Porky (23 page)

The cries went on, dry and monotonous, like a wood-saw. Was nobody coming to comfort it? Perhaps the child lay in darkness . . . The cries grew louder. Rod was grunting into my ear but I didn't hear him. I couldn't bear the sound of that child . . . it was crying urgently now. Didn't this man hear it?

Teddy lay in darkness too . . . Teddy in his damp nightie, bellowing with loneliness. And all the other children . . . me . . . all of them. All of them now, at this moment . . . How many of them were yelling now for comfort?
Shut up
, the lot of you . . .

I tried to shut it out . . . I gripped him, the warmth beating up me, and then the blackness exploded.

When it exploded, shuddering, I forgot everything. I forgot the cries, I blasted all the sadness, all the children crying and the human breakage, I blasted them to pieces . . . Just for those shuddering seconds.

Too swift . . . Always too swift.

Soon afterwards I escaped from this stranger, with his smug recollections and his invitation to a ‘togetherness shower' . . . these Americans spend the whole time washing. They must be ashamed too. When I left his room the child had stopped.

Back in bed, I fell into a heavy sleep. I dreamed of searching for Teddy in a huge warehouse full of children. I'd never seen it before but I knew it was in our yard, like my other dreams . . . I struggled to get there through the thick mist . . . All the children wore clothes; they twisted and mewled, a turning mixture of pink cotton and denim . . . The more I searched, the larger the warehouse grew, swelling up . . . I knew he was calling me but I couldn't even hear his voice, there were so many cries. I wanted to touch the children, but I couldn't because somebody had jointed them like meat . . . Inside their clothes their limbs were loose.

You see, my dreams were violent.

Back home, I slept. The banging doors, and the grinding noise as Dad tried to start his lorry . . . As I lay there, drowsily, they seemed to come from the far side of a valley. Dad would tiptoe past my room as if I were an invalid, then bump into the table and swear, loudly. As you know, there wasn't a lot of conversation at our home, and neither Mum nor Dad asked me much about my job, except did I meet anybody famous. They distrusted anywhere abroad, because they'd never been, yet they were awestruck, too. Dad bragged about me to his mates, I heard him, and Mum never told me to do the chores when I was wearing my uniform; she seemed to think I was serving my country, and should keep my strength. Once she asked me what I did, and when I told her she looked shocked.

‘They make you do that – just like a skivvy?' She started. ‘There's nobody to do that for you?'

Teddy was the only person who treated me the same, rummaging in my duty-free bags for his presents, then pulling them out and shooting us dead.

Time was all dislocated; I'd wake up hungry in the middle of the night; I'd sleep all afternoon. I felt much more removed from home, and out of step, than at JT. Once I got up after lunch and went to West Drayton. When I arrived I realized it was Thursday, and early closing. After California the streets looked cramped, and grey, and amateurish. Standing at the bus stop, I tried to remember how I'd once felt. Over there, in the Wimpy, I'd sat drinking coffee with Sandra – neither of us liked coffee but it felt sophisticated. She'd said, ‘Janice isn't a virgin. I can tell because she's had her ears pierced.'

Across the road was the chemist's. Once I'd seen Gwen's family's car parked outside it, and them all sitting there looking at their holiday snaps. Gwen's Dad had just got them from the chemist's and none of them could wait until they reached home . . .

And over there, in the launderette, I'd felt faint when Jonathan had passed.

Now I just shivered in the wind and thought: damn buses.

That winter – last winter – I passed my test and bought a car: a Mini. It was for Teddy and me, to make up for all the times I was away. He bounced up and down in it, he was so pleased. Sitting there, I put my arm round him and squeezed.

‘Where shall we go, then?'

He struggled free. ‘You pong.'

‘What?'

‘Your smelly perfume.'

‘Don't you like it? It's called “My Love”.'

‘Pongy.'

I sat still; my throat swelled. How could he? I yearned for him; I wanted to hold him close to me, the two of us in my new car. I wanted to show him the world . . . I wanted to press his head into my breast and keep him safe.

I sat quite still, struck by a thought. Slowly, I thought the words over . . .

Is this how Dad had yearned for me?

It's ridiculous that it had never struck me before. I didn't want to seduce my brother, of course, but that was unimportant. It was simply that I loved him; dear God, I loved that boy. It was the only pure passion I'd ever had. I loved every inch of him, head to toe, inside and out.

And didn't I know the damage that could do? Perhaps it was good that I was planning to move away.

‘Everyone else likes the way I smell,' I said abruptly. ‘You're an idiot.'

We drove miles up the motorway, past the gravel pits and their cranes reared up, past the Span estates with their young marrieds, Yvonne from school amongst them . . . right out into the country. There were some beautiful, golden days last winter. Teddy sat beside me, just as I'd sat beside Dad, kicking his legs and twiddling the radio. I was the driver now. But Teddy was bolder than I had been; he was the one urging me on. I speeded up. As we drove, I had a rare thought for my Dad. Could he remember our happiness when I was young and sitting in his cab? Or was it all spoilt for him too?

AM-AIR 6 FLIES
right around the world: LA, New York, London, Karachi, Singapore . . . It girdles the globe. You fly through twenty-four time zones; you fly faster than the spreading dusk. I signed up for the long hauls if I could; the longer the better. By spring I'd watched
Charlie's Angels
in six capital cities. I also had a tan – faint, because of my fair complexion, but unmistakable. I lay beside bright blue pools. Nobody knew that I'd been fat, once. I didn't have to tell anyone about that; besides, who wanted to know? At some point they usually said, ‘Tell me about yourself', but their interest was limited. I stayed behind my sunglasses; every now and then I sat up to oil my legs. I still hated my heavy thighs, but nobody knew that either. I turned the pages of magazines; I seldom read books, I didn't seem to have the concentration. Waiters in monogrammed jackets brought me iced tea; I glanced through menus in their heavy, laminated folders.

Numbed from the sun, I wandered along hotel lobbies. Numbed from the flying, I sat in taxis with lonely men who were far from home. ‘Curry Paradise', ‘Whisky A Go-Go', said the signs. ‘All-Nite Topless!' We stayed stuck in traffic jams, trying to keep a conversation going. It was a relief when they didn't attempt to talk.

I never dated, as they called it, members of the air crews. After all, I'd see them next day. Besides, they were either gay, and off for their beauty sleep, or else family men scared of the risks.

It was a bad idea, too, to date the passengers. I found this out, to my cost. At each landing we said over the PA, ‘Am-Air hope you enjoyed your flight and look forward to seeing you again.'

And once I did. It happened one Bahrain-Frankfurt flight. I recognized this grey-cropped head in the aisle seat. It was a German cement contractor. Two weeks ago he'd told me all about his mother. Later, in his room, he'd asked me to spank him because he was such a naughty boy. I'd patted him, blushing, disowning my hand. I'd hoped to forget all that.

But here he was, plucking at my sleeve. Being German, he made himself only too clear. Shireen, another flight attendant, was near enough to hear him saying,

‘Why did you not meet me next day, as promised?'

‘I'm sorry. I forgot.'

‘I am waiting in the lounge three hours. I wait in the hotel thinking: where is my English friend?'

I tried to move away.

‘My feelings,' he said, ‘you hurt my feelings.'

I escaped. Back in the galley Shireen said,

‘Who's that nut?'

‘Don't know,' I mumbled, busying myself with the water jugs.

‘Jesus, don't we get 'em.'

After that episode I took more care. You can throw the litter out of your car, but it's not so easy with people. Believe it or not, even in my job they cropped up again. If you're laying-over in some city, after all, it's possible to bump into them . . . the main streets and the big hotels, they're usually in the same small area. Once or twice it happened and I felt gagged, panic-stricken, my past rising up in my throat. I didn't want to be reminded of my behaviour. Once, in the lift at the Kuala Lumpur Inter-Continental, the doors slid open and some men stepped in. I recognized one of them. He was a tall, ravaged-looking man, vice-president of something or other, he'd told me. If he recognized me now he wasn't showing it. I looked away, but the lift was all mirrors. Whichever way I turned, there was his profile, splintered into angles; there were his two eyes. The grey cloth of his suit was within touching distance.

‘We're talking in seven figures here,' he was saying. They must be going up to the conference suite. ‘We need to make that clear . . .'

Yesterday afternoon he'd been suckling me, his face red and crumpled.

‘. . . there's no option on this one, gentlemen. Seven figures are the figures we're talking . . .'

Kneeling there, bowed, his mouth clamped to my nipple. My breasts didn't belong to me . . . they were bubbies. That's what I called them. Now he was here, I hated him. I hated us both.

I'd been a flight attendant for nearly six months when I met Ali. We're talking about last March. He was a passenger, so I had to be careful. He wasn't.

I have to pause, here. I'll make myself some coffee.

Bear with me; I've nearly finished. When you hear about Ali, you'll think that I've been saving the worst until last.

But believe me, the worst happened long, long before I met him.

I SAW THE
dawn just now. I didn't realize that I've been sitting here so long. I saw it out of the side window, when I went to the kitchen: the sky stained grey, with flat clouds laid across like ink spreading into damp paper.

Here in this room it's still dark. The mug is warming my knee. I bought this kimono in Bangkok and I've worn it for the past week, I haven't really got up yet.

I don't know what I should have put in or left out of my story so far. I could have chosen other events, just as random as these. That time in the cinema with Gwen and her Dad, remember? When I felt so sad. It's over now, sealed, now I've said it. I've locked it into the plan of my past, but if I'd stopped and thought, I could have locked in so many others instead. I'm trusting to instinct, telling you the first things that come into my mind. Nobody's taught me to organize my brain, you see. Except for the odd moment at school, nobody's bothered.

My first couple of meetings with Ali were as random as anything else. Try to picture me, last spring, as Ali first saw me. My long hair was puffed up and held in place with an alice band; someone once called me a Barbie Doll. I was a big, blonde girl with spiky eyelashes; I probably looked old-fashioned, but then lots of air crew do. You'd never have guessed anything about me. That's because I was used to small talk, it's the only type I ever heard. I looked ripe and pink.

I can think quite calmly now, of how I looked. If you'd seen me then, you might have thought me attractive.

Ali thought so, anyway. He was flying from Karachi to Bahrein. Muslims either knock back six Scotches or they drink a glass of water. He asked for water. It was a night flight and he stayed awake in his pool of light. When you're working at night, there's a club-like feeling between you and the insomniacs . . . He was reading sheaves of paper; he was very good-looking, and as young as me, with pitted skin. I remember thinking: poor thing, he must've had terrible acne.

That's all I remember. When he disembarked I noticed how slight he was; no taller than me.

I was laying-over. The next night I went to a party. The flat belonged to the boyfriend of a British Airways girl called Cathy; it was crowded, and the air was thick with smoke. English and German men stood around, guffawing; their shirts were stained dark at the armpits. It was mostly men; these parties usually are. They spend the evening comparing booze prices and talking about their next leave. They don't have much in common, except being stuck in Bahrein.

I ate Twiglets. I must have done this a hundred times; life seemed particularly senseless. This being Bahrein, there was a building site outside the window, the scaffolding criss-crossing the sky, and the winking lights of a plane coming in to land.

Then I noticed the Pakistani. He was standing at the other window, a glass of orange juice in his hand. I've always found it awkward, meeting passengers off duty. He looked shy, too.

We chatted a bit; he asked me the usual questions, like did I have permanent jet-lag and which was my favourite city. He didn't ask me whether I had a boyfriend back home and if he got jealous with me gadding about; at this stage of a party someone usually does, but he was too polite for that. He was the well-mannered, quiet type. He asked me to join him for dinner tomorrow, but I'd be gone by then, so he gave me his card and asked if next time I was in Karachi he could show me around his home city.

‘My home city . . .' That's how he talked. Someone had brought him up nicely. ‘I would be honoured', he said, ‘if you would join me.'

I was imagining holding his pitted face in my hands and pulling him towards me. Believe it or not, I'd never done that to an Oriental before. They'd tried all right, but I'd never been chatted up by one I trusted.