Natural Flights of the Human Mind (33 page)

Someone else is beside her, coughing in the same way, and she realises it’s Carmen, no longer aggressive, limp and crying. ‘Robbie,’ she’s whimpering. ‘Robbie, Robbie…’

In the end, Doody puts her arms round her and pats her gently, as if she’s a child, both of them shivering with cold, squeezed into the tiny space between everyone else’s feet. Straker is at the back of the boat. James and Jonathan have climbed back in and Connal is observing everything in sullen bewilderment.

‘Look,’ says Jonathan.

The aeroplane is sinking. The top wing settles below the surface and it’s only possible to see it in the dip between the waves. Then it tilts slightly, so the tip of the wing emerges again, points to the sky with a last moment of defiance before it sinks. Doody’s dreams have just submerged with it. Now there are other things that concern her more. She starts coughing again, spitting out more water.

Jonathan looks wet, but unflustered and in control as if he does this sort of thing every day of his life. Straker is lying across the back seat, gasping for breath. One of his legs is bent backwards in an awkward position as if it’s broken.

‘Straker,’ says Doody, between coughs, ‘you weren’t meant to wreck the plane, you know. You weren’t even meant to fly it. When I said run, I meant run, not fly.’

He tries to open his eyes and the whites appear before the oil starts to drip down into them. He closes them quickly.

‘I only wanted a short trip with my girlfriend,’ says Connal miserably, as he starts to row back to the shore. ‘I’m not really one for death and glory.’

‘Well, now you’re a hero,’ says James.

As if to agree with him, a ragged cheer goes up from the shore. They can hear it rolling across the water towards them.

Doody climbs on to a seat. ‘They didn’t want you dead after all, then,’ she says to Straker.

‘I’m not going to make my meeting,’ says Jonathan. ‘I might have known everything would go wrong.’

‘You never told me you’d learned to swim,’ says Doody.

Carmen stirs in the bottom of the boat. ‘Can I sit up?’ she says.

Doody studies her for a second. She looks different, subdued, as if a light has gone out inside her. ‘Depends if you’re going to try to kill him again.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s finished. I had to try—for Robbie.’

‘Come on then.’ Doody helps to pull her up.

Straker’s head turns towards Doody again. His mouth opens and she can see his white teeth and pink mouth. ‘Doody,’ he says and smiles, shutting his mouth before the oil gets in.

Suddenly she feels good, although she’s soaking wet and her Tiger Moth has gone.

The water slaps against the side of the boat. Connal’s rowing seems more efficient as they head back for the harbour, cutting easily through the sea. The red cliffs are glowing in the afternoon light and their reflection glimmers on the water. It’s just possible to see the stripes of the lighthouse on the next headland as it catches the sun.

Harry has been walking for three hours. He caught the train to Exeter and a bus, but then, rather than wait for a second bus, decided to walk—because he likes walking. He has a sleeping-bag with him, there’s no hurry. You don’t have any control over natural processes. He might have to wait several days.

He thinks of Alison at home, the welcoming atmosphere of her kitchen, people dropping in regularly, knowing that there’s always food available. He thought at first that he would resent this sharing of Alison, the way she has so many friends. They tell her their secrets, ask her advice, want her approval. But what he actually feels is pride that, of all the people who like and need her, he’s the one she chose. She took him in and offered him her home, so he’s different and that’s the only thing that matters in the end.

And she has never questioned it when he says he doesn’t want to go abroad because he can’t get a passport. He could be a criminal for all she knows, or an illegal immigrant.

‘Harry Stanwick,’ she said once. ‘Whatever you want, we do it. No questions, no prying. We live together, we share, we’re happy. That’s it.’

One day he will tell her.

Harry adjusts his step to cope with a niggling nerve above his left knee that has bothered him ever since the accident. The extra weight he has gained in the last few years hasn’t helped. He rolls towards the right leg until it feels more comfortable, then continues to walk, enjoying the comfortable rhythm of his stride.

‘I want to see it go,’ he said to her yesterday. ‘I don’t know why.’

‘There’ll be lots of other people there. You don’t like people.’

‘I know. But I want to see it go.’

She grinned at him, with the lopsided, knowing smile he loved. ‘Go, then,’ she said.

‘Will you come with me?’

‘What? Hang around in the cold? No way. I’ll be here when you get back. Hotpot, I think, with some fresh lamb from the farm.’

‘It may take a few days.’

‘Don’t worry. You can ring me. Then I’ll start cooking.’

His stomach moves as he walks, and he knows he should stop eating so much, but he doesn’t really care. He has come to believe that food is the path to happiness, and wonders why he never understood this before.

He walks across the uneven grass towards the lighthouse, passing more and more people, cars, motorbikes, television vans. There are men with cameras, professionals with tripods, and amateurs, media people, all of them talking to locals, tourists, visitors, observers like him who have travelled to witness the event. He stops a little way short and watches them all. He doesn’t want to be noticed or interviewed. He puts up his hood and pulls the drawstring so that it covers his mouth. Once he feels secure he walks further on.

There’s a police cordon well short of the lighthouse.

‘Sorry, sir,’ says a policeman, as he approaches it. ‘You can’t go any further. Not safe.’

‘Any idea how much longer it will take?’

The policeman smiles. ‘Any time now, the experts say. There again, they’ve been saying that for the last week.’

The lighthouse is leaning at a precarious angle, unbelievably still in one piece. The edge of the cliff is so close that it looks as if a child could push it over with a single finger. Harry stands for a long time, studying it. He’s seen the pictures in the papers, and it’s exactly as he imagined. He’s not quite sure
why it’s so important to him to see it go into the sea. Something to do with his childhood, when he came here with his family, all his brothers, when his life was uncomplicated before he met Imogen. They owned a cottage further along the coast and they came every Easter, running along the clifftop every morning, until they reached the lighthouse. Then home for breakfast. It was a fundamental ritual of their life together until he went off to university and met Imogen. He used to have a photograph in his room—his family when young, posing, with the sea behind them. Happy, innocent.

The lighthouse is a symbol of all that’s gone before, of the life he abandoned. When it falls into the sea, he hopes it will take his past with it, and demolish some of the burden that he has carried around with him for so many years. Once the cliff starts to crumble, you can’t put it back together again, however much you want to. In the end, the whole thing collapses. Some things just can’t be saved.

‘I told you Magnificent would still come back if you didn’t shut him in.’

He half turns, the voices quite close to him. He sees a tall, wiry man with a dark beard, streaked with grey, leaning on a walking-stick, and a short, sturdy woman next to him, picking up a Siamese cat. She has neatly cut grey-blonde hair, and her face is sharp and animated. As she talks to the man, her eyes are darting around, strong and intelligent. There’s something about the way she stands there, her face cross, that makes him turn away quickly.

Surely not. He must be mistaken.

‘He’ll be all right. Cats are survivors.’

‘Nonsense. Cats are not familiar with lighthouses collapsing.’

‘Suleiman knows. We passed him on the way up here. Sitting up a tree, watching.’

‘You didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You didn’t ask.’

Harry remains still, his heart pounding. It’s Imogen. He knows it’s Imogen. The expression, the voice, the manner. But it’s impossible. His mind whirls, he tries to remember how she looked when he last saw her, the physical details, and he can’t remember. The more he tries to produce a picture, the more vague it all becomes. He has felt the responsibility of his abandonment of her for most of his adult life. More than the worry about his family. The day he stepped out of the crashed train and walked away, the guilt settled down over him like a blanket and it has never left him. He has always known that he should have gone back and identified himself, but when he turned away from the train he became someone else. He was being offered a new life. A new name, a chance to go the way he wanted to go, and although he sometimes wakes at night, almost suffocated by that blanket of guilt, he has never seriously considered giving up his accidentally acquired freedom.

She laughs. He doesn’t hear what the man says that is funny, or what she says, but the sudden burst of hilarity is something he remembers right from the beginning, the laugh that fizzled and died quietly after they married. And he sees that she’s all right. All his years of worry have been wasted because here she is, happy, married presumably, watching a lighthouse collapse with the same degree of interest as himself. She’s survived. They have both survived and flourished away from each other.

The pile on the blanket of guilt is wearing thin, becoming threadbare. Maybe only his mother now prevents him tearing it into holes and discarding it completely.

People start to shout, and there’s a loud roar, a rumbling vibration beneath his feet, like an earthquake.

‘It’s going!’

Huge cracks in the side widen and somehow slide apart, the top leans over at an impossible angle, and breaks off, disintegrating as it flies over the cliff, the violent crash mingling
with the wind and waves. It collapses in slow motion, an enormous explosion, bricks spitting out and flying through the air. It’s like-an oversized Lego tower weakened by loose joints, pushed by a child-giant, rolling over, tumbling down into the ever-ready, waiting sea.

I would like to thank the following:

Chris, Pauline, Gina, Jeff and Dorothy for their energy, generosity and willingness to argue with me.

The Gateley family for not minding my presence on their upstairs floor while they get on with their lives.

Laura Longrigg for all her help, criticism and support. I didn’t realise that having an agent would be such a pleasant experience.

Tony Podmore for an enlightening three hours going round the Shuttleworth collection of old aircraft at Old Warden, and for persuading me that a Tiger Moth would be more realistic than a Sopwith Camel. They do have a beautiful Sopwith Pup there, however. I was greatly tempted.

Mark Webb for teaching me how to fly without ever leaving the ground.

The charming retired lighthouse-keeper, whose name I don’t know, who showed me and my daughter around the lighthouse on the Lizard on a very wet and windy day. I don’t think he will remember us.

Carole Welch, Amber Burlinson and Hazel Orme, whose rigorous editing was much appreciated, and everyone else at Sceptre, who gave me such a good time when I first met them.

All those Biggles books from my past. The references to Biggles are the result of my respect and gratitude for a misspent childhood.

Alex and Heather for sharing my earlier success with such enthusiasm.

About the author

2
A Conversation with Clare Morrall

About the book

6
Writing
Natural Flights of the Human Mind

8
Biggles: A Modest Superhero

Read on

12
Astonishing Splashes of Colour:
An Excerpt

A Conversation with Clare Morrall

Where were you born? What events from your childhood stand out?

I was born in Exeter, Devon, England, and grew up in a fishing village on the estuary of the river Exe not far from Exmouth. I have two brothers and a sister. I was the second child. I attended the village school until I was eleven, then traveled on the train every day to Exeter for secondary school. I don’t remember many details from childhood because I spent most of my time reading and didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around me. I lived in a world of fiction.

What did your parents do?

My father was a physics lecturer at Exeter University all his adult life. My mother worked part-time teaching French in adult education, having gained a degree at Oxford during the war.

When and how did you first take to writing?

I have been writing as long as I can remember, from as soon as I could read. I wrote stories
and began large numbers of Enid Blyton—type novels which I never finished. There was a period when my children were young when I didn’t write or read—I found caring for babies exhausting—but I started writing seriously when I was about thirty. I went to a writing class. After about six months of writing short stories I embarked on my first novel.
Astonishing Splashes of Colour
was my fifth completed novel and the first to be published.

Russell Banks dressed window mannequins; Louise Erdrich waved a flag for a road crew; Francine Prose worked in a Bellevue morgue—what jobs did Clare Morrall have prior to becoming a writer?

I have worked as a receptionist in an X-ray department; soldered printed circuit boards; worked in a seaside café cooking ham and chips, egg and chips, sausage and chips, bacon, beans, and chips, etc.; and I’ve been a lollipop lady. (That is what we in England call a school crossing guard because of the round
STOP
sign on a stick, which looks like a lollipop.)

What is your earliest memory of reading and being influenced by a book?

All my earliest memories are of books. I have a much clearer picture of books than I have of people. I can remember crying at the death of Robin Hood. He told Little John to shoot an arrow into the forest and wanted to be buried where it landed. I could never work out how they would find it.

Do you still teach music at a prep school?

Yes, I do still teach at the school and give some lessons at home in the evening.

Your schedule must be fraught—what does your average weekday look like?

I teach violin and piano, so I start instructing children at five years of age. When they leave school at eleven they often come to my home so that they can continue. I don’t work as many hours as I used to and my mornings are now free. This means that I can write for three or four mornings a week—the rest of the time is taken up with other necessary things, like visits to the doctor, shopping, etc. I enjoy this schedule. It’s helpful to carry on with teaching, since it gives me structure and means that I regularly communicate with people.

How many years did you work away at
Astonishing?
Were you teaching during this time? Lastly, how many times was your manuscript rejected?

It took about five years to write
Astonishing
. I was teaching for long hours during this period, and I only had about two hours a week available for writing—sometimes not even that. It was very difficult to fit it in, but I kept going because I wanted to. I sent the manuscript to thirty-three agents before sending it to Tindal Street. Two were mildly interested, but not enough to take it on. One was very interested but changed her mind.

Have you any writerly quirks? When and where do you write? PC or pen?

A few years ago one of the mothers from my school offered me a room in her home to write, so I go there to do most of my writing.
It’s a very big house and I have a room on the top floor, so even if everyone’s at home there is enough room to absorb us all. I don’t mind the children arguing in the distance because they’re not my children! I write my first draft directly on the computer because my mind moves very fast and I want to get it down quickly before I lose it all. I would never let anyone see this draft because it’s usually rubbish. Then I work on it by hand, typing out several revised drafts as I go.

What are your interests and enthusiasms—any hobbies or outdoor pursuits?

I don’t have much spare time and until now my main hobby has been writing. But I enjoy gardening—we recently moved, so we had to create the garden from builders’ rubble—crosswords when I have time, and reading, of course.

Husband, partner, children, pet(s)?

I’m divorced. I have two adult daughters. Alex lives in London and is a business analyst. Heather is a student and lives at home with me. We have three cats: Benz (we had a Mercedes once, but she died), Portia, and Marmaduke.