Read Online The Blasphemer: A Novel by Nigel Farndale - Free Book Online

to offer her name.
    She nodded and smiled a second time. He tried again. ‘And you are?’
    ‘Susie.’ She leaned forward. ‘Must be great being on television, giving people pleasure.’
    ‘Thought you said you’d seen his programme,’ Nancy said. A look of confusion played across Susie’s face.
    ‘Take no notice,’ Daniel said. ‘You’re from Boston, aren’t you?’
    Susie’s lashless eyes expanded. She was blushing. ‘How d’you know that?’
    ‘Recognized the intonation. Lovely place, Bean Town. Lived there myself until quite recently.’
    Nancy punched his leg playfully. ‘As a student.’ She turned to Susie. ‘Before you were born, I imagine.’
    ‘I was a postgrad, darling,’ Daniel said. ‘So it wasn’t that long ago.’
    ‘Harvard?’ Susie asked.
    The seaplane shuddered. Greg steadied himself by grabbing a curtain that was screening off the galley. Daniel began breathingslowly and deeply. He felt his belly contracting. Tap-tap of fingertip on watch face: 8.54am.
    ‘Fear of flying,’ Nancy mouthed to Susie, directing a thumb at Daniel.
    ‘No, not Harvard,’ Daniel said as he recovered his composure. ‘I was at MIT. And it’s not fear of flying. Flying I’m fine with, …’
    Nancy finished the sentence with him: ‘… it’s crashing I don’t like.’
    Daniel gave her a patient look. The annoying truth, as far as he was concerned, was that it wasn’t only the crashing he was afraid of. Planes made him feel claustrophobic. They gave him vertigo. More to the point, he hated ceding control of his life to someone else. Flying was an act of faith in the people who build, inspect and fly planes: as a scientist, Daniel knew he of all people should appreciate that. But he was not a great believer in faith.
    ‘I keep telling him it’s irrational,’ Nancy said. ‘He hates that. Thinks he’s the most rational man on the planet.’
    ‘The urge not to defy gravity is far from irrational,’ Daniel said. Realizing this sounded pompous, he added: ‘Besides, I haven’t met everyone on the planet so how would I know whether I’m the most rational man on it.’ He smiled to show he was joking.
    Nancy smiled back. ‘Statistically you are more likely to be kicked to death by a cow than you are to die in a plane crash, isn’t that right, Mr Kennedy?’
    Daniel sighed. ‘ Donkey . And plenty of people are kicked to death by donkeys. Several hundred a year.’
    Donkey. The word had an unexpected resonance for Daniel. Donkeys led by lions. No, that wasn’t right. Lions led by donkeys. His great-grandfather Andrew had been one of the lions. A fearless lion roaring as he charged across no-man’s-land … The letters … ‘Shit. I’ve left those letters in the safe at the hotel.’
    ‘Well, they’ll be safe there,’ Nancy said. ‘Safe there! Christ, I’m funny. We can pick them up when we get back to Quito.’
    Daniel rubbed his finger and thumb together as he considered the letters, what they meant, why they had spooked his father.
    ‘He doesn’t like it when anyone else uses probability,’ Nancycontinued, addressing the others again and breaking into Daniel’s thoughts. ‘Probability is his big thing. His catch-all explanation … He normally takes diazepam.’
    This was true. His doctor friend, Bruce, usually obliged with the prescription, though Nancy had come to the prescriptive rescue on more than one occasion. Diazepam was a better cure for nerves than alcohol. Daniel had read up on it: if you drink alcohol when you are feeling anxious it makes you over-emotional and your blood less able to absorb oxygen, which it is being starved of anyway, because you are panicking. As this was a fairly short flight, Daniel thought he would risk it without diazepam.
    ‘You OK, Dan?’ Nancy whispered, sounding protective. Her breath smelled of chewing gum. At that moment Daniel’s unease about the flight was coupled with an enveloping feeling of affection for his wife-to-be. Seeing that Greg