In a Kingdom by the Sea. Sara MacDonald

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       Flight to Karachi, April 2010

      The aircraft cabin is hushed and dark when I wake. I lie listening to the sound of people turning and sleeping, coughing and snuffling. The hushed voices of the crew chatting in Urdu rise and fall in a distant, hypnotic rhythm from beyond the curtain.

      It must be near dawn. I lift the window blind. The sun is edging over the horizon and spreading gold light over the stark, brown mountains of Afghanistan. Iridescent colour flickers across the shadows of a vast, empty landscape.

      I feel suspended between worlds, hovering over unknown territories. I am looking down on a hostile, unforgiving land of death and apricot orchards. Down there, in the red dust, NATO soldiers are defusing bombs and losing limbs in the fight against the Taliban. I think of all the people living their lives against insuperable odds amongst those sharp mountains and hidden valleys. Thousands and thousands of miles of uninhabited land where there are no trees, where nothing moves.

      I think of Emily in my house back in London. Her bright patchwork throw over my bed, her possessions scattered around my home. It all feels unreal. I have a moment of heart-thumping panic. What am I doing? Everything I know is back in the UK: my sons, my friends, my work, my whole life.

      The plane turns. The interior lights go on. Blinds are lifted to view the new day coming to life outside. A flight attendant in an unflattering shalwar kameez is handing out landing cards as we fly over an unseen border into Pakistan. I wrap my arms around myself. I have taken a risk. I am making a leap into the unknown, with Mike and with Pakistan.