by Joan Barfoot
“Love is in the air”—another expression, or a song. As if it’s contagious, a virus. Well, at the time Lila happened to be vulnerable, and it leaped to her skin, and came to infect her. And certainly it’s been an interesting disease.
Only, like measles or chicken pox, not always an attractive one.
In the lounge she regarded Tom’s fingers surrounding the Scotch glass and judged them to be competent and strong. A surgeon’s hands, she might have imagined, if she hadn’t already felt the hands of a surgeon. Even if she’d known it would come to this moment, she’d have to say she does not regret him. There was promise, and on the whole she would have to say it’s been kept.
Only, he has multiple promises to keep. He is still a politician, juggling various interests, and his constituency is inordinately large.
“One more minute,” he says. “Okay?” He must be running out of ways to explain himself.
Here is one of the questions that govern civility: what would be the result if everyone behaved as you do? If everyone behaved as Tom and Lila have, the world of love and promises would be an anarchy. They have made exceptions of themselves.
If everyone here unleashed full, true emotions, the result would also surely be anarchy. People would get badly hurt, some might be killed. And that would be without even crashing. It would look very foolish indeed if the plane landed safely, but with a cargo of dead and mutilated passengers who had turned on each other.
Although of course disaster does bring out the virtue in some. Just as, no doubt, some people do turn thumbs down on love.
It must be hard for him to find a way to end his letter. Will “Love, Tom” do the trick? Or “Sincerely”?
Goodbyes are by nature troublesome. They may be right, necessary or inevitable, but they are also sad and frightening.
Tom is tamping his pages into line on his lap—would he like to read them over, see what he’s done? He leans to his briefcase, opens it, removes a large brown envelope, folds the sheets inside it. Who will it be addressed to? His wife only? His wife and two daughters?
“To my family,” he scrawls, uneasily shifting the envelope so that it’s difficult for her to see.
He tucks it all back in the briefcase, which Lila supposes makes as much sense as tucking it anywhere else.
Won’t briefcases sink? Won’t they hit the water like rocks, then spin slowly to the bottom of the ocean, far beyond even light? She imagines his briefcase settling into sediment and rock, being nudged by strange, curious sea creatures. All those pages will soak up salt water. Their ink will run, turn liquid; his words will become a tiny portion of foreign matter, an infinitesimal pollution in the sea-scheme of things.
“To my family.” Well.
She has known and touched at one time or another every line and wrinkle of the face he now turns to her. She is familiar with each eyelash and every curling hair of eyebrows and with the whiskers which these days come in grey each afternoon. He has more lines at the sides of his eyes and his mouth than when they met. Today they look especially deep and permanent.
This is the day everything about them may finally become permanent. Hardly what she had in mind; like that old warning, “Be careful what you wish for.”
When he looks at her so intently, does he recognize every eyelash and hair, every wrinkle and line, each mark and freckle? “My dear,” he says, reaching to stroke her cheekbone with his finger. “Thank you.” So she supposes he does.
“Remember,” he asks, “the accident?”
Oh yes, their only previous encounter with disaster. Strange, really, how little experience a woman her age may have with life-threatening crisis, a different matter from loss or grief or heartache. What an amateur she is in some regards.
People must skirt death all the time, something slipping near and sliding away again, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes glimpsed. “Whew!” they say if they do spot the moment. “That was close.” And on they go.
“I was thinking how brave you were, and sturdy.” He smiles. “You didn’t even complain about losing the car. You’re an awfully good companion in an emergency.”
Less appealing, it seems, as a day-to-day companion, not to mention one to die with. “Thank you,” she says.
That accident he speaks of, a couple of years ago, was if nothing else a dramatic example of the perils of simply sitting beside each other, trying to do something together. They failed, it appears, to take it sufficiently to heart—how easily people forget lessons, warnings, little parables of misfortune.
But what are the odds?
That accident was quite different from this, however. It required much frantic action, instead of this frantic inaction, and it also took only a moment, nothing like this business of life or death hanging suspended; although it was a long moment: an instant when suddenly a car was coming straight at them over the hill ahead, passing when it shouldn’t, but no one was sorting out rights and wrongs just then.
It had a slow-motion quality, as accidents do, each movement bright and distinct, as if there were all the time in the world. She remembers Tom’s desperate turns of the wheel, the nasty, helpless sliding, sunlight reflecting off brown fenders and silver ones, the rich greens of roadside grasses. She remembers thinking, Oh my god, and then, Now we’re caught, which later she found interesting. Also later she was able to consider questions of chance: that if Tom hadn’t been the one driving, they might have been killed. If Tom hadn’t freed a weekend to spend with her, neither of them would have been on that road in the first place, headed towards a beach and an overpriced, out-of-the-way inn.
But alert, quick-reflexed Tom was driving, although it was her car, which also turned out to be a blessing of sorts. He swore and braked and swerved and twisted, and they flew and rocked and screeched until they were, yes, halted and right side up in a ditch of glorious wild tiger lilies, the car’s front end crushed into the bank of the ditch so hard the dash at her knees would have collapsed in the next moment. As it was, the radio was twisted and her tapes were wrecked.
There must have been sounds around them, but Lila recalls absolute stillness. They reached for each other’s hands and sat staring ahead, absorbing the abrupt change of situation and view. Finally they became aware of excited voices and worried faces around them. Other vehicles were pulling up, stopping. She and Tom looked at each other at last. “You okay?” he asked, and she nodded.
“You?” and he nodded.
They pushed at crumpled, protesting doors and got out.
People hovered, offered help, blankets, places to sit, somebody had gone off to call ambulances, police. They asked anxious questions, tried to get her and Tom to lie down or to be embraced. It felt like waking up in winter, feeling cold air with fingertips and nose, but cosy under the comforter. How kind people were, Lila thought.
“We’ll be fine,” she assured them. “We’re lucky, it’s only the car that got hurt.” She put a hand on Tom’s shaken shoulder. “Thank heavens you’re such a good driver. You saved our lives, you know.” He straightened, and even smiled a little.
“Your car,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
By the time the police arrived, they were reasonably steady and able to tell what had happened, as did several witnesses, and it was a very good thing that none of it was Tom’s fault, and an exceptionally good thing the kids in the other car weren’t much hurt, so that Tom and Lila could escape the next step of public scrutiny. If the event had been serious or fatal, there would have been a story in a newspaper. Even a paragraph in print would have ruined them.
After ambulances had taken everyone involved to the nearest hospital in the nearest little town, and they’d been checked and treated for, mainly, mild shock, they looked for ways to tell each other how relieved they were and how lucky they’d been. Not wanting, though, to say aloud specifically and precisely which di
sasters they’d dodged, besides death, they didn’t get much beyond “We’re so lucky.” Anyway, they both knew. Words were more than unnecessary, they risked a perilous opening of wounds when they were already slightly wounded.
Lila’s car was towed and Tom went off to rent one to get them home. It was hours before, having given up on the getaway, they were back at Lila’s house, unlocking Lila’s door, collapsing on Lila’s sofa, safe and invisible again behind Lila’s walls.
They were tentative, however, for one reason and another, about touching. It seemed the sort of event that drew them intensely together, but also hurled them apart in the sharp reminder of drastically different, unbridgeable circumstances.
But they’ve made many small trips in which nothing worse happened than returning home.
If this plane goes down, it’ll amount to a lot more than a paragraph. She imagines police and reporters knocking on doors, making announcements, seeking pictures and reactions and epitaphs.
“And remember,” he asks, “the snowstorm we drove through that other weekend?”
Yes again. Another tribute to his driving skills, a long, white-knuckled, headachy journey. But what is he playing at, with this do-you-remember? Is it what he played at in his letter? An appeal to past, in hopes it will overwhelm present?
“I felt perfectly safe,” she says, “but bad for you.” Arriving at last in their hotel room, they’d thrown off their clothes in celebration. “You were exhausted.”
“Not too exhausted, I hope.”
“Not right away.” It is, after all, a happy memory. “But you were snoring by the time room service came. I had to throw the bedspread over you and hustle into my robe. Hotel people must wonder what they’re getting into every time they knock on a door.”
“The place tonight doesn’t have room service, so we won’t have to worry about that.” Probably that’s intended to reassure that, once again, their future will triumph. Kind words, and brave ones, no doubt; although sabotaged by his letter.
“I remember calling you late at night because I wanted to hear your voice, even if it wasn’t fair, waking you up.” She’d imagined him slipping out of bed and downstairs to some private room, cautiously punching her number, keeping his voice low. She was pleased by his efforts, the care he took; although would have preferred, naturally, to be wakened by a voice and a body beside her.
It’s a long time since he’s made one of those calls. They both must have learned to sleep soundly.
“I never minded. I loved hearing your voice. I’d wake up in the morning thinking about talking to you. Sometimes I kept remembering right into class, and I’d have to pace to give my body something to do.”
“When I had thoughts like that, I had to sit very still behind my desk, so nobody could see what was on my mind.”
They have gone deep into the past tense.
“I was thinking, I could have had a heart attack when I was forty, forty-two, like a lot of guys, and I would have missed you entirely. I’m glad we’ve had this much.” There are no ceremonies for people like them; any pledges that get made are folded inside other kinds of words. But they are precious, and they do cause seams and cracks in the heart.
“Although,” he adds, smiling slightly, “I could do with a lot more.”
“Me too.”
“Remember the beach?”
“I remember trying to get you to make love underwater, but you wouldn’t.”
“I think I didn’t know how, exactly, but I was too proud to admit it. I’m sorry I made us miss it. Remember the time I went along to the reception your department was giving for that poet, what’s his name? Somebody famous I’d never heard of.”
“Who got so pissed, and threw up. And then we sneaked out. You gave me a wink and left, and I waited a few minutes and followed. It was like being fifteen again, necking in your car.”
“The hormones were pretty adolescent too.”
“I thought it was grand to be steaming up car windows at forty-two. If also reckless.”
“Even grander and more reckless for me, at forty-four.”
“We were lucky.”
“I’ve always felt lucky, knowing you.”
That’s nice. Did he write something similar to the people of his family, but with a slightly varied spin to make it personal to them?
Oh, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Except it does.
Wouldn’t he be a hero, though, if his letter were found. People would say not only, “Look how he cared right to the end, look at those words of devotion and hope.” Which she assumes they are, or are intended to be. They would also say, “Imagine a man of such calm, such fortitude and generosity, spending his very last moments thinking of others, and ways to comfort.”
His words would be printed in newspapers and portrayed on television screens, a testament to his cool head, warm heart.
People would measure themselves by Tom and his words. They would wonder, “Could I have done such a thing?” or “What would I have written, if it were me? Who would I write to, and what would I most want to tell them?”
The survivors of other passengers might feel somewhat ashamed of their loved ones, for their absence of eloquence at the end. Or they might feel reassured that perhaps Tom spoke for them all, and that their loved ones also died well.
Around the globe, people would be stirred and astonished by Tom and his effort and words.
A far smaller circle would also be asking, “What do you suppose he and Lila were doing together? It surely wasn’t coincidence.” Or “Boy, that’s a whole heap of bad luck, isn’t it? Way to get caught in front of the world.” Or “What nerve, writing something like that.”
Tom has no doubt also considered all this. It certainly doesn’t bear mentioning.
“You know,” Lila says, “I bet all sorts of things happen to planes that we never hear about. Maybe this isn’t even so unusual, and the crew knows exactly what they’re doing.”
“Yeah, well, check out the flight attendants—do they look as if they’re taking this for granted, or even know what they’re doing?”
Not really. Three of them, including Sheila, are together, whispering. Sheila’s hands are in motion, making gestures Lila can’t interpret, another is frowning, and the third looks merely harassed. It’s possible they’re worried about running low on coffee and soft drinks, but it looks as if what they’ve run out of is gloss. Things like lipstick and wisps of hair have come unstuck. Their glitter has worn off and what remains is unshiny, unauthoritative. Earthbound and ordinary.
In a situation requiring them to be more than human, to look merely human is—what’s the word Lila wants?—yes, disquieting. At best, disquieting, an unruffled, minor word, not too upsetting as words go in potential disasters.
Disaster is a good one to avoid. Cataclysm. Catastrophe. Tragedy.
But that’s a word, like fate, with nice, compact literary meaning, having to do with Oedipus, Lear, people like that, not people like Tom or herself, or Sarah, or Adele, or Jimmy or Mel, or Susie or her mother, or anyone else here, surely. Unhappy ends brought about by huge fatal flaws.
What would hers be? Or Tom’s? Self-indulgence, she supposes. A reluctance to resist pleasing impulses. That seems very small.
“I can’t find,” she says, “a way to think about this. I find a lot of little ways, but not a proper big one. You’re a historian, you’re supposed to have perspective; do you get a better view?”
“Ah, Lila.” He sighs. “You expect a good deal from history, don’t you? Although you’re right; if I look at this through the lens of centuries, there is a sort of universal pattern.”
“Which is?”
He regards her solemnly.
“Shit happens.”
That’s why she’s loved him. For a moment she stares, and then they’re laughing, real heads-back, body-rocking, stom
ach-clutching, breath-taking laughter.
What a perfect moment for the plane to go down. Then they could just die laughing.
Weeping, screaming, throwing up—all that is apparently normal, but hoots of delight are unseemly and possibly disgraceful, and they’ve drawn some frowning attention.
“Oh dear,” she says finally, “my stomach hurts.”
“It would have been a good moment to go down, that’s for sure.”
She is startled, as she sometimes is, when he speaks her thoughts. But after more than five years, it’s hardly eerie if they know more about each other than they’re aware of knowing.
“Anyway,” he says, “I think I understand better why you were laughing before. I’m sorry.”
Apology or regret? That question again; but perhaps, like some others, no longer very important.
nine
Sheila moves along the aisle, speaking up to be heard. “If those of you nearest the windows will draw down your blinds, we’ll be starting the movie. I apologize for the delay.” She smiles, rather shakily, Lila thinks. “I understand it’s an excellent film, and we also apologize in advance because we should be on the ground long before it ends.”
Lila herself couldn’t have made a worse joke.
“I mean,” Sheila goes on quickly, “we’ll be happily landed at Heathrow.”
Then why start it? What is it passengers shouldn’t see that requires the shades to be pulled? The plane tugs slightly right, slightly left. A man Lila can barely make out, sitting in an aisle seat a few rows ahead, grabs Sheila’s arm.
“What the fuck’s going on?” His voice is loud and harsh, and around him people stir anxiously. “Don’t give us that shit about movies, we want to know what’s really happening.”
Do they?
“Please, sir, just stay in your seat. Everything’s fine, there’s no cause for concern. Those small movements are just manoeuvres. The pilot and co-pilot are doing exactly what they’ve been advised to do.”
