Chapter 2
I was right. This is the longest, bumpiest flight I’ve ever been on.
In all fairness, it is the only flight I’ve ever been on.
I have been distracting myself from overthinking the laws of gravity as we soar above the clouds in this flimsy aircraft at almost five hundred miles per hour.
However, when the clouds clear, the glimpses of green luscious farmland, the rugged shoreline of the British coast giving way to the English Channel, are incredibly picturesque and very soothing.
I snuggle down in my seat, my eyelids drooping.
The last few weeks have taken their toll, and I am shattered.
I nod off instantly until a scream causes me to jolt violently.
Some badly dressed hip-hopper in double denim at the back yells, ‘Mr Loverman’ at the top of his voice and the annoying flight attendant from earlier replies, ‘Shabba!’ as he makes his way down the aisle with the drinks trolley.
They wake me from a much needed deep sleep, and yet, as I glance down at the remnants of cartons and plastic pots piled high on my tray table, I have somehow slept through the free in-service flight meal and missed the opportunity to eat… I sniff the air… Regurgitated cat food?
I’m squashed between two passengers who have opted out of politely accepting a meal on my behalf, in favour of drinking since we took off (also piling empty cans of Diet Coke and miniature vodka bottles onto my pull-down table tray while I’ve been asleep) and I’m wondering, once again, whether the decision to leave my boring, cautious, mild mess of a life behind was such a good one.
‘Excuse me,’ says the woman next to me. ‘Can you hold this while I bin these empties?’ She plonks a bundle in my arms, unclips herself and picks up all of the abandoned plastic cups and Coke tins to take with her.
I stare down at the bundle. It’s a sleeping infant. It looks barely a few months old and yet it is enormous and seems to be wearing a novelty wig. I had assumed the lady next to me was huddling a backpack on her knee. ‘What do I do if it wakes up?’
She looks at me like I’m mad. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, scurrying away from me down the aisle. ‘They don’t come with any instructions.’
‘Big baby,’ the woman next to me in the window seat remarks. ‘Nice round head though. My first had a huge dent in his frontal lobe. Horrific it was.’ She emits a throaty laugh. ‘Looked like I’d taken a sledgehammer to him.’
‘I can imagine,’ I say, silently pleading with her not to divulge any further information.
I’m way out of my depth and likely to hurl.
I’d rather work in an abattoir than yank babies from torn vaginas.
I’m still disturbed from a statistical thinking class when a lecturer told us that the heaviest baby born was recorded at 22 lbs.
For context, that’s equivalent to a baby rhino.
‘But I don’t like to talk about it.’
‘Talk about what?’ the returning mother asks, plonking herself down as she scoops her baby from my arms.
‘Childbirth.’
‘Oh, me neither.’
The woman on my right then proceeds to describe her four traumatic labours and deliveries in forensic detail. I feel physically sick by the time they have swapped birthing horror stories an hour sodding later!
‘Teas, coffees, alcoholic beverages?’ asks one of the flight attendants. She has scraped her hair back into a super tight bun and can barely move her face. Her mouth is stretched into a permanent smile.
‘Two double vodka and Cokes,’ booms the baby’s mother. ‘And can you warm a bottle up for the baby, please? In fact, best warm up a few bottles.’
‘And make that three vodkas,’ agrees the woman by the window.
We watch the attendant pour out the drinks and the baby’s mother passes two of the vodkas along to me.
I pass them to the woman with the internal scarring that will never heal, the permanently damaged labia and the torn vulva that her husband says he can’t bear to look at as it’s too harrowing.
‘Thanks, love,’ says the baby’s mother. ‘Keep it. That one’s for you. You look like you need it.’
‘I’m not really much of a drinker,’ I say to their obvious horror.
She stares at me as though I’ve asked her for directions to Cancun central library. ‘Then why are you going all the way to Turkey, if not to get pissed?’
‘For work,’ I say, shifting in my seat. ‘At LoveIt Holidays head office.’
‘Ooh, very fancy.’ She raises her plastic cup, and we do a cheer. ‘Here’s to sun, sea, sex and working at head office, then.’
‘What do they drink in Turkey?’ I ask to be polite.
‘Raki,’ my neighbour says. ‘It’s lethal and you’ll regret every decision you ever make.’ She laughs heartily. ‘And too much will make you temporarily blind, but you’ve got to drink it or they’ll think you’re disrespectful.’
‘It’s true. That’s how this one got here,’ agrees the lady to my left, pointing to her unusually large and hairy baby. ‘In fact, I’m going back to Marmaris to see if I can find the waiter responsible.’
‘Responsible for serving you drinks or impregnating you?’ Why am I even asking?
‘Both.’ She laughs. ‘There was nothing I could do because he kept giving me free shots. Seemed rude to refuse. I just hope he still works at the same Hello Chicken and More.’
Oh, well. That’s that then. We’ll be putting social etiquette ahead of common sense and birth control. How very British of us.
There’s absolutely no way on this earth that I’m wasting my time on any men.
I am choosing to focus on my career instead.
Just as well because I have only a one in 285,000 chance in the UK of meeting someone my age, reasonably attractive, with a degree, and who also finds me attractive.
Yes, Dillon, I do have it in me to find love again – I have a 37 per cent chance of success second time around to be precise.
But if that man was Dillon first time around, imagine how disappointing the next one might be.
Luckily, these odds soar to one in over 4 million outside of England, so I feel relatively smug that no man will lead me astray in Turkey.
And to think my tutor at Durham University had the gall to question my decision to extrapolate the theorem behind The Maths of Love for my final dissertation!
I look at the baby sleeping peacefully in his/her mother’s arms and wonder how she’s going to manage all of the above partying while also trekking from one kebab shop to another to find her baby-daddy, with an actual baby in tow.
Especially one that size. I glance again at the baby’s petite mother.
My back hurts just thinking about lugging it around, never mind what a man-mountain the father must be.
She could probably look out of the aeroplane window as we approach Turkey and, like the Great Wall of China, spot the child’s dad from here.
‘Kiddies Club,’ she says in answer to my unasked question.
‘I’ve booked in advance just in case Mehmet has moved on and I can’t find him.
We’re staying at the Hotel Paradiso Exotico.
Little Kylie-Jay will love it. Won’t you?
Do you watch Neighbours? We do. We love it.
It’s Kylie-Jay’s favourite programme on TV.
That’s who she’s named after. Our favourite couple, Kylie and Jason.
’ She snuggles the baby’s head lovingly with her nose and accidently spills her drink on its face.
The baby’s eyes spring open. It takes one disappointed look at its drunk mother and lets out an unholy wail.
The wailing carries on for the next two hours until we are ready to land.
The only good to come of it was the baby drowning out the Richter-scale snoring from my torn-to-shreds-down-below neighbour.
She has been in a dead sleep the whole time.
Suddenly, the drop in cabin pressure brings with it a golden silence, and for ten precious minutes my headache recedes. ‘Typical of Kylie-Jay to nod off again with only twenty minutes to go,’ her mother says, looking down at the baby. ‘Would you mind holding her while I nip for a quick ciggie?’
‘Sorry but I really need the loo before we land,’ I say, eyeing the growing queue. She gets up to let me squeeze past. The queue is almost at our seat.
‘I’ll just be two minutes, pet,’ she says, handing me her precious bundle. ‘I’ll be back long before it’s your turn.’
I try to shove the baby back at her, but she scurries away from me down the aisle.
With a monumental huff I turn round and stand in line.
It takes forever to go down and just as I get near the front, there is still no sign of the baby’s mother.
My arms are about to fall off and my bladder is ready to explode when the pilot announces that the toilets are going to be closed soon for landing and no longer in use.
I swivel around in panic but there’s no one behind me and no sign of the mother.
I will literally have an accident if I don’t go now. There’s one person in front of me.
‘How did I end up with this baby?’ I mutter through gritted teeth, irritated at what a pushover I’ve been. At the sound of the baby whimpering, the man in front of me turns around, a concerned expression on his face.
It sounds corny but it’s like being struck by a bolt of lightning. The moment stretches on as though in slow motion and everything, the noise from the aircraft, all the passengers, the universe, melt away as time grinds to a halt.
Wow.
Just wow.
Tallish. Manly. Strong arms. I’m immediately reminded of my dissertation findings: You can fall in love in only four short minutes.
He smiles, causing instant flutters in my stomach.
He’s insanely good-looking but, crucially, he has kind, angel eyes that are very sympathetic looking.
He’d be perfect for me if only my recent experience hadn’t brought on such a burning desire to focus on my career and such a deep-rooted resistance to overly attractive men.
He gestures at the baby in my arms. ‘One of my sisters had a kind of unplanned pregnancy too.’
That dreamy accent! He’s Australian. My favourite of all the antipodean accents.
I glance down at the sleeping baby’s massive, cute face. I’ve never been one for idle gossip or small talk. But I do hope the baby and its mother find the giant man responsible. ‘The father lives in Turkey. Some fast-food waiter at Hello Chicken and More.’
He nods understandingly. And when he offers for me to go ahead of him, I feel a warm glow at his dashing, courteous manner which causes my heart to beat faster. That and the fact that he called the toilet a dunnie. So cute.
‘That’s so, so kind of you,’ I gush. ‘You’re a life saver. Here,’ I say, thrusting the baby into his arms. ‘I’ll only be a minute.’
I close the door on his shocked face as he looks down at the precious bundle I’ve given him.
Hopefully, the baby’s mother will heed the seatbelt sign, stub out her ciggie and will be on her way to collect her adult-size baby from him at any moment.
I do what is necessary and quickly check my reflection as I wash my hands.
I smooth down my ponytail and apply a slick coat of gloss to my lips before checking my teeth.
At the last moment, I decide to release my hair from its tight hairband and run my fingers through it as it tumbles down across my shoulders.
My thick, highlighted, mousey-brown ‘Rachel’ hair immediately frames my face. Less severe, much more chilled out.
I take a deep breath in, releasing it slowly.
This is the new me. The fresh start that I need.
It’s time to reinvent myself. In fifteen minutes, I’ll be as far from home as I’ve ever been.
I’ll be the first in generations to go abroad to work.
The realisation is causing a nervous prickle up my spine.
I briefly wonder what the super-hot hunk holding the baby will make of my transformation, before reminding myself that I am doing this for me.
I’m a career girl now. A yuppie. Focused.
Financially literate. Upwardly mobile and working at an international head office.
A forceful knocking on the door jolts me from my pondering.
I hastily slide the bolt across but when I open it, my breezy smile slides instantly from my face.
The kind-looking manly man I’d left the baby with isn’t looking quite so agreeable.
Something dark ripples across his face as he pierces me with a murderous stare.
The baby has vomited a gallon of breastmilk over him.
It is sliding from his hair, down the side of his face and over one shoulder.
I wince at the acrid smell and instinctively cover my nose and mouth trying not to gag.
The baby is wailing in his outstretched arms, its face beet red with fury, hair standing on end as though it’s been plugged into the National Grid.
He thrusts it towards me and barges past, just as an arm flies out to block his path. It is the air steward.
‘Sorry, sir. The toilets are out of use. Please return to your seat.’