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He stood up and tried to get out to the aisle, tripping over people as he went past, then, when he was almost at the gangway, straightening up and banging the overhead locker with his forehead, which knocked open the locker door and tumbled someone’s hand luggage down onto his head.
People nearby, the ones who were watching, laughed. It was an elegant piece of slapstick, and it cheered them all up no end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IN WHICH FAT CHARLIE GOES A LONG WAY
THE IMMIGRATION OFFICER SQUINTED AT FAT CHARLIE’S American passport as if she were disappointed he was not a foreign national of the kind she could simply stop coming into the country then, with a sigh, she waved him through.
He wondered what he was going to do once he got through customs. Rent a car, he supposed. And eat.
He got off the tram and walked through the security barrier, out into the wide shopping concourse of Orlando Airport, and was nowhere nearly as surprised as he should have been to see Mrs. Higgler standing there, scanning the faces of the arrivals, her enormous mug of coffee clutched in her hand. They saw each other at more or less the same moment, and she headed toward him.
“You hungry?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“Well,” she said, “I hope you like turkey.”
FAT CHARLIE WONDERED IF MRS. HIGGLER’S MAROON STATION wagon was the same car he remembered her driving when he was a boy. He suspected that it was. It must have been new once, that stood to reason. Everything was new once, after all. The seats were cracked and flaking leather; the dashboard was a dusty wooden veneer.
A brown paper shopping bag sat between them, on the seat.
There was no cup holder in Mrs. Higgler’s ancient car, and she clamped the jumbo mug of coffee between her thighs as she drove. The car appeared to predate air-conditioning, and she drove with the windows down. Fat Charlie did not mind. After the damp chill of England, the Florida heat was welcome. Mrs. Higgler headed south toward the toll road. She talked as she drove: She talked about the last hurricane, and about how she took her nephew Benjamin to SeaWorld and to Walt Disney World and how none of the tourist resorts were what they once were, about building codes, the price of gas, exactly what she had said to the doctor who had suggested a hip replacement, why tourists kept feeding ‘gators, and why newcomers built houses on the beaches and were always surprised when the beach or the house went away or the ’gators ate their dogs. Fat Charlie let it all wash over him. It was just talk.
Mrs. Higgler slowed down and took the ticket that would take her down the toll road. She stopped talking. She seemed to be thinking.
“So,” she said. “You met your brother.”
“You know,” said Fat Charlie, “you could have warned me.”
“I did warn you that he is a god.”
“You didn’t mention that he was a complete and utter pain in the arse, though.”
Mrs. Higgler sniffed. She took a swig of coffee from her mug.
“Is there anywhere we can stop and get a bite to eat?” asked Fat Charlie. “They only had cereal and bananas on the plane. No spoons. And they ran out of milk before they got to my row. They said they were sorry and gave us all food vouchers to make up for it.”
Mrs. Higgler shook her head.
“I could have used my voucher to get a hamburger in the airport.”
“I tell you already,” said Mrs. Higgler. “Louella Dunwiddy been cooking you a turkey. How do you think she feels if we get there and you fill up already at McDonald’s and you ain’t got no appetite. Eh?”
“But I’m starving. And it’s over two hours away.”
“Not,” she said firmly, “the way I drive.”
And with that she put her foot down. Every now and then, as the maroon station wagon shuddered down the freeway, Fat Charlie would close his eyes tightly while at the same time pushing his own left foot down on an imaginary brake pedal. It was exhausting work.
In significantly less than two hours they reached the tollway exit and got onto a local highway. They drove toward the city. They drove past the Barnes and Noble and the Office Depot. They went past the seven-figure houses with security gates. They went down the older residential streets, which Fat Charlie remembered as being much better cared-for when he was a boy. They went past the West Indian takeaway and the restaurant with the Jamaican flag in the windows, with handwritten signs pushing the oxtail and rice specials and the homemade ginger beer and the curry chicken.
Fat Charlie’s mouth watered; his stomach made a noise.
A lurch and a bounce. Now the houses were older, and this time everything was familiar.
The pink plastic flamingos were still striking attitudes in Mrs. Dunwiddy’s front yard, although the sun had faded them almost white over the years. There was a mirrored gazing ball as well, and when Fat Charlie spotted it he was, only for a moment, as scared as he had ever been of anything.
