Kate Pullinger - Landing Gear

Friday evening, when she got home, before she did anything else, Harriet rang Michael. All week they’d been trying to connect. Six o’clock in London: one o’clock—lunchtime—in Toronto. Surely he’d be able to talk.

“Harriet?” He cleared his throat.

“Hello! My long-lost husband!”

“Won’t be long now,” he said. “Home Sunday.”

“I know.”

Michael cleared his throat again. She could hear rustling as he moved.

“Are you in bed?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “having a nap. I think this week of enforced leisure has been good for me. Lots of naps. Not even power naps. Just reading a book and falling asleep.”

Harriet tried to picture Michael, napping, reading. “Sounds great.”

“How about you? How’s Jack?”

“Jack’s fine. He’s had to fend for himself all week. But he’s fine.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“He’s—he’s—” Jack wasn’t there. She wasn’t sure where he was. “He’s out with his friends.”

“Oh, okay.”

All the things Harriet wanted to say to her husband crashed into each other. She was missing him. She’d been too busy to dwell on that fact, but now that work was easing up, she felt his prolonged absence acutely. Mallory had put her in touch with one of the producers working on the election coverage; it looked like she was going to get the opportunity she was after.

“I saw Mallory—” she began.

“Well, I guess I’d better get up,” Michael was saying at the same time. “I promised Marina I’d cook dinner tonight. I need to go get a few things.”

“Oh,” said Harriet. “Okay. What’s the weather like there?”

“Warm. Nice. Spring is arriving.”

“I’ll let you go, then.”

“Okay,” Michael said. “Bye.”

Jack met Frank outside the Co-op. The plan was for everyone to meet up on the high street and walk over to David McDonald’s house, getting high along the way. Jack had given Ruby more cash earlier that day, to buy more weed for the party. Getting ready earlier, Jack had dressed carefully. He didn’t have a lot of good clothes. He’d buy something he liked, and it would be too small for him about half an hour later. But tonight, he looked okay. Frank, on the other hand, grew at a more normal pace, and his mum liked to take him shopping. He was developing a sharp look, a kind of 1950s thing almost—narrow trousers, fitted coats, hats.

It took the others a lot of messaging and a fair amount of time to show up. First Dore, then Abdul, and finally Louise with a carrier bag full of beer—the boys handed over their cash to help pay her back for it. Now they were waiting for their entry pass, Ruby. They couldn’t go to the party without Ruby. Everyone was nervous, a bit shifty: David McDonald and his friends were sixth-formers, seventeen or eighteen. Jack worried: would he and his own friends get in? Once they got in, what would they do? He’d never been to a sixth-formers’ party; it felt impossibly grown-up and serious.

Still, they waited for Ruby. And waited.

“Ring her, man,” said Frank.

“You ring her,” said Dore.

“I don’t have her number,” said Frank, though everyone knew he did.

“I’ll call her,” said Jack, and he took his phone out of his pocket.

A car pulled up beside them. Ruby rolled down the window of the passenger seat. “Hi, everybody!” she said.

There was an older guy in the driver’s seat. Ruby’s brother, Jack thought, the drug dealer.

Ruby beckoned to Jack, who walked over to the car. She handed him a small, clear plastic bag.

“Oi,” said the older guy. “There’s a little something extra for you in there. A special treat.”

“Oh,” said Jack, his voice cracking as though he was stifling a shriek, “thanks.”

“I’ll meet you there,” said Ruby.

“But—” Jack started.

“Come on, Louise,” Ruby shouted, “get in the back. We’ll see you guys there!”

Louise climbed into the back seat of the car, with the beer.

The boys stood on the pavement and watched Ruby and Louise drive away. Jack looked down at the bag in his hand. Tucked beneath the draw was a small silver foil packet. He shoved the bag in his pocket.

Half an hour later, they sloped up David McDonald’s street. It was one of those suburban London streets that stretch on for what looks like miles without a break—a thousand houses in a single terrace, packed in tight. No front gardens, and no trees either, the road jammed with parked cars, tail to nose, no room to manoeuvre. They trudged along, hands in their pockets, hoods up. They could hear music in the distance.

As they got closer, other kids started to appear, heading in the same direction. Jack spotted Roman Nevsky and Lucy Cambridge. “Sixth-formers,” he muttered.

“What?” said Frank.

“I saw some sixth-formers up ahead.”

Frank didn’t reply. A feeling of doom had descended on the boys from the moment Louise got into the car with Ruby, and that feeling grew stronger the closer they got to David McDonald’s house.

The ground floor of the house was lit up, curtains open, the front door and most windows wide open too, throwing bright light onto the street. Music surged. There was a short queue to get in the front door. There was no sign of Ruby, no sign of Louise.

They waited their turn, Frank followed by Abdul followed by Dore followed by Jack. They adjusted their trousers and their jackets. Frank fiddled with his hair. The music was too loud for talking. They moved toward the door slowly. When Frank got to the top of the queue, the others crowded around him. A very short middle-aged man, possibly a man of restricted growth, Jack thought, was acting as bouncer.

“How old are you boys?” he asked. He sounded Scottish.

Frank said sixteen. Abdul said seventeen. Dore said fifteen.

Jack said eighteen.

Everyone turned to look at Jack.

“You,” said the man, pointing at Jack, “you can come in. The rest of you—go home to your mothers.”

Despite the man’s stature, Jack could see there was no point in arguing on behalf of his friends. Frank gave him a kick from behind, and he headed into the house.

Inside, the music made the windows and floor vibrate. Jack inched his way along the entrance corridor and was funnelled by the crowd up the stairs and into a room that had been emptied of furniture, apart from a DJ and his table in one corner. Up here no lights were on, but the room was a sulphury yellow, lit by the streetlights outside. Jack saw, to his mortification, that people were dancing, including, near where he was standing, Ruby and David McDonald. He turned to leave—the idea of dancing made him feel nauseated—when Ruby grabbed his arm.

“Jack! Let’s do it!”

“What?” Then he remembered. He pulled the bag of draw from his pocket and held it up for her approval. She grabbed it.

“Can’t smoke in here, man,” said David. “My dad.” He pointed toward the floor, to where his father was manning the front door below.

Ruby opened the bag and pulled out the silver packet, then handed the bag back to Jack. “Look what we’ve got,” she said, her voice singsong and gleeful. She unwrapped the foil and revealed a small strip of paper with three tiny tablets adhering to it. She held it up for Jack and David to see. The tablets were red, each stamped with the face of a devil.

“Cool,” said David.

Jack felt more nauseated. “I don’t know, I—”

“More for us, then,” David said. “Open up, Ruby.”

Ruby tipped back her head and stuck out her tongue.

“Have fun,” Jack said, and he backed out of the room, stuffing the bag of weed back into his pocket. He made his way down to the kitchen; the food was all gone, as though a pack of wolves had descended. He didn’t recognize anyone. Dancing, snogging and shouting over the music turned out to be the main things people did at sixth-formers’ parties. He wandered from room to room. No sign of Louise and the beer.