Mapping the Edge (27 page)

Transit—Monday
A.M.

S
EVEN-TEN A.M.
Pisa Airport. The concourse building starts where the railway track ends, but, alas, there are no direct trains this early, and passengers from Florence have to go to Pisa Central and take a taxi from there to the outskirts of the town. Seven-forty-five is a crazy hour for a flight to London anyway, but this way the aircraft can make the most of a commercial day, zipping to and fro and getting back into Pisa in time for late evening and a cheaper night stopover than Gatwick would ever allow.

The terminal doesn't exactly rise to the occasion. The one duty-free shop is elegant enough, but closed, the café open but ordinary. Most people don't have time for it, anyway. The flight is already boarding, though the desk is still besieged, a mixture of foreign travelers and Italian businessmen with briefcases heavy with spreadsheets and ambition. The woman at the end of the queue fits in neither camp. Though she has just come out from the bathroom, she looks disheveled. Maybe it's her face. Impossible to ignore the thick purple bruise disfiguring her right eyebrow, or the exhaustion in her eyes, not to mention the large plastic bag that seems to constitute her entire luggage.

Although no one is consciously looking at her she is well aware of the impression she must make, and the fact that when it comes to her turn at the desk it will put her at a distinct disadvantage with the ground staff.

As it does. The man on the desk tries not to look at her face as he scrolls down the computer lists shaking his head all the time. “I'm sorry, madam. We are absolutely full,” he says in admirably plain English. “And as you see, there is a waiting list.”

She takes a breath. “But you don't understand. I have to get home. My child is waiting for me. I've been trying to get out of Florence for the last three days. The British Airways office in town—they told me this flight would be the one. They told me to come here and try.”

He frowns. “They had no right to tell you that, madam. As you can see, we are very busy. This is the high season, and all the planes are full, with people waiting. I'm sorry, but all I can do is to put you on the standby list.”

But she knows this isn't the whole truth. She has friends who fly with silver cards and business accounts. She understands that planes are only full to the wrong people, and that depending on who you are or what you are willing to do you can always find one seat.

He is waiting for her to move, but she stands her ground. Then she begins to cry. Quietly at first, then louder, wilder sobs and clutching of breath as if her very heart might break open on the airport concourse and he, the desk clerk, will be the one who has to pick up the pieces. He watches her with growing apprehension. It is altogether too early for hysteria, and in his experience, despite their phlegmatic reputation, the English have a peculiar talent for it. Around her people are beginning to fidget and look anxious. There is no supervisor on site this early and the flight is due to take off in fifteen minutes. He runs his cursor down the computer lists again, then checks the waiting list and the clock.

“All right,” he says. And she calms down with impressive speed. “. . . World Traveller is completely full. I can't do anything there. But it looks as if we will have one club seat free. There's a waiting list on it, but since this is an emergency and a question of children . . . Of course, the seat is more expensive.” And he looks up, obviously hoping this will change her mind.

“How much?”

He pushes a few buttons and comes up with a sum that would have taken her to New York and back by most carriers. She doesn't blink an eye, just digs out her wallet and lays the cash on the table, a mixture of English and Italian notes and finally, when that isn't quite enough, the last ten thousand lire in change.

By the time he completes the paperwork and hands her the boarding pass the flight is already flashing last call. At the bank of phones at the back of the concourse she rummages frantically through her plastic bag, pulling out clothes and packages in search of any overlooked currency, adding a few further coins to the pile of lire stacked near the receiver. She takes all the money and shoves it into the slot, then dials. At the other end the message is short and to the point.

“Anna and Lily are not in at the moment. If you want to send a fax please dial—”

She gets ready to speak. . . .

Home—Monday
A.M.

I
HAD SET
the alarm for 7:30, scared that we might somehow oversleep and she would miss school, but of course I was awake long before that, lying with her by my side, imagining the rest of my life as a working mother. I had drafted out my resignation letter to the firm and put the apartment on the market. I had yet to find the right job in London—part-time in corporate law is something of a contradiction in terms—but I was far from exhausting the possibilities. As I went through all this, I didn't think about Anna. It was almost as if she were in cold storage somewhere, suspended in Dante's Purgatory, somewhere between the living and the dead. “Due home any time,” it read on her label, “contingency plans being made meanwhile.”

I had got as far as next year's summer holiday visiting my father in New South Wales when the telephone rang. I looked at my watch. It was 6:37. Too early for Paul.

But an hour later in Italy.

“—not in at the moment. If you want to send a fax—”

Who else could it be but her?

“—leave a message after the beep.”

As I hurtled my way down the stairs to switch off the machine I thought of Lily and my mother and all the ways in which you can never, never predict what is going to happen next. Thank God.

“Thank you for call—”

I had it in my hand. I pressed the Off switch and brought it to my ear.

The line was loud and alive with what could have been the sound of a voice, and then, equally suddenly, it was dead.

“Anna,” I said softly into the receiver. “Anna.” Because in that split second I was absolutely sure that it was indeed she, and that the tunnel of madness we had been pulled through, the fantasies with which we had been torturing ourselves, were about to end.

At the top of the stairs Lily, the telephone ghost, was standing waiting, drawn by the echo of the ring.

I grinned up at her. “I think that was your mum,” I said.

And in the joy of her returning smile I saw myself flinging open the windows of my apartment, lighting a joint, watching the smoke curl through my fingertips as I sat contentedly alone.

Three days away can be a long time.

Transit—Monday
A.M.

T
HE LINE IS
dead, the money finished. She slaps the phone angrily, then, grabbing her bag, turns and starts to run toward the departure gate. The concourse is almost empty now; any remaining would-be travelers have dropped off the end of the waiting list and have either left or are settling in for the day.

She is the last through Passport Control, the last through the security check. She smiles her apologies. She is eager to be gone. Glancing into the departure lounge ahead, she sees it is empty apart from the ground staff at the gate, checking the lists in front of them. They won't go without her. Not a club-class passenger. Surely.

As she scoops up her bag at the end of the X-ray machine the top layer comes loose, spewing clothing onto the rollers. She stuffs it back in, and as she does she realizes something is missing. She plunges her fingers down deep into the bag, feeling for the wrapping paper, searching for the weight of heavy wood and the sharp ridge of horse legs. But it's not there. Lily's present: she must have taken it out when she was going through her bag for extra coins to make the call, must have left it at the telephones. She can see it in her mind's eye, discarded on the floor, waiting for her to come back for it. The wooden horse. Maybe the only thing from this whole wild, vicious journey worth keeping. She glances quickly back from where she has come, but the concourse is already a foreign country (separated by customs and Passport Control). And the flight is leaving. . . .

Her hesitation lasts barely a second before she hauls up her bag and moves swiftly toward the gate.

The departure lounge stretches out in front of Anna like the future. On the other side of the barrier the rest of her life is waiting, and she is aching to walk into it. She will be different now, she knows, though in what ways it is, as yet, impossible to tell. She can already imagine her arrival: the sound of the key in the lock, the force of Lily's body as she flings herself up and into her arms, their joint voices exploding into laughter. With each step she feels lighter, carefree, made almost younger by the sense of anticipation.

Anna is coming home.

Meanwhile, behind her a man walks across the airport concourse to a bank of telephones and, reaching down, lifts up a small brown package, before continuing on his way.

About the Author

S
ARAH
D
UNANT
has written six suspense novels, three of which have been shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Golden Dagger award, including her most recent,
Transgressions
. Her third novel,
Fatlands
, won the Silver Dagger. As a journalist and critic she has worked extensively in print, radio, and television, where for many years she hosted her own show on the BBC. She has also written two books of essays. She lives in London with her family.

Also by Sarah Dunant

Transgressions

Under My Skin

Fatlands

Birth Marks

Snow Storms in a Hot Climate

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

Copyright © 1999 by Sarah Dunant

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.

 

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

 

This work was originally published in Great Britain by Virago Press in 1999.

 

Dunant, Sarah

Mapping the edge / Sarah Dunant.

p. cm.

1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction.   2. British—Italy—Fiction.   3. Florence (Italy)—Fiction.   4. London (England)—Fiction.   5. Missing persons—Fiction.   6. Single mothers—Fiction.   I. Title.

 

PR6054.U45756 M37 2001

823'.914—dc21       00-042533

 

Random House website address:
www.atrandom.com

eISBN: 978-0-375-50683-3

v3.0