Chapter 3
The upside to being part of a group of drunk women wearing obscene, butt-cheek-revealing thongs, dancing inappropriately in the terminal and having a wheelchair user with us, is that the ground crew become immediately intimidated at screams to reopen the frigging gate and see fit to prioritise our very late boarding of the plane as they whisk us straight through the empty departure lounge.
As we clamber on board, we collect resentful stares from the other passengers.
The stern-looking pilot comes out of the cockpit to inform us that because we’d failed to hear that we were last-called many, many times, we have now missed the take-off slot and could we hurry up.
‘That would be her fault. She got the round in late,’ Tash explains, pointing to me while undressing him with her heavily made-up smoky eyes.
Unbelievable. What happened to ‘hoes before bros’?
Before I can react, the girls get busy wiping the smiles off the cabin crew’s faces by taking an age to bash passengers left and right as they all struggle with their too-heavy luggage, their too-high sandals and their too-tipsy-to-care attitudes.
Next, the girls have a period of swapping seats as they need to sit next to their drinking partners.
Stuck in the aisle behind them, I glance at my seat number and realise I will be sitting on my own.
Nobody asked but it’s fine. It’s fine.
‘Mind, I’m glad to see that we’re sitting according to breast size. I’m a 28F,’ Tash boasts, laughing hysterically before telling all the passengers around her that she’s very recently become more of a double G.
‘And Big Sue is only a 30A!’ shrieks Liberty. ‘Big Mand! Over here, yer daft cow.’
Oh yes, I forgot, Liberty also has the yeast infection, a PhD and a tendency to overshare.
Big Mand has to retrace her steps.
‘I’ll swap with Liberty!’ yells Cherry. ‘Because me and Tash are reading Heat magazine.’
Cherry, she has two children and the vagina in tatters, that’s right. It looks like a butchered chicken. Her doctor had never seen a mess quite like it.
‘So where am I now then?’ Big Mand asks, confused.
‘Back down to where you were, next to Liberty.’
Big Mand twists herself back round, clipping someone’s head with her case as she goes. ‘Big Sue!’ she yells, ignoring the yelp of pain and subsequent complaints from the passenger. ‘Can you lift this up for us? Ta, love.’
Big Mand. Midwife. Caring disposition and excellent bedside manner.
Big Sue is six feet of muscular Amazonian-like woman. She strides up the aisle to swing the case easily up into the overhead bin, giving the nearby passengers a glimpse of her all-encompassing back tattoo.
Cherry suddenly roars, ‘BUGALOO!’ which frightens half the passengers to death.
The Dollz immediately stop what they’re doing to shake their arms out wide and shimmy, a bit like Turkish dancing, while they belt out an a cappella version of the famous Cyndi Lauper hit, changing the words to ‘Girls just wanna have suu-uuun’.
Cherry cranes her neck to make sure I’m joining in.
I am absolutely not going to join in. No way.
I will not be making a spectacle of myself.
The plane is full, and the cabin crew are already making stern eye contact with me.
I scurry up the aisle to my seat until I’m shaken to the core by Cherry bellowing down the plane, ‘Connie! Do the friggin’ dance! ’
I spin around, immediately copying their moves as though I simply had no choice.
I’m sure she doesn’t mean to sound so menacing.
She stands with her hands on her sharp hips, watching my panicked attempt to dance before there’s a huge, exasperated sigh from the captain over the tannoy for us to stop messing about and to sit down so that he can give the weary crew the instruction to close the doors and get ready for take-off.
Luckily, I’m right by my row so I leap into my seat in the middle, climbing easily over the old lady in the aisle seat thanks to my long, yellow-streaked legs, my many years of jogging and my recent consumption of alcohol.
I notice the man in the window seat is shaking his head at me and realise instantly that he is incredibly good-looking with his Mediterranean features and overgrown, dark glossy hair.
This is embarrassing enough without being judged by someone of such superior genetics.
His eyes pop at the full force of my heavily made-up face and freakishly surprised eyebrows before he turns quickly towards the window.
The girls are asked several times to be quiet during the safety instruction demo.
The cabin crew team leader eventually announces over the tannoy that while, yes, she agrees that the make-or-break relationships of celebrities and their many baby daddies are terribly important, and yes indeed, they should not be giving their poor children such ridiculous names as Bear and Nest, could we please save our empty speculation until after the demo, and also keep that discussion between ourselves if we wouldn’t mind, and not assume that the entire plane-full of passengers holds celebrities in the same regard, thank you kindly.
I quickly buckle myself in, but as the plane lurches forward, building up speed, I grab the armrest for support, only to find the man in the window seat got there first. We both glance down at my hand clamped round his forearm, then when I take my bronzed palm away, we gawp at the perfect fake-tan handprint I leave on his pristine long-sleeved white T-shirt.
I’m immediately even more embarrassed because that ‘Ultra Dark Tan’ stain is the sort to never, ever come out. I’d be so annoyed if I were him.
‘Typical,’ he says, rolling his eyes at me before I can apologise.
He’s understandably patronising as well as judgemental.
Trust me to sit next to a total smokeshow while I look like such a clown with all this make-up on and Prosecco swilling inside me. I give him a sympathetic shrug.
‘Why do you look so surprised?’ he shouts above the reverberation of the engine as we hurtle off the safe, solid ground into thin, flimsy air.
Why do you look so handsome and well-groomed? I inwardly panic. I seem to have lost the ability to use words to express myself.
‘I’m not surprised,’ I eventually yell back. ‘It’s my eyebrows.’
‘Your what?’ he bellows over the deafening rattle of the wings and engine combined.
‘My eyebrows! They’re supposed to be strong, not surprised!’ I holler, just as the pilot takes the opportunity to switch off the ear-splitting roar.
My words hang in the air as I smile at him awkwardly.
Maybe it’s the Prosecco, but he’s the first attractive man I’ve noticed in years.
I surreptitiously glance down to see his fingers are ring- free as he drums them impatiently against the armrest before swiping up his bottle of designer water from the tray table.
He’s got incredibly attractive hands. Perhaps Ged and Liam were right about me deliberately not giving anyone a chance.
Maybe some light chit-chat about stain removers might ease me back into being sociable.
Who knows, he might see past the hideous make-up and be interested in my opinions on the big questions of the day.
While I build up the courage to talk to him, the seat-belt sign is switched off, and like lightning, the Dollz scramble to the toilets.
Two go marching to the back and the other three to the front in perfect formation when Cherry suddenly shouts, ‘HAIR WHIP!’ and points immediately to me.
Sweet baby Jesus.
I leap up obediently and hurl my head around in all directions until, what seems like an age later, Cherry finally breaks eye contact with me. I thump back into my seat as though recovering from an exhausting spin class or a five-mile reverse run. This is all very tense.
Mr Window Seat is agog. He is also covered in water.
It is dripping down his face, and his top is soaked.
My eye is drawn to his magazine on the tray table.
That, too, is drenched. I notice his iPhone on the table is also dripping wet.
He sits there, unable to speak, as water droplets hang off his chin and drip onto his already saturated lap.
My eyes travel slowly down to his crotch.
It looks like he’s wet himself. He glares angrily at me before the penny drops.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ I say, full of apology. ‘Did I by any chance have anything to do with you throwing water over yourself?’
We are so close, our arms and legs are touching.
I glance back down at his crotch again. It really is soaked.
In a panic, I do the only thing that springs to mind.
I grab the magazine and hold it up to the air con.
After years of dealing with my mother’s illness, I’m nothing if not reasonably adequate in an emergency situation.
‘I’ll dry it!’ I shout, flustered, twisting all the little white knobs on the panel above our heads.
The icy air comes out at full blast. ‘And rice! I’ll ask the cabin crew for some rice.
For your phone,’ I explain, flapping. ‘Although they’ve probably only got microwavable Mexican-style rice…
with vegetable bits in… but it might still work. ’
He exhales loudly in response, gripping his phone tightly. This is why I should not be interacting with members of the opposite sex. I’m too out of practice and they are all too difficult and moody. An almighty roar vibrates through the cabin.
‘Connie! Stop talking and do the mop!’
I peer nervously over the seats to see the entire group energetically swishing imaginary cleaning implements with much gusto down the aisle, dusting people’s faces and ruffling their hair.