We've Come to Take You Home

by Susan Gandar

Soldiers, in dust-covered combat kit, huge rucksacks piled at their feet, stood together, talking, at one of the bars. Standing next to them, staring down into his beer, was a man dressed in head-to-toe black leather carrying a biker’s helmet. An old lady, immaculately dressed in a pale pink suit, and carrying a white poodle, wandered past humming happily to herself. A group of women, dressed in black ankle-length robes, their heads covered, their children tagging along behind, eyes wide with curiosity, were being escorted through the terminal by two smartly dressed ground staff wearing blue trousers and matching blue jackets with a lapel badge featuring a pair of golden wings.

  A couple, one very tall, the other very short, both with rucksacks on their backs and both wearing walking clothes and boots, stood staring up at the departure board. It had the usual flight departure times and flight numbers but instead of destinations, Paris, New York, Sydney, Milan, it listed the names of people. Against each name was a gate number. Some weren’t yet open, some were delayed, others were boarding and some, George Thomas, Carol Maringa, Sai Thakar and Jennifer Robins, had already departed.

  Her father’s name was sixth on the list. His departure time was 1800 hours, his gate number was seventy-seven, and he was boarding. Sam checked her watch. It was 1750. “Flight Boarding” flicked to “Last Moments”.

  Behind and below the departure board was a large circular area. Leading off it were four corridors, each one clearly signposted. The first led to gates one to twenty, the second to gates twenty-one to forty, the third to gates forty-one to sixty and the fourth to gates sixty-one to eighty.

  ‘Excuse me…’

  An elderly man, bent low over a walking stick, was shuffling towards her. She didn’t recognise the voice, she couldn’t because she’d never heard it before, but she did recognise the grey face with the stubble and the staring eyes. It was Terry.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll be able to help me…’

  He clamped a hand onto her arm.

  ‘The lady told me I have to go to gate sixty-five. I’m sure that’s what she said, I heard her quite clearly, gate sixty-five. But I can’t find it anywhere. I’ve been going round and round for hours…’

  She’d run away once. She couldn’t do it again.

  ‘Sixty-five’s over there. It’s on the way to where I’m going. I’ll take you there.’

  The old man’s face lit up.

  ‘Will you? How kind. Now where did I leave my bag? It’s black and it’s got my front door keys in it. I’ll need them for when I get home, to let myself in. The place the social girl has put me in is lovely, they do all the cooking, all the washing, all the cleaning, just like a hotel, but it’s just not the same. Not like being in your own home…’

  There was no bag. And she couldn’t remember seeing one beside the bed, in the old man’s cubicle in the intensive care unit at the hospital.

  The clock flipped to 1752.

  ‘I think we should go to the gate. You don’t want to miss your plane…’

  She tugged him towards the corridor.

  ‘My bag, I must have my bag. If don’t have my bag, I won’t have my keys and I won’t be able to get in…’

  ‘We’ll ask at the gate…’

  The old man stopped.

  ‘I need to go to the toilet…’

  1753.

  ‘And when I have to go, I have to go, I can’t hold on like I used to…’

  ‘There’ll be one on the plane…’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. We’re nearly there now. Just a couple of minutes…’

  He shuffled forward.

  ‘This is so exciting, such a surprise, I’ve never been in a plane before…’

  They passed a businessman shouting at two airline staff.

  ‘What do you mean there’s no signal? I’m not getting on that plane until I’ve made the deal. Everything depends on it, everything…’

  ‘I missed breakfast. Do they give you something to eat? A nice cup of tea and one of those French pastries, the flaky ones stuffed with chocolate…’

  She put her hand underneath the old man’s elbow, guiding him left round the refreshment stand.

  ‘It depends on the length of the flight…’

  At last they were at gate sixty-five.

  ‘Will there be somebody there to meet me? My money’s in my bag, I won’t be able to pay for a taxi…’

  ‘Please, Terry…’

  He stopped. She tugged at his arm and then tugged again. The old man refused to move.

  ‘Why does everyone keep calling me Terry? It makes me so angry. That sort of carelessness is so unnecessary. My name’s…’

  The clock flipped to 1754.

  ‘My name’s…’

  The old man stamped his walking stick impatiently.

  ‘My name’s…’

  They were standing at the top of a walkway that sloped down to the plane. Written on the side, to the left of the open door, was a name.

  ‘Trevor, Trevor Jones. That’s your name. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it, my dear. Of course it is. Trevor Jones. That’s my name, how silly of me.’

  A woman, dressed in blue trousers and jacket, stepped out of the plane. She was smiling. She was also carrying a black bag.

  Sam turned and ran up the walkway and out into the main corridor. It was 1755. She had just five minutes until her father’s departure time. She ran past gates sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight and sixty-nine. The clock flipped to 1756. The corridor narrowed, turned sharp left and stopped at a lift.

  She pushed the call button and pushed again. There were no stairs, no escalator; the lift was the only way down. The doors creaked open. She stepped inside. The doors creaked closed. She punched the down button. The lift jolted, shuddered and then began to move. It jerked to a stop. The doors creaked open.

  The clock flipped to 1757. And there was gate seventy-seven, just ahead. She pushed herself forward.

  1758.

  She ran down the ramp towards the plane. A name was written underneath the cockpit window. Sitting inside, talking to traffic control, was Michael Foster – her father. His plane was about to take off.

  ‘Wait, please, wait. Open the door…’

  She would never hear his voice.

  ‘I must speak to him…’

  She would never see his smile.

  ‘Please let me speak to him.’

  Never feel the warmth of his arms around her.

  ‘Please help me.’

  She hammered on the side of the plane with her fists.

  ‘Let me in…’

  And hammered again.

  ‘Please let me in…’

  The door remained shut. She collapsed down onto her knees.

  ‘Please help me… whoever you are… if you’re out there… please help me. Please help me save my father…’

  There was silence and then a scrape of metal on metal. The door of the plane slid back. Long coat, lace-up boots, brown hair tied back in a ribbon, it was the girl Sam had followed to Tudor Close, the same girl who had been standing underneath the street lamp, on the opposite side of the road, outside the house.

  She pulled Sam onto the plane.

  ‘No questions, you’ve got one minute, that’s all, before this plane goes…’

  The cockpit door was immediately to her left. It was locked – ready for take-off.

  ‘Dad, it’s me, Sam.’

  Nothing. She knocked again and, again, nothing; the metal door was too heavily reinforced.

  ‘He can’t hear me.’

  Now she had only seconds. The girl was standing beside her.

  ‘You’ve been on a plane, you’ve watched, you know what to do…’

  The girl was right. She had flown many times and, if her father was one of the pilots, Sam and her mother were usually upgraded to first or business class. They would sit, in the front, hoping to get a quick wave from her father whenever someone went in or out of the cockpit. And on a long flight, when the cabin crew n
eeded to open the door, to take her father and his first officer a meal, what did they do? The keypad, there it was, on the wall to the right of the door.

  ‘There’s a code, I need the code…’

  ‘The only person who knows the code is you, Sam…’

  ‘But I don’t–’

  ‘Think, Sam, think hard. In thirty seconds this door will close, this plane will push back and you won’t be on it. They’ll drag you off…’

  The keyboard was made up of letters, not numbers, so the code could be either a sequence, without any particular order, or a word with some meaning: a name, a place or a thing. She punched in “DAD”. The door remained bolted.

  There were people outside, she could hear their voices. One of them was talking on a radio.

  ‘What do you want most, Sam, for you and your father, right now?’

  Try to be calm. Try to think.

  ‘For him to be alive and well… to be safe?’

  The girl smiled.

  ‘Try it, Sam, punch it in.’

  “SAFE”. Nothing.

  The plane juddered. Her father had told her about the gate agents and the dispatchers, the people responsible for getting the plane off on time.

  ‘I don’t know it…’

  ‘You do, Sam, you do…’

  She punched in “LOVE” because that’s what she’d tell him, when he opened the door, and she walked into the cockpit. That she loved him. Nothing.

  A man, wearing a bright yellow plastic jerkin and carrying a clipboard, was walking towards her.

  ‘Time’s up.’

  He took her arm.

  ‘This plane’s got to go.’

  She reached out and with the tip of one finger punched in “HOME”. Because that was what she wanted, most, right now; to be at home, the three of them together, a happy family in the house on the hill overlooking the sea.

  FORTY-NINE

  ‘MY MOTHER HAD ME when she was fifteen, same age as I am now, but her parents wouldn’t let her keep me. They took me away, put me up for adoption…’

  Amy looked so small, so vulnerable, sitting up in the hospital bed, her week-old baby sucking at her breast.

  ‘I thought my mum and dad would do the same, so I didn’t tell them, I kept it a secret. It was stupid, dangerous, not just for me, but for her. My mum and dad were more upset than angry, not about me having the baby, but because I hadn’t told them.’

  ‘Didn’t they guess?’

  Amy shrugged.

  ‘I lied, all the time, tons of them, like I was allergic to wheat, which was why my tummy was so big. And I had a skin disease, which was why I had to wear leggings and baggy jumpers and t-shirts, even in the summer, on the beach with my friends, when it was really hot. Everybody believed me, everybody, my friends, my teachers, even my parents. I wouldn’t. But they all did…’

  The baby burped, blinked and then closed her eyes. The last time Sam had seen her was six days ago in the special baby unit.

  ‘I tried not to think about it, having her, just hoped it would be quick, that it wouldn’t hurt…’

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did it hurt?

  ‘Are you stupid or something? Of course, it hurt. It’s like there’s a rat in your stomach, eating you, and the rat just keeps getting bigger and hungrier, until there’s nothing left of you except the worse pain ever…’

  Alone, nobody there to hold her hand; trying not to scream out because she didn’t want to wake her parents.

  ‘A friend, somebody, there’s no way I could have done it on my own …’

  ‘You do what you have to do…’

  Amy shrugged.

  ‘I cleaned myself up, got dressed, wrapped her in a towel and put her in the bag. My parents keep loads of old stuff so that was easy to sort. It was still dark, must have been early, like seven or eight, something like that. It was raining but I made sure she was warm and dry, and we got downstairs and out of the house without waking them. I didn’t know what I was doing, where I was going, I just caught the bus, saw the hospital, got off and left her in the car park. I phoned to tell them. I went back later, in the afternoon, to make sure she wasn’t still there…’

  The same day, Sunday, her father had been admitted.

  ‘You were wearing the jacket, with the flash on the sleeve, the one I saw in your bedroom. It was Sunday, my mother had just arrived at the hospital, I went to the toilet and you came out of a cubicle and you were crying…’

  ‘I was pretty desperate…’

  How desperate, so desperate, she’d try to kill herself? The timing, everything, was exactly right.

  ‘Amy, my dad, a girl walked out in front of his car, he had to brake, hard, and that’s when he knocked his head. The girl wasn’t hurt. She ran away. But my father nearly died. Was that you? Did you walk out in front of my father’s car?

  Amy flushed.

  ‘What are you saying? That I tried to top myself?’

  ‘You said you were desperate, didn’t know what you were doing…’

  ‘If I did want to top myself I wouldn’t do something as boring as walk out in front of your dad’s car. I’d swig back a bottle of vodka, and then chuck myself off the end–’

  ‘Sam, it is Sam, isn’t it?’

  A woman was walking towards the bed. Following her was a man carrying a very large, very pink teddy bear.

  ‘Amy’s been going on and on about you. We’re Ann and Malcolm…’

  Sam stood up.

  ‘You’ll come and see us, won’t you?’

  Amy looked up.

  ‘Yeh, we’d love to see you, both of us, me and little Sam. Couldn’t call her anything else could I? And you could do a bit of nappy changing, get your hand in, for when you have one of your own…’

  No way.

  ‘And, Sam, the postcard, the one with the blue sea and white beach, how me and mum and dad, how we’d all be going back…’

  ‘You’d closed your eyes, I thought you were going to die, but that’s when you opened your eyes. It must have been very special…’

  Amy laughed.

  ‘The blue sea and the white beach? There’s no such place. I faked it, the card, made it up on the Internet.’

  FIFTY

  ‘THANK YOU, DAD.’

  His smile was a bit crooked and his face a bit puffy, but her father didn’t look bad for someone who’d just come back from the dead.

  ‘Thank you, Mum.’

  She hugged and kissed her mother.

  ‘I’ve got you another present.’

  Her mother pulled a tissue-wrapped parcel from her handbag.

  ‘It started with my great-grandmother, and it’s come down, all the way through the family, mother to daughter, mother to daughter, and now it’s my turn to give it to you.’

  It was square and hard.

  ‘Dad bought me the box. What matters is inside…’

  The door opened. Mac walked into the room.

  ‘Bringing your father back from the dead, that, Sam Foster, is a result. But now we need to make sure that the miraculous recovery continues.’

  He placed a beaker on the bedside table.

  ‘Mr. Foster, the sooner you take your pills, the sooner you’ll be back flying your planes…’

  ‘I’m not doing any more flying.’

  A few minutes before the room had been full of laughter. Now it was full of the worst possible silence.

  ‘But Mr. Foster, there’s no reason why you–’

  ‘Nothing to discuss.’

  Sam darted a look across at her mother. Did she know about this?

  Her father leant his head back against the pillow.

  ‘Time to get grounded.’

  He closed his eyes.

  ‘Dad…’

  Sam threw herself onto the bed.

  ‘But the planes, you love them…’

  He opened his eyes.

  ‘Hey, what’s all this…’

  ‘Flying, that’s what
you do, that’s who you–’

  He hugged her tight.

  ‘I can live without the planes. But I can’t live without you. And I most certainly can’t live without your mother…’

  Her parents were giving each other one of those looks.

  ‘Now it’s time for you two to go home. We’ll talk later. After you’ve opened your last present…’

  ‘Come on, Sam. There’s this new recipe…’

  Her mother was pushing her towards the door.

  ‘A Spanish stew. I’ve got some fish in the freezer and I thought we could use that. You fry some onion and potatoes and then you add garlic, some paprika and some cayenne–’

  ‘Dad…’

  She had to ask.

  ‘The girl, the one who walked out in front of your car, can you remember what she looked like?’

  Her father picked up the beaker.

  ‘Short, reddish blonde hair, leggings and a jacket…’

  Her father gulped down the pills.

  ‘With a red, blue and silver flash on the sleeve.’

  She had been right. It was Amy.

  ‘Did she do it on purpose? Did she see you coming? Or was it a mistake, like she was really upset, crying, didn’t see you–’

  ‘Sam, what’s this all about? Your father needs to rest…’

  ‘It’s important, Mum.’

  Her father nodded.

  ‘OK, I was driving down the street. The girl was walking towards me. Her head was down. Her shoulders were hunched. She looked upset. Perhaps she was crying. I don’t know for certain. I didn’t think much of it. It was Sunday, early in the morning, and I thought she must have had a row, perhaps with her parents, but more likely a boyfriend. I was about to pass her when she suddenly, without any warning, without looking up to check, turned and walked out between two parked cars into the road. The rest you know.’

  She sank down on the chair beside her father’s bed.

  ‘Does that answer your question?’

  She had to know.

  ‘The girl didn’t look up, but she might have heard you, known you were there…’

  ‘That’s true. Sam, why is this so important to you…’

  ‘You could have died. If the girl did it on purpose, knew what she was doing–’

  Mac put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Sam, this girl, do you know who she is?’