huge airliner had crashed on to this suburban town or that it was about to be overwhelmed by a nuclear catastrophe.
The river swirled across the windshield. A murky foam thrashed against the fractured glass. At the last moment I saw the archaeologist rise from his chair, strong arms outstretched across the water, trying to will me from the aircraft as if he had suddenly realized his responsibility for me.
The starboard wing sank below the surface. Dragged by the current, the Cessna rolled on to its side. Breaking free from my harness, I forced back the door and clambered from the flooded cabin on to the port wing strut. I climbed on to the roof and stood there in my ragged flying suit as the aircraft sank below me into the water, taking my dreams and hopes into its deep.
I was lying on the wet grass below the mansion. People jostled around me in what seemed to be a drunken brawl, ordered back by the young woman in the white coat.
‘Dr Miriam—!’
‘I can see he isn’t dead! Now get away!’ She brushed her untidy hair out of her eyes and knelt beside me, a nervous but strong hand on my breast-bone, ready to pump my heart back to life. ‘Good God … you seem to be all right.’
For all the authority in this young woman’s voice, she was totally confused by something, still not altogether sure that I was alive. Behind her was the middle-aged woman I had seen in the window of the mansion. She stared at me in an appalled way, as if she, and not I, had escaped from the accident. Engine grease marked her silk blouse and the pearls hanging from her neck. She held the forgotten cigarette in her left hand, about to brand this drenched aviator who had wrestled himself on to the grass.
She reached down and angrily shook my shoulder.
‘Who are you!’
‘Mrs St Cloud! You’ll hurt him, madam …!’
A man in chauffeur’s uniform tried to calm her, but she clung to me in a disorientated way, as if I had stolen something valuable from her.
‘Mother!’ The young doctor struck her hand from my shoulder. ‘He can’t cope with you as well! Bring my case from the house!’
The people around me stepped back reluctantly, revealing a placid sky. The intense light had gone, and the Ferris wheel rotated against the clouds like an amiable mandala. I felt strong but strangely old, as if I had completed an immense voyage. I touched the doctor’s arm in an effort to calm her, wondering how to warn her of the disaster about to overwhelm this small town.
She patted my cheek reassuringly. Obviously she had been deeply impressed by the dramatic style of my arrival. Looking up at this confused young woman, I felt a powerful sense of gratitude to her. I wanted to stroke her skin, place my mouth against her breast. For a moment I almost believed that I was her suitor, and that I had chosen this extravagant method of arrival in order to propose marriage to her.
As if aware of this, she smiled and pressed my hand. ‘Are you all right? I don’t mind saying that you gave me a hell of a scare … Can you see me? And hear me? How many fingers? Good. Now, was there anyone else in the plane? A passenger?’
‘I …’ For no clear reason I decided not to speak. The image of the Cessna’s cockpit formed a blank zone in my mind. I could no longer remember myself at the controls. ‘No … I was alone.’
‘You don’t sound very sure. Who are you, anyway? You look as if you might forget at any moment.’
‘Blake – I’m a stunt pilot. The aircraft caught fire.’
‘It certainly did …’
Taking her arm, I sat up. The wet grass was stained with oil from my flying suit. My shoes were charred, but luckily neither of my feet had been burned. From the respectful faces of the people around me – a gardener, the chauffeur, and an elderly couple who appeared to be housekeepers – I knew they had all assumed that I had drowned and were stunned by my apparent return from the dead. Along the river people were standing by both banks. Tennis players carrying their rackets moved through the trees, and a group of small boys were throwing clods of earth into the water, imitating the aircraft’s splash.
The Cessna had vanished in the current, swept away by the dark water.
The archaeologist strode up from the beach, his beard and parson’s collar soaked with water. As he caught his breath, staring impatiently at the oil-stained lawn, he resembled a harassed marine prophet come ashore to search for a renegade member of his flock. He gazed at me in a curiously disappointed way. I guessed that he had waded into the river to pull me to safety, assumed like the others that I had died and was about to read the last rites over me.
‘Father Wingate – he’s come round.’ Dr Miriam steadied me against her shoulder. ‘That’s one miracle I concede to you.’
‘I can see that, Miriam.’ The priest made no attempt to come any nearer, as if wary of me, rebuffed by my return to the living. ‘Well, thank God … But let him rest.’
The light faded, and then grew suddenly brighter. The priest’s face swam, its firm and spartan features leaking across the air into an angry grimace. Exhausted, I leaned against Dr Miriam and laid my head across her warm lap.
I could feel the imprint of a strange mouth against my own. My lips were swollen and cut against my teeth. A pair of powerful hands had bruised themselves into my chest. Whoever had given artificial respiration to me had used unnecessary strength, forcing his fingers between my ribs, as if determined to kill me. Through the deep glare that illuminated the river, now an almost lunar domain without shadows, I could see the priest watching me with a peculiar intensity, as if he were challenging me in some way. Had he tried to revive me, or kill me?
At the same time, I knew that I had not lost consciousness. I remembered stepping from the roof of the aircraft and swimming strongly for the shore, and then being steered by someone through the shallows. I looked up at the sky, which hovered on the verge of that vivid glow I had seen from the cockpit of the Cessna. As Dr Miriam held my head in her lap, her fingers pressed anxiously to my temples, I was about to warn her of the disaster.
Abruptly, the sky cleared. Dr Miriam was looking at me in a reflect- ive way, as if we were lovers long familiar with each other’s bodies. I could smell her strong thighs, and see her surprisingly grimy feet within their sandals. Her untidy hair was tied back in a faded ribbon. Through a missing button of her blouse I stared at a child’s scratch-marks on her left breast. I wanted to embrace her, here on this open lawn in front of this aggressive priest. I was sure that the violence of my accident had aroused her, and I was disappointed that it was not her mouth that had cut my lips.
She checked herself, and began wiping the oil from my face with a scented handkerchief. At any moment the local police would arrive, drawn by the crowd watching along the bank. Hundreds of people were staring at me across the calm water.
I stood up and leaned against the swing, while the three children watched me from their perch. They laughed hysterically when I kicked the charred shoes from my feet. The flying suit hung in rags around my waist. The right shoulder and leg were missing, torn
