Landing (24 page)

"Okay, so it's the intersection of love and geography." It sounded to Jude like a surreal street address. "The what and who and why are easy, it's just the when and where."

"And the how much," he laughed, reaching for their bill.

Jude picked up a napkin to dab ketchup off his chin. "It isn't that Síle would want me to give up the bike," she insisted. "She'd rather pay for everything herself."

Rizla threw up his hands. "Shit, forget the cooking, then: If I had a sugar mommy, I'd lay back and take it."

Jude rolled her eyes.

"She's something else, that gal," said Rizla with a grin. "When she was over in July, the way she shut Gwen up!"

Well, if that was how he chose to remember the incident—

"But you'd better face it," he said mildly, "it's only ever going to be a vacation thing."

Jude stared at him.

"You've hooked the big fish, and she's a beaut all right, but you're never going to land her."

"You don't know that." Why were her own thoughts so unbearable when he spoke them? "Why would you say that?"

His mouth twisted with something like compassion. "Who's going to be the mountain and who's going to be Muhammad? It's not going to happen."

"It could, theoretically!"

"Well, so could me becoming the next Dalai Lama," said Rizla. "Tell you what, let's put some money on it. Let's say, if you and the lovely lady are shacked up together anywhere in the known universe in, what, two years, I'll pay you ... the cost of our divorce," he finished with a grin.

"You think you're funny, but you're just mean." Jude's voice was ragged.

"Hey, no skin off my fat ass, either way—"

She shoved back her chair and walked out, and only halfway down the street did she remember she hadn't paid for her hot dog.

Síle stood demonstrating the nearest exits with smooth fluting hand movements. She'd done this mime so often, she could have completed it with her eyes shut, only that might have alarmed the passengers. Then she strapped herself into the jump seat at the back, between two colleagues who were discussing the risks of rain for a January wedding. As the plane thrust away from the earth, Síle waited for the familiar rush in the stomach, the pure, sweet liftoff as gravity was shed.

But it didn't come. They were in the air and Síle didn't feel any bliss. Only a heavy craving not to move anymore, not to go anywhere anymore. She felt as if she'd suddenly forgotten how to have an orgasm.

That day passed in a blur of conversation, hatch-latching, rubbish-collecting, discreet yawning. Some days, this job was like working in a very cramped burger joint during an earthquake. The plastic food-handling gloves were making Síle's palms itch, but she refused to call it an allergy.
Jude, Jude, why aren't you here, in Seat 39D, grinning up at me?

Sometimes, these days, when Síle felt the plane touch down she had no idea what country she was in. She woke up in hotels and stared at the ceiling in bewilderment. The aeronautical term was "losing situational awareness." In the privacy of her head she was thinking
Jude, Jude, how long,
like some cadence from the Psalms, though she knew the comparison was absurd.
How many visits can we manage without losing momentum, grinding to a stop? How far can this go?
Sacrilegious thought: She tried to remember whether she'd been more content in the old days, before she'd ever laid eyes on Jude Turner.

Cabin crews had all voted, last week, and the union had got its mandate to strike if the airline imposed the mass redundancies. But Síle could think of a few colleagues who were ready to go on any terms: Nuala, for one, and possibly Jenny. They'd all had it up to here with the tussles and changes—new short-haul routes every month, schedule snafus, ludicrous performance targets—and the only thing that seemed to stay frozen was their pay. And if the airline did manage to carve away another thousand-odd jobs on top of the two thousand already purged, Síle thought with a surge of anxiety, the survivors would have to work harder than ever.

"So it's all going great with Pedro, you lucky buggers?" she asked Marcus, speaking into her gizmo in the back of a taxi.

"Yeah, though we mostly talk about vegetables, these days," he said benignly. "No, your situation's much more romantic: the great lovers doomed to live separate, Heloise and Abelard and all that."

"Oh, well there's a comfort," she said, sardonic.

"Wasn't it Socrates who said we only really love what we lack?"

"You're disgustingly well-read, my boy."

"Actually I think I heard it on BBC2. But it is an interesting question: How far apart should lovers live?"

"The space of a kiss," she suggested.

"Well, sometimes, yeah, you need the amazing proximity of skin," Marcus agreed. "But at other times it's probably better to be farther apart than you can bear, so you can really see each other, realize what you want, what you're missing. Maybe it should be like muscles contracting and relaxing: near, far, together, apart."

"Yeah, that's what I thought at first, but I'm burning out. Just together would do me grand," said Síle, mulish, and then Marcus had to ring off because his mushroom consommé was boiling over.

Off-duty, Síle retreated from October rain into Polish film series or Crawford double bills. She loved that about films: They sucked you into their world so it didn't matter where your body was. You could walk into the most garish, blaring multiplex, or the grottiest old country cinema, and the film would still be the same. (Well, apart from that one time in Carlow town when it had slipped off the reel and got snagged.) When she tried to recall her life with Kathleen nowaday, that was what she saw: The two of them sitting side by side in a cinema, hands touching maybe, eyes on the screen. It was very strange, how little she missed Kathleen. It was like coming across old clothes neatly folded in a drawer, clothes that you couldn't remember yourself ever having worn.

Walking down Grafton Street, Síle was handed a flyer headed "Ireland of the Welcomes."

Are you an immigrant or asylum-seeker? At our Drop-In Centre we can help you make the often difficult ajustment to life in Ireland today. Legal/medical/benefits advice, counseling, creche for under-fives, free refreshments (tea, coffee, soup).

Darkly amused that she'd been targeted, she made a note to tell Orla that whoever wrote her leaflets couldn't spell
adjustment.

For the first time in her life, Síle would get into bed in the dark, bone tired, and find herself unable to sleep. She switched her gizmo's sound programme from white noise to forest calls, ocean surf to whale music, but nothing worked; the waterfalls track only made her need to get up and pee.

Síle had to have her Jude reservoir filled up, that was all that was the matter; she was feeling hollow and shaky. No matter how often they went over their schedules, they couldn't seem to find an opening for a visit. Like dancers who couldn't get in synch, lurching and stepping on each other's toes.
Fuel exhaustion,
that was the term; she remembered reading about a plane that, because of delay and communication problems at JFK, had simply run out of petrol and dropped out of the sky.

She put her tiny framed photo of Jude beside her bed, in every hotel, and nearly lost it once when it slipped behind a table. Absence in love turned you into an idolator. Síle's gold hung heavy on her throat, her ears.

"Excuse me. Excuse me, Miss? I rang my bell hours ago. My light won't come on..."

"I've got to sit with my fiancée. There's been a mistake, we were meant to be together, but this woman won't move..."

"Miss, Miss? My daughter says the film is in English in one of her ears and French in the other—"

"But how do you know she hasn't been sleeping with the Mohawk brave," asked Jael, "or somebody new, for that matter?"

Síle's purple sofa was so small, their curled-up stockinged feet touched. "She just isn't. Look, Jude and I talk about everything. That's all we have, is talk."

"The most eloquent love letters I ever got were from that ex-nun in Lisbon," Jael remembered, eyes on Síle's ceiling, which was strung with fairy lights. "They were so passionately written, so alive, they nearly burned my fingers. I even kept them, for a couple of years," she added, in her more usual tone.

"Sister Snake?" asked Síle, bristling at the comparison. "She borrowed money off you, infected you, then dumped you by postcard."

"Oh, Anton says I had it coming, karmically. The letters were deceptive, yeah," said Jael with a curious gentleness. "I think now that she meant every word of them, at the moment of writing. But yes, there was a lot she left out, including the younger girlfriend and the chlamydia. It's in the nature of letters to be selective. And emails," Jael added, before Síle could get a word in, "and texts, and phone calls, and whatever devices we use to keep in touch when we're not living the same life."

"Doesn't Jude seem honest to you?" demanded Síle.

"This isn't personal. Stop defending your true love and switch your brain back on for a minute."

"This is such bollocks," said Síle, the back of her head starting to ache. "Deception and distance are unrelated variables. Can't people who share a house tell lies too? In fact, maybe living together is so claustrophobic, it makes people hide things just to win themselves some breathing space." Síle wasn't sure she believed this, but she was provoked. "Marriage, even more so!"

Jael shrugged. "I don't know the stats. My only point is that correspondence has room for lies
built in.
It's inherently misleading. When you're writing to Jude, or on the phone, I bet you talk as if your whole life is given over to love."

Síle struggled for an answer.

"But then you say bye-bye, and you get on with things till the next time, don't you? Work and friends and shopping and coffee and smelling the roses. This is your busy-busy world and she's not in it." Jael's tone was almost vengeful. "You live on your own, and for all the romantic angst—this is your life, Síle, and you like it."

Síle looked away, as if examining the tiny bronze that stood in a niche in the wall.

"You're not—" Jael took her by the jaw. Síle slapped her away. "Have I made you cry?"

"Why, was that your goal for the evening?" she asked, standing up and wiping her cheekbones.

"Ah ducks. I'm a terrible killjoy," said Jael.

That was probably the nearest Síle would get to an apology. "I need to go to bed."

"Don't we all. I've to be up at the crack tomorrow to drive the fucking child to rehearsals; she's Dorothy in this forty-minute version of
The Wizard of Oz.
" Jael couldn't hide the pride in her tone. Standing up with a slight wobble, she pulled on her trench coat. "Lunch next week?"

"Probably not. Busy-busy," said Síle meanly, holding the front door open. When she'd shut it behind Jael, she knelt to unplug the fairy lights.

Time, you old gypsy man,
will you not stay?

—RALPH HODGSON
"Time, You Old Gypsy Man"

Every time Síle had bid for the Dublin-Heathrow-Detroit run that would have put her within a long bus ride of Jude, she'd lost to someone even more senior who had a sick sister in Michigan. But at last someone else agreed to swap with her for just one run, and from Detroit she hopped on a prop plane to Toronto for the afternoon.

The city hugged the lake like a glittering dress. Jude took a half-day off and rattled up the highway in her Mustang. They met at—Síle's choice—a vintage clothes shop in the heart of Kensington Market. "Wow, what a daring haircut!" she said, when she'd stopped kissing Jude long enough to take a proper look.

Jude rubbed the uneven pattern and laughed. "Last night my old clippers finally quit, halfway across my head."

"I like it," said Síle, pulling her close.

Toronto was full of Indian and Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi faces; it was the first time in years that she'd felt so visually unremarkable, and the effect was oddly relaxing. After half an hour wandering around tattoo parlours and Chinese greengrocers, Síle said, "Let's go to bed."

"I wish," said Jude.

"I've booked us a room for the afternoon."

"You haven't!" Jude's clear eyes looked very young.

At the Honeysuckle Arms, in the gay ghetto, Síle hung up the
Privacy, Please!
sign, and the world narrowed to a white square. The two of them were starving, sticky, worn out in the strong autumn sunshine that poured in through the
broderie anglaise
draperies of their antique tester bed.

"I have to go."

Jude kissed the naked inside of Síle's left elbow. "You only just came."

"Let go, badness. Really!"

"Honestly!" mimicked Jude softly. "Don't worry, in a little while we'll hail a cab; it'll get you to the airport in fifteen minutes, twenty max."

"What if there's traffic? Sweetheart, seriously, if I don't catch that short-hop flight I won't be at my plane in Detroit an hour before takeoff."

"It can't take a full hour to trundle the meal carts on."

"I do more than trundle carts..." But Síle was lost already, straying into bliss, her knees dropping her onto the quilt.

Afterward, when she was lying with her face pressed against Jude's delicate collarbone, she held her breath and stayed very still, as if playing hide-and-seek with time.

Jude said she would grab a sandwich, then find a barber to neaten up her head, after she put Síle—still buttoning up various parts of her emerald uniform—into a cab. She was a tiny waving figure in the back window. Síle immediately turned on her music and hit the Shuffle function, but between trying not to worry about being late and feeling her toes curl with remembered pleasure, she didn't hear much.

There was indeed traffic, lots of it; a three-car pileup had brought things to a standstill. It took an hour and ten minutes to get to Pearson Airport. Hurrying past a mirrored wall Síle caught sight of herself, cheeks glowing. The small plane that was to have taken her to Detroit was gone.

When she got through to the flight supervisor on her gizmo, he turned out to be a Corkman she'd never met. He barked at Síle on the line as if she were an escaped convict. "You've ruined the day for nearly three hundred passengers, and that's just this leg, not to mention the knock-on effects."

She bit her lip, tasted lipstick.
Síle, get a grip!

"You're on Flight 592 tomorrow morning, that's if you manage to crawl out of bed."

In almost two decades in the job, this was the first time Síle had missed a flight. What had got into her?
Jude.
She wondered what the report sent to personnel in Dublin would say:
irresponsible, unprofessional, unacceptable?
This time it was all true.

She shut her eyes briefly as she walked. She was other things, too. She was beloved. She was succulent.

And if she moved fast enough, it occured to Síle now, she might even catch Jude at the barber's, and they could have a whole night together. Maybe their room at the Honeysuckle would still be free, the sheets not even changed...

If Jude weren't such a Luddite, of course, she'd be reachable by mobile, a sudden thought that filled Síle with rage. Still, surely she could track Jude down; no queer ghetto was that big. "Church and Wellesley," she said to the driver. The taxi shot along the road that looped between the city and the dark blue lake. Síle put her head back and thought of everything she hadn't had a chance to do to Jude yet. If she was going to be irresponsible, by god she'd enjoy herself.

There were two barbers and a hair salon on the block where Jude had waved good-bye. Síle popped her head into the first and said, "Excuse me, I'm looking for someone who might have been in for a cut in the last hour—a young woman, white, slim, short hair?"

The Italian gave a mirthless laugh, and Síle realized that she'd probably described half his clientele. She thought of trying to describe the ways in which Jude's slim-boned face was different from all the others, but she realized that lovers saw peculiarly.

Well, surely Jude would have lingered for a coffee before her long drive home? She talked loudly in her head:
Hang on, gorgeous. On my way.
The afternoon was warm, for all the pumpkin and cornstalk décor in shop windows, and the boys (and occasional girl) sitting in shorts on café steps with enormous iced lattes all seemed to glow with health. She passed a place that offered bubble tea: Would Jude be likely to go in there? Nah, too contemporary.

She should have planted a bug on her lover, slipped a microchip into the almost-grown-over hole in Jude's earlobe, so she'd be able to track her everywhere. What right had the girl to be out of Síle's reach? This was ridiculous; they couldn't miss each other entirely, not after she'd blotted her record by missing a flight for the sake of one last delicious fuck. She suddenly thought of Jude's car, parked behind the Honeysuckle Arms. But when she got there, breathless, the parking lot was full, and none of the cars was a rusty white Mustang.

Then Síle saw her. Walking along in blue denim, head down. "Jude," Síle shrieked. "There you are!" And thundered across the street. But the head lifted and the jaw was too heavy; the haircut belonged to a moody boy whose lip and eyebrow were connected by a light chain. "Sorry," Síle said, laughing, almost sobbing, "I'm really sorry."

She sat with a sour apple martini, watching the crowds go by. The crisp October evening had turned dusty. Later on she had gnocchi with sage, but didn't taste a thing. It occurred to her to go back to the Honeysuckle and ask the nice owners for the same room, but then she told herself that it would do her no good to spend the whole night sniveling into the pillow. Besides, by now it would probably have been rented out to a pair of Minnesotan dermatologists celebrating their thirtieth anniversary.

Instead, Síle taxied back out to the airport, past the darkening disc of the lake. She browsed through the book racks for something to read, but all she could see were titles with time in them:
The Time Trap, Recipes in No Time Flat, Finding Time for the Timeless.
In the Hilton she watched three episodes of
South Park
back to back, then turned the TV off and slid down on the pillows. She tried to think of this night as an offering on the altar of love, but she wasn't convincing herself. She wondered whether she'd tell Jude, when she called her from Dublin. (She wouldn't let herself call tonight, in case Jude insisted on climbing back into her car, so tired she'd probably rear-end a truck.) There was no valid reason to mention it at all; it would only cause Jude frustration to know that they'd missed out on a whole night together (and who knew when the next would be?). But Síle would no doubt spill out the whole story, tomorrow, as soon as Jude picked up the phone.

In the bag that held her velvet-lined eye mask, she found a small package wrapped in newsprint. She ripped it open and found a strange, humanoid figure made of flat stones glued together. The note said

Made you this Inukshuk one night when I couldn't sleep. It's an Inuit thing, a beacon for travelers, meaning "meat buried here" or "try coming this way" or "evil spirits begone" or maybe just "hang on.
"

All yours, keep believing, Jude