Mark watched the clouds floating past the small square of window. Utterly beautiful. Great white cumuli, peaked and pure as icing sugar. Naimah next.
Oh Gabriella, how far away you seem, how far away, and yet I feel you everywhere I move.
He closed his eyes. They ached and pricked with tiredness and guilt. The plane gave a small lurch and the seat-belt light came on and a cheerful voice warned of a bumpy ride ahead. He saw again the startled look in Nereh’s eyes. Disbelief.
‘So, Dad, when are you thinking of telling Maman?’
A father who has feet of clay after all.
The plane lurched, bumped again and then dropped. Mark opened his eyes and looked out. The pilot had dropped to try and avoid the weather but this sudden dark storm did not look good. There were murmurings from the other passengers and the stewardess, smiling, brought round plates of sweets.
Mark closed his eyes again. He wanted to get back to snow. It calmed him, made a division and a diversion between these difficult weeks before he could get on a plane to the house by the river, to the woman he loved.
He smiled; he had found an old copy of Peter Nero’s version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and he had posted it to Gabby.
The plane seemed to give a shudder and the pilot came on, less cheerful this time.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are experiencing some bad weather. Please keep your seat-belts on. We have a bumpy ride for the next few minutes. This is nothing to worry about …’
The small plane was tossed sideways. A girl screamed and a child cried and was hushed. Out on the wing Mark saw ice glitter and heard an engine cough. The woman beside him started to pray, her rosary moving fast and practised through her fingers.
The sky was darkening. Lightning flashed ahead and inside the plane all was suddenly quiet. Something stirred on the edge of Mark’s memory and he eagerly moved towards it. This … thing that had eluded him all his life. He was dimly aware of the pilot asking everyone to pull their seats up and get into the emergency position and not to panic. The cabin staff rapidly checked the babies and small children.
He did not want to lose this, this answer, this clue to what he is.
The plane was tossed like a kite. It strained and creaked like a damaged animal and out of nowhere Mark heard this incredible sound. Deep, breathy sounds that made a rhythm so familiar the hairs stood out on his arms and on the back of his neck.
He saw two women facing each other, muffled up in coats and fur. One hand touched the upper arm of the other as if for balance. Their faces and mouths were very close and they were making this amazing sound deep in the back of their throats. One led, the other responded. They swayed gently, their lips almost touching, one using the other’s mouth cavity as a resonator.
The words appeared meaningless to Mark and yet he understood them as he understood the snow and the space and what fills each. It was all a part of him and he leant closer to glimpse the face of the woman he knew was his mother. He wanted to laugh. She was throat-singing, controlling her breath in a vocal game with her friend. On the sounds went; a story, a cry of a bird, a name.
She turned, this forgotten woman, and Mark saw how young she was. How young. Remembered how he was taken from her as harshly as she was taken from her own kind. Plucked from her frozen body in a lonely house she hated.
Her eyes held his. She smiled and he remembered with sadness the warmth of her body as they slept wrapped together on cold nights, when she would make this sound to herself, this throaty, comforting echo in the lonely dark of night.
The pilot lost control and the nose of the plane dived. The screams were loud in his ears. Mark thought, how strange to remember who you are, the small piece that has always been missing, in the moment of death.
I am Inuk, which means person. I am Inuk.