Losing Gemma

by Katy Gardner

  It must have been a distorted reflection, a play of light on steel and Perspex, but for perhaps two or three seconds I imagined I saw a figure standing there, the dark outline of a man’s body surrounded by an aura of dancing color. I squinted at the light, momentarily confused, and in that briefest moment he seemed to take a step forward, his hands folded Buddha-like in front of his face, his head bent forward as the rainbow lights played around his hair. I gawped at him, my heart pounding so hard I was almost unable to breathe. Then suddenly the plane tipped to one side again, and the illusion was gone. Then all I could see were the acrylic curtains separating World Traveler from Business Class and the backs of people’s heads.

  “Jesus!”

  I felt as if I was about to suffocate. I tried to stand, but the safety belt was still fastened and I was pinioned to my seat.

  “It’s okay,” Steve was murmuring. “It’ll just be the engine. It’ll be fine. They’ve got other ones . . . It’s all going to be . . .”

  He stopped. From the intercom came the light, regretful sigh of someone with news of a minor inconvenience

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said a male voice. “This is Captain Dubow, your pilot . . .”

  In the seats around us, people were frowning and staring ahead, their faces rapt.

  “. . . As some of you may have already noticed,” the voice continued, “one of our engines has gone out of action . . .”

  The pilot paused, choosing his words carefully. No doubt it was a spiel he had rehearsed in training. “Although this is an unusual event, I must assure you that we are in no immediate danger. The remaining three engines are perfectly well equipped to fly the plane, but as a safety measure I have just this moment requested to the traffic controllers at Delhi, that we make an emergency landing there . . .”

  There was an almost tangible intake of breath from the passengers, a mixture of annoyance and fear.

  Captain Dubow cleared his throat. “. . . Whilst I must confess that I have never been involved in an emergency situation such as this before, I can only reassure you that my crew and I have carried out these procedures countless times in training . . .”

  “Great! Well, that makes me feel a whole load better.”

  I tried to return Steve’s smile but my face was frozen, my features unable to respond.

  “. . . So now, as I am sure you will appreciate, we have work to do in getting the plane down, so please stay calm and I shall let you know of any further developments.” Click. The announcement was over.

  As if awoken from a spell the other passengers were shifting in their seats, looking around the plane, and smiling reassuringly at each other. At the back a man laughed, and somewhere to our right I heard a woman say, rather too brightly, “Perhaps we can all go and see the Taj.”

  Leaning over, Steve touched me on the arm. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded stiffly.

  “Like he said, it’s all just standard procedure.”

  “Yeah.”

  Slowly the plane dipped to the west and began to turn. I stared through the window, my arms folded tightly across my chest. By now the flames were extinguished and thick smoke was wafting from the blackened remains of the engine. I closed my eyes. For as long as I could remember I’d been terrified of flying, rigid with fear during takeoff and landing and spending the entire time in between concentrating on every sound of the engines, certain that without my total attention they would fail. Yet now that what I’d dreaded had finally happened, I realized that I didn’t care.

  Everything had suddenly changed, you see. As Steve patted my hand and muttered his reassurances I was hardly listening; all I could think of was what I’d just seen. Of course it was an illusion, a momentary brainstorm brought on by allowing myself to think of Gemma, or the mixture of temazepam and gin, yet try as I could I couldn’t erase the image of the Buddha-like figure and its halo of light. I gazed out of the window, wrapping my arms around myself as we descended over the early morning plains of North India. It was the same stale airplane air, but I kept taking great gulps of it, like a person who has nearly drowned. As the plane silently drifted through fragments of wispy cloud and I saw the brown fields and scattered villages emerging below, I could feel myself slowly come alive. I had seen something, I thought; whether he was real or not, it had appeared to me for a reason. It was a sign, a wake-up call from the gods.

  Above us, the seat belt sign flashed on. The plane was hushed again, the more vociferous passengers quietened by a collective intake of breath, a silent prayer. At the front the stewardess took her seat. Her mascara was blotted, I noticed dispassionately; she must have been crying.

  Yet I was not scared, not even a tiny bit. I knew that our crippled plane would land safely, for the flames were there for a reason. It was so obvious, so simple. If I was to carry on, I thought as the roofs of the Delhi shanties finally came into view, I had to stop living in this numb and dumbed-down way. It had taken me five long years to face it, but finally I was going to return to India and discover the truth.

  25

  THE plane landed ten minutes later, chased down the runway by a precautionary fleet of fire engines and ambulances, their alarms jangling redundantly across the tarmac. As we finally halted in front of the airport buildings there was a brief, vaguely embarrassed flutter of applause from the more demonstrative passengers followed by another announcement from the pilot. The terms “hotel” and “alternative aircraft” were met by sighs; the faces which only a few minutes earlier had been tight with fear were now clouded only by irritation.

  “Actually, I think I’ll walk!” There was a ripple of laughter at this, people turning and smiling at the speaker: an old American bloke in jogging pants and a T-shirt. Then everyone was standing and reaching for their bags and shuffling companionably down the aisles. If previously they had been afraid, now they were shrugging and smiling at each other, their shared experience melting away the usual barriers of English reserve.

  I joined the line. A few steps ahead of me Steve was reaching for the bags of an elderly lady; he kept turning and smiling at me but all I could do was grimace. When I reached the front of the plane I began to descend the stairs. As I stepped into the gray dawn air I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself and looking around uneasily. The airport was still largely empty; a few Air India Boeings waited on the tarmac, but with the exception of the black crows perching on their railings, the viewing decks were deserted. All that remained of the night was a fast-fading sliver of moon.

  “Brr,” Steve shivered, crossing his arms tightly over his chest and stamping his feet. “You’d have thought it would be a bit warmer than this.”

  I pushed past him, barely able to glance at my surroundings.

  “It’s six A.M.” I muttered. “And the middle of November.”

  We filed into the airport, a straggling crowd of pale-faced, bleary-eyed Brits who had hoped to be landing in Bangkok in a few hours and now were doomed to be stuck in Delhi for at least a day. I straggled far behind, my eyes fixed to the floor. I was scared, you see, of the memories that would be lurking in the place, the ghosts I might discover. When I tentatively glanced up I half expected to see me and Gemma standing in the line ahead: two young English travelers, at the start of their journey, but all I saw were the backs of my fellow passengers. In fact, I realized as I looked around, the airport was quite different. I remembered scuffed linoleum and stained, betel-splattered walls, but now I was standing on shining marble slabs and the walls were decorated with brightly painted murals.

  “They’ve rebuilt it,” I murmured at no one in particular. “It’s all changed.”

  Ahead of us, an official was signaling that we should wait in a glassed-in area on one side of the hall.

  “Something tells me we’re going to be here for a very long time,” muttered Steve.

  “Right.”

  I flopped to the floor, leaning against my bag and staring with growing despondency around the transit lounge. There
must have been about five hundred people in all: some were dozing, their bulky European frames squeezed uncomfortably into the plastic bucket seats; others read or simply gazed into space. On the plane I’d convinced myself that all this was happening for a reason, but now that I was actually in India, my bottom resting on the cool airport floor, my eyes gazing through the windows at the rosy dawn sky and waiting planes, my resolve was seeping quickly away. The engine failure was an inconvenience, nothing more, the strange shadows on the plane a simple trick of the light. Nothing would ever change because I did not have the strength to let it.

  I closed my eyes, willing the time to pass more quickly. Steve was asleep now, his head resting on my lap, his mouth hanging slightly open. I stared down at his blank, handsome face, the one I’d betrayed my best friend for, and felt nothing. We had been together for years, I thought flatly, and I no longer knew why.

  I began to doze, time moving unevenly as I slipped in and out of muddled dreams, my legs growing numb beneath Steve’s head.

  “Esther, wake up . . .”

  I opened my eyes. On the other side of the transit lounge something was happening. Around us, people were standing and stretching and picking up their bags, a large crowd already formed around the doors.

  “Looks like they’ve finally sorted another plane.”

  We joined the line, waiting for another twenty minutes as we slowly shuffled forward. It was not actually a plane we were moving toward, the woman in front was saying, but a hotel somewhere near the airport. They would not be able to get another aircraft out for at least twenty-four hours.

  “So you’ll be seeing India again after all,” Steve whispered, gripping my lifeless hand. “Perhaps it won’t be as bad as you think.”

  I shook my head, unable to reply. I felt weak, my legs wobbly, my palms sticky. We were passing through the Arrivals hall now, the baggage carousel empty, the huge hangar of the building virtually deserted. This was more how I’d remembered the airport: the aroma of hot plastic and incense, the barefooted sweepers in their brown uniforms, the twitter of birds trapped in the roof. A group of bored-looking customs officials watched us march past their desks, and then suddenly we were being herded through a fenced-in area marked “exit.” My chest was almost exploding with fear as we stepped through the doors, past the crowds of people crammed tightly around the glass, and out of the airport into the Delhi morning.

  I took a deep breath, finally daring to look around. The car park was larger than I’d remembered, and at the bottom of the access road a new motorway had been constructed. This was where it had all started: where I’d gone to find a bus and Coral and her friends had first appeared. I tried to picture the scene which over the intervening years I have recalled so many times: Gemma sitting on the rucksacks, Zak, the yellow-haired hippie squatting beside her, and the two women leaning on the railings: one skinny arsed, with her long fake braid, the other bulky and apparently upset. Yet now that I was actually here it was impossible to grasp, the details vanishing like shadows exposed to light. I had imagined Gemma leaning against the airport’s doors, but now noticed a low concrete wall dividing the pavement from the glass where luggage trolleys were stored. And with the jostling people and piles of baggage it now seemed unlikely she would have been sitting at the side of the road. Could it be that in the misery and regret of those five intervening years I’d remembered the whole thing wrongly?

  I stared across the car park. We were being directed toward a line of coaches waiting on the other side of the road, our fellow passengers already filling the first. From behind me someone pushed past and I realized that I had not moved for several seconds. Steve was pulling at my hand now.

  “Come on, Ess, let’s go and get the bus.”

  “I don’t want . . .”

  But I could not finish the sentence for what I’d suddenly seen made me freeze, my eyes widening in shock. About a hundred feet away from our line, standing purposefully around the Arrivals doors, was a group of Europeans dressed in purple robes: a couple of thin, droopy-looking women and a young man with a shaved head and clunky sandals. They were handing out leaflets, I saw now, pulling them from the cloth bags which they had slung over their shoulders and offering them earnestly to the few Westerners who were trickling through the airport doors.

  And there, standing less than fifty feet away from me, was the plump girl who I’d seen all those years ago in almost exactly the same spot, standing at the railings with Coral. I was sure it was her: I’d recalled the scene so many times that her lumpy features and flushed complexion were engrained in my memory. And now, as I watched her step up to a backpacker who had just emerged from the airport doors and was blearily fumbling in his money belt, I suddenly knew for sure that despite what everyone had told me, I’d always been right. It was not just a foolish story, embroidered by denial and self-delusion. All these years I’d been too stifled by guilt and grief to admit it, but beneath the facile surface of my memory I’d always known that Gemma had not died in an accident. It did not make sense and never had. That was why I’d never been able to accept what had happened, and that was why I was now so trapped. No, Gemma’s death was something to do with this group of people. The missing money belt, Coral’s lies, and her strange manic state at Agun Mazir were all connected. She and her accomplices had spotted us at the airport; for some reason they had stolen our money and tickets then pursued us all the way to Agun Mazir. Now Gemma was dead and after all this time the only way I could carry on living was to find out why.

  “Essie, for God’s sake. Come on!”

  I shook Steve’s hand away impatiently. He was saying something about how we should try and get seats together, but I hardly heard him. My heart leaping, I took a step toward the girl. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only that I could not get on the bus with Steve and watch her disappear, taking my past and my future with her.

  “Can I have a leaflet?”

  At the sound of my voice she turned, her eyes fixing onto my face as she smiled and reached into her bag. I’d broken away from the line of transit passengers now and was walking away from Steve across the pavement toward her.

  “Hi,” she said softly. “You want one?”

  She was older than I’d originally thought, less of a girl and more of a late thirtysomething woman, her round face lined and tired, her hair stringy. On her forehead was a yellow bindi; her arms were covered in what were either track marks or mosquito bites. I stared at her, unable to reply. There was a long pause, which seemed to grow increasingly loaded. I was standing opposite her now, unable to respond.

  “Be at peace,” she said gently. “And let me help you.”

  It was just what Zak had said to me that morning in Agun Mazir. The world swayed again. I gasped, my legs nearly crumpling, but she extended a steadying hand and now I gripped at it tightly, her cool fingers the only point of stability in my heaving world. When finally I regained my balance I let go of her and stood shakily. It was my last chance, I thought wildly, and whatever the consequences, I had to take it.

  “I just want to know where Coral is,” I whispered.

  The woman shook her head. Suddenly I remembered the stupid cult name, the one she had told us was part of her transformation.

  “Santi, that was what she was called. Do you know her?”

  Like a flimsy cloud passing across the sun, she frowned. Over by the road I could sense Steve staring at us. I took a deep breath, fighting to get the words out.

  “What are you all up to?” I gasped.

  She beamed, her face swamped with happiness. “Our guru’s work. Sai Baba, the new Messiah? It’s like a miracle. All we do is spread the joy.”

  Any minute now and Steve would take a few steps across the sidewalk and pull me back into the line, I thought with growing panic. Then I’d be forced onto the bus with him and the other passengers and I would never discover the truth.

  “Have you ever heard of someone called Gemma?” I blurted.

  Our eye
s met. Almost imperceptibly, the woman nodded. For a moment I thought I might hyperventilate. I sucked at the air, the edges of my vision darkening again. All around, people were climbing in and out of cars, loading their bags onto trolleys, and pushing past. Steve was folding his arms now, and had started to walk in our direction. I grabbed the woman’s hands.

  “What happened to her? Where’s Coral now?”

  She shrugged and almost seemed to laugh.

  “She’s with us. Well, I mean, back at our base in Manali.”

  She pushed the red pamphlet into my hands.

  “Take this,” she said eagerly. “It’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  I glanced down, seeing only a muddle of letters and an indecipherable picture. It was a statue of Shiva, the pamphlet advertising some kind of course or yogic retreat. Then suddenly Steve had reached me and was grabbing my arm and pulling me back toward him.

  “What are you doing, Ess? Come on!”

  I swung round; trying to break free from him.

  “You don’t understand, it’s Coral’s friends. They’re here!”

  He gazed at me, his face hot and confused. Finally he let go of my arm.

  “What are you going on about?”

  I shook my head. I was feeling so panicked I could barely speak.

  “Look, just give me my passport and some money.”

  Fumbling in his bags he pulled out his money belt and handed it slowly to me.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  I was jumping from foot to foot now, overtaken by the urgent desire to get away from him and the waiting buses. Pulling out my passport, a credit card, and a clutch of fifty-, twenty- and ten-pound notes, I flung the money belt back at Steve.