Deviant

by Helen FitzGerald

  Abigail’s view of Los Angeles was based on the comedy channel. Two and a Half Men and Entourage, mainly. She imagined large beachside houses full of happily dysfunctional families. She imagined blue skies, oversized breakfasts, enthusiastic shop assistants, gorgeous posses of loyal friends eating salads while laughing loudly. Maybe she’d be doing that tomorrow. Laughing loudly in the sun over salad. Or maybe she’d simply wake up.

  Just get on the plane.

  Unfortunately, there was another, scarier queue to tackle. This involved a full-body scanning machine, like the kind they had in some young offender’s facilities she’d seen. Officials with gadgets padded people down if they beeped. Uniformed men stared at a computer screen as bags moved along a conveyor belt. Abigail realized she was trembling. Once, she’d been searched in a police cell on suspicion of shoplifting in a supermarket. (She hadn’t done it.) She hadn’t just felt terrified, she’d felt violated. She could feel suspicious eyes boring down on her as she placed her backpack on the belt.

  Just as she’d feared, a piercing beep erupted as she walked through the scanner.

  A woman ushered her to stand on a black mat, where she waved a gadget over her body and frisked either side of her torso and legs.

  “It’s just your belt,” the woman said. “You should take it off before you come through next time.”

  Abigail could only manage a nod.

  The man at the scanning machine was unzipping her backpack and searching through it. Shit. Maybe Billy had sabotaged her, stuffed some drugs in while she wasn’t looking.

  “You have liquids in your bag.” He held out the hair putty and toothpaste accusingly.

  “Oh, is that bad?”

  “Yes. It is. No liquids over 100 milliliters. This’ll have to go.” Before she could respond, he had tossed her Fibre Putty in the huge bin behind him. She couldn’t help but notice that the bin was bursting with shampoo, conditioner, and skin lotion. There was even a bottle of wine. They must divvy it out at the end of the day, she thought to herself. A perk of the job.

  “You can keep the toothpaste, but next time put it in the airport-issued plastic bag. Right?”

  “Right. Ta.” God, if there was ever a next time, there was a lot to remember. She shoved the toothpaste in her bag and zipped it up again.

  Gate 43 was a ten-minute walk through brightly lit shops and featureless corridors with moving walkways. She took her seat in what looked like a doctor’s waiting room. Peering out the huge windows into the night, she noticed the American Airlines plane attached to the gate. It was enormous. So high off the ground. She found herself scanning the body of the plane for faults. How would she even recognize a fault? She’d only watched one episode of Air Crash Investigation, and that particular plane had crashed due to weird insects nesting in some vital equipment.

  “Flight 3845 to Los Angeles has been delayed,” the air hostess at the gate desk announced over a loud speaker, “and will now depart at ten fifty-five P.M.”

  There was a collective sigh.

  Bugger. Even longer to wait. As Abigail squirmed, she felt like a drug smuggler. A wrong move or a drop of sweat would bring in the sniffer dogs and police; any minute someone would discover she was not Alina Beklea and escort her back to No Life Hostel.

  She tried to read her Funny Physics book, but couldn’t concentrate. She tried to snooze; too nervous. Eventually, she looked at the clock and noticed there were only thirty-nine more minutes till takeoff. They’d have to board the plane any second now.

  Two men in suits approached Gate 43 and seemed to be looking at her. Or maybe they weren’t. She couldn’t look back. She needed to do something to look normal.

  An Internet point was located twenty feet along the corridor. She walked toward it as calmly as she could without looking at the men in suits. It cost a pound a minute, but Abigail used each second wisely.

  In the Google search engine, she typed: “Grahame Johnstone.”

  Scrolling past a Grahame Johnstone on UK LinkedIn, a teenager on Bebo, a managing director of a Scottish roofing company, and a plumber from Cornwall, Abigail quickly adjusted her search to include “Los Angeles.”

  Hmm, perhaps he was the Polaroid artist who was plastered all over the Internet. That’d be interesting, if he was an artist. Perhaps he was the commune type. Cool. All the posts were about the same man, but when she searched images, she realized his picture didn’t fit. He was only around thirty, this photographer guy. With limited time remaining, Abigail added “Becky Johnstone” to her father’s name and location. Nothing, so she changed Becky to Rebecca.

  The article flashed on screen only for a few seconds, but long enough for Abigail to discover that her father, ex-naval officer Grahame Johnston—married to actress Melanie Gallagher—was the managing director of a prebiotics company in Los Angeles. Long enough, also, for Abigail to zero in on the words she’d been searching for: Daughter, Rebecca Johnstone, Age: 18. The 3-D–throbbed in her eyes. Rebecca Johnstone: the daughter of an ex-naval officer. Rebecca Johnstone: just two years older than she was.

  My sister.

  She did exist. And Abigail had a letter and twenty-five thousand pounds to give her.

  THE PLANE WAS BOARDING. First class passengers boarded first. She had a window seat: 9A. Abigail wondered if this lump of metal would really fly. How could it possibly? A camp American of around twenty was seated next to her. He had dark blond hair, a little over-groomed in a mock-distressed kind of way, brown eyes, and an easy smile. “You been to LA before?” he asked, perhaps noticing her twitchiness.

  “I’ve never been anywhere.”

  “You’ll miss Scotland.” The guy seemed nostalgic as he stared past her out the window.

  She laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  Abigail only relaxed her grip on the wide plastic arm rest after the plane seemed to level off. Glasgow looked equally depressing from the air. Yellow lights, thick, dark un-majestic river, oppressive hood of ever-present cloud pushing down, down. And just like that, it was gone. She was in the clouds now. And above. On her way to this new life, whatever it would be. Over the next hour she wondered about the ground below her. Was she passing over Dunoon, where she grew up? As she wondered, she found herself humming a song Billy Connolly and the Humblebums wrote after the American navy left the town:

  Has three pubs

  Two cafes

  And a fag machine

  And hills you can walk on

  While the rain is running doon

  … And a nightlife that stops in the afternoon

  Why don’t they come back to Dunoon?

  So he was an ex-naval officer, her father. Abigail assumed he must have been stationed at Holy Loch in Dunoon, where the US nuclear submarines were based for thirty years. Perhaps her mother had been in the commune there at the time. Was it a Romeo/Juliet romance, perhaps? Forbidden, impossible? Hmm, romantic. The Americans eventually left Dunoon and the town collapsed too, its energy and livelihood gone with the submarines. That’s where Abigail grew up: in a balloon with no air, in a dead seaside town, the only place on earth with more rain and less going for it than Glasgow.

  Why had her father never known about her? Had he left before her mother knew she was pregnant? Did she ever try and tell him? Why had he taken two-year-old Becky?

  Maybe tomorrow Abigail would ask her father all these questions. Or maybe she’d be so happy she wouldn’t care. Maybe she would be thankful to know nothing about her past.

  She pushed down the television screen in front of her. According to the map, they were flying over ocean, lots of it: a digital blue mass. Dunoon gone. Glasgow gone. Scotland gone. Ha, gone. She let out a big sigh. My mother got me out of there, she thought. Thank you, Sophie Thom. Thank you, Mum.

  “You leaving someone behind?” the camp guy asked.

  “Yeah,” Abigail heard herself answer. She didn’t bother to add that this someone was dead and that she hadn’t even known her. It had struck her unexpectedly, the reali
zation that she would never know her mother. Throughout her life, she had carried around with her the dream that her mother was out there somewhere; that even though Mum was a bitch from hell for abandoning her infant daughter, she existed. That dream had sometimes made her angry, sometimes sad, sometimes hopeful. Now it was gone.

  “Here, what’s your favorite drink?” the guy asked. He reached up and clicked the light for the stewardess to come. “We’ll drink to our loved ones.”

  “Pineapple juice.”

  “Sure you don’t want a gin and tonic? I hate drinking alone.”

  There are benefits to being a thirty-two-year-old Romanian called Alina, Abigail realized.

  Moments later she found herself clinking glasses with her new friend, Bren (“short for Brendan, but call me that and I will kill you. Last name McDowell.”). She sipped an icy lime-wedged first-class drink of gin and tonic.

  “What have you done to your hair, girl?” Bren asked, after a few sips.

  “Long story.”

  Before she knew it, Abigail found herself confessing. The truth, stripped down: dead mother, father and sister she never knew, the money, Billy and Camelia—the whole sordid lot. Abigail never usually opened up, especially not to boys. But Bren was utterly non-threatening. He hung on her every word. He was easy on the eyes too, she thought with a sigh, as so many gay men are: well dressed, pretty, approachable, perfect, and impossible. Besides, would she ever see him again? Probably not.

  Fortunately, given his turn, Bren was also a talker. After the second round of drinks, Abigail sank back into the cushions and let him go. First came the tales of how his mother had gone to Canada to travel and fallen in love. A love refugee! His parents were both police officers, “but you’d never guess,” he said. His father had been a “highly respected and very creative homicide detective, helping solve some of the most notorious cases in the country.” (He said this part with a hint of mockery.) His mother worked in domestic violence and rape. They took early retirement and were now travelling the world in a Winnebago. “Well, California. Next stop, Europe,” Bren slurred. “They’re obsessed with conspiracy theories. If you ever meet them, don’t ask about 9/11.”

  Bren loved Scotland, everything about it, especially the Tunnock’s Tea Cakes. He came back as often as he could to stay with the rellies in Partickhill. He’d recently moved from Toronto to LA to make it in the movie business. “Not acting, before you ask. Hair and makeup!” So far, all he’d managed was a partnership in a salon. But he wouldn’t give up, oh no.

  He fell asleep mid-story.

  Prebiotics sounds interesting, Abigail thought once he was snoring. Her father was the managing director of a prebiotics company. Managing director! He must be into science. Like father, like daughter. He must be rich. Have power. Wear suits. Tell hundreds of people what to do. Live in a mansion with a pool. Have more than one car. Buy his kid and wife expensive presents. Talk about prebiotics on the phone to the very people who are helping him make the world better with prebiotics. It was Abigail’s new favorite word. She decided to nudge her neighbor.

  “Do you know what prebiotics is?”

  “Huh?” Bren yawned and scrunched his eyebrows, rubbing his chin. “Yeah, I know that … Prebiotics, I’ve heard of it.”

  Abigail suppressed a smile. She wanted to stop him there. Bren obviously found it rude and impossible to admit that he didn’t have a clue. Must be the Glaswegian genes. Ask someone from Glasgow to direct you to the railway station and they’ll send you anywhere rather than shrugging nowhere.

  “I think it’s like …” Bren continued. “You know how you have the Neanderthal period, right? And the post-Neanderthal period and then there’s the pre-Neanderthal period?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well this is the same, I think. Except it’s the period before the biotic one.”

  Abigail laughed. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “I’m ridiculous? Who cares? Get interesting, girl!” He closed his eyes and nestled into his pillow again, a playful grin on his lips.

  “I’ll try.”

  She grinned, too. She would see him again. In her new life, whatever that was, she’d have a friend waiting in Los Angeles.

  SHE WOKE WHEN THE seatbelt sign came on. They were descending. The local time was 7:35 A.M. Panicked, Abigail rubbed her eyes and gaped out the window. It didn’t look much different than Glasgow from up there. At least there were no clouds.

  She was even more nervous waiting in line behind Bren to go through Immigration.

  “Relax,” Bren told her. “Stay cool. Don’t worry so much! Or at least, don’t let on.”

  A few questions later, Bren’s passport was stamped. “You got my card?” he asked before heading to baggage claim.

  “I have, yeah.” She fished it out of her pocket and held it up.

  “Call me.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll sort that hair!”

  His glassy gaze met with hers. He didn’t blink. He held on. Abigail swallowed and smiled back. He didn’t care about her hair. He knew too much about the rest of her.

  AT THE PASSPORT BOOTH, Abigail tried her best to look like normal, everyday thirty-two-year-old Romanian Alina Beklea. Underneath, she felt the same way she’d felt since Nieve died: powerless. She thought she’d made it. She thought the Glasgow airport was the one to worry about. She’d relaxed on the plane, gotten tipsy, blurted everything out to some guy she didn’t even know, not realizing that she still might not make it to her new life.

  The passport official was looking at the photograph.

  Then he was looking at her.

  She recognized the look. It was one of disdain. He thought she was scum. If there wasn’t a problem, he wouldn’t look at her like this. There was obviously a problem.

  He looked at her, at the photograph, at her—again and again.

  “You don’t like Kate Middleton?” he asked with a nod to the STUFF THE MONARCHY shirt.

  “Oh, well … I don’t know her.” Abigail faked a Romanian accent. “I just visited UK for a while.”

  “You have no visa.”

  “No, I didn’t realize …” She lost the ability to breathe. Visa? The woman at the American Airlines desk hadn’t checked or asked. “Can I get one?”

  The glare he offered in return indicated that this was the dumbest question she could have possibly asked.

  He called over a colleague. Both stared at the passport. Then they both gave her the same look of disdain.

  “Come with us, please, Miss Beklea.”

  IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM, face-to-face with another sour man in a blue immigration uniform, Abigail went over the options in her head. She could run for it. The door was open. Outside the room was an empty corridor, equally as claustrophobic and fluorescent. If she ran to the left, she would reach the passport booth, where she’d come from. If she ran to the right, who knows where she’d end up? Scanning the room she was in and what she could see of the corridor, she noticed cameras. They were all over the ceilings. No: running was out.

  She could cry. Girls in the hostel always cried when they wanted something. Abigail tried to muster a girly tear. No luck.

  She could lie. Stick with the Alina story. Ask about getting a visa. Hell, beg. Or …

  Bribe? But, no. Lies always caught up with you. And she doubted any amount of cash would convince the airport security authorities to let her through. Besides, she only had £1,570 of her £25,000 left. The other £25K was her sister’s. She would never touch it.

  Abigail clenched her jaw, angry with herself. She wasn’t an impatient person. She shouldn’t have rushed out of the country without thinking about the consequences. She should have found her father’s address, contacted him, and explained her passport situation. She should have waited. There was no other option but to come clean to this dickhead.

  “My father is Grahame Johnstone,” she began. “I—”

  “We’ll be sending you straight back,” he interrupted with
no trace of sympathy. “Until we arrange it, wait here.”

  UNBELIEVABLE. SO CLOSE. A new life, just outside this room! A few yards away. And US Customs was sending her back to Glasgow. But she knew the reason. It wasn’t because she was a liar. It was because she hadn’t been meticulous enough. She hadn’t fully established that new routine; she hadn’t gone fully into that cold robot mode necessary to bluff her way past immigration officials at an international airport. She could have. A little more careful planning, a little more preparation. Instead, she’d allowed herself to get all excited and distracted. She’d helped Camelia escape. She’d gone to her mother’s funeral. She’d gotten drunk on a plane with a gay guy. How stupid she had been to imagine a happy, sunny new place!

  You are stupid, Abigail. You are stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Maybe she should just go to the Solid Bar and do what Billy wanted her to do. Maybe the numbness of heroin would be better than the steady rain of disappointment …

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in the cold plastic chair in the interview room, head in her knees—maybe an hour—when a different man burst through the door.

  He was tall, straight-backed, suited, shoes so shiny they hurt her eyes. He oozed significance. “So you’re Grahame Johnstone’s daughter?” he barked.

  “Yes?”

  “Get up. Follow me.” The voice was presidential, the kind you know you have to stop and listen to, then obey.

  Abigail picked up her backpack and followed. She couldn’t concentrate on anything but her feet—one foot ahead of the other—just behind those shiny black shoes. They passed through a doorway.