Chapter 43
43
JESSE
Now
Jesse closed his eyes as the engines roared. He’d never been scared of flying before. Never questioned it. He had always enjoyed the little rituals of getting onto the plane and settling into his seat; dinner, movie, sleep. But something made him nervous today as the captain said, ‘Cabin crew seats for take-off.’ It gave Jesse a slight daredevil thrill. As if today, he might be chancing death.
Minnie had got in his head. He closed his eyes and thought of her. Her wide-eyed smile. Her genuine ability to see the good in people, her heart-wrenching disappointment when people let her down. As the plane taxied onto the runway and the roar of the jets built, Jesse closed his eyes and acknowledged the familiar sensations: the chill of the air conditioning; the smells of processed and tightly packaged food; the sounds of the people around him; his comrades for the next twelve hours. He looked to the woman in the seat next to him and her son, who was around Ida’s age, gazing out of the window from his seat. He glanced across the aisle at businessmen and backpackers; a retired couple who looked like they were heading on a hiking holiday to the lochs, not Los Angeles.
Who will grate on me?
Minnie wouldn’t think like that. Minnie would think about all the people she could talk to, all the friends she might make on this flight. Were it not for her crippling fear of flying.
He thought about her, how last week he had finally done what he had been putting off since he’d got back from France in June, armed with her name. He googled Minnie Byrne.
Born 31 October 1996. Playing age 18–31. Highly skilled in American, estuary English, Irish-Southern, West Country and Yorkshire accents. Voiceover work. Acting work. Modelling work. Roles she’d played. Campaigns she’d done. Accomplished horse-rider. Jesse saw photos of Minnie on red carpets with an assortment of siblings, as a child with their famous parents, as a baby at a Bruce Springsteen concert. He looked at Minnie’s Instagram – her pictures were arty and beautiful. A dish at Alpine NW1. A painting of a street urchin in a gallery. A pretty doorway in France he recognised from their day in Arles. That one didn’t have a caption. There were head shots and some promo shoots she had been doing for Summer of Siena . In one photo she looked incredible in a huge tulle dress and DMs, standing on top of a rooftop in Soho. There was no sign of JP on her social media, but perhaps she was keeping him off grid. JP wouldn’t be very good for her image.
Jesse followed Minnie. There was no follow back, so he felt a little grubby, like a lurker, but couldn’t help himself. And he’d lurked a few times since. Last Friday she’d posted a cover of the glossy magazine that comes with the London Evening Standard newspaper, heralding her as the reluctant rising star of the Byrne dynasty. He’d seen that photo on the street too, as he’d walked past a pile of magazines stacked outside King’s Cross, stopped and gasped. He commented on her post: ‘Incredible, congratulations!’ She hadn’t replied.
Jesse had lurked again in the Starbucks queue while he was waiting in the departures lounge. He had seen an Instagram story of Minnie boarding a flight. ‘LAX I’m coming for you! #bracebrace’ read the text over her face, as she stood making a peace sign, with a huge Virgin plane on the tarmac behind her. Jesse rubbed the hair at his temples and shook his head. He couldn’t quite believe it.
As the plane gathered speed on the runway and Jesse felt ensconced in a sense of peril, he felt a lump in his throat. He was parched. He took a slug from his Evian bottle and realised he couldn’t wait any longer. He leaned his arm down so he could feel under his seat. The woman and the boy by the window weren’t paying attention to his scrabbling around, and he was grateful. Take-off was a good time, he reasoned. Cabin crew wouldn’t wonder what the man rummaging around the plane was doing. He felt a nervous anticipation; he wondered if the plane might career into a wall and never get off the ground. Would there be another plane on the runway and the two craft would evaporate in a ball of flames, like the KLM and the Pan Am?
I am not scared of flying.
Jesse’s hand moved around, unguided underneath him. He couldn’t feel anything, just a cage with a life vest rolled into it he thought he’d better not pull apart right now. He looked up above him.
Seat 23C .
He had booked this seat specifically. He had checked his old boarding pass. It was definitely 23C.
Where the fuck…?
Jesse was too tall to curl under his seat, during take-off of all times. So he switched from his right arm to his left and tried not to lean into the woman next to him as he reached one more time as the plane roared up the runway. His back arched, his stomach sick with hope. And then he felt it. The dangling loop of the ring. He threaded his finger through and pulled at it, using a little force to remove it from its metallic grip.
She’s here!
Saraswati was back in Jesse’s palm. Her wisdom. Her power. What it meant to him. He looked at her serene face and felt a flush of relief as he squeezed the bronze deity tight. He wanted to ask her about all the journeys she had been on while Jesse had been on one of his own, but he realised he would look a little mad to anyone who might notice, so he closed his eyes and held her.
What adventures you’ve had!
She had been there all along. Every time he looked up. It had seemed so unlikely, even before Minnie suggested it.
Jesse gripped her again, he wanted so desperately to tell his father that The Adventures of Remy the Red Panda , by Lars and Jesse Lightning, would be coming out next spring. He was just so sorry it had taken him so long. He squeezed Saraswati in his palm and the plane soared.