Natural Flights of the Human Mind

by Clare Morrall

  ‘Can we go to see the plane again?’ says Doody.

  He looks at her.

  ‘Well?’ she says. ‘I do wish you’d answer my questions.’

  ‘No,’ he says. He doesn’t want to think about the aeroplane. It makes him feel as if he can’t breathe.

  She drives straight past the cottage. ‘Too late,’ she says. ‘We’re going anyway.’ She stops the car on the grass verge outside the gate. They sit and look at it for a minute.

  ‘We ought to get the gate open,’ she says. ‘Then we could just drive up.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiles. ‘But not today,’ she says.

  He’s not sure why she smiles. Is she playing games? Pretending that nothing’s changed? Or telling him that everything’s changed?

  They get out of the car. He’s been over the gate many times, but never considered the latch. Today, he looks at it more closely, tries to move it, and it resists him. ‘Oil,’ he says. He wants to stay there, at the entrance to the field, thinking about the gate.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, and climbs over it.

  He follows her unwillingly. With his feet, he feels the ruts under the weeds, and tries to decide if a car could come up here. It’s so long since he’s driven.

  Everything is as they left it. Doody stands outside for a bit and examines the roof. ‘You know the plastic sheets you put on the cottage roof for a while?’

  Presumably she means the sails. He nods.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could put them on here? Where the gaps are. So the plane doesn’t get wet.’

  He doesn’t want to see the aeroplane. The thought of it sends his insides into impenetrable knots. But he wants to please her, and patching up a roof doesn’t involve going into the barn. ‘All right.’

  She is delighted, the lines on her face somehow weakening and lightening, and he feels better. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ he says.

  She hesitates. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No,’ he says.

  She turns her head away from him. ‘I mean—don’t you have to get to work? I don’t want to take up too much of your time.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says.

  She waits for a few seconds. He looks at the barn roof, and the tree overshadowing it. It won’t take long to put the plastic sails up there. He’s familiar with the structure of the roof by now.

  ‘Well?’

  He’s confused.

  ‘So do you have a job? I’d just like to know.’

  Oh. He hadn’t realised that she was asking him about jobs. ‘Well—no.’

  ‘Unemployed, then. Right.’

  Is he unemployed? He’s not quite sure. He’s never looked at it like that.

  ‘But what do you do all day?’

  What does she mean? He has a timetable, he’s busy all day and every day, but it doesn’t sound very much at all when he goes over it in his mind.

  He has never been part of the world of working people. Even before the crash, he didn’t have a proper job. Why work when there was an endless supply of money? A vast treasure chest that was going to waste. But it was more than that. He can’t answer Doody. It’s too complicated.

  ‘Well, that sounds like an interesting activity,’ says Doody. ‘Don’t know if it’ll make you rich, though.’

  She opens the doors of the barn and goes in to examine the aeroplane again. Straker stands outside with his back to the barn and looks across the overgrown field.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks, coming out again.

  He keeps his eyes away from her, not wanting to speak, struggling with the dizziness that hit him as soon as she opened the doors and he caught a glimpse of a wing, the seized-up propeller.

  She walks round in front of him and stands there, glaring into his face. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Sell it,’ he says, his voice low and harsh. ‘It’s probably worth a lot of money.’

  ‘No. I want to fly it.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You don’t know how to.’

  ‘I can learn.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how much it costs?’

  She doesn’t reply.

  ‘Do you?’ he says, louder.

  She looks away. ‘It’s all right for you. You can do it—you know how to fly. I’ve never done anything exciting.’

  A fragment of memory slips into his mind. Sitting at the controls, flicking a switch, someone beside him, Justin and Francis behind, the sudden roar of the engine—

  He finds he is sweating and raises his hand to wipe his forehead. Doody steps back in alarm, as if she thinks he is going to hit her. Indignation flashes through him. ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘What—what?’ She is flustered, nervous, pretending it was nothing, that she hadn’t misunderstood him.

  He steps away from her and struggles to control his breathing. ‘Sell the aeroplane,’ he says unevenly. ‘Get rid of it.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Why should I? I can do what I want.’

  ‘You don’t need it.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ Her voice is rising.

  He turns away from her. He can feel an alien violence inside him, struggling to emerge, a desire to do something physical, a darkness taking over his mind. She’s so stupid, so stubborn, so ignorant. He grabs one of the doors of the barn with both hands and hurls it shut. The crash blasts out into the air, the barn shudders and the door sounds as if it’s ripping apart.

  He watches it shaking for a second, then strides away, wishing he’d never met her, never seen the aeroplane.

  Behind him he can hear her voice, shrill, strident. ‘I might have known you’d be no use. I don’t know why you pretend to know about flying. Crashing seems to be more your sort of thing.’

  ‘Maggie? Are you there?’

  Silence. Why does she always have to mean what she says? I’m not used to it.

  ‘Maggie, I need to talk to you. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Please say something.’

  Sangita is singing: ‘Return home. Breakfast without you—coffee cannot wake me…’

  Felicity: ‘What are you singing?’

  Mike: ‘It’s Rob Willow, isn’t it?’

  Sangita is thrilled. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Of course—he was a hero. Best singer/songwriter of our generation, according to New Musical Express.’

  ‘Oh…’ Sangita’s voice is trembling with pleasure.

  Felicity is annoyed. ‘There’s more to life than singers, you know.’

  More to life? Does she know what she’s saying?

  ‘Where’s Maggie?’ It sounds like Anne, without Jerry for once.

  So I’m not the only one who misses her.

  ‘Maggie—I lost my temper today. I didn’t know I could be like that.’

  ‘She’s gone.’ Alan is around. He’s older, he understands.

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s angry.’

  ‘She’s always angry.’ Felicity’s voice is petulant and childish today, bored, left out by Sangita and Mike.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ says Sangita. ‘I like her. We should look for her.’

  ‘What a waste of time. She’s dead.’

  They’re all dead. Maggie—

  Sangita sings: ‘The dust of muesli falls on your abandoned key. Return to me.’

  Pete saw Andy only twice after the crash. The last time, Pete was just back from hospital with his right arm in a sling and a long, livid red scar down one side of his face. It was still held together by stitches. Mealtimes were difficult, and his mother had to cut everything into small pieces, but didn’t offer to help him eat it. He juggled with his left hand to lift the food to his mouth. It required an enormous effort to control the trembling in his arm, and most of the time he wasn’t willing to try. Eating didn’t feel very important.

  His father behaved as if nothing had happened, although he gave up television after the accident. ‘They�
��re all fools,’ he said one day, when he crashed through the front door. Presumably he meant the news reporters at the gate.

  So the three of them sat in the dining room, eating in silence. The dark, highly polished table could seat twenty, and there was a fifty-light chandelier suspended above it, which sent startled shivers of light darting in all directions if a small breeze or air current rustled it. The walls were covered with maroon and white Regency stripes, and antique mahogany sideboards were placed along the edges, dwarfed by the hugeness of the room. The heavy baroque curtains were draped in such a way that outside light hardly penetrated.

  They didn’t speak. At school, Pete had learned the habit of asking politely: ‘Please could you pass the water?’ ‘Would you like the mustard?’ And they had to wait until everyone on the table had finished before the pudding could be dished out. This had no effect at home. ‘If you want something, take it,’ said his father. ‘That’s how life is. If you don’t grab it, someone else will get there first.’

  He was probably right. Pete’s good manners didn’t get him anywhere, didn’t prevent his fall from grace.

  Andy’s appearance on this occasion was unexpected. For some reason, they hadn’t heard him drive up, so when he marched into the dining room and stood in front of them, it took a moment to register his presence. He waited to be welcomed.

  ‘Andy!’ said his father, leaping to his feet. ‘Good to see you. Grab a plate.’

  His mother rose to her feet at the same time. She didn’t say anything, but she smiled and you could tell that she was thrilled to see him. Pete stayed sitting, feeling uncomfortable.

  Andy was very successful, as everyone had expected. Unlike Pete, he’d gone to university and then into management at Marks & Spencer. He’d started at the bottom and gone up and up. They loved him there. He had so many contacts, friends from school who stayed in touch, and he knew how to take advantage of them. Last time he came home, he asked Pete why he wasn’t working.

  ‘I’ve got a job,’ said Pete. ‘I’m going to start working for Dad.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Andy, with a grin. ‘Giving up the playboy life?’

  ‘Let’s not get too enthusiastic,’ said Pete.

  ‘There are althernatives to working in the scrapyard, you know,’ said Andy. ‘There’s lots of other opportunities, even without a degree. You can work your way up. Lots of people do it.’

  What he meant was, anything would be better than working in a scrapyard. It’s not a proper job.

  This was true, and they both knew it. Their father couldn’t give his sons an expensive education and then ask them to work in a scrapyard. If he sent them to a place where they didn’t fit, had them moulded into the shape of the school so that they became a certain type of person, he couldn’t expect them to come home and fit into his world too. It didn’t work. Pete ended up in limbo, not fitting into either world, despised on both sides.

  The embarrassment of parents’ nights, rugby matches, sports days, Founder’s Day, school fêtes. His father dominated fathers’ races, blindly ploughing through everyone else, scattering them in all directions. Pete couldn’t bear to watch him thunder past, leaving injured men in his wake, always winning. He would run up and down the touchline when Andy was playing rugby, yelling abuse at all the other players, purple with inappropriate passion.

  And their mother, dressed wrongly, small and ineffectual next to her husband. Pete never saw anyone talk to her. It was as if she didn’t exist. All conversations were directed at her husband. She was just a breeze in the background, a shadow hidden behind him, a silent whisper that you would miss if you blinked. Sometimes, Pete just wanted to go and shake her. ‘Speak to them, Mum. Say something. You’re just as important as he is.’ But he never said it, and never did anything to show that he appreciated her.

  Her first act of rebellion was to reject him.

  Andy didn’t care. He had such charm, such a hold over other people, that he was able to place himself in his family and make them seem eccentric and lovable. He enjoyed his unconventional background. People admired him for his ability to rise above it. They talked to his father with respect because he was Andy’s father. Boys in Pete’s class thought his father was hilariously funny, and it was Pete’s fault. If he had discovered alcohol earlier, if it had been available at school, he’d have started drinking then. To hide the embarrassment.

  When he left school with five O levels and two failed A levels, he didn’t keep in contact with any of the boys from his year. He hung around at home for some time, watching television late at night, falling out of bed at lunchtime. Nobody suggested work to him, although his dad occasionally asked him to come down to the scrapyard and help.

  He hated it, working with the lads who had left school at fifteen, who lifted great weights effortlessly and manipulated machinery with nonchalant ease. They wore their strength with casual pride, unashamed by their lack of qualifications.

  Pete felt stupid and uncoordinated when he was with them, unable to match their skills. Whenever he walked away, before he had even covered twenty yards, a great burst of laughter rose up behind him, a balloon of mirth that was only released once his restraining presence had been removed. It happened every time. It couldn’t be a coincidence. So he stopped going.

  When he was twenty-one, his dad gave him his house and a generous allowance. When he was twenty-five, he gave him a Piper Warrior, a four-seater single-engine aeroplane, and flying lessons. Pete learned to fly, and for the first time in his life, he felt that success was attainable. Meanwhile, he discovered alcohol, clubs and people who liked him because he was generous. He had a social life. He knew that if his money supply dried up, his friends would probably melt away, but his drinking warmed him and he was no longer alone.

  He tried not to think about the pointlessness of his existence. Only at night, frustrated and unable to sleep, did he acknowledge the lack of direction and hope as depression came rolling in on silent waves.

  When Andy came in to dinner with them several days after the accident, he sat down opposite Pete and filled his plate. ‘How are you?’ he said. ‘Arm any better?’

  Pete shrugged. ‘It’s OK.’ Andy had already been to see him in hospital, and joked about his injuries. ‘You could have a career as a gangster with a scar like that,’ he said. ‘The one-armed bandit.’

  ‘Jealousy will get you nowhere,’ said Pete, struggling to keep up with the lighthearted manner of the conversation. ‘I’m expecting the arm to get better.’

  They had not discussed the crash.

  Andy ate enthusiastically for a time, then looked up at him again. ‘So?’ he said. ‘What really happened?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The papers are saying it was your fault.’

  ‘Ignore them,’ mumbled his father, through his apple crumble and custard. ‘They don’t know nothing.’

  ‘Anything,’ said Andy, turning to his father, smiling.

  His father took another spoonful. ‘Whatever,’ he said.

  He wouldn’t have answered like that if Pete had said it.

  ‘So, tell me your story.’

  Andy was studying Pete intensely, as if he could read his mind. Pete tried to look away, but found himself paralysed by his brother’s silent interrogation, unable to think.

  ‘There isn’t a story,’ he mumbled, wanting to glance down at his dish on the table.

  ‘Of course there’s a story. You need to be able to show the journalists that they’re making it all up.’

  Pete still couldn’t answer him. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t know what happened.’

  But Andy persisted: ‘You must have some idea. Do you think it was a mechanical failure, or were you careless in some way? What were you doing so close to the railway?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pete again.

  There was a long silence. ‘Well,’ said Andy, ‘I suppose the memory blanks out as a protection. It’s not something you’d wan
t to keep remembering, is it?’ He turned to his mother. ‘Shall we go for a drive in the car after lunch?’ he said to her.

  ‘Good idea,’ said his father. He was always happy for his wife to be removed from under his feet.

  ‘Terrible business,’ said Andy. ‘It’s not just the ones who died, is it? It’s the ones who were injured as well.’

  Pete limped out of the dining room, trying not to fall over his feet. He was twenty-eight years old, but felt as if he were still twelve, stumbling over his untied shoelaces in his anxiety to escape the threatening presence of the boys in his form who instinctively knew he wasn’t one of them.

  Andy took his mother for a drive in his E-type Jaguar.

  Pete sat in his room, desperate and aching for a drink, his mind unable to focus on anything else, not even having the energy to resent Andy and his rapport with his mother. But each time he reached out for the bottle, smelt the alcohol, his mind jumped back to that moment when he woke up, surrounded by mangled metal, bricks, bodies, blood. So he was sick instead.

  When Andy and his mother returned, he dropped her off outside the house, but didn’t come in. Pete watched him drive away, crunching down the gravel drive, and if he had known then that he would never see him again, he might have felt slightly less resentful.

  Straker wakes in the hollow of the night, the bleakest hour, the darkest corner. For a long time he lies awake, listening, and wonders why there’s nothing to hear. Where are they all? He can hear his heart beating, the cats dreaming of mice, but there is no other sound.

  Why was he so angry with Doody? It was the aeroplane that set it off—not her. She will probably never speak to him again.

  What is this hard, leaden pain inside him?

  ‘Maggie?’ he says softly, hoping she’s there.

  There is no Maggie. No Felicity, no Mike, no Francis.

  Are they in collusion with each other? Are they all waiting with Maggie to see what he will do? Does everything depend on his response to her, his willingness to leave his place of safety and venture out for the first time in twenty-four years? Must he go? Could he do it?

  He feels Magnificent sit up on the end of his bed, move around, scratch for a few frantic seconds. He curls down again, shuffles for a while, purrs briefly and goes back to sleep.