The Trafficked

11

Mann boarded the plane and settled down for his twelve-hour flight. Better twelve than eight, he thought. At least he had some hope of sleeping five or six hours and not being force-fed like a laboratory animal every couple of hours. But sleep wasn’t going to come easy. He thought about what his mother had said. She had come to a crossroads in her life, it seemed to Mann. She was in a reflective mood. Today, for the first time ever, his mother had hinted that her marriage had not been as it should. Now Mann had the task of revisiting his memories from a different angle. He had to take away the child’s perceptions, straighten their edges and see them through untinted glasses. It would be a hard task. The most time he had spent with his family had been the years before he was sent away to school-he had started boarding when he was eight-and then there were the holidays when he’d come back to Hong Kong. Was it true that their marriage hadn’t been as strong as he had always assumed? His mother always left out more than she ever said.

He was in for a long night. Thoughts bounced around inside his head. He hadn’t been back to the UK for a long time-seventeen years. The last time he had stood on British soil his father had still been alive. It wasn’t that he hadn’t meant to return, but there had just never been a good time.

Mann practised his particular type of meditation-he shut his mind to all but the pursuit of sleep. Anything unwanted, even sex, that popped into his brain was booted out without being looked at. He pulled his fleece blanket up over his face and mentally put himself on the beach, with not a bikini in sight.