Paula Hipkiss hired the function room on Tuesday mornings to run her weekly keep-fit class. What had happened to them? There was no way she would have slept through that. If the thumping music hadn't woken her up, then the elephantine crashing of anything between ten and twenty-five sweaty, overweight, middle-aged housewives surely would have.
`George,' she yelled again, her smoker's voice hoarse and angry. She coughed as she stumbled down the stairs. Bloody hell, it was as dark down there as the rest of the building. The cleaners, aerobics instructors, crowds of chubby women, talentless musicians, her useless husband ? someone should have been here to turn the lights on and get the place ready for the punters. And she was right, the band hadn't been able to get in to get their gear. She could see it piled up at the far end of the room.
`George!' she screamed at a volume that, had he heard her, he would never had dared ignore. `Where are you for Christ's sake?'
Jackie opened the curtains and stumbled around the bar. She found her husband of twenty-three years dead on the stairs which led down to the cellar. Poor bugger, he looked like he'd lost his footing and fallen headfirst down the steps, smashing his face into the concrete cellar floor. Shaking with sudden shock and emotion she slowly made her way down to him, one precarious step at a time, stepping over his sprawled out limbs. When she got to the bottom she sat down on the step next to him and began to cry.
Oh, George, Jackie thought, and there I was thinking you'd let me down. Sobbing, and filled with guilt, sorrow and a genuine deep, raw sadness, she tenderly stroked her husband's mop of white hair and gently shook his shoulder.
`Come on, love,' she whispered hopefully, `wake up.'
She knew it was too late. She knew that George was dead.
Several long, quiet, grief-filled minutes later Jackie managed to drag herself back up from the cellar. It was almost opening time now but that didn't seem to matter anymore. She poured herself a large gin, knocked it back, poured herself another and then picked up the phone to call for the doctor. The pub was still dark and empty and she looked around the shadow-filled room with sad, desperate eyes. Much as she was the brains of the operation and the one who made all the decisions, Jackie didn't know how she'd cope without George.
The telephone wasn't working.
She finished her drink, hung up and tried again. Same problem. Couldn't get a line.
Not the kind of people to waste their time with gadgets and fads, neither George nor Jackie had ever owned a mobile phone. Jackie decided to try and telephone from the bank next door. If the worst came to the worst, she thought, she'd walk up to the doctor's surgery. It was only a little way down the high street. She'd go out through the back door to avoid any of the regulars who might be waiting around the front to get in.
When Jackie stepped out into the cobbled courtyard behind the pub she immediately noticed how quiet it was outside. She buttoned up her coat, locked the door and then walked out through the gate, down the alleyway and onto the high street.
The devastation was incredible.
A bus was on its side just up the road. In the distance Westwood Garage was on fire. There were crashed cars all over the place and, for as far as she could see in every direction, hundreds of people lay dead on the cold ground around her.
This had happened hours ago.
What had caused it?
How had she slept through it and why hadn't it affected her?
Jackie went back into the Lion and Lamb and poured herself another gin.
GARY KEELE
`All right, Tuggie,' shouts Meade across the carpark. The sun's bright this morning. I have to cover my eyes with my hand so that I can see him.
`Morning, Keith,' I shout back. `Good day for it?'
He looks up and around.
`Just about perfect, I'd say,' he answers as he grabs his bag from the back of his car and starts walking towards the office.
He's right. It's a perfect day for flying. It's days like this that make me glad everything worked out the way it did between me and Sarah. If we were still together then I wouldn't be here now. I'd still be stuck living in our cramped terraced house in the middle of the city, spending long hours stuck in traffic and even longer hours stuck at the office. Most of the people I used to work with are probably still there, too scared to leave, stuck in a rut. And while they sit at their desks and follow orders, I'm out here in the fresh air, sitting on my backside and occasionally flying. I'm making it sound like I don't do anything around here. I do ? I work damn hard when I have to ? but I enjoy it. It doesn't feel like a job.
Shame we had to part on such bad terms though. I had a good few years with Sarah until we split up. Everything happened within the space of six months. She went off with a financial adviser (who advised her that he was worth a lot more than I was) and then, as I was just getting myself back on my feet, the bastards made me redundant. I had nothing to stay in the city for. We sold the house and I took my share and what was left of my redundancy payment and packed my bags and moved to the other side of the country. I learnt to fly a plane (it was something I'd always wanted to do) and then managed to get myself a job here at the Clifton Gliding Centre, towing gliders two thousand feet up into the air and then letting them go so that they can drift back down to the ground. Easy. I have a good life now. Simple, but good.
A line of three virtually identical (in all but colour) cars pull into the gravel carpark. The sound of their wheels crunching along the ground disturbs the quiet of the morning. This must be today's visitors arriving. There are supposed to be eight or nine of them I think, sales reps from a company in town. Noisy buggers. It's only just turned eight and all I can hear is them laughing and shouting. Why can't they talk quietly? It's probably just nerves. It's good sport watching blokes like this. They try and act all cool and relaxed on the ground, but I know they're nervous as hell. As soon as they're strapped into the gliders and they're ready to go up they change. All the bravado and macho bullshit disappears. When there's just the hull of a flimsy little plane and two thousand feet of air between their backsides and the ground they tend to shut up and drop the act. I hate these corporate team building activities. To think I used to have to do all this...
As the group disappears into the office to sign in and be briefed on the rules for the day I start getting the plane ready. I can still hear the voices of the seven men and two women as I walk over to the hanger. I climb into the plane, shut the cockpit and fire up the engine, drowning out their noise once and for all. I taxi out onto the airfield (which literally is a field here ? no concrete runways for us) and move into position. Once we're ready I stop the engine, get out of the plane and walk over to where some of the other staff are standing in front of the hanger.
`Do me a favour,' I say to Willy who's one of the regular glider pilots.
`What's that?' he asks.
`Give them a fright, will you? Scare the shit out of these buggers!'
He smiles knowingly. He shares my dislike of overpaid businessmen.
`No problem,' he grins. `Anyway, Tuggie, five minutes of being dragged up behind you with your flying is enough to scare anyone! I'll be shitting myself, never mind them!'
`Cheeky sod!' I snap as Willy walks away, cackling to himself.
Willy and Jones (one of the ground staff) stand and wait for Ed (Willy's lad) who's towing the gliders out of the hanger and out onto the airfield. The tractor he's driving is a noisy bugger. It fills the air with chugging and clattering and with clouds of thick black fumes which it spits out of its exhaust. I head back to my caravan for a cup of coffee to wake me up properly before the flying starts.
We move quickly. It's not even nine o'clock and I've already towed three gliders up.
This really is a simple job. The glider's attached to the back of the plane by a cable. I take off and drag it up until we've reached around two thousand feet. The glider pilot releases the cable. They go up (for a while, if the conditions are right) and I go back down. They usually stay up for anything between twenty minutes and half an hour. The flights might last a little longer today. The clouds are good and the sun is bright. There should be plenty of thermals to keep them up in the air. Once I've lost them I can just coast back down to the landing strip.
We usually try to have four or five gliders up in the air at the same time. This morning the first three went up
