In the tiny bathroom at the back of the plane, Amery had just finished being violently sick. Air travel had never agreed with him. But this was something new and disturbing. He peered at his miserable face in the mirror. He looked like downtown Jersey City on legs.
When he got back from the bathroom, Lee was perched on Spiggot’s lap, happily operating some kind of control that made a plastic panel on the nearest console flash on and off. Spiggot beckoned him in and pointed up ahead.
Through the front window, away in the distance, a filigree-thin strip of dark green had appeared. Far below them they could see a fishing boat.
‘Land ho,’ Spiggot said. ‘ETA one hour or so.’
A crackling voice suddenly burst from the speaker. ‘Four One Eight. This is air traffic control in Donegal, Ireland. Identify yourself, please.’
‘Top o’ the mornin, little Irish buddies,’ called Spiggot cheerfully. ‘And how do the leprechauns be doin, begorrah?’
‘Four One Eight. You have entered Irish air space. Please identify yourself immediately and give your course.’
‘Ten Four.’ Spiggot shot Amery a wink. ‘This is United States Air Force Two, carrying President and Mrs Clinton. Who am I speaking with, sir?’
‘Jesus Christ, Dick,’ Amery sighed. Lee gave a soft bark of delight.
The radio went silent for what seemed like a long time.
‘Say again, Four One Eight.’
Spiggot nodded and did a thumbs-up at Lee. ‘Ten Four, this is Flight Captain John Hancock on USAF Two. I have the President and the First Lady on board.’
‘You have entered Irish air space without clearance, Four One Eight.’
‘Oh yeah? You gonna shoot us down, cowboy?’
‘Repeat. You have no clearance for approach. Take evasive course immediately.’
‘That’s a negatory, flight control. Intend to land at Donegal airport as ordered.’
‘That won’t be possible, Four One Eight. Repeat, you must evade without delay.’
Spiggot went quiet and took a long swig of beer. Then a light of pure evil clicked on in his eyes. He picked up the microphone and cleared his throat.
‘Your superior around just now, Donegal?’
‘Affirmative, Four One Eight. He’s here beside me.’
‘Do me a favour and put him on, sir. The President would like to speak with him personally.’
Chuckling gleefully, Spiggot lit a cigar. Closed his eyes and counted to five.
‘Good mawnin,’ he said, then, in a hoarse, wheezing voice. ‘This is Praysdent Clinton speaking. Say, Chelsea, baby, put yo seatbailt awn.’
‘Yes, Daddy,’ Lee piped. Spiggot collapsed in a fit of giggles.
‘Is everything all right?’ the radio asked.
Spiggot managed to stop cackling. He coughed seriously into the microphone. ‘Who is this ah am addressing now, please?’
A nervous voice came back. ‘This is Supervisor Michael Lyons here in Donegal. It’s a great honour to speak to you, sir.’
Spiggot nodded modestly. ‘Ah know it, Mike.’
‘You’re on . . . a private visit, is it, Mister President?’
‘This heah’s a prahvat veezut, yessuh. T’express ma sawlidariddy with thuh Arish people at this momentus tam in they trubbled histree. Y’heah?’
‘Sir, I’m terribly sorry. But I have to get some official clearance for this.’
‘But ah feel yo pain,’ said Spiggot tearfully.
‘Well, I know you do, sir. And we’re awfully grateful. But you see . . .’
‘Hillary feels it too. Matter of fact, she feels it even more than me. Ain’t that right, darlin?’
‘Sho nuff, baby,’ Lee squeaked.
Spiggot guffawed so explosively that a ball of snot rocketed from his nostrils and stuck to the windscreen. Lee stuffed his hand into his mouth and crawled from the seat, sinking to his knees in a fit of helpless laughter.
‘Sir, I don’t mean any offence, but this is really most irregular.’
Spiggot rose to his feet and puffed out his chest. ‘Well, ah mo tell yew what, Mike. We’re gonna land this baby in one hour. So get those pussyass leprechauns off the runway. And lock up yo daughters! Caws Billy’s back in town!!’
‘Sir . . .’
‘God bless America! Over and out!’
Spiggot barely managed to switch off the radio, quacking with duck-like squawks of painful mirth. He and Lee were hooting with laughter, tears rolling down their purple faces. He pulled a handkerchief from his blazer pocket and dabbed at his cheeks, smacking his thigh hard with his other hand. Suddenly he stopped and glared at Amery.
‘Step out back with me, Milton. I want to show you something.’
He leapt up and made for the cockpit door.
‘But . . . What about the engine, Dick?’
Spiggot sighed. ‘It’s on autopilot, sap-head. It has been since we took off. Now come on.’
‘We can’t leave Lee up here by himself.’
‘We’ll just be a second. It’s absolutely fine.’
Amery laughed. ‘Dick, I’m not leaving Lee in charge alone. What if there’s some kind of emergency?’
‘Jesus Christ, Milton, we’ll be ten feet away. Why can’t you trust the kid for once in your life?’
Amery looked at Lee. He was wearing Spiggot’s headphones. They were too large; they made him look like Mickey Mouse.
‘Can I, Dad? Please?’
‘Jeez, Lee . . . I don’t know.’
‘Please, Dad?’
‘Well . . . Don’t touch anything.’
‘Just sit there. OK? Don’t move. And don’t touch anything.’
‘I won’t. I swear.’ He held up his hands. ‘I’ll sit like this until you guys get back.’
They left the cockpit and entered the cabin.
On a couch-style seat down at the back, Everard and Elizabeth were asleep in each other’s arms. She had her hand inside his tunic, Amery noticed, and was resting the side of her face on his chest.
Spiggot was on his knees, rummaging in a locker. ‘Hey, I brought this with me. I thought you might like it.’
He produced a thick, worn-looking scrapbook with a skull and crossbones decal on the cover and a sticker saying GRATEFUL DEAD. Inside the book were old posters and cuttings, leaflets and photographs from their student days. A flyer for a production of Macbeth showed Ellen in Elizabethan costume. Another – this one for a comedy revue – had her standing to attention in a 1940s US army uniform beside a pretty girl whose name neither of them could remember. A third showed Ellen and Amery at a Hallowe’en party, dressed as ghosts. Ellen was smiling straight into the lens, toasting the photographer with a raised glass of wine.
‘Man, she was something. Wasn’t she, Milton?’
‘She was,’ said Amery. ‘She really was.’
Spiggot flicked through a few more pages. There was a picture of him and Ellen in Central Park, blowing kisses at the camera. Another of himself, Amery and Mike Brockleton, arms around each other, in graduation gowns. One of an anti-Vietnam demonstration Ellen had helped to organise in college. She and a black boy were in the foreground with bullhorns, while an almost unrecognisably scrawny Spiggot handed out leaflets to passers-by.
‘Hey, you remember this one, Milton?’
The photograph was blurred and badly off-centre. It showed Ellen outside a bar on Houston Street linking arms with a mop-haired and solemn Bob Dylan.
‘My Lord,’ Amery laughed, ‘I haven’t seen that in years.’
‘You remember that day?’
‘Of course I do, yes.’
They’d been walking along Houston, he and Ellen, accompanied by Spiggot and a group of student friends, when Dylan had been spotted talking to a girl through the window of a diner on the corner of West Broadway. They’d all been scared to approach him but Ellen had insisted. She’d crossed the street and introduced herself, chatted to Dylan and the girl for a few minutes, then beckoned the friends over to meet him. He’d been far more amiable than any of them would have imagined, signing autographs, cracking cryptic jokes. Afterwards they had all been so happy and excited. Amery’s heart had felt like it would burst with pride. To think he had a girlfriend who could do something like that.
Spiggot flicked on through the last few pages. A flyer for a sit-in. A pressed dried flower. A large Polaroid of his sister, Muriel, doing a grimace of almost preternatural hideousness.
‘Poor old Moosefeatures Muriel.’ Spiggot chuckled. ‘Beautiful person. But a face like a bag of fucking spanners.’ He turned to Amery and made a gagging gesture. Then he gave the photo an affectionate kiss, closed the book and put it back in the locker.
‘By the way, Dick,’ Amery said. ‘There was something I was meaning to ask you. About Muriel?’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘You wouldn’t have ever told her that you and I . . . that you and I were homosexual lovers in college. Would you?’
Spiggot gaped at him. ‘What?’
‘Only someone told me recently you’d said that. Naturally I didn’t believe it. I mean, even you wouldn’t say something as ludicrous as that. Right?’
Spiggot began to look embarrassed and hot. He glanced around the cabin and then at his watch.
‘You . . . you didn’t say that, did you, Dick?’
‘I don’t think I put it like that exactly.’
Amery heard himself chortle. ‘How do you mean? Not like that exactly.’
‘Well, it might have been, you know . . . wishful thinking. I sometimes do that. When I’ve had a few Tequila Sunrises.’
Amery looked at him. ‘You’re not . . . gay, are you, Dick?’
Spiggot appeared to be thinking about it hard, as though it was somehow a difficult question.
‘I mean, you’ve been married four times. Right, Dick?’
‘Well, five, really. If you count Consuela.’
‘So you’re clearly not gay, then.’
Spiggot nodded glumly but he didn’t look convinced.
‘Dick?’
‘Well, no, I wouldn’t actually choose to define myself as gay.’ He nodded again. ‘Gay is not the word I’d use. If I had to tick a box like in a survey or something.’
‘Don’t play linguistic games with me, Dick.’
Spiggot gave a sudden lascivious grin. ‘You sure?’
‘Take that animalistic look off your face. I am asking you candidly. Are you a homosexual?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess I tend to cover the old waterfront. As it were.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? You’re not . . . bisexual or something?’
‘Jesus. All these restrictive categories, Milton.’ He poked him. ‘You’re a regular label queen, aren’t you?’
‘So you’re bi, then. Is what you’re saying?’
‘No, I’m tri.’
‘Tri? What in hell is that?’
‘I’m trisexual,’ he beamed. ‘I’ll try anything once.’
The plane bumped over a small wave of turbulence. Spiggot stood up and cracked his knuckles.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Amery sighed. ‘I always thought you had designs on Ellen.’
‘Nope. It was always you, buddy.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, you looked so restrained and neat back in those days.’ He chuckled. ‘You had that Ralph Lauren preppy thing going. I guess I wanted to mess you up a little. Drool all over your polo shirt. Unravel your cummerbund.’
‘What are you talking about? I was never a preppy.’
‘Oh, you were and you know it. Docksider Doris.’
Spiggot turned to glance through the cabin window. ‘We better get back up front. Come on.’ He turned to Amery with a mischievous glint. ‘Unless you’d rather stay here and join the mile-high club?’
‘I hear they’re accepting members at the moment.’
‘I’ll thank you not to mention the word “member” in my presence again. Now. Please. After you.’
Amery got up. Spiggot stopped dead.
‘Shit,’ he said.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Shit. Look. The cockpit door’s closed.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Well, in a way, yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s an experimental security door I had fitted. Cast iron. To stop the pilot being attacked by some lunatic.’
‘To stop? . . . Why in God’s name did you do that?’
Spiggot laughed hollowly. ‘You’ve obviously never flown with Consuela.’
‘So . . .’
‘So it can’t be opened from this side.’
‘But the pilot can open it himself, right?’
‘It’s coded not to be openable for an hour.’
‘Jesus Christ Almighty, Dick. That’s a child up there. In a fucking plaster cast!’
‘Stop freaking out, Milton, let me think.’
He rushed to a window. Amery followed.
‘Fuck. Fuck! That’s Ireland up ahead.’
Land was indeed coming into view, a vista of mountains hazy in the fog. Spiggot was sweating. Chewing on his knuckles.
‘Wait a second,’ Amery said. ‘I’ve got it. We just won’t land until after that.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll just keep flying until the hour is up.’
‘Well, that’s the unfortunate thing of it, Milton.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’re going to run out of fuel in like twenty-five minutes.’
Amery rushed to the door and began to pound on it.
‘Son?’ he yelled. ‘Open up. Can you hear me?’
There was a muffled banging from inside the cockpit.
‘It won’t open,’ Lee called.
‘Hang on, son. Take it easy, OK?’
‘OK. Dad? What’s going on out there?’
‘Lee,’ yelled Spiggot. ‘Now just relax. You see the small red dial just in front of the joystick?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s it say, kiddo?’
‘It says fourteen hundred, Uncle Dick. No. Wait a second. Twelve hundred and fifty.’
‘Jesus.’
‘What? What?’
‘Strike twenty-five minutes, Milton. It’s actually nineteen.’
Everard woke up to find Doctor Milton Amery attacking the cockpit door with a chainsaw and Spiggot wildly flailing at it with a shovel.
‘What’s the matter?’ Elizabeth murmured, stirring.
‘This does not look like a completely cool situation,’ he observed.
‘Everard,’ Amery yelled. ‘Quick. We need to break down this door.’
‘Too late, Milton,’ Spiggot panted. ‘We’re losing altitude. I think one of the engines must have just cut.’
‘Jesus. Lee? Are you there, Lee?’
‘Hey, Chelsea,’ roared Spiggot. ‘You’re gonna have to land the plane by yourself. You think you can do that, baby mine?’
‘Yes, Daddy,’ Lee called back. ‘Just as soon as I finish my manicure.’
When Amery turned, Spiggot was doubled over, his head rocking up and down with helpless laughter.
‘Dick?’
He staggered forward, speechless with mirth, pressed the combination lock and the door swung open. Lee was slumped in the pilot’s seat, holding his sides, making strangled noises of abandoned glee. He held out his hand. Spiggot high-fived him.
‘Lee?’ said Amery.
‘Guess we gotcha, Dad.’
Spiggot picked up the radio handset.
‘Donegal?’ he said. ‘Miss Clinton’s coming in.’