by Tony Criddle
“Well at least your taste is improving boyo.” He left that one hanging in the air and went to make a coffee.
“Okay Jock. When you’ve finished we might as well go.”
“Aye, and if you’re stopping up there for a while Lily better take an anorak with her.”
They all had warm jackets stuffed with soft down for working in the high country, issued by a grateful company. The best. Webster’s was still in a locker and Nick had already thought about it, but he let Sinclair do his gallantry thing. He collected two anoraks from the locker room and handed one to Laleh.
“There’s a heater in the cockpit a bit like a car blower Lil, so I’d save the jacket until we climb out. It’s pretty cold higher up and there’s plenty of snow around at this time of year.” She nodded and folded it over her arm.
Nick picked up the basket. “Okay, let’s get on with it.”
Jock and Nick fussed over the girl in the front passenger seat, snugging her straps down tight and balancing the lightweight headset carefully over her ears. Nick secured the hamper on the back seat along with their jackets, and as he walked around to the right front door Sinclair grasped his arm lightly.
“She’s pretty impressed already Nick, so none of that fancy airy-fairy crap. You two just enjoy it up there.”
Nick showed his surprise. “Honestly Jock, it never crossed my mind. She’s not the sort to be impressed with stunts, and I’m really looking forward to this myself.”
“Aye. Well you get her back here with a gleam in her eye, not a spew bag in her hand. I don’t want to have to kick your arse.”
“You old bastard, you’ve got a crush on her.”
“It’s nothing like that Nick, but I do feel a bit protective. Now fire the fucking thing up and be on your way.” Sinclair strolled to the crew-room with his head high and hands thrust deep in his pockets. He didn’t look back as Imran controlled the start-up.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The engine spooled quickly with the characteristic high pitched whine of its kind. Nick’s hands and eyes flashed over a myriad of light grey switches and gauges before checking his control movements. He settled himself a little more before looking across at the girl. “Ready Laleh?” Her eyes were wide but she was fascinated with what he was doing. She didn’t look apprehensive at all when she nodded. That was unusual for a first timer.
“What do you say Nick, let’s get on with it?” She grinned.
Nick threw a thumb’s up at Imran. When he got the same response he lifted up a couple of feet and swivelled left and right to clear behind him. The helicopter’s vicious downdraft whipped up a swirling sand storm around him. It was a standard for helicopter pilots to clear behind, although he would have given birth if another aircraft had been there right then. It was clear though, as he knew it would be. He lowered the nose gently and let the machine accelerate towards the west, aiming for where the River Qom entered the foothills.
Nick kept fifty feet above the dark, lazy waters, cruising rather than speeding, but even so they were on top of Shahabad in minutes. It was market day, with hordes of colourfully-clad people thronged through the narrow, shadowed streets. A lot more than there were houses for them to fit into.
“Farhad’s down there somewhere Lil. Give him a wave.”
Laleh held one hand above her brow like a visor as she squinted at the sun-drenched town and waved the other through the open window. Many waved back vigorously her presence amongst them was not a state secret. Nick saw her shade her eyes so he tugged off his Polaroids and passed them to her.
“It’s all right Nick, I can get by. You’ll need them.”
“Take them Lily. I’m fine for the time being. If the snow gets glary at the top you can give them back.” She thanked him and Shahabad was gone before they had finished the exchange.
“There were some houses in the higher ravines I’ve never seen before, weren’t there?”
“They’re shacks really. They’re only occupied in the worst of the weather when the herders are pushed down from the lower hills. It’s a pretty hard life love, and it totally depends on the seasons. I can’t imagine any ayatollahs getting much support for their ideas around here either, so you guys are okay for a while.”
“So where was the house we’re staying at?”
“There’s a hill above the river on the northern edge of town. We’re in the second row of houses up there, and it’s the only part of town with electricity. I’ll show you on the way back.”
Nick jammed the collective with his left knee and pointed at some boats ahead with his left hand. We’re coming up to Khelajabad, and that’s where those boats come from. People get some quite good catches up here sometimes.”
Several fast, lean feluccas heeled hard over by wind resistance on their rust, triangular sails tacked towards a mud brick village a few kilometres ahead. The houses were buried in a grove of leafless nut and willow trees, and surrounded by narrow strips of pale green fields that leaked along the river banks. Flocks of sheep and goats, floating like mobile blobs of cotton wool, were tended by young boys riding slowly through their ranks.
“A couple of roads and the river meet at a place called Neyzar, about twenty-five clicks further on Lily. We’ll turn right and climb into the mountains before we get there.”
“What’s a click Nickie?”
“Sorry Lil, it’s service speak for a kilometre. Most maps are calibrated in kilometres, but the navy works in nautical miles on some maps and charts so we use either. There’s just under two kilometres to a nautical mile.”
The girl smiled. “You know a lot about this area don’t you?”
“It’s more like being familiar with it really. It’s a pilot thing. We brought Farhad this way so I had to study the maps more than I normally would, but it all seems a bit new again with you on board.”
He was going to leave it there since anything more would get more personal, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go there yet. He felt Laleh’s eyes on him though and felt compelled to look at her. It was like examining his own soul. He quickly looked ahead again. She said nothing, knowing he would continue but not sure how far he would go.
Bugger. Uncomfortable or not, he did feel more, and this was the sort of woman who would expect him to say it.
“I’ve been flogging around this same bit of dirt now for about eighteen months now Lil. Initially it was all new and exciting, but it got pretty familiar in the end. I’ve only seen discolouration in rocks that might be minerals for a long time now.”
She turned her head towards him as Nick looked at her again. Her mouth was smiling gently, and the dark liquid eyes were telling him to continue. He struggled at first.
“It’s happened before, that’s all. When you take people for a flip you often see things a bit differently again.”
Sod his ego, he’d let her decide. He’d go where it might lead. Right then he felt as insecure and out of his depth as he had as a child.
“It was different from the start with you Laleh. I enjoyed being around you, but I was a bit nervous too. You seemed so tough from the word go, grappling pretty well with things that must be horrible for you, and I was afraid I would come across like an immature jerk. I realise now I tried to stay aloof from it, to fend you off with smart-arse remarks that I hadn’t thought much about. Maybe I was putting up walls before you did.”
“You didn’t have to look after me or do some of the nice things you did, or even bring me up here if you didn’t really want me around.”
Nick had killed most relationships almost as soon as they started, and didn’t know why. This time he wanted desperately for it to take off, and he didn’t understand that either.
“God, how wrong can you be woman. When I thought up this trip I couldn’t wait for it to happen. I was like a bloody schoolboy dreading that something would stop it happening. I wanted to show you that I had some talents as well I suppose.”
“But you’re being very unkind to yourself Nickie. Do you r
eally know what it took to do what you did for Farhad? You’ve hardly seen him since Dartmouth, and getting me out of Tehran was pretty risky.” She stopped to cover the hand he had on the collective with her own.
“Even now you’re sheltering us in your home, and that’s taken the pressure off some very dear friends of ours. I’d say that was a pretty brave thing to do when you’ve still got no idea what will happen to you. We’re locals and it’s not your country, so what you’ve already done is extraordinary. I’m quite in awe of you Nick. It might seem a bit early for me to say something like this, maybe even a bit silly, but remember I’m an educated and travelled Iranian.” She paused.
“I know what I went through was pretty unpleasant, but I think I know what it was really about now. Old Islam is dying Nick, it can’t adjust to a modern world and a lot of insecure males are desperately hanging on to archaic religious rules because they couldn’t attract a woman or a decent job if they had to rely on their personalities. They don’t want women educated either because their egos couldn’t stand losing jobs or arguments to them. The change will still be bloody in the short term, but I think it’s inevitable. The hordes of moderate Muslims will win out in the end. It’s why I was drawn to you from the beginning. You seem so different from any males I’ve met before. I just thought you didn’t like me all that much.”
“Jesus Laleh, didn’t we stuff that up then.” He looked ahead. “Oh shit! We’ve almost reached Neyzar. I’m going straight up then hard right. Hang on to your seat.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nick pitched the nose up sharply, added a fistful of collective, and the machine screamed skywards like a demented nightingale. Speed bled off quickly, but as it reached sixty-five knots he lowered the nose again and turned tightly to his right. He headed for a major crease in the rock, and the chopper was already a 1000 feet above the river when they slid into the rolling lilac hills. He looked at Laleh but she didn’t look scared. She was more into enjoying herself.
“I’m sorry Laleh. Jock threatened to kick my backside if I pulled any stunts while you were in here.”
“Oh, was that a stunt? I thought that was the way we went up.” She was grinning shyly but he wasn’t fooled.
“Right, we’ll be okay up here and everything’s back to normal. Enjoy.”
Rounded, mottled tors, with crystalline lilac tops and eroded skirts more the gold of blasted sandstone pushed up through wind-burnt grass plateaus. Crumbling boulders as big as houses littered their bases and they were linked together by more sickly beige pasture. Laleh could see the silver glint of water dribbling around the tussocks, and dark green fingers spread randomly from the liquid tracks. Stretches of pristine snow covered at least half those areas, their edges rounded and tortured by a cool sun. Spikes of lonely beige stalks poked high through the flat snowy patches, and water dripped everywhere that wasn’t shadowed from the questing sun.
“Do any animals live this high up?”
“I’ve only seen a few wild goats up here for a couple of months in high summer. Most of the game is at least 500 feet below all year round. The villagers can’t get up this high with their herds either.”
She pointed to a col between two tall, rugged tors. “That’s back towards where we came from isn’t it.”
“Well done Lil. I’m not patronising you, but most people haven’t got a clue where they are after a few twists and turns in the hills. They hardly even know if we’re the right way up.”
“I didn’t see it that way Nick. I’ve thought a lot about it already and I can see it now for what it was. I’ll be okay. You don’t have to tip-toe around me anymore.” He flicked another quick glance at her but she continued at a tangent.
“So this hasn’t been seen by a lot of people?”
“Quite honestly you may be the only woman who ever has Lil. You’d have to be in a helicopter, there’s no other way up, and only company ones fly around here.”
Her hand flew to her mouth as she looked around her. Nick felt good. He was sharing his world with someone he really wanted to. They headed for the col at a sedate sixty knots.
“That tall peak I mentioned is just around this corner. We’ll find somewhere to stop and have lunch.
Nick slowed over a larger, wind-burnt paddock and flew a slow clover leaf to see which way he drifted. Laleh was busy watching and didn’t look up at all. He landed into a breeze off the desert and only then did she notice what was in front of her. She gasped involuntarily.
Ahead the Zagros dropped dramatically. Just one rounded peak towered high in lonely isolation on her left, the others getting quickly smaller as they dipped towards the featureless plateau. Up there it was too exposed for snow to cling to the caps, but a cold white blanket piled high around the bases. It took her breath away. Distances seemed endless in the gin-clear atmosphere, and she hadn’t even climbed out yet.
He cut the engine and stopped the rotor but was still around to her door before she’d figured out how to undo her seat belt. Nick helped her disembark, dragged out the basket and jackets, and held one for her to wriggle into. Getting into his took seconds and he even had a couple of beanies in a pocket.
He picked up the basket and started towards the escarpment with Laleh skipping to catch him up as she waded through the icy slush. She hesitated when she did, then thrust a hand into his spare one. They parked their lunch basket on a pile of flat rocks that squatted near the yawning edge, and he covered her chilled fingers with his. The panorama was vast, defying description, and although they looked there was little to say.
Megalithic lumps tumbled ever lower for kilometres, diving hard for the desert plains, and from thereon the bland landscape stretched endlessly until insipid sand and a pale, lonely sky merged blurrily on a far horizon. Qom itself wasn’t that hard to pick out, defined by a pillar of mottled grey steam thrust vertical from a resting engine, but which of the tracks it would use was a mystery. There were three to choose from. Closer to them dark ochre villages didn’t stand out at all against that mottled, hazy background, but railway lines or roads connecting them looked as if they’d been slashed on the landscape with a careless pencil.
When Laleh looked north she was sure she could see the Elburz range a long way off. Certainly towering, bone-yellow cumulus clouds with bruised, swollen anvils half-filled the horizon where they ought to be.
“Okay miss, park you bottom and we’ll see what Sarah has packed.”
Laleh selected a large flat rock, leaving half for him, but Nick stayed standing while he opened the patterned cloth the food was wrapped in. The housekeeper had excelled herself, had even got carried away. Thin slices of gazelle steak were there, as were onions and tomatoes alongside the inevitable floppy naan, but several small parcels in a filo pastry also nestled underneath. Peaches, apples, some pistachio nuts and a whole honeydew melon lurked in there as well, and there was a kitchen knife besides the coffee flask and an extra mug.
Nick stared. “Good god, how long did she think we were going to stay up here for? We could have brought the other two and still had stuff left over.”
“Perhaps she thought we were going to.”
He was still rummaging. “No way. I made it pretty obvious that this trip was for us two.” He’d let that slip and reddened when he realised what he’d said.
Laleh reached a hand out and rested it on his forearm with a grin. “Perhaps she thought we’d want to keep our strength up then.” There was a double meaning hidden in there somewhere. He knew it and he was meant to.
While Laleh bit into a filo packet Nick poured coffees. He gave her the pottery mug, and took several noisy sips from the hot flask lid before picking up some of the food. Coffee is like a blood transfusion to flyers and he was no exception. Nick sighed with satisfaction.
“Do you know Lily, I’ve just realised that I haven’t taken in this view for over a year, let alone appreciated it. You’ll make a poet out of me yet.”
“Being a poet is a tradition in Iran Nick. The
y are very highly regarded. Have there been many other places like this for you?”
“A few now I think about it. Norway, Australia and even Scotland have got their share of spectacular mountain country as well. I’m trying not to sound soppy, but it’s having you here that makes it really special. I’ve never noticed it that much before.”
What the hell was this? What was wrong with him? What was he saying? His supposedly rock-hard values had been stood on their heads in the last few weeks and he felt totally out of control.
“It isn’t a weakness when strong men have a softer side Nickie. In fact only really strong men are comfortable enough with themselves to let it happen. Don’t mind me though it’s probably the sociologist talking.”
She smiled, knowing that many conflicts between the sexes were fermented because people could handle stereotypes better than individuals. She’d lived with that for most of her life and now suspected that he’d pushed a macho barrow for much the same reason.
They nattered slow and idly as they worked through the sandwiches and fruit, but still couldn’t finish it. The pilot repacked what was left before draining the coffee flask. Already it seemed natural to drape a casual arm around her shoulders while they finished their drinks.
“How are you Lily; not too cold?”
“My bum’s getting a bit numb.”
“Well it is bloody freezing up here love. Finish your coffee and we’ll be on our way.”
As they strolled back to the waiting chopper his arm was still draped lightly around her shoulders.
This time Nick Evans strapped Laleh into the right-hand seat before flashing up. She looked puzzled.
“Have you ever flown a helicopter before Lil?”
“Flown one? I’ve never even been in one before. The closest I ever got was economy in an airliner. You don’t get too close to the cockpit in that.”
Nick smiled. “Okay then, let’s do it. How they fly is a bit complicated so we won’t bother with that yet, we’ll do it a bit at a time. First up then grip that stick thing between your knees with your right hand. It’s called a cyclic and the helicopter goes in whatever direction you push it. I’m holding onto mine too, so just move it gently and watch what the rotor disc does.”
