Jake Arnott - The House of Rumour

He flew further west to check his position on the coastline. He turned around over the Firth, its waters as flat and silvered as a looking-glass. Turning southwards he followed a spur of land curling out to the sea at Ardrossan, then inland he spotted the glint of the railway line that led north-easterly to Glasgow. The track made a bow at Dungavel; a small lake shimmered at the south of the estate. Illuminated by the moon, the Grail Castle now appeared to him and for an instant he felt triumphant. Then he saw that the duke’s airstrip was nothing more than a landing field for sports biplanes. There was no flare path or marking of any kind. It would be suicide to attempt a landing here in the heavy two-engined Messerschmitt.

All at once the whole enterprise seemed transformed into some awful trick. So close to triumph, he was now facing utter defeat. And an interceptor was closing in on him, a Hurricane perhaps, flying low. He climbed to two thousand metres and shut off the engine ignition. The propellers feathered as he set the pitch of the airscrews to zero. He would make a parachute jump, something he had never attempted before. He opened the cockpit canopy and tried to bail out. But as the plane was still at cruising speed, the pressure of the airstream pushed him back into his seat. Then he remembered something a fighter commander had once told him: that the best way to get out of a moving plane was to turn it over and simply fall out. He pulled up and went into a sharp loop. He blacked out.

Radio silence from the lunar module. Programme alarms and low-fuel warnings.

CAPCOM: Eagle, Houston. If you read, you’re GO for powered descent. Over.

COLLINS: Eagle, this is Columbia. They just gave you GO for powered descent.

CAPCOM: Columbia, Houston. We’ve lost them on the high gain again. Would you please… We’re recommending yaw right 10 degrees and reacquire.

When he came to he was in a complete stall. The speed gauge was at zero, his aeroplane on its tail, hanging upright in space. He kicked with his legs and pushed himself out into the night air.

He pulled the ripcord and his parachute blossomed abruptly above him. He felt the sudden lift of its soaring drag. His machine crashed into the moorland beyond.

CAPCOM: You are GO to continue powered descent.

ALDRIN: Roger.

CAPCOM: And Eagle, Houston. We’ve got data dropout. You’re still looking good.

ALDRIN: Okay. We got good lock on. Altitude light is out. Delta H is minus 2900.

CAPCOM: Roger, we copy.

ALDRIN: Got the earth straight out our front window.

He floated down over the moonlit meadow. Suspended between heaven and earth. Exposed and triumphantly alone. You see, my son, time changes here to space.

As above, so below. He was ready once more. Ready as he listened in his cell. Ready as he waited in the summerhouse. He reached for the cable.

ALDRIN: Drifting forward just a little bit; that’s good. Contact light. Okay. Engine stop. ACA out of detent.

ARMSTRONG: Out of detent. Auto.

ALDRIN: Mode control, both auto. Descent engine command override, off. Engine arm, off. 413 is in.

CAPCOM: We copy you down, Eagle.

Space changes to time.

He hit the ground hard and blacked out once more.

She thought she spotted him standing in a corner, staring absently at a gently oscillating light projection. It was the after party for the première of the Fugitive Alien remake, a nightclub in West Hollywood transformed into a spaceship interior. Supporting pillars of the open space encased in airbrushed fibreglass, dressed with glowing tubes and pulsing hieroglyphs; waiting staff in lycra costumes, extraterrestrial hair and make-up; a bar at one end decked out as a huge control panel.

She weaved through the crowd, still not quite sure if it was him. Stiffened into a rented tuxedo, white hair ponytailed, he held a frosted green highball in one hand. Something about the angle of his head, the goofy half-grin, the curious-child eyes that stared out of the collapsed mask of his face. Recognition. Memory. Loss.

‘Larry,’ she said, trying to catch his gaze.

He frowned and dropped his line of sight. Could he see her properly? she wondered. He seemed to be gaping into the middle distance. Maybe his vision was shot, though he wasn’t wearing glasses. Maybe his hearing was shot.

‘Zagorski!’ she called out.

His face opened up into a smile and slowly she saw the Larry she had known all those years ago. Her perception shifting, making that illusory adjustment whereby all the traces of age fade in one who is familiar and an expression long remembered pulls into focus. He reached out and grabbed her elbow, as if steadying them both from a sudden earth tremor. His hand was gnarled and spattered with liver spots. Blue veins stood out like wiring.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Mary-Lou. Look at you.’

Her hair was up in a loose chignon and she was wearing the fuchsia Issey Miyake Pleats Please dress she had bought back in 1993. She had thought it would be just right for this event, a clever choice. Maybe it was just too bold for a seventy-nine-year-old.

‘Well, look at yourself, Zagorski.’ She bristled in his grip. ‘All got up in a monkey suit.’

‘No, I mean…’ He let go of her and made a vague gesture with his hand. ‘I mean, you look fantastic.’

A sparkle in his rheumy eyes. She smiled then looked away. A waitress sidled by in pale-blue face-paint offering a tray of tiny dishes. Larry looked over at an arrangement of delicately tentacled canapés.

‘So,’ he asked the waitress. ‘What do we have here?’

‘Seared baby squid with truffle oil on a mango–lime pipette skewer,’ she replied.

‘Mmm, yeah.’ Larry picked one out and popped it into his mouth whole.

‘Well,’ said Mary-Lou. ‘We’ve sure come a long way from Clifton’s Cafeteria.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Larry swallowed and wiped his lips with a napkin. ‘Some of us are still here for the free limeade.’

He held up his glass to her then took a sip.

‘What is that?’

‘Mojito. Thought I’d have a drink for Nemo. You know, it was his idea in the first place.’

‘What was?’

‘The story that became Fugitive Alien . He just had the sense to take his name off the credits of the original.’

‘Sure,’ said Mary-Lou drily.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean…’ Larry gestured vaguely at something. ‘I meant the script. Your film, you know, it was a cult classic.’

‘Oh, come on, Larry, let’s not be precious.’

‘It’s true. This remake, I suppose it’s meant to be clever, post-modern or whatever. But it’s not. It’s just dumb.’

‘So why did you come?’

‘Well, I sort of know Danny Osiris, but the real reason I’m here,’ he shrugged, ‘is I thought I might just bump into you.’

‘That’s sweet.’

An alien waiter passed with a tray of champagne flutes. Mary-Lou took one and clinked it against Larry’s glass.

‘It’s really good to see you, Mary-Lou,’ he said.

‘You too, Larry. Here’s to Nemo. Have you heard from him lately?’

‘Aw, Jesus, you don’t know, do you?’

‘What?’

‘He died last year.’

As she let out a groan of exasperated resignation, an eerie wail pierced the air. On a stage at the far end of the club a girl in a silver dress was playing the theremin, furiously sculpting the air with her hands.

‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down,’ Mary-Lou suggested.

Larry got another drink and they grabbed a booth in a quiet lounge area.

‘I guess you’re used to these things,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Film premières, smart parties, you know. You were a studio executive.’