Time to Let Go (24 page)

“Is Patrick married?” Karim asked.

“Oh no. Gay as a goose. That is another thing which I believe has driven my brothers apart. Henrik had always the good looking girlfriends and he fancied himself as the more attractive of the two. Of course, that blew up in his face when he found out that his brother was not competing in the same market, as it were. The girlfriends were sleeping with Henrik, but they often preferred Patrick’s company when they stayed over or came to our house.”

“How does your father feel about the gay thing?”

“He does not know. Ever since Rock Hudson and the AIDS crisis in the eighties he has taken a rather suspicious line on the matter and Patrick felt he had hurt his father too much already with his life choices.”

“Being gay is not a choice,” Karim said.

“I work for an airline. You do not need to teach me anything about the gays. I mastered in the subject,” Hanna pointed out with a smile.

“So you never speak about Patrick?”

“Someone might say: “Patrick is on tour”, but that will be the extent of it. I never tell him where Patrick tours. Some of the gigs are big. Henrik lives now steadily in the UK, but I think he misses the travel and I never mention the holistic retreat in Cornwall that Patrick has set up. He does life coaching and group therapies. He sometimes even gives talks about it and tours with other gurus and spiritual advisers, or whatever they are called. One day my father will see a poster advert for one of those events and faint.”

“Why are you not mentioning any of this
to your father? It seems silly to hide it.”

“Yes, it is,” Hanna confirmed.

“Your brother seems an interesting guy. I find it strange that with his background in psychology he would not be more open with his family.”

“Patrick has inherited my mother’s kind heart. As I mentioned earlier, he doesn’t want to upset anyone. He senses how difficult it would be for his father to accept him and his life, so the two of them
have established the classic ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. That way, of course, they cannot connect and are quite distant. Patrick is so busy; he hardly finds the time to come home. He told me once he thinks that there is nothing better he can do for the family than to leave them be, whereas in his line of work he has the chance of making a huge difference in many people’s lives. To some extent I tend to agree,” Hanna admitted.

“And with regards to your mother?
Does he not come and see her? What about caring for her?”

“He says he cannot make enough effort to see her regularly.
It would only excite her and then break her heart by leaving. He thinks it is kinder to stay away, now that she cannot remember much.”

“Does he even have time for relationships?”

“Now you have found his weak spot,” Hanna replied. “He claims he doesn’t have the time but in my opinion he has serious intimacy issues. He is not great looking, but he has charisma and the most gorgeous hunks throw themselves at him. How none of them ever work out is beyond me. Patrick drops one perfect boyfriend after the other.”

“Does your mother know about Patrick?”

“I think she does. It was never discussed openly. Patrick worried that finding out might hurt her too much. She was always so conservative in her views. I tried to reassure him that whatever her general ideas might be, on a human level she would be fine with it. After all, he is her son!” Hanna said. “He only said that she might worry about him unnecessarily. She did stop asking him about girlfriends some time before the disease kicked in, so we think the knowledge is in there somewhere.”

“Your family
appear to avoid all big discussions,”

“We argue enough already. We could waste a lot more time arguing with each other. By pretending that some of the
serious issues do not exist, on some weird level we are actually closer to each other. Undistracted by things we won’t agree on; the superficial harmonies are slightly false but a better option.”

“Fascinating,” Karim said. “And you want to tighten your ties to the family all the same?”

“I know, I am mad.”

The rest of the meal was spent with more casual conversation about travel destinations and hospital politics. Hanna dropped Karim back at his sister’s house and when she returned to Karim’s place her father was still up.

“You’re up late,” Hanna observed, then added a concerned: “Are you alright?”

Walter sat on the sofa with his war book and absentmindedly toyed with his reading glasses.

“Yes, Pumpkin, of course I am. I am just day dreaming.”

“How was your evening? Was mother better after I left?”

“Who can say,” he said with a heavy sigh.

Hanna felt a pang of guilt for leaving him alone tonight, even though it was him who had told her to leave.

“I am afraid I have to go to London really early tomorrow for some meetings. I’ll call you when I am done so you know when to expect me back.”

“Of course.
Thank you.” He forced a smile at her but she was already out of the door.

Only a few hours later Hanna got into her car, eager to beat the morning traffic in to London. The notion of having to hide from journalists seemed silly now. The letter box in her apartment building in London was
overflowing but the bulk of it was unimportant.

She arrived early at the union office and had plenty of time before her appointment with the lawyer was scheduled.

Two men were on duty this morning in the tiny flat the union had rented next to the airline headquarters. She had worked or ‘flown’ with one of them, Mark, a middle aged family man who did this work mainly to be at home more often with his wife, she remembered him saying. He was on the phone while simultaneously shuffling some papers and files on his desk; the other guy was Tony, a young gay man whom she only knew from the union leaflets.

“Hanna, love!”
Tony called out excitedly and gave her a big hug, “our little heroine. How are you my darling?”

“I am fine
I guess. Not looking forward to this business today,” she admitted. “Where is Nicky?”

“Her son has got a fever, s
he can’t make it, I am afraid; she was devastated when she called me.”

“That’s a shame,” Hanna said, a little deflated.

“I didn’t hear the official brief but I spoke to Nicky this morning and she says it is looking good,” he said, and put his arm around her shoulders in the assumed familiarity between cabin crew.

“Really?
How so?” she asked, desperate for more details.

“The airline confirmed they will cover you. Not that the pigs should ever have hesitated. They pay insurance for such cases. You acted in good faith. They confirmed their support for you yesterday with a press release. The big airline
bosses want to use this as an advertising opportunity. With public opinion being so overwhelmingly on your side they see this as free publicity. You are going to be in a press conference with the CEO and all. They want you to be the new face of the airline and a promotional asset. They have big plans for you,” he said excitedly.

“I don’t want
any of that,” she said, taken aback at this new development.

“You won’t have much of a choice, sweetie. Now that your face is in the papers there is no way back. The company is not going to miss out on that, babes.”

“My face is in the paper? When did that happen?” She could hardly keep up. “Last time I checked no one had cared at all.”

“This morning.
Front on the Express, pages 4 and 5 in the Mail and I think Times or Telegraph. Let me show you!” He got up and collected a bundle of papers from another desk.

“How did they even get my picture?” she called out angrily as she looked over the articles. The same photograph had been used in each of the articles. It was a recent shot from a room party in Shanghai.

She was outraged.

“You look stunning,” Tony said. “And the picture does not show you with a drink. That helps.”

She did not hear him; she was trying to read as fast as she could through all of the articles.

The Express had
taken the angle that money could buy you the opportunity to sue everyone now, even those who were trying to help you. It was a rather moving moral piece about the brave woman and her deluded enemy. The Mail was less kind to her and their headline asked: ‘Are we in good hands in the Sky?’ Traditionally biased against domestic airlines, they were running statistics on the training for crew and implied that the public was unaware how little could be expected from flight attendants.

The Times ran the article in their legal section and had reassuring information about the actual laws covering the issue at hand. The quoted experts were all confident that there was no
case to answer for under UK law; however, they mentioned Mr White’s intentions to bypass the British courts and try the airline and Hanna in the US instead, precedents for which had been set before. Since British aircraft fell under UK jurisdiction they thought it unlikely that this could be done.

“What’s up love?” Tony asked. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. The public love you!”

“Not so sure about the article in the Times. Have you read that? I could be put on trial in the States!” Hanna said with sheer panic in her voice.

“Yes, I have read it. Have you?” Tony said with his eyebrows raised and his hands on the hips. “It says there is only a remote possibility of that happening, and they also said that even in the US legal system you are unlikely to be found guilty.”

“You know the stories: remember the nanny who shook the little child?”

“Yes but s
he got off in the end, didn’t she!” Tony pointed out.

“Did she? I can’t remember. Well, if she did, she still had to go through the whole ordeal. That can’t have been pretty,” Hanna said, unwilling to
be calmed.

“Sweetie, you worry too much about this,” Tony said. “Just relax. The way I see it the real stumbling block was to secure the support of the airline. They had all the original statements from the other crew. They must have had their lawyers check through those with a magnifying glass looking for inconsistencies. There were tons of witnesses and they all say you performed your duties and the resuscitation according to the guidelines. All we do here is going through the motions, following procedures. I have people here with real problems. Yesterday the airline found 400 cigarettes on one of your colleagues - twice as many as he is allowed by customs. They have had him on t
heir hit list for a long time: he’s a goner before the week is over.” Tony was very convincing.

“The last thing I want is to do promotional work for the airline.”

“Well, let’s wait and see what the company has in mind for you, exactly. I have a feeling you are going to like it,” Tony predicted.

Richard arrived shortly afterwards and handed out several documents from his briefcase. He reiterated in legal jargon more or less what Tony had told Hanna beforehand.

“Listen, the only point of concern in all of this is the frequency of your obligatory toilet checks. The witness statements are a slightly vague on that one and differ from each other. Unless we get that right we have a small issue to worry about, so don’t blurt out anything about that at all,” Richard advised her.

“I already mentioned that in my statement and I know that I checked that particular toilet at 4.23 exactly,” Hanna told him.

“I know, but your purser said you were checking them exactly on the half hour and a different colleague claimed that she checked them herself at 4:35. It sounds as if your colleagues were trying to cover for you by bringing the time of the last check closer to the moment of death. Looking too keen to prove no wrong doings will look suspicious to Mr White and his lawyers.”

At the police station Officer Young, a middle aged, chubby bureaucrat
ic type with very thick glasses, received them in a small office and without much ado simply read out her previous statement. As Richard had expected he needed only a short clarification concerning the timing of the toilet checks. Hanna confirmed her original statement and signed the renewed document.

“That was easy,” she said after they had left the building.

“I told you,” Richard said. “You see, the long arm of the law has better things to do than go after you.”

At the airline headquarters her manager Martin greeted them enthusiastically. Tony was sitting on a chair looking disinterested and texting on his phone. Martin told Richard to wait with Tony until the of
ficial meeting had begun and led Hanna into one of the larger conference rooms where a handful of people were waiting for her.

“This is Michelle from the Press Office, Tobias from Human Resources, Brenda from the Promotional Team and I am sure you have met Thomas from the Board of Governors?”

Hanna was a little overwhelmed. She had expected a meeting with lawyers only, but there were none at all.

“I thought I was here to make a statement about the incident and meet the company lawyers?” she asked confused. “And I want union representation with me.”

“Yes of course, but we have to hold that meeting a little later. It does not seem so important anymore and Thomas has more meetings later, so we had to squeeze this session in first. It really makes no difference. Our legal team have already read your provisional statement to the police and there is nothing wrong with it. I meant to pre-empt that yesterday when I called the union to pass on the message to you.”

“That was implied to me this morning,” Hanna replied.

“Your case has come at a very exciting time for us,” Michelle said, and came towards Hanna. She was very business-like in her mannerisms and dressed in a smart grey suit with her dark hair tied back into a pony tail, which gave her every move a bouncy underlining. Her make-up was classy and understated and Hanna could tell that this woman oozed corporate spirit from every pore.

“We have had a brain
storm in the press office and want your face in our new series of adverts,” Michelle added, undecided on her facial expression as to whether a warm or a factual look would be more persuasive. “Photo and TV adverts, the full works!”

“I don’t feel that would be very ethical,” Hanna pointed out, “using the death of a woman for publicity.”

Michelle slowly nodded with a hint of compassion and understanding while formulating her response.

“Of course, it could be perceived that way, we are aware of that, but we have a much more sophisticated campaign planned. We just want to use the public support you got and use it to show what a great airline we are, with the best crew.”

“I don’t want to be part of something like this,” Hanna said.

“Sweetheart it is too
late for you to avoid the limelight,” Brenda chipped in. She was in her late fifties and also looked immaculate, much slimmer than Michelle, dressed in a more feminine blouse and skirt combination and probably because of her age much more maternal.

“Your face has made the national headlines. I know that can be very scary, but you must never lose the big perspective and do something rushed. It is too late to put your head in the sand and hide. You might as well make the most of a challenging situation and reap the benefits that can come from it. If you work with us
, then we can use your story to deter people like him in the future. The more that is known about it the better,” Brenda added. “My campaign needs a pretty and sweet woman like yourself when we tour the airports and try to increase business.”

“People are going to recognise you and
will want to listen to your story.” Thomas said. “It’s a perfect opportunity to raise our profile and get customers’ attention: you are part of our airline. Don’t you want us to do well?” He was only in his early thirties but already one of the bigwigs in the company, and tipped to become deputy CEO before long. He looked very untrustworthy to Hanna; there was something about his body language that seemed calculated and unnatural. She felt there was a scheming and manipulative edge to him.

“I don’t think you will turn us down when I show you all the benefits that come with the job,” Tobias added.

Hanna knew Tobias very well. He had once been a cabin crew manager and had been quite popular amongst their community. Rumour had it that his kind and generous attitude had gone a step too far, as far as his own superiors were concerned, and had led to his transfer to a less hands-on position. He was a keen sportsman in his late forties and very down to earth.

“Think of the other benefits,” Brenda chipped in. “Don’t get me wrong, darling, you are looking phenomenal already but this campaign will get you a complete free make over and beauty products and treatments you
can only dream off. You will look like a film star when we are done with you!”

“I had a taste of publicity this weekend. My phone rang off the hook and I worried that journalists would hold siege to my house. I know I don’t want that kind of life,” Hanna declared calmly to the other people in the room.

“Darling, you can’t turn back time,” Brenda said imploringly. She put her arm around Hanna’s waist and pulled her closer to her in a half sided hug. “What is done is done. The press are going to be after you much more if you hide and try to keep quiet. On your own you don’t have what it takes to play them at their own game. If you are part of our team we can arrange press conferences and public statements for you. We will be beside you one hundred percent. If you give them a little on your own terms, then the journalists won’t be interested in catching you at home. They won’t have to,” Brenda promised

“Thank you very much, but I can’t do it,” Hanna refused. “I don’t care about money or prestige. The journalists will calm down eventually. I cannot go on tour with a story like mine. If the death of that woman has proven anything to me it is that time is precious and I won’t waste mine with doing something I don’t believe in.”

“Think about it,” Michelle said. “If you don’t speak up the guy gets all the publicity: silence can imply guilt. If you’re not careful, public opinion can turn against you. Sometimes you have to compromise your actions in order to achieve the effect that you want. You spoke about the moral aspect and by going public you are making a statement.”