The Book of Strange New Things. Michel Faber
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to make small talk. ‘It all looks dead cheap on the brochure,’ she remarked bitterly, ‘but you pay for it in grief.’
‘Oh, don’t be like that, Joanne,’ counselled Beatrice. ‘You’ll have a lovely time. Nothing bad has actually happened. Just think: if the plane had been scheduled to leave eight hours later, you would’ve been doing the same thing as you’re doing now – waiting, except at home.’
‘These two should be in bed,’ grumbled the woman, baring a roll of abdominal flesh and sticking the needle in.
Jason and Gemma, righteously offended by the allegation that they were sleepy rather than maltreated, looked poised for a fresh set of tantrums. Beatrice got on her hands and knees again. ‘I think I’ve lost my feet,’ she said, peering nearsightedly around the floor. ‘Where have they gone?’
‘They’re here!’ cried little Jason, as she turned away from him. ‘Where?’ she said, spinning back.
‘Thank God,’ said Joanne. ‘Here comes Freddie with the food.’
A hassled-looking fellow with no chin and a porridge-coloured windcheater lumbered into view, several paper bags clutched in each hand.
‘World’s biggest rip-off,’ he announced. ‘They keep you standing there with your little voucher for two quid or whatever. It’s like the dole office. I tell you, in another half an hour, if this lot don’t bloody well – ’
‘Freddie,’ said Beatrice brightly, ‘this is my husband, Peter.’
The man put down his packages and shook Peter’s hand.
‘Your wife’s a bit of an angel, Pete. Is she always taking pity on waifs and strays?’
‘We . . . we both believe in being friendly,’ said Peter. ‘It costs nothing and it makes life more interesting.’
‘When are we gonna see the sea?’ said Gemma, and yawned.
‘Tomorrow, when you wake up,’ said the mother.
‘Will the nice lady be there?’
‘No, she’s going to America.’
Beatrice motioned the little girl to come and sit against her hip. The toddler had already dropped off to sleep, sprawled against a canvas backpack filled to bursting point. ‘Wires slightly crossed,’ said Beatrice. ‘It’s my husband who’s going, not me.’
‘You stay home with the kids, huh?’
‘We don’t have any,’ said Beatrice. ‘Yet.’
‘Do yourselves a favour,’ sighed the man. ‘Don’t. Just skip it.’
‘Oh, you don’t mean that,’ said Beatrice. And Peter, seeing that the man was about to make an off-hand retort, added: ‘Not really.’
And so the conversation went on. Beatrice and Peter got into rhythm, perfectly united in purpose. They’d done this hundreds of times before. Conversation, genuine unforced conversation, but with the potential to become something much more significant if the moment arose when it was right to mention Jesus. Maybe that moment would come; maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe they would just say ‘God bless you’ in parting and that would be it. Not every encounter could be transformative. Some conversations were just amiable exchanges of breath.
Coaxed into this exchange, the two strangers relaxed despite themselves. Within minutes they were even laughing. They were from Merton, they had diabetes and depression respectively, they both worked in a hardware superstore, they’d saved up for this holiday for a year. They were none too bright and not very fascinating. The woman had an unattractive snort and the man stank terribly of musk aftershave. They were human beings, and precious in the eyes of God.
‘My plane is about to board,’ said Peter at last.
Beatrice was still on the floor, the head of a stranger’s child lolling on her thigh. Her eyes were glassy with tears.
‘If I come with you to Security,’ she said, ‘and hold you when you’re about to go through, I won’t be able to cope, I swear. I’ll lose it, I’ll cause a scene. So kiss me goodbye here.’
Peter felt as if his heart was being cleaved in half. What had seemed like a grand adventure in the prayer room now bereaved him like a sacrifice. He clung to the words of the Apostle: Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
He bent down and Beatrice gave him a quick, rough kiss on the lips, clasping the back of his head with one hand as she did so. He straightened up, dazed. This whole scenario with the strangers – she’d engineered it to happen, he could see that now.
‘I’ll write,’ he promised.
She nodded, and the motion shook the tears out onto her cheeks.
He walked briskly to Departures. Forty minutes later he was up in the sky.
2
He would never see other humans the same way again
The USIC chauffeur emerged from the gas station with a bottle of Tang and a spotless, supernaturally yellow banana. Dazzled by the sun, he scanned the forecourt for his tanked-up limousine and its precious foreign cargo. That cargo was Peter, who was using this fuel stop to stretch his legs and attempt one last call.
‘Excuse me,’ said Peter. ‘Can you help me with this phone?’
The man seemed flummoxed by this request, jerking his hands around to indicate that they were both full. In his dark blue suit, complete with tie, he was overdressed for the Florida heat, and was still suffering some residual stress from the plane’s delayed arrival. It was almost as if he held Peter personally responsible for the turbulent atmospheric conditions over the North Atlantic ocean.
‘What’s the problem with it?’ he said, as he balanced the drink and the banana on the sun-blazed surface of the limousine’s roof.
‘Probably nothing,’ said Peter, squinting down at the gadget in his palm. ‘I probably don’t know how to use it properly.’
That was true. He wasn’t good with gadgets, and used a phone only when circumstances forced him to; the rest of the time it would hibernate in his clothing, eventually becoming obsolete. Every year or so, Beatrice would tell him what his new number was, or what her new number was, because yet another service provider had become too frustrating to deal with or had gone bust. Businesses were going bust with alarming frequency these days; Bea kept up with stuff like that, Peter didn’t. All he knew was that memorising two new telephone numbers every year was not easy for him, despite his ability to memorise long passages of Scripture. And his unease with technology was such that if he pressed the gadget’s call symbol and nothing happened – as he’d just done, here in the blinding limbo of Florida – he couldn’t imagine what to do next.
The chauffeur was keen to resume the drive: there was still a long way to go. Biting off a mouthful of banana, he took hold of Peter’s phone and examined it mistrustfully.
‘Has this got the right kinda card in it?’ he mumbled as he chewed. ‘For calling . . . ah . . . England?’
‘I think so,’ said Peter. ‘I believe so.’
The chauffeur handed it back, non-committal. ‘Looks like a healthy cellphone to me.’
Peter stepped under the shade of a metal canopy that overhung the fuel pumps. He tried once more to tap the correct sequence of symbols. This time, he was rewarded with a staccato melody: the international code followed by Bea’s number. He held the metal lozenge to his ear and stared out at the unfamiliarly blue sky and the sculpted trees surrounding the truckstop.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘ . . . ello?’
‘Can