Eating Air

by Pauline Melville

  She felt her usual confusion when he left. She watched him walk briskly away wheeling his bag. He looked each way as he crossed the road then he turned the corner out of sight without looking back.

  Ella tried to occupy herself by putting some of her mother’s clothes into black plastic bags to take to a charity. Then she made herself a cup of coffee and phoned Hector on his mobile.

  ‘Hi Hector.’

  ‘Hello Ella. I’m sorry about your mum. How are you doing?’ He sounded more formal than usual.

  ‘I’m OK, thanks. I’m just sorting through mum’s things. Donny was here but he’s left.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Was that nice?’

  ‘Yes. It was fine.’

  There was another pause before Hector spoke:

  ‘Look Ella. I’m really sorry but I don’t think we can go on seeing each other any more.’

  His tone was stiff and brusque.

  Eventually she said:

  ‘That’s OK. If that’s what you want.’ Then: ‘Are you sure? Is it your family or what is it?’

  ‘Yes. Partly. I can’t explain right now. But I think it’s better if we leave it.’

  ‘OK, Hector. If that’s how you feel. Don’t do anything dangerous. I’m sad.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I still love you.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Phone again if you change your mind.’

  ‘OK. I will. Bye for now then.’

  Ella stood amongst the black plastic bags bulging with her mother’s old clothes. She felt as though her marrow had turned to ice.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Mark Scobie, accompanied by Shahid and Massoud, climbed into one of the train’s red carriages and hunched up in the child-sized compartment of the Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway.

  The plans were that they would make their way to a small flat in Javastraat, a dull working-class district of Amsterdam. Mark was assigned to tail Butterfield. After the kidnap Butterfield would be taken to the flat in Javastraat and held there. Money would be raised from the kidnap, backed up by an attack on the HCB bank, one of the major banks in Amsterdam. Shahid’s dreams of a suicide attack and martyrdom were to be postponed for the time being. The assault on the bank would be a straightforward car-bombing.

  Massoud wrote the number of the house in Javastraat on his wrist in biro. Shahid stared straight ahead looking relaxed and beatific. It was half-term. There was a holiday atmosphere on board the train as it trundled through Romney marshes. The whistle hooted. Excited children hung out of the windows. The smell of manure from the fields wafted into the open carriages mixing with the faint smell of coal smoke from the engine. When they reached Dungeness the three men got off the train with their bags and made their way to where the fisherman and his boat waited for them a mile down the coast.

  *

  Hector was already there holding Mark’s motorbike. They lifted the motorbike on to the boat then together the men pushed the boat down the metal runners to the sea and all jumped on board except Hector. The engine started and the boat chugged slowly away.

  Hector watched the boat leave. Then he turned and made his way back up the shingle beach. The sun came out as he passed the fisherman’s cottage. Yellow broom and sea kale grew in the garden. A rusted rake leaned against the fence of the empty house. A huge weight lifted off his shoulders. He dialled Khaled’s number:

  ‘Khaled? We can meet tomorrow if you want to say goodbye. Do you mind meeting in Ashford? It’s still a bit awkward for you to come to the house. I’m thinking of taking Dawn out somewhere in the morning. We could meet in the afternoon.’

  *

  Mark Scobie was familiar with Amsterdam. Shahid and Massoud relied on Mark to ferry them around when they arrived. He showed them where to wait for a tram to Javastraat while he went ahead on his motorbike and waited for them outside the house. When the three men went in together they were greeted by Adi Lukman, a short, buttoned-up Indonesian man in a white prayer hat who ran a small publishing company from the downstairs part of his home. He showed them upstairs to where they would be staying. The smell of dhal cooking drifted in from somewhere at the back.

  Shahid and Massoud went out to look for a kebab shop. Mark stayed behind. He had been assured that Lukman was trustworthy but an unsettling wave of paranoia prompted him to go downstairs and talk to the man so that he could make up his own mind.

  Lukman did not engage much in conversation. He nodded at Mark and continued with his stock-taking in the front room amid piles of old cardboard boxes filled with cheap paperback editions. Mark looked around at some of the books and tried to indulge in small talk. It was clear that Lukman was a publisher who at some level hated books. Dusty piles of unsold volumes were stacked in his uncarpeted front room. Small, shabbily produced booklets in Dutch and English with the pages stapled together sat on the shelves. Mark flicked through one of them. It contained fuzzy photographs and printing that reproduced itself in blurry double vision. Most of the publications concerned Indonesian history and politics. There were titles such as The Non-Capitalist Path of Development in East Timor; Indonesian migrant life in north-eastern Holland. The pamphlets included reports of the Moluccan train siege near Amsterdam in the seventies and an account of the coup d’état in Surinam.

  After a brief conversation Mark ascertained that Lukman’s parents had spent years in Indonesian jails under Dutch rule in the forties leaving him in an orphanage. These publications were his form of belated and dusty revenge. Mark listened as Lukman stopped what he was doing and quietly explained that lately the written word had not been enough to assuage his hibernating anger. He was committed to further action before he grew too old to do anything.

  ‘Yes.’ Lukman, his face, yellow as a slab of toffee, gave a mild nod. ‘I know. You are going to bring someone here. Someone from one of the Dutch banks.’ He broke into a slight smile. ‘I am pleased to help you in that respect.’

  Reassured, Mark went back upstairs to inspect the premises and work out where Butterfield might be most securely imprisoned. He had just decided that Butterfield should be chained to a radiator when the jitters propelled him into the tiny toilet. There was hardly enough space to turn around. As he sat there he checked to make sure there was no escape route. Then he recalled Butterfield’s size. He was a big man, overweight. He might not even be able to get in through the door of the toilet. They would have to provide him with a pot. He finished, pulled the ancient chain on the cistern and rinsed his hands in cold water. It was a relief when Shahid and Massoud bounded up the stairs bringing back the kebabs and soft drinks. He would have preferred a stiff whisky but did not want to offend them.

  That evening the two men responsible for providing the explosives arrived at Javastraat. Both men were postgraduates at the University of Leiden. Sadiq was a second-generation Yemeni and Abukar originated from Somalia. They all shook hands. Shahid, his face wreathed in embarrassment, apologised for the presence of Mark, an infidel. The Yemeni, a relaxed man in his forties, whose cracked lips barely covered his protruding teeth, smiled:

  ‘These days it’s easier to plan stuff if we cooperate and plan beyond national or even religious borders. At the university we’ve also been obliged to make strategic alliances. We have mutual interests. You wouldn’t have been able to get to Holland without your friend Mark’s contacts. And it’s better to have someone like Mark tracking your target. He’s white. Either of you would be too conspicuous.’

  Shahid nodded doubtfully. The Somali man, who chewed khat leaves as he spoke, added:

  ‘The bank is our prime target. Dutch colonial history has been anti-Islamic – you only have to ask Lukman downstairs about that. The bank has been complicit in all of it. Right now the brothers in Holland are being subjected to increasing anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant legislation. They’re under surveillance all the time by the Dutch secret service. That’s why we wanted you lot to come over – you’re not known here. There
’s talk of banning the burkha and being forced to speak only Dutch in the streets of Holland.’ He sucked his teeth.

  Mark was unwrapping the packages of explosives. He looked at the brick orange explosive rolled in a spool between layers of plastic and raised his eyebrows in appreciation:

  ‘Semtex. That wasn’t available in my day. We relied on good old gelignite.’

  ‘There is enough there to bring the whole bank down. I’m a science graduate,’ said the Yemeni with a grin.

  Shahid’s eyes shone with commitment:

  ‘But it’s got to be coordinated with the kidnap. It’s the kidnap which will raise funds for us to continue. We’re all set, inshallah. For the next couple of weeks Mark is going to keep track of Butterfield’s movements. When we know the pattern, we’ll fix a date and choose the place and time. It will take four of us. He’s a big man.’

  Sadiq laughed and teased Shahid:

  ‘Is that enough? People aren’t so easy to kidnap. They have untidy legs. They don’t go in the sack so easy.’

  Shahid rose to the bait:

  ‘There won’t be any sacks. Don’t worry. No sacks. Guns and a car.’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Hector woke the next morning with the sunshine streaming into his eyes. Dawn was still sleeping. Barbara was already dressed and downstairs. He was amazed to find how light-hearted and well-disposed towards the world he felt now that certain decisions had been taken.

  Downstairs in the kitchen he clapped his hands together and rubbed them as he looked out of the window:

  ‘It’s a gorgeous day. I was thinking of taking Dawn out somewhere in the car this morning. What do you think?’

  ‘I think she’d love it.’ Barbara was smiling.

  Hector looked at his watch. He had time to take Dawn for an outing and come back before going to meet Khaled in Ashford.

  *

  As Hector drove through the woods near Aldington he felt an unexpected burst of joy. The first coolness of autumn was in the air and the leaves were a blaze of tangerine and brown. Ladlefuls of sunlight dripped through the trees and on to the road. Dawn sat next to him. She was wearing a bright stripy woollen cap from Peru with long earflaps that her mother had bought from Oxfam. For a while, when they had been driving down Stone Street, Hector thought that a red Rover car was following him. He decided to turn into a muddy narrow side lane and pull up just in case he was being tailed. There was some woodland there which Dawn would enjoy. It would be very obvious if the other car turned in with him. The Rover slowed down but then continued on its way and his uneasiness was dispelled.

  ‘We’ll stop in a minute and you can pick some flowers for mum. There are loads of foxgloves in these birch woods.’

  Hector parked the car on a muddy incline and they crossed the small road to the woods opposite. There was something endearing about his daughter’s flat-footed walk as she went ahead of him. He caught up with her and took her hand. To enter the wood he had to lift up the wire latch of a gate and manoeuvre them both through it. The light was mellow and there was a smell of woody decay in the air. The ground throughout the wood was carpeted with fragile white wind-flowers. Hector was puzzled. Wind-flowers were usually out in spring. It crossed his mind that it might be something to do with global warming. They followed the path through a copse of silver birch trees with Dawn stopping to trace the parallel black slashes around the trunks with her hand. The narrow footpath was covered in layers of dead brown leaves.

  ‘There are the foxgloves, Dawn.’ Hector pointed to some clumps of mauve speckled flowers.

  Hector sat on the fallen trunk of an oak tree. It was damp and there were rotting hollows in the trunk. Dawn trudged up and down seeking out foxgloves. Wood pigeons cooed in the distance. Deeper in the woods there were thickets of bracken, pale silver and deep green. A greed took hold of Dawn and she tore at the flowers, dropping most of them. She came stomping up to Hector with tears in her eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘My hands won’t hold them.’ Her face crumpled in distress.

  ‘I can’t pick as many flowers as mum deserves. I want her to have them all.’ The spotted flowers were crushed and dropping from her hands.

  ‘No. That’s plenty. She’ll love those. You don’t need any more.’

  He wiped her nose with a handkerchief.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ asked Dawn.

  In the distance there was a grunting and then a distinct clacking sound like a game of dominoes being played by giants. After a moment’s pause there was a snorting sound and then a harrumphing whinny and a sigh.

  Hector stood up. Trotting directly towards them down the path at a brisk pace with the light through the trees behind him was a solitary black and grey boar. The brown amber eyes were close-set. Its long narrow snout widened in the middle. There were two pairs of short tusks, upper and lower. A mane of spiky bristles stood up along its back. The powerful muscular body was more than five feet long. Hector saw it with outstanding clarity. It was so large and clear that for a minute he thought it was something else that had escaped from some other unknown dimension. As it approached and sniffed the air Hector could see on top of its forehead a patch of lighter brown hair, stiff and dry as hay. Hector pulled Dawn behind him for safety. The creature stopped about fifty feet from them and pawed the ground, lifting the hoof slowly as if from a great depth below the ground.

  The beast gave no sign or indication that it was upset until it began to charge. It lowered its head and started running. Now it began to zig-zag as it ran towards them so that Hector became paralysed not knowing which way to flee. The charge was fast and unpredictable. He had time to think only that the creature must be guarding its piglets before the mighty muscular body collided with him knocking all the wind from him. The wild boar’s tusks were razor sharp. The tusks lowered, jerked up sideways and ploughed through his jeans and groin flinging him to the ground. With the violent impact he was thrown backwards on top of Dawn. The animal turned and trotted back the way it had come.

  When he opened his eyes Dawn was looking down on him. He went to get up but his leg gave way under him and he became flooded with weakness. The white wood anemones beneath him turned purple and scarlet with blood. The top of his jeans had become bloated pouches filled with blood. When he applied pressure the blood overflowed onto the belt. He knew an artery was severed. The wound was too high in the groin for him to tie a tourniquet.

  ‘Dawn. See if you can go and get some help. Can you find your way back to the car?’ He pointed in the opposite direction from where the boar had retreated into the woods.

  Dawn nodded.

  ‘Here are the car keys.’ His fingers were wet with blood. ‘Can you go and bring my jacket from the car? My mobile phone is in the pocket. Can you do that?’

  He watched her receding figure, walking with that determined gait, until she disappeared from sight.

  Fifty yards away from where Hector lay stood a copper beech tree. As he looked up the sunlight on the leaves made them glow as if they were on fire and turn a golden bronze the colour of his copper engraving plate. The branches and leaves seemed to spread over his head as a sort of shelter although he knew this must be some sort of hallucination because the tree was too far away for the leaves to reach him. He managed to undo the belt of his jeans and undo the zip. He looked down in puzzlement at the satiny pink entrails that spilled from the gash in his groin. A paralysing pain gripped him from so deep inside that it seemed to replace his entire body.

  A little while later Hector felt something. Dawn was patting his face. She was squatting beside him. Tears rolled down her cheeks:

  ‘I can’t find the road,’ she said.

  ‘Never mind.’ He was surprised to find he no longer had the strength to hold her hand. Black specks and blotches began to appear in front of his eyes. A huge grip seemed to squeeze the air out of his lungs. A slowly gathering blackness grew from the outer edges of his vision coming in towards the centre and
threatening extinction.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  All afternoon Khaled sat in the Hot Chocolate café in Ashford trying to reach Hector on his mobile. There was no reply. He left numerous messages. He hesitated over whether to phone him on his landline but decided against it in case his wife answered. It was unlike Hector to be unreliable. Even if his mobile was out of order Khaled would have expected Hector to call him from a phone box. Maybe something had come up. There was a small travel agent on the opposite side of the road with a red Rover parked outside. Khaled went in and arranged to fly to Hamburg the next day. He hung around reading a newspaper for another hour before deciding to go for a curry. From the restaurant he phoned his wife and told her that he would be coming home tomorrow. In the end it was too late to get back to London, and feeling irritated he booked into a small bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Ashford for the night.

  There was a slight disturbance around midnight when another guest booked in. Khaled was woken by the man’s deep voice coming up the stairs. The owner of the voice sounded slightly drunk and Khaled could hear the annoyance in the landlady’s tone as she showed him to his room.

  At six in the morning Khaled woke in confusion to the sound of the front door being broken down and multiple footsteps running up the stairs. There were yells of: ‘Police. Armed police.’ Two policemen in full riot gear burst into his room and yelled at him to get dressed. Minutes late Khaled was hustled, half-asleep, shaken and protesting down the stairs and into a waiting police van. A second police car waited nearby.

  Donny, having arrived at midnight after a night of drinking, had slipped out early leaving forty pounds on the dresser in the hall to pay for the night’s lodging. He was wondering why there were police vehicles and policemen milling about in the street outside. They ushered him roughly out of the way. As he walked away from the house he saw a handcuffed man being dragged out and secured in the back of the police van. The van screeched off at speed. A second police car followed accelerating away. Donny jumped back on to the pavement to avoid the speeding car. The police driver glanced back over his shoulder and caught Donny’s glare. It was like looking at lightning; too terrible, too sudden and too different even to be understood.