If I had any fear growing up it was drowning. I learnt to swim and swam well enough but the fear still lingered longer into my teenage years and, if I’m being honest, my twenties. Growing up near the sea with more than a few fishermen in the family primed me for it, though in truth I don’t know if any of my ancestors ever did drown, with the exception of a great, great something uncle but that was in a bath following a stroke.
One fear was plenty enough. I certainly had no fear of heights. As a kid I’d happily climb trees and march along the cliff face, probably far too close to the edge but in those days health and safety was not a fully fledged concept. As far as I recall, apart from the odd fall off a tree branch, I never fell or injured myself in any way that would encourage or incubate a fear of ‘high above’ either. If anything the thought of flight appealed to me.
I did not particularly look forward to my call up for national service but the one hope I did have was, at some point, I might get a plane trip somewhere. Nowhere particularly fancy but the idea of the trip, the travel, was what appealed to me. We’d never been abroad as a family, of course, and in those days air travel was a luxury far beyond the means of most people I knew. In spite of my hopes there was no flight. I spent half my service in a barracks and the other in an office in the Midlands typing. It was a far cry from the glamour of Hong Kong, for example, that a friend had secured the previous year during his national service.
By the end I was just glad to get home. I was probably pre-disposed to love by then but I still believe that when I met Alice I had come to a point in my life where fate smacks into you. It wasn’t a whirlwind romance, as some people say. We saw each other more and more over the months. It wasn’t a medieval courtship but both of us were probably a little old fashioned by the standards of our friends, despite what our parents and the vicar might have said.
One of our favourite spots was the local green, just up from town. By the time six months had passed we both worked nearby. I’d started as a clerk at the bank. Luckily they didn’t know about my weakness for numbers. Alice, meanwhile, was a secretary at a solicitor’s firm. Having grown up in the farming part of our town, amongst the hills that overlooked the harbour, Alice loved any opportunity to get away from concrete and narrow alleyways. Any time spent with grass under her feet, albeit with her shoes, was time well spent. Even the rain didn’t put her off. We would stroll along and around the green and stare out at the sea. If there were others around we’d playing guessing games about what kind of lives they led, though in some cases we knew them all too well. The green itself stretched for about half a mile in each direction, providing ample opportunities for stories about odd looking ladies and gentlemen in the distance.
I came to like the green so much that, in the mornings, on my way to work I detoured through out. I’d leave a few minutes early to walk through it before heading down to town. It gave me a moment alone with the sea view before a stressful day. One day in December I did just this. There was nothing unusual about the day itself. If I remember correctly it was a Tuesday, my least favourite day of the week. It was also drizzling a little. The only unusual thing about the day was what I’d decided the night before. I was going to ask Alice to marry me.
I’d been in love with her from fairly early on. I never went in for the idea of love at first sight. The notion of falling in love with someone before you’d even exchanged a word had always irked me. It suggested love based purely on looks. As beautiful as Alice was it was not the only reason I loved her. In spite of being fairly certain I did love her I’d hesitated for nearly a year. Why this was I wasn’t really sure. At the back of my mind the thought lingered, possibly, that Alice was just there and someone better suited might be waiting somewhere else. Marrying a girl from my hometown seemed a little lazy somehow. After a few restless nights I’d overcome this anxiety. It may sound rather cliched but I knew, quite suddenly, I would not find another like her wherever I went. I wanted to merge our lives together. It was decided.
As I walked across the green that morning I felt lighter and happier than I had been for a while. I had no plans at all. I had no money for a ring. I had no ideas for how I could or where I should propose. The one thing I did have was a reasonable confidence Alice would accept, though her parents, I suspected, would have reservations.
I stopped in the centre of the green and looked out at the horizon. The clouds above were soon to be joined by others coming in through the bay. I sighed and looked across the green to the town down below. I noticed I was alone. The drizzle had seemingly scared other early risers away. I breathed in the fresh air and stretched my arms out. I pretended for a moment that everything I saw was all mine.
When I opened my eyes again the drizzle had worsened, though not quite enough to call it proper rain. I scanned the boundaries of the green where a few oak trees stood guard against the nearby road. I’d been joined by someone else. It looked to be a smartly dressed man, suited and hatted, with his arms to the side. I made my way over. I was in a good enough mood that I wanted a chat, even that early in the day. As I drew closer I made out a few more details. The suit, which had appeared so clean and neat from a distance, was spotted with mud across the legs. There was something else too.
Within a hundred yards I paused. The man had not turned once. He remained fixated on something, his back to me and the bay. For a moment I wondered if he was up to no good, obsessed with one of the houses across the way.
‘Good morning!’ I said.
The man did not turn.
‘Hello!’ I said again.
I resumed my walk towards him.
‘Morning!’ I shouted.
I stopped as the man’s head began its awful slow turn. It seemed at any moment the head, so separated from the neck, would snap. I saw the mud had encrusted one whole side of the suit as the body finally joined the head in its turn towards me. The glean of a crest of wings came into view on the cap and I saw the once smart uniform of a commercial pilot, sodden and soaked.
‘Morning,’ I muttered.
The pilot stood and watched me. He seemed unable or unwilling to speak.
‘Think the rain will get worse later on?’
He remained silent. I examined his face a little closer. His eyes were unusually bold, not a feature of their colour or size, but because of the sunken quality of the sockets. Indeed, the whole face seemed sunken and pale, as though the colour had permanently drained from the man’s face.
‘D’you walk here often?’ I asked.
The pilot watched me. I tried to avoid his stare but wherever I looked his own eyes seemed to find my own. His face remained blank.
‘Well, have a good day.’
I walked quickly through the trees and out onto the road. I looked after a little while and was pleased to see the man had gone. I lit a cigarette and saw my hands were shaking quite badly. I held onto the cigarette and stuck my hands in my pockets to hide them. The man was old enough to have fought in the war, possibly Korea. He was probably a mute or else mad in some way.
‘It’s nothing,’ I told myself.
And it was. But I only made it a few more steps before I vomited. It came up quite unexpectedly and I didn’t have enough time to bend.
‘Oh God.’
I fished out my handkerchief and wiped my mouth as best I could. Thankfully nobody had seen.
Despite the oddness of my encounter I didn’t think much of it the rest of the day. I avoided the green that evening and the next morning but not consciously because of the pilot. Indeed, I didn’t think of the pilot himself at all until about a week later when Alice and I were out for a stroll.
‘Saw a very odd man here the other day.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. He was a pilot.’
‘Right,’ Alice said, in a tone she sometimes used when I was talking nonsense.
‘He was just odd.’
‘There’s lots of odd people around. Like you, for example.’
‘Very funny. No, this man was ill I think.’
My own words reminded me I’d been sick but I decided not to worry Alice unduly by mentioning it. As we made our way towards the sea, away from town, I scanned the green and recognised the same outline from before.
This time the pilot faced me. I was too far to make out his face but I knew, somehow, that the eyes were on me and I knew the face that watched me was as drained and sunken as ever.
‘D’you see that man over there?’ I asked.
‘Where?’
‘By the trees.’
‘Where?’
‘On the horizon, by the trees.’
‘Don’t make me put my glasses on Chris, youy know I don’t like them.’
The pilot continued to watch.
‘He’s just staring at me.’
‘What was that dear?’ Alice asked.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
‘What’s the rush?’
‘It’s getting dark.’
Alice shrugged. I grabbed her hand and started to run. She laughed, thinking I was playing. We left the green and hurried along the road. As we turned a corner I snuck a look back but nobody followed on.
I confess that the second incident had unnerved me more than the first. I reminded myself, odd people were usually harmless. All the same I spent an increasing amount of time, at work, in the shops and even at my family home, staring through the windows, fearful that the pilot would pop in or appear before me. He didn’t.
I didn’t enjoy Christmas that year. Both my parents and Alice’s were obsessed with the prospect of a proposal and I soon got tired of the questions. I tried my best to stop thinking about the pilot but the thought of him would catch me at odd moments and start me sweating. Despite this I began walking across the green again in the mornings. My confidence grew the man would not return. I chalked it up to stress at work and worries about my planned proposal.
As cliched as it was I decided to propose to Alice on St Valentine’s day. My proposal was modest but meaningful. I later found out that Alice had known I was about to propose despite my swearing both the one friend I’d told and Alice’s father, who I’d asked permission of, to secrecy. She accepted and it’s true to say I’d never felt happier in my life.
My only lingering worry was her family. Although farmers the Pritchards were, by then, a wealthy lot. Alice’s father, Nick, did not enthusiastically endorse me. Although he’d given me his permission to ask Alice I detected more than a hint of disappointment when he found out she’d actually accepted. He hoped, I think, that she would see sense between our engagement and the wedding itself, set for August. Instead, we were happily married.
At the reception Nick emerged as a different man. He took me aside, hugged, congratulated and praised me and told me he had absolute confidence I’d make Alice happy.
‘Chris,’ he said, already a sign things had changed as he’d never referred to me as Chris before, ‘I know I’ve seemed a little harsh but I am happy for Alice and for you.’
Alice and me had yet to plan our honeymoon. There’d been some vague discussions about Scotland or the Lake District but nothing concrete had been pinned down. Nick Pritchard couldn’t resist a bit of self-publicity, in spite of his sudden change towards me, and announced his wedding present to the whole reception.
‘We’re sending them on a trip to Paris, by air!’
After some initial euphoria I realised my own family had contributed to this extravagant gift , a fact my new father in law had discreetly forgotten. Still, the gesture was a nice one, even though Alice objected to plans being made for us. The rest of the evening was enjoyable, however, and by the time things wrapped up I’d hardly thought of my now upcoming flight.
It took a few days, in fact, for the connection to be made in my mind. The thought occurred quite stupidly at lunch one day as I ate my sandwiches by the harbour. I hadn’t seen the pilot in so long that I’d dismissed our meetings as uncomfortable coincidences and nothing more. The flight gave them new meaning.
My family was, as far as I knew, broadly sensible. They didn’t believe in any kind of premonition or prophecies, nothing about the power of dreams. I myself avoided walking under ladders but that was more out of safety than superstition. As I sat there, however, my hands shaking horribly, I wondered if the pilot meant something. If it was a sign, a word I’d never really thought of before, did it mean what I worried it meant?
‘Stop it.’
It was nonsense. It’d been months since I’d seen the man and the idea that a meeting all those months ago would affect my flight to Paris was just the type of nonsense I’d always dismissed. I banished the idea. Of course, as with all banished ideas, the notion grew stronger over the course of the day. The idea I might see the pilot again also grew. A part of me almost hoped I would. I’d confront him, demand answers. I began to dread each night. I worried the pilot would appear in my dreams, instead of on the green. He never did. Instead a deeper fear emerged, Alice.
‘Are you nervous about our flight?’ I asked her one evening.
‘No, not really. Are you?’
She always saw through my façades.
‘A little bit.’
‘I didn’t know you were afraid of flying?’
‘I’m not really.’
‘Probably stress more than anything.’
‘Honeymoons aren’t supposed to be stressful.’
‘No,’ Alice said and kissed me, ‘but flying is. Travelling is.’
I did feel a little better after our conversation but the fear returned not long after. If I told Alice about what I thought the pilot was, what I thought he meant, she wouldn’t believe me. If I didn’t, however, I feared I was leading her to a flight that would kill her as much as it would kill me. I spent much of my working days trying to conjure up the perfect excuse. Nothing would come to mind. Nothing that wouldn’t smack of arrogance or a man mired in panic. Even if I could somehow cancel the flight the honeymoon would have to go ahead and Nick Pritchard would never allow us not to take the flight eventually.
For all my fears, however, I still spent as much time dismissing it entirely. I’d worked myself into a state. I was being emotional and silly. I was getting lost in my imagination. I tried to examine the whole thing as close to objectivity as I could. When I got close I saw how stupid the whole thing was. Sometimes I’d be able to maintain that view for days. Inevitably, however, the fear would return.
As the day of our departure got closer my physical symptoms worsened. My palms sweated almost constantly at work. My armpits sweated too, requiring a change of shirt by lunchtime. I suffered from headaches and stomach cramps and slept little. I did my best to get through the day and was a nervous wreck at home. The saving grace was Alice, who ignored the worst of my symptoms and chalked the rest up to stress. My body’s rebellion was the least of my worries though. It’s difficult to worry about your health when you believe your health will soon cease to be.
We set off early the day of our departure. We drove up among the hills and looked back down on the bay. The sea mist had floated in. I wondered if I’d ever see it again. Alice patted my hand.
‘You’ll feel better when we get there. I know it’s a long drive.’
I looked over at her and smiled but I couldn’t look too closely. If I did I might cry, or worse, break down completely. It didn’t matter how many facts and rational arguments I could raise. I knew I was driving my wife to her death.
‘I love you,’ I said.
‘I love you too.’
‘I really do love you Alice.’
I worried the next time I said it might be the moment of impact. If I even got a chance.
‘I love you Chris.’
The traffic was slightly worse than expected. I allowed myself a moment of hope that we might miss the flight. Alice, however, was always well prepared and had ensured we’d be left with practically countless hours to spare. In the end the traffic cleared and we arrived in plenty of time, more than enough to board a flight in those days.
Whether I’d really accepted that my death was upon me I don’t know. I tried, consciously, to accept it, or else, pretend it wasn’t. In any case it felt out of my hands. We sat and drank a cup of tea each before the flight. The time ticked by and I felt nothing particular at all. We embarked the plane quite cheerfully and took our seats. I squeezed Alice’s hand and she squeezed it back. We held each other’s hands as the plane began to taxi. I watched Alice for a moment then looked across the aisle through the window. It was as I’d feared.
The pilot stood, not far back from the tarmac, watching. I’d almost know he would be. We took off and I saw the pilot disappear from view. I held Alice’s hand and prepared for the worst. All I could think was I’d doomed her to an early death. I tried to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. And even if they had I don’t think it would have helped.
Needless to say we arrived in Paris without issue. There was nothing bad about the flight. No turbulence. No disturbance. Nothing at all. Despite an initial apprehension as we made our way round the city of lights I felt better as the day went on. By our third day I’d begun to enjoy myself. I won’t pretend I was confident about our return flight but that too passed without issue. Over the years I lost count of how many flights Alice and I took. We were lucky enough financially to enjoy fairly regular holidays.
When our children came along we travelled less but once they were grown a little we tended to go to France or Spain once a year. When our grandchildren came along we went with them to Greece for four years in a row. Before our flights I would usually think of the pilot but only briefly and never with fear.
It took another fifty eight years before I saw the pilot again. I was out for a walk on the green. It had shrunk considerably over the years with the encroach of housing but was still a pleasant spot. I didn’t notice him at first but he was stood in the same spot as he had been all those years before. The oak trees were long gone but he hadn’t aged at all. The mud and mess of his uniform remained the same.
I stood for a while and stared. He turned and stared back at me from his drained, sunken face. I vomited almost immediately and blacked out, breaking a hip in the process. Perhaps I’m an old fool but I don’t think the sight of him, however much it still remained in my memory, would have shocked me as much if my granddaughter hadn’t been travelling that day. She was in a small plane in Peru, part of a gap year adventure. Her plane went down just after take-off around the time I saw the pilot. Whilst one of her friends survived Zoey was not so lucky.
I know my health has been hampered by this and I probably won’t hang around for much longer. As a result I wished to get down everything that seemed important in regards to this. I know I will have to endure the guilt of Zoey’s death and putting this down will provide no penance. I’ll have to think of this for the rest of my miserable days.
Of course, I didn’t crash a plane. But I know. The moment I decided to ask Alice to marry me I set something in motion. Whether the pilot was there to warn me or simply a sign of what was to come I don’t know. All I know is Zoey is gone and it is my fault. The only thing I do wonder is whether I’ll see the pilot again.