channelled, though, forced along corridors of behaviour that I wouldn't normally travel. I did not feel free.
This was not just as a result of the restrictions of my injuries, or the exercises I needed to do just to be able to get out of bed in the mornings. It went deeper than that. Southwick might just be a façade, a two-dimensional Hollywood film set. Somehow I needed to get behind the scenes in order to understand fully my role. Or maybe this was how everyone who had once lived a busy, demanding life felt when reverse thrust was engaged and you were forced to be still.
I allowed myself to be pressed and shaped and moulded. I did as Charlie said. I baited hooks. I took the wheel when he wanted to go for a piss. I helped him, after a fashion, to manipulate the heavy nets and their bobbins through the gallows and into the churning, black water. We drank tea laced with rum and watched the restless ocean.
'Y'got y'sea legs yet?' he asked.
'I'm getting there,' I told him. 'Took me long enough to get my air legs.'
'Well, there's a thing. Don't know about flying. Never been up. But I can read the sky a little.'
'You've never been in an aircraft?'
He shook his head. 'Not that odd. Plenty haven't, 'specially my age and older. Never thought to travel. Got everything I want here. And I don't trust those big bastards anyway. It's not right.'
I said: 'I flew with a captain, Captain Sheedy his name was. He was a very experienced pilot. He'd flown nearly thirty thousand hours on a variety of aircraft. Big ones, in the main. 767s, 747s, you know. He was a good guy. A good pilot to learn from.'
Charlie didn't seem to have a clue what I was talking about. I kept going, if only to stop him from asking me if he flew all those hours without a break. I don't know why I was talking at all. I kept my eyes on the sea; I felt slightly nauseous. I was probably talking to try to stave off seasickness. I really didn't want to vomit on Charlie's boat.
'We had this thing, this agreement, that if we were ever involved in a bad incident, an emergency landing on water, say, or mechanical failure, whatever, we would give the details to the passengers "quick and dirty" style. Tell them straight and tell them fast, albeit couched in polite language, that we were fucked. And then get on with trying to save the plane.
'It went a bit further than that. I had a drink with Joe Sheedy one evening in Singapore. We had one too many vodka martinis and he said that if he was ever in a position where it was really bad, where the likelihood was that there was going to be an unrecoverable spin, or total engine loss, he would look to slam the plane into the ground as soon as possible. Get it over with fast. Better that than getting people's hopes up and filling the cabin with shit and chunder for half an hour before death.'
'Plenty o' death out here too, o' course,' Charlie said.
He was regarding me intensely. I wondered if he was trying to goad a reaction out of me, that this might be his own way of helping with my recovery. Maybe he thought I was too passive, too soft. The accident might well have smacked more than tissue, blood and consciousness from my body. I felt permanently jarred, like something viewed in soft focus, its edges indistinct. A blurred outline that could not recover itself.
'So how did y'get interested in all them big birds?'
The question knocked me back a bit. I was about to tell him that I didn't know, I couldn't remember, but then it was there, as, of course, it had always been there. I just hadn't thought of it in all these years.
'My dad,' I said. I paused, composing myself, trying to put some muscle behind my voice. Speaking of Dad always knocked the breath from me. I didn't often do it, because there was little to remember, and few occasions when it was needed. I missed him, but hardly knew him. I regretted that we'd never had the time to build a relationship. But what there had been was gold. Charlie unfolded his pocket knife
This was not just as a result of the restrictions of my injuries, or the exercises I needed to do just to be able to get out of bed in the mornings. It went deeper than that. Southwick might just be a façade, a two-dimensional Hollywood film set. Somehow I needed to get behind the scenes in order to understand fully my role. Or maybe this was how everyone who had once lived a busy, demanding life felt when reverse thrust was engaged and you were forced to be still.
I allowed myself to be pressed and shaped and moulded. I did as Charlie said. I baited hooks. I took the wheel when he wanted to go for a piss. I helped him, after a fashion, to manipulate the heavy nets and their bobbins through the gallows and into the churning, black water. We drank tea laced with rum and watched the restless ocean.
'Y'got y'sea legs yet?' he asked.
'I'm getting there,' I told him. 'Took me long enough to get my air legs.'
'Well, there's a thing. Don't know about flying. Never been up. But I can read the sky a little.'
'You've never been in an aircraft?'
He shook his head. 'Not that odd. Plenty haven't, 'specially my age and older. Never thought to travel. Got everything I want here. And I don't trust those big bastards anyway. It's not right.'
I said: 'I flew with a captain, Captain Sheedy his name was. He was a very experienced pilot. He'd flown nearly thirty thousand hours on a variety of aircraft. Big ones, in the main. 767s, 747s, you know. He was a good guy. A good pilot to learn from.'
Charlie didn't seem to have a clue what I was talking about. I kept going, if only to stop him from asking me if he flew all those hours without a break. I don't know why I was talking at all. I kept my eyes on the sea; I felt slightly nauseous. I was probably talking to try to stave off seasickness. I really didn't want to vomit on Charlie's boat.
'We had this thing, this agreement, that if we were ever involved in a bad incident, an emergency landing on water, say, or mechanical failure, whatever, we would give the details to the passengers "quick and dirty" style. Tell them straight and tell them fast, albeit couched in polite language, that we were fucked. And then get on with trying to save the plane.
'It went a bit further than that. I had a drink with Joe Sheedy one evening in Singapore. We had one too many vodka martinis and he said that if he was ever in a position where it was really bad, where the likelihood was that there was going to be an unrecoverable spin, or total engine loss, he would look to slam the plane into the ground as soon as possible. Get it over with fast. Better that than getting people's hopes up and filling the cabin with shit and chunder for half an hour before death.'
'Plenty o' death out here too, o' course,' Charlie said.
He was regarding me intensely. I wondered if he was trying to goad a reaction out of me, that this might be his own way of helping with my recovery. Maybe he thought I was too passive, too soft. The accident might well have smacked more than tissue, blood and consciousness from my body. I felt permanently jarred, like something viewed in soft focus, its edges indistinct. A blurred outline that could not recover itself.
'So how did y'get interested in all them big birds?'
The question knocked me back a bit. I was about to tell him that I didn't know, I couldn't remember, but then it was there, as, of course, it had always been there. I just hadn't thought of it in all these years.
'My dad,' I said. I paused, composing myself, trying to put some muscle behind my voice. Speaking of Dad always knocked the breath from me. I didn't often do it, because there was little to remember, and few occasions when it was needed. I missed him, but hardly knew him. I regretted that we'd never had the time to build a relationship. But what there had been was gold. Charlie unfolded his pocket knife
Similar Books
