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The Air is Getting Thinner
by Gavin Broom ¤ Short Story ¤ Issue One ¤ 11.10.09
IT'S ALL A FACADE is written in huge, blood red letters across the hotel bed sheet and India Fargo stands behind it as though
she's about to perform a magic trick. The spotlights from the cops on the ground and the hovering news choppers just add to the
theater. On a ledge outside her fifteenth floor window, wearing a grimace that might come from determination or fear, India is
back where she belongs; center-stage.
Behind her, the vertical blinds move like tentacles as they dance around inside the icebox room. Clothes are scattered
everywhere. The TV drips and crackles from the bottle of champagne smashed against it. A mirror, dragged from its position in
the bathroom, now lies on the bedroom floor with an anorexic line of white powder etched across its middle. In the corner of the
room, a fire in a small waste paper basket flickers as it struggles to stand its ground against the air funneling through the open
window. Two burnt out Marlboro Lights rest on the rim of a glass ashtray, both with a coating of lipstick around their filters: one
red and one the same shade of pink as worn by India, out on the ledge.
Over the howls of demonic wind that flies around her ears, she imagines hearing footsteps sprinting over the marble in the
foyer, clattering up the stairs or tapping impatiently at an elevator. If she concentrates, she can hear the feet brush through the
thick carpet in the hall outside her room and she estimates them being seconds away from bursting through her door.
It's time, she decides. She allows the updraft to carry the banner from her grasp then takes a breath and then a step. She's still
surprised when the air doesn't hold her weight.
***
"The nurses have been taking photographs of you on their cell phones."
It's a man's voice. It's familiar. It's warm, or at least it's trying to be.
His features, though, are distorted through her watery eyes and all she can really see is bright white. She stops herself from
making any assumptions. Heaven, she's sure, won't smell of plastic and detergent. St Peter won't smell of Obsession for Men.
"Don't try to move," he says. "You've been out for a couple of days. Look, it's nothing permanent, but you've bruised your
spine and you've got a severe whiplash. Plus, you've obviously been cold turkey since you were admitted so you're going to feel
woozy for a while. You need to take it easy, okay?"
"Whiplash," she repeats, her voice dry and sharp. She goes to move her head and when she finds she can't, she panics. Then
she feels the brace around her neck and down her back.
"Well, you did fall fifteen floors, India. There's only so much cushioning you can expect from landing on what was essentially
an oversized mattress You're still with us. You're going to be okay. You need to focus on that right now."
"With you …" She shivers. It's the way he says her name -- like he's talking to a child -- and she tries to shift in the bed again, to
move away from him. More than knowing where she is and what day it is, she needs to know why he's the one to be here when she
wakes, but before she can ask, he starts to make soothing noises.
"It's okay. I'm here. It's gonna be fine."
"No, it's not okay." Her voice is still dry but stronger. "The judge said it wasn't okay. He said it wasn't fine. You need to go."
"India, sweetheart, you're emotional. You've been through hell and I don't just mean this week. You need to calm down. You
need to relax."
"You don't get to tell me what I need to do anymore, André, now get out."
He leans in over her and she sees his face and with it a reminder of all the sex, the violence, the disappointment, fear, laughter
and abandonment. Blindly, her hand grabs for an emergency button but finds only air; the same air that now seems to require
more effort to be encouraged into her lungs.
"I'm still your husband, goddammit," he hisses. "This can still work out perfectly for both of us. The sum of the parts is
greater than the whole. Money is there to be earned. Everything can be
reinvented. Isn't that what this is all about?"
Exhausted, India lets her neck ease into her stack of pillows and her heavy eyes close. She tries to kid herself that she doesn't
care, but the simple fact is that she just doesn't know what anything's about anymore.
***
The nurses disapprove, but India Fargo's name suddenly carries some currency in this town again so she gets what she wants,
which is the remote for the TV.
The story's still hot and it's not long until Fox News shows the footage from their chopper, which captures the moment she fell
from the ledge and jerkily tracks her journey through the air towards an awkward splashdown on the police crash mat. She
winces when she loses sight of herself within the billowing swathes of fabric.
After going through it all again in slow motion, the shot cuts to a female reporter in an Armani pant suit standing at the
hospital entrance. The reporter is young and blonde and all cheekbones and reminds India a lot of herself from two or three
years ago, before everything started to go wrong. When the reporter takes a breath and goes to speak, India hits the mute button.
"Don't you want to hear it?" André asks.
He's calmed since his earlier outburst but still refuses to leave. She could've made a scene and had a couple of orderlies insist
on her behalf but now she's more alert, the thought of being alone is worse than the thought of sharing his air.
"It doesn't matter."
"They say nice things … about you … about your career."
"It still doesn't matter."
André sighs and rises from his chair. He moves across to the window and looks down at the camera crew that, according to the
silenced TV, is looking back up at him. Via the TV, India is able to study his face in closer detail and she notices that his face is
more worn and his temples more gray than she remembers. Maybe the two or three years are really four or five. Her stomach
lurches while she does the math.
Without turning to face her, he asks, "Does it not matter because you don't want to hear it right now, or does it not matter
because the only thing that does matter is the fact that they're talking about you again?"
India scowls. "Y'know, André, sometimes I wonder why we ever split up."
He looks at her and flashes a grin that looks younger than the rest of his face.
"I knew it," he says and then goes back to staring down at the telescopic lenses. "So predictable."
"Is number three in the list, 'a cry for help?' What about actually wanting to kill myself? What number does that come in at?
Ten? Twenty?"
He doesn't answer and the news report has gone back to the reporter with the cheekbones. She wonders what his expression
would've given away.
***
When India wakes from an uneasy Valium paralysis, André is gone and the TV is off. Day and night mean nothing under the
striplights but the clock on the wall tells her its 1 o'clock and she guesses it's not afternoon. The few hours repair time has freed
up more movement and despite the braces and hot flashes of pain, she's able to push herself up into a position that's about
halfway towards sitting.
That's when she sees it. On the nightstand, there's a small, silver foil dish that holds the remains of a Marlboro Light and the
smear of lipstick around the filter is a familiar red.
India's fogged mind wonders who would have the audacity to smoke in a hospital room. Just as she lands on the name Helena,
the toilet flushes and moments later, a slim, forty-something woman with sharp, weathered features appears from the en suite,
rubbing her hands together. When she sees India awake and sitting up, she stops dead and then starts to applaud.
"India," Helena sings with a smile. "Brilliant. Simply brilliant. And I'm glad you're awake because while I appreciate
you've had a rough couple of days, we really need to start talking through the plans for tomorrow." She checks over her shoulder
at the clock and shrugs. "Or for later this morning. Whatever. Anyway, André's gone home to get some rest but he'll be back in
time for the start of the interviews, which'll all be held in your room here so you needn't worry about moving too much if you
don't want to. In fact, the more restricted you look, the better. Now, some of the groundwork has been started while you were ...
well, what were you? You weren't in a coma, were you? Were you just unconscious? Sedated? Anyway, I need to bring you up to
speed so you know what they know."
Feeling as though she might still be asleep, India asks the first question to stroll through her head. "They?"
"Yes, sweetie. They. Everyone. Them. You remember Them, don't you?"
India tries to shake off her confusion, smacks some moisture into her lips and decides to try a different tact. "What was André
doing here?"
Helena laughs. "Being seen. You can't very well be alone following your ... fall, can you? How would that look? That's not
recovery, sweetie, that's an accident waiting to happen."
"Couldn't we have talked about this? I mean, the judge --"
"Tick-tock-tick-tock. Look, India, there are millions of things that should've been said but we are where we are. André will do
until we find someone else. For now, let's just call it a lesson learned for the next time you decide to jump out of a fifteenth storey
window, okay?"
India tries again. "The judge --"
"And as for your judge friend, well, he'll do as he's told. If he doesn't, André's happy to deal with any temporary repercussions
and if anything, that'll give us an even better angle. This story ... your story ... outranks any restraining order. This is a big deal.
For Christ's sake, in the car on the way over, a teen suicide charity called me asking for your patronage. That's how big it is."
"But ... I jumped."
Helena grabs the back of a chair, drags it towards the head of the bed and sits with a flourish.
"Three days ago ... do you remember? You were broke and crying and drunk and wired and you asked me what it would take
for me to make you famous again."
"You told me you couldn't and then you sold me some drugs," India says with a nod. "You told me it was a waste of time. That
I was a waste of your time."
"And three days ago, all that was true. But I also told you that you needed to draw a line under your old life. You needed to
reinvent yourself. The old India Fargo had to die. You followed my advice, maybe to the extreme, but now we're getting
somewhere."
India realizes she's been frowning for about five minutes.
***
Time inches its way to 4:50 and India swears that morning is dawning in the most ambivalent way possible.
Helena finally tired herself out an hour ago after singlehandedly brainstorming ways of working "It's All A Facade" into
biographies, biopics and interviews with Oprah. Now, still in the chair at the side of the bed, she's slumped into a noisy sleep that
India suspects is at least partly due to a miscalculation in uppers and downers.
But if Helena hasn't moved, then India certainly has. It's taken her a while and she's had to overcome light-headedness and
Bambi legs and the fear of being caught by a nurse or a refreshed André. But despite all that, she's made it out of the bed and
negotiated her way through tiring air, like Frankenstein's monster in a paper gown, round the outstretched Helena and now she
leans on the sill of her window.
Outside, as the city awakes through an orange filter, it's as quiet as it ever is. The news crews have kept their pitches, but for
now, the people to make it all work are some place else.
She lets her fingers work around the perimeter of the window. It's a flush fit into the frame. There are no gaps. None of it
opens. She supposes it makes sense, for obvious reasons, but she still feels disappointment.
A draft tickles her cheek. It takes her a minute to realize that it's not from the air-con and a further minute to work out where
it is coming from. It's the en suite. Sensibility clearly doesn't extent to bathroom windows because even from where she's
standing now, she can see that the top half of that window opens; not very wide, but enough.
There are no spotlights or news crews. There are no cop cars or crash mats. There are no magic tricks or banners, although
the sentiment is still valid. It's just India and the thinness of the air. This time, she'll try not to be so surprised.
by Gavin Broom ¤ Short Story ¤ Issue One ¤ 11.10.09
IT'S ALL A FACADE is written in huge, blood red letters across the hotel bed sheet and India Fargo stands behind it as though
she's about to perform a magic trick. The spotlights from the cops on the ground and the hovering news choppers just add to the
theater. On a ledge outside her fifteenth floor window, wearing a grimace that might come from determination or fear, India is
back where she belongs; center-stage.
Behind her, the vertical blinds move like tentacles as they dance around inside the icebox room. Clothes are scattered
everywhere. The TV drips and crackles from the bottle of champagne smashed against it. A mirror, dragged from its position in
the bathroom, now lies on the bedroom floor with an anorexic line of white powder etched across its middle. In the corner of the
room, a fire in a small waste paper basket flickers as it struggles to stand its ground against the air funneling through the open
window. Two burnt out Marlboro Lights rest on the rim of a glass ashtray, both with a coating of lipstick around their filters: one
red and one the same shade of pink as worn by India, out on the ledge.
Over the howls of demonic wind that flies around her ears, she imagines hearing footsteps sprinting over the marble in the
foyer, clattering up the stairs or tapping impatiently at an elevator. If she concentrates, she can hear the feet brush through the
thick carpet in the hall outside her room and she estimates them being seconds away from bursting through her door.
It's time, she decides. She allows the updraft to carry the banner from her grasp then takes a breath and then a step. She's still
surprised when the air doesn't hold her weight.
***
"The nurses have been taking photographs of you on their cell phones."
It's a man's voice. It's familiar. It's warm, or at least it's trying to be.
His features, though, are distorted through her watery eyes and all she can really see is bright white. She stops herself from
making any assumptions. Heaven, she's sure, won't smell of plastic and detergent. St Peter won't smell of Obsession for Men.
"Don't try to move," he says. "You've been out for a couple of days. Look, it's nothing permanent, but you've bruised your
spine and you've got a severe whiplash. Plus, you've obviously been cold turkey since you were admitted so you're going to feel
woozy for a while. You need to take it easy, okay?"
"Whiplash," she repeats, her voice dry and sharp. She goes to move her head and when she finds she can't, she panics. Then
she feels the brace around her neck and down her back.
"Well, you did fall fifteen floors, India. There's only so much cushioning you can expect from landing on what was essentially
an oversized mattress You're still with us. You're going to be okay. You need to focus on that right now."
"With you …" She shivers. It's the way he says her name -- like he's talking to a child -- and she tries to shift in the bed again, to
move away from him. More than knowing where she is and what day it is, she needs to know why he's the one to be here when she
wakes, but before she can ask, he starts to make soothing noises.
"It's okay. I'm here. It's gonna be fine."
"No, it's not okay." Her voice is still dry but stronger. "The judge said it wasn't okay. He said it wasn't fine. You need to go."
"India, sweetheart, you're emotional. You've been through hell and I don't just mean this week. You need to calm down. You
need to relax."
"You don't get to tell me what I need to do anymore, André, now get out."
He leans in over her and she sees his face and with it a reminder of all the sex, the violence, the disappointment, fear, laughter
and abandonment. Blindly, her hand grabs for an emergency button but finds only air; the same air that now seems to require
more effort to be encouraged into her lungs.
"I'm still your husband, goddammit," he hisses. "This can still work out perfectly for both of us. The sum of the parts is
greater than the whole. Money is there to be earned. Everything can be
reinvented. Isn't that what this is all about?"
Exhausted, India lets her neck ease into her stack of pillows and her heavy eyes close. She tries to kid herself that she doesn't
care, but the simple fact is that she just doesn't know what anything's about anymore.
***
The nurses disapprove, but India Fargo's name suddenly carries some currency in this town again so she gets what she wants,
which is the remote for the TV.
The story's still hot and it's not long until Fox News shows the footage from their chopper, which captures the moment she fell
from the ledge and jerkily tracks her journey through the air towards an awkward splashdown on the police crash mat. She
winces when she loses sight of herself within the billowing swathes of fabric.
After going through it all again in slow motion, the shot cuts to a female reporter in an Armani pant suit standing at the
hospital entrance. The reporter is young and blonde and all cheekbones and reminds India a lot of herself from two or three
years ago, before everything started to go wrong. When the reporter takes a breath and goes to speak, India hits the mute button.
"Don't you want to hear it?" André asks.
He's calmed since his earlier outburst but still refuses to leave. She could've made a scene and had a couple of orderlies insist
on her behalf but now she's more alert, the thought of being alone is worse than the thought of sharing his air.
"It doesn't matter."
"They say nice things … about you … about your career."
"It still doesn't matter."
André sighs and rises from his chair. He moves across to the window and looks down at the camera crew that, according to the
silenced TV, is looking back up at him. Via the TV, India is able to study his face in closer detail and she notices that his face is
more worn and his temples more gray than she remembers. Maybe the two or three years are really four or five. Her stomach
lurches while she does the math.
Without turning to face her, he asks, "Does it not matter because you don't want to hear it right now, or does it not matter
because the only thing that does matter is the fact that they're talking about you again?"
India scowls. "Y'know, André, sometimes I wonder why we ever split up."
He looks at her and flashes a grin that looks younger than the rest of his face.
"I knew it," he says and then goes back to staring down at the telescopic lenses. "So predictable."
"Is number three in the list, 'a cry for help?' What about actually wanting to kill myself? What number does that come in at?
Ten? Twenty?"
He doesn't answer and the news report has gone back to the reporter with the cheekbones. She wonders what his expression
would've given away.
***
When India wakes from an uneasy Valium paralysis, André is gone and the TV is off. Day and night mean nothing under the
striplights but the clock on the wall tells her its 1 o'clock and she guesses it's not afternoon. The few hours repair time has freed
up more movement and despite the braces and hot flashes of pain, she's able to push herself up into a position that's about
halfway towards sitting.
That's when she sees it. On the nightstand, there's a small, silver foil dish that holds the remains of a Marlboro Light and the
smear of lipstick around the filter is a familiar red.
India's fogged mind wonders who would have the audacity to smoke in a hospital room. Just as she lands on the name Helena,
the toilet flushes and moments later, a slim, forty-something woman with sharp, weathered features appears from the en suite,
rubbing her hands together. When she sees India awake and sitting up, she stops dead and then starts to applaud.
"India," Helena sings with a smile. "Brilliant. Simply brilliant. And I'm glad you're awake because while I appreciate
you've had a rough couple of days, we really need to start talking through the plans for tomorrow." She checks over her shoulder
at the clock and shrugs. "Or for later this morning. Whatever. Anyway, André's gone home to get some rest but he'll be back in
time for the start of the interviews, which'll all be held in your room here so you needn't worry about moving too much if you
don't want to. In fact, the more restricted you look, the better. Now, some of the groundwork has been started while you were ...
well, what were you? You weren't in a coma, were you? Were you just unconscious? Sedated? Anyway, I need to bring you up to
speed so you know what they know."
Feeling as though she might still be asleep, India asks the first question to stroll through her head. "They?"
"Yes, sweetie. They. Everyone. Them. You remember Them, don't you?"
India tries to shake off her confusion, smacks some moisture into her lips and decides to try a different tact. "What was André
doing here?"
Helena laughs. "Being seen. You can't very well be alone following your ... fall, can you? How would that look? That's not
recovery, sweetie, that's an accident waiting to happen."
"Couldn't we have talked about this? I mean, the judge --"
"Tick-tock-tick-tock. Look, India, there are millions of things that should've been said but we are where we are. André will do
until we find someone else. For now, let's just call it a lesson learned for the next time you decide to jump out of a fifteenth storey
window, okay?"
India tries again. "The judge --"
"And as for your judge friend, well, he'll do as he's told. If he doesn't, André's happy to deal with any temporary repercussions
and if anything, that'll give us an even better angle. This story ... your story ... outranks any restraining order. This is a big deal.
For Christ's sake, in the car on the way over, a teen suicide charity called me asking for your patronage. That's how big it is."
"But ... I jumped."
Helena grabs the back of a chair, drags it towards the head of the bed and sits with a flourish.
"Three days ago ... do you remember? You were broke and crying and drunk and wired and you asked me what it would take
for me to make you famous again."
"You told me you couldn't and then you sold me some drugs," India says with a nod. "You told me it was a waste of time. That
I was a waste of your time."
"And three days ago, all that was true. But I also told you that you needed to draw a line under your old life. You needed to
reinvent yourself. The old India Fargo had to die. You followed my advice, maybe to the extreme, but now we're getting
somewhere."
India realizes she's been frowning for about five minutes.
***
Time inches its way to 4:50 and India swears that morning is dawning in the most ambivalent way possible.
Helena finally tired herself out an hour ago after singlehandedly brainstorming ways of working "It's All A Facade" into
biographies, biopics and interviews with Oprah. Now, still in the chair at the side of the bed, she's slumped into a noisy sleep that
India suspects is at least partly due to a miscalculation in uppers and downers.
But if Helena hasn't moved, then India certainly has. It's taken her a while and she's had to overcome light-headedness and
Bambi legs and the fear of being caught by a nurse or a refreshed André. But despite all that, she's made it out of the bed and
negotiated her way through tiring air, like Frankenstein's monster in a paper gown, round the outstretched Helena and now she
leans on the sill of her window.
Outside, as the city awakes through an orange filter, it's as quiet as it ever is. The news crews have kept their pitches, but for
now, the people to make it all work are some place else.
She lets her fingers work around the perimeter of the window. It's a flush fit into the frame. There are no gaps. None of it
opens. She supposes it makes sense, for obvious reasons, but she still feels disappointment.
A draft tickles her cheek. It takes her a minute to realize that it's not from the air-con and a further minute to work out where
it is coming from. It's the en suite. Sensibility clearly doesn't extent to bathroom windows because even from where she's
standing now, she can see that the top half of that window opens; not very wide, but enough.
There are no spotlights or news crews. There are no cop cars or crash mats. There are no magic tricks or banners, although
the sentiment is still valid. It's just India and the thinness of the air. This time, she'll try not to be so surprised.
Gavin Broom lives in the Scottish countryside with his wife and his
cat. At the time of writing, he doesn't own a house at the beach. His
work has appeared in Bound Off, Espresso Fiction, Fiction At Work,
Flashquake, SFX and others. More evidence can be collected at
www.gavinbroom.co.uk
cat. At the time of writing, he doesn't own a house at the beach. His
work has appeared in Bound Off, Espresso Fiction, Fiction At Work,
Flashquake, SFX and others. More evidence can be collected at
www.gavinbroom.co.uk
