Kate Pullinger - Landing Gear

At the train station Michael spotted her immediately: long black wildly curly hair, tall and straight backed and a little forbidding in her layers of black clothes and startling jewellery. She was always lightly tanned, even in the depths of winter; she claimed it was her Eastern genes. She hadn’t gone leathery like some women do; instead she looked bronzed, as though a sculptor had made a cast of her and she’d left her old body behind in the studio.

It took her a while to spot Michael on the platform as he walked toward her. But then she smiled, and her smile tore through his layers of aging flesh until he felt as though she found the real him, the one she wanted to see. She embraced him and gave him a big kiss.

“Fatty!” she said.

“Porker,” Michael replied. “I think you’ll find they call me Mr. Fatty Porker down at the bank.”

“Dick Schwein!” she shrieked. They’d had a thing for swearing at each other in mock German, Michael couldn’t remember why.

“Mr. Dick Schwein,” Michael said.

Marina lived alone in the big house that she and her husband, Stewart, had bought back in the ’90s, an old house for Toronto, early twentieth century, with hardwood floors and high moulded ceilings. It had been renovated so thoroughly that the original house was mainly a genetic memory, everything precision engineered for the utmost in comfort in the best possible taste. It was a machine for living, with wide doors that opened onto big rooms full of long couches, vast, pristine countertops in the kitchen, a warm rosewood table in the eating area, bathrooms that were almost too perfect to use. She showed him to his room, and when he put down his suitcase, all he could think was that it looked far too battered and grubby. In all the years that they had kept in touch, he had never stayed with her, not in Vancouver when she still lived there with her parents, not after she moved to Toronto to go to university. She had never been to London. They had slept together for the last time when they were eighteen.

“You fancy a margarita at the Boulevard Café?” she asked. “I made a dinner reservation at a new place for later.”

“Are you single these days?” Michael asked.

She laughed and indicated the perfect room in which they stood. “I’ve got a new husband, a dog and a couple of kids stashed away somewhere,” she said, “but I like to keep things neat.”

“Stewart was a neat freak,” Michael said. He hadn’t known Stewart well, but his funeral had coincided with a trip to Toronto in 2004, so he’d attended. It was a big gathering at St. James’ Cathedral—Stewart had been the editor of the magazine where Marina had worked, and he was well known and well liked in media circles. It was an icy February day and the stylish crowd were dressed in sleek black wool coats, with a preponderance of clunky black spectacles and neat little hats. The women wore brooches; the men had stylish facial hair. People dress to charm and amuse in Toronto in a way that no one would ever dream of in London, Michael thought. On that day, for the first and only time in her life, Marina was pale.

“People used to say that Stewart was the neat freak, but it turns out that, all along, it was me.”

“Let me buy you a margarita,” Michael said.

“Fine with me, Dick Schwein,” Marina said, and as she slipped her arm through his, her hair brushed against his cheek. It felt right to be there with her while the sky out over the Atlantic had fallen silent. Michael had no doubt that the planes would fly again before too long. But, if he was going to be stranded anywhere, it was meant to be here, in Toronto, with Marina.

The weekend after her father’s funeral, Emily took herself out for a long cycle ride along the Thames. He’d been dead for ten days. Ten days. She’d done the funeral. She’d gone back to work—what else could she do? She’d convinced Harv to stop calling. There was no one to stay up with all night, wailing. She had to get on with life. She had no other family—well, that wasn’t completely true. Now that her father was gone, she could fill in that birth parent search form without worrying about hurting him.

The weather was glorious but the empty sky unnerved her, made her feel cut off, as though she’d lost contact with the world as well as her dad. She’d lived in Richmond for several years—North Sheen, really—and while it was a long way from the centre of town, she liked its leafy suburban feel and its proximity to the river. She’d have to deal at some point with her father’s house—he hadn’t bought it, a council tenant all his life—but not yet. She’d tidy up her own life first. She pushed herself to cycle hard, as though the exertion and the sunshine would clear her mind. The wind made her eyes tear up, and she had to stop and get off her bike and sit on a bench because she couldn’t see.

After a while her eyes stopped leaking. She got out her phone. She’d continued to receive lots of texts and emails and messages from her friends, and she went through the most recent ones now. She accepted an invitation to meet friends for drinks on the following weekend, thinking she’d better at least pretend to be alive, though she knew she’d cancel. She opened up Facebook. Harvinder had been posting photos of her and emoting all over the place about their breakup and her dad. She unfriended him. She opened up her list of friends and began unfriending systematically: people she didn’t like, people who were friends of friends she’d never met, people she had no idea who they were. Through the A ’s and the B ’s, then onto the C ’s. Crazeeharree. She paused. Who the fuck was that? Crazeeharree—soon to be deleted. Emily paused again. She’d take another look at this person’s page first.

She opened it up. Odd. Only a handful of friends, most of whom were Emily’s friends too. Female. No photos, apart from Emily’s own, reposted without comment.

A shiver ran from the phone’s screen through her body. I don’t need to contact social services. I don’t need to register with find-your-birth-parents online. There she is, right in front of me: Crazeeharree. Female.

Emily stood up from the bench so quickly, she almost fell over. She got on her bike. She needed to get home as fast as possible.

On Tuesday night Harriet got home from work a bit earlier, after nine. The studio was still missing half its staff, technicians, reporters, presenters; the people who’d been unable to get home last week continued to be unable to get home this week, same as Michael, who was still in Toronto. Harriet had done double shifts since Thursday and was tired.

Earlier that day, her boss had paid her the biggest compliment in his tiny arsenal of praise: “Well done,” he said.

Harriet saw her opportunity. “I’d like you to call in a few favours on my behalf,” she said.

Steve looked at her blankly. He was even more tired than her.

“I want to continue reporting—I want more of this kind of work.”

He scratched his head and yawned. “You’re a bit old for any of the training schemes.”

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide.

“I’m just saying, Harriet, you’re not exactly fresh blood.”

“I don’t need any training, Steve. I’ve had training up the hoo-haa. I want the work.” She did not attempt to curb the anger in her voice.

Steve held up one hand: stop. “Okay, okay—I’ll have a think.”

Harriet knew have a think meant do nothing . “I’d like you to send a recommendation to Mallory Flynn.”

“Flynn? Television?”

“Yes. I know you know her. I know her too—from back in the day. I want you to send a recommendation to her and I’ll follow it up myself.”