He always booked a window seat, even though he knew no passenger in an A or F seat ever survived life. He flicked through the airline magazine and on the first page was surprised by the dark, cowled, remote, faintly smiling Scottish Widows Provident woman, who had haunted his early youth. She had not aged in 40 years. Although he usually ignored the safety litany, today he watched the safety mime and commentary as if it had a hidden meaning he had yet to decypher . The clear blue sky threatened nothing. The clear blue sky promised nothing. Along the far horizon lay a thin band of light brown smog. They flew through a crisp new contrail that had crossed at right angles to them perhaps only seconds before and ice crystals stirred along his spine. A small private jet, sinister with privilege, celebrity, secrecy, high above their altitude ceiling and faster, sped in the opposite direction, the combined closing speed seeming to double his aircraft’s perceived speed. On final approach, hearing the wheels thump down, he felt the sinking sensation of loss of someone who had seen, however imperfectly, high and far, being brought back to earth. He was always last to leave the aircraft , remaining seated as the aisle filled with others who sometimes had to wait out long delays on their feet to exit onto the gangway steps. He would wait until all had finally left and then, last, walk down the now deserted aircraft with the aura of a dissident . His dress perhaps enhanced this impression: a worn, old, collarless, Italian submarine crewman’s jacket of heavy faded greenish leather, lined in fine woolly felt, deep-and wide-pocketed, that – fond delusion — might have equally evoked a stratospheric air pioneer of another time. He had been skyed and unskyed.
Emerging from Arrivals in the throng, he saw 6 men and 1 woman waiting with white placards with the names of expected passengers printed big in thick black marker. They were the drivers for awaited V.I.P.s: business executives, lecturers, microsurgeons, climate change experts, mercenaries, celebrity embalmers, installation ‘artists’, models, Jungian shamans, fengshui gurus, shock workers, leech therapists, spin doctors, dieticians, ‘fashion’ luminaries in emperor’s clothes, talk cure practitioners, acupuncturists, reptile smugglers. Within his first 2 steps he wondered if any such guest, expected off a flight, had ever , in a last instant revolt, wayward twist of fatigue and pique, fled his ‘contact’ driver and disappeared into the crowd, at first in furtive guilt, then with a new, defiant stride, toward the Metro entrance and a vast network map, many-colour-coded, labyrinthine; onward toward a great spread of exits, suburban and beyond, leading to — other deadends? But he could sing, or at least hum, Krisstoffersen’s ‘Bobby Magee’ with the conviction of experience.
By his third, slowing, step he had irrevocably, irretrievably, irreparably (triply) decided , stepping confidently up to the woman, who had proudly blazing red hair, holding a placard: ‘Mr. Fievre’. «Mr. Fievre?» she checked, simultaneous with his matter of fact confirmation, «Yes, I’m Fievre “, the sound barrier speed fusion of both ‘Mr.Fievres’ crystallising his new identity. With a faint air of mocking parody she lowered a laminated identity card halter on a Prussian blue ribbon over his head, to hang just below his chest; under his new name was printed the company’s, ‘Mandarin Air’, and ‘Guest Speaker’ and he immediately felt shackled, reined in, this harness instantly eclipsing or at least shadowing the original lightheaded impulse of his headlong ruse. Did she sense an imposter? “I’m Eulelia” she said , as he read ‘Eulelia Fletcher’ on her halter card. It was a name you might dignify or damn a character in a story with. “How’s the arrow business”? he asked. She playfully yet sharply jabbed his chest with the archer’s 2 fingers and he exaggeratedly rocked backward on his heels.
As they left, he saw, in his peripheral vision, a late arrival, perhaps delayed at passport control, approaching the solitary suitcase on the stilled baggage carousel: Fievre? They sped (on wheels) toward the city. She sought his face in the mirror, without speaking. Then, out of the blue, she said in a light, spritely tone «I’ve actually bought some shares in Mandarin Air». «A very wise decision» he said «another atomistic-individualist-subjectivist consolidation of faith in the stratospheric Mandarin Sky». “Air “ she corrected him. “Air”, he repeated in a tone that he hoped expressed exasperation at his own absentmindedness. He needed to improvise finance & business jargon for whatever conclave lay ahead with Mandarin Air shareholders. A wave of fatigue and a near-swoon swept across him. «Humpany ppears hilthy, wobust consumer gurve.» he muttered, feverishly. His pseudojargon was interrupted by a loud roadworks jackhammer they slowed near, to pass; its operator , shirtless, leaning into it, in a cloud of dust. He caught the navvy’s eye and the road man nodded knowingly at him: “You were once one of us and you may be again.”
«The dinner is at 6.» she said. He made chortling sounds of relished appetite, something about ‘cud edit a hosse’, fixing his face in grave culinary reflection, with a full 7 fathom deep sigh. «Mrs. Wu liked your paper on the Shanghai initiative.» she said. «Well, I always like to give Shanghai its due.» he replied. «What you lose on the roundabouts you gain on the swings. I suppose I’m not unlike an invisible gardener… safe pair of hens» She jerked forward on the seat laughing. «Why don’t I move in to the front seat. » he said. He was a man of the people and never sat in the back seat in taxis. Eulelia pulled in to the coldhearted hard shoulder and he changed to the front seat. He was to be guest speaker – or rather Mr. Fievre was. He had 2 hours in the hotel room to rest; he was by now faintly regretting that single step at the airport. Instead of Googling info. on Mandarin Air he read more of his paperback, Kafka’s ‘Amerika’, his third reading, the only K. book with a little light farce and comedy woven through the apprehension. He watched the ‘binary’ News; 1 of the 2 News …’presenters’… even as she read, seemed to be sneering in distain at what she was being expected to read. She paused, looked across at the other reader to cue his contribution; to the elderly Fievre he was a brat, in a tight silvery ‘Beatle’ suit, storm sail shirt collar, a throttling tie, and gelled hair, combed toward all points of the compass. As he began to speak, the man who might or might not be Fievre stabbed the red remote control button and blacked out the screen.
Now he was on the stage of a hotel banqueting hall. He was introduced to the reception guests, seated at 3 long tables, by Eulelia, who then, through the welcoming applause , handing him the microphone, said into his ear «I’ll be waiting outside in the car.» Or was it “Watch out for the guy with the guitar.”?
He cast his benevolent gaze across the assembled shareholders as the applause finally faded , with 1 guest persisting in solitary clapping , whom he firmly fixed his gaze on until he, too, stopped. The Beast Stalin had had the same problem of terrified, fawning, out of control, prolonged applause peppered with roared ‘Urrah!s and Soviet slogans: “Little Father of the Peoples! The skies are Soviet! All wreckers to the Gulag! No to the rootless cosmopolitans! All power to the shockworkers! 10 million bayonets! ”
The mike squealed as he spoke the standard 1…2…tasting…tasting 1 2 … ” He noted Mrs. Wu at the head of the central table; stereotypically, stereophonically inscrutable in a cobalt blue silken sheath dress, with raised tunic collar .
«Tovarichi!» he began, then waited until the laughter faded.
«It is an honour, as always, to address the Mandarin Air Shareholders A.G.M. « he began . Pause. He tried to recall jargon once half-overheard on Business Report, tuned into accidentally on the radio.
«The Mandarin Air product has become an iconic one, revered by a loyal, indeed captive consumer community, closely identified with the creator of Mandarin Air herself, Mrs. Wu, who never seems to age, who keeps her edge, who never fades, who is quite a blade.»
Most faces turned uncertainly toward Mrs. Wu, as if for a cue from her as to how to react to this panageric.
«Her vision of excellence, her excellence of vision, is passionate, perspiring and undimmed» A ripple of murmurs ran across the hall.
«The fluid , sublime , subliminal expansion and contraction modalities informing, indeed inspiring, the passionate leadership and direction of Mrs. Wu and her executive cohorts are legion, indeed an inspirational call to excellence, an excellent call to inspiration, a byword among buzzness excellencies. Self- actuating and procreatively self-perpetuating frissons of professionally inspired macroholistic yet micronuanced directives from Mrs. Wu have made C.A. what it is – yet equally what it is not. Filleted, basted and marinated in transbinary garlic fluidity on the indeterminate cusp of metastrategy, her holistic tactics, strategies and game plans have been unjustly and irrationally criticised in the Southern Asian market as an alleged ledge of volatile and precarious le-le-le-le”
He had forgotten the word! There was a stir across the room.
« … lemming cycle syndrome. Yet Mandarin Air can rightly and proudly point to 30 years of a product free of metal fatigue, consumer fatigue and, of equal indeed imperative, if not crucial importance, shareholder fatigue.»
Sparse, very light nervous laughter along the tables. He could not ‘read’ the laughter: it could have been either of the tenor that greeted a Chaplin ‘silent’ film in 1917 or that of a firing squad that dismissed the condemned prisoner’s final request that they use blanks.
“I’m only a faulty cut price firework, an old slow motion kaleidoscope.” he whispered, the whisper loud over the microphone. They seemed not to bat an eyelid at this.
Mrs. Wu’s face was , if normally inscrutable , now noticeably hardened. The others had begun to lean, murmuring, toward those sitting to left or right; others, in slightly louder tones across the tables to their ‘oppos’. He saw 1 diner , having finished his own dessert, furtively slide his sated neighbour’s untouched dessert to himself and begin to eat; he understood: he had done the same at wedding receptions: pavlova, apple pie and cream, diced tropical fruit, cheese cake, Black Forest gateau. At the ‘still room’ dessert trolley in the small hours in a Dublin 5 star hotel where he had been, God bliss us & slave us, security guard.
He paused. He would be speaking into , against, this now turned, contrary wind, until his voice would begin to falter. He mentally shifted tack, threw the wheel hard over, ordered the mizzen- and foresails set , sent an old barefoot pigtailed Jack tar down into the bilges to man the pumps, ordered himself keelhauled. No, he would spread full canvas and be damned
«Tonight you shall all sleep. Tomorrow you shall awake to find me gone, returned to my own cell in the honeycomb that is Mandarin Air. But each of us remains in the Oceanic Oneness, the one sky that is Mandarin Air. All for one…” he paused and the quietly murmured reply came back from them: “And one for all.”
Thank you and Good Night. Good Night and thank you.
He exited stage right, his sweat freezing on him, threading through corridors of toiling chambermaids.
The car was there. He dove into the back seat and Eulelia Fletcher accelerated away just as Mrs. Wu, with entourage, emerged onto the car park, to stare after the car which shrank, then disappeared from view.
“I wonder who he was” thought Mrs. Wu, relaxing her grip on the Baby Browning automatic and clicking it back on ‘safety’..
“He could have been somebody, with us…”
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