I tapped the ground under my feet, aware that I was standing near the supermarket. But none of the people around me were strangers. I knew them all, their weaknesses and strengths, the smell of their sweat, the blemishes on their backs, the caries in their teeth. I was their mother and father, they had passed through me, born from my aerial flesh.
I reached the filling-station and rested among the fuel pumps. A scent of tropical blossom bathed my skin. I could feel footsteps approaching, hard points on the concrete forecourt. As I crossed the street to the shopping mall, tapping my way with the crutch, others followed me silently, through the derelict shrines among the appliance islands, past the used-car lot to the open ground by the motorway.
I stopped and listened to the steady breathing around me. Was a party of assassins following me, about to stone me to death? I was ready to give them whatever they wanted, my weak legs and arms, my windless lungs, my unmagic loins. Having stripped me, they would leave a clutch of sightless bones in the motorway dust.
A hand touched my shoulder. I felt someone’s warm breath on my neck. Fingers explored my wrists, searching for my pulse, others touched my face, caressed my bruised chest, stroked my blind eyes. People crowded around me, their hands on my body, on my legs, massaging my thighs, lifting my scrotum. A woman’s sweet mouth pressed against my lips. I was about to be smothered by all this affection, a deformed baby deliberately suffocated by loving relatives.
A tidal race flowed through me, a violent eagre rushed into my empty blood vessels. The air began to clear. My loins came alive in the hands of the young man who held my penis. His semen recharged my testicles.
‘Blake …! Open your eyes!’
Father Wingate and Mrs St Cloud were smiling into my face. Like everyone else around me, they were dressed in aviator’s costume, members of a party of Victorian aerial enthusiasts. The priest took off his panama hat and sailed it away over the abandoned cars, then embraced me affectionately.
‘Blake, you came through …!’ All the self-disgust had left him, and his face was unlined, lit by that same interior light I had seen shining through the X-ray photographs of my skull. He seemed gay and light-headed, a young curate enjoying some excellent joke over the communion wine.
Mrs St Cloud held my cheeks in her hands and kissed me on the forehead. As she smiled at me I could see her daughter’s expression in her face. Her features had lifted, climbing the bones of her chin and temples. Her blond hair hung loosely around her shoulders.
‘Blake, it’s time to fly. We’re all ready for you now.’
Through my still half-opaque eyes I saw that hundreds of people had gathered around me. They were all there, figures in a white dream glimpsed through that powdery light. All of them seemed younger now, children returning to their earlier selves. There were the bank manageress and the furniture salesman, the supermarket cashiers, account executives and secretaries, the retired soldier and the television actor who had built my winged head-dress, the old and the crippled who had thrown away their crutches and wheelchairs. Only the children and Miriam were absent. Far away Jamie and Rachel ran across the park, chasing the birds and butterflies. Even David was moving away from me. As he returned to the river he paused by the war memorial to look back at me with his wise smile.
My eyes cleared, and I felt the hands of Shepperton press against me. Each of the townspeople passed something of himself into me, a token of his spirit pinned to my heart as if I were the groom at my wedding.
‘Blake! Come on! It’s time to fly!’
‘Look up, Blake!’
Father Wingate shouted to me, his strong head raised to the sun. Already the first people were rising into the air, the bank manageress and the television actor. They beckoned me to join them, their hands reaching down to take mine. Soon everyone had left the ground. They circled around me in the warm sunlight, their feet kicking the dust into a huge cloud. Looking up at them, I could see their affection and concern for me. Father Wingate, his arm around Mrs St Cloud’s waist, floated past me, his knees brushing my shoulder.
‘It’s time, Blake!’ Ten feet from the ground, they flew around me hand in hand, willing me into the air. At last I felt the air cool my bruised toes. I threw the crutch away, and drawn by the force of their love for me, I rose into the sky.
CHAPTER 39
Departure
Holding one another’s outstretched hands, we moved together through the sky, an immense aerial congregation. Far below us the town had begun to blossom again into the brilliant forest that had dressed the roofs of these suburban houses. The warm wind carried a hundred scents, and we floated on a perfumed cloud. Happy to be together, we formed a circle around Shepperton, our faces lit by the welcoming sun.
Before leaving for the last time, we decided to give thanks to this small town. On either side of me were Father Wingate and Mrs St Cloud, an enthusiastic young couple delighted with their first flight. We soared through the air beside the motorway, no longer concerned that the drivers in the cars streaming towards London were unable to see us. We hovered above the concrete post across which I had tripped when I first tried to escape from Shepperton, and held a small service of thanks to the stones in the field. We gave thanks to the appliance islands and bedroom suites, to the fuel pumps in the filling-station and to the rusting car which had once sheltered me.
‘Goodbye, Blake …’ Mrs St Cloud had released my hand and began to move away from me, an excited teenage girl in her adult flying costume.
‘Bye, Blake …!’ a child called out, one of the supermarket cashiers now little more than ten years old.
‘Blake …’ Father Wingate held my shoulders, his slim adolescent face like a spirited novice’s. We embraced each other for the last time, and when I released him I could feel his youthful smile linger on my lips.
But already I knew that I could not go with them. I had taught them to fly, by guiding them through the doors of my body, and now they would make their own way to the sun. Meanwhile others still remained, the three children, the birds and the deer, the voles and the insects which had given themselves so generously to me. Only when I had sent the last living creature on its way towards the sun would I be free to leave.
Already they were a hundred feet above me, a party of happy children moving hand in hand towards the illuminated sky.
‘Blake, goodbye …’
The last of their voices faded. Alone in this small sky, I sank downwards through the quiet air. I stood on the roof of the car-park, exhausted by the work of sending the people of Shepperton on their way, and looked out over the deserted town. I now knew the meaning of the strange holocaust I had seen from the cockpit of the Cessna as I sat drowning in the river, a vision of the illustrated souls of the people of this town whom I had taken within me and taught to fly, each a band of light in the rainbow worn by the sun.
CHAPTER 40
I Take Stark
I walked along the deserted street, seeing my reflection in the windows of the supermarket. Overrun by the silent forest, the quiet roads stretched past forgotten swimming-pools and empty driveways. A water-spray rotated across an ornamental pond, and children’s toys lay abandoned by the garden gates. On all sides the birds crowded the rooftops and telephone wires, jostled for a place on the parked cars. They watched me, waiting for the last act that was about to follow, uncertain whether I would leave them alone here. The condors gazed at me with their ancient eyes, great wings raised to still the air.
‘Mrs St Cloud …! Father Wingate …’ They had gone to join the sun. But had Stark escaped? Only Miriam remained, lying in the vestry at the church.
‘Miriam …! Dr Miriam …!’
Above the film studios helicopters were circling. I turned my back on the supermarket. The stains of my semen covered the silent glass, pearls cast among the discount offers. As if inflamed by my last flight, the bruises on my mouth and chest had become glowing coals in my skin.
When I reached the war memorial I could hear the t
hree children playing happily in their meadow. I crossed the car-park of the clinic and walked through the grass towards them. The light from my body flared against the poppies, turning the red petals to gold, lighting the plumage of the condors who followed me from tree to tree.
For a few moments I watched the children, wishing that they could play for ever in this secret meadow. They skipped towards me, crowding excitement into every second. Jamie whirled around my legs, escaping from Rachel’s quick hands. He squealed as I picked him up and embraced him.
‘It’s time to leave, Jamie …’
He stared at me in surprise, then seized my shoulders. His small mouth kissed my cheek. He leaned back, let out a final ironic hoot at the world and fell against me. He sank easily through my golden skin, his strong legs kicking for the last time.
Without hesitating, Rachel came to me. Her neat hands separated the glowing grass as if she were housekeeping in the meadow and meant to keep it tidy for the next tenants. She stepped up to me and gravely embraced my waist.
‘Time for us all to leave, Rachel …’
I took her strong hands, felt her impatient mouth on my own, her tongue feeling my teeth. With a last happy cry she slipped away into my heart.
Alone now, David waited in the long grass. Below his great forehead, his eyes watched me calmly.
‘I’ll teach you to fly, David. People will be here soon-you won’t want to stay when they arrive.’
‘I’m ready, Blake. I’d like to fly.’ He smiled at his hands, doubting whether they would ever become wings. He showed me an old shoe-box, in which he had caught two Amazon moths.
‘I’ve started to collect them,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s worth keeping a record of all this.’
‘Do you want to catch another?’ I asked him. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
He shook his head, then laid the open box on the grass. We watched the moths flutter dustily through the poppies, insects of gold lit by my skin. David came towards me. He leaned his huge head against my waist, taking a last look at the meadow, at the trees and birds.
‘Blake … goodbye!’
He seized my hands. His large head, with its open sutures, passed into me, his strong shoulders merged with mine.
I rose into the air, and released them to the sky above the park. Like dreamers in flight, they sailed away hand in hand, their faces lit by the welcoming sun.
My skin glowed, so brightly now that the deep grass around me and the dark leaves of the rhododendrons were almost white. I walked towards the river, an archangel moving among the mortuary birds, the light from my body flaring against the trunks of the elms.
I approached the St Clouds’ deserted mansion. Hundreds of fish leapt from the water, eager to take my light briefly to their bodies, unhappy that I might leave them behind. Beyond the white water Stark stood at the balustrade of his amusement pier. He had taken off his flying suit and had slung his rifle over his naked shoulder. Surrounded by the birds, the pelicans and fulmars, he watched me as I walked across the lawn. When he threw his rifle into the water I knew that he had given up all hope of challenging me. He listened to the helicopters, accepting that they moved through a different sky.
The dredging platform had broken from its moorings and run aground on the mud-flats along the opposite bank. However, Stark had at last dragged the drowned Cessna on to the beach. The skeleton of the aircraft, with its broken wings and gutted fuselage, lay half-submerged across the sand below the St Clouds’ lawn. The once white skin was covered with rust and algae, stained by oil leaking from the engine.
Stark waited for me to approach the Cessna and look into its cockpit. Ignoring the aircraft, I stepped on to the beach and strode along the sand. I climbed the ladder on to the rusting pier. My glowing skin gilded the unicorns, overlaying Stark’s paintwork with an even more brilliant patina.
When I reached Stark he stepped back from me. Flinching, he hid his face, as if asking for a few last seconds to prepare himself for death. Then, seeing that I had no intention of hurting him, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
We grappled briefly among the painted gondolas, Stark’s strong arms trying to hold me away. Desperately he looked down at the river, tempted to plunge into the calm water. But he would never reach the safety of the Walton shore. He knew that Shepperton was closing around us, and that he was sustained here only by my presence.
‘Blake …! I raised the aircraft for you!’
I felt him merge into me, our bodies embracing with the intimacy of wrestlers long familiar with each other. At the last moment he looked up at the funfair and the painted gondolas of the Ferris wheel, an adolescent boy eager to ride the sky.
I flew away to the cool, uncrowded air above the film studios and released him towards the sun.
CHAPTER 41
Miriam Breathes
Alone at last, I made my way along the beach to the wreck of the Cessna. Standing on the submerged starboard wing, I looked through the fractured windshield into the cabin. As I had guessed, the figure of a man in a white flying suit lay beside the controls. Thousands of fish had picked the flesh from his face, and algae hung in grey veils over his empty eyes, but I recognized the skull in the ragged flying helmet.
This drowned flier was my former self, left behind when I escaped from the Cessna. Half-submerged, as if between two worlds, he sat at the controls. Out of pity for him, I pulled back the cockpit door and reached down to his skeleton. I would bury him on the beach, let him take the place of that fossil bird-man, my forbear from the Pliocene, jerked from its long sleep by the crashing aircraft.
I lifted him easily, a clutch of bones in the rags of a flying suit whose missing portions I now wore myself. I felt a profound pity for this dead creature, all that remained of my physical being from which my spirit had broken free. I held this earlier self in my arms like a father carrying his dead son, warming his bones for the last time before I laid him to rest.
Then, as if revived by me, the bones stirred in my arms. The spine stiffened against my chest. The hands clutched at my face. The bony points of the skull struck my forehead, the notched teeth cut against my mouth.
Repelled, I tried to hurl the skeleton on to the sand. Struggling together, we fell backwards into the water beside the submerged tailplane of the Cessna. Excited by his memories of the cool stream, the skeleton fought his way past my hands, his bony mouth clamped against my lips, trying to suck the air from my lungs.
As his brittle ribs merged with mine, as the clinker-like wrists pressed through my arms, I realized then whose mouth and hands I had tried to find since my arrival in this small town. The bruises were the scars of my own body clinging to me in terror as I tore myself free from that dying self and escaped from the drowned aircraft.
Lying on my back in the water, the white hull of the Cessna beside me, I calmed my dead self, taking my bones into me, my shins and arms, my ribs and skull. Around me were thousands of fish, jewelling the sun-filled water, the small creatures who had fed on the flesh of my body as it lay for seven days on the river-bed.
Reaching out, I beckoned them towards me and took the fish into my hands, absorbing once again within myself the fragments of my dead flesh which they had carried like a pearl-treasure within their tissues.
I stood on the beach beside the Cessna. The rising tide swilled around the aircraft, submerging its wings. Although I was now alone in Shepperton, apart from the dead young woman in the church and the congregation of the birds, I no longer felt abandoned here, as if the now annealed halves of myself formed a complete tenancy of this small town.
I left the beach and crossed the lawn below the deserted mansion. A peacock sidled up to me, rattled his tail and waved me towards the church. I watched the birds crowding the rooftops. They had gathered here from all over Shepperton, like an eager audience waiting for the last entry of a matador.
I entered the churchyard and walked through the graves to the vestry. The bright flowers that had sprung
from my sex rose around me, their red spears as high as my shoulders, running to seed here among the dead. I stood in the doorway and looked down at Miriam’s body, lying on a glass display case in the centre of the vestry. The light from my glowing skin flared against the walls, illuminating the spines and knuckles of the ancient bones of the winged man.
I tore the last rags of my flying suit from my waist and threw them to the floor. I remembered Miriam caressing the young blossoms outside the clinic, urging them to press their heads against her thighs, as if she were trying to seduce the meadow. She now seemed little older than the three children she had looked after, her mouth and cheeks as soft as they had been in life.
Naked, I stood in front of her, and let my glowing skin warm her as I had warmed my dead self on the beach. I thought of the creatures who had given their lives for me, the deer and the old chimpanzee. Holding Miriam’s shoulders, I willed into her body everything I had been given, my first and my second lives. If I could rise from the dead I could also raise this young woman.
I felt the life run from me. My skin faded, its light dimmed. Around me the vestry grew dark again. For the last time I gave myself away. Now I would have only enough strength to send Miriam on her way before I returned to the bone-bed on the beach.
I felt her stir. Her right hand rose and touched my face. ‘Blake …! You woke me – I fell asleep here!’