Chapter 3 #2
I reluctantly leap up again. This is humiliating.
I have my bum in Mr Window Seat’s wet face.
As if he isn’t angry enough. I’m literally waving my thigh gap an inch from his nose.
My only hope now is that we are over international waters, and he can’t sue me for some sort of human rights breach in a European court of law.
‘Connie!’ Cherry booms, drawing attention to me. ‘Why are you so stiff? Bend from the hips. Like this, babes.’
At last, the twerking comes to a natural end and I am left with but a teaspoon of dignity.
I put his magazine back down on the table.
It’s ruined. I forgot I had it in my hand while I was panic twerking and I’d rolled it up without thinking, so the soaked pages are now twisted and ripped.
The poor man. Now he has nothing to read for the whole flight.
When the cabin crew eventually reach our row with their trolley, I order a croissant and a black coffee and, when he orders the same, I insist on paying. He objects very loudly, and we end up in a bit of a tussle with me thrusting my card at the cabin crew.
As we drink our coffees, I apologise once again for twerking in his face, spilling his drink, ruining his magazine, possibly breaking his phone and wetting his crotch.
There is no way that will dry before we land.
He is craning his body away from me, doing his level best to make sure our arms and legs do not touch.
I dare to peek down at his wet patch. I’d be annoyed too, if that was me.
‘Stop looking at my crotch!’ he barks, making me jump with fright, which sends the remains of my coffee leaping from my cup. We both watch in horror as the coffee arcs through the air to land with precision… on his crotch.
I gasp, instinctively lunging towards him with my serviette.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he yells, swiping my hand away from his groin. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Yes. Good question.
‘I didn’t mean to touch your…’ I frantically search for a non-sexual word to describe his wet bulge. ‘Your privates. I just wanted to help dab them dry.’
He gives me an outraged look.
Dab them dry? DAB THEM DRY? We have crossed the Channel and thanks to Brexit I have no safety buffer. This is most definitely harassment, no matter how sexually free and easy we may believe the French to be.
He stands up, and Mrs Aisle Seat huffs and puffs as we both get up to let him through.
There’s an uncomfortable moment where we are squashed together in the aisle, and I appreciate just how tall he is.
He’s very tanned with an attractive amount of stubble.
He shakes his dark glossy hair out of his eyes and pulls his wet, tight-fitting top down over his taut stomach, which I am going to ignore completely because I’m not one of those predatory types, although I do catch his woody, soapy, fresh-man scent before he barges roughly past me towards the toilet.
When he eventually returns, my eyes are drawn back to the patch.
It is dry now, but where there was once a huge dark wet patch surrounding his crotch, there is now a dry yellow stain.
I don’t know how but this seems even worse.
He is so apoplectic with rage, he can barely look at me.
I lower my gaze and move to let him through.
We still have an hour to go before we land in Alicante so, to avoid any further upset, I slump down in my seat and close my eyes.
I am shattered. The last thing I hear is the cabin crew murmuring something about turning the heat up to make us fall asleep.
A loud tannoy announcement startles me. Something about scratch cards before we land and sunshine and glorious temperatures.
My still-heavy eyes refuse to open. Instead, I snuggle back into my comfy warm pillow and throw my arm across it.
I twist sideways, crossing my legs for comfort, and nod straight off again.
Moments later, a second rude announcement penetrates my sleepy brain.
Ping .
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving in Alicante. The crew will now pass through the cabin, so please ensure your big lips and heavy eyebrows are securely fastened, your eyelashes are stowed in the upright position, and your leg tattoos are clearly visible for landing.’
This is swiftly followed by the ping of the seat-belt sign reminding us to fasten them up again.
There’s simply too much pinging going on.
I reluctantly open my eyes and adjust to the harsh bright light pouring in.
I see a heavenly blue sky and feathery clouds.
For a moment I forget I’m on my way to Benidorm and professional humiliation.
I gaze out of the window, my head still lying in its warm resting place.
Wait, warm what now?
Suddenly I jerk fully awake, realising with dismay the position I am currently in.
My head is snuggled into Mr Window Seat’s taut chest. I’ve never in my life felt a pec like it.
It’s rock solid against my cheek. My arm is resting across his firm tummy area.
This too feels like some kind of body armour.
My leg is casually slung over one of his.
Fucking hell. I’m all but dry-humping him. And no more international waters!
I carefully peel myself away from his body. I have left a near-perfect imprint of eyebrows, red lipstick and a suspicious brown streak across his white shirt.
Where to begin with the apologising?
I sneak a glance at his face. It is a stony, rigid mask. We are so close I can see an angry tic in his cheekbone, suggesting that I have maybe prevented him from sleeping or moving or working for the remainder of the flight. He is staring hard at the headrest in front of him.
How embarrassing.
‘I’m so, so sorry.’
He rudely holds up his hand to block my apology. I should remind him that manners maketh the man but, to be fair, he has been through quite a lot.
As Alicante comes into view, the plane hits an air pocket and unexpectedly sends everyone bouncing up from their seats.
Then we hit another, this time much stronger, and we are all shaken about for a good minute or so before it calms down and the pilot comes over the tannoy to explain that it is going to be a bumpy landing due to our late departure, which he reminds us, was due to the late passengers boarding and refusing to be quiet during the safety demonstration.
The aircraft properly sounds like it is falling apart.
The rattling is deafening and, as if on cue, a baby starts wailing.
The atmosphere changes dramatically as panic sweeps through the cabin.
The captain announces in a cheery voice that although it does indeed sound like the plane is falling apart, he would like to take this opportunity to reassure all the passengers that this is indeed highly unlikely, that the plane is indeed built to withstand air pressure like this and on behalf of himself, his co-pilot, the cabin crew and the airline he would indeed like to wish us a pleasant onward journey and indeed thank us very much for flying with them today, bing bong .
We hit another massive bump of turbulence that sends everyone, despite the seat belts, crashing into the people next to them.
Try as I might, there’s no hope of me not touching my neighbour as he’s gripping the armrest between us like a vice, his eyes wide and unblinking.
My first hope is that he’s simply meditating very, very deeply and hasn’t had the heart attack that he appears to have had.
He’s definitely not okay. He’s gone very pale.
Instinctively, I grab his wrist and feel for a pulse.
Nothing!
I jab at the call button above me and quickly lay the palm of my hand on his pec to feel his heart. His skin is cold. We’re going to need a defibrillator and the ground crew on standby.
‘Leave me alone!’ he bellows, peering sideways at me, scaring me half to death, as if the pilot wasn’t already doing a good enough job of it. ‘You are making this flight much worse than it needs to be!’
‘I thought you’d had a cardiac arrest. I was doing advanced first-aid checks on you!’ I shout back defensively over the roar of the engines and the flap of the wings being adjusted.
‘By groping me?’
Oh God, he’s going to have me arrested, and I’ll spend the rest of the week in jail. Nancy will kill me. And I have only myself to blame. Well, actually, Liam and Ged can share some of the blame for encouraging me to come on this trip in the first place. I knew it would end in disaster.
‘I’d hate to know which medical school you graduated from,’ he adds sarcastically as the plane hits another bump, throwing us all forward. He puts his arm up to protect himself and his elbow whacks my eye. ‘Sorry,’ he yells at me while I’m doubled over in pain.
In-fucking-credible. I try to save his life and this is the thanks I get?
His knuckles are white as he grips the armrest. His chest is billowing out increasingly quickly.
He’s obviously having a panic attack. I open my mouth to speak but he hand-blocks me again.
Fine. I grab the sick bag from the seat pocket in front of me.
With one hand nursing my poor throbbing eye, I hand him the bag with the other.
‘I’m not going to be sick,’ he states bluntly.
‘It’s not for that,’ I say. ‘Breathe slowly in and out of it. You’re hyperventilating.’
He turns his wild eyes on me, sweat pouring down his forehead. I demo it for him, but he shakes his head.
‘You’re having a panic attack. You need to close your eyes and blow into this paper bag.’ The pilot throws us around a bit more and the plane dips onto its side and back up straight again. My stomach lurches, and I can hear retching noises from further down the aisle.
‘Okay,’ he says, studying me for a brief second before warily taking the bag and closing his eyes.
‘It’s so your brain can send signals back to the amygdala to say that you’re calming down and that everything’s okay,’ I urge gently as he puts the bag to his mouth. He has perfectly generous lips, I’ll give him that.
The cabin lurches about again, causing several passengers to start praying loudly and voicing regrets. It’s very off-putting. I should take his mind off our possible imminent death. I peer out of the window to see towering hotel and apartment blocks glistening in the distance.
‘Did you know that Benidorm has over three hundred skyscrapers?’ I yell at him.
The bag billows in and out.
‘And a thousand bars. In fact, it’s cheaper to drink beer there than water.’
What else did Google tell me?
‘It has the highest pickpocket rate in Europe, so I’ll need to be careful,’ I say, sounding rather like I’m in charge of government foreign travel advice. ‘Oh yes, and it has a nudist beach and a restaurant especially for the Germans, dedicated entirely to sausage.’
He opens one eye, sliding it my way.
Christ, he’ll think I have sex on the brain.
‘And yet millions of people still want to go there.’
Well, that’s the Benidorm chat out of the way, and Mr Window Seat is showing no visible signs of interest.
We finally drop below the air pocket and the aircraft flies smoothly downwards, touches down on the runway and brakes to a stop.
As the whole plane erupts in relieved applause, Mr Window Seat and I sit in silence.
I keep eye contact with him the entire time.
While everyone is jumping up and grabbing their bags, desperate to get off the plane, we stay where we are, and I count with him.
Soon his breathing becomes normal again and he takes the bag away.
He looks like shit. Suddenly, I’m exhausted and wilt back against my seat.
I hear, ‘Harlem Shuffle!’ but I am literally too drained to care.
He raises a tiny smile, and his face instantly softens, which transforms him, causing me to become self-conscious.
I’m drawn to his eyes, which are incredibly dark and striking, just like the rest of him.
‘Let me see your eye,’ he says as I gingerly take my hand away. It is stinging like mad. His face drops instantly. ‘Sorry about that,’ he says. ‘But in fairness, you were a little too close to me for the entire flight.’
Rise above it. Be civil.
Tash yells up the plane to me that we have to wait until last because they’ll bring a wheelchair to carry her off. I quickly scoop up my belongings off the floor, which is littered with stuff that has been hurled around, and get up to let him out.
‘Is this yours?’ he asks, squeezing into the aisle with me. He tugs my case free from the overhead locker, the sleeves of his T-shirt clinging gently to his bulging biceps as he puts it down with a heavy thump.
‘It’s the standard 10-kg allowance and the rest is all emotional baggage,’ I joke nervously. ‘It’s the fear of what’s waiting for me in Benidorm.’
He doesn’t seem to find this funny and reaches above me to get his bag. We are stuck waiting for the cabin crew to open the doors. The seconds tick by like hours. Our eyes wander the cabin awkwardly until they connect for the fourth time.
He still seems incredibly tense and, because the sheer relief of landing safely and the gust of fresh air from the doors finally opening has suddenly turned me into Mary Poppins, I say, ‘Well, it was jolly nice to meet you.’
Why? Why am I like this?
I feel the heat rushing to my cheeks at his borderline-hostile stare. ‘Where are you headed?’ I ask to defuse the tension. ‘Somewhere nice?’
‘Home,’ he says in an unimpressed tone. ‘To Benidorm, actually.’
Oh.