Chapter Two
Two
OK. The truth is, I don’t like this.
I know it’s business class; I know it’s all a lovely luxury. But my stomach is still a tight knot of fear.
With an outward veneer of calm, I reach for the laminated safety instructions and run my eyes over them for the fifth time. Safety exits. Brace position. If life jackets are required, please assist the elderly and children first. Oh, God—
Why am I even looking at this? How will it help me to gaze at pictures of little stick people jumping into the ocean while their plane explodes behind them? I stuff the safety instructions quickly back in their pocket and take a gulp of champagne.
To distract myself, I look around the cabin.
The two elderly women I noticed earlier are both laughing at something.
The guy with the laptop is still typing.
Behind him is a little blond boy of maybe two, sitting with a beautiful dark girl.
As I watch, the boy drops a plastic wheel on the floor.
It rolls away, and immediately he starts to wail.
The two elderly ladies pause in their laughter, and I’m aware of the man next to me looking up.
“Is everything OK? Can I help?” An air hostess is rushing up to the toddler’s seat.
“Don’t worry.” The dark girl waves her arm. “He’ll calm down.”
“Are you his mum?” The air hostess smiles at her.
“Nanny.” She reaches in her bag and produces a lolly, which she starts to unwrap. “He’ll keep quiet now.”
“Excuse me,” I say. “He dropped his toy.” Everyone turns to look at me and I flush. “That might be why he’s crying,” I explain.
The dark girl looks at me without expression. “It’s just a piece of plastic. He’ll get over it.” She jams the lolly in the boy’s mouth and he starts to suck it, but tears are rolling down his cheeks.
Poor little thing. Isn’t she even going to try to get the toy?
Suddenly my eye is caught by a patch of bright color on the floor. It’s the wheel. It’s rolled under a row of empty seats, right over to the window.
“Oh!” I say. “Look—there it is!”
To my slight disbelief, the nanny shrugs. “He’s not bothered,” she says.
“He is bothered!” I retort. “Don’t worry,” I add to the child, “I’ll help you.”
Telling myself it can make absolutely no difference to the safety of the plane if I stand up, I unbuckle my seat belt. Somehow I force myself to my feet. Then, with everyone’s eyes on me, I bend coolly down to retrieve the wheel.
OK. Now I can’t reach the bloody thing.
Well, I’m not giving up, after I’ve made this big deal about it. Without looking at anyone, I lie right down on the plane floor.
Oh, God. It’s more wobbly than I expected.
What if the floor suddenly collapsed and I fell through the sky?
No. Stop it. Nothing’s going to collapse. I shuffle forward, stretch as far as possible…and at last my fingers close around the plastic wheel. As nonchalantly as I can, I get to my feet, banging my elbow on a seat tray, and hand the plastic wheel to the little boy.
“Here,” I say in my best Superman, all-in-a-day’s-work voice. “I think this is yours.”
He clasps it tightly to his chest, and I glow with pride.
A moment later, he hurls the wheel on the floor, and it rolls away, to almost exactly the same place.
The nanny gives a stifled giggle, and I can see one of the elderly ladies smiling.
“Right,” I say after a pause. “Right. Well…enjoy your flight.”
I get back into my seat, trying to look unfazed, as though this is what I planned all along.
“Nice try,” says the American guy next to me, and I turn, suspicious. But he doesn’t look as if he’s laughing at me.
“Oh.” I hesitate. “Thanks.”
I buckle up my seat belt and reach for my magazine again. That’s it. I’m not moving from this seat again.
“Excuse me, madam.” An air hostess with red curls has appeared by my side. “Are you traveling on business?”
“Yes.” I smooth down my hair. “Yes, I am.”
She hands me a leaflet titled “Executive Facilities,” on which there’s a photo of businesspeople talking animatedly in front of a clipboard with a wavy graph on it.
“This is some information about our new business-class lounge at Gatwick. We provide full conference call facilities and meeting rooms, should you require them. Would you be interested?”
I am a top businesswoman. I am a top high-flying business executive.
“Quite possibly,” I say, looking casually at the leaflet. “Yes, I may well use one of these rooms to…brief my team. I have a large team, and obviously they need a lot of briefing. On business matters.” I clear my throat. “Mostly…multi-logistical.”
“I see.” The hostess looks a little nonplussed.
“Actually, while you’re here,” I add, “I was just wondering. Is that sound normal?”
“What sound?” The air hostess cocks her head.
“That sound. That kind of whining, coming from the wing?”
“I can’t hear anything.” She looks at me sympathetically. “Are you a nervous flyer?”
“No!” I say at once, and give a little laugh. “No, I’m not nervous! I just…was wondering. Just out of interest.”
“I’ll see if I can find out for you,” she says kindly. “Here you are, sir. Some information about our executive facilities at Gatwick.”
The American man takes his leaflet wordlessly and slips it into the seat pocket in front of him without even looking at it. The hostess moves on, staggering a little as the plane gives a bump.
Why is the plane bumping?
Oh, God. An avalanche of fear hits me with no warning. This is madness. Madness! Sitting in this big, heavy box with no way of escape, thousands and thousands of feet above the ground…
I can’t do this on my own. I have an overpowering need to talk to someone. Someone reassuring. Someone safe.
Connor.
Instinctively I fish out my mobile phone, but immediately the air hostess swoops down on me.
“I’m afraid you can’t use that on board the plane,” she says with a bright smile. “Could you please ensure that it’s switched off?”
“Oh. Er, sorry.”
Of course I can’t use my mobile. They’ve only said it about fifty-five zillion times. I am such a durr-brain.
Shall I use the seat phone?
No. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to bother Connor. It’s ridiculous. This is just a tiny flight from Glasgow. I’m fine. I put my mobile away in my bag and look at my watch.
Only five minutes have passed since I last looked. Fifty-five to go.
OK, don’t think about that. Just take each minute as it comes. I lean back and try to concentrate on the old episode of Fawlty Towers that is showing on the screen.
Maybe I’ll start counting again. Three hundred and forty-nine. Three hundred and fifty. Three hundred and—
Fuck. My head jerks up. What was that bump? Did we just get hit?
OK, don’t panic. It was just a bump. I’m sure everything’s fine. We probably just flew into a pigeon or something. Where was I?
Three hundred and fifty-one. Three hundred and fifty-two. Three hundred and fifty—
And then I hear the screams like a wave over my head, almost before I realize what’s happening.
Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh…OH…NO. NO. NO.
We’re falling. Oh, God, we’re falling.
The plane’s plummeting through the air like a stone.
A man across from me has just shot up through the air and banged his head on the ceiling.
He’s bleeding. I’m clutching on to the arms of my seat, but I can feel myself being wrenched upward; it’s like someone’s tugging me, like gravity’s suddenly switched the other way.
Bags are flying around, drinks are spilling, one of the cabin crew has fallen over, she’s gripping a seat…
Oh, God. Oh, God. OK, the plane is leveling off now. It’s…it’s better.
I look at the American man, and he’s grasping on to his seat as tightly as I am.
I feel sick. I think I might be sick.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” comes a voice over the intercom, and everyone looks up. “This is your captain speaking.”
My heart is juddering in my chest. I can’t listen. I can’t think.
“We’re currently hitting some clear-air turbulence, and things may be unsteady for a while. I have switched on the seat belt signs and would ask that you all return to your seats as quickly as—”
There’s another huge lurch, and his voice is drowned by screams and cries all around the plane.
It’s like a bad dream. A bad roller-coaster dream.
The cabin crew are all strapping themselves into their seats. One of the hostesses is mopping blood on her face. A minute ago they were happily doling out honey-roasted peanuts.
I always knew something like this was going to happen to me. I just knew. All those people who said flying was perfectly safe—they were lying.
“We have to keep calm!” one of the elderly women is saying. “Everyone, keep calm!”
Keep calm? I can’t breathe, let alone keep calm. What are we going to do? Are we all supposed to just sit here while the plane bucks like an out-of-control horse?
I can hear someone behind me reciting “Hail Mary, full of grace…” and a fresh, choking panic sweeps through me. People are praying. This is real.
We’re going to die.
We’re going to die.
“I’m sorry?” The American man in the next seat looks at me, his face tense and white.
Did I just say that aloud?
“We’re going to die.” I stare into his face. This could be the last person I ever see alive. I take in the lines etched around his dark eyes; his strong jaw, shaded with stubble.
The plane suddenly drops again, and I give an involuntary shriek.
“I don’t think we’re going to die,” he says. “They said it was just turbulence—”
“Of course they did!” I can hear the hysteria in my voice. “They wouldn’t exactly say, ‘OK, folks, that’s it—you’re all goners’!”