Long Haul Flight
a Short Story by Colin Cooper
The Boeing 747-400 touched down on Runway 09R at London Heathrow with a heavy thump, followed by the familiar roar of reverse thrust. William Grainger opened his eyes and stared through the small oval window as runway lights blurred past in the grey London dawn. After nearly thirteen hours in the air from Singapore, he was tired, stiff and thoroughly fed up with aircraft food.
London. Home.
He turned his wrist and checked his Tag Heuer. The watch still showed Singapore time, so he pulled out the crown and wound the hands backwards. Six o’clock in the morning. Saturday, 1 January. The year 2000. He smiled faintly. So much for the Millennium Bug.
For months the newspapers had predicted disaster. Computer systems crashing, banks losing records, aircraft falling out of the sky, electricity networks failing. Some people had even stocked bottled water and tins of food as though civilisation itself might end at midnight. William had spent New Year’s Eve somewhere over Asia drinking champagne and watching the cabin crew count down to midnight. Nothing had happened. The aircraft had continued flying, the lights had stayed on and the engines had kept turning. Computers, apparently, had survived the terrifying transition from 99 to 00.
He gathered his belongings. His schedule was tight. He wanted to be back at his office on Savile Row by eight. Two hours. Plenty of time. William travelled light, as always. One leather overnight bag, one suit carrier and his briefcase. No checked luggage meant no standing beside a carousel waiting for someone else to decide when he could leave. He followed the signs towards immigration.
Something felt different, although at first he could not identify what. Heathrow was Heathrow. Fluorescent lights, grey carpet, advertising boards, tired travellers dragging luggage, children crying and businessmen already talking too loudly. Yet several things looked unfamiliar. The signs were different, cleaner and brighter. Some of the shops had changed. There were enormous digital advertising screens where he remembered printed posters.
William assumed the terminal had been refurbished while he had been away. He had been travelling almost constantly for three months. Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney and finally Singapore again. He had barely seen London since October. Perhaps he simply had not noticed the changes. A young man ahead of him was staring at a slim black object in his hand. William watched him press the glass surface with his thumb. No buttons. No aerial. Odd little thing. Some new electronic organiser, presumably. The queue moved quickly. At immigration, William handed over his passport. The officer opened it, looked at the photograph, then at William’s face, and frowned.
“Mr Grainger?”
“Yes.”
The officer studied the passport for longer than William considered necessary.
“Business or pleasure?”
“I live here.”
Another glance. William’s patience began to thin.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, sir.”
The passport was stamped and returned. William walked away irritated. He had exactly one hour and thirty-eight minutes remaining. Customs presented no problem. Minutes later he emerged into arrivals. That was when the first real crack appeared. William stopped walking. The terminal was full of people holding mobile telephones. Not one or two. Almost everyone. And the telephones were wrong. Tiny glass rectangles. No keypads, no folding covers and no stubby aerials. People were staring into them, swiping fingers across screens and even taking photographs with them.
A woman spoke into a pair of small white objects pushed into her ears. There was no cable. A teenager walked past watching what appeared to be a television programme on his telephone. William frowned. Singapore was technologically advanced, but he had never seen anything like this. Perhaps Britain had suddenly become obsessed with gadgets over Christmas. He headed towards a newsagent. That would settle him. A newspaper. Something normal. He picked up a tabloid from the rack and placed coins on the counter. The assistant stared at the money.
“Sorry, mate.”
William paused.
“What?”
“We don’t take those.”
William looked at the coins. “British currency.”
The assistant picked up one of them.
“That pound coin’s old.”
“Old?”
“Yeah.”
William laughed.
“It was issued years ago.”
“Exactly.”
The assistant smiled as though dealing with a confused pensioner. William removed a five-pound note from his wallet. The young man looked at that too.
“Where’ve you dug this stuff up?”
William stared at him.
“I landed ten minutes ago.”
The assistant shrugged.
“Card?”
William took out his American Express. At least that was accepted. He tucked the paper beneath his arm and walked towards the exit. His chauffeur was waiting. Or rather, a chauffeur was waiting. The man held a board displaying GRAINGER. William approached him.
“Mr Grainger?”
“Yes.”
The driver smiled.
“Morning, sir.”
William glanced towards the car park.
“My usual car?”
“Range Rover, sir.”
Good. At least something made sense. But when they reached the vehicle, William stopped again. It was a Range Rover, except it looked nothing like his Range Rover. This one was larger, sleeker and covered in lights and cameras. The chauffeur opened the rear door and William climbed inside. The interior looked like the cockpit of a small aircraft. Large screens. Digital controls. No cassette player. No telephone handset. William sat back slowly.
“New car?”
The driver looked at him in the mirror.
“Six months old, sir.”
William nodded. He decided he needed coffee. They pulled away from Heathrow. William opened the newspaper. Football first. Always football first. Liverpool. He turned to the back pages and immediately relaxed when he saw the league table. Then he froze. Liverpool were top. Not merely top. Thirteen points clear. William stared at the table. That could not be right. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, while waiting at Changi Airport in Singapore, he had bought a British newspaper and checked the football. Liverpool had been third. Their last match had been against Wimbledon at Anfield on 28 December. Liverpool had won 3-1. Michael Owen, Patrik Berger and Robbie Fowler had scored.
Now the newspaper claimed Liverpool’s most recent game had been against Wolverhampton Wanderers. One-nil. Sadio Mané. William frowned. Who the bloody hell was Sadio Mané? He turned the page. There was a photograph of Liverpool players celebrating. The shirts were wrong. Across the front was written STANDARD CHARTERED. William stared at it. Liverpool were sponsored by Carlsberg. Everyone knew that. He searched the article. Names appeared that meant nothing to him. Virgil van Dijk. Mohamed Salah. Jordan Henderson. Trent Alexander-Arnold. William felt the first cold sensation in his stomach. He turned back to the league table. Manchester City. Leicester City. Chelsea. Manchester United. Tottenham. Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Some things were familiar. Others were completely wrong. He looked at the date printed at the top of the page.
1 JANUARY 2020.
William stared. Then read it again. For a moment, he assumed it was a printing error. It had to be. Twenty years. Impossible. He flipped to the front page. Again. Wednesday 1 January 2020. William’s breathing slowed.
“Excuse me.”
The chauffeur looked into the mirror.
“Yes, sir?”
“What date is it?”
The driver smiled.
“New Year’s Day.”
“What year?”
A pause. The driver glanced at him again.
“2020.”
William laughed. It came out strangely.
“No.”
The chauffeur said nothing.
“What year is it?”
“Twenty-twenty, sir.”
William folded the newspaper.
“Very funny.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Did someone put you up to this?”
The chauffeur frowned.
“Put me up to what?”
William leaned forward.
“The date.”
“Sir, it’s January the first, 2020.”
William sat back. The city moved outside. Heathrow gave way to the motorway. The motorway looked familiar, but not entirely. Cars were different. Almost every vehicle looked new. There were strange compact cars he had never seen before and enormous four-wheel drives from manufacturers he did not recognise. A bright red double-decker bus carried an advertisement featuring a man holding one of the strange glass telephones. William looked down at the newspaper again. Ridiculous. Perhaps the airline had arranged some elaborate New Year stunt. Perhaps the paper was part of it.
He reached inside his jacket and removed his Nokia. No signal. The display still showed the time he had set in Singapore. He tried switching it off and on. Nothing. The chauffeur noticed.
“That’s an old one.”
William looked up.
“It’s six months old.”
The driver smiled uncertainly.
“Right.”
William stared at him. The man looked away. They continued in silence. As the Range Rover approached central London, William began recognising streets. This helped. Buildings remained where they should be. London had not vanished. The Thames was still there. The taxis were still black, although many now looked oddly shaped. Then they passed a bus stop. William saw an advertisement.
NETFLIX. No idea. Another. SPOTIFY. Meaningless. Another featured an electric car. William looked away. His office would settle everything. Savile Row was permanent. Tailors did not disappear overnight.
His company had occupied the same premises for twelve years. Grainger & Holt. Bespoke menswear and leather goods. William had bought the building in 1987 and spent a fortune restoring the shopfront. The brass lettering alone had cost more than some people’s cars. The Range Rover turned into Savile Row. William leaned forward. There. Number eight. His building. For half a second relief flooded through him. Then he saw the sign.
RAPHA.
William’s mouth opened. The chauffeur stopped.
“Here we are, sir.”
William stared through the window. The elegant display of handmade suits, shoes, briefcases and leather travel bags had vanished. In their place were bicycles, cycling jerseys, helmets and colourful shoes. A racing bicycle hung vertically in the window.
“What is this?”
The chauffeur looked at the building.
“Rapha.”
“I can see that.”
William pushed open the door.
“Wait here.”
He crossed the pavement quickly. The brass door handle was gone. So was his company name. William entered. The smell hit him first. Coffee. Freshly ground. The interior had been transformed. Bicycles hung from walls and ceilings. Racks of cycling clothing occupied the space where William’s tailoring department had stood.
Customers sat drinking coffee. Behind the sales counter stood what appeared to be an old grey Citroën van. William stopped in the middle of the shop. He knew this room. Or he had. His office had been upstairs. The staircase was still there. Even the decorative cornice remained. A young salesman approached.
“Morning, sir. Can I help you?”
William looked around.
“How long has this shop been here?”
The man hesitated.
“This one?”
“Yes.”
“About fifteen years.”
William stared at him.
“Fifteen?”
“Something like that. Since 2005.”
William felt his stomach tighten.
“What was here before?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You work here.”
“I wasn’t here in 2005.”
William stepped closer.
“There was a tailor here. Grainger & Holt.”
The salesman thought.
“Name rings a bell.”
William’s heart thudded.
“What happened to it?”
“I’ve heard the story.”
“What story?”
The salesman glanced towards a colleague.
“Well, apparently the owner disappeared.”
William did not move.
“Disappeared?”
“Yeah. Weird story.”
“When?”
“Years ago. Around the Millennium.”
William swallowed.
“Where?”
The salesman shrugged.
“Plane, I think.”
William felt the room narrowing around him. “What plane?”
“Singapore to London.”
The words seemed to come from somewhere far away.
“Tell me.”
The salesman looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t really know much about it.”
“Tell me what you know.”
The young man glanced at William’s face.
“There was a flight coming back from Singapore. Apparently something happened over Europe or maybe the Middle East. I don’t know. The story was that the aircraft disappeared.”
“The entire aircraft?”
“Yes.”
“No wreckage?”
“I don’t think so.”
“No bodies?”
“No.”
William stared towards the staircase. His staircase. Twenty years. His eyes moved across the shop. Coffee machine. Cycling shoes. Carbon-fibre bicycles. People tapping glass telephones. Twenty years. The salesman held something in his hand. William looked at it.
“What is that?”
The man glanced down.
“My phone.”
“What kind?”
“iPhone.”
William moved closer. The screen illuminated. Images appeared beneath the glass. There were no buttons. No aerial.
“What model?”
“Eleven Pro.”
“When was that invented?”
“The phone?”
“Yes.”
The salesman laughed nervously.
“Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007.”
William heard the number. His knees weakened.
“I arrived this morning.”
The salesman frowned.
“Sorry?”
“Singapore.”
William reached for the counter.
“I left Singapore yesterday.”
People nearby were beginning to watch. The young man stepped forward.
“Sir, are you all right?”
William tried to answer. The room tilted. The bicycles hanging overhead seemed to move. He saw the Citroën van. The coffee machine. The strange telephone. Then everything went black. When William opened his eyes again, the ceiling above him was white. A machine beeped nearby. He turned his head. Hospital. There was a clear tube attached to his arm. A woman wearing blue scrubs noticed him move.
“Mr Grainger?”
William closed his eyes. Not again.
“Where am I?”
“University College Hospital.”
London. Still London. William tried to sit up. The nurse stopped him.
“Easy.”
“What year is it?”
She hesitated. He watched her expression change.
“2020.”
William sank into the pillow. It was real. A doctor entered several minutes later. Then another. Then two police officers. Questions followed. His name. Date of birth. Address. Employment. Flight number. Where he had boarded. What he remembered. William answered everything.
Nobody appeared to believe him. Then the police checked his passport. The passport was genuine. Issued in 1997. Expired in 2007. His credit cards had expired decades earlier. His driving licence belonged to a format no longer used. The Tag Heuer on his wrist had been manufactured in the 1990s. His clothes were correct. His luggage was correct.
Even the newspaper from Singapore inside his briefcase was dated 31 December 1999. That changed the atmosphere in the room. The questions became more careful. An older detective entered and placed a folder on the table.
“Mr Grainger, there was a British Airways flight from Singapore scheduled to land at Heathrow on the morning of 1 January 2000.”
William nodded.
“My flight.”
“It never arrived.”
William stared at him. The detective continued.
“Radar contact was lost several hours into the journey.”
“Where?”
“Over the Indian Ocean.”
William shook his head.
“That didn’t happen.”
“Two hundred and eighty-seven passengers and crew were declared missing.”
William stared.
“We landed this morning.”
The detective said nothing.
“All of us.”
Another silence. William looked around.
“Where are they?”
“We’re trying to establish that.”
William remembered walking through immigration. Passengers. Cabin crew. People collecting luggage.
Were they all missing too?
“Have you checked Heathrow?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
The detective exchanged a glance with the doctor.
“Security records show passengers arriving from Singapore this morning.”
William almost laughed.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The aircraft registration corresponds to the aircraft lost in 2000.”
William’s skin prickled. The detective slid a photograph across the table. A Boeing 747. British Airways markings. William recognised it.
“That’s it.”
“This photograph was taken at Heathrow this morning.”
“Exactly.”
The detective placed another photograph beside it. Same aircraft. Same registration.
“This photograph was taken at Singapore Changi Airport on 31 December 1999.”
William looked from one image to the other. Twenty years separated them. Nothing separated the aircraft. Not even the paint.
“What happened to the passengers?”
“Most appear to believe they completed an ordinary thirteen-hour flight.”
“Because we did.”
“Several have now discovered relatives have died. Some have found spouses who remarried. Children who are older than they are.”
William stopped breathing for a moment. His family. His mother. His sister. His business partner. He had not even thought about them.
“Telephone.”
The detective frowned.
“What?”
“I need a telephone.”
William called the number he had known for thirty years. Disconnected. He tried another. Nothing. The police eventually found his sister. Her name was Margaret Grainger. She lived in Surrey. She was seventy-three. William remembered her as fifty-three. When she arrived that evening, William did not recognise her. She stood in the doorway staring at him. Her hand covered her mouth. William stared back.
“Maggie?”
She began crying.
William felt something inside him collapse. She crossed the room and held him. He could feel how small she had become.
“How?” she whispered.
William had no answer. Neither did anybody else. The following days became increasingly surreal. Scientists arrived. Government officials. Air accident investigators. Doctors. Computer specialists. Everyone wanted measurements, blood tests, interviews and timelines. The aircraft had landed with fuel levels consistent with a thirteen-hour journey. Food aboard remained fresh. The flight computers showed no twenty-year interruption. The crew believed they had departed Singapore the previous evening. Every watch aboard showed hours, not decades.
Yet Heathrow records proved the aircraft had vanished on 1 January 2000. William had not aged a day. Neither had anyone else aboard. The press discovered the story within forty-eight hours. Reporters surrounded the hospital.
THE MILLENNIUM FLIGHT.
747 RETURNS AFTER 20 YEARS.
Y2K PLANE COMES HOME.
The theories became increasingly absurd. Alien abduction. Wormholes. Military experiments. Mass hypnosis. Parallel universes.
One theory, inevitably, centred on the Millennium Bug. A computer scientist appearing on television suggested the aircraft’s navigation systems might somehow have encountered a catastrophic date anomaly as clocks rolled from 1999 to 2000.
Another scientist described the idea as nonsense. William preferred it. At least it sounded familiar. A week after arriving, he was allowed outside. London looked different now that he knew what he was seeing. Everyone carried a computer in their pocket. Cars could park themselves. People paid for things by touching cards against machines. Music existed without records or CDs. Televisions were flat. Newspapers were dying. Smoking had disappeared from pubs.
Liverpool had not won the league since 1990. That last discovery annoyed him more than it probably should have. Then somebody explained that they were about to. William stood outside the hospital holding the smartphone his sister had bought him. He still did not trust it. He looked at the date. 8 January 2020.
Twenty years and seven days since New Year’s Eve 1999. Except for him, it had been eight days. He opened the football page Margaret had shown him. Liverpool were top. Thirteen points clear. He recognised none of the players. William smiled. Perhaps some things were worth returning for. Several weeks later he stood again on Savile Row. This time he did not collapse. The Rapha shop was busy. Cyclists drank coffee where customers had once been measured for dinner jackets.
William stood outside for several minutes before entering. The same salesman recognised him immediately. By then everyone recognised him. His photograph had been on every newspaper and television screen in Britain.
“Mr Grainger.”
William nodded.
“You all right this time?”
“I think so.”
The young man smiled.
“Coffee?”
William looked around his former shop. Twenty years ago, he would have regarded the bicycles hanging from the ceiling as ridiculous. Now he found the place strangely comforting.
“Yes.”
“What would you like?”
William looked at the enormous menu board. He had no idea what half of it meant.
“Coffee.”
The salesman laughed.
“Flat white?”
“If you say so.”
William sat beside the window. Outside, Savile Row continued moving. Cars. Bicycles. People staring at phones. London had carried on without him. That was perhaps the hardest part. The world had not waited. It had not even noticed his absence for very long. His company had closed. His building had been sold. His friends had aged. Some had died. Music had changed. Football had changed. Technology had changed. Almost everything had changed. William looked at his Tag Heuer. The same watch. The same scratches. The same hands turning around the same dial. Time had passed everywhere except where he had been.
The salesman placed the coffee on the table. William looked at the strange little heart drawn in the foam.
“Twenty years,” he said.
The salesman sat opposite him.
“Do they know what happened yet?”
William shook his head.
“No.”
“What do you think happened?”
William looked through the window. He remembered the cabin lights dimming as the aircraft crossed midnight. The captain wishing everyone a happy New Year. Champagne glasses raised. 1999 becoming 2000. For most of the world, it had been nothing more than a number changing. For Flight 247, perhaps it had been something else entirely.
“I think,” William said slowly, “everyone spent months worrying computers wouldn’t know what year it was.”
The salesman waited.
William took a sip of coffee.
“Maybe one of them didn’t.”
Outside, London continued moving. William looked down at his watch. For the first time since landing, he did not adjust it.
THE END