it all in.
It’s morning. The day is starting.
It’s going to be a beautiful day, the pilot thinks. A beautiful flight. Not a whisper of wind. A smooth parabola through the sky from one continent to the other.
He’s done this route hundreds of times. Sometimes, he jokes that he could do it in his sleep.
He cranes his neck and looks down. They’re passing the west coast of Ireland. In a few more minutes they’ll leave behind the land and then, for thousands of miles, it’ll be just him and his passengers and crew, flying between sea and sky.
There are times when he’s so happy up here that he wishes he could fly for ever. That there was no land to go back to.
The plane is flying steady now. He switches the controls to autopilot; there’s no more need for his intervention, not for a good while.
He sits back and looks back out at the sky.
Across the Atlantic, at Dulles International Airport in DC, a seventeen-year-old boy waits by the arrivals gate. He sits on the floor, his back pressed into the wall.
It’ll be hours before his father’s plane lands, but he doesn’t mind waiting. Airports are like home for him. He’s good at blocking out the noise and the people. All those comings and goings.
He pulls a scrap of paper out of his backpack and starts folding.
A few miles off the coast of western Ireland, where the sea is so deep it’s black, a fisherman stands in his boat, pulling in a net. He’s been out since before light.
He hears the drone of the engine before he sees the plane. He lives under the flight path, so over the years he’s become used to the sound, to how the rhythm of the planes weave between the currents of the sea.
But still, it takes him by surprise: to see them up there, those big metal birds, carrying all those people through the sky.
The sea he understands: a wooden raft floating on the waves is as ancient as the world. But the planes, they never seem quite right.
He holds up his hand and waves. He knows that it’s too far for the pilot to see him, but still, he likes to do it.
The sun’s so strong – the sky so blue – he has to close his eyes.
Behind his eyelids, there’s darkness and then stars. And when he blinks them away and tries to adjust again to the brightness, he thinks the plane will be gone – far off on its journey through the sky. A few moments peace until the next one.
But the plane hasn’t gone: it’s still there.
He’s familiar with this trick of time and distance, how it seems as though the planes are not moving at all, when really, they’re tearing through the sky faster than anything on land or sea.
He keeps staring at the plane, a straight, white arrow piercing the blue sky.
But then the plane seems to change direction. Its angle shifts. Its wings tilt to one side.
Maybe it’s steading itself, he thinks, having reached altitude. But usually the planes climb higher, especially the big airliners.
He blinks again.
Strangely, now, it looks like the plane is slowing down.
The fisherman rubs his eyes. I’m getting old, he tells himself. And I’m tired. I was up early; I’ve been staring at the sea for too long.
He thinks of going home. Of taking off his wet clothes. Of washing the salt from his skin and then climbing into bed for a few hours’ rest.
His eyes adjust.
He can see clearly now.
And then something makes him stand up in his boat and tilt his head up to the sky and wave frantically, even though he knows that no one can see him.
He’s not just tired. And his eyes are fine.
Something’s wrong.
The plane is no longer ascending. And it’s not adjusting its position. Its tail is too high in relation to its body; its nose is dipping. And though the force of the engines keep propelling the plane forward, there’s a strange stalling sound, a grinding through the air that echoes across the sea.
He watches and watches as the plane tilts and dips and slows.
And starts to fall.
12.25 EST Dulles International Airport, Washington DC
Even before I step into the arrivals lounge I see the chaos.
People push in and out of the sliding doors, their cells clamped to their ears.
Cars crowd the pick-up zone.
Everyone’s walking too fast.
I knew it would be busy: it’s the end of the summer and people are flying in for the solar eclipse. But this is insane.
As we get closer to the airport building, Leda lets out a long whine like someone’s stepped on her tail. Ever since we turned off the highway, she hasn’t let up: barking and yelping and doing that high-pitched whimpering thing.
Leda’s my brother’s dog. A small, scrappy, caramel-coloured mongrel with shiny black eyes and stiff, worn fur. She looks more like an old-fashioned teddy bear than a dog.
She’s cowering in the footwell like something’s spooked her.
And I can’t shake the feeling either: something’s wrong.
But I push the feeling down to the pit of my stomach. I can’t go there, not now. I have to focus.
Leda whines again.
‘Pipe down,’ I call back to her. ‘You’ll see him in a second.’
Leda’s been missing Blake all summer. I told Blake he should take her with him to London but he said Leda would be better off with me. Which is probably true. Just because Blake loves her, it doesn’t mean he remembers to feed her or walk her or let her out to pee.
I park the car a bit too close to the main walkway but it’s so busy it’s the only space I can find. And who’s going to moan about stumbling over a 1973 mustard yellow Buick convertible, right? I should charge a viewing fee.
Leda jumps up and down on the back seat, her ears flapping.
‘Okay, okay.’
I lift her out and then throw my telescope over my shoulder – it’s the only thing I’d mind being stolen from the car. In fact, I’d be delighted if someone stole the two dresses spread out across the back bench. One’s for the rehearsal dinner (yellow), one’s for the wedding (sky blue): both sewn by Mom. They’re the kind of dresses I wouldn’t be caught
