First Born(4)

My breathing feels wrong. Am I going to have a heart attack? Am I going into shock?

More tea.

I research travel insurance. After reading horror stories of hundred-thousand-dollar hospital bills I decide to cover myself by purchasing two policies from two separate insurers headquartered in two separate continents. It’s important to have insurance for your insurance.

As the bird outside my locked windows starts to sing I fall asleep on my bed with the photo of my twin next to me on its own pillow.



I wake up and immediately check Google but there’s still no news about KT. I’m craving details: timelines, forensic evidence, medical reports, suspects in custody. I want to know the specifics. The ESTA was granted, thank goodness. I take a screenshot of the confirmation and send that to my back-up email.

Strong coffee. I cross-reference my lists and pack my checked bag and my hand luggage and then I repack them both. I research can you take a parachute on a jet plane and discover that you can but they do not increase your chances of surviving a serious incident.

I unplug all appliances except for the fridge, and then I leave the apartment. I secure all three locks on the door and climb into the minicab. The company knows me. They have on file that I insist on a Volvo and an experienced driver with no points on their licence.

My phone’s lock screen shows my sister’s face. My face. An Instagram photo from Central Park. My lock screen used to show a photo of her walking on Hampstead Heath, down by the swimming ponds, one of our favourite places in the world. I’m better with wildlife than I am with people.

I see glimpses of Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park on the way to the M4 motorway. At Heathrow the driver takes the Terminal 5 exit and I see there are armed police close to the terminal. I count four.

I pull on my backpack and thank the driver and retract the handle on my suitcase and then I sprint as fast as I can, dragging my bag in my wake. I’ve read on forums how unsecure landside areas before checkin are among the most risky places to linger in the modern world.

At security I’m told to take off my shoes and remove all liquids from my bag. I walk through and I do not set off the metal detector. My vigilance is total. I am constantly aware of those around me.

My bag gets searched and the agent looks quizzically at some of my hand baggage contents but then she lets me pass. I press the light green quite satisfied button as I walk away.

As I pass through the wine and spirits area I inhale a faint scent of Armani Mania and suddenly I cannot breathe. The familiarity of the fragrance. I stop and rest with my back against the wall and I squeeze my eyes shut to stop myself crying. I try to walk on but have to steady myself against the baggage trolleys.

I reach the gate a full two hours and forty minutes before take-off because I cannot miss this plane. My parents need me and I need them. We need each other to make it through this catastrophic loss. To make sense of it all.

My group, group five, is the last to board. I locate my seat and place my bag down by my feet and the flight attendant tells me it must be placed in the overhead locker. I am not happy about this. The bag contains the things I need to make it through this flight; that’s why I packed them. I take my essential items from the bag and stuff them down into my deep coat pockets. When I sit down again, my security items and Pret sandwich bulge so much that the person in the middle seat grunts his disapproval.

‘Something wrong?’ I say.

He just shakes his head and looks out of the window.

Fool.

Fool in a middle seat.

Before take-off I listen carefully to all the in-flight safety announcements. I diligently read the instructions written around the emergency exit door and then I count how many rows of seats exist between me and the other exits.

We had always planned to be together in New York one day, just not like this. Never like this. Flying was unthinkable – it would have been an economy berth on the Queen Mary II ocean liner. A six-day voyage, with a back-up life vest and all the survival gear that could be squeezed into bags. She and I would have planned activities in Manhattan, walking in Little Italy and Chinatown, visiting Long island and New Hampshire if we’d had time.

All of a sudden I am tired. Weighed down by loss.

I tighten my seatbelt to the point where it’s almost painful, and the guy next to me inserts earplugs and pops a tablet from a blister pack. Is that a sleeping tablet? What kind of idiot, honestly. We accelerate and take off and it’s noisy but the flight is smooth once we’re up in the air. I watch as London shrinks in the emergency door window. My heart shrinks with it. Leaving all this and flying to my dead twin.

People in other rows start putting on eye masks and ordering drinks from the attendants.

This doesn’t feel real. We’re above cloud level now, flying over the southwest tip of England, the area where we used to holiday as kids. They were good times. The four of us: a normal, reasonably functional family from the Midlands. Dad was fun and Mum was caring and busy. I knew back then that identical twins weren’t identical. Not really.

Most of the passengers around me watch movies on their head-rest screens. Some are reading and some are already asleep.

The flight attendant approaches me. She smiles broadly and then there’s a bang. A woman yells and the plane starts to nosedive.





Chapter 3


The fasten seatbelt sign illuminates and the woman in front of me starts to pray.