He knew within seconds that she had arrived. Beside him, Boy flicked his ears back and forth and arranged himself along her line of approach. Even across the huge expanse of airport terminal, Justin recognized the strange pockets of quiet followed by a kind of murmuring buzz. He wondered what she was wearing.
From his elevated position on the observation deck, he looked down on nearly the whole space, observed with affection and awe the disturbed waves of crowd movement that described her path across the floor.
He could see her now, in her green snakeskin boots, heavy magenta tights, tiny green velour shorts and a stretchy, nearly transparent shirt with sleeves that extended past the ends of her fingertips almost to the floor. Under one arm she carried the huge shaggy pelt of an enormous acrylic beast. A pointy white woollen hat with bright bobbing pompoms covered the crown of her pink head; her camera bag completed the outfit.
Now he could hear her too, even from up here, the clomp clomp clomp of the thick-soled boots.
He smiled, and for a moment felt deeply touched by her friendship. Then leant over the balcony and waved to her.
‘Agnes!’ he called. She looked up and beamed at him, managing to click off a few shots on a long lens while waving excitedly.
He pointed to the escalator at the far end of the terminal, and, arriving almost the same moment she did, started down towards her. Boy stood at the top, shivering and whining. He gave a long howling bark, the first Justin had ever heard from him.
But he had no time to think about Boy.
Too impatient to wait, Agnes had stepped on to the up escalator. As they converged, travelling in opposite directions, she hiked herself up over the moving handrail, climbed awkwardly across the centre section and dropped on to the step below his with a great clump. She stepped back and appraised him.
‘You look different,’ she said, frowning and changing lenses on her camera. ‘Better.’
He nodded.
‘What about…’ She lowered her voice, ‘you know?’
He spread his hands and shrugged, but the words tumbled out. ‘Something has changed. I feel lighter, happier. Free. Like a weight has lifted. I know it sounds ridiculously melodramatic.’ He grinned, unable to suppress the feeling of joy. ‘But he’s gone.’
The two inclined their bodies slightly forward, whether to kiss, or simply to step together off the bottom of the escalator is impossible to know. For in the split second that followed, the air was rent by an explosion so loud, they felt its vibration penetrate the soft tissues of their bodies before they heard it, felt it hurl them two metres or more into the air and smash them back violently to the ground, along with every other person in the airport, even the ones who were dead.