Chapter 8
Chapter 8
W ell it was a good idea,” said Morag again, as Nalitha stomped back to the car, her ankles swollen and giving her grief.
“I just thought... I thought we’d solved it,” said Nalitha. “I mean, you’ll just fly about. I’m the one that will come back to a total mess and all the computer stuff messed up and people running a full drug-smuggling operation without you even noticing because you just love flying planes.”
Morag did love flying planes, it was true. Ever since she’d been a child the idea that you could just take off; that you could be on solid ground, just like everybody else, beetling around on the surface, slow and heavy; and suddenly, with a long run-up you could burst from the earth; break the bonds of gravity and take off toward the sun and the light above, the entire sky your own; she thought it was the most wonderfully freeing experience in the world. She never tired of it. Even when she used to fly long-haul for a large airline, she had always loved take-off the best: the roar of the engines, the racing gray concrete beneath their wheels, the lackluster dull shapes of the airport and the outbuildings all around them until suddenly, the great machine lifting, lifting and finally free as a bird, the world and all its problems falling away behind you. And you could revel in the knowledge that, for the next few hours, all your senses would be filled with keeping this glorious creature on track; watching for cloud formations and weather patterns, glimpsing the linked lights of the world below; marveling at how busy it seemed when you were down there, but when you were up in the air, how relatively little space humans and their cities took up, compared to great stretches of shimmering water, or pink-lit desert, or dense canopies and forests.
The full glory of the planet whizzing steadily beneath your feet; what could be better? And Gertie had never even tried it?
People occasionally asked her if she found her job dull, because they found flying dull, and as well as this being an exceptionally rude question to ask anybody, it was completely incomprehensible to Morag. Did you find sunrises dull at 10,000 feet? Did you find descending over cliffs full of flapping seabirds dull; or landing, as she did at Inchborn, onto the long rolling beach when the tide was in the right spot? Was that dull? Was banking over cities, looking down on offices where people spent their days gazing at spreadsheets, nailed to the ground. That was what Morag thought was dull. Soaring to the avents—no. She didn’t think that was dull.
“Maybe I’ll try the Job Center again,” she mused.
“They keep sending us people who want to be Instagram influencers,” said Nalitha. “Remember that girl who just wanted a bikini shot of her draped over the plane? Mind you I’m still not sure we shouldn’t have just done it.”
“We’re not quite that desperate,” said Morag, even as Nalitha winced as the baby kicked her hard.
“Ugh. We are that desperate. I really thought she might consider it.”
“She’s never even checked in for a flight before,” said Nalitha. “What if she wants to give them all bus tickets and punch a hole in them?”
“Might not be a bad idea,” said Morag, considering how dodgy the Wi-Fi was in the hangar and how often the QR code scanner broke down. “Anyway, surely it’s something you can learn? She’s nice, Nalitha.”
“She is,” said Nalitha. “Is that enough?”
They approached Morag’s home, the big rackety house on the seafront, buffeted by the wind. Peigi was standing on the doorstep with her arms folded, frowning mutinously—Morag was back and late for her tea, evidently, even though it was about ten minutes after lunchtime.
“Well, at least go and look at the flat,” said Nalitha.
“I just might,” said Morag.
M EANWHILE G ERTIE WAS staring at the Crispy Pancakes her mother had rustled up for tea. They had been her favorites when she was ten. Ten. Her mother only did it when she thought she needed a special treat, or cheering up. It was a stupid tradition that normally made her smile, but tonight it was making her cross.
Why had she never been on a plane? Well they hadn’t had enough money for starters. They went to the caravan park at Kinghorn every year, and went to the Burntisland shows and walked on the big beach and if it was warm enough got in the water, or if it wasn’t warm enough they got in the water too and ate chips in the evenings and went to the amusements when it rained, which was often, and that was their holiday. Always had been. And it was lovely.
It shook her, the way things had been the same for so long. She should have gone abroad of course but Jean hadn’t fancied it, Elspeth had never had a passport nor considered having one and had no interest in going anywhere as she thought Carso was heaven on earth, and had tried Glasgow once and hadn’t liked it a bit.
Then the pandemic. Then she’d meant to but she didn’t really have anyone to go with. Not friends that were close enough to go on holiday with. Then her friends moved away, or had families of their own they went on holiday with, so that was that.
She stared at the TV that was showing A Place in the Sun . It was looking at somewhere lovely in France. They were eating baguettes and drinking wine in the sunshine. She looked out of the window. It was pouring with rain that was banging against the single-glazed window of their little house.
“So I told her she should,” Jean was saying in the kitchen, which was a bit rich all told, given that Jean had been abroad once and complained bitterly about how hot it was and how there was no use for a good cardigan. And you couldn’t take your knitting needles on a plane, so really what was the point?
“Do they fly to the continent?” asked Elspeth, as if “the continent” was a terrifying, undiscovered region.
“No, they only fly to the islands and stuff,” said Gertie, quickly. “They don’t go out of the UK at all.”
“Och no, she’s better off at home,” said Elspeth, drinking her tea from her special mug. They all had special mugs. Maybe, Gertie found herself thinking, there was more to life than special mugs.
Jean frowned.
“What?” said Gertie.
“Well, nothing,” said Jean. All of a sudden, Gertie’s phone started pinging with messages of congratulations.
“What? What is this?”
They were all from the other KCs. Jean had the grace to at least go a little pink.
“Well, I might have told people that you had been offered a job with a major international airline.”
Gertie stared, her mouth hanging open.
“They don’t even go to the continent,” said Elspeth, looking confused.
“They’re owned by that nice-looking Norwegian man though,” said Jean, as if this sealed the matter.
“MUM!” said Gertie, furious. “MUM, what did you do? It’s all round town! It’ll get back to them. And they didn’t even offer it to me in the end!”
“That’s not true,” said Jean. “You just shuffled off. They were surprised. I’m sure you could ask for it. Anyway,” she added, lying, “I’m sure it won’t get back to them.”
Gertie thought of Morag and Nalitha, laughing in the common room once more, looking at her gloves.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, and looked around, desperate to storm off. Except, of course, the house being so tiny, she couldn’t.