“Sir,” the British Airways agent said, cutting him off, “it was not our decision to cancel your fiancée’s flight, and there is nothing I can do about rescheduling her at the moment. Haven’t you heard the news?”
Aonghas had not, in fact, heard the news that the prime minister had grounded all flights. While on Càidh Island they’d been listening to the BBC and following the news in China until that was eclipsed by the news out of India and the hysteria about spiders, and they’d heard about the American president’s overreaction in deciding to stop air travel. Typically American, Padruig said. But it turned out the UK was following in America’s panicked footsteps again. The plane that had just landed was the last one in or out until the ban was lifted. Normally, Aonghas would indeed have heard the news: in Stornoway by himself, he would have started the day as he usually did, by reading the news, and had he and Thuy still been on Càidh Island, Padruig would have had the BBC on the radio. But he wasn’t on Càidh Island with his grandfather, and he certainly wasn’t in Stornoway by himself: they’d left the island at the first hint of dawn. It was a flat-out lie to Aonghas’s grandfather. They told Padruig that Thuy’s flight was early, but the truth was her flight wasn’t until the evening: they just wanted to spend the day alone together, in bed, without worrying that the old man would wonder what they were up to. Not that Aonghas’s grandfather was a prude, just that Aonghas knew he wasn’t going to see his girlfriend—no, his fiancée—again for two weeks once Thuy boarded her flight back to Edinburgh.
He was still sort of amazed at how well the trip had gone. Sure, his grandfather had accidently asked Thuy to marry Aonghas for him, but she’d said yes, so there was no real harm in that. And for all his worry that Padruig might not take to Thuy, by the time they said good-bye to him, his grandfather dressed impeccably even just for the early-morning trip to the dock, Aonghas had a niggling fear Padruig might like Thuy more than he liked Aonghas himself. And Thuy had fallen head over heels in love with Càidh Island and the castle. She loved sitting in the library reading by the fire, spent a full hour down in the wine cellar with his grandfather, sat on the rocks and looked out at the waves. The trip was an unqualified success. The only problem was that, after they had gone to the trouble of sneaking away early for a little private time, it looked as though Thuy wasn’t going to be able to leave after all. Really, though, was that such a bad thing?
The good news was that at an airport as small as Stornoway’s, it wasn’t much of a walk to the parking lot, and even with the passengers getting off the last plane to land on the island, it was easy in, easy out. “We can pick up some pasta and vegetables, maybe watch a movie. I’m sure you’ll be able to fly out tomorrow. I can’t imagine the prime minister is going to swallow this spider bollocks much longer. The upside is that you’ll never have a better excuse for missing a little school, and you won’t exactly have a glut of free time once you start your residency. Plus, you know,” Aonghas said, loading her bag back into the Range Rover, “there are worse things than being stuck with your fiancé for another day. Fiancé,” he said again, rolling the word in his mouth. “I like the sound of that.”
He got into the driver’s seat, started the Range Rover, put it into drive, and then hesitated. There was a man throwing up in front of the doors to the airport. “Jesus,” Aonghas said. “Must have been a bumpy landing. That Indian bloke’s cleaning himself out.”
The man vomited again, and then slumped against a pillar. Even from where Aonghas and Thuy sat in the Range Rover, it was clear the Indian bloke was doing poorly. He was starting to claw at his tie, as though he was having trouble breathing, and the few other passengers who had been able to make it to Stornoway on the last flight before the grounding were either giving him a wide berth or standing well away from him. Now the Indian man let go of his tie and started pulling on his shirt, untucking it and then ripping it open. Jesus. Aonghas saw a button pop off, tracing a gentle arc before bouncing on the cement.
Thuy unbuckled. “I should go help.”
“You’re not a doctor yet.”
She rolled her eyes, but Aonghas grabbed her arm. “Just wait. Hold on.”
“Aonghas. I need to help.”
He kept his hand on her arm, but he was watching the man, watching the way people weren’t sure if they should move forward or back. The skin on the man’s chest and stomach looked shiny, as if it was stretched tight. “Just, I don’t know. Just wait one second.”
One second was all it took.
The man’s front opened up like a zipper.
“Aonghas!” Thuy screamed.
Aonghas slammed his foot on the gas.