The Blasphemer: A Novel (7 page)

‘Cramp?’ Nancy asked, flicking back a strand of hair. She had a very un-English habit of starting conversations with strangers; but this, to Daniel, looked more like flirtation.

‘Yeah, right here in my calves,’ the young man said with a
grimace and what Daniel recognized instantly as the springy accent of the Massachusetts north shore.

Nancy ground the palm of one hand against the other – a demonstration. ‘Try massaging the balls of your feet.’

‘Thanks,’ the young man said, removing a flip-flop and hopping on one foot while rubbing the other. When he had finished, he gave a wide smile that exposed expensive American teeth. ‘Greg,’ he said with a pat of his chest. ‘Greg Coulter.’

‘Hello, Greg Greg Coulter. I’m Nancy. We saw you at the restaurant in Quito.’

‘Yeah? You guys on holiday?’

Nancy nodded. ‘You?’

‘Honeymoon.’ He pointed at the seat behind them. ‘We got married three days ago.’

Nancy patted Daniel’s knee, bare below Bermuda shorts. ‘Did you hear that, Mr Kennedy? They’ve just got married.’

‘Congratulations,’ Daniel said, turning to smile at Greg’s younglooking wife who was sitting behind them, her pale, goosepimpled legs tucked under her.

‘Not afraid of commitment, you see,’ Nancy added, not looking at Daniel.

‘I didn’t realize you two were together,’ Daniel said to the child bride. ‘You’ve been so quiet back there. Why don’t we swap seats so you guys can sit with each other?’

‘That’s OK,’ Greg said. ‘We’re nearly there.’

There was a lull in which the droning of the engines could be heard.

‘Actually,’ Nancy said, ‘
I
’m on holiday but my “biological pairbond” here …’ she patted Daniel’s knee again, ‘is working. He looks at things through microscopes. Spores, moulds, bacteria.’

‘I only look at those things for fun. I specialize in worms.’

‘He’s an international authority on nonsegmented roundworms,’ Nancy continued, enjoying herself. ‘They’re microscopic.’

‘The first living organism to have its entire genetic blueprint decoded,’ the child bride said, joining in with an uncertain smile, leaning over the back of Nancy’s seat. A silver cross was swinging
forward on a chain around her neck. She was wearing a microskirt and a clinging T-shirt with a peace sign drawn in diamante sequins. It was cut to show her midriff. It also showed she wasn’t wearing a bra.

Daniel clasped his hands like an indulgent vicar. ‘Very good!’

‘They have a nervous system, can digest food and have sex, like humans,’ the child bride continued with a chewy American accent.

‘That’s why they’re so significant.’

‘Now you’re scaring me,’ Daniel said.

‘I thought I recognized you,’ the child bride said. She turned to her husband. ‘Told you I recognized him.’ She faced Daniel again. ‘You did that programme on the Natural World Channel, didn’t you?’

Daniel helped her out: ‘
The Selfish Planet
.’

The child bride lowered her eyes and gave a shy smile. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘I thought it was real interesting. You always been into biology and stuff?’

‘Yeah, I suppose I have,’ Daniel said. ‘My name’s Dan, by the way.’ He raised his eyebrows and paused for her to offer her name.

She nodded and smiled a second time. He tried again. ‘And you are?’

‘Susie.’ She leaned forward. ‘Must be great being on television, giving people pleasure.’

‘Thought you said you’d seen his programme,’ Nancy said. A look of confusion played across Susie’s face.

‘Take no notice,’ Daniel said. ‘You’re from Boston, aren’t you?’

Susie’s lashless eyes expanded. She was blushing. ‘How d’you know that?’

‘Recognized the intonation. Lovely place, Bean Town. Lived there myself until quite recently.’

Nancy punched his leg playfully. ‘As a student.’ She turned to Susie. ‘Before you were born, I imagine.’

‘I was a postgrad, darling,’ Daniel said. ‘So it wasn’t
that
long ago.’

‘Harvard?’ Susie asked.

The seaplane shuddered. Greg steadied himself by grabbing a curtain that was screening off the galley. Daniel began breathing
slowly and deeply. He felt his belly contracting. Tap-tap of fingertip on watch face: 8.54am.

‘Fear of flying,’ Nancy mouthed to Susie, directing a thumb at Daniel.

‘No, not Harvard,’ Daniel said as he recovered his composure. ‘I was at MIT. And it’s not fear of flying. Flying I’m fine with, …’

Nancy finished the sentence with him: ‘… it’s crashing I don’t like.’

Daniel gave her a patient look. The annoying truth, as far as he was concerned, was that it wasn’t only the crashing he was afraid of. Planes made him feel claustrophobic. They gave him vertigo. More to the point, he hated ceding control of his life to someone else. Flying was an act of faith in the people who build, inspect and fly planes: as a scientist, Daniel knew he of all people should appreciate that. But he was not a great believer in faith.

‘I keep telling him it’s irrational,’ Nancy said. ‘He hates that. Thinks he’s the most rational man on the planet.’

‘The urge not to defy gravity is far from irrational,’ Daniel said. Realizing this sounded pompous, he added: ‘Besides, I haven’t met everyone on the planet so how would I know whether I’m the most rational man on it.’ He smiled to show he was joking.

Nancy smiled back. ‘Statistically you are more likely to be kicked to death by a cow than you are to die in a plane crash, isn’t that right, Mr Kennedy?’

Daniel sighed. ‘
Donkey
. And plenty of people are kicked to death by donkeys. Several hundred a year.’

Donkey. The word had an unexpected resonance for Daniel. Donkeys led by lions. No, that wasn’t right. Lions led by donkeys. His great-grandfather Andrew had been one of the lions. A fearless lion roaring as he charged across no-man’s-land … The letters … ‘Shit. I’ve left those letters in the safe at the hotel.’

‘Well, they’ll be safe there,’ Nancy said. ‘Safe there! Christ, I’m funny. We can pick them up when we get back to Quito.’

Daniel rubbed his finger and thumb together as he considered the letters, what they meant, why they had spooked his father.

‘He doesn’t like it when anyone else uses probability,’ Nancy
continued, addressing the others again and breaking into Daniel’s thoughts. ‘Probability is his big thing. His catch-all explanation … He normally takes diazepam.’

This was true. His doctor friend, Bruce, usually obliged with the prescription, though Nancy had come to the prescriptive rescue on more than one occasion. Diazepam was a better cure for nerves than alcohol. Daniel had read up on it: if you drink alcohol when you are feeling anxious it makes you over-emotional and your blood less able to absorb oxygen, which it is being starved of anyway, because you are panicking. As this was a fairly short flight, Daniel thought he would risk it without diazepam.

‘You OK, Dan?’ Nancy whispered, sounding protective. Her breath smelled of chewing gum. At that moment Daniel’s unease about the flight was coupled with an enveloping feeling of affection for his wife-to-be. Seeing that Greg was looking out of the window, he slipped his hand under the sarong tied low around her hips. Unbuckled his seat belt. Stood up. There were thirteen passengers on board – he counted them as he negotiated Nancy’s legs on his way to the aisle. He opened the overhead locker, unzipped his bag, pulled out a map and struggled to rezip it. The padded box containing his specimen jars and test tubes had risen to the top. He pulled them out, removed his swimming trunks, fins and snorkel, stuffed the box down the side of the bag and jammed the trunks, fins and snorkel back on top of them. With a struggle, he was able to rezip. He surveyed the other passengers. A couple in row six had fallen asleep. In row eight, a septuagenarian with hornrimmed glasses and skin hanging down in pleats was nodding to himself as he read the
International Herald Tribune
. The old-fashioned glasses made him look as if he was in disguise. A retired CIA agent, Daniel thought. Or an international paedophile. Either way, he had swapped seats at the beginning of the flight with the tall, solidly built black man with his legs stretched out in seat 1a.

‘How many?’ Nancy asked without looking up from the
National Geographic
she was again flicking through.

‘How many what?’

‘Passengers.’

‘Dunno.’

‘There are thirteen. I counted them, too. Don’t worry, it’s just a number.’

‘I’m not worried.’

‘Lots of people are superstitious about numbers. They’re called triskaidekaphobes.’

‘I know they are. And I am not one of them. I’m not superstitious. How many more times?’

‘Do you know why the number thirteen is considered unlucky?’

‘Yep.’

‘It’s because there were thirteen apostles originally, before Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus.’

‘I know.’

It amused Nancy to imitate his teacherly custom of offering unwanted explanations. She knew that, though Daniel pretended to find it annoying, he enjoyed it really. Daniel sighed again, because he knew Nancy liked to pretend that it annoyed her.

There was another shudder, lighter this time. It made the gut of the tall black man jiggle. Susie unzipped a bumbag and produced a bright yellow underwater camera. ‘Can I take a photograph, Dan?’

Daniel pointed a finger at himself. ‘Of me?’

‘Here,’ Greg said, taking the camera. ‘I’ll take one of you together. Stand next to him, Sus.’

Daniel felt embarrassed as Susie put her arm around his waist and the other passengers turned to stare, trying to work out why the young woman would want a photograph of herself with him. The picture taken, Daniel returned to his seat and strapped himself in. Susie took the camera back and framed another shot – of Nancy and Daniel sitting together. She took one of Greg half crouching beside Nancy. As the flash went off, Greg was staring at Nancy’s cleavage, the weight and depth of the press between her breasts rendered more impressive than usual by a black ‘deep plunge’ bra purchased at Heathrow.

‘Hang on,’ Susie said. ‘You weren’t looking at the camera, babe. Let me take another.’

The seaplane trembled for a few seconds. Daniel gripped the
armrests and concentrated hard on keeping it in the air. Standard prop blades create a hum, which, along with the airstreams passing over the wings, becomes white noise after a while. Daniel focused on that for a few seconds and felt calmer. As he was sitting near the propellers, his body was vibrating in rhythm with the plane. That calmed him a little, too.

Nancy put an arm round his shoulder and pulled him gently towards her, so that the side of his face was resting on her neck. He closed his eyes and smelled the Ambre Solaire on her skin. She sometimes wore this in winter, to remind herself – and her patients – of holidays. They couldn’t quite identify what it was, she reckoned, but it nevertheless lifted their spirits.

A jolt made Daniel sit back squarely in his seat. He checked his belt. Nancy removed her arm and signalled the flight attendant for another beer. Daniel stared blankly ahead, amorphous anxiety mounting. How, he thought, had he got himself into this situation?
Light aircraft are not safe. Light aircraft are not safe. Light aircraft are not safe.
He should have followed his instincts and taken the boat from Ecuador, as he had on his last pilgrimage to the Galápagos Islands.

Greg stood up again and used a Handycam to film the other passengers. When Daniel saw he was being filmed he gave a weak smile and distracted himself by reaching into the seat pocket for the safety instructions card. It was in Spanish. He put it back unread, remembered the map, unfolded half of it and laid it out on his knees to see if the sandbanks they had flown over were marked. He followed the line of their flight with his finger, but he could not see them.

The flight attendant brought Nancy another can of beer and said: ‘The captain asked me to remind you to collect your CD when we land.’

Nancy chewed her lower lip, turned to Daniel and blinked her long, black eyelashes twice. Daniel’s left eyebrow was forming a quizzical arch. ‘That was
your
Hall and Oates album?’

‘Bought it at the airport.’

Daniel was laughing. ‘That’s funny. Now
that
is funny. I like that. How the hell did you remember I hated Hall and Oates?’

Nancy shrugged. ‘Just did.’

There was a second jolt. Daniel stopped laughing and folded the map away, breathing slowly and unobtrusively through his mouth. He began clenching and unclenching his fists, concentrating on breathing, on not hyperventilating, on keeping the plane in the air. The trouble was, as well he knew, once your heart rate goes up and you start sweating and struggling for breath, you begin to panic more. You start feeding your own anxiety.
Why did no one else notice the bumps?

‘How long before we land?’ Nancy said. Thinking Daniel was pretending to ignore her, she repeated her question. ‘Dan? How long before we land?’

More shuddering, lasting longer this time. Greg returned to his seat and buckled up. Daniel yawned. His fingers were tingling and a release of adrenalin was giving him butterflies. Blood flowing away from the stomach, he thought edgily – the fight or flight mechanism. He now felt his ears pop. We must be beginning our descent, he thought. He swallowed hard and tapped his watch: 9.00am. There was a gentle bump followed by a harder one, more of a lurch. Another yawn. Daniel couldn’t stop yawning – his nervousness had gone up a gear and his brain was trying to get more oxygen. There was a film of sweat on his forehead. The
FASTEN SAFETY BELTS
sign came on, accompanied by a
ping
. Greg checked his seat belt. Daniel checked Nancy’s belt and gently raked the backs of his fingers across a small, exposed part of her abdomen, over the stretch marks she had once compared to sidewinder trails in the desert. He swallowed again and checked the buckle on his own belt. He raised his blind and, without looking down, wiped the window with his sleeve, making a squeaking noise. Condensation was building up. The air outside was a clear, cornflower blue. ‘Do you know why the sky is blue?’ he asked Nancy, trying to take his mind off the turbulence, trying to control the tone of his voice, trying not to give himself away.