Rachel Cusk - Kudos: A Novel

She got up and went away

Should she not have? Not have what?

Got up and gone away.

Yes, I think she should have

Because it was getting darker.

Getting what? Darker. Well,

There was still some

Day left when she went away, well,

Enough to see the way.

And it was the last time she would have been able

Able? to get up and go away.

It was the last time the very last time for

After that she could not

Have got up and gone away any more.

She Got Up and Went Away, Stevie Smith

The man next to me on the plane was so tall he couldnt fit in his seat. His elbows jutted out over the armrests and his knees were jammed against the seat in front, so that the person in it glanced around in irritation every time he moved. The man twisted, trying to cross and uncross his legs, and inadvertently kicked the person to his right.

Sorry, he said.

He sat motionless for a few minutes, breathing deeply through his nostrils with his hands clenched in his lap, but before long he became restless and tried to move his legs again so that the whole bank of seats in front of him was jolted back and forth. Finally I asked him if he wanted to change seats, since mine was on the aisle, and he accepted with alacrity, as if I had offered him a business opportunity.

Usually I travel in executive class, he explained, while we got up and changed places. Theres a lot more legroom.

He stretched out into the aisle and his head fell against the back of the seat in relief.

Thank you very much, he said.

The plane began to move slowly out over the tarmac. My neighbour gave a contented sigh and appeared almost instantly to fall asleep. An air hostess came up the aisle and stopped at his legs.

Sir? she said. Sir?

He jerked awake and folded himself awkwardly back into the narrow space in front so that she could pass. The plane paused for a few minutes and then lurched forward and then paused again. Through the window a queue of planes could be seen ahead, waiting their turn. The mans head began to nod and soon his legs were splayed once more across the aisle. The air hostess returned.

Sir? she said. We need to keep the aisle clear for take-off.

He sat up.

Sorry, he said.

She moved away and gradually his head began to nod again. Outside a haze stood over the flat grey landscape so that it seemed to merge with the overcast sky in horizontal bands of such subtle variation that it almost resembled the sea. In the seats in front a woman and a man were talking. Its so sad, the woman said, and the man grunted in reply. Its just really sad, she repeated. There was a pounding of footsteps up the carpeted aisle and the air hostess reappeared. She put her hand on my neighbours shoulder and shook it.

Im afraid Im going to have to ask you to keep your legs out of the way, she said.

Im sorry, the man said. I cant seem to stay awake.

Im going to have to ask that you do, she said.

I didnt actually get to bed last night, he said.

Im afraid thats not my problem, she said. Youre putting other passengers at risk by obstructing the aisle.

He rubbed his face and rearranged himself in his chair. He took out his phone and checked it and put it back in his pocket. She waited, watching him. Finally, as though satisfied that he had genuinely obeyed her, she went away. He shook his head and made a gesture of incomprehension, as though to an unseen audience. He was somewhere in his forties, with a face that was both handsome and unexceptional, and his tall frame was clad with the clean, well-pressed neutrality of a businessmans weekend attire. He wore a heavy silver watch on his wrist and new-looking leather shoes on his feet; he exuded an air of anonymous and slightly provisional manliness, like a soldier in uniform. By now the plane had made its halting progress up the queue and was slowly turning in a wide arc towards the runway. The haze had turned to rain and droplets ran down the window pane. The man looked out with an exhausted stare at the gleaming tarmac. The clamour of the engines was rising around us and the plane finally surged forward, then rose tipping and rattling through layers of thick wadded cloud. For a while the dull green network of fields beneath us with its block-like houses and huddled groups of trees returned to sight through sporadic rents in the grey before it closed over them. The man emitted another deep sigh and in a few minutes had gone back to sleep, his head lolling forward over his chest. The cabin lights flickered on and the sounds of activity began. Before long the air hostess was at our row, where the sleeping man had once more stretched his legs out into the aisle.

Sir? she said. Excuse me? Sir?

He lifted his head and looked around himself, bewildered. When he saw the air hostess standing there with her trolley he slowly and effortfully withdrew his legs so that she could pass. She watched with pursed lips, her eyebrows arched.

Thank you, she said, with barely concealed sarcasm.

Its not my fault, he said to her.

Her painted eyes fell on him momentarily. Their expression was cold.

Im just trying to do my job, she said.

I realise that, he said. But its not my fault that the seats are too close together.

There was a pause in which the two of them looked at one another.

Youll have to take that up with the airline, she said.

Im taking it up with you, he said.

She folded her arms and lifted her chin.

Most of the time I travel business, he said, so it isnt usually a problem.

We dont offer business class on this flight, she said. But there are plenty of other carriers who do.

So your suggestion is that I fly with someone else, he said.

Thats right, she said.

Brilliant, he said. Thank you very much.

He gave a sour bark of laughter at her departing back. For a while he continued to smile self-consciously, like someone who has mistakenly wandered out onstage, and then, apparently to disguise his feelings of exposure, he turned to me and asked the reason for my trip to Europe.

I said I was a writer and was on my way to speak at a literary festival.

Immediately his face assumed an expression of polite interest.

My wifes a big reader, he said. She belongs to one of those book clubs.

A silence fell.

What kind of thing do you write? he said, after a while.

I said it was hard to explain and he nodded his head. He drummed his fingers on his thighs and tapped a disjointed rhythm with his shoes on the carpeted floor. He shook his head from side to side and rubbed his fingers vigorously over his scalp.

If I dont talk, he said finally, Ill just go to sleep again.

He said it pragmatically, as though he was used to solving problems at the expense of personal feeling, but when I turned to look at him I was surprised to see a pleading expression on his face. His eyes were red-rimmed with yellow whites and his neatly cut hair stood on end where he had rubbed it.

Apparently they lower the oxygen levels in the cabin before take-off to make people sleepy, he said, so they shouldnt really complain when it works. I have a friend who flies these things, he added. He was the one who told me that.

The strange thing about this friend, the man went on, was that despite his profession he was a fanatical environmentalist. He drove a tiny electric car and ran his household entirely on solar panels and windmills.

When he comes to our place for dinner, he said, youll find him out by the recycling bins while everyone else is four sheets to the wind, sorting the food packaging and the empties. His idea of a holiday, he said, is carrying all his own gear up a Welsh mountainside and sitting in a tent in the rain for two weeks talking to the sheep.