Natural Flights of the Human Mind

by Clare Morrall

  He lay for a while, looking at the light from the hall reflected on his ceiling. I have to go to school tomorrow, he thought. Why didn’t his mum think of his needs any more? It hadn’t been like this when Dad was home. Their house was like everyone else’s then, his mum quiet and in during the evenings, chatting to him before he went to bed.

  A shout of laughter came from the kitchen, quickly suppressed. Why did she laugh so much now? Roger seemed to have some strange power over her. He could make her perform to satisfy his own desires, change her personality and transform her into this drunken, hysterical woman.

  Another crash came from the kitchen and more laughter. The golf clubs this time.

  Steve swung his legs out of bed. He wasn’t going to stand for this any longer. He went downstairs and threw open the kitchen door. ‘D-d-do you know what t-t-time it is?’ he said, making his voice as deep as possible. Then he stopped.

  Roger was backed up against the fridge-freezer and his mum was leaning against him, her blouse undone and her skirt discarded on the floor behind them. She was wearing stockings and suspenders, her plump legs bulging out over the top of the stockings. She looked ridiculous.

  They both turned to him, their faces rigid with disbelief. Then, slowly, Roger eased himself out and straightened his clothes, picking up the skirt from the floor in one smooth movement and handing it to Steve’s mum.

  ‘Steve,’ he said, in the friendly voice Steve hated, ‘is everything all right?’

  Steve tried to speak, but when he moved his mouth, nothing came out. He seemed to have lost all his saliva.

  His mum stepped into her skirt, but made no attempt to be pleasant. ‘How dare you?’ she said slowly, as she struggled to pull up the zip, her voice low and icy.

  ‘Barbara…’ said Roger, laying a restraining hand on her arm.

  But she took no notice. ‘Don’t I have any privacy in my own house? As if it isn’t bad enough to come home and have you scowling at me all the time, disapproving of everything I say or do, being rude to the man I chose to marry. This is my house, too, you know. Go straight back to bed, Steven, and don’t let me see you again until the morning.’

  Steve stared at her, unable to think. It was as if his mother had turned into another person, talking in a foreign language. She used to be nice to him. He looked at Roger, who grinned half-heartedly.

  ‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ he said. ‘It’s all a bit late now.’

  Steve turned and left the kitchen.

  But at the bottom of the stairs, he changed his mind and stopped. He groped for his shoes under the hall table and pulled them on. Then he grabbed a coat, and walked out into the night, shutting the door behind him.

  Half an hour later, he wished he hadn’t been quite so hasty. It was very cold in his pyjamas, even with a coat over the top. There must be places you can go, he thought, if you can’t live at home. But he had no idea where. He went round to the back gardens and found a neighbour’s shed that wasn’t locked. He huddled down under a shelf of seedlings and curled himself up tightly for warmth, then dozed, waking with a sudden jump every now and again.

  Six hours later, when his mum and Roger had left for work, he broke the window of the downstairs loo and crept indoors. It occurred to him that he needn’t have spent the night outside, because they would have assumed he was still in bed and left him there. They wouldn’t want an argument before work. Moving swiftly round the house, he packed some clothes, took as much food as he could carry and stole twenty pounds, sixty-seven pence—Roger’s beer money, which he kept in a butter dish at the back of the fridge. Then he walked away, believing he would never return.

  He met Justin and Francis and Pete outside a nightclub, at the end of a long, frightening day. He’d been walking past, nervous, panicky, wondering where he would sleep, but was diverted by the music blasting out on to the pavement. It was the Village People—‘YMCA’—a single that he’d played over and over on the record-player in his bedroom. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to go home. The three men got out of a taxi. Two of them looked drunk, unsteady on their feet, loose-limbed and disjointed. The third stood slightly apart, remote, somehow unconnected with the others. One of the drunken men swayed towards Steve and almost knocked him over.

  ‘Get out of the way,’ he said.

  Steve stepped back, scared by the attention that was being paid to him, but someone was right behind him and he trod on his foot. He turned round, terrified, and found himself facing the second man, who leered at him, breathing alcoholic fumes directly into his face. He leaned forward and was sick all over Steve.

  ‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ he said, shaking his head with confusion.

  The third man came up to them and sighed heavily. ‘Justin, you’re disgusting,’ he said, pulling him out of the way. Steve avoided his eyes. He tried to work out his chances of dodging round all three men and running.

  ‘I’m Pete. Who are you?’ Steve brought his eyes back round and stared up into the man’s very blue eyes, which were fixed on him steadily.

  ‘S-S-S-Steve.’

  ‘OK, Steve. We’d better get you cleaned up. Come with me.’ He led the way to the door of the nightclub and then stopped. ‘How old are you?’

  Steve knew he had to be careful. ‘F-f-f—eighteen.’

  Pete roared with laughter, longer than seemed necessary, as if he didn’t know how to stop. ‘OK, eighteen-year-old Steve. Follow me.’ He guided Steve in front of him, but at arm’s length. The bouncers nodded at Pete with respect, but stepped back with disgust as Steve went past them.

  ‘Phew!’ said one, waving the air in front of his nose.

  ‘Hope you know what you’re doing, Pete,’ said the other.

  ‘Thanks, lads,’ said Pete, and Steve saw him hand over a twenty-pound note.

  Pete’s friends followed them in and he led them to the toilets. ‘Come on, Steve, we’ll have to do the best we can to clean you up.’

  He directed Steve to the basins and gave him a handful of paper towels. ‘You too, Justin,’ he said to the third man. ‘Otherwise we’ll never get a cab home.’

  Steve tried to clean himself by wetting the towels and wiping them over his coat.

  ‘Look,’ said Pete to Steve, ‘let’s get a taxi. I’ll pay the fare. Then you can get your mum to wash these disgusting clothes.’

  Steve tried to imagine his mum’s face when he arrived. All he could see was her bare flesh bulging over those stockings. He could still hear her talking to him very slowly and nastily. He wanted to cry. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s all right.’

  Pete seemed annoyed. ‘She’ll be wondering where you are.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Steve.

  Pete hesitated. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to my place. We’re having a party. You can have a bath there. Call us a cab, Francis.’

  ‘Right,’ said Francis, and disappeared.

  The taxi driver didn’t want to take them, but Pete seemed to have so much money stuffed into his wallet that he eventually agreed. He drove fast and carelessly. Nobody in the taxi spoke.

  Pete’s house was amazing. It was carpeted throughout in white, with black walls, and there were life-sized Disney characters everywhere he looked. Mickey Mouse by the front door, Bambi hanging from a chandelier, Pinocchio on the landing half-way up the stairs. The ceilings were tiled with mirrors. In the bathroom, the mirrors were on every surface, including the floor. Steve stood in the middle and saw hundreds of images of himself reflecting each other back, all soiled with sick, all stinking. Shere Khan looked at him disapprovingly from the end of the bath.

  Pete turned the taps on. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, and wandered off, shutting the door behind him.

  Steve stepped into the enormous bath, and lay back. The hot water was wonderful after his day on the streets, and he let it soak into his skin, feeling his whole body relax. He nearly dozed, but jerked awake when he remembered where he was. He wondered if his mum was feeling guil
ty. Let her, he thought. After a while, he climbed out and wrapped himself in a fluffy black towel. He didn’t think he should put his clothes back on, so he went to find Pete. He found the three men lounging on sofas in front of a huge television screen, surrounded by empty beer cans, laughing at Fawlty Towers. Two women were squashed together on one sofa with Grumpy the dwarf and Cinderella.

  Pete was gazing up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused, not laughing with the others. Steve froze for a moment when he saw him, shocked by the bleakness of his expression. It was as if he was not really there, unaware of what was going on around him. Then he turned and saw Steve, his face slipping back into amiability. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’

  ‘Um…’ said Steve. ‘I haven’t got any clothes.’

  Pete nodded. ‘Down the corridor, third door on the right. Help yourself.’

  Steve found a room whose sole purpose was to store clothes—rows of shirts, suits, shoes, socks, underwear, jumpers, T-shirts. It was like walking into a shop where you didn’t have to pay. Winnie-the-Pooh smiled at him from the side of the door. After much indecision, Steve chose a yellow T-shirt and some beige trousers. They were a bit big for him, but he found a belt, which held them up. He went back to the living room and sat down behind the others, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked one of the women, who was wearing a long, green dress that shimmered as she moved.

  Steve opened his mouth.

  ‘He’s called Steve,’ said Pete, without turning his head.

  She smiled at Steve. ‘My name’s Ellen, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Would you like something to eat? Some popcorn?’

  She thinks I’m a kid, he thought. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  She looked over his head at Pete. ‘How old is he?’

  Pete shrugged. ‘Says he’s eighteen.’

  She studied Steve’s face and he had to turn away. He could feel her closeness, smell her perfume, a female smell that both alarmed and excited him. ‘He’s having you on. You’re not eighteen, are you, Steve?’

  Steve couldn’t respond. He sat and studied the floor.

  Pete answered for him again: ‘Leave him alone. He’s all right. Reminds me of myself at his age. He’s older than he looks, I expect.’

  Ellen withdrew from Steve and went to whisper to Pete. Steve could just hear their conversation.

  ‘Pete—he’s under age.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We might be accused of kidnapping him.’

  Pete’s voice rose indignantly then fell again. ‘He wanted to come. I gave him a choice.’

  ‘What about his family? They must be wondering where he is.’

  ‘No—there’s something wrong there. He doesn’t want to go home.’

  ‘I think you should take him anyway.’

  ‘No way. I like him. He can stay with us tonight. We’ll take him home tomorrow—have a look at the family.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  He drained his bottle of beer. ‘Probably.’

  Steve breathed a sigh of relief and settled back into a chair. He needn’t worry until tomorrow now. Feeling very daring, he opened a can of lager. The smell was unpleasantly familiar, reminding him of his mother’s recent behaviour, but he couldn’t feel anything strange happening to him as he sipped it. Everything seemed normal.

  The party seemed to go on all night, but they all succumbed to sleep in the end, sprawled around the room. Steve kept his eyes on Pete and Ellen, in case she decided to send him away. Pete finally stretched out on his back on a sofa, breathing heavily through his mouth. His eyes stayed open, but he didn’t move, so Steve curled up on the floor by his feet and slept.

  The confusing thing about the whole situation was that nobody seemed to care whether Steve was there or not. Ellen cooked breakfast for them all at about twelve o’clock in the morning. She stood over the stove, still in her long green dress, breaking eggs into a frying-pan, with the air of someone who did this every day of her life. ‘Scrambled eggs?’ she said to Steve, who was extremely hungry.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said.

  She gave him an approving smile. ‘Polite boy,’ she said, and went off to mix up the eggs.

  They sat round a vast marble table in the kitchen to eat. Cereals, orange juice, coffee, scrambled eggs, toast, fruit—there was an abundant supply of food. Pete didn’t eat anything. He lounged over the table with bleary eyes, his face grey and exhausted. He looked as if he hadn’t slept. Steve kept an eye on him, ready to follow if he left.

  ‘Let’s go flying this afternoon,’ said Pete, as he finished a mug of coffee.

  ‘Can we come?’ said Mel, the other woman.

  ‘Why not? Let’s all go while we’ve still got the chance.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Oh, sorry. You can’t all come. I’ve only got four seats.’

  ‘You can’t go anyway,’ said Ellen to Mel. ‘We’re going shopping. Remember?’

  Mel screwed up her face. ‘I want to go flying.’

  ‘There’s always tomorrow,’ said Ellen. ‘And we’ll have to go home to get changed.’

  Justin chuckled. ‘Just us, then. The three of us.’

  Francis grinned at the girls. ‘You can wait here. Have the dinner on, the wine opened, the beds warmed.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Mel, tapping his nose with a spoon.

  Steve watched, waiting for them to decide to take him home.

  Pete turned to him. ‘You can come, Steve. Ever been flying before?’

  ‘No,’ said Steve. He couldn’t even pretend about this.

  ‘I thought we were taking him home,’ said Ellen.

  Pete looked irritable. ‘After,’ he said, picking up the phone and dialling. ‘Hi, Dean,’ he said. ‘Pete here. I want to take the Warrior up this afternoon. Could you wheel it out for me? Great, thanks.’ He put the phone down and picked it up again. He dialled, listened and replaced the receiver. ‘Weather’s good all day,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Can you drive, Justin?’

  ‘Where’s your car?’ asked Francis.

  Pete frowned at him. ‘It’s out of action.’

  ‘What do you mean? It was fine yesterday.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t now.’

  ‘Do you want me to look at it?’ said Justin. ‘I’m good with cars. Ask my dad.’

  ‘Just leave it, will you?’ said Pete, his voice hard and dismissive as he walked out of the room.

  It was half-way through the afternoon by the time they set off in Justin’s Aston Martin. Francis waved to the women through the open window. ‘Back later,’ he said, blowing them a kiss.

  ‘We may not be here,’ said Mel.

  They had cans of beer with them and everyone was drinking freely. Steve drank too, and wondered what had made him think that drink was a bad thing. There was a light, unreal sensation about everything, as if he were living a dream, but he felt exhilarated and careless of consequences. He was so far from the memory of Roger and his mother that they might never have existed. He watched Pete’s every move, but it wasn’t necessary. Pete seemed to have adopted him and made sure he was close by him all the time.

  ‘I’m like you,’ Pete said quietly, in the back of the car. ‘Shy. You have to pretend—nobody else notices.’

  Steve couldn’t make sense of this. Pete behaved with such certainty, such confidence. He didn’t seem shy at all.

  It was five o’clock when they arrived at the airfield. The aircraft was out and waiting for them.

  ‘It’s a Piper Warrior,’ said Pete to Steve, as they walked round it. ‘We need to check it over before we go up.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Anything. Could have been knocked by another aircraft in the hangar—bashed something on the way out.’ He fingered the lights, and the edges of the wings, running his fingers over surfaces. ‘OK,’ he said eventually.

  He led the way into the aircraft, stepping on to the back of the wing, then opening a door in the side. He eased himself into the se
at on the left, in front of the controls, and gestured to the place next to him. ‘Sit there, Steve.’

  Steve hesitated, seeing a steering column in front of him and foot pedals. He looked at Justin and Francis worriedly as they settled themselves on the back seat.

  ‘Oh, don’t bother about them. They’ve been up thousands of times. They’re out of it. Come on, I’ll show you how it all works.’

  Steve slipped into the seat, noting with relief that most of the dials were only in front of Pete. It didn’t look as if he would need to do anything.

  ‘Seatbelts,’ said Pete. He put on a set of headphones and flicked a switch. ‘Request taxi clearance for a VFR flight to the south,’ he said clearly.

  ‘Roger, Golf Bravo Romeo.’ The voice made Steve jump. ‘You’re cleared to taxi to holding point of runway one eight.’

  Everyone was quiet while Pete continued his conversation with the control tower and they taxied to the edge of a runway. Steve watched Pete’s movements, listened to all the words, impressed by his knowledge and authority. He seemed more alert, no longer so tired.

  They stopped at the end of the runway while Pete pressed several switches. The engine revved up dramatically, and the cabin started to judder as if they were taking off, but they remained stationary. Then it all died down.

  Pete turned to Steve. ‘Power check,’ he explained. He spoke into the radio. ‘Golf Bravo Romeo ready for departure.’ His voice was serious.

  ‘Roger, Golf Bravo Romeo. You’re cleared to line up and take off. Surface wind one seven zero degrees, ten knots.’

  Pete pressed more switches, moved his feet, and the engine noise increased. They started to move along the runway, slowly at first, then faster, louder. Steve held his breath as Pete pulled back on the control column and they lifted smoothly into the air. The column in front of him moved with Pete’s. They kept on climbing in a straight line until they levelled off. Pete sat back and undid his seatbelt. ‘Pass me a beer, Justin,’ he said.

  Justin chucked one over and he caught it neatly. He flipped the catch and drank the whole can in one go. He laughed, but the sound was brittle and forced. ‘Just what I needed,’ he said. ‘Chuck me another one. Look, Steve.’ He pointed at one of the dials. ‘That’s the artificial horizon.’