Arrivals & Departures

by Leslie Thomas

  They laughed and he cackled. A pall of smoke was now lying across the bed. The three men puffed on arduously. ‘I’ll be gone this time next week,’ said Allsop. ‘Probably sooner. I won’t keep you long.’

  Snow half tilted the whisky bottle over the bed in an invitation and they each had another glassful. It was clammy in the room and it was now adrift with smoke. Coughing, Allsop handed around the cigarettes once more. ‘Might as well use them up,’ he said. ‘And the scotch.’

  They continued drinking and smoking. They drank toasts, proposed in turn. To the airline and its employees. To that bastard Grainger, the only man to piss in paradise, to themselves and their loved ones, to Tchaikovsky, to Jupiter and Mars, to people with Aids, particularly those in Dar Es Salaam. They began to laugh heavily, especially Allsop. Snow went into the kitchen and found a bottle of gin.

  ‘No’ as good as scotch,’ he said philosophically. ‘But then nothing is. But it will do.’

  He poured the gin neat. Richardson began to feel the room going around slowly with the smoke. Allsop asked: ‘It’s an old medical tradition, isn’t it, Doc, helping a man to die, easing his way …?’

  ‘The doctor and the priest,’ agreed Snow. ‘And it’s the doctors who drink. But I don’t think you’ve got to worry, Bill. There’s life in you yet.’

  They fell to silence, three sad and drunken men surrounded by smoke.

  ‘Let’s have a bit of a sing-song,’ suggested Allsop. With abrupt extravagance he flung his arms wide and his gin splashed from the glass onto his face. ‘I’ve had a belly full of silence.’ Snow leaned over and tenderly wiped the gin away with the sheet. He replenished Allsop’s glass. ‘A singsong,’ the Scot agreed, his head wagging. ‘Cheer us up.’

  ‘You start,’ encouraged Richardson. He slipped from the chair to the floor and had difficulty in regaining his seat while they laughed hideously. ‘Go on, Doc, start,’ he encouraged. ‘You like music.’ Snow thought only for a moment. Then he sang:

  ‘Speed bonnie boat,

  Like a bird on the wing …’

  All three men howled: ‘Onward the sailors cry!’

  His voice wavered:

  ‘Carry the lad,

  That’s born to be king …’

  They chorused: ‘Over the sea to Skye!’

  When he had finished the others madly applauded.

  Richardson felt his whole body was spinning. The smoke whirled like clouds around a high aeroplane. They said it was his turn so he sang:

  ‘Where have you been all the day,

  Billy boy, Billy boy …

  Where have you been all the day,

  My Billy boy …’

  Allsop was rocking to and fro in the bed. ‘My old dad used to call me that,’ he interrupted. ‘My Billy boy.’ He began to cry. ‘If he could only see me now. His Billy boy.’

  He sniffed back his tears. ‘He used to like a song, my dad. He was a Londoner, you know, went out to Aussie after the first war. But he never forgot where he was born.’

  He gathered his wasted frame together in the bed. The bones at the top of his chest stood out like rafters. Clutching his pillow with one hand and his gin with the other, he sang as loud as he was able:

  ‘I’m Burlington Bertie,

  I rise at ten thirty,

  And stroll down the Strand

  Like a toff …’

  Haphazardly the others joined the song, getting the words and the tune drunkenly wrong, but eventually joining together for the chorus:

  ‘I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow … ow … ow,

  I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow!’

  Out from the solitary bungalow flew the song, the London words mixing with the sea, the sound of the palms, and the wind from the foreign ocean.

  The airline office in Mombasa was a shop in a row of shops, the only one with a proper window. In the window there were posters and display cards showing Big Ben and the Beefeaters at the Tower of London, the green sweep of the Thames through Runnymead, the Malvern Hills, and a lighthouse. A scrawled notice said: ‘Apply Inside!’

  It was next to a doctor’s surgery where sick Africans squatted dull eyed on the pavement. A child lay between its mother’s legs as though dead, buzzed by huge flies, a man tried to hit a youth with his crutch. On the other side of the road was a fetid eating house where sizzling chickens were hung in the open; flies darted at the hot chicken skins like daredevil pilots, and the exposed fire paled under the sun’s flare.

  Agitated, Snow walked into the office. ‘Have you seen what’s out there?’ he said to Richardson. Richardson lifted his head from the desk where he was trying to organise some flight services with a nervous, nodding junior, white faced from England and a big-hipped native girl who hummed pop songs.

  ‘The Savoy Grill,’ suggested Richardson. ‘Local style.’

  ‘No, I mean the surgery. Those patients look as though they’ve been sitting in the gutter for days. There’s a lad there with open sores and insects scampering all over him. There’s another who’s got flies instead of eyes. And a torpid child.’ He thrust his head forward angrily. ‘I really feel I should do something about it.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Richardson. It was a half-warning, half-plea. ‘Please don’t. If the local quack finds you’re queering his pitch he’ll call up the devils in no time, the ho-ho devil and the eeby-jeebies and all the rest of them. And that will stir things up, believe me. We don’t want to have an office here with no windows. Or a window with no office. How is Bill?’

  Snow regarded him bereftly. ‘He wants to go home.’

  ‘Christ,’ breathed Richardson. He put down his pencil. ‘That’s a humdinger. What can we do?’

  The doctor shrugged. The English junior and the African girl, who had stopped humming, were watching him. ‘Can we have a few words?’ he suggested.

  Richardson rose and went into the inner office. It was almost dark in there, the window shuttered, a single electric fan toiling its poor best in the dense heat. Richardson switched on the light.

  ‘I think we ought to take him home,’ said Snow simply.

  ‘With Aids?’

  ‘He’s unlikely to have sexual intercourse on the plane.’

  Richardson thought about it, then said: ‘Grainger would go mad. And he wouldn’t be the only one. Jesus, if it got out.’ He took in Snow’s expression. ‘All right,’ he decided. ‘Stuff Grainger. Let’s take him.’

  Snow smiled as though with relief and supported himself on the edge of the low dusty desk, with a lopsided chair and a battered cabinet the room’s only furniture. Richardson sat on the other end and as he did so the desk, as though it could take no more, broke complainingly along a join at its middle, tipping the ends down and depositing both men on the floor. Richardson quickly regained his feet, brushing himself down. He helped Snow. ‘The ho-ho devil?’ suggested the doctor.

  They further dusted themselves. Dirty clouds came from their trousers. Richardson looked at the cracked desk. ‘It’s like a big open mouth,’ said Snow almost dreamily. ‘A scream.’ He became businesslike. ‘So you think we can get him out?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. If we keep it quiet. He can just be another disabled passenger. We pride ourselves on disabled passengers.’

  ‘He’s babbling of green fields,’ said Snow. Richardson said: ‘Poor Bill. All right, I’ll make the arrangements. I’ve just been checking on tonight’s flight. It’s fullish from Harare but I imagine we can get three quiet seats somewhere.’

  ‘Good,’ said Snow. ‘I’ll go and tell him. It should cheer the man up. The bungalow’s all been cleaned up and the new boys you sent are there. It’s surprising what double wages does. There’s another lot hanging about outside the gate. But he hardly wants to eat and I think our piss-up put him off the booze for life, what he’s got left.’

  Richardson looked sombre. He checked his watch. ‘We’ll get him to the airport early, push him through all their red tape. They make it up as they go along here. It sometim
es takes three bloody hours to check in.’

  They draped a blanket around him in the plane, his thin head poking from the top so that he looked an ancient, wild-eyed monk. ‘Great,’ he whispered to Snow. ‘I’m going home.’ He half bent towards Richardson on the other side. His neck was so narrow Snow thought it looked as though it would snap. ‘To see the wife.’ Few of the other Club Class seats were occupied. He smiled a terrible smile. ‘I could do with a glass of champagne.’

  ‘It’s coming right up,’ said Richardson. He could see the steward in the galley balancing the tray. The man brought it to them. He looked at Allsop and then looked at him again carefully. ‘Hello sir, Mr Allsop, isn’t it?’

  Allsop seemed unwilling to admit it. He nodded over the rim of his blanket.

  ‘And what’s happened to you, sir?’ said the steward as he distributed the glasses.

  ‘Fell off an elephant,’ answered Allsop.

  ‘He has no’ been too well,’ put in Snow primly enough to make the steward move on. Snow raised his glass and Allsop raised his without taking his hand from below the blanket. Snow could see the edges of his fingers like a pair of scissors. The three men touched glasses. ‘I’ll drop this one afterwards,’ whispered Allsop. ‘Break it.’

  He drank his champagne quickly, as if it were a medicine and then fiercely broke the glass on the bulkhead in front. Richardson beckoned the steward and he came and took away the pieces in Allsop’s napkin. He brought back another napkin and another glass of champagne. Allsop cackled when he had gone away down the aisle. ‘Some customers cause a lot of trouble, don’t they,’ he said.

  The local airport authorities had kept the plane on the ground for an hour after its scheduled leaving time, an everyday trick enhancing, as Richardson well knew, their penalty fees for late departures. It had been necessary to bribe the baggage loaders.

  Eventually, as the flight took off, Allsop peered over Richardson’s shoulder at the receding lights below. ‘Goodbye Africa,’ he muttered sadly. ‘Good riddance. And good riddance to me.’

  At once he became apologetic. ‘Sorry Ted,’ he murmured. He turned to Snow. ‘Sorry, Doc.’ He head dropped below the grey airline blanket. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing,’ his muffled voice emerged. ‘Against the rules.’

  Quietly, Richardson said to him: ‘I don’t know of any rules, like that. Disabled people have as much right on flights as anybody else.’

  ‘Thanks, anyway. Both. I won’t inconvenience you by snuffing it during the flight. I know how complicated that can be.’

  He fell asleep. They took it in turns to stay awake. They went out to the crew’s galley in turn and ate from a tray there. At three forty in the morning Allsop died. Richardson, who was awake, felt him stir and heard him say: ‘Fuck it.’ He leaned over and pulled at Snow’s sleeve. The doctor blinked and turned immediately to Allsop. He looked up after a minute. ‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘He won’t see England now.’

  Eight

  Furtive as a spy, Bramwell stepped delicately into the hotel lobby. Barbara spotted him at once and watched with amusement while he scrutinised the surroundings through thick, dark glasses. She sidled behind one of the rubber plants in the lounge. Eventually he all but tiptoed into the extensive room and, while making a show of being casual, checked on the occupants. She emerged from behind the screen of leaves and with a final swift glance left and right, Bramwell briefly smiled and came guiltily towards her.

  ‘You really enjoy the secrecy, don’t you,’ she told him. ‘I’ve never seen anyone look so suspicious.’

  The waiter came for their drinks order. After he had gone Bramwell again turned his eyes around the lounge. She laughed. ‘Stop it. You don’t think Lettie is going to turn up here?’

  ‘Her brother may have followed me,’ he said half seriously. ‘He was a jungle tracker. I swear he’s got a machete hidden down his trouserleg.’ His expression changed: ‘Are you looking forward to this? I am.’

  She smiled and said: ‘I’ve always enjoyed going to Nice.’ As she leaned towards him, she was interrupted by the waiter with their drinks. When the man had left, she said: ‘Listen, if it doesn’t sound too cold-blooded – as long as we both know the rules, Bram, then it’s all right. But I want you to stay faithful – only me and your wife. No playing around elsewhere.’

  Bramwell blinked. ‘I think this will be as much as I can manage,’ he smiled back uncertainly. He checked his watch. ‘We should go soon.’

  As Barbara was finishing her drink she glanced over the room and out into the foyer. ‘Georgina,’ she said almost to herself. ‘That’s funny. I thought she was working. She was going to Los Angeles.’

  He peered in the same direction. ‘She’s gone,’ said Barbara. ‘I’d swear it was her.’ They rose and picked up their weekend cases. As they went towards the foyer she asked quietly: ‘Where are you supposed to be, by the way? As far as Lettie is concerned?’

  He grimaced. ‘Away,’ he said.

  ‘Just away?’

  ‘To Lettie away is away,’ he said. ‘She never asks where I’m going or where I’ve been. I’m like a one-man football team – home or away.’

  They had reached the animated lobby. Briefly they looked around. ‘It certainly looked like Georgina,’ repeated Barbara. ‘She was in uniform.’

  Outside they got into their separate cars. Parked four places from Bramwell’s Vauxhall, although he failed to see it, was a red Porsche. He drove out and at the exit waited until he saw Barbara’s car in his mirror. They turned onto the dual carriageway, doubled around the roundabout and went back towards the airport entrance.

  By that time Georgina had taken off her uniform and was in her silver slip. She lounged into the chair, slipping into her part like an actress, in her fingers a long-stemmed glass of wine, its sheen reflected by the table lamp onto the silk undergarment. Her client was late. Ten minutes after the appointment time the doorbell rang and he was there, pink faced and perspiring, frustrated in a winterweight suit and a starched shirt. Over his arm he carried a macintosh and in the other hand was a corpulent briefcase.

  ‘You’ve been held up,’ she said in the tone of a fond and anxious wife.

  ‘Bloody Hammersmith,’ he replied in a relative voice. ‘Flyover jammed to hell. And I came by taxi and the fares have gone up again.’

  Sympathetically she guided him in and smoothed him down with a drink. The art was making familiars of strangers. She was relieved to hear he had travelled by taxi. That was why he was carrying his raincoat. If he had arrived in a car he would have surely left it in the vehicle. She was nervous of unnecessary macintoshes.

  Once she had him settled he calmed. The colour reduced in his face. ‘Love the slip,’ he said toothily. ‘Exactly right. Almost silver.’

  ‘It was what you wanted,’ she answered gently. ‘I had to buy it specially.’

  ‘Well, I expect you’ll use it again,’ he told her like a man practised in doing deals.

  ‘You didn’t require the uniform,’ she said making conversation to use up the time. Already his ten-minute delay had been counted into his hour.

  ‘The stewardess get-up?’ he said scathingly. ‘No damn fear. See enough of those when they fling the plastic trays around. No, no,’ his voice deepened. ‘The silver slip is fine.’

  Five minutes later he was pedantically hitching it up to her hips. ‘Fantastic,’ he approved. ‘Love this stuff. Silver silk. Always liked airships and Zeppelins and things. During the war, when I was a kid, I used to masturbate looking at the barrage balloons.’

  Georgina, wearing Candy’s face, lay near to him and gave herself up to a few minutes of his more-or-less innocent madness.

  It was evening, darkness gaining, by the time they reached Nice, the lamps of random villages studding the sides of the Alpes Maritimes. West, across the Bay of Angels, the last of the daylight was pared. The plane banked above the inky sea bordered by the lights of the city.

  ‘I’ve never done this before,’
said Barbara quietly but suddenly. Her face was away from him; almost as if she were telling herself. ‘Going off with someone.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ said Bramwell uncomfortably.

  ‘With a married man,’ she explained turning to him. ‘I’ve had serious boyfriends but nobody married. There was Charlie who used to take me away and I’d hardly see him again. Played golf all the time. He’d come back to the hotel exhausted and not be able to move his legs.’ Her eyes met Bramwell’s. ‘You’re not a golfer are you.’

  ‘I would never take you away and then not be able to move my legs,’ he promised.

  ‘Another was a steward, Patrick.’ She seemed to need to tell him. ‘He was just trying me out. Well, trying himself out. I was his final attempt at being straight. But I failed him. He went off with another steward. Then along came Marcel who was killed in a crash. The aircraft went into the Mediterranean and he was never found.’ She looked briefly through the window. ‘He could be down there now.’

  Bramwell held her hand and kept holding it as the aircraft lost height and dropped into Nice-Côte d’Azur Airport at the sea’s edge. ‘I’ve never done that either,’ she said easily squeezing his fingers. ‘When I’ve seen people holding hands, taking off and landing, I’ve often wished I had somebody to hold mine.’

  The night air was close and calm as they left the plane. French Immigration and Customs were preoccupied with a televised football match. Even the men on check duty kept looking over their shoulders. Formalities were swift.

  The hotel was off the Rue Smollett. They had a bottle of champagne. Barbara stood at the long window of their room watching the mountain lights.

  ‘Those people live up in the sky,’ she said.

  ‘Same as us,’ he pointed out. He stood behind her and, setting down his glass, moved his arm around her neat waist. He could feel the brief mound of her stomach. She turned from the window and pushed her fingertips up the sides of his face. ‘We mustn’t expect too much from this,’ she said frankly, looking into his eyes. She dropped her forehead against his chin. ‘Just a bit of pleasure.’