Landing Read Free Page A

towels on her hip, bent, and leaned in. Her snaky black braid was long enough to sit on. Six inches from Jude's eyes, the shiny rectangle on the green lapel said SíLE O'SHAUGHNESSY, PURSER. That didn't seem like an Indian name. And wasn't a purser some kind of manager on a cruise ship? She wore expensive perfume; a gold choker swayed away from her throat. Her stockinged knee was touching Jude's, now. "Sir?" she said. "Sir?"
    "He seemed okay at dinner," said Jude stupidly.
    The woman held the man's wrist for a few seconds, her face unreadable. Then she straightened up, pressing her fingers into the arch of her back, as if tired.
    "Miss! Towels, over here, please!" a passenger called.
    "On my way," she said mildly. Then, to Jude, "Sit tight, I'll be back."
    Jude's eyes locked onto hers. Sit tight?
    But Síle O'Shaughnessy appeared again a minute later, leading a graying woman whose glasses hung on her blouse. They consulted in murmurs. Then she bent into Jude's row again, her jade skirt stretched at the thigh; she took the old guy by the shoulders, gently pushing him upright. Freed of his weight, Jude squeezed out. Not wanting to be in the way, she stumbled down the aisle to stand outside the washroom.
    When she came back a few minutes later the old guy was lying the other way, a small white pillow between his head and the little porthole. What, no oxygen tanks, no CPR in the aisle, no infibrillator or whatever that machine was called? So it had to be that he was all right, just in a really deep sleep.
    Feeling relieved but foolish for having made a fuss, Jude strapped herself back into her seat. Beyond the old man's flat profile was a gaudy sunrise; where had that come from? The skies of southwestern Ontario had nothing on this: malachite, and raspberry, and flame.
    Then all at once she got it. She laid one surreptitious fingertip on the back of the man's hand. It was as cold as an apple. Now that was something else Jude had never done before in her life. Seen a dead person. Sat beside a dead man, in fact, ten thousand metres up in the air.
    Her hand was shaking. She tucked it under her other arm. It just couldn't be that someone had died in the seat beside her and she hadn't noticed.
    How could she not have noticed? Jude searched her memory for any words she'd exchanged with him when they'd boarded, back in Detroit. A minimal "Hi," at most. She should have introduced herself, at least. She'd been too wound up in her own petty anxieties. Had that been the guy's last conversation? Or maybe he'd spoken to one of the crew. He'd had the chicken, she suddenly recalled; it had looked so pallid and humid, she'd left the foil on hers and just nibbled the roll. "Chicken, please," had that been his last line? People were always claiming they wanted to pop off in their sleep, but they didn't know what they were asking. To have not a moment's preparation, to drop as mutely as a suitcase from this world into the next ... You know not the day nor the hour, wasn't that the Gospel line?
    "All right there?" The purser had come back to stand beside Jude, fiddling with the catch of her gold watch. Her arched eyebrows went up. "There's a seat at the back, if you'd like..."
    "That's okay." Jude kept her eyes on her lap, embarrassed by the secret they shared: death, slumped in the next seat.
    "Sure we'll be landing soon enough." Síle O'Shaughnessy dipped down till her head was beside Jude's. "At the gate there'll be an official with a couple of questions, if you wouldn't mind."
    Why should Jude mind? Oh, questions for her. She nodded, speechless.
    She could hear the woman's brisk voice all the way down the plane. "Any newspapers, headsets, plastic cups?"
    In another quarter of an hour the cabin was full of yellow light. At they started their descent, Jude felt the pressure build up in her ears again; it was like being underwater. Where her fear had been there was only a numbness.
    Landing, landing, coming back to earth with a bang. She'd thought