Tim Winton - The Riders

‘Right there where it’s marked, sir.’

Scully signed, and his name was barely recognizable. The arrival doors closed now. There was no one else coming. He looked back at the form. London Heathrow-Shannon, December 13. Jennifer’s signature.

‘The ID, sir?’ The woman’s smile had begun to fade.

Scully looked down at his daughter. She was white, stiff as a monument.

‘What’s happening? Weren’t there enough seats? Is she bringing the bags on the next flight, then? You probably left the note in your pocket, eh, Bill?’

Billie stared at him with the gaze of a sleepwalker. Christ, he suddenly needed to shit.

‘Mr Scully, please —’

He dug in his back pocket for the thin wallet, flicked it open without even looking at her. His International Driver’s Licence, the American Express card, an old photograph of the three of them on the beach. The woman scribbled down details and snapped her clipboard shut.

‘Goodbye, Billie,’ she murmured, and left.

Billie looked at people passing.

‘What the hell’s going on, love? Why isn’t she here? Where’s all our stuff? She shouldn’t have made you come ahead on your own.’

He stooped and went through the many pockets of Billie’s denim jacket. Wrappers, a packet of raspberry gum, a plastic Darth Vader, ten English pounds, but no note from Jennifer. Right there on the floor he unzipped her little tartan case, and to the great amusement of the next shift of meeters and greeters, he went through it with unmistakeable desperation. Gay coloured clothes, an ancient comic book, toiletries, a folder full of documents, for Godsake, and some photographs. Toys, more clothes. His mouth went gluey. His bowels turned. He glanced up at the monitor. The next flight from London was a British Airways in twenty minutes, and there was another Aer Lingus at noon, a Ryanair in the middle of the afternoon and nothing much else till six.

‘Come sit over here a minute, mate,’ he said shakily, ‘I have to go to the toilet.’

He got her to a vinyl bench, put her suitcase beside her.

‘Now don’t move, okay? Don’t talk to anyone, just stay there. And while I’m gone,’ he said, trying to get his voice down from panic pitch, ‘think hard so you can tell me what happened at London, orright?’

Billie blinked. He just couldn’t stay.

In the bright, horrid cubicle he shook. He was shitting battery acid. His toes curled in his boots. What? What? What? She’s too responsible to break a plan. She’s too solid, too bloody Public Service to deviate without a hell of a reason. His mind boiled. Qantas to Heathrow, Lingus to Shannon. Any delay and she’d telegram and wait, keep everything together. Sunday, Scully, no telegrams. Okay, but she’s a bureaucrat, for Godsake, she knows about order and the evils of surprise. She’d think of something. She’d send a message with Billie. No, something’s happened. Call the cops, Scully. Which bloody cops? No, no, just slow down, you’re panicking. Just settle down and get it clear and straight. Clear and straight — Jesus.

• • •

SCULLY PUT THE BUCKET OF chips and the orange juice in front of his daughter and tried to think calmly. She’d said not a word since arriving and it compounded his anxiety. They sat across the white laminex table from one another, and to strangers they looked equally pasty and stunned. Billie ate her chips without expression.

‘Can you tell me?’

Billie looked at the buffet bar, the procession of travellers with red plastic trays in hand.

‘Billie, I’ve got a big problem. I don’t know what’s happening. I expected two people and only one came.’

Billie chewed, her eyes meeting his for a moment before she looked down at her juice.

‘Did Mum get hurt or sick or something at the airport in London?’

Billie chewed.

‘Was there a problem with the bags?’

Shit, he thought, maybe it was Customs… but she didn’t carry anything silly, unless there was some mistake, some mix-up. And would she go through Customs in London, or would she just have been in transit there? Scully held his head.

‘Was she on the plane with you from Perth? She must have been. She had to be. Billie, you gotta help me. Can you help me?’

Scully looked at her and knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t small, not when you saw the terrible stillness of her face. She was a chatterbox, you couldn’t shut her up usually, and she could handle a small hitch, ride out a bit of a complication with some showy bravery, but this.

‘Tell me when you can, eh?’

Billie’s eyes glazed a moment, as though she might cry, but she did not cry. He held her hand, touched her hair, saw his hands shaking.

• • •

AT THE BRITISH AIRWAYS COUNTER, Scully tried to cajole Jennifer’s name from the passenger list, but the suits were having none of it.

‘I’m afraid it contravenes security regulations, sir.’

‘I’m her husband, and this is her daughter. What security?’

‘I don’t make the rules, sir. It lands in a moment. Then you’ll see for yourself.’

‘Thanks for shit.’

Scully dragged Billie over to the Aer Lingus counter where he moved into lower gear and hoisted the child onto his hip.

‘I know it’s agin the rules and all, mate,’ he said to a soft-faced fellow with sad eyes, ‘but we’ve been waiting for our mum, haven’t we, love, and she wasn’t on the flight a while ago from London and…’

‘Aw, sir, it’s awful for you, I know, but they’s the rules.’

‘Well, I’m just thinking should I wait here all day, or what d’you think? The little girl’s just put in twenty hours from Australia and you can see how tired she is. I just drove all the way in from County Offaly, and if I go back and my wife arrives… and the little girl’s so keen to see her mother… I mean, what harm could it do to know if she’s coming or not?’

Scully saw the genuine apology in the first reluctant shake of the head and pounced.

‘Listen, why don’t I give you her name? If she’s not there you just turn away. Any sign of Mrs J. Scully on a BA flight to Ireland today, orright?’

The Aer Lingus man sighed. Oh, thank God for the hearts of the Irish, Scully thought. The keys on the console rattled. Scully clung to Billie, sweating again.

‘No.’

‘You don’t even have to say anything, just nod or shake your head.’

‘No, I mean she’s not listed, today, yesterday or tomorrow. I’m sorry sir.’

Scully felt it go down like a swallowed ice cube, shrivelling his guts. ‘Thanks anyway, mate. Is there a Qantas office in Ireland?’

‘Doubt it, sir. They don’t fly here.’

‘Of course.’

‘Goodbye now, sir.’

• • •

SCULLY WAITED TILL THE LAST exhausted bugger staggered off the British flight and the last trolley heaved into the hall before gathering Billie’s case and leading her towards the exit. That was it.

‘D’you want to go to the toilet first, love?’

Billie let go his hand and veered for the Ladies’. Scully stood there as the door swung shut. He held the tartan case and faced the wall. He could smell Jennifer on the bag and even on his neck, and how it hurt to smell it. One of his legs began to shake independently of the rest of his body. He stood alone in the milling crowd, staring at the door that said Ladies , until the panic crept on him like a spasm of nausea. His little girl was in there alone, in an airport in a foreign country. Her mother was lost and he was standing out here trustingly like an eejit. He all but knocked down the shrieking women as he barged through the door and went madly among the cubicles calling her name.

ALL THE WAY BACK UP the Dublin road, though the rain had stopped and the wind had eased, the land looked flattened and every human monument grey as bathwater. It was a litany of ditches and slurry-smears, wracks and failures. The men he saw in the streets of grimy towns were coarse-faced idiots and the sky above them a smothering blanket about to fall. Scully clawed the wheel. He tried to think of things he could say, reassuring things, but it was all he could do not to break out screaming and plough them both deep into the fields of the Republic. The small girl sat with her feet not touching the floor, saying nothing for miles, until, mercifully, she went to sleep.