Kate Pullinger - Landing Gear

“Here at Tipton Mallet—a town unaccustomed to media attention—the battle for votes has been intense. Last year’s unfortunate death of the Labour incumbent, Simon Taylor, MP for twenty-five years, combined with the accusations of Conservative Party HQ interference in candidate selection, and the unexpectedly high ratings in the polls for Geraldine Coogan, the Liberal Democrat candidate, have created a firestorm of political—”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw George Sigo. She stopped speaking. He was walking toward her. She looked back at the camera. George Sigo was heading toward her. Voice from London in her earpiece: “Come on, speak! Speak!”

The producer started waving her arms.

“A firestorm of political intrigue,” she continued. “It’s an open field here, David, the gloves are off.”

On the monitor, the man in Television Centre smiled. “What’s the atmosphere in the hall like, Harriet?”

“Tense,” she said. “Trepidation.”

Harriet looked at George. He looked at her.

“No one knows what’s going to happen.”

George Sigo charged, head down, and grabbed Harriet around the waist. He lifted her onto the stage. Then he continued to push her backward into the line of candidates. Frankenstein fell, then the Flying Nun, and another, and another.

The producer screamed.

Or was it Harriet?

There is almost no room for me on this shelf; there is no secret entrance into the cargo hold.

I am crushed into this too-small space; I have been here for an eternity.

Freezing hot, then burning cold.

Suddenly, I am released.

I am free.

I am flying.

I am falling through the sky.

The earth is coming up to meet me.

Almost there now, my destination.

I’ve arrived, at last.

Filming the falling man was accidental. It was a calm, clear morning, mid-week, spring. Emily had the day off; she was waiting for Harriet to come out of her house. She’d been following her for the better part of two years, on and off. As far as she could tell, Harriet was oblivious. As usual, around ten, Harriet got in her car. Emily lurked farther up the street on her bicycle; these days, Harriet never seemed to leave Richmond, and it had proved easy to follow her around by bike, helmet and cycling gear helping to obscure her identity. Emily had to be careful, since Harriet knew what she looked like from Facebook.

As usual Harriet was well dressed, makeup perfect, “camera-ready.” Emily knew from watching her for so long that Harriet liked to be prepared. Her taste in clothes ran to the more expensive end of standard newsreader with a slight overreliance on dark colours. She could tell Harriet hadn’t bought new clothes since losing her job two years before, after that extraordinary—what to call it?— incident during the election broadcast. But she looked fine now, pulled together in that not-without-a-struggle, mid-forties way. Thicker through the waist than she would have been twenty years before, but this was not muffin-top, bulge or spilling-out-of-a-bra territory. Good legs.

There’d been many surprises as Emily researched Crazeeharree, not the least of which was that she lived in the same corner of London—Harriet in the posh, leafy bit, Emily in the flats near the supermarket and the roundabout and the railway sidings, ten minutes away by bike. They both worked in media—at least Harriet had, before she lost her job. They both—

Emily stopped herself. She knew nothing about Harriet. In the past two years she had vacillated, one moment sure this woman must be her mother, the next minute sure she was not. In the morning she’d wake up convinced today was the day to make contact; by the time she looked in the bathroom mirror she’d have decided that today was not the day after all. She didn’t need a mother, she’d had her dad, and now she had his memory. She allowed Crazeeharree to be her friend on Facebook; in turn, she followed her around on her bike. It was a relationship, of sorts.

Harriet got in her car and Emily followed her as she drove, as usual, to the supermarket. Was it possible for one woman to go to the supermarket with any greater frequency? Not unless she worked there, Emily thought, and Harriet would have to be much more severely reduced in circumstances and outlook before she would work in a supermarket. At the roundabout, Emily veered off toward her block of flats. She locked up her bike, climbed the four floors of stairs—there was no lift, which was why she could afford the flat—and installed herself with tripod and video camera in time to see Harriet’s car—red, the roof splattered with birdshit and tree droppings, as always—pull into a parking spot. Harriet went into the store, which Emily figured would allow enough time to make a cup of tea.

Emily had started filming Harriet right after she imploded on live television; she now had an enormous archive of the woman going about her business, which primarily meant going to the supermarket. Tea made, Emily sat back down at the window and double-checked her equipment. She’d had the idea of filming from the window of her flat last month: Harriet in her car in the supermarket car park, arriving and departing—anything to give the footage a bit of variety. Emily was planning one of those epic, so-boring-it’s-profound documentaries about this middle-aged, unemployed, wealthy woman’s life, with a big-bang surprise ending, the artifice of the documentary revealed and a true story—and the film-maker’s own connection to it—told to devastating effect. Good graphics, moody music, solemn voiceover. Web campaign. She knew it was weird, but she didn’t care. Filming Harriet had become part of how Emily lived.