Based on a True Story (10 page)

seventeen

They’d arrived at Heathrow three hours before their flight, which was precisely enough time for Augusta to reveal that only one of them would be flying business class, and to strike up a friendship with a Japanese tuna exporter at the caviar bar. She drank three glasses of champagne in quick succession, and left the tuna man with an autograph he didn’t recognize and a bill for more than a hundred pounds.

“Our flight,” Frances whispered, tugging at Augusta’s arm. “They just called our flight. Let’s go.”

Blotting her lips on a napkin, Augusta slid off the stool. “You are already proving to be a goddess of efficiency.” She reached up to put her arm around Frances’s shoulder. “Have I already told you how glad I am that we’re embarking on this little adventure together?”

Frances felt a warm flush. She was useful once again, essential to purpose. She hadn’t realized how much she craved the feeling. It was a sign of trust that Augusta had given Frances her bag to tow while she strode toward the gates.

“There’s just the one thing,” Augusta said as they joined the end of the security queue. Ahead, business passengers were invited to enjoy Fast Track Boarding. A much longer line, twitching like an irate snake, coiled off to the other side. Grim-faced travellers clutched their shoes in one hand and their intimate lotions in the other.

“A tiny thing, darling,” Augusta added, and, grasping Frances’s hand, pushed a small plastic vial into it. There was no label on the jar, merely a dozen or so lozenge-shaped white pills rattling around under a childproof lid.

Frances stared down at the container in her hand, frozen, until she felt the hot-breathed impatience of the person behind her in line.

“Come along, walk, everything normal,” Augusta said in a low voice. “Just tuck them in your bag. You’ll have no problem getting those through, and I would. They like to search me. I fear they can’t keep their hands off my tits, though it might also be the residual effects of certain . . . well, there were one or two rules I tried to bend in the old days.”

Augusta’s manacle grip on her wrist propelled her forward in the line. Finally Frances found her voice: “What are these, Augusta?”

“Nothing illegal, my dear. Nothing like that. I just don’t happen to have a prescription for them. They’re merely . . . mood stabilizers.” The couple in front of them shuffled ahead, and Augusta dragged her forward to fill the gap. “I’m a bit of a nervous flyer, you see. That’s why I needed a drink. If there’s turbulence, or if someone objectionable sits near me — I might require something of a medicinal nature.”

“No,” Frances spoke more loudly than she intended, and a security guard handing out plastic bags stopped to glance their way. “No, I won’t do it.”

But Augusta had already peeled away toward the Fast Track queue, which was moving rapidly through the security gate.

Frances made a last desperate grab, caught her by the elbow. “Augusta,” she hissed. “They’re going to stop me. People always know when I’m lying.”

At this, Augusta turned and cast an eye up and down. “You could not be more innocuous. You look like a bloody communion wafer.” And then she was gone, slinging her bag onto the conveyor belt, stripping off her bracelets before stalking, hands above head, through the metal detector.

In the glass dividing the two streams of passengers Frances caught a glimpse of herself: oatmeal-coloured sweater, biscuit-coloured skirt, mushroom-coloured tights. Beige was the best way to travel dirt-free, her mother had always said.

Impatient shuffling behind Frances told her she needed to move, or she’d draw attention to herself. As unobtrusively as possible, she slipped her hand into her purse, dropped the pills into a side compartment and zipped it up. Her bladder threatened to empty of its own volition. She seemed to have ceased breathing. The guard with the plastic bags was still watching her, and she thought:
Oh my God, they’re trained to spot drug smugglers, and that’s what I am. A drug smuggler. What if there are dogs? Could dogs smell pills? Oh God, I’m going to jail. In England. I’m going to Wormwood Scrubs.

Slowly, she shuffled along. She placed her handbag in the plastic tray provided and nearly screamed when another security guard jabbed a finger at her carry-on.

“I’m sorry?” Frances whispered.

“Laptop, love,” said the security guard, who looked like she’d been doing this job since the Luftwaffe roared overhead. “Turn on your laptop.”

Sweat pooled between her shoulder blades, at the tops of her thighs. She watched her bag slide toward the black cave to be X-rayed. Cruelly, it stopped, and with an electronic bleep was spat out backwards, only to slowly enter the cave again.

Her thighs were glued damply together. Frances came out of her daze when a child behind poked her with a Barbie’s pointed plastic foot. A security guard stood on the other side of the metal detector, gesturing impatiently. She passed through unremarked and felt her legs go limp with relief. Maybe it was all going to be okay, after all.

“Is this your bag, love?” It was the Second World War veteran valued for her bloodhound tenacity, peering at her over reading glasses.
She’s fried bigger fish than me
, thought Frances.
She’s sent hundreds of perps away to the big house
.

She whispered, “Yes. That is my bag.”

“Mmm. May I open it?”

Her moment’s bravado was gone. She tried to marshal her panicked thoughts:
I’ve never seen those before, they’re not mine, what are they anyway?
The drug mule’s mantra.

The battleaxe rummaged around for a moment and said, “Ah, here. This is what I saw.”

Frances clutched the edge of the table, aware that around her people were watching as they did up their belts and shoes. She closed her eyes.

“Yes, this. Is this yours?”

Frances opened her eyes. The lovely old guard was holding up a pair of manicure scissors, an inquisitive look on her dear old face.

“You do know this is a forbidden item, don’t you?”

When Frances stumbled into her seat on the airplane, her heart playing “Flight of the Bumblebee,” she sat for a moment, eyes closed, sweaty hands fixed on her purse straps. On one side, a man the size of a refrigerator was methodically working through a bag of pretzels, his eyes fixed on the seat ahead. On the other, a tiny old woman in a sari had a copy of
Hello!
magazine in her lap. She looked up from a story about the Duchess of York’s new weight-loss program and smiled with such serenity that Frances felt some of her anxiety leaking away.

Which still left her with enough adrenaline in her body to kill a horse.
Breathe
, she thought,
breathe.
You’re on the plane now. You’ll be up in the air soon, then two salty meals and a couple of bad movies and you’ll be home
. Home. At the thought, the blood began thudding in her ears again.

“We’ll be pushing back in just a minute,” the pilot said over the PA, and advised passengers that they’d be in the air for ten hours.

A flight attendant came up the aisle, her face a kabuki mask of eyeshadow and lipstick, and said, “You’ll need to put that bag under the seat in front of you or in the overhead bin.”

I’d prefer to chuck it at Augusta
, Frances thought. She took out her bottle of water, and her fingers brushed the bag’s zippered compartment, where the jar of pills lay stashed.
Once we’re up I’ll flush them
.

Bending down, she struggled to shove the bag under the seat in front, and vaguely heard the grunt of the refrigerator of a man next to her as her shoulder jostled his knee. It was tempting to stay down there, with the sock smells and odd clankings from the plane’s belly. It was especially tempting when she heard a voice from above.

“Darling, I believe you have something of mine.” Augusta stood in the aisle, wearing a satin blouse she’d forgotten to button to the top.

Refrigerator man stared up at her, hand halfway to his open mouth. Leaning over him to hiss at Frances, Augusta had placed her cleavage mere inches from his face, the intersection of black lace and creamy flesh filling his line of vision.

His lips worked. “It’s Kit Gallagher, innit?”

Augusta’s face transformed instantly from fury to pleasure.

“Kit Gallagher as was, I’m afraid. She’s gone to that great brewery in the sky.” She raised her eyebrow at Frances. “My . . . property? Perhaps you’d be so good as to find it for me.”

The flight attendant, slamming the bins closed down the aisle, had reached them. “I’m afraid you’ll have to take your seat now, ma’am.”

Augusta drew herself up and wasted her best smile. “I just need to get something from my friend here.”

“You’ll have to get it once we’re in the air, ma’am.”

“Really,” said Augusta, “it will only take a minute.”

“Ma’am,” said the flight attendant, at the edge of her professional patience. “We are about to take off. You have to take your seat.”

Fascinated, Frances watched them face off, two women sure of their power. Even the old lady in the sari had traded the manufactured drama of
Hello!
for the possibility of a real-life catfight.

Finally, Augusta drew a deep breath. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

With a final smile at the refrigerator man, who dribbled several pretzels on his crotch, she turned for the business cabin.

Frances jolted awake as something heavy hit her ankle. The plane was banking to the right, and her bag slid out from under the seat ahead. With a small groan she sat up, noticing other passengers waking as the plane bucked and whined beneath them. Only the nervous ones, so far. The pathetic flyers — and she was one of them — could smell each other’s fear. The darting stares, saucer eyes meeting over the seat backs.

Thump. The plane dropped suddenly like a pickup coming too fast over a hill, and somebody ahead of Frances yelled, “Whoa!” On one side, the lady in the sari slept neatly, straight up and down, while the giant man to her right was fixed on the screen in front of him, where Jennifer Aniston adjusted her bikini.

This time the plane lurched from front to back and dropped suddenly, its engine whining. Frances closed her eyes.
We weren’t meant to fly
. The screen showing the Jennifer Aniston movie suddenly flashed Announcement and the pilot’s voice came on.

“Hello, folks,” he said, “It’s Captain Hawkins on the flight deck. There’s a bit of weather ahead, so I’m requesting permission to climb a little. Should smooth out shortly. I’ll keep you posted.”

As he finished, the plane skittered from side to side as if it had hit a patch of ice. The flight attendant who had confronted Augusta passed down the aisle and gave Frances a reassuring smile.

Frances undid her seatbelt and tugged her bag free of the seat in front. She nearly fell on the refrigerator man as the plane shimmied, and he grunted as he let her pass. In the toilet, she rested her cheek on the cold wall. She felt an overwhelming urge to vomit, but that would mean putting her face near the toilet seat, which glistened wetly in the dim light, a sodden wad of tissue clinging to its hinges. The plane bucked again and she was thrown against the door. A tiny hum of panic rose in her throat.

The flight attendant’s voice on the PA made her jump: “The captain’s put on the seatbelt sign, so we’re asking everyone to please return to their seats.”

There was no time to debate. She reached into her bag and pulled out the vial Augusta had given her: a dozen white pills, oval, the size of two grains of rice stuck together. In case of emergency, Augusta had said. Well, plunging to your death into the side of the Rocky Mountains was a pretty fucking dire emergency.

But what if I take one and I’m allergic
, Frances thought. She gasped, looked up at her white face in the mirror.
What if I take one and I’m hooked? Hooked on pills! Then I’d have to go to rehab, and Dad and Mom will know, because they’ll have to pay for it —

The plane made a precipitous yaw to the right. Frances popped open the lid and poured the pills onto her palm. How many? She tipped ten back into the bottle and dry-swallowed two. Too late now. As she put the bottle back into her bag, the flight attendant thumped on the toilet door: “Excuse me, you’ll need to take your seat now, please.”

Frances picked up her bag and lurched out the door. She’d rather be dead of an allergic reaction than dead in a smoking wreck, with only her expensive orthodontistry separating her from the next corpse over.

On either side of the aisle, passengers tightened their belts, whispered calming words to their children, tipped up the dregs of their miniature wine bottles. An unfathomable few continued to sleep or work on their computers.

She was almost at her seat when, over the roar and bump of the plane’s engines, she heard the curtain of the business-class cabin sliding back. Augusta stood framed in the doorway, two spots of colour high on her cheeks, with the flight attendant behind her like a farmer intent on an escaped bull.

“Holy crap,” Frances whispered and scrambled over the refrigerator, elbows and heels sinking into tender places. She buckled herself into her seat as Augusta staggered down the aisle. There was a red-wine stain, almost the shape of Africa, on the front of her blouse.

“Frances!” she barked. “There, Frances! My things, please!”

The flight attendant was right behind her, and had the advantage of sobriety. “Sit down now, please ma’am.”

“I just need,” said Augusta, forming her words with care, “to get something from my friend. A medication, if you must know. For an ailment. Which I have.”

“Now, ma’am. For your own safety.”

“I would have come to collect my things earlier,” said Augusta, “but I seem to have drifted off.” The airplane lurched sideways and Augusta, with a screech, clutched the flight attendant’s arm.

“I’m taking you back to your seat, ma’am,” said the flight attendant, and began tugging Augusta toward the front of the cabin.

Now the other passengers were craning to look, whispering and reaching for their camera phones.