Authors: Kate Pullinger
Landing Gear
ALSO BY KATE PULLINGER
NOVELS
The Mistress of Nothing
A Little Stranger
Weird Sister
The Last Time I Saw Jane
Where Does Kissing End?
When the Monster Dies
COLLECTED SHORT STORIES
A Curious Dream
My Life as a Girl in a Man’s Prison
Tiny Lies
Forcibly Bewitched
ANTHOLOGIES
(as editor)
Once Upon a Time There Was a Traveller
Something Was There
Waving at the Gardener
Is This What You Want?
Don’t Know a Good Thing
Shoe Fly Baby
NOVELIZATION
The Piano
(with Jane Campion)
DIGITAL FICTION
Flight Paths
(with Chris Joseph)
Inanimate Alice
(with Chris Joseph)
Lifelines
(with Chris Joseph)
The Breathing Wall
(with Chris Joseph and Stefan Schemat)
OPERA LIBRETTO
Dorian Grey
COPYRIGHT © 2014 KATE PULLINGER
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.
Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House of Canada Limited
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Pullinger, Kate, author
Landing gear / Kate Pullinger.
ISBN 978-0-385-68120-9
eBook ISBN 978-0-385-68121-6
I. Title.
PR6066.U45L36 2014 C813′.54 C2013-906267-X
C2013-906268-8
Cover image: Andreia Takeuchi | Getty Images
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited,
a Penguin Random House Company
v3.1
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I first came across the stories of landing gear stowaways in an article in
The Guardian
newspaper in 2001. A body had landed in a supermarket car park in London, not far from where I live. The two investigative journalists working on the story discovered that this young man was only the latest in a series of airplane stowaways to fall into or near this car park over the previous decade, released as planes lowered their wheels before landing. The journalists traced the identity of this most recent stowaway, travelling to Pakistan to meet his family. A myth circulates in some parts of the world that you can climb into the hold of an airplane via the landing gear. In fact, most people who attempt to stow away in this manner die en route, crushed by the enormous wheels of the plane as the landing gear retracts, or freezing to death once the plane reaches cruising altitude. But, occasionally, people survive these extraordinary journeys and manage to reach their longed-for destinations.
For my family: Simon, Tom and Iris.
And for all the strangers who greet one another with tenderness and hospitality.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Author’s Note
Dedication
Prologue: Flight Paths: Spring 2012
Part One: Ash Cloud Idyll: April 2010
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part Two: Flying Man: Spring 2012
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part Three: Nuclear Families: Autumn 2014
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
A Note About the Author
Digital Innovation with Landing Gear
PROLOGUE
FLIGHT PATHS
SPRING 2012
YACUB IN DUBAI
I went to Dubai from my home in Pakistan because I heard I could earn good money.
There was a man in my village who had been working in the Emirates; he was injured on the building site where he worked when a section of scaffolding fell on his foot. He had a lot of stories about what life was like in the workers’ camps, so I knew what to expect.
I liked the look of Dubai; I liked the idea of living in a place where everything was new. The plane was full of men like me, leaving home to work abroad, although I was one of the youngest. When we landed, we were transported to the camp where we were to live.
The conditions were not good—too many men. But I was happy, and when I got to the building site the next day—two hours by bus either way—I was happier still. I wanted to work. Now I had a job. Now I would be paid.
But it turned out that getting paid for the work I did was not as simple as I thought it would be.
YACUB AT THE AIRPORT: KARACHI
At the airport, I followed the instructions Ameer had given me—for which I had paid the last of my Dubai money—and found the unlocked door that led outside to the planes. I had less than fifteen minutes after darkness fell to find the correct airplane.
I’d been home from Dubai for a while, but there was no work in Karachi. I told Raheela, my sister, I was going back to Dubai. We spent a long time over our goodbyes. She could tell that something was up, but I told no one my real plans, not even her. We’d lost our parents when we were teenagers—our father in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, our mother a year after that—so we were used to finding our own way. Even so, I found it hard not to cry when we parted.
From the ground, the planes looked enormous, their lights blinking in the dusk. The air stank of petrol and tires.
But I found the plane I wanted, and no one saw me. I climbed over the giant wheels and shimmied up the landing gear and folded myself onto the little shelf, which was exactly where Ameer had said it would be.
HARRIET DRIVING: LONDON
I have to go to the supermarket today, otherwise my family will starve.
Well, not starve, exactly. In the event of a war or cataclysm of some kind, there is enough food in the house to last for—how long? The pantry. The fridge. The storage jars. The cupboard full of breakfast cereal. The shelf of tins. The peas that have fallen out of their bag and are rolling around in the bottom drawer of the freezer. The tahini that is older than my teenaged child.
We would last at least one month, maybe even two, before we would have to eat those jars of red wine preserves given to me several years ago. Except that isn’t the point. The fact that there is already a ton of food in my house and I am on my way to buy more is not the point.
While there are plenty of wars and cataclysms happening elsewhere, as far as I can see, stuck as I am in the one-way traffic system, Richmond is its usual placid, well-fed self this week.