, but this is insane…”

  He felt like weeping. “This is nothing to do with me, for chrissake! Please, please listen to me. There’s something wrong with the plane. A technical failure… I can’t remember. But it crashes. Ploughs into a mountainside in the Swiss Alps. Everyone on board is killed… will be killed. Please, Helen, just say you won’t go…” A thought occurred to him. “Listen… how much did the flight cost, the holiday?”

  She shook her head, mystified. “What?”

  “I’ll pay for it. Everything. I’ll give you the money to cover the cost – but just promise me you won’t go. Please, Helen.”

  She pulled a strange face, torn by pity and exasperation. “Ed, you’ve flipped. You’re mad. You aren’t making sense. No,” she said, shaking her head as if something had just occurred to her, “this is some game, isn’t it? A sick joke to pay me back. You shit, you bloody little shit! How dare you!”

  “No, please, Helen!”

  “Get out of my way.”

  She pushed past him and stormed down the corridor. He thought she was heading for the front door, but he didn’t hear it open. He leaned against the wall, resting his forehead against the embossed wallpaper. He felt a nebulous anger, directed at no one in particular, and at the same time a terrible sense of impotence.

  He moved into the hall. She was in the front room, speaking on the phone.

  He heard the receiver rattle in its cradle and pushed open the door.

  Helen sat on the edge of the sofa, legs pressed together, hands clasped on her lap. She averted her face from him. The phone sat on the cushion beside her.

  “Helen…”

  She looked up at him, tears pooled in her eyes. “What are you trying to do to me, Ed?”

  He murmured, “Save you.”

  “You just can’t walk in and say these things.” She stared at him. “What made you think…?”

  “The plane crashes.”

  She shook her head, then said, more to herself, “How the hell can you know that?”

  He wished, now, that he’d said there’d been a bomb threat made to the airline.

  “Helen, why would I lie about this? I want to save you.”

  She stared at the carpet. “Get out,” she said quietly.

  “Helen… You mean a lot to me.”

  She looked up at him. “Mean a lot?” She sounded incredulous. “Then why the hell did you write all those awful things about me? Calling me an ignoramus, a fascist!”

  “Helen, that wasn’t about you. It… it was an extrapolation.”

  “Extrapolation my fat arse! I read those other pieces, the plays you wouldn’t let me read. What did you call me, a ‘fat northern bint obsessed with sex and shopping’…?”

  “That was a character, speaking lines.”

  “But you wrote them, Ed. And they were based on me!”

  “But they weren’t meant to be vindictive.”

  “No? But this is, isn’t it? You didn’t like it when I walked out, so this is how you’re getting me back.”

  “Helen…” he pleaded.

  “Ed, the police are coming. If I were you, I’d just fuck off before they get here.”

  “Okay, I’m going. But please, Helen, for chrissake don’t get on that plane.”

  “Fuck off! Just you get out and fuck off!” She surged to her feet, her face made ugly with rage and tears.

  He backed from the room, turned and hurried from the house.

  He found himself retracing his way back to the high street. He ran for a bus going in the direction of Brixton and jumped aboard, slumped into a seat at the front and wondered what the hell to do next.

  In the morning he’d return to Southwark, plead with her again and if she still refused to see sense, take her passport…

  But what if he was shunted back in time before tomorrow?

  No, he had to do something now…

  A bomb threat… If he contacted the airline and claimed there was a bomb aboard the flight… He could always exhort the airline to check the plane for a technical failure, but they’d be more likely to take notice of a bomb threat.

  It occurred to him, as the bus carried him into Brixton, that he didn’t know the plane’s flight number, nor even the airline, just that it was heading for Rhodes tomorrow morning.

  That was okay, when he arrived home he’d Google…

  He closed his eyes. Except this was 1995, and the internet was hardly up and running, and all he had back at his room was a shitty little Amstrad…

  So he’d find a travel agent in Brixton and ask them for the details of the flight.

  He jumped off the bus in the high street and hurried along, searching desperately for a travel agency. Newsagents, bookies and greengrocers… and then, ahead, a Thomas Cook sign. He pushed through the door.

  The woman at the counter smiled at him. She took in his dishevelled, sweat-soaked state, the reek of beer and vomit, and managed to maintain a professionally neutral expression. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “I’d like details of a flight leaving tomorrow for Rhodes.”

  “And would you like to book a seat, sir?”

  “No, I’d just like the details, please.”

  “One moment.”

  She consulted the monitor and tapped a few keys. “There is only one flight leaving tomorrow, sir, from Gatwick, at seven-thirty.”

  “And the airline?”

  She peered at the screen. “That would be with EuroFly, and there are seats still available, if…”

  “No, I just want thedetails. You don’t happen to have the flight number and EuroFly’s telephone number?”

  “I can obtain them for you, if you’ll just bear with me.”

  He slumped in the seat and closed his eyes. He felt suddenly hungry, and in need of a drink. After he’d made the call, he promised himself, he would buy something from Marks & Spencer’s, along with some decent beer, retreat to his room, gorge himself and wait until he was snatched away from this time.

  “Here we are, sir,” the woman said, passing Richie the flight number and the airline’s telephone number on a slip of paper. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No, that’s great. Thanks.”

  He left the travel agency and hurried along the street until he found a phone box.

  He fumbled with a handful of coins, then found that he had to read the instructions as he’d forgotten how to use these damned antiquated things. Lift the receiver, insert the coins, dial the number…

  He was sweating and his mouth was dry.

  He dialled the number and closed his eyes as the dial tone rang out.

  “You’re through to EuroFly. How can I help you?”

  Richie swallowed. How did you go about informing
an airline that one of their planes would be carrying a bomb?

  “I’d like to speak to someone in charge, please.”

  “Can I ask the nature of your call, sir?”

  He took a breath. “I want to report a bomb threat.”

  A silence greeted his words. Then, “Would you please repeat that, sir?”

  “Okay…” He repeated his words and waited.

  There was a click on the line, and then a cool male voice spoke, “Good afternoon, sir –”

  Richie interrupted. “There will be a bomb on one of your planes, flight number EF-43576, from Gatwick bound for Rhodes.”

  “Very well, sir,” the voice was calm, professional, “and do you have the emergency code?”

  Richie blinked. “Emergency code?”

  This was 1995, he reminded himself; was the IRA still bombing mainland Britain?

  “Very well, no code… Okay,” the operative said. “Can I ask who is calling, sir?”

  “That doesn’t matter. But I advise you to cancel the flight to Rhodes.”

  “Sir, I wonder if I can establish…”

  “Listen! Just fucking listen to me… There’ll be a bomb on the plane to Rhodes tomorrow, and if you don’t cancel the flight, over two hundred people will die. Have you got that?”

  “I hear you, sir –”

  “Good.”

  He slammed down the receiver.

  Sweating, and feeling ridiculously conspicuous closeted in the kiosk, Richie shouldered open the door and stumbled out.

  He leaned against the phone box and took deep breaths, calming himself. Would they ground the plane, he wondered, just because of a bomb threat? Perhaps, if he were still around in the morning, he should apprehend Helen before she left for Gatwick?

  Recalling his promise to himself, he entered Marks and Spencer’s, loaded up with food and beer, then returned to his room.