Rotten Gods

by Greg Barron

  He sets off down past the airline desks — African Express, Royal Jordanian, Saudi Arabian Airways, and Yemenia. The counter is not busy and he has just a short wait before a young man looks up and smiles the gap-toothed, stained, Yemenia version of the famous airline smile.

  Simon takes his clip-on British Airways ID from his pocket and holds it up. ‘There’s a flight to Aden, Yemen, in forty minutes. Do you have a seat available?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. Holiday or work?’

  ‘Holiday.’

  ‘Lucky you. Aden is a very beautiful city — and very safe now. Looks like we can accommodate you in business class — that flight’s almost empty.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Simon feels the tension relax a notch. Producing a credit card, he waits while the man processes his booking and prints a boarding pass.

  After passing through security, and a long walk down white corridors with arched, high windows on either side, past prayer rooms, crowded duty-free shops, and even artificial palm trees, Simon settles into the departure lounge to wait. The phone display shows no new messages. On impulse he punches out a new text and sends it to Isabella’s regular number, along with an older phone that she often carries around, the spare that Frances sometimes uses. No reply comes through, even when he watches the display, waiting for the tone to sound, a snippet from a pop song that Frances programmed for him last time they were together. Was it two weeks ago? A few days snatched in Paris while Isabella flew to Helsinki.

  Sitting there on the soft upholstery, Simon holds the images of the girls in his mind, studying them like dolls in his hands. They are polite kids. Sweet. So much like their mother but with elements of his own DNA that both frighten and thrill him. So different: Frances with her placid, sweet face and blonde hair almost to her waist; Hannah tall for her age, thinner, more spontaneous. Aching deep in his heart, he tries not to think of the various scenarios that might have overwhelmed one grown nanny and two smart kids. At how something must have forced Isabella to leave them.

  The boarding announcement comes over the loudspeakers in Arabic, then English. Simon joins the fifty or so passengers streaming down through the tube and into the aircraft.

  Simon dozes on the flight, head lolling, waking often, gasping for breath; a heavy acidic sweat on his neck and cheeks.

  If only I could talk to her … to them.

  He has told and embellished the story of his and Isabella’s first meeting so many times that he can no longer distinguish the facts from the frills.

  He does know that they met at his Great Aunt Delilah’s funeral, crammed into the pews at Ewhurst Parish Church in Surrey. To Simon, a senior at nearby Cranleigh School, the lucky seating coincidence was the only bright spot on a day that saw him miss opening the batting with the First XI, the elite school cricket team he had been trying to crack for two years.

  When Isabella settled into the pew beside him, she turned and smiled, leaving him too stunned to respond. Her eyes, he decided, were as green as summer grass, her body slim but full in the right places. During the entrance hymn and the homily they shared a number of stolen glances. After the return from communion she was just a little closer. Their thighs touched.

  This brief contact was a charge of high voltage current that widened Simon’s eyes and caused a twinge in his groin that necessitated an adjustment, achieved under cover of the funeral program produced and printed by his mother on the family Apple Mac.

  As the service scudded to its conclusion, Simon dropped his arm on the seat beside him, and the backs of his knuckles were close enough to brush her leg. Again that flash of excitement. As the pall bearers carried their burden down the aisle, Simon was able to study her for the first time, blonde hair pulled back tight, a few tantalising wisps still free. Her skin was as smooth and perfect as a petal, her face structured like that of a model, or an actress. Breasts too. Oh God, what breasts. By leaning forwards he could see patches of white bra and skin between the buttons of her blouse. It seemed to Simon that he had never seen a girl as pretty as her. He almost sighed aloud when she, catching him staring, turned again and smiled.

  Exiting the church, he loitered among the post-funeral chatterers and tried to get past Uncle Alan and his dull jokes to the patch of concrete where she stood with her parents. By the time he emerged from the crowd, ready with a smile and a line, she was already walking away.

  The wake was held at a family friend’s country house, a solid old residence built of Bargate stone, apparently once constructed as a woodsman’s cottage, with white-framed windows and doors, surrounded by an acre of hedges, ponds and garden beds. Silver trays lined the dining room table. Scones with cream, devilled eggs, and cucumber sandwiches occupied Simon for a good twenty minutes, and he had just emptied his plate for the third time when she came in. Again he felt that shock in his chest. Their eyes met for a moment before an elderly relative collared her, and he lost sight of her. He turned to Mabel, the sixty-something spinster aunt who, rumour had it, was either a lesbian or sexual predator — or both.

  ‘Who’s that girl?’ he asked, inclining his head towards her.

  Mabel threw back her head and cackled, brown teeth sharp as files in her upper jaw. ‘That one caught your eye, didn’t she, boy?’ She slapped his knee, then lowered her voice. ‘That’s Isabella Wilkes-Tower. Her grandmother, Augustine, was Delilah’s friend, for many years. They went to school together.’

  Simon felt a lightening of the spirit. ‘So I am not related to her?’

  Another guffaw. ‘Oh no, dear boy, so rest assured, if you and she should happen to rub nasties, your offspring are unlikely to be born with two heads.’

  Simon felt his face burning. ‘Aunt Mabel, you’re disgusting.’

  The criticism added to the old lady’s mirth, and she held her chest as if to prevent her laughter from spilling out from between her bony cleavage.

  An hour passed in which Simon attempted to hustle Isabella away from the henhouse of aunts, uncles and grandparents. People were leaving, cars crunching off down the gravel drive, and he had almost given up hope when he saw her out in the garden, kneeling at a bed of roses to inhale the scent of a blossom. He was too young and inexperienced to recognise a deliberate pose. He almost tripped in his hurry to get out there, but now that he was crossing the lawn towards her he felt as clumsy as a puppy in the shadow of her self-assured poise. He stopped five paces from her, thrust his hands in his pockets and said, ‘I missed out on a darn good cricket game for this funeral.’

  Isabella turned, then looked away. ‘I loathe cricket. So boring.’

  It was spring. Sunny. Bright. Bees over the flowers. A heady scent of blossoms in the air.

  Simon grinned and took another step. ‘Lots of people say that, but it’s not, you know. It’s quite fun, smashing the ball, and there’s an awful lot of skill involved. Hook shot, cover drive, leg glance and all that …’ His voice fell away.

  She was staring at him, lips tilting into a smile. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Simon.’ He wished she would stay still but instead she began walking along the edge of the garden.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask mine?’

  ‘I already know. You’re Isabella.’ He skipped a step or two to catch up. ‘I asked my auntie Mabel.’

  ‘The old dyke.’ Isabella smiled. ‘Mum says that she’s had her hand up more skirts than a French dressmaker.’

  ‘I like her. Well, she’s a bit different — not so square, you know.’

  The garden was set on an incline, roses giving way to less labour-intensive blooms — pansies and snapdragons, crowded and colourful. Down in the lower garden they were out of sight of the house, the bank above retained by a stone wall. Beyond was a valley of fields, and the village of Ellens Green in the distance.

  Isabella stopped and turned, then twirled once. ‘I had two glasses of Champagne, and now I feel silly.’

  Without warning, she gripped his arms and pressed her lips against his. At first it seemed
like a joke — a careless gesture — but her mouth opened like a hot clam and her arms encircled his back. The kiss went on for a long time, and then she drew back.

  He stared, eyes wide, shoulders heaving with each breath.

  They kissed again. Isabella changed, her eyes huge and misty, her body becoming limp, as if she would fall if he didn’t support her. Then, abruptly, she stopped for a second time. ‘I’m sorry, that was naughty of me. I don’t usually do things like that.’

  From above came the sound of a sliding door opening and a voice, calling, ‘Isabella, we’re going.’

  ‘Oh shit. Dad’s calling me. Is my lipstick OK?’

  Simon used his finger to wipe a smear away. ‘Looks awfully good to me. Can I see you again?’

  ‘If you like. Ring me. We’re in the book.’

  With that she turned and took the slope at a run.

  When she had gone, Simon sat on the springy grass and smiled to himself.

  There was no first date in a traditional sense. Simon ran into her at the counter of David Mann’s department store the next day on his way to net practice. Everyone in Cranleigh seemed to meet up there. Since the shelves contained almost everything worth buying, there always seemed to be a reason to visit the place.

  ‘I got another chance with the firsts on Saturday,’ he enthused.

  There was no trace of the giddy Isabella of the previous day. Mystified silence, then: ‘What the hell are you on about?’

  ‘Cricket.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The shop assistant placed her hands on her hips and coughed.

  ‘So sorry,’ Simon said, slipping a five pound note from his wallet and passing it across, before turning his attention back to Isabella. ‘Do you want to come and watch?’ He remembered what she had said about the game, and looked away, accepting his change. ‘You might not think it’s the most exciting thing in the world, but you can bring a book and we’ll have a bite to eat afterwards.’

  Isabella shrugged, then lifted one bare shoulder to scratch the side of her neck. ‘I guess. If you really want me to.’

  At Shamley Green a brown pole topped with a white duck and set of wickets marked the cricket ground, surrounded on all sides by sealed roads. Simon loved to play here: the soft, green turf; the trees; the red and brown brick houses with their picket fences and white framed windows, often with nets hung over glass panes in case of an errant six. Horse riders, practising golfers and even the local mobile library often turned up on the fringes of the game.

  With Isabella watching demurely from a borrowed deckchair, novel closed and resting in her lap, Simon strode out to face the Godalming bowling attack, led by a six-foot-six streak of lightning known across the county as Chicken Leg Harris.

  The first ball, a bouncer, Simon hooked into the car park of Arbuthnot Hall to scattered applause. The second he nicked clean to second slip and found himself walking, embarrassed, back to the bleachers.

  After the game, he took Isabella across the road to the Red Lion, a square, whitewashed building that sported twin white chimneys and a gabled doorway. Showered, a pint of London Pride on his breath and team songs ringing in his ears he bought her dinner, while his victorious teammates played pool in the adjacent room, making lewd gestures behind her back as they passed on their way to the gents.

  Later, Simon drove her home. Parked outside her house, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Her kiss, however, was feverish, and he slid one hand down under the coarse fabric of her dress.

  She groaned. ‘I’m not sure what it is, but you seem to have a strange effect on me.’

  Her words inflamed him further, and he reached for her.

  She pushed him away. ‘I don’t think I’ll fall in love with you, though.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re too nice. I think I’ve got a thing for rogues.’

  ‘I can be a rogue too.’

  ‘Can you?’ Her tongue was just visible behind the parted lips.

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘There’s a quiet place down by the old canal. We could go there if you like.’

  Simon remembered how it felt, that first time, how she lay back in his arms in the reclined seat afterwards and confessed her virginity.

  ‘Really? I thought you must have …’

  ‘Because I was so forward. Sorry, but you just happened to come along at the right time. I was ready.’

  Simon hugged her tight. ‘It was my first time too.’

  ‘Was it good?’

  Simon’s voice took on a languorous tone. ‘I rather think it was.’ A pause then, ‘Do you think we might try it again?’

  The relationship sustained them through his pilot training and Isabella’s Bachelor of Political Science. Marriage followed. Children. Fatherhood. Simon came to understand that to be a parent is to live not one, but two, three or four lives. That you share every fall, every success, every tear; every disgrace. That you feel each more keenly than your own.

  A blur of years followed. Soon there were bad memories, too. Fights. Sullen silences that went on for days. Unbridgeable gaps.

  More than anything now, Simon wants the wasted time back again. How could he have let it happen? He shudders to himself. If there is ever another chance … If she survives this. If the girls survive this. Simon steels himself. It is up to him to make sure that they come through, but first he has to find the girls. Without them there is no future worth living.

  CNN runs the story dispassionately, while FOX presents Dr Abukar as a once loyal servant, now deranged, having teetered off into extremism. SKY News labels him as a complex villain; a fundamentalist on a mission to save the world. Acting presidents and prime ministers promise that they will not cave in to terrorism, not even for the life of their own leader.

  Men and women all over the world gather information, draw their conclusions, perpetuate their prejudices, air their opinions over backyard fences, and on Quora, Scribd, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Diaspora and Namesake. Amateur news gatherers use Twitter to disseminate information hours ahead of traditional news services.

  The general opinion is that Dr Abukar will be content to make his point then walk away. The demands are unworkable, and he must realise this. Zhyogal is another matter. The word evil is bandied about by people who should know better. Clever journalists uncover evidence of his earlier exploits, including footage of a massacre in an Algerian village, and predict dire results this time around.

  In student unions, East and West, young men and women cheer and raise their glasses, while working-class strollers, polled by rough-and-tumble street journalists, click their tongues at such a treacherous lack of patriotism. ‘After all,’ fifty-three-year-old Isaac Stanton of Bethany, Pennsylvania, tells FOX and the world, ‘he’s our president. Even if I never voted for him myself I wouldn’t like to see him blown into little pieces.’

  The name Zhyogal takes on the media-fuelled proportions of a Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin or Slobodan Miloševíc, an uncomplicated vision even Isaac Stanton of Bethany, Pennsylvania, can understand. Dr Ali Khalid Abukar, however, is condemned as a traitor to the world that once gave him his living. Reports that a substantial UN salary is still being paid into a bank account in his name outrages the moral majority, leading to a rapid and comprehensive freezing of his assets.

  The team behind Inspire, the al-Qa’ida magazine launched and originally edited by the American born martyr, Anwar al-Awlaki, rushes to upload a special edition. This ten-page feature praises the brave mujahedin at Rabi al-Salah, and takes pains to link al-Muwahhidun with their own organisation, devoting half a page to details of the original association between Osama bin Laden and Yaqub Yusuf.

  Financial markets, never secure in these troubled times, reflect the possibility of a world without leadership. The Dow Jones dives, and the Hang Seng suffers its worst one-day loss since a wave of water destroyed the Miyagi prefecture’s coastal strip and an ageing nuclear power station went into meltdown years earlier. The index creeps back when t
he Tokyo Times reports a possible negotiated end to the crisis. This report proves to be false, and another round of selling begins, cut short by the close of trade.

  Day 1, 20:00

  As stars appear in the darkened sky, visible through the single high window, the conference room lights remain on. Isabella sees eyes close and sleep arrive for many of the delegates. Of course, she has scarcely dozed in seventy-two hours, and for at least an hour, she too sleeps. When she wakes it is with an unpleasant jolt. Someone has dimmed the lights.

  The man who once introduced himself as a suave and urbane businessman called Rami — now revealed as terrorist and murderer Zhyogal — prowls the room, scarcely glancing at her now.

  At least one of the hijackers is asleep far across the room, lying on the carpet beside the wall. The mujahedin, she decides, must be taking turns to rest, sleeping in relays.

  Rather than enlivening her, the short sleep fills Isabella with despair at what has happened to Hannah and Frances, at the memory of what she has done — that she is to blame, in part, for this. Her eyes fall on the shoulder bag near her feet, remembering the spare phone still inside. Using one foot she hooks the bag closer, waiting until she is sure Zhyogal and the others are not watching.

  Trying not to think of what they will do to her if she is caught, she leans over, delves into the bag, and brings out the phone in its blue silicone case. She covers it with both hands and waits again.

  Delegates withholding a telephone will be shot.

  Isabella presses the power button; there is a soft electronic beep. Again she hides the machine and looks around before choosing the ‘silent’ option and looking at the screen. Three missed calls flagged in red. She checks the numbers — Simon. She almost sobs with frustration. Then, seeing that an SMS has come through, she opens it up, reading the words in their light grey LCD bubble, fighting to keep the tears from her eyes.