Midland

by James Flint

  Miranda stood up, came round the desk and put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, okay? I’m sure this is all just a big misunderstanding. Heather and Brendan have a lot of experience of handling these kinds of issues. No one is out to get you. All they’ll be interested in is trying to get everything resolved.’

  For the first time since they’d met in the corridor Miranda smiled. It was a nice smile, not one of the deputy editor’s calculated semi-grimaces but a heartfelt expression of kindness that transmitted real sympathy.

  And that just made it worse.

  —————

  Emily pushed the painful memory aside: she had arrived in Shelfield and needed to concentrate on finding a parking slot among the long line of cars drawn up on the verge in the lane. Once she’d done that she walked back along the line to the blocky, white, overbearing and – to her eyes – unappealing edifice of the Nolans’ house to pay her respects.

  There were a lot of people inside. In the living room, the hallway, the kitchen, in a small marquee erected over the patio. It was buzzier than she’d expected, more sociable. People stood chatting in knots of three and four, holding drinks and plates of food. The atmosphere was subdued, yes, but not overly serious or woeful. Maybe she’d been wrong about the drinks-party aspect. She wondered how many of the attendees were honestly grieving over the fact that Tony was dead. When a rich man dies, she supposed, plenty of folk stand to profit. Only those who walk away with nothing really get upset.

  The cynicism of the thought made her check herself. She’d been a journalist too long. Reducing and generalising people’s motives like that was the opposite of what this event was supposed to be about. She pondered going to say hello to Sheila, whom she’d spotted in the living room, but Tony’s widow was deep in conversation with a jowly older man Emily vaguely recognised as one of Caitlin’s uncles. What she needed to do was to find Caitlin, but so far she hadn’t seen her anywhere.

  She was about to thread her way through to the patio when someone touched her on the arm. It was Sean.

  ‘You haven’t got a glass.’

  Emily smiled apologetically. ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘I’m sure you can have a mouthful of something. It’s nice wine, some cases that Dad had already bought. Me and Mum figured he wasn’t going to drink it, so we might as well.’ He led her over to the cloth-covered table that was serving as a bar and handed her one of the flutes of tawny liquid that had been set out in long ranks.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Shouldn’t I be asking you that?’

  ‘People have been asking me that all week long. Quite frankly, I’m sick to …’ He paused and sucked his teeth. ‘It wouldn’t have been very tasteful to finish that sentence, would it?’

  Emily grinned. It was strange. She’d completely forgotten about Sean. She tried to work out how many times they’d met. It couldn’t have been more than a few. She recalled him as a quiet presence in the various country pubs they’d all hung out in as teenagers, hovering lightly behind the more charismatic figures of Caitlin and Jamie. He’d been shy and ungainly, not unlike Matthew in that way, ears and nose too big for his face, dark curls adrift and unmanageable, clothes that didn’t quite fit. But unlike her brother, who still had an unkempt and puppyish air, Sean had grown into his features. Relaxed into them, if you like: he had the kind of good looks that didn’t impress much at first but rewarded a second, more appraising glance. He was tidy without being rigid, smart without being uptight, and his once-chubby body now moved fluidly just below the surface of his suit. He was an inch shorter than Emily, too, which made him seem cute.

  ‘You work for Hudson, don’t you?’ he asked, then added: ‘Don’t worry, Mum told me. I haven’t been stalking you.’

  ‘God, the Warwickshire mothers’ network. Nothing escapes them does it?’ Sean laughed at this, nodding in recognition. ‘Well I’m afraid that for once the information is a bit out of date,’ Emily continued, with a rueful expression. ‘I lost my job.’

  ‘Oh. That doesn’t sound good,’ Sean said, his smile straightening out, and Emily suddenly felt the full weight of the previous few months weighing upon her, something that Sean in turn seemed to pick up. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Give me the short version.’

  Emily had that rehearsed. ‘I got into a bad situation with someone at work. An HR situation. It got really nasty and complicated and I didn’t have a paper trail to prove my case so it ended up being my word against hers. I was offered voluntary redundancy as a way to make it go away and in the end it was just easier to take it.’

  ‘Wow,’ Sean said. ‘That sounds like hell.’

  ‘It was. That’s why I left. It soured things so much that even if I’d fought and won I knew I wouldn’t want to stay.’

  ‘What are you doing now?’

  ‘Nothing really, I’m ashamed to say. I looked for something in London for a bit but then I started running out of money. So I’ve moved back up here while I think things through, work out what I want to do next.’

  ‘Can you find something on another magazine?’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to. The industry’s not what it was. On Hudson we were so under-resourced all the time – that’s partly what caused the problem in the first place. People don’t see why they should pay for content any more, not when there’s so much available for free on the web. We’re losing readers hand over fist, and the advertising is all heading online.’

  She expected him to apologise again on behalf of her circumstances – that’s what most people did. But he didn’t. Instead he said: ‘That’s hard. Do you have any digital skills?’

  ‘Some. Not really. It’s not like I can code. I was thinking of writing a novel,’ she said, half-jokingly.

  ‘You should do it! At least it’ll put you back in control. I’ll buy a copy! Hey – you know what? I sat up all night last night, did the vigil for Dad, and I’ve been chatting and handing out drinks all morning. I need a break and a change of clothes, and I’m about to shoot back to my place. Fancy coming along? There’s something I’d like to you to see. It might inspire you.’

  Emily was intrigued. It sounded more fun than standing around trying to make polite conversation. ‘I should really say hi to Caitlin …’

  ‘Oh, Cait’s upstairs right now, getting some rest. She’s doing the vigil tonight, so she’s off-duty right now.’

  ‘Okay. Well, then – why not, I suppose.’

  As they left the house Emily found herself speculating about the kind of car Sean drove, and now she found out: his was the mud-spattered Toyota pick-up parked in the driveway, looking slightly incongruous among the Mercedes and Jaguars driven by the rest of the Nolan clan. While he backed it out she went down the road and eased her Renault off the verge.

  Sean drew up alongside her and called to her through his open passenger window. ‘It’s really close. You know the bridge over the Arrow? Just before that.’

  And then they were off through the countryside at local-knowledge speeds, haring down the luge-like cutting carved into Round Hill and playing cat and mouse along the ancient, sinuous curves of Spernal Lane, occasional flashes of low winter sun catching the crystals of frost in the parallel crests of the hedgerows and transforming the dull woody corridor into an effervescent maze of brilliant intensity, jagged with gleaming spectral light.

  When the iron pipework of the little bridge came into view the Toyota duly slowed and indicated left, then turned down an unmetalled track. They passed the pretty gabled rectory on the corner which Emily had always rather coveted, and then the humble medieval stone peaks of St Leonard’s chapel, long since deconsecrated, the yew by its porch taller than its little steeple, the tilting headstones in its tiny cemetery frozen like a symposium of druids scanning the sky for a sign. The two vehicles trundled along the track for a few hundred yards, the grit kicked up by their tyres noisily peppering their wheel arches,
then pulled around a giant steel-framed grain dryer clad in dark-blue corrugated iron and into a square concrete yard bordered by a long cottage to the west and to the south, built from the same orange Darlaston brick, a low Victorian barn.

  Emily drew up alongside the Toyota and got out.

  ‘This your place then?’ she asked Sean, who was lifting a bag out of the back of his truck.

  ‘Yep. What do you think?’

  ‘Great. What do you do in the barns?’

  ‘Well the big one’s not mine. That’s owned by the local farmer. The dryer fans run twenty-four hours during the harvest, which can be a bit of a pain, but the rest of the time not much goes on there. This one, however’ – he gestured towards the brick building – ‘is mine. And that’s what I want to show you. Come on.’

  He led the way to the building’s eastern end, which was fitted with two large grey barn doors. One of these was inset with a smaller, human-scale entrance, and through this they passed, entering a space dominated by a long central workbench that stretched the length of the building and was cluttered with aluminium propellers sporting viciously curved blades, luridly sprayed metal baskets, and all kinds of other components very few of which Emily recognised. The walls were lined with tools and webbing, there was a rubber floor the same colour as the doors, and track lighting pinned to the barn’s rafters augmented the daylight streaming in through the rows of windows set into the roof. The whole workshop had the same homely air of efficiently managed untidiness as Sean himself, and this impression was further enhanced by the waft of freshly brewed coffee from a kitchenette at the far end of the space.

  Sean dumped his bag and called out to a bearded man in a plaid shirt and denim dungarees who was standing rinsing mugs in the sink. ‘Hey Rick! Smells like we’ve come at a good time.’

  ‘Yeah man. Brew’s up!’

  ‘Crack out the biscuits, will you? We’ve got a guest.’

  He led the way through the tangle of gear and offered Emily a stool at their little food counter.

  ‘Rick, Emily; Emily, Rick. Emily’s an old family friend. Rick is my business partner.’

  ‘Hey. Pleased to meet you. How do you take your java?’

  ‘Just a dash of milk please.’

  Rick poured the coffees and passed them around.

  ‘What do you make here?’ Emily asked. ‘Looks like air-conditioning or something.’

  The two men chuckled in unison.

  ‘No, not air-con. You’re not the first to think that, though.’

  Sean went over to the central bench where one of the circular steel baskets, as yet unpainted, lay on its side, its bruise-like welding scorches still visible. He stood it up. It was about a metre in diameter: a motor nestled inside the concavity, and from the convex side a harness dangled, quite an elaborate one, with shoulder straps and padding like those on an expensive mountaineering backpack. Emily had never seen anything quite like it.

  ‘Behold,’ said Sean, picking up one of the propellers and slotting it onto the stubby axle that protruded from the engine at the centre of the cage, ‘a Dragon Paramotor. Special edition.’

  ‘It looks like some kind of jetpack.’

  Sean and Rick hooted again.

  ‘Sort of. You do fly it. But you need a canopy too. You know, like a paraglider.’ He pointed to a large poster on the wall showing a man soaring high above the Brecon Beacons in a fan-equipped harness, suspended from an orange nylon wing with a ‘Dragon Paramotors’ logotype emblazoned across it.

  ‘And you do this for fun?’

  ‘It is so much fun.’

  ‘It looks terrifying!’

  ‘It’s different once you’re up there – it’s the best feeling in the world. Total freedom, really like being a bird. I’d love to show you some time.’

  ‘Hmm. I think I’d need some convincing.’

  ‘Convincing can be done, right Rick?’

  ‘Oh yeah. We’ve taken all kinds of people up. As long as the conditions are good it’s actually really safe.’

  Emily listened while they recounted some of their more memorable flying experiences.

  ‘I started it up because I needed a respite from NolCalc,’ Sean explained. ‘I mean, it was great, working for Dad and all. But at the end of the day I was working for Dad. Here I’m my own boss, even if it’s only in my spare time.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Rick. ‘I thought I was the boss?’

  ‘Okay, well, I’m half my own boss. I fund it, he runs it, and we argue over all the decisions. But that’s the joy of it. Dad was never much of a one for discussion. It was his way or the highway. Anyway,’ Sean concluded, ‘that’s what I meant about, you know, writing a novel. Rick and me just did this because we wanted to do something of our own. It’s just us and a couple of guys we’ve hired to help with the sales side and the metalwork. It’s important to do that, to have something that’s yours, even if it’s just something small. Who knows? It might grow into something bigger. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but you’ll never know till you try.’

  They were wise words and Emily felt a little embarrassed to hear them. She’d set out that day to show her support for the Nolans, and here instead was Sean giving her a much-needed boost.

  ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ she said, when they got back outside. ‘And the advice. It’s good advice.’

  ‘No worries. Thanks for coming over. You helped take me out of myself. Take my mind off … you know.’

  ‘Did I? Well then, I’m glad.’

  They stood for a second and their eyes met.

  ‘I’d drive back with you, but I’ve been up for nearly thirty-six hours and I’m fit to drop. Can you find your own way home if I go inside and crash out?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Emily opened the door of the Renault and climbed in. ‘Good luck with the funeral. I mean … you know. I hope it isn’t too tough.’

  ‘Thanks. Hey – how about a drink? Sometime in the next few weeks?’

  She turned the key, engaged the clutch, and put the car into reverse.

  ‘Sure. I’d like that.’

  ‘Maybe take you flying?’ he called, teasing, as she pulled away.

  ‘Yeah,’ she laughed, shaking her head. ‘Maybe!’

  —————

  That night, long after the guests had gone home, Caitlin walked around the dining room examining the flowers. She fingered the ivy, the petals of one of the lilies: bright saffron pollen tumbled down onto her bandage. Lily pollen was supposed to be poisonous wasn’t it? She wiped it off on her jeans, a yellow smear against the blue. Then she looked down at his face.

  Once, at school, in Art, they’d made their own canvases, stapling the material onto little wooden stretchers before sizing and priming it. That’s what his skin looked like – like it had been pulled taut over the bones of his skull and primed with a thin gesso ground. It was her father, but it was not her father. It was a perfect simulacrum, a masterpiece nested inside an expensive mahogany frame.

  One thing was different. The jaw. The jaw was relaxed. It had dropped down into the neck, pulling the chin – in life always set firmly forward – backwards and down. This in turn dragged the lips into a slightly unfamiliar cast and gave his face a pensive expression: puzzled, but with no matching frown on the brow, as if he were trying to find his way out of a room in a dream.

  No, not just one difference: now she noticed another. No cigarette. He had no cigarette. Well, that was easy to rectify. She went to her bag, retrieved her pack, took one out, then stood over her father’s body wondering where to place it. The obvious location was his mouth, but that would be grotesque. She wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this, but she wasn’t intending to mock or defile him. Also, though, she did not want to touch him. So that left his hands, which had been laid, crossed, on his chest, leaving a conveniently sized gap between first and middle finger. Steadying herself on the table, she poked the cigarette into this slot and then stood back to view the effect.

  ‘There you go
Dad,’ she said, breaking the quiet that had engulfed the house since her mother had gone up to bed. ‘Not your brand, I know.’

  The sound of her own voice surprised her, not because of how odd it was to hear it, but because of how natural. Until now the situation had felt entirely artificial, and she’d had no idea how to behave. What were you supposed to do? Sit silently in prayer? Throw yourself on the coffin and start ululating? Have a conversation? She’d tried the third option and had expected it to feel absurd, talking out loud to a corpse. But in fact it had normalised things. This was her father lying here, after all. Why shouldn’t she talk to him? Perhaps for once he would listen.

  She persevered.

  ‘I’d light it for you, but I know Mum would freak. Though with half the garden in here I doubt she’d be able to smell it.’

  Caitlin wanted a cigarette herself now. Maybe she could smoke out of the window? She picked up her pack and took one out, and with it the small fold of white paper that had been shoved in alongside. She placed this on the dining-room table next to the casket; it was the last of the wraps she’d bought from Peter in the early hours of Saturday morning, during the bender she’d been on since she’d spoken to Sean and her mother on Friday night.

  She’d driven straight home after that, the pain in her hand shocking her into action. When she got in she’d switched on the TV, fixed up a dressing for the wound and consumed two large lines of cocaine along with the half a bottle of wine she had in the fridge. That helped with the pain but had the knock-on effect of rendering the isolation and claustrophobia of her little two-room flat in Redchurch Street completely unbearable. So she’d headed out to The Crusader, where she was sure to know some people and would at the very least get to see Beth.