Chapter 29
‘It wasn’t a very successful trip, was it?’ He states the obvious.
‘It was a shit show,’ Ivy Walsh interjects. A fresh cloud of vape escaping her mouth like cannon fire.
Dominic fidgets with the buttons on his grey cardigan, the sleeves are too short for him, the body too big. ‘What Ivy is trying to say is that we can learn some very, very big lessons from this.’ I expect him to finish his sentence with can’t we, boys and girls.
Ivy can’t take his softly-softly approach any longer. ‘You can start by not drinking on board and not skinny dipping in the pool at midnight.’
I clear my throat and quietly speak up. ‘To be fair Ivy, we were fully clothed.’
‘Well, whose bare arse made it all over social media?’
We all turn to look at Nick. Dave, who’s holding Nick’s hand, drops it in disgust. Alex was snap-happy with her camera that night and this is another one that made its way online. A cabin crew forum ran a caption competition for the snap: Tiny World’s Big Crack won with 3000 likes.
Nick croaks out, ‘In my defence, I was very drunk.’
Ivy blasts him. ‘That’s your defence?’
Nick cowers in his chair. Dave takes back hold of his hand to protect his man from the wrath of this nasty woman.
Dominic hops from foot to foot. ‘What we need to establish is what happened on board.’
‘Callum, Soumia, you were working with Trev at the front, how much did he drink?’ Ivy’s direct, she’s too long in the tooth to pussy foot around. She wants to wrap this up and get home in time for Eastenders.
I jump in with a white lie. ‘We don’t know, we didn’t see him drink. We would have said something.’
It’s a half truth. If we’d seen him drink as much as he had, we would have told him to stop. Soumia did attempt to give him water.
Ivy raises her voice. ‘Your senior crew member gets that sozzled onboard he blows a slide and none of you saw anything?’
A collective shake of heads.
‘I find that very hard to believe.’
Dominic attempts to play good cop. ‘We’ll have to conduct a thorough investigation; it would help us if you could tell us what you saw.’
Danielle is feeling brave. ‘Do you mean you want us to tell you how we dealt with a decompression and looked after everyone onboard and did a fantastic job? Do you want us to tell you about getting to the hotel and having to share rooms, which is completely against our contract? Should we tell you about how you put passengers in the same hotel, and how we got abused every time one of them walked past us?’ She takes a breath, feeling braver from her own monologue.
‘Or should we tell you about how the hotel wasn’t in fact a hotel, but a shack at the side of the runway? ’
Ivy accepts her challenge and squashes like she’s the spider on the wall. ‘No Danielle, I’d like you to tell me how your senior got drunk, blew a slide, and how you all ended up on social media pissed as farts in a swimming pool.’
I try a new tactic to change the subject. ‘How’s Trev?’
Dominic is about to answer but Ivy beats him too it. ‘Dealt with.’
This lady’s not for turning.
I try again. ‘Danielle has a point. We’ve had a few tough days; shouldn’t you be offering us employee assistance?’
‘Are you all OK?’ Ivy asks.
‘Yes,’ we all confirm.
‘Assistance offered,’ she barks.
Ivy turns to Dominic to indicate it’s his turn to speak, Dominic turns to the wall hoping it’ll speak for him – it doesn’t. Dominic looks back at Ivy. She sighs, a plume of vape rises from both of Ivy’s nostrils like a dragon breathing fire.
‘Have it your way. None of you are eligible for promotion for the next 6 months. Expect a letter from HR.’
Soumia starts. ‘But Ivy...’
Ivy raises her hand signalling the end of the conversation. ‘I don’t want to hear it. The decision’s been made.’
Dominic’s nothing but a cloud of dust. He’s darted through a door to the main terminal building, no doubt to change his nappy or hide amongst the passengers to save himself from being hunted down by the crew.
Soumia’s crying. It catches me off guard. She’s the strong one. I place a hand gently on her shoulder.
‘It’s only six-months, babe, then the job’s yours.’
‘I need it now.’ A stream of big tears smudge Soumia’s mascara.
I look around for some tissue and settle on some blue roll from the kitchenette in the corner.
I break a piece off and hand it over. I feel guilty I’ve not got anything softer to give her.
The rest of the crew make their way out the room.
There are a combination of nods and half smiles as they leave.
They respect Soumia, they’re giving her space to do this in private.
‘It’s only a promotion, it’s not like someone’s died.’ I try to put some perspective on the situation.
‘I really needed it. I had everything riding on it.’ Soumia dabs her face with the rough paper.
I crouch down next to Soumia. ‘You can’t be that scared to fly with Ivy as your senior again that you’re acting like this?’ I give her arm a gentle rub.
‘Acting like what?’
‘Nothing. I just don’t see why you’re so upset, we all got the same punishment.’
Soumia stands up and grabs her suitcase. ‘No, you wouldn’t get it. You never do.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Soumia’s face changes from upset to the one she pulls whenever she sees something she doesn’t like. ‘Forget it, let’s just go home.’
Soumia throws her coat over her arm, pulls the lever back on her crew case, kicks the bottom of it to start the wheels moving, then storms out of the crew room as fast as her one-inch heels can take her.
I watch her disappear out of view as the door closes, leaving me in disbelief in an empty crew room.
‘What the actual fuck?’