Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War

Airplane

216 Airplane E verybody except two nuns is carrying red, white and blue shopping bags. The bags are heavy, they strain at the little plastic handles. On the sides I read Heathrow International Airport Duty-Free Lounge. “What did you get?” Bill stands up and looks in the bags. “Gin or vodka. Mmm, I bet it’s Beefeater gin. One of brandy, one of whisky. Why didn’t you get Southern Comfort?” My mother says, “Yuk. Too sweet.” My father laughs. “You’re a regular barman. What do you know about Southern Comfort?” Bill shrugs and sits down again. He is taking apart a Lego jet plane piece by piece. “What is Southern Comfort?” I ask, looking at him. My father says, “It’s the opposite of Mother’s ruin.” “What’s Mother’s ruin?” “Gin.” “Why do they call it that?” “Because in the nineteenth century it was very cheap and a lot of women drank it.” “Is it very cheap now?” “No, not at all.” “The damned plane is late,” says my mother. In my head the White Man’s Grave and Mother’s ruin begin to do a dance. “Did Granny drink gin?” “No,” says my mother, “only champagne. For years she drank a half bottle every morning.” I see her in her hammock in the compound with the lions roaring, sipping champagne. The image is fuzzy, as if I am looking through mosquito netting. “But she doesn’t do that anymore?” “No, she stopped a few years ago.” “Why?” “The doctor told her to. She was ill.” We are all silent, looking at the big black board overhead. White letters click over, each in its special slot. B.U.E. “Buenos Aires,” I say. There is Madrid and Corfu and Tunis and Bombay and Pretoria. “I think I’ll go to Tunis,” says my mother, “that dry desert air.” “I’ll go to Buenos Aires,” I say, “and climb the Andes.” “I’ll go to Pretoria and find diamonds.” I look at Bill. I think, I don’t know you at all. “How do you know diamonds come from Pretoria?” “Lagos,” says my father. “Here we go.” The voice coming out of the loudspeaker is excited and too crackly to understand. “Gate twenty-seven,” says my father. London gets smaller and smaller. It’s like looking at a fingerprint or a crew cut, the way the rows of houses curl around each other. My tongue pokes into the sharp middle of the lemon drop my 217 C y c l e 3 218 mother gave me to suck. England, I think, England. Home. I yawn and hold my nose and blow down it but my ears won’t pop. I press my face against the window. I want to open it. I want to break it, to feel the cold sky come rushing in on my face. I think, it’s like being in a diving bell in the air. But my mother is sitting next to me. I can smell her sticky sour sweet smell everywhere. She leans over me to look out and I feel a thick wave coming up my throat. I grab for the sick bag but nothing happens. “Oh God,” says my mother, “don’t be sick.” I shake my head. The stewardess is standing up at the end of the aisle. She has pointy black shoes with thin heels. Her fingernails are red and sharp. She points at the emergency exits. She holds her arms in the air pointing at them for a long time. Then she puts on an orange life vest. When she pulls a button it swells up so she has an enormous orange bosom. Tits. I hear Dave’s voice in my head. Orange tits. She pulls out a long tube from over somebody’s seat and she holds it against her mouth, then she fastens it to her face. I wonder what else she will put on but she doesn’t. She takes off the mask and the life jacket and she goes away. A voice says, “You may unfasten your seat belts now.” When the drinks cart comes around my mother says, “I shouldn’t. It always gives me a headache. But I’ll have a gin and tonic please.” “Why do they wear shoes like that?” “Because the airline wants its stewardesses to look beautiful.” “So they have to wear them...