Landing Gear (24 page)

7

Yacub was Emily’s final interview, the last interview she was going to do for this project. One more interview, she told herself, then that was it.

He came in and sat down on the sofa straight away. Though it was Sunday morning, he had to be out at Heathrow for work that afternoon. “Turn the camera on, I’m ready,” he said.

Emily obeyed. “You know, it turns out you’re my nearly-brother, in a way,” she said, “according to Harriet and Jack.”

“Nearly-brother,” he said. “Almost-cousin. My
goray
family.”

“My colleague, Rob—”

“Who is this Rob?” Yacub asked. “You keep mentioning him. I hope you aren’t considering some kind of involvement with this man prior to introducing him to us?”

“I’ll bring him next time I come for tea.”

Yacub nodded, satisfied.

“Rob went to Pakistan to film for the BBC recently.”

“Oh?”

“He had an amazing time—he wants to meet you. Anyway, he said the two things he noticed most while he was there—”

“Apart from the extreme danger and violence and desperate poverty?”

“Apart from that—was the fact that the whole time he felt like a giant white alien, and that Pakistanis are world-class experts at staring.”

Yacub laughed. “It’s a funny thing, isn’t it. It was something I learned when I was working for Imran in Dubai. Not everyone in the world is as happy to stare or be stared at. This is something at which Pakistanis excel.”

“Rob rather liked it. He said he figured that if everyone felt free to stare at him with such dedication, he was free to stare right back.”

“Stare right back!” Yacub repeated. “Good idea.”

“Okay,” said Emily, indicating the camera.

“There isn’t really anything more to talk about, is there?” Yacub asked.

“Isn’t there?”

Yacub spread his hands and raised his eyebrows.

“I have a theory,” Emily said.

“I’m not a djinni,” Yacub replied. “I’m not dead either.”

“I might have never met Harriet if it wasn’t for you.”

Yacub shook his head. “You’d been following each other for so long, at some point you were bound to collide.”

“Maybe. I saw you fall. And I know you saved Jack’s life. And Harriet and Michael—you helped them.”

“No. They are married. They are happy.”

“What do you really think about all of us, Yacub?”

He shrugged. “I’m here. This is where I belong.”

“Do you think?”

Yacub shrugged again. “Sometimes. Some days.”

“Tell me about when you were on the plane, Yacub.”

A frown passed across Yacub’s face. “What plane?”

“Tell me what it is was like on that tiny metal shelf above the landing gear beneath the belly of that airplane.”

8

Emily sat staring at her computer screen. Three hundred and sixteen hours of footage, including all the covert filming she’d done between 2010 and 2012. Another hundred and twelve hours of filming since then. Two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven photographs. Twelve hours of Emily’s own straight-to-camera narration. Seven interviews. It was all there. The story of Harriet, Michael, Yacub and Jack. Her story, Emily’s own story, the story of her birth mother, and Harriet, and …

It was impossible. She hadn’t begun to edit and already she felt defeated.

Work on
Ginger
was, as always, very busy, and now that Emily had been promoted, she often worked a six-day week. Time off was exceedingly precious. Once the current series began to air, with its new, more elaborate punishments, more than half of the participants had tried to pull out, and it had become her job to keep them sweet, to prevent them from leaving. One girl, whose name was Edna and whose long, wavy hair was like spun sugar flavoured with mandarin, completely otherworldly—had dyed her hair black. She showed up on the set a few days after walking out, wanting to return, and the executive producer threatened to sack her. Emily
persuaded him to keep the girl on—her hair would grow out, which was almost a storyline in itself, and she still had those mandarin eyebrows, those eyelashes, those freckles. Why anyone would agree to be on the show was beyond Emily, but she was good at her job.

She thought of her father. “Get on with it, girl,” he’d say. She thought of the silver-scaled coffin he was buried in. It did make her laugh now, enough time had lapsed. He’d be pleased.

Okay, get on with it. She opened a new document. I’ll do it. I’ll do it the way I know best. The reality show version. Do a draft script and a rough edit. Then at least I’ll have something to work on, something to work against. Something to show for myself.

EPILOGUE

OUR STUFF AND OUR THINGS

SPRING 2015

TITLE SCREEN:

FALLING

a documentary by Emily Barry

A CLOSED LAPTOP. Anonymous hand opens screen. Browser opens to YouTube. Video begins to play in browser:

A TOWN HALL full of ballot boxes, party supporters, election officials. Beside the stage, a MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN in a dark red jacket.

MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN:

Here at Tipton Mallet—a town unaccustomed to media attention—the battle for votes has been intense. Last year’s unfortunate death of the Labour incumbent, Simon Taylor, MP for 25 years, combined with the accusations of Conservative Party HQ interference in candidate selection, and the unexpectedly high ratings in the polls …

VIDEO GOES FULL-SCREEN and plays out until MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN is tackled by MAN (2 minutes)

BLACK SCREEN

VIDEO CLIP of MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN leaving her house, getting into her car and driving away.

(45 seconds) (SPRING)

VIDEO CLIP of MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN leaving her house, getting into her car and driving away.

(30 seconds) (SUMMER)

VIDEO CLIP of MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN leaving her house, getting into her car and driving away.

(15 seconds) (WINTER)

VIDEO CLIP of MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN leaving house, getting into car and driving away. (SPRING AGAIN) CAMERA follows behind, weaving in and out of traffic, falling back, catching up at stop signs and traffic lights. Follows car into SUPERMARKET CAR PARK. MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN parks car, gets out and walks into SUPERMARKET.

CUT TO: Footage filmed from block of flats. MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN exits SUPERMARKET with a trolley full of shopping.

CUT TO: FALLING MAN footage—FALLING MAN dropping through sky.

BLACK SCREEN

REPLAY: FALLING MAN footage played out once again—this time all the way until he lands on car.

CUT TO: FALLING MAN standing beside window, looking out. CAMERA follows his gaze out the window. PAN of London suburb, ZOOM into SUPERMARKET CAR PARK.

CUT TO: FALLING MAN sitting on the sofa.

FALLING MAN:

England is kind of a … funny country, but I’m getting used to it. It’s not as funny as Pakistan, mind you.

CUT TO: JACK on the sofa.

JACK

He kind of flew toward me—Yacub. I don’t know how else to explain it. He was on the riverbank one moment, down at the edge of the water. I saw him before I went under once again. I was really losing it now. I’d swallowed a ton of water and my clothes were fucking heavy, and all of a sudden I was so tired, I—Well. I went under and when I came up he was swooping across the water toward me, and then he had me under the arms and—jesus—I’m nearly twice his size—and he hauled me out of the water.

CUT TO: HARRIET on the sofa, MICHAEL watching her speak.

HARRIET

She fell through the air. I saw it happen. I looked up and she was falling. She looked surprised, not frightened, just sort of—hey, what’s this? She was falling. Falling.

BLACK SCREEN

A PHOTOGRAPH—YOUNG WOMAN, smiling, wearing a summer dress with spaghetti straps and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

CAMERA REMAINS on still PHOTOGRAPH

MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN (VOICEOVER)

There she is. Your mother. You look just like her.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The story of Yacub and his fall to earth was inspired by an article by Esther Addley and Rory McCarthy in
The Guardian
, published in 2001. The digital fiction project I developed with Chris Joseph, “Flight Paths: A Networked Novel,” grew directly out of discussion around this story; more than one hundred people participated in the first iteration of “Flight Paths” and I am indebted to them all, including the project’s funders, Arts Council England, and supporters: De Montfort University’s Institute of Creative Technologies, Refugee Week and New York’s Institute for the Future of the Book. Documentation of this iteration of the project, as well as “Flight Paths” itself, can be found at
www.flightpaths.net

Invaluable advice on the novel as well as its digital companions has come from many places and people, including Chris Joseph, Andy Campbell, Martha Kearney, Mandy Rose, Mahvesh Murad, Sara Schilt, Sue Thomas and Tom Mellor. Kat Meyer and Peter Brantley’s invitations to TOC NYC and Books in Browsers in San Francisco have furthered my knowledge of writing, books and the digital immeasurably; Sophie Rochester and Joanna Ellis of The Literary Platform, and our project, The Writing Platform, have been a constant source of inspiration. The Electronic Literature Organization’s inclusion of “Flight Paths” in the
Electronic Literature Collection, Volume Two, has been vital.

The British Council sent me to Pakistan in 2011; I learned a huge amount from my wonderful hosts and the students I met in Karachi and Lahore. First readers for the novel included Lesley Bryce and Aamer Hussein; their enthusiasm regarding the novel and its structure was crucial. I’d like to thank my agents, Rachel Calder and Anne McDermid, as well as my editor, Nita Pronovost, for their excellent feedback and support. But my biggest thank you is to my family, Simon, Tom and Iris Mellor.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KATE PULLINGER writes for both print and digital platforms. In 2009 her novel
The Mistress of Nothing
won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her prize-winning digital fiction projects
Inanimate Alice
and
Flight Paths: A Networked Novel
have reached audiences around the world.