Death be Not Proud (23 page)

“We are too closely bound to one another to keep anything hidden, Emma. They know of the dangers facing the family – that's why we have this…” his eyes cast over the interior of the cockpit, “… in case we have to leave suddenly.”

“And has that ever happened?”

“Only once; but we have to move on every so often anyway and start somewhere new where we're not known.”

“Why?”

“As I don't appear to age physically, it would be a bit obvious after a bit. We stay together because of our ties of kinship, and that's something you know a little about from all your studies, don't you?”

I did indeed. “Yes, it's what people are prepared to die for – that and their faith.”

“Precisely.”

“And you would risk that for me?”

“As I said, I don't see you as a risk – do you?”

“No, I'm not; but Matthew, you couldn't have known that – not for sure.”

“No.”

A voice sounded out of nowhere, making me jump. Matthew answered, giving a rapid sequence of letters and numbers. The disembodied voice spoke again, asking a question. Matthew paused before answering, turning to me.

“We have to take on fuel at Shannon; would you like something to eat now or would you like to wait until we're airborne again?”

I opted for the latter.

 

The stopover took less time than I thought, but by the time we reached cruising altitude again, pangs of hunger told me it was past lunchtime.

“Help yourself to anything you'd like to eat or drink back there.”

I nodded, unsurprised now if he anticipated my hunger, variable though it always seemed to be. He started speaking into the headset as the plane rose above the Atlantic and I unclipped the buckle around my waist and eased out of the seat.

 

Restless nights and emotionally fraught days were taking their toll. I yawned and stretched, locating the built-in refrigerator and a bottle of sparkling water. The fresh fruit next to it must have been left for me, since he didn't eat. I searched for a glass. The glossy range of bird's-eye maple cupboards were filled with an assortment of food in packets that lay ready in case a quick escape proved necessary. It brought home just
how seriously he took the threat of exposure. The question then was, how long would this jet be no more than an idle luxury, and what would be the catalyst that would bring upon him and his family the eye of the world in that brief but catastrophic declaration of his existence? Because – if the one thing that had lain dormant but festering in the back of my mind became reality – at some point in the near future, there might be a trial and Matthew would be a key witness to Staahl's attack. If all the endless courtroom dramas I had watched over the years bore any relation to reality, key witnesses were flayed alive by the defence counsel.

I found a heavy and deeply cut glass, each facet reflecting diamond-bright in the cabin spotlights. Of course, there should be no reason for anyone to suspect that Matthew wasn't what he seemed to be – a highly respected surgeon with an impeccable record of service to his community, a widower and a family man. I poured the water into the glass, waiting for the bubbles to subside before filling it to the top. But Staahl had accused Matthew of trying to kill him when he tore him from me, and Sam – in talking to the police – had hinted at ulterior motives. Nothing much as accusations go, and they might be taken as no more than the desperate defence of the accused and the mumblings of a malcontent – but it didn't take much to set tongues wagging. I gulped a couple of mouthfuls of water nervously as I followed the train of thought.

History is spattered with the blood of men and women whose lives had been shattered by whispered deceits. Fiction and half-truth formed the nucleus of what I studied – the cause and effect of the events I found so fascinating. What had been an academic subject – devoid of impact upon me by time and dissociation – Matthew experienced first-hand
in the accusations of those with whom he lived. In lives such as his lay the negligible difference between rumour and lies. And, by the time the difference had been distinguished, the damage was done: the rebellion started, the family hounded, the martyr burned.

I knew that nothing had really changed over the intervening centuries, for are we not taught – in that well-worn maxim – that it is in the nature of man to destroy that which he fails to comprehend?

 

“Did you find what you wanted?”

I started at the sound of Matthew's voice behind me, spilling my drink. I sank to my knees and automatically began to mop at it with my hankie while I composed both my thoughts and my features.

“Emma, leave it – it'll dry. Here…” he put his hand out to me and he pulled me to my feet, his tone buoyant, and his smile bordering on roguish.

“I've been waiting to do this for the last hour,” he said, cupping my face between his hands, his eyes propositioning and his mouth real, inviting, alive on mine. So
alive
. My eyes widened.

“Who's flying the plane?”

Matthew laughed, “It's on auto – remember?” and he kissed me again, lightly this time. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

He led me back to the cockpit and strapped me into my seat. I gave him a quizzical look.

“Well, I said that you're my co-pilot, so now's your chance to do some flying. Hands on the stick – like this.”

Ignoring my protests, he waited until I placed my hands on the controls in imitation before disconnecting the autopilot.
The plane wobbled disturbingly.

“But…”

“You're more than capable. Right, now ease it forward and you push the nose down and the plane will start to descend. Easy now, or we'll go into a dive. Pull up just as gently – that's it – and you'll pull her nose up and we'll climb. Perfect. Keep her steady. It's difficult to stall a plane like this – not like the older aircraft I flew – but not impossible, so we have to match her speed as well. See this?” and he pointed to a series of dials. “These show you how fast we are travelling relative to the air. This one here, whether we are flying straight and level, and this – our altitude.”

I tried to keep up. “Hang on a mo – you've had a few more years to learn all this than I have. Is that the altimeter or…”

“Yes, and the one next to it is the artificial horizon; keep the bar across the middle level – imagine they're the wings of the plane. If you want to bank port, ease on the stick, so.” The aircraft moved smoothly to the left under his control. “And opposite for starboard. Go on, you try.” The plane made a more radical lurch to the right and I winced, correcting the level of pressure I applied. “That's it, now level her up – easy. Fun, isn't it?”

“Great!” I said with more enthusiasm than I would have thought possible five minutes before.

“Are you happy to carry on for a bit? Just keep us on that compass heading – there.”

I focused on the dials in front of me.

“Uh huh – but don't leave me alone, I don't want to jinx the plane.”

“I hardly think you'll do that,” he murmured, and I blushed as I felt him watch me intently with a look that had little to do with what currently occupied my attention.

The levels of concentration required to keep the aircraft flying straight, level and on course were far more taxing than I thought they would be, given the ease with which Matthew achieved far more complex manoeuvres; but I welcomed the distraction so that my mind could not wander down the paths of fear upon which it attempted to lead me.

After a while my eyes began to feel the strain of staring at the dials, and my shoulders ached from hunching forward.

“Had enough?” he asked.

I nodded and he flicked back on to autopilot. The aircraft noticeably adjusted into a more stable pattern of flight; Matthew saw me pull a face.

“We'll have you flying solo in no time,” he said, with an alarming degree of confidence.

“Hey, hang on a minute, I didn't say anything about learning to fly!”

He chortled with that good-natured laugh I loved to hear because it meant he was happy.

 

There were hours ahead in which there were no interruptions, and we filled them with my curiosity and his answers as we wound our way through his life, and he questioned me about mine. Yet still I felt that he extracted more about me than I had about him. I barely scratched the surface, and there were questions he would not answer, deferring them until we were back in Maine; but it represented a start, and there was a sense that, for the first time, he began to reveal his true self to me.

At one point I became silent, and he asked me why, and I said that I had been gone so long without notifying the college that I didn't know how it might affect my position. He smiled and replied that there was nothing to worry about,
and when I pressed him he admitted that – as my doctor – he had put me on long-term sick leave, hoping I wouldn't need it.

 

I took control of the plane several times more, each time a little easier than the last, until the pleasure of flying outweighed the apprehension, and I looked forward to the next attempt. I had just relinquished the controls to him again, when I saw that he examined the instrument panel closely, frowning slightly.

“What is it?”

“Nothing to be concerned about, I'm just plotting a course around that.”

He nodded towards the vast head of a cumulonimbus that lay in our path, its ominous anvil lit brilliant white by the sun in contrast with the bulging grey flanks of the cloud.

“Is that part of the storm you told us about yesterday?”

“No – it's just an isolated thunderstorm, but we'll do a detour, I think.” He didn't seem particularly fazed and my slight nervousness wasn't enough to prevent me from yawning; it had been a long day, made longer by the shift in time zones.

“Can't we go above it?” I asked, trying not to let my voice give away my unease.

“No, it's too high – about forty-five thousand feet or thereabouts.”

“It's magnificent,” I couldn't help but observe, the cloud almost boiling as it rose towering before us.

“Isn't it.”

He spoke into the headset and I fell to watching the developing cloud and wondering what would happen if the aircraft came down in it. I would die, of course, but what about Matthew? Was he just long-lived or… and I almost laughed to think it… immortal, indestructible? I found it quite a comforting thought that he would live even though I died.

 

“Emma.” He called through a fog of sleep.

“Mmm?”

“Welcome back to America. Strap in – we're coming in to land. We've just beaten the storm.”

Runway lights lit a safe passage down which the plane's nose headed. Although the sun had shone strongly above the cloud, below it an obscurity lay upon the day, and the snow from the approaching storm hung above the encircling mountains, softening their outline. I watched him as he brought the aircraft in to land on an airfield barely bigger than the one we had left in England, his face eerily lit by the green lights on the instrument panel, his brow lightly furrowed in concentration, his mouth turned up at the corners even when he wasn't smiling, giving away his innate good nature. Swallowing my desire, I sighed audibly. He didn't take his eyes off the runway.

“Still tired?”

“Um, oh yes – a bit.”

“It'll take an hour or so to get back – more if the snow doesn't hold off. We'd better get you something to eat; do you mind eating in the car as we drive?”

I shook my head. The plane came to a smooth full stop; I had hardly felt the undercarriage touch the tarmac.

 

The first flakes of snow began to fall as we left the airstrip – softly, lightly at first, testing the resistance of the air, catching in the cobweb strands of my hair lifted by the wind. The claret of Matthew's car was already muted as we drove out of the parking lot, a fine covering of frozen flakes whitening the road and verge. By the time we neared the campus, the distinguishing features of shrubs and rocks and road had been lost beneath the mantle of snow: anonymity its gift, given indiscriminately.

 

“Glad to be back?”

Matthew left my cases on my bed before coming back into the sitting room and opening the curtains to let more of the diffused light into my college apartment. The room had been rendered immaculate since I last saw it, and a new coffee table sat in front of the sofa where I had left the shattered remains of the old one in a state resembling my own. A world of difference lay between then and now: the difference between knowing and not knowing, between certainty and the mere apparition from his past that had kept us solidly apart. Now, back in this room once more, order had been restored to my life by the acquisition of knowledge. And knowledge was king.

I thought of being with him, and answered, “Yes.” Then, thinking of the possibility of a trial, I added, “And no.”

I joined him where he stood by the window. Together we watched the snow fall thickly, the cedar outside the barest shadow in the white. He put his arm around my waist and kissed my hair and I snuggled up to him.

“Will the snow mean we can't go into the mountains?”

“No, this is nothing; we'll get there. I have one or two things to do first; I expect you have too?”

Not really. I could certainly think of things I
must
do, such as contact my students, whom I felt I had neglected dreadfully; but not many things that I
wanted
to do, not without him. I shrugged under his arm in a gesture of non-committal.

“Yes, I have things to do.”

“Give me twenty-four hours, then I'll come and collect you. Think you can wait that long? Emma?”

I studied my feet. “Yes.”

He bent sideways and looked into my face so that I couldn't avoid his eyes, now cobalt in the snow-light.