Girl on a Plane (15 page)

David pushes the mint to the side of his mouth. “Enjoy your photo with the guerrillas?”

“Not entirely,” I reply. “David, did you know Sweaty confiscated all the stuff from my case?”

“No, it's all back on your old seat,” he says. “At least, I assumed those were your things.”

And there they are: my school coat, the clean shirt, my toothbrush, toothpaste, and Nivea cream, and Marni's letter too. It's like Christmas all over again!

While my Polo mint melts into the thinnest of wedding rings, then cracks in half and disappears, I hide the unopened letter and my PFLP badge in my shoes and push them under my seat. Maybe I'll show the badge to the boys later. I'm desperate to read Marni's letter, but I want to do it in private.

In private.
What am I saying? It's worse than boarding school here. The only place that's completely private is the toilet, which is not a nice place to spend any time in at all; it smells so awful. So I leave the letter for later, when I'll probably
really
need it, and go to the toilet to change as quickly as I can into my clean clothes.

First I take some tissues and clean myself, not with water but with my Nivea cream. Then I change my clothes. By the time I get back to my seat, I feel like a completely new person—​freshly dressed and much
cleaner.
Shame about my hair . . .

David and Tim are taking bets on whether the Red Cross meals will arrive in time for supper. But when supper does finally arrive, it isn't a tantalizing three-course meal but a grim little cup of salty water. It's quite revolting, but I manage to drink it somehow. I suppose I'm trying to set a good example for Tim, but he screws up his face and closes his mouth firmly.

“That is gross!” he says. “And I can't do it.”

“Come on,” I say. “We need the salt, with all the sweating we're doing. Do you want to have cramps, or will you knock it back and be brave?”

“Urrgh!” he cries, shuddering as he swallows it. “Why can't we have ordinary water? That was
disgusting.
” Then he looks up at me and grins his pixie grin. “Time for another Polo mint, I think.”

I smile. “But how many have you got left?”

“Well, actually, only two now.”

“Oh, Tim! They went fast.”

“I know.” He pops one into his mouth, hesitates, and turns to me. “Would you like . . .”

“Oh no.” I feel desperate as I say it. “You keep that one for yourself. You've been far too generous already.”

And just when I'm feeling as empty as I think it's possible to be, Rosemary comes around with a tray of unleavened bread! We each take a small piece. I look at it and saliva rushes into my mouth. It has a soft, white, frayed edge like a torn cloud, is golden on top, and has charcoal griddle lines underneath. I tear off a tiny piece, smell the mouthwatering aroma of fresh bread first, and then put it in my mouth. I chew, savoring the subtle floury oil taste, then swallow and feel my digestive juices rising in delight.

Forget steak and chips, ice cream, or Rosemary's mother's sherry trifle—​this piece of bread is the best thing ever. It's
so
delicious,
so
intense—​but it's gone in a flash.

And my stomach craves it all over again.

With the scrap of food, and the cool night air causing a welcome drop in temperature, the mood on board seems to change. We breathe more easily, feel more active, now that the exhausting heat has gone. I tidy my seat pockets, go through my bag, and then decide to take another walk up and down.

The hurricane lamps cast their warm yellow glow. People are smoking, conversing, exchanging ideas and even addresses—​all washed down with the last of the duty-free alcohol.

I stop by Tim and the twins, who are comparing their Junior Jet Club logbooks. They've all taken off their Unaccompanied Child badges and pinned on their Junior Jet Club ones. Their little navy logbooks are spread open on their tables. Several pages of logged flights are filled in, and they're reading their columns out loud in turn, comparing dates and arrival and departure times and studying the scribbled signatures of different captains.

“The best bit about flying,” Tim says, “is being allowed to visit the cockpit.”

The twins nod their identically tousled heads.

“I'm nearly at the special certificate,” he says to me. “You have to fly fifty thousand miles with BOAC for that.” He leans over to me and whispers, “The twins aren't quite there yet.” Then he continues, “It's really annoying, though, because we need to log this flight, but it's stuck on the ground.”

“Well, we may not always be,” I say. “And then I'm sure they'll count it.”

“The twins are lending me their Slinky later,” he says. “We're going to ask the Giant if we can see if it'll flip down the wooden ladder.” I leave them to discuss this and wander back toward David.

He's reading one of Tim's comics. He says he's just been to the front to try to talk to the blond sisters, but they made it quite clear they weren't interested by half ignoring him and going on about the
much
older guys they knew and their incredibly flashy cars.

“Serves you right,” I say, secretly pleased—​not that I fancy him, of course. “They're
way
out of your league.” He looks at me morosely.

I leave him in the doldrums and walk up the plane, beginning to feel restless again. I squeeze past Mrs. Newton, trying to cadge a last drink off Alan and Celia, who are sipping gin, by the look of it. Alan leans forward, his elbow crooked, his hand on his thigh, pretending to listen intently to Mrs. Newton's request, occasionally running his hand through his hair as if to reassure himself it's still there. The captain and Jim, nursing whiskeys, sit nearby, looking amused.

On my way back I stop by the emergency door, about two-thirds of the way down. I can see the wing quite clearly from here. And there's the moon! It's wonderful: huge, smooth, and silvery calm, my connection to the outside world, to all the space and air out there. It quiets me somehow, so I stay moon bathing for a while.

Then I go back to pacing the wing from the aisle. Eight big paces, so very wide. No wonder you walk over it to get off in an emergency. There's a high ridge running across the wide, backwards slope, and I can see the edges of the three flaps on the top surface, the ones that flip up to slow you down when you're about to land. I wonder what the pointed bits sticking out under the wing are for—​maybe to help the wind fly over it? Wasn't that what we learned in physics, that the wind traveling over the wing is what causes a plane to take off ? That wing flew me. Wants to fly me again.

A small group crowds around Mr. Newton's radio to listen to the evening news. I stop too.

“The head of the International Red Cross mission in the Middle East yesterday denied that the Palestinians were subjecting their skyjacked hostages to ‘mental and psychological torture.' Speaking from Amman, he said that the guerrillas had a ‘very friendly and humane attitude.' However, he said, ‘There are reports of the children being taught war songs and being given automatic weapons to play with.' ”

Where on earth did they get that from? I wonder. Do they just make things up, or is that what's happening on one of the other planes?

I give up on the news and walk the plane some more, discovering that there are exactly fifteen strides from my seat through first class to the open front door. One for every year of my life. I pass Rosemary, playing peekaboo with the baby in the bassinet, who breaks into peals of giggles every time she reveals her face. Farther back, Mrs. Green has her arm around Susan's thin shoulders. She's wearing a new dress and is wrapped in her mother's blue cardigan.

There's a conversation about films going on between the two blond sisters and Maria. They all have glasses of booze in their hands and are smoking. Maria has wide-set eyes and a slightly disgruntled expression. She must be about their age, eighteen or nineteen, but the other two seem to be only just tolerating her. She tilts her head to one side as she listens, appearing to agree with everything they say.

When I'm sitting back down, Tim and the twins file past. “We've decided to ask the captain,” Tim says, “if he'll sign our Junior Jet Club logbooks, even though we haven't arrived in England yet.”

“Good luck,” I say. “I hope it works.”

“May I join you, your ladyship?” David says, before sliding down beside me.

“For you, sir—​anything.”

“You are too gracious.” But then, without warning, he's serious. “That was awful, seeing you all taken off this afternoon for the photo. Not knowing what was going on.”

“No, it wasn't good.”

“I thought they were going to shoot you or something.” He smiles suddenly. “Be odd without you there across the aisle.”

“Well, you may have to put up with me here for a little longer,” I say lightly. “There's not much chance of a change in the seating plan.”

“It's funny, isn't it?” he says. “You and I are in a kind of limbo here. We don't get included in all the adult stuff going on in first class, because we're not counted as adults, but we're not looked after like the younger children either. Basically we're
not
seen
and
we're not heard.”

“I know,” I commiserate. “And we weren't even given a children's coloring pack to play with.”

“Exactly. It's not fair. I feel like drawing the first-class curtain on the whole lot of them.”

“You know what?” I sigh dramatically. “We'll just have to grow up.”

“I am
trying,
” he replies. “Do you think if I keep wandering through the adult zone, something might rub off on me?”

“Unlikely,” I say, “but give it a go.”

He gets up, and I watch him walk through first class toward the open doorway. Sweaty leans against the cockpit door. “No!” he shouts, waving his gun at David. “Back! Go back!”

David faces Sweaty, his fists clenched, looking as though he'd like to hit him hard in the face. Instead he turns and walks back down the aisle.

I don't want him to know I've witnessed that, so I open
Wuthering Heights
and force myself to focus on it.
Read properly,
I say to myself.
Hear the words in your head. Get absorbed. It'll take you away from here.

“As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes.”

How cruel!

Why is everyone so
cruel?
Sweaty, Lady Macbeth.

What if I witness something awful here, something really awful, happening to any one of these living, breathing people? I'll never escape the memory of it, will I, even if I do survive?

It'll be etched on my brain forever.

I need Marni's letter.

I need it now.

I reach down and take it from my shoe, open the envelope, and smooth the page out.

My darling Anna,

By now you'll be safely back at school (without any hitches, I hope). I imagine you've unpacked your case, with your friends all about you, swapping tales of the summer.

The boys are about to fly back, and then Dad and I will be home by the end of the week. What an extraordinary thought. At least we'll all be in the same country for a change. How good that will be!

By the time you come home, there'll be a lovely (I promise) newly painted (ditto) room all ready for you, the walls that blue you mentioned. As soon as I see the new house, I'll give you the lowdown on it. Let's hope we get a decent bit of a garden this time.

Enjoy your term, my treasure. I know you will. Work hard, play hard—and wear those new shoes with pride! I'll call you on Sunday, as usual. Until then, my precious girl, missing you and loving you to distraction,

Marni xxx

I hear Marni's voice and feel calm again. It was written to me, just to me, and I feel the power of that. I run my eyes over the familiar curves and flourishes of her strong handwriting: the firmly crossed
t
's, the purposeful uprights, straight as her back, and the running rush of her final signature, as if it isn't herself she cares about at all.

I see her sitting at the kitchen table, where she writes every week to her sisters, my aunts, Birdie in Cornwall and Diana in north London. She's concentrating, with a slightly clenched jaw and pursed lips, and the finger she's guiding the pen with has a skewed nail that got stuck in the laundry mangle when she was a child. I bury my face in that letter and quietly sob.

Marni is leaving Bahrain on another plane, carrying her and the rest of the family home to the UK. It flies up over the southern tip of the island, away over the deserts of Saudi Arabia, high above the fuselage of Anna's plane, thousands of feet below.

Inside it, Marni, with her two boys slumped on either side, sits awake, thinking of her missing child. Her precious girl, all on her own.

And, even though Marni doesn't exactly believe in God, she prays to whatever or whoever is the fount of all goodness. She prays, as she has never prayed before, that her daughter is still alive. Then she prays for strength to face the days to come. And, though she draws some comfort from it, fear still rages in her chest. She thinks of her own mother, of the prayer she said every night, printed on a yellowing card decorated with faded flowers. Something about the shadows lengthening, the busy world being hushed, the fever of life being over . . . What words. That was it.
Grant us a safe lodging and peace at the last.
And the ancient words calm her turmoil.