Landing Gear (10 page)

He had to get rid of that bag. He’d take it to school. He’d find Ruby—where was Ruby?—and ask her to give it back to her brother. He wasn’t expecting his money back or anything like that, he knew Ruby’s brother wouldn’t offer sale or return, refunds within twenty-eight days, money-back guarantee. But it seemed like the most logical thing to do—get the drugs back to the drug dealer, where they belonged.

So Jack packed his lunch and packed his school bag and got together his PE kit for football training after school. His mother offered him an apple, and he agreed to take it because he knew it would make her happy. At the last minute, he ran back upstairs and pulled the little plastic bag out from where he’d hidden it inside his old piggybank—“Acorn-fed Iberian jamón!” his father used to say whenever Jack got out the piggybank—and thinking about this now, the innocence of it, his parents and their middle-class ways, made Jack want to cry.

He ran back down the stairs and, once again, his parents were having some kind of a faceoff in the kitchen,
though this time no one was hitting anyone else. He said goodbye to them both without breaking his stride, though he saw a sadness, a despair on both their faces that he’d never seen before. Out the front door, into the April sunshine, and down the street.

Jack was alarmed to see two uniformed officers in the parking lot of the school. He waved at a few of his friends, but kept his head down and went straight into the library, where he knew he’d be left to his own devices. In the corridor there were new notices stating “COUNSELLING AVAILABLE.” He passed a huddle of sixth-formers, several of whom were crying. Most of the staff was back at work by now, but the school had a hush to it, as unusual as the absence of planes had been the previous Monday.

In his form group, the teacher, Mr. Rushdie (not a popular member of staff; otherwise known as Fatwa, though Jack had no idea why) stood up, cleared his throat, looked uncomfortable and said, “I’m sure you’ve heard the very sad news regarding David McDonald. I don’t have any other information to give you—there’ll be an assembly later this week. The police are here in case anyone has any information they’d like to pass on—you can talk to me or talk to them directly. Classes will proceed as normal. Have a good day.”

Fatwa had never told them to have a good day before. That in itself was disconcerting.

At first break Jack rushed over to the far side of the playing field, near the trees, where Ruby usually hung out with their friends. There was no sign of her. A group
of kids was standing in a tight circle. Jack nudged Frank to one side so he could get in and see what was happening. Louise was standing in the middle and she was crying.

“Fuck, that’s bad,” Abdul was saying, shaking his head. “Really bad.”

“Why’d you come in today?” Frank asked her. “Did your mum make you?”

Louise nodded, but she couldn’t speak. The other girls had their arms around her.

“We were there,” Frank said. “God.”

Jack looked around sharply, trying to see where those police officers were. “Where’s Ruby?” he asked Louise.

Everyone looked at him as though he was an idiot.

“She’s in hospital—didn’t you know?” one of the other girls said.

“Hospital?” said Jack.

“Don’t you know anything?” Abdul asked. “Weren’t you there?”

Frank stepped away from the group, motioning to Jack to follow him, as if he didn’t want the others—Jack guessed Louise—to hear what he had to say. “Look, man, they took a bunch of stuff,” said Frank. “Ruby, David McDonald, I don’t know who else—five of them. They all got really sick. David had something wrong with his heart that they didn’t know about. It stopped. He died. The other four, they’re in hospital. But they’re not dead. And they’re not going to die.”

“Where’d they get the drugs from?”

Frank shook his head. “No idea.” He lowered his voice further. “Ruby, don’t you think?”

“Shit.”

“Full police investigation,” Frank said, knowledgeably. “They’ve got the names of everyone who was at the party.”

“Why are you going around saying you were there, then?” Jack asked.

“There’s a difference between actually being on the list and saying you’re on the list.”

Jack snorted.

“But you’re on the list, Jack, I’m sure.”

Frank returned to the huddle around Louise. Jack walked across the tarmac toward the school, not completely sure where he was going. What was he going to do with the bag of weed? He couldn’t just throw it away—what if the rumour that there were surveillance cameras hidden all over the school was true? Jesus. What was he fucking going to do with the motherfucking drugs he was carrying in his bag?

27

Two days after he replied to her message, Harriet arranged to meet George Sigo in a pub in Brixton. She hadn’t been to Brixton since the 1980s. It was changed, and yet unchanged, like most of London, a little more gentrified, a little smarter around the edges. There are bits of London that feel newer now than they did in the past, as if getting richer had made the city younger as well, but less authentic too, more plastic, like a rich old woman with a brightly sliced and pulled-taut face. Brixton had that feeling in parts, though the dense crowd still rushed from the tube station up to the bus stops along the pavement. Harriet walked down Electric Avenue, unsure whether she was hearing music for real or hearing music from her memory.

The pub was just the same, the same old men playing dominoes out back, the same Eddy Grant record playing. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, so the place was nearly empty. Harriet sat at a table with a view of the door, waiting for George Sigo.

He looked the same, if a little craggier, as though time had roughed him up instead of aging him. He still had his black Irish good looks, though his short dark hair was flecked with grey. She hadn’t known him well, really. And then he’d gone to prison, something to do with his
Republican politics—she’d taken care to stay well clear of anything to do with that. She’d wanted nothing more to do with him, in fact. She disappeared from her old life, changing her name when she married Michael. She was untraceable, she thought. And here she was, at her own instigation, revealed.

“George,” she said.

He stood in front of her and did not look friendly.

“Take a seat,” she said. “Let me get you a drink.”

He nodded, said, “I’ll have a pint of ale,” and took off his jacket, hanging it over the back of a chair, straightening the shoulders before sitting down carefully. Harriet squeezed by him to get to the bar. As she ordered their drinks she could tell he was watching, staring at her, measuring. He stood up and came toward her. The barman was pulling the pint of ale; he’d poured Harriet’s ginger beer already. Harriet took a few steps along the bar, closer to the barman.

“I looked for you, Harriet,” George said.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

George nodded, but he didn’t move as Harriet got out her purse. She noticed the barman was watching them both closely. She picked up the drinks and walked back to the table.

She sat. George followed but remained standing. He towered over her. He was dressed in fitted black trousers, a slim white shirt, the jacket he’d hung so carefully on the chair, and a skinny black tie, as though it was still the 1980s. “I looked for you when I got out,” he said, “for the better part of a decade.”

“I went my own way. I thought it was for the best.”

“Why have you contacted me now?”

“Why don’t you sit down?”

He didn’t.

“Well,” Harriet said, “I thought I should tell you.” She stopped. “A lot of time has gone by.”

“Too much time,” said George.

“What have you been doing all these years?” Harriet asked. How could she have been so rash? Why had getting in touch with him seemed like a good idea? A reaction to what had happened with Michael? Stupid. Childish. She still hadn’t talked to Michael since he arrived home; she hadn’t told him she was meeting George Sigo.

“What are you doing here, Harriet?” He moved closer to where she was sitting, took hold of her shoulder and squeezed it hard. “Tell me,” he said, “where she is.”

Harriet winced and attempted to pull away.

“Hey, George.” The barman had come out from behind the bar. He was standing behind George, who turned to look at him, allowing Harriet to free herself from George’s grip. She moved around the table to a stool on the other side. “How’ve you been lately?” the barman continued.

George’s tone softened slightly. “I’m fine, Craig,” he said. “Doing fine.”

“Are you taking your meds?” Craig asked. “You know you’re not allowed in here unless you’re taking your meds and keeping your appointments.” Craig looked at Harriet and smiled, as though this was common knowledge. “He forgets to take them sometimes. Then he ends up back on
the ward and banned from here. And no one’s happy.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Craig. You’re not my daddy.” George reached for his jacket. He pulled a hospital card out of the inside pocket and handed it to the barman.

Craig looked at it. He looked at Harriet, nodding, as though they were complicit in some way. “It’s such a shame you need to leave. But you’re late, aren’t you? For that thing.”

“Late,” said Harriet. She understood. She stood up and put on her coat. “I am late. Thanks for reminding me.”

“No problem,” the barman said. “Another time, eh, George?”

Harriet, flustered, dropped her bag. She stooped to pick it up, and as she stood, George grabbed her once again. The young barman took hold of George’s arm.

“George,” Craig said, his voice full of warning.

George pushed his face close to Harriet’s. She could smell his breath: yeasty, like rising bread.

“What’s her name?” he asked.

“Who?” said Harriet, but she knew who he meant.

“She’ll be twenty-four now. What’s her name?”

The barman gave George’s arm a yank, which succeeded in throwing him off-balance. He let go of Harriet.

She walked toward the door as quickly as she could. She opened it wide and sunlight flooded into the dim bar. As she crossed the threshold, she heard George Sigo speak once again. “I know
your
name now,” he said. “I know where to find
you
.”

28

It took Yacub the whole day to walk across Dubai from the labour camp to the hotel where Imran conducted his business. Dubai is not a pedestrian-friendly city. Even Karachi with its broken-down pavements and roads, its sandbagged and gun-turreted buildings, was easier to get around by foot. Yacub mostly walked in the dirt at the side of the highway; cars rushed by, the hot churning wind slammed against him, and the sun beat down on his bare neck. He was wearing his oldest shalwar kameez, but the thin material still felt too heavy.

The hotel was enormous, set between the road and the canal, surrounded by vast landscaped grounds and building sites. The front entrance was accessed via a long drive; this was not the way the hotel workers normally arrived. Yacub saw a lorry turn in farther along the road, so he made his way round the side of the hotel, where he found the trade entrance. The sun was setting as he slipped into the hotel behind a man pushing a shrink-wrapped pallet of goods. He walked through the unadorned service area, down its battered corridors until he found a men’s room. There, he gulped water direct from the tap before washing in the sink; from his carrier bag, he retrieved his only decent pair of Western-style trousers and his only
good shirt, leftover from his time working in Karachi.

Once dressed, he inspected himself in the mirror over the sink. Now he looked like a lowly clerk, which was better than a lowly labourer.

Yacub grabbed his plastic bag of dirty clothes and made his way through the hotel. Last night Imran had declared that the twenty-eighth floor of this hotel belonged to him, and Yacub remembered this as he made his way from the service area into the plush, air-conditioned splendour of the hotel itself. The carpet was thick beneath his feet and the foyer was populated by giant floral displays scenting the already perfumed air. He found his way to the elevators. As he stood there, unsure of what to do next, one of the sets of doors opened and a European man in a suit got out. Yacub stepped inside. A European woman, also wearing a suit, was in the elevator already; she frowned at him. Soft music played in the background. The woman got out at the twentieth floor. The doors closed. For a moment, nothing happened. The music continued to play but the elevator didn’t move. Yacub pressed the number 28.

On the twenty-eighth floor the doors opened to the sound of pulsing music. Yacub hesitated, then stepped out as the doors began to slide shut. To his left, a set of double doors were slightly ajar. Yacub stood at the threshold, pushed the door a little more open and looked in. The large room was kitted out like a nightclub, with a bar along one wall, tables and chairs around a small dance floor where one woman danced slowly. Coloured lights flashed overhead while low lamps spread minimal light through
the rest of the room. A small crowd of European men stood by the bar. As he stared through the darkness, Yacub made out a seating area with plump sofas and low chairs and a number of Asian women sitting on the sofas, as well as on the high stools off to one side of the dance floor. Yacub stepped into the room and stood still as the lights flashed blue, red and green across his white shirt.

Two of the Pakistani girls from yesterday’s limo were seated on high stools near the door. “Hello, sir,” one said, smiling sweetly, and Yacub could see she recognized him. He dipped his head in her direction. At that moment, Imran strode into the room.

“Okay,” he said, looking at Yacub. “Take this receipt down to the service area. A porter will help you bring the order up.”

Yacub took the piece of paper. He felt stunned by the coloured lights and the sofas and the girls—the entire room and the world it contained.

“I know,” Imran said, and paused. “You missed the airlift.”

Yacub swallowed hard, and looked down at the receipt he was holding.

“Go on. Get on with it.”

29

The plan Michael made during the flight from Toronto was simple: say nothing.