Falling (3 page)

Then the cat leapt at him, tiny frame landing on his folded knees. Light, hardly any weight at all, but enough to startle him. And Jim swayed, knocked off balance, grabbing at the side of the cupboard to save himself. To stop himself from falling.

“Charlie!”

He laughed, insides fizzing from the almost fall. Was just thinking about how quickly everything can change. He let go of the cupboard. Then he saw the blood.

Chapter 4

Freya - Thursday, 15th March - 6.36pm

Freya moved the paint across the thick grained paper, quick strokes, flick, flick, before it dried and became unwieldy. Sunflower yellow. She swirled the brush in greying water, a quick shake, then a swipe of ochre. The light in the kitchen was warm, the colour of corn. Not ideal for painting, but she didn’t mind. She allowed the brush to trace the curve. She liked it like this, the warmth from the oven, the rippling Beethoven, her mother’s movements unselfconscious, for a little while at least.

“That’s beautiful.”

Freya glanced up, smiled. Her mother was in her off-duty clothes today, loose jeans, a jumper that hung so that it disguised her hips, her narrow frame. Her long narrow hands -her paws, she called them - naked, her wedding ring sitting waiting in the little cup on the windowsill. The barest swipe of make-up. Just enough so I don’t scare the postman. A laugh like dancing raindrops and then a quick turn away from the mirror. She rarely looked at herself for longer than she had to.

“Thank you.” Freya looked back down, scanning the page.

“Although…” a sizzle as ice white onions hit hot oil “surely you must be able to find something more interesting to paint.”

“I like painting you, Mum.” Freya let the brush sit loose in her fingers, the rough grain from years of moments like these scratching against her skin. Her mother was beautiful, so Freya had always thought at least. Slim and warm as fresh baked bread.

They had the same nose, her mother and her. The same little upturn at the end. The same eyes, fir tree green. That though was where the resemblance ended, at least as far as Freya was concerned. Where her mother was narrow and delicate, Freya was tall and curved. You get that from your father’s side. She had her father’s cheekbones. And sometimes, just occasionally, her father’s temper.

Her mother tipped minced beef into the pan, little red curls screeching with the heat. Freya liked it like this, on the rare days that it was like this. The house quiet and warm, the snow a silent marching army beyond the windows. Low music and the sweet smell of onions. Freya surveyed the page. She didn’t paint much, not any more, time so often gobbled up by research for the psychology PhD that she had nearly finished and by her friends. But they were all locked up tight by the snow now. She wondered if for them too it came as a relief, a moment to breathe and stop and just paint.

“I wonder if your father’s taken off yet?” Her mother was leaning, looking out into the snow. “It’s an awful night to fly.”

“I know.” Freya dabbed at the ochre, soft, soft, just feathering the edges.

“He probably hasn’t. I mean, they’ve been grounding flights all week. He probably hasn’t taken off.” Her mother glanced at the clock. “I expect we’ll hear from him soon.”

“What time are Grandma and Grampa coming?” The trip had been planned for months, a pilgrimage to Cowbridge from St Ives. Freya’s mother had suggested that they postpone it, just by a week or so, given the weather, the problems that would inevitably follow. But her grandmother had scoffed. They had plans, she had said. They would be coming. Even though the traffic would be bad and Gramps’ driving awful and her grandmother would complain about every travel stop from Polperro to Cardiff. Then they would arrive and the house would pulse with an unspecified tension, her father’s teeth gritted, mother’s voice climbing an octave with each passing day.

Freya’s mother looked at the clock again. “They called. About an hour ago. I thought it was your father actually, you know, saying he was coming home. But it wasn’t. Grandma said they were around about Bristol.” She glanced across her shoulder at Freya, a small smile. “Said the way your grandfather is driving they should be here by Christmas.”

Freya grinned, brushing hair from her face with the back of her hand. Liquid sunshine her mother called it, when she stroked her daughter’s hair, forgetting for a moment that she wasn’t a child any more, twenty three years slipping away in the blink of an eye. Freya had always thought it was more the colour of buttered popcorn, a burnished yellow flecked with hints of brown. A colour caught her eye, a flash of red paint, and she grimaced. She should have worn an apron. Now her skinny jeans were speckled with measle spots.

“So you never told me…”

“Huh?” Freya wasn’t looking at her mother, scratching at the paint with her nail.

“Last night. How did it go?”

“Oh. You know.”

“You know, good?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, it was okay. It was just a couple of us. Zoe and Rena and a couple of others. But it was nice. We had a laugh.”

“And Luke?”

Freya looked up from the paint, fixing her mother with a level stare, lips twitching with an almost smile.

“I’m just saying. Was he there?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“He seems like a nice boy.”

Freya laughed, leaning back in the chair. “Mum. He’s 32.”

Her mother smiled, sweeping the meat around the pan. “Love, believe me, when you’re my age that will make him a boy.”

Freya shook her head. “Because you’re that old?”

Her mother sighed heavily, looking out of the window into the snow. “Feels like it some days.” She shook her head, glancing back across her shoulder at Freya. “So are you interested in him?”

Freya dipped the brush back into the water. The colours were a little too dark, and she sprinkled the water across the painting, sunshine through the rain. Could feel her cheeks flushing. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’ll meet somebody. Give it time.” Another sigh. “I do hope your father isn’t flying in this.”

Freya looked up. Her mother was staring out of the window again, fingering the petals of the tumbledown lillies that Freya’s father bought her every Friday. Flowers for my flower. But they were browning now, pink petals curling inwards turning sepia at the edges. The sickly sweet smell jarred against the cooking meat.

“You were late in last night.” Freya said.

Her mother didn’t turn, looked down, spoon scraping at the bottom of the pan. “I know. Got caught up. Talking. You know how it is.”

The kitchen door creaked open, grinding against the tiles. Richard’s hair was damp, dark, brushed back from his angled cheekbone face. Long enough that it had grown into loose curls. Baby bird dark eyes, narrow frame hidden in an Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt, lean muscled arms bare. A man’s body for such a little boy. Her little brother was beautiful. Not just a big sister’s love, he was genuinely beautiful, with his chocolate brown eyes, long dark lashes, his tall, strong frame and his wide lips that looked made for smiling.

“Hey kiddo.”

He looked tired, drawn. Freya pushed a kitchen chair back and he slumped down into it.

“You okay?” Freya asked.

“Yeah. Didn’t sleep very well last night.”

Freya watched him, resisting the urge to reach out and smooth down the hair that stuck out at odd angles. He’s seventeen, now. Can’t keep treating him like a child. Even though he was her baby brother, her two eyes, ever since the day they brought him home from the hospital, buried within white wool, his dark eyes watching her like they knew, even then, that she would always protect him.

“Where’s Dad, Mum?” Richard asked.

“He’s working. Glasgow.” Her mother glanced up at the snow again, as if by the force of her gaze she could make it stop. “Unless he’s been cancelled. He hasn’t called though.”

“Is he back tonight?” Asked Freya.

“Ah…tomorrow? Evening, I think. But with this weather…we’ll just have to see.” She stirred the pan, metal spoon scratching against the stainless steel rim. “Maybe he hasn’t taken off. He probably hasn’t. They wouldn’t let him fly in this. He’ll probably call soon.”

Richard nodded, his long narrow fingers reaching for the television remote. There was a burst of sound, and Freya looked over her shoulder at the television, blinking to remember that there was a world outside.

And there it was. Fire and metal and snow.

And Freya knew.

Chapter 5

Cecilia - Thursday, 15th March - 6.39pm

The pain swallowed her, not just her left arm which seemed to belong in its entirety to someone else, but climbing towards her shoulder, radiating around her back, her neck. Hands shook, knees begged to be allowed to fold, and the cold snow looked so inviting.

“Away, now.”

The girl tried to struggle, but didn’t try very hard, so weak she could barely stand. “My mother.” She clawed at Cecilia’s blouse, charred black. So young, a teenager, but just barely. “Please. My mum.”

It was hard to make out her words, gobbled down in amongst the growl of fire, creaking metal. Acrid smoke scraped at her throat. The battered aft section of the turboprop jutted out from a bed of trees, vertical stabiliser reaching up into the grey sky. Sparking electrical arcs crackled, melting the snow down to bare earth.

Cecilia wrapped the girl in her good arm, pulling her bodily down the sloping ground, away from the trees and the burning carcass of the plane. “Come on.” Wading through the deep snow, to where the smoke is lighter, and they can breathe. Pulling her, because she still wants to turn back.

There were others, gathered in a knot in the snow. Her throat searing from the shouting. Everybody off. Get away from the plane. Leave everything. Everybody off. And when they wouldn’t move, frozen in their seats, not dead yet but feeling like it, dragging them bodily from the sparking wreckage, the pain gripping her arm threatening to drown her. Screaming at them, get away, get back. Cecilia pushed them down the hill into the field, away from the trees, out into the wide expanse of snow where there is no shelter and no warmth, and where they will have so little time, but what else can she do. Dragging them together, cursing British reserve, because now it may be only body heat that will keep them alive.

“Just wait. They’ll come. Just wait here.” Having no idea whether she was lying or not.

Moving all the time, because there’s a role to play, an explanation for why she had survived. And if she keeps moving then she won’t have time to think about baby soft skin, and the scrape of brick against her bare back, and the sensation of falling.

“Can you keep her with you?”

The woman wasn’t looking at Cecilia, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the wreckage of the plane.

“Hey.” Cecilia nudged the woman with her knee, only then realising that it was bleeding. “I need you to watch her.”

The woman looked up at her, like she didn’t understand what she was saying, then looked at the young girl who was crying now, back at Cecilia. Nodded. The woman reached up a hand, pulled the girl down to her side, and wrapped her arms around her, sighing like it was a relief.

Cecilia looked down the hill, a gentle curve peppered with copses of trees. And there, where the mountainside gave way to the village, an orange glow and flashing blue lights and the distant wail of sirens.

There was a roaring in her ears, and they were falling again; the scream of metal, the plane breaking in two. She stared at the lights, and then turned away, just couldn’t look at it any more. All that death. Seemed like there was no room in her head for it. Turning back to her little group, the ones who have survived.

It took Cecilia a moment to make out the figure in the snow. It wasn’t that far away, a couple of hundred yards, maybe. For a moment, she thought it was a snow bank, mounded beneath a solitary oak. Then saw it move, realised it wasn’t.

“Wait here.”

Cecilia plunged through the snow, towards the mound. The old woman had curled in on herself, tucked together like a snail, knees pulled to her chest, shoulders dropped low, wrapped in snow. Cecilia sank to her knees beside her. The woman was staring upwards towards the naked branches of the tree, hanging protectively over her, her breath shallow, face an inner city grey.

“Hello. My name’s Cecilia.” She watched her, waiting for movement, for something. “What’s your name?”

Blue lips, slightly parted, breathing like she’s run a marathon. It was like there was a time delay between them. After a few more seconds, she turned, movement awkward. “Mrs Collins.” A moment, and she thought about this some more. “Maisie.”

“Are you hurt, Maisie?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m so cold. Very cold.”

Cecilia took hold of the old lady’s hand, fingers blue, stiff. A deep red trickle seeped its way beneath grey tightly bound curls, staining them crimson, blusher scarecrow red on death white cheeks.

“Are they coming? Is someone coming to get us?”

“Yes. We just have to wait.”

“I don’t know, love.” The words were little more than a whisper. “It’s awful cold.”

“Where were you heading?” Cecilia forced a smile into her voice.

The old woman nodded, snow falling from her. “Glasgow. My daughter.” Teeth clenched, words squeezed from between them, a whistle on the inhale. “Moved there when she got married. Stupid man. Always knew it wouldn’t last.” A cough, body shuddering so that the snow shifts around her. “Can’t tell them though, can you. Got to let them find out themselves. Two little girls now. Ernie loves them.” Looking up at Cecilia, and then straining, trying to move her head. “Ernie. I forgot. Where is he?”

Cecilia didn’t bother looking around, just folded the old woman’s hand tighter into her own. “He’ll be around here somewhere.”

Another cough, and what might have passed for a laugh if you were gullible. “Always wandering off. Nuisance man. Never stays put.”

“So, how long you going for?” Asked Cecilia. “To your daughter’s, I mean?” The ashen face was draining, skin melting into snow, and she had stopped looking at Cecilia, was gazing upwards again, somewhere above her head. “Be lovely for you to see her.” Cecilia jiggled the old woman’s hand in her own, sliding her fingers down her wrist. Smiling. Always smiling.