There is nothing to see but the infinite. The flight deck is dark. There is no moon. The sea is invisible beneath the black sheet that stretches out from the nose cone to the horizon. Will is leaning forward in his seat, looking up through the windshield, through the atmosphere, to the familiar comforting guardians in his sky. He smiles. On a night like this he could find his way home without a compass. To his right the Plough, on the nose the Little Bear, stretching down from Polaris, the Pole Star: the ever steady, ever north. Tonight, from here, at thirty-six thousand feet over the North Atlantic, one hundred miles off the coast of Portugal, Polaris will take Will home. Christian is sprawled back in his seat. He is ‘taking a moment’, leaving Will to monitor the aircraft. Will can feel it talking to him in the quiet hiss of the flight deck. The engines powering them north are whisper-quiet from up here in the pointy end. Will knows aircraft, is in tune with them, sensing them as they talk to him. It amuses him that he can often feel a problem before the computers will identify it. Tonight, across the switch panels, almost all is dark. Lights out means systems are working as they should and Will has eased the flight deck lighting lower and lower till the stars become vivid in the sky outside his comfortable cocoon and he can see Cygnus in flight above the north-west horizon.
On a night like this it is as if he can feel the warmth of his mother’s hand in his; remembers them lying on their backs together on a rug, staring at those same stars: a cold chill in the air and in his heart; not a boy, yet not a man either.
He remembers her calm words: ‘How will you remember me, Billy?’
He gripped her hand tighter, his response inarticulate. A long silence, then she raised her free hand and pointed to the vastness above them.
‘Do you see those stars, Billy? Like a cross in the sky? That’s Cygnus. She looks like a swan flying down the river. See, there is her head, there are her wings, and that bright star in her tail is called Deneb. Perhaps, when you look up and see her flying in the night sky, you will think of me?’
He looked up at the star swan, still unable to speak. He could see under her left wing another brighter star, almost blue-white, gleaming like a jewel: a beacon in the sky that marked the swan’s position. And speaking both to the stars and to his mother, he said: ‘I will, Mum. I will always.’
Will looks away from Deneb and the blue-white of Vega, glancing to the left, to the only other part of the aircraft visible from his seat. Out in the ferocious cold the glowing red navigation light on his port wing etches the winglet into the darkness. His eyes lift and move forward across the sky, arching up from the horizon, Libra, Taurus and, further towards the north, Cassiopeia reclining in her chaise longue. If only he could share all this with El …
This longing floors him for a moment. There was a time, not so long ago, when the idea of sharing this with anyone would not have occurred to him. There were times of quiet, of beauty, when his thoughts would stray to his mother, but no one has ever intruded into his solitude the way El does. He recalls with renewed embarrassment his exchange with Christian earlier in the flight on their way south to Tenerife.
‘So how’s your sister doing?’
It was well meant, casual, and undeserving of the tetchy reply.
‘She’s not my sister.’
He was even more irritated by Christian’s explosive, involuntary laughter.
‘Yes, my captain, as you say, my captain.’
‘Oh, shut up, Chris.’
‘Yes, sir.’ And Chris was laughing again.
Will didn’t intend it, didn’t mean to reveal his feelings to Chris. If he’s honest, he hasn’t even allowed himself to consider those feelings, to consider openly what is so obvious in retrospect.
He has feelings for El, and they aren’t in the least brotherly. And therein lies ‘The Problem’. Are you allowed to feel that way about your stepsister?
He knows full well what his stepmother would have to say on that subject, but what about a reasonable person? Whilst he isn’t sure that Christian would consider himself a ‘reasonable person’, he is someone Will can trust, someone whose opinion he values. And so, when they reached a natural pause in the business of operating their aircraft, he broached the subject again.
‘The thing is, I rather like her…’ His voice trailed off. Then he looked at Christian, who once more was trying not to laugh.
‘Will, how many texts do you send a week? Two, three … ten? Do you know how many you’ve sent in the last twenty-four hours?’
Will looked sheepish.
‘Seriously, mate, I’d have to be an utter idiot not to realize you “like” El. The question is, what are you going to do about it?’
Will was silent for a moment, and Christian stepped in again.
‘I mean, I could tell you not to fish in your own pond, but I don’t think you’re going to listen to me, are you?’
And that, at least, was true.
All Will could manage in response was, ‘It’s difficult…’ before falling silent again.
‘No, it isn’t.’ Christian sat back in his seat and pulled off his glasses. ‘Come on, Will, if you’d met El before your dad met her mother, who would have raised an eyebrow?’
‘Yeah, but can you imagine what Felicity would say if El and I got together?’
‘Felicity? Well, for starters she’d be bloody surprised,’ and both of them burst out laughing.
Will had to admit that Felicity would indeed be surprised. She made it clear from the start that she resented so much of the family’s resources being spent on flight training. She’s never let up on her criticism of his father’s continued and loyal support, never acknowledged that it was Will’s mother who made becoming a pilot possible by insuring against the possibility of her own early death. He isn’t sure if it was his relief at finally gaining his professional licence, at that certainty of independence that he no longer needed to rely on his father, or perhaps a bloody-minded rebellion against Felicity’s constant disapproval, but either way he and Christian had put on quite a show at her New Year’s Eve party, and she has despised him since then and has worked hard to avoid him as much as possible.
Christian was watching him, still waiting for Will to speak. Will looked away again.
‘It’s difficult,’ he repeated lamely.
Chris nodded, sighed, and said: ‘Is she worth it? Because if she’s worth it the rest is irrelevant.’
And that’s Christian: intuitive, direct, logical. He’s always had the uncanny ability to see through Will’s façade, to understand the underlying issues, and to help resolve them. Will knows that Christian has nailed it although it’s the advice he was hoping to hear. El is worth it. Whatever ‘it’ is or would be, she’s worth it. And maybe Christian’s right: maybe this is all a problem in his own head. After all, before their parents married, who would have cared if he’d met this girl who was not his relative?
Idly, Will calls up the ECAM display pages reviewing the various aircraft systems, looking for tiny changes that might identify an incipient problem. All is as it should be. In his headphone he hears the Lisboa controller call an aircraft in front of them, handing that aircraft over to the French controller in Brest. There are still twenty-seven minutes before Will’s aircraft reaches the same boundary, at least three hours before he is in the car heading home.
It’s been a long day: an afternoon departure from Bristol, south to the Canaries. It’s one of Will’s favourite routes, and an unusual pleasure to be flying with Christian so soon after their last flight. It’s been a long slog south to Tenerife but the arrival, routeing around Mount Teide, the volcano at the south of the island, was spectacular as usual. And yet, today, he’s found this trip unusually long and irksome. He doesn’t want to be here, he wants to be in Devon.
He leans forward again, looking out at the night sky, but he is no longer seeing the stars. He feels the softness of her hair on his skin, her body curled against his, small within his arms, feels her grieving, her sorrow, her loss. He has known her, the real El, for such a short time, but he yearns to be with her again, to hear her voice, to feel the casual touch of her fingers. Momentarily he considers the possibility of abandoning Christian at the airport, of getting in his car and driving straight to Devon, but he knows it isn’t viable. El would not be pleased if he were to turn up at two in the morning, knocking at her door. No, he would have to go home, get some rest, but he could at least text her and see if she could get home early from the bookshop. He could be in Tavistock before lunch if she wanted him.
If she wanted him…? His heart thumps. Why is he investing so much in this? Why is he presuming so much? He knows what he is beginning to feel, but how can he tell if El feels the same way? She is more than friendly towards him. She is relaxed, happy in his company and, when she was hurting, when she was in pain, she came to him, trusted him. In that moment of intimacy he felt his heart change, open, and accept her. The thought almost frightens him and leaves him unsettled and uncertain.
Beside him, Christian stirs, sits up and stretches. ‘I need a cup of tea!’
Will glances at the clock. Donna, the cabin supervisor, is due to call them soon anyway, making sure that her flight deck crew are still awake. Will knows that most of his passengers will be asleep by now, so at this point in the flight the team won’t be too busy and he needs the distraction. He reaches down to the comms panel.
‘I’ll see if they’re free.’
He presses the call button to contact the cabin behind them and starts the complex process of getting tea delivered to the locked flight deck.