They’re down. They’re safe. Oh thank Christ...
‘Textbook landing,’ says Smug. ‘Couldn’t have done it better myself.’
‘Oh, please, Trevor. You had one lesson, for your fiftieth, and that was in a light aircraft a fraction of the size.’
Sam tunes them out and tries to relax. From now on, he tells himself, the holiday can only get better.
The plane slowly turns, treating them to a distant flash of sea. All through the cabin there’s the rustle of movement. The buzz of conversation seems to rise – though maybe it’s just his hearing returning to normal – and the atmosphere seems a lot more cheerful. Sam guesses they’ll never know how close they came to disaster.
Once they’re at a stop it’s suddenly manic. Overhead lockers pop open and people are jumping up, stretching and jostling for their luggage, and queuing for the exit before the doors have even opened. The cabin crew look on in amusement, like they’re overseeing a bunch of chimps at feeding time.
Sam meets Jody’s eye and smiles with gratitude. He’s been trying so hard to feel good about this holiday, because he knows all too well how much it cost and what it means to her. And he is excited about it, of course he is. But this scare is another reminder of how the love he feels for his kids, which he always assumed would be a light and giddy sensation, so often takes second place to anxiety about them, which has the exact opposite effect – it makes him feel heavy, almost crushed by the knowledge that he can’t protect them from all the dangers in the world.
Sometimes he finds it impossible to crawl out from under that weight and appreciate the good things while they’re happening, even though he knows he’ll almost certainly look back one day and regret what he missed.
The first passengers are filing out, vanishing into the glare of the Adriatic afternoon, when Dylan abruptly bursts into tears.
‘Darling, what’s wrong?’
‘I don’t wanna go out there. It’ll eat me.’
‘What?’ Jody glances at the doorway again, and realises that from Dylan’s perspective it must appear that the passengers are stepping into a furnace.
She caresses his cheek. ‘Oh, darling. It’s very hot outside, but it’s completely safe. I promise.’
Sam squeezes in beside her to offer encouragement; as a result they lose their place in the queue. The older couple from his row push past without a backwards glance.
‘Come on, Dyl,’ Sam says. ‘We’re here now, mate.’
‘And we’re going to have a fantastic time!’ Jody takes her son by the hand and they head for the exit, where the cabin crew are doling out good wishes. One ruffles Dylan’s hair and says, ‘Cheer up, dude, you’re on holiday!’
Then they’re out of the plane, dazzled by the brightness, and it’s like they’ve walked into a steam room.
‘Now, isn’t that lovely?’ Jody asks.
‘Oh my God, it’s amazing!’ Grace exclaims. ‘I am going to get such a good tan!’
‘Breathe the air, too. It’s so different from home. What does it taste like to you?’
Dylan sniffs. ‘Petrol,’ he says, and there is laughter.
Three buses are lined up, waiting to ferry them to the terminal building. On the nearest one, the couple from Sam’s row are staring triumphantly in their direction. But the doors shut before they reach the bottom of the steps, causing Dylan to sag. ‘Ohhh…’
Jody quickly points to the next bus. ‘We’ll get that one, look.’
‘But I wanted this one…’
‘They’re all the same,’ Grace snaps, and Jody is determined not to get cross because she knows how weary they all are, dragged up at four in the morning so her dad could drive them to Gatwick for a five a.m. check-in. Beside her, Sam isn’t much help, casting fretful glances at the plane as though he’s already worrying about the journey home.
Jody sighs. This is only the third time they’ve gone away as a family, and the last occasion – an ultra-cheap voucher holiday at a caravan park – was not an experience she wishes to repeat. Five days on the Suffolk coast with torrential rain and winds that could strip the flesh from your bones. Grace caught a vomiting bug, and because Sam vetoed paying for an upgrade they were stuck in a static home with all the comfort and appeal of an old sardine tin. Afterwards Jody vowed that the next break they took would be a proper holiday, even if that meant saving up for years.
And here we are, she thinks. So could we all be a bit bloody happier?
The second bus fills to bursting point, then trundles across the apron to the terminal building, pulling up beside a covered walkway leading to a set of wide glass doors. A line of passengers from the previous coach are still waiting to go inside. As they take their place in the queue, there’s a sudden yelp from Dylan.
‘What is it?’ Jody asks, but his hand has slipped from hers and he’s running.
Neither of them has done anything to encourage it, but from somewhere their son, at the age of five, has developed a fascination with guns and weaponry. What he’s racing towards looks at first like a shop dummy; then Sam realises it’s a soldier in uniform, positioned beneath a small awning that protects him from the sun. He has an automatic rifle slung across his chest.
‘Wanna see the gun!’ Dylan cries, and does a convincing impression of automatic fire: czhczhczhczhczh. The soldier twitches at the noise, his grip on the rifle seeming to tighten.
Then Sam grabs his son, heaving him up to shoulder height. ‘Come on, Dyl.’
‘Daddy put me down!’
‘Nope. We’ve gotta go inside.’ Aware that the soldier is watching them closely, Sam backs away. He takes out his phone, intending to head off a tantrum with a couple of photos. But as he starts to frame the shot, there’s a shout from behind him.
‘Wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
It’s a young man in the queue. He has the carefree look of a student: long hair and a scruffy beard, lots of beads and leather wristbands. His girlfriend has braids in her hair and braces on her teeth. They’re probably only three or four years younger than Sam and Jody, and yet he’s struck by the gulf that separates them: a whole great ocean of experience, hardship, responsibility.
‘Won’t hurt, will it?’ Sam wonders if this skinny kid is trying to pick a fight with him.
‘It’s prohibited to photograph anything military,’ the girl explains. ‘They get, like, really uptight about it.’
‘Yeah?’ Scowling, Sam carries Dylan over to Jody and Grace, who are queuing just ahead of the students.
‘It’s a police state, is what it is,’ the skinny kid says. ‘One wrong move and you’ll wake up in a cell with electrodes strapped to your b–’
‘Ssh!’ the girl hisses. ‘Not in front of their kids!’
She laughs apologetically. Sam realises he is still glaring at the couple, and Jody gives him a warning glance: Cool it.
So Sam relaxes. Or pretends to, at least.
3
Sam finds it odd to greet the chill of an air-conditioned building with pleasure. For most of his life he’s associated cold rooms with draughty windows, poor insulation and a lack of money for proper heating. Even in their current home, which has double glazing and a modern boiler (and costs them eleven hundred quid a month in rent), the heating has to be rationed in winter: an hour in the morning, two hours at night.