Geoff Nelder's Hot-Air excerpt

Chapter one (fragment)

'What do you mean, duck? There's nowhere to duck to,' shouted Erica. A metal strut dimpled just above them.

'See, they're shooting at us!' Paul panicked easily but on this occasion, she knew he should.

Erica tugged at the sleeve of the pilot and shouted: 'Now use the radio to get the police.'

'Listen, I'm trying to gain us some height to get away from them. Anyway, the radio is tuned to the chase team.' He opened the valve of the second cylinder, increasing the decibel level to roar. It was too noisy to hold an emergency action-plan conversation or to hear any guns blasting at them from below. While Erica could not deny that this turn of events vibrated with excitement, it was not quite the twenty-fifth birthday celebration she had anticipated.

Erica did not hide her disgust when she had to organise the hot-air balloon gift flight herself. She also did the driving from Southampton to Bath: Paul couldn't sufficiently wake after excessive drinking the previous night. At least he paid the £360 for the flight, including a champagne picnic. But Erica had the job of interrogating people about the whereabouts of Royal Crescent Green. Startled pedestrians acquiesced out of fear. Expeditious responses came quickly when assaulted by a shock of deep red hair occupied by a determined face full of glaring emerald eyes and black lipstick. Paul might have been an off-world species. He slumped comfortably in the passenger seat while Erica made the decisions. His light brown hair reflected his tousled mind.

She glanced at her wind-swept boyfriend. Inertia seemed to be keeping them together. Their jobs brought them in contact two years before when his computer technician job took him to her office where her colleagues bet she couldn't pull him. She wished she hadn't. Especially when she found Paul had bet that he'd be able to bed her. Touché. He was a dork - amusing but not enough pizzazz for her in the long run. Maybe that was what she needed; a life packed with short bursts of excitement. Even on holidays she couldn't stay on a sun-lounger long enough to get through one chapter of the season's hottest bestseller. When her teacher misquoted Shaw, telling her that life was too short to take seriously, she responded with life being too short not to take seriously.

Erica shattered the peace screeching the XR3i to a halt in the famous Crescent. The dawn rays spread across the wide-open grass where the red, white and blue envelope was still folded. The small nylon basket held six but only the two of them and the pilot were going on the morning celebration flight. The ground crew and pilot were determined to involve the pair in the assembly and inflation of the balloon.

'Are you listening, miss?' said the pilot, clearly miffed because Erica was flirting with the crew instead of focussing on how to hold on to the internal rope handles and bend her knees in the unlikely event of a very rapid landing. She had flown once before on a Kenyan Safari, so she paid as much attention as an airline passenger does to the emergency procedure cabaret. When he put his hand in hers during the introductions, she thought pilot Derek Stubbs looked like her Uncle Eric: a broad open face, nearly bald, with worry lines travelling from his bushy eyebrows up into his stubbled scalp.

With surprising noise, the envelope filled and became vertical. As experienced adventurers, they had no fear of heights, depths or velocity; thriving on adrenaline. Even so, they had lumps in their throats as they scrambled inside the wicker and defeated gravity. With a seesaw sway they were up and away. Within moments she saw the three-man ground crew receding. They were busy gathering and hurling equipment into the back of the open American Cherokee truck, ready for chasing the balloon.

Erica let her eyes take in the grandeur of the Royal Crescent. The sandy colour of the limestone frontage gave way to grey slate double-peaked roofing. Already they were taking in views many of the Crescent occupants hadn't seen.

'It's absolutely marvellous, isn't it?'

'Great detail, though I thought we'd be higher,' Paul said.

'Yeah, there's not much privacy for those people down there.'

Then a grumble from the pilot: 'There'll be even less if we can't get some more lift.'

'This isn't normal then?' asked Erica, both surprised and concerned.

'We have to lift quickly here because of the hills, but there seems to be a downdraught I didn't expect. Don't worry, when we pass over that garden I'll drop some sand ballast. As long as there's no one there.'

Luckily no one sunbathed or clipped hedges, so a few kilos of sand added to the lawn and oops, some into the pond. That and further opening of the valve on the burner increased their altitude, drifting northeast. Every building dressed uniformly with soft Bath limestone, but whereas everything looked a creamy yellow from ground level, a mosaic of multi-colours from lawns, roofs and roads entertained their eyes from above.

'Just look at the variety of chimney tops,' said Paul, snapping away with his Kodak disposable camera taking dispensable pictures.

'Just look at the way they're getting bigger,' said Erica, concerned.

'Yeah, we're still not gaining enough height,' said Derek.

Erica was beginning to think their trip was already over. The basket grazed fresh green leaves sprouting from the top of an ash tree lining the road to Beacon Hill. With another lurch they regained height.

'It'll be all right,' said Derek, lacking that essential conviction balloon pilots required to calm passengers' nerves.

'Why don't you like taking off from here, Derek?' said Erica, noting his edginess.

'What makes you say that?' Derek said, and then gave in. 'It's the local downdrafts. But Air-Today insist because the punters like it. That's better, we're off upwards again.'

'Hey, Erica, can you see what I can see, the lucky dog?'

It was rare for Paul to burst into any semblance of enthusiasm, so she peered over his side of the basket. They were rising, but only four times house height, drifting north over the Fairfield Park suburb of the city.

'Yeah, they're getting it on down there, aren't they?'

'She's spread-eagled and without a stitch on, isn't she?'

'Get your eyes fixed, she's wearing socks.'

'Oh, yeah, hey gimme the binocs.'

'Certainly not, you perve. Just a minute, there's another bloke beside the one who's screwing her.'

'Damn these trees. Ah, got a good one in then.'

'What? Put that camera away.' She admonished him half-heartedly, growing more alarmed at the scene leaving their view.

'There's a fourth one kneeling by her head,' Paul said, 'and I think there's a woman with her arms around the neck of a bloke sitting down in a patio-chair. It doesn't look like she's giving him a luvvy duvvy hug. Is that a knife glinting or --'

'I'd like to think we were witnessing a harmless al fresco garden orgy but I have a terrible feeling…' Erica's voice diminished as her stomach tightened. She'd been toughened to reality after her father ran off with her teacher, leaving Erica to look after her three younger brothers, with her mum holding down two jobs. Erica was toughened by her childhood where others would have gone under. An innate zany humour and feisty determination saw her through.

'Maybe it's a gang bang,' Paul said, excited. 'Hey, mister, can we go back? Put this thing in reverse?'

'What?' said the pilot, only now catching on to the show. 'No, of course not. It's a bit early for outdoor frolics, isn't it?'

That thought had already occurred to Erica. 'Can they hear us, do you think, Derek?'

'Depends how much noise they are making down there, and the wind direction. Our burner is quite noisy to us, right next to it, and you can usually hear them from the ground even before you see us.'

'Do you think you should use your radio to call the police?' Erica became serious.

'Oh, I don't like that. It's probably just teenagers larking around,' said Derek.

'Maybe,' said Erica, 'but it looks more serious to me.'

That's when Paul saw part of the metal strut buckle as a bullet struck it. 'That's daft, shooting at a hot-air balloon. You'd need ground-to-air missiles to make big enough holes to let the hot air out. Do you suppose they think it's a hydrogen balloon?' asked Erica.

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