Books & Poetry

Chapter One 'Babygirl' by Toby Litt

Tipping crisply to the left, the 737 turned to make its final descent into Heathrow – and Mo Fleischer couldn’t avoid looking down at her home city. ‘It’s very yellow,’ she thought. She tried to pick out familiar landmarks, but couldn’t. They were too far west; too far away from her north London territory. There were a number of stadiums, lit by criss-cross beams and looking like dull emeralds. And, speeding down an otherwise empty connecting road, a bright white light flashed on and off – probably a police car. Some buildings shone very brightly; perhaps they were open, and selling something. The pinprick lights of the suburbs were smaller, more spread out than those along high streets. An arterial road that probably went to the airport disappeared beneath the angle of the wing. Feature continues

The last person Mo had spoken to was the woman at Berlin Tegel check-in. ‘Window seat or aisle?’
‘Whatever.’
‘I’ll make it a window seat, then.’
‘Like I said, whatever.’
Before that, she had spoken to a travel agent, another travel agent and her father. She had spoken to him, but he hadn’t spoken to her. Not to begin with. He had sobbed and sobbed. Somewhere among the sobs she had heard: ‘Come home.’

‘Calm down. Just tell me what’s the matter?’ she had asked.
‘Babygirl,’ he said.

Babygirl was their oldest name for her little sister, Bettina. It was what Mo had called Bettina, when she was just born – when they brought her home. Her father hadn’t called her this in years. Bettina, now Betsy, hadn’t allowed him.

‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just come home. Will you come home?’
He had begun to calm down, once she said she would.
‘Is she hurt?’
‘No. She is just gone.’

Bettina was 15 years’ old, and still lived at home with their parents.

‘Gone for how long?’
‘Three days. Since Friday night. I will collect you at the airport.’
‘Have you called her mobile?’
‘We have done everything. Including the bloody police. Come home. We need you.’
‘Okay,’ but Mo would be going for her sister, not for them. ‘I’ll text you my arrival time.’
‘I will collect you.’
‘Okay. Okay.’

She had hung up, then phoned the first, unhelpful, travel agent. Even distressed, her father had annoyed her. So much repetition. It made her feel like he thought she was stupid. And perhaps he did. He was a philosopher, specialising in Heidegger’s final ontology. She worked for a corporation, finding emerging technologies to invest in. He had moved to London, from Germany, in 1976. In 1978, he met their mother, Christina. Maureen, born 1983, had been named to fit in with the English. By the time they had Bettina, 1992, his own mother had died, and her name had to be passed down. He’d also stopped caring about whether or not they fitted in. At school, on the register, Bettina had been Betty; at home, she had been Babygirl.

Mo spotted the moon. As the plane turned, for a moment it was positioned right in the apex of her oval window. Compared with the yellow city, it was white as anything. Then, abruptly, the plane righted itself, leaving only the vague horizon for her to look at. She turned away.

Toby Litt’s new novel ‘Hospital’ will be published in April by Hamish Hamilton